I was recently reading Henry Mintzberg's latest article in HBR titled "Rebuilding Companies as Communities". It is such a powerful article, especially for our current economic situation.
He speaks about the damaging effects of "the depreciation in companies of community". When there is not a sense of community in organizations, individuals are acting out of self interest instead of focusing on developing the productivity of their organization as a whole. The employees do not feel bound to each other or to their organization. Without community, employees are not working together towards a common goal, they are only working on their own personal goals, whether that may be increasing their own bonus, being promoted, etc. How can organizations ever become more productive and develop as a whole this way? They can't. And Mintzberg believes this is at the heart of the economic downturn.
Mintzberg also speaks about leadership and how it has become perceived as something separate and superior to management. He says "this view only isolates the people in leadership positions, thereby undermining a sense of community in organizations." He believes leadership and communityship go hand-in-hand. "A community leader is personally engaged in order to engage others, so that anyone and everyone can exercise initiative."
He also talks about several programs he has created with colleagues for developing managers in order to help them develop their organizations. These include IMPM, IMHL, ALP, and CoachingOurselves. These programs have taught him that creating small groups of committed managers help trigger the spread of initiatives around the organization, thereby strengthening its sense of community.
Mintzberg concludes by restating that organizations need to understand that they must develop and strengthen community within their organizations in order to create "a healthy society [that] balances leadership, communityship, and citizenship".
Monday, June 29, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
The Future of Learning
The other day, I stumbled across an article by John Seely Brown and Richard P. Adler titled "Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0". I couldn't help but noticed how the article outlines the future of learning by speaking about several effective approaches that CoachingOurselves currently employs.
It talks about how Web 2.0 technologies have paved the way for new styles of learning. Since our current educational institutions will soon not be able to sustain the growing population and growing demand for higher education, we need to find new ways to educate ourselves and each other. They say "social learning is based on the premise that our understanding of content is socially constructed through conversations about that content and through grounded interactions, especially with others, around problems or actions." CoachingOurselves utilizes social learning through its self-directed peer learning groups. These groups then work together to coach themselves through conversations about their own "management happenings". This approach is highly effective, as enforced by a study by Richard J. Light of the Harvard Graduate School of Education that determined "one of the strongest determinants of students’ success in higher education—more important than the details of their instructors’ teaching styles—was their ability to form or participate in small study groups." The social view of learning promotes participation and collaboration. "Students who studied in groups, even only once a week, were more engaged in their studies, were better prepared for class, and learned significantly more than students who worked on their own." It is easier to obtain and remember information through natural conversation because we have become involved and engaged in the discussion.
The second aspect of social learning is "learning to be", which comes after "learning about" through group collaboration, involves fully participating in a particular field in order to put your new-found insights to action. In a typical CoachingOurselves program, participants are directed to put to practice in everyday life the new knowledge they have gained from the group. At the next meeting, the groups will discuss their experiences and outcomes from the week before. This brings us to demand-pull learning, which "shifts the focus to enabling participation in flows of action, where the focus is both on “learning to be” through enculturation into a practice as well as on collateral learning." "Demand-pull" learning is more effective than traditional "supply-push" learning because new knowledge flows as a result of our own passion and interest, rather than the knowledge of our professors and teachers being passed down as a result of their own interests.
This all brings us back to Web 2.0 technologies and how they will make "learning about" and "learning to be" more possible for more individuals around the world. We can continue to demand knowledge throughout our careers, participating in communities of practice (CoP) and self-directed peer learning groups to educate ourselves in order to create "a twenty-first century, global culture of learning".
It talks about how Web 2.0 technologies have paved the way for new styles of learning. Since our current educational institutions will soon not be able to sustain the growing population and growing demand for higher education, we need to find new ways to educate ourselves and each other. They say "social learning is based on the premise that our understanding of content is socially constructed through conversations about that content and through grounded interactions, especially with others, around problems or actions." CoachingOurselves utilizes social learning through its self-directed peer learning groups. These groups then work together to coach themselves through conversations about their own "management happenings". This approach is highly effective, as enforced by a study by Richard J. Light of the Harvard Graduate School of Education that determined "one of the strongest determinants of students’ success in higher education—more important than the details of their instructors’ teaching styles—was their ability to form or participate in small study groups." The social view of learning promotes participation and collaboration. "Students who studied in groups, even only once a week, were more engaged in their studies, were better prepared for class, and learned significantly more than students who worked on their own." It is easier to obtain and remember information through natural conversation because we have become involved and engaged in the discussion.
The second aspect of social learning is "learning to be", which comes after "learning about" through group collaboration, involves fully participating in a particular field in order to put your new-found insights to action. In a typical CoachingOurselves program, participants are directed to put to practice in everyday life the new knowledge they have gained from the group. At the next meeting, the groups will discuss their experiences and outcomes from the week before. This brings us to demand-pull learning, which "shifts the focus to enabling participation in flows of action, where the focus is both on “learning to be” through enculturation into a practice as well as on collateral learning." "Demand-pull" learning is more effective than traditional "supply-push" learning because new knowledge flows as a result of our own passion and interest, rather than the knowledge of our professors and teachers being passed down as a result of their own interests.
This all brings us back to Web 2.0 technologies and how they will make "learning about" and "learning to be" more possible for more individuals around the world. We can continue to demand knowledge throughout our careers, participating in communities of practice (CoP) and self-directed peer learning groups to educate ourselves in order to create "a twenty-first century, global culture of learning".
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Additional Resources for Marketing in Tough Economic Times
I hope my posts have provided some insight and helpful suggestions for frugal marketing in the 21st century. For additional resources, below I have provided some links to a few videos and articles that will help you delve deeper into the world of low-cost marketing, (especially during the current business climate!):
Professor Karl Moore and Executive Director Phil LeNir talk about frugal marketing in the Globe and Mail's Talking Management
Peter Fisk on "Marketing in Tough Times"
Patricia Fripp and David Garfinkel on "How to Market Your Way out of Tough Times"
"Five Don'ts for Marketing in Tough Times" by Steve McKee of BusinessWeek
Professor Karl Moore and Executive Director Phil LeNir talk about frugal marketing in the Globe and Mail's Talking Management
Peter Fisk on "Marketing in Tough Times"
Patricia Fripp and David Garfinkel on "How to Market Your Way out of Tough Times"
"Five Don'ts for Marketing in Tough Times" by Steve McKee of BusinessWeek
Monday, June 15, 2009
Two weeks in a nut shell
The last two weeks have been very busy. Last week we ran our first webinar titled "Introducing CoachingOurselves". We ran a trial about an hour before the real thing and everything ran smoothly. When the actual webinar came around we had some technical difficulties at first, but we got through them and successfully ran the half hour webinar. It really goes to show that you can never be too prepared for what might happen. We have two webinars coming up: "Introducing CoachingOurselves" on Wednesday June 17 and "Social Learning for Management Development: Introducing CoachingOurselves" on July 7th, both at 12:00pm EST. We are very excited about the amount of individuals that have signed up for our webinars this month!
On top of organizing these webinars, we've been busy ironing out the details for a partner conference that will take place in the fall. We've been passing around ideas for the schedule for a while now and then had an hour and a half conference call trying to finalize the agenda. We're almost there! Next: location?!
Soon we will be publishing a partner page on our website so everyone can see who our partners are and learn more about them. It is these partners that add their expertise to the approach and content of CoachingOurselves in order to help organizations solve business problems!
We're also constantly reviewing and updating our website in order to make it easier to navigate and more informative about the happenings of CoachingOurselves.
We are still in the process of introducing CoachingOurselves for individuals, and have even set up a social network on Ning to help facilitate the process. It is through interested members that we can connect individuals in order to form peer-learning groups for the CoachingOurselves process. I am very excited to see how this will turn out!
So that is a brief update about a little bit that's been going on over the last two weeks. But for now, my recent marketing success story: holding informative webinars for your target audience in order to explain more about what you have to offer
On top of organizing these webinars, we've been busy ironing out the details for a partner conference that will take place in the fall. We've been passing around ideas for the schedule for a while now and then had an hour and a half conference call trying to finalize the agenda. We're almost there! Next: location?!
Soon we will be publishing a partner page on our website so everyone can see who our partners are and learn more about them. It is these partners that add their expertise to the approach and content of CoachingOurselves in order to help organizations solve business problems!
We're also constantly reviewing and updating our website in order to make it easier to navigate and more informative about the happenings of CoachingOurselves.
We are still in the process of introducing CoachingOurselves for individuals, and have even set up a social network on Ning to help facilitate the process. It is through interested members that we can connect individuals in order to form peer-learning groups for the CoachingOurselves process. I am very excited to see how this will turn out!
So that is a brief update about a little bit that's been going on over the last two weeks. But for now, my recent marketing success story: holding informative webinars for your target audience in order to explain more about what you have to offer
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