http://blog.lubans.org/ John Lubans en-us Nucleus CMS v3.51 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://blog.lubans.org//nucleus/nucleus2.gif http://blog.lubans.org/ xml-rss2.php?itemid=750
While the two of us commiserated, the term “dance-like ritual” popped into my head. Whether I was the reviewer, the reviewee, or the 5th signature on the sign-off sheet, I had little faith PA was worth the negligible result. (In fact, Chapter 34 in Leading from the Middle, “I've Closed My Eyes to the Cold Hard Truth I'm Seeing: Making Performance Appraisal Work” describes what happened when a large organization, letting go, gave up performance appraisal: NOTHING, except we had higher productivity, a lot more time for real work and real conversation between leaders and followers!)

I googled “Dance and performance appraisal” and several hits came up with "the dance" used to describe the ritual engineered by Human Resources departments around the globe. While the source pages did not elaborate much on the meaning of that use of the term, I sensed sarcasm and that PA is no happier an event than what it was in my time: a contrived corporate event.

My humorous brain wave of “dance” was triggered in large part by images of the “waggle” dances put on by scout bees when describing and recommending a hive’s next home. (See my honey bee write up here.) It’s a serious, democratic process, a joyful one. (We’ll, with all that buzzing, curveting, and tail shaking the bees do look joyful!)
The scout bees let everyone know what they have been up to and what has gone well and, by omission, what has not gone so well. And, each of the scouts recommends a new home site, the future for their organization.

If bees use dance to describe their aspirations, why not us cleverer humans? Let’s use dance to replace the frowsy form.

How would it work? Each person in the organization invents a dance to show how things are going and where they want to be in the next year. Interpretive dance, straight from the 60s.

Kindly judges are poised to dish out high praise:

What dance will claim the gold cup, the 10? What would reap the highest score for ingenuity and expressiveness?

A stately minuet? Tepid tango? Or, fevered fandango? Or, from the executive suite: a boss-led conga line? Maybe a square dance is more apt?

Or, for those rare self-managing teams, an updated Hokey Pokey (It really is what it’s all about! Or, is it?)

I’m for adapting what the bees do. I envision a swarm of wagglers, earnestly shaking their backsides, giving us coordinates for the future and telling us what’s good and what needs change.

A requisite: Since it takes two to tango - you can quote me - the PA dance has to be a partnership between those who supervise and those who are supervised. I almost said “those who need supervision”, but thought better of it.

Like Leah Long, my dance instructor, says:
“On the dance floor, good leaders initiate the movement they want from their partner and then follow the movement they've created.” Apply that concept of leading and following in lieu of the traditional PA process and see the difference.

But, remember:


Now, where did I leave those castanets?
]]> General xml-rss2.php?itemid=750 Sun, 19 Feb 2012 16:25:44 -0500 xml-rss2.php?itemid=745 Middle Management in Academic and Public Libraries is a 2011 book from ABC-Clio/ Libraries Unlimited, edited by Tom Diamond.

MMiA&PL cites my Leading from the Middle six times. It may be of interest to readers of LfM who want to explore more fully the role of the middle manager. I look forward to reading it.

Mr. Diamond’s book has a dozen or more contributors and is divided into five parts:

Managing and Managing People
Creating a Leadership Development Program
Managing Cross Collaborations
Managing Change in Library Services
Developing Managerial Skill

]]> General xml-rss2.php?itemid=745 Wed, 15 Feb 2012 09:36:02 -0500 xml-rss2.php?itemid=730
(Illustration 1. A collection of plays by Mirdza Timma)
RAITS is the prince, born to wealth and splendor. TISS is the orphaned, barefoot swineherd. Legend has it that a miasma-shrouded castle, laden with treasure, in the middle of an enchanted forest awaits a liberator. But only if the knight errant can survive a battle with a 9-headed dragon and discover a magic ring – hidden somewhere in the wooded landscape - before darkness descends. If you fail, you turn into a tree and join the many other failed adventurers.

I like fairy tales as a rule, and this one, by Mirdza Timma, sang to me. Raits is not your usual entitled royal, looking down his aristocratic nose at the lesser among us. Nor is the outcast Tiss the cowering rustic scraping and bowing to his “betters”. Each - Raits and Tiss - is his own person. Tiss loves his pigs and the pigsty. Often, he sleeps out of doors and is happiest with his pigs in the fields and forests. He knows the forest world. Raits, chivalrous, well trained and courageous, undertakes the dangerous challenge. He does so to do good and because it is his destiny.

When none of the courtiers will accompany Raits to liberate the castle, someone suggests the expendable Tiss. Tiss knows he has to say yes, but he brings his own contrarian knowledge and skills to the challenge. We discover how what the prince does – rationalizing where he will go and what he will do – is balanced by Tiss’ intimate and intuitive knowledge of the forest and the ways of nature. Instead of being a liability, the swineherd complements the prince.

At the forest’s perimeter, Raits tells Tiss not to accompany him any further, essentially sparing Tiss’ life. Tiss, after a short nap, enters the forest regardless and takes the trail perceived as the most dangerous. He comes to Raits rescue – the 9-headed dragon (a “moving hill”) is about to chow-down on Raits. Tiss whips out his slingshot and systematically knocks out each head. Raits then chops off the heads, one by one.

The quest is not complete. The ring is still to be found. Tiss is hungry and shoots a stone into a nut tree, bringing down clusters of nuts to eat. By chance, one falls into his pocket.

Sunset is not far off. After a final handshake initiated by the prince, they have a Don Quixote (Raits) and Sancho Panza (Tiss) exchange about the qualities of tree bark, roots and the best exposure for trees, while awaiting the inevitable. They stand together late into the night. Nothing happens. Raits is puzzled since he knows that only the ring could spare them. Still, they receive a heroic welcome back at his castle.

Tiss, of course, has the ring in his pocket – it fell out of the nut tree. It takes a while for Tiss – a bit of an oaf to all but Raits - to figure out what he might have done with the ring. With the guidance of a wise old magician, Raits’ encouragement, and some more adventures in the forest, Tiss relocates the ring. He gives it to Raits so he can claim the castle. The prince refuses to put it on his finger – it is Tiss’. Doing so, the fog dissipates in the enchanted forest. The old heroes revive, transformed from trees to human forms. The sun shines on the castle with its “amber framed” windows, a “garden where the nightingales sang and the brooks splashed cool and clear water,” quenching thirst and giving wisdom. Raits and Tiss jointly take possession of the liberated castle and they rule wisely and kindly, “in harmony and friendship,” for many years.

Tiss has many traits of the best followers (independent – even, contrarian - thinking, a willingness to learn, courage, intelligence and humility). Raits is the born leader sensible enough to appreciate Tiss and then at the end to share his princely power with the swineherd. Raits, understands how Tiss complements the prince’s own good qualities.

(Illustration 2. Cover of Miglas kamoliņš :pasakas (folktales) by Mirdza Timma. Published in Rīga : Zvaigzne ABC, [2008]. This book may have the ring story in it.) Update, February 20. The Ring is not in this book. Rather it is in this one by Mirdza Timma published in 1953: Zelta atslēdziņa pasakas. My library colleague tells me a copy can be found at the U of Minnesota!
I hope to track down the original Latvian language version of this story for my planned short course in Riga: "Democracy in the Workplace: Self-Managing Teams & Managing Self". I look forward to that class discussion!

*Timma, Mirdza (1925-1962), “The Ring” (Gredzens) in the anthology, Latvian Literature, edited by Aleksis Rubulis. Consulting editor, Marvin J. Lahood. Toronto: Daugava Vanags Publishers. 1964. pp. 370 – 382 translated by Austra Zervins with a drawing of Ms. Timma by Gvido Brūveris.
]]> General xml-rss2.php?itemid=730 Sun, 12 Feb 2012 09:59:48 -0500 xml-rss2.php?itemid=727
I’ve culled and adapted my problem-solving “initiatives” from the many (really hundreds of “new games”) created within the experiential education movement dating from the 60s. I used several in my Fulbright teaching last year: Egg Drop, Bibliofoon, Mirage, Pyramid, and Frenzied Fun and Facts. Biblofoon and Frenzied Fun and Facts are customized versions of Pipeline and Corporate Connection. Most, if not all, of these activities can be found on the Internet and in publications from Project Adventure.

Most of these activitites can be done and discussed inside 60 minutes. In that discussion we explore, among other questions and observations, the three Whats:
The What?, the So, What? and the Now, What?

To help explain the 3 Whats, I use Vincent Andriani’s children’s book, Peanut Butter Rhino. It’s a story about a rhinoceros – intent on lunch with an elephant friend - that loses his peanut butter sandwich. The sandwich is not lost but stuck to the rhino’s backside – he sat down on it. (Imagine the giggles among young children hearing the words and seeing the illustrations! Nor are adults immune to this juvenile humor). The story explains how several animals try to help find the missing sandwich. A monkey looks in several trees, then a lion checks out a cave, and a mouse finds some old cheese in a mouse hole but, alas, no sandwich.
Stumped, the rhino declares he will just have to see elephant without his “most wonderful peanut butter sandwich.” Enter the elephant, which inquires, “Why is there a squished peanut butter sandwich on your bottom?” No matter, elephant has brought two peanut butter sandwiches, one to share.

The first What? is the story. A fun story with an absent minded rhino and a happy resolution due to a kindly friend, the elephant.
There is more to the story, the So, What? The story shows other animals helping rhino to find the missing sandwich. And it shows elephant willing to share his second sandwich. So, helping and sharing.
Finally, Now, What? asks what the reader will take away from this story and apply to herself? Will it be the lesson not to sit on a peanut butter sandwich or will it be something more, like helping others and sharing with the less fortunate?

I tell the students that just about everything we do in the class can be looked at from the perspective of the three Whats. I mean for that to enlarge their thinking on class activities and for them to look for personal meaning in what happens in the class.
]]> General xml-rss2.php?itemid=727 Thu, 9 Feb 2012 13:49:29 -0500 xml-rss2.php?itemid=707

I like this picture (enough for a second appearance in the blog). It speaks to me about planning (or not). The photo is from one of three hikes I took on the Mt. Baldy Ice House Canyon trail in mid-May 2010. The Mt. Baldy trailhead is a 30 minute drive from Claremont, California.
If I asked one of my management classes to reflect on this photo, I wonder what they would say?

Another photo from those hikes:

It reminds me (how many padlocks?) of urban living in some blighted locations, not, one would think, in a wilderness Eden.
And, the photo suggests one response to a changing environment. Some libraries' reaction and response when overwhelmed by young adults or plagued by thefts allegedly perpetrated by "outsiders" might look like this picture.


]]> General xml-rss2.php?itemid=707 Sun, 5 Feb 2012 10:19:43 -0500 xml-rss2.php?itemid=701
A recent story about the three veterans on the Duke Women’s basketball team offers up some unusual insights. I was particularly drawn to Shay Selby’s difficult season and how she, a senior starting guard, was redeeming herself with the team.

Ms. Selby was suspended for a violation of team rules.
For over a month, “until her teammates and (Coach) McCallie allowed her to return, she wasn’t able to practice with the team or sit on the bench for games.”

Of most interest is that while the Coach suspended her, her return depended on the team’s approval. Now that is different! Did the coach have informal discussions with the players about Selby’s return or was it a vote?

I have often wondered about how we go about disciplining team members – in the work place – who are not giving their best effort. One of the most frequent complaints about student project teams is that the one or two high achievers wind up with all the work and only part of the credit. The one or two slackers skate by. What sanctions can a team apply to the unproductive team member? Perhaps like what happened to Ms. Selby, exile. And, reinstatement only when the team decides.
Here she is pictured driving up court.

During her suspension, Ms. Selby continued to work out, to do everything she could to maintain her skills and conditioning. She proved she was ready to return. The story’s most engaging comment is a quote from Selby: “I tried to lead by not being on the team.” That bears reflection and then some.

What did she mean by that? Throughout the punishment she behaved like a leader - she worked hard, she stayed in touch, she communicated with her team mates, supported her team mates, in brief, to quote the coach: she “worked her butt off even when she couldn’t be with the team.”

Since her return she has played in all the games, coming off the bench.

I got to see Ms. Selby in action when Duke played the formidable and fearsome University of Connecticut Huskies two nights ago. Duke did not do well. A young team, (mostly sophomores) it was a night to learn from. If anyone can learn from the drubbing, Ms. Selby will.




]]> General xml-rss2.php?itemid=701 Wed, 1 Feb 2012 16:14:57 -0500 xml-rss2.php?itemid=692
Del and I discussed my assignment and whether it should be more theoretical rather than pragmatic. In our conversation, I expressed some frustration: “Librarians seem mired in the economic situation and, frankly, even when libraries were relatively flush we did not really want to hear that much about management topics. Perhaps I am wrong?”

Del expressed an opposite view: “While most librarians think it might be useful to have more management training, they still tend to be more into the pop management literature than serious discussions of the topic, so selling the topic becomes more difficult.

Perhaps, like Del says, if we can avoid the pop stuff (you know, FISH, Strategic Planning, Core Competency, Sigma Six, and Knock Your Socks Off Customer Service, etc.,) we can reflect on what it is most on our minds as managers and leaders. We can ask and discuss in depth the questions most on our minds.

As a start, I’ve developed a list of questions for that serious, frank & candid discussion (I like this painting, titled A Serious Discussion!*). What would you add, take away from my list?

1. What’s working well in our organization? What is not? What will we do about it?

2. Is the top down, boss to worker, the best model of organization for us? If not, what should replace it?

3. What contemporary leader do you admire the most? Do you emulate that leader in how you do your job?

4. Are we in a post-departmental era? Do we use the departmental arrangement less than other ways of accomplishing the work of the organization?

5. What is the most important organizational trend you are observing?

6. Is your organization reactive or proactive? If the former, do you want to shift more to the proactive? Doing so, what would be in the way and what would you do about it?

7. All of our organizations have an accumulation of problem staff, people who seem to hold the organization back. What can be done?

8. Why do some of our best staff reject management jobs beyond the team leader or departmental level? What needs to change organizationally for our best and brightest to aspire to leadership positions?

9. What training opportunities exist for staff? Are existing programs rigorous enough? What is rigor? What should a training program teach and what should be the outcomes for participants?

10. Is there evidence, factual or otherwise, to support the investment our organizations make in performance appraisal? Does PA make a provable difference? Are there better ways to let people know how they are doing or not doing?

11. How do we refresh and augment our skills as leaders?

12. What is our productivity goal?

13. What are our REAL organizational values toward each other and to our clientele?

14. If fear or anger prevents us from our open and candid discussion of any of these questions, what does that say? Does it matter?

* A Serious Discussion is by S. C. Faber, 2010. See at http://scfaber.com/gallery4.html or here.]]> General xml-rss2.php?itemid=692 Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:43:43 -0500 xml-rss2.php?itemid=684
I collect stories about followers – good and bad – in the business world and on campus. For example, I’m intrigued by the Olympus Corp’s $1.7 billon fraud. My interest is piqued less by the magnitude of the deception and more by the corporation’s firing of the person (the CEO, Michael Woodford – a recent hire) who uncovered the fraud.

And then, there’s the curious case of the celebrated social psychologist Diederik Stapel. He’s the researcher who concluded with certainty that prejudicial thinking (of a certain kind) was not prejudicial. It was on target and he had the evidence! For example, you (a vegan) might believe that eating meat makes the carnivore aggressive. Herr Professor Stapel “proved” it! (And, in the process, confirmed just how insightful you are.) Well, if the proof is in the pudding, Stapel’s dozens of published puddings have been putrid for over a decade. He admits he regularly made up the numbers to fit his desired outcome.

My question is about why Stapel’s peers (his faculty colleagues and other researchers) did not catch the phoni-ness? Instead,

“The (investigating) committee concludes that the six young whistle-blowers (researchers) showed more courage, vigilance, and inquisitiveness than incumbent full professors. ”

Do you find that an astonishing statement? The people who have the most to lose were the ones who caught the scam, who fingered the forger. The “incumbent full professors” who have the least to lose either were clueless or did not want to hinder the agenda, the shared world view. I suspect they also did not want to go up against Stapel and his admirers. The investigating report says “colleagues or students who asked to see raw data were given excuses or even threatened and insulted.” Similarly, Bernard Madoff, we are told, would go on the offensive when confronted with his criminal behavior. If not for the economic downturn, he’d probably still be stepping high, wide and handsome.

So, just like in the King Bidgood story,
the question becomes, how did junior lab members have the courage to question Stapel? (The same question can be asked of the junior researchers who spotted and reported the exalted Marc Hauser’s dubious research.)

When like-minded peers agree with your agenda – they really, really want what you say to be true - they may turn off their stink detectors. Here’s a telling quote from the investigative report: “Among Stapel's colleagues, the description of data as too good to be true "was a heartfelt compliment to his skill and creativity!" (Emphasis added.)

My geese picture suggests that when we surrender our critical thinking to someone’s agenda we become docile; we go along to get along. Sheep-like, we are ineffective followers. Some of us may even go so far as to enable the fraud. And, once we are complicit, we might even punish the people who uncover the fake facts. Academe has several stories about the impaired careers of graduate students who found and reported plagiarism by tenured professors.

Good followers are important to an organization because they do not suspend their disbelief just because they like the messenger or the message. They don’t go along to get along – the people that exposed Stapel did not go along to get along. Effective followers think critically for themselves. An effective follower ascribes to some higher purpose or personal philosophy outside and beyond the immediate work place.

When I talk about types of followers in my Leading from the Middle workshops, I underline why effective followers are different: They tell the truth. (You can see how that might get you in trouble. Effective followers lead proactively, and do not behave like someone in need of direction.)

Leaders empower effective followers. Warren G. Bennis, writing about leadership: “Nothing serves an organization better than leadership that knows what it wants, communicates those intentions accurately, empowers others and knows how to stay on course and when to change.” It comes out in times of “agonizing doubts and paralyzing ambiguities.” It is in times like that when the organization’s effective followers – if the leader has empowered and protected them – avoid suborning values and keep the organization on course.
]]> General xml-rss2.php?itemid=684 Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:16:25 -0500 xml-rss2.php?itemid=674
One of the best parts of my Leading from the Middle workshop in Riga at the end of November 2011 was the student panel: three students from the management class I taught in the spring semester at the University of Latvia. They told the 25 workshop participants about what worked and what could have been better about their self-managing teams. Since the students spoke in Latvian I did not fully (hah!) understand their conclusions. One of the panelists, Aija Uzula, kindly sent me an English summary of her remarks:

“1. I spoke about my own experience of being led by a … supervisor … and then about changes that happened after she got sick for 6 months. During her absence our department changed a lot: everyone found her/his own place in work mechanism and we worked as team. Before that we only did what our supervisor ordered us to do. We learned how to work without anyone ordering us what to do, we had our own experience in ups and downs; it gave us courage to have our own opinion about things. We all tried to lead and to follow without anyone telling anyone else what to do. For me it was great experience, a school of life :)
“2. And, I explained about the projects we worked on in class…. For me the best one was Books2Eat, then interviewing women leaders and worst of all was the final project. I believe that a project is successful if team members are good in cooperation; also, (success) depends on team members' personal issues and characters. (Note: When Aija and I talked, she also mentioned the importance of knowing your teammates. If they are “strangers” then much more group dynamic work needs to be done before all can be comfortable interacting. She reminded me that the Books2Eat and leader interview teams were self-selected. I had appointed the final project’s teams!)
“3. Conclusion. It would be good to take (your) course for all workplace team members not only for one or two, as it was in my experience, so all could get important information and knowledge about how to lead and how to be led, how to follow etc.”

Given Aija’s assessment and from what I understood from the panel presentation, I have taken a second look at what each final project team said they would change and/or what should have gone better. (Each project team's full listing out of "goods" and "not-so-goods" appeared earlier as a blog entry here.)

Here are the “do better” items common to all three teams:
Unclear roles of team members;
Lack of agreement on project topic;
Need to improve group dynamics, including communication and facilitation (form, storm, norm, perform);
Lack of time;
Need for a leader to motivate, make decisions;
Complicated logistical matters; and,
Better teamwork was needed.

Perhaps obviously, each team would have benefited from someone taking on a leadership role. Why did this not happen. After all, they were self-managing; they could have elected a leader. Each group could have spelled out/distributed leader roles. One group might have wanted a boss-type leader. Another group, a leader to guide the group to a decision.

I have learned much from the panel’s feedback. If I were to repeat this assignment I would have the project teams work during class so I could observe and coach their dynamics. Better yet, I would make clear that self-management does not exclude a leader. That would make for an intriguing discussion, how could a self-managing team have a leader?

Thomas Seeley, author of Honeybee Democracy, tells us what the bees taught him about leading humans:

As head of a faculty department he:
1. States the group’s object
2. Defines the group’s decision-making process
3. Keeps the group on track
4. Fosters a balanced discussion
5. Identifies when a decision is reached

Next time, I am going to emphasize these roles so each team member better understands what a leader can and ought to do. And, I would also make use of self-appointed project teams!



]]> General xml-rss2.php?itemid=674 Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:25:56 -0500 xml-rss2.php?itemid=664 As we leave the old year for the new, I am reminded of a story about our innate desire for individual freedom and how it survives and finds expression even under the worst of conditions. Egils Otlans, a Latvian-American friend, told the story to me a few weeks ago. His family, like mine, fled the Russians at the close of WW2 and, as refugees, wound up in the USA to start a new life.

Egils returned to Latvia sooner than I did. While I came back in 2000, he was one of many Latvian-American tourists to visit Riga and Latvia during the 70s and 80s, when the Soviet occupation of the Baltics was in full force.

When he went, the only option was through Intourist, the communist travel service. It was a moneymaker (all those refugees yearning to see their homeland and the families left behind) and it was an espionage service. Run by KGB and NKVD – with graduates from a different kind of hospitality school - tourists were strictly limited in what they could do, whom they could see, and where they could go. All facilities and services were under Intourist – no options. Intourist hotel rooms were bugged and employed hundreds of listeners. Mail was routinely intercepted and read.

On Egils’ visit to Riga he saw a city that had once been beautiful and was now dilapidated, neglected. He encountered first hand the grim realities and absurdities when individual freedom is banished. (My mother also visited occupied Latvia and her stories confirm what Egils and hundreds of other visitors saw.)

At tour’s end, Egils was seated with the other tourists outside the Intourist hotel on the Intourist bus. On the sidewalk were family members, friends (and Russian police). Since Latvians are “slightly crazy” about flowers, everyone on the bus and on the sidewalk probably had farewell bouquets. It was time to depart. Egils told me that several elderly visitors believed they would never see their Latvian relatives again.

Besides a genetic love for flowers, Latvians often sing, putting their emotions into music. Music defines Latvia, the Latvian language and its heritage. Of course, the national anthem could not be sung – it would be a crime to do so and would result in some sort of recrimination by the police – maybe a one-way trip to the notorious House on the Corner*, KGB headquarters, on (then) Lenin and Friedrich Engels streets.

Slowly, one voice started the first words of a national folk song, a song as well known as the national anthem: Pūt vējiņi (Blow wind, blow**.) All joined in - on the bus and on the sidewalk – and their voices blended and the sad melody soared. Soon everyone, including Egils, was in tears. The police, befuddled, stood by, not knowing what to do.

And that is how Egils’ tour to Latvia ended.

See a performance of the song with thousands of voices, here.

NOTES:
*What is the tallest building in Riga?
The answer was “The House on the Corner”, because from its sixth floor you could see Siberia.

**Put, vejini (Latvian Folk Song)
Arranged by Andrejs Jurjans (1856-1922)


]]> General xml-rss2.php?itemid=664 Mon, 2 Jan 2012 06:05:34 -0500