Archive | June, 2007

Corporations Are Social Institutions

by on June 29, 2007 in Business

I don’t know if there’s a secret magic pixie reading WorkPlay, but I found a nice one-year subscription to Harvard Business Review waiting for me in the mail today. Thank you secret magic pixie, whoever you are.

From the latest issue of HBR, here’s some juicy thinking from Henry Mintzberg. It falls under the article title of Productivity Is Killing American Enterprise. Consider that our organizations are organic systems. They exist only because of the people who operate within these systems.

Here’s Professor Mintzberg’s advice:

Treat the enterprise as a community of engaged members, not a collection of free agents. Corporations are social institutions, which function best when committed human beings (not human “resources”) collaborate in relationships based on trust and respect. Destroy this and the whole institution of business collapses.

Take care of the organizational relationships that drive and sustain your business. It’s your people, not your profits, that will define your organization’s success.

What’s Next: July’s Theme Is Reflection

by on June 28, 2007 in Creative

I’m back from my own experiment with retreat and reflection, spending some time with my gals and extended family at a beach house without television and computer. Lately, the television hasn’t been that prevalent in my daily life; though, I must admit that if it is on it’s usually tuned to a baseball game. On the other hand, the computer tends to be an interesting presence in my life. It serves as a portal to the wider world and creative catalyst through my blogging ventures. It also seduces me toward more frivolous websurfing activities (rather like channel surfing and getting caught up in a stupid movie that I regret watching later). It’s that lack of intention that leaves me with an empty feeling. One remedy is to introduce or re-introduce retreat and reflection into life.

I’m going to try something new here…I’m going to incorporate a monthly theme into the WorkPlay blog. While other folks have done it with great success, this will be my first foray into this type of writing. So, July will focus on ideas of reflection: uses in our lives, but perhaps more importantly, uses in our work. Let’s see where it goes and what we can learn. See you soon.

The Benefits Of Competition?

by on June 17, 2007 in Creative

Bernie DeKoven at DeepFun.com asks, Must we compete? Perhaps a better question is, When should we compete? I don’t see competition as an all-out negative compared to cooperation. That would ignore the benefits of competition. One way to compete is with ourselves as a way to improve our skills and experience.

Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Just because folks can take competition to the extreme doesn’t mean it’s a negative. Competition can teach just as well as cooperation. We need to be well-rounded and that means knowing when to compete with ourself and others and then when to cooperate.

More On Belonging In Organizations

by on June 15, 2007 in Business

In a terrific example of synchronicity, it seems that Annette Clancy, Shawn Callahan, and I were all thinking about the importance of belonging in organizations last week.

Shawn offers the perspective that belonging is, at it’s core, an act of social learning. He offers the idea of induction as the first step to belonging:

I have been asking people, “How long after starting here did you feel you really knew the organisation and job you were doing?” Most people said it took them 12-18 months in a large organisation to really feel on top on things. Staff induction, therefore, needs to be more gradual and unfold over time as we experience the organisation we’ve joined. We need a slower and longer-term approach, one that better balances intellectual and emotional learning.

He starts with right spirit and my only gripe is that his first year induction plan is still too HR procedure-focused…and only focused on the first year. Great retention strategies involve an element of helping individuals evolve their own sense of belonging. Else, like anything, what was once new and exciting becomes stale and unimpressive. It’s a good beginning model, though, and should get the mental gears turning as to how to build on it and encourage joiners to truly belong.

The Work’s Lousy But Look At All These Cool Perks

by on June 14, 2007 in Work

Office PerksIt seems the ‘war’ for talent is still at a fever pitch at some organizations…at least if we gauge it by the corporate perks offered. Okay, maybe it’s not quite at the same level of the dot.com heydays, but we’ve all heard about the companies that offer gourmet cafeterias and concierge services for their employees. All of these additional perks still conjure up concern that they’re fooling employees into working more and spending greater time at the workplace. For the latest, see Can A Workplace Be Too Enticing? at the Fast Company Experts Blog. Are we really still experiencing a hangover from the dot.com days?

Let’s consider the true purpose of the ‘perk.’ In the non-profit world, these benefits help make up for the lower-than-standard salaries. In the corporate world, perks may be what set two similar companies apart. At organizations that are great places to work, cool perks add to this feeling…they’re the cherry on top of the hot fudge sundae. On the other hand, cool perks at a crap job aren’t going to make that job any more palatable. It’s idiotic window dressing that won’t fool smart people for very long.