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Outlines methodologies for diagnosing and dealing with the "hidden" or covert factors that can subtly sabotage even the most meticulously planned change processes.
This is a book about powerful processes that impact organizations but usually remain unseen, unspoken, or unacknowledged. Collectively called covert processes, they include hidden agendas, blind spots, organizational politics, the elephant in the room, secret hopes and wishes, tacit assumptions, and unconscious dynamics. Although covert in their workings, these processes can be insidious in their impacts, often shaping outcomes without our fully realizing it. In some ways this book can be seen as an extension of the pioneering work by organizational psychologist Ed Schein on process consultation, especially on the importance of being able to decipher hidden forces. ''One of the most important functions of process consultation is to make visible that which is invisible'' (1999, p.84). Toward that end, this book provides frameworks, principles, and practices that will be useful in diagnosing and addressing the hidden dynamics that can impact what you are doing and how it gets done. Although the ideas are grounded in a wide range of social science research and theory, there is little attention to definitions and literature reviews of specific theories or types of covert processes. A thematic bibliography is included for readers interested in exploring the ideas that helped shape the book. Finally, the book integrates all hidden dynamics instead of focusing on one or two. It asks and answers the question: What do all types of covert processes have in common and what can you do about them?
A Dynamic New Approach to Organizational Change Dialogic Organization Development is a compelling alternative to the classical action research approach to planned change. Organizations are seen as fluid, socially constructed realities that are continuously created through conversations and images. Leaders and consultants can help foster change by encouraging disruptions to taken-for-granted ways of thinking and acting and the use of generative images to stimulate new organizational conversations and narratives. This book offers the first comprehensive introduction to Dialogic Organization Development with chapters by a global team of leading scholar-practitioners addressing both theoretical foundations and specific practices.
This forward-thinking book introduces HR leaders to core organization development strategies and skills--providing creative approaches, practical tips, and proven methods to help them succeed. Since the 1990s, a transformation has occurred within the role of human resources departments. HR professionals are being called upon to help determine priorities in running the business, craft organizational development strategies, and shape the culture within their company. Through a compendium of the best thinking on the subject, you’ll learn how to strategically: identify where best to foster change in the organization, team up with consultants and senior-level staff in leading a change project, improve employee engagement, include others in the important work of the organization, and operate effectively in cross-cultural and virtual working situations. Comprehensive and practical, Handbook for Strategic HR includes 78 articles that will enable you see the big picture roles and responsibilities of human resource professionals today. Best of all, this book is approved for HRCI Recertification Credit--helping you to advance your career in numerous tangible ways.
One critical change in how people work, argues Larry Hirschhorn, is that they are expected to bring more of themselves psychologically to the job. To facilitate this change, it is necessary to create a new culture of authority—one in which superiors acknowledge their dependence on subordinates, subordinates can challenge superiors, and both are able to show their vulnerability. For many companies, the past decade has been marked by a sense of turbulence and redefinition. The growing role of information technologies and service businesses has prompted companies to reconsider how they are structured and even what business they are in. These changes have also affected how people work, what skills they need, and what kind of careers they expect. One critical change in how people work, argues Larry Hirschhorn, is that they are expected to bring more of themselves psychologically to the job. To facilitate this change, it is necessary to create a new culture of authority—one in which superiors acknowledge their dependence on subordinates, subordinates can challenge superiors, and both are able to show their vulnerability. In the old culture of authority, people suppressed disruptive feelings such as envy, resentment, and fear of dependency. But by depersonalizing themselves, they became "alienated"; in the process, the work of the organization suffered. In building a new culture of authority, we are challenged to express these feelings without disrupting our work. We learn how to bring our feelings to our tasks. The first chapters of the book examine the covert processes by which people caught between the old and new culture of authority neither suppress nor express their feelings. Feelings are activated but not directed toward useful work. The case studies of this process are instructive and moving. The book then explores how organizations can create a culture of openness in which people become more psychologically present. In part, the process entails an understanding of the changes taking place in how we experience our own identity at work and that of "others" in society at large. To do this, the book suggests, we need a social policy of forgiveness and second chances.
This book is a culmination of many educational and business practices to accelerate and distribute learning throughout the organization. You will find twenty-five strategies to assess the ability and willingness of individuals and the school. This book will save leaders time by providing examples and a guide to implement processes to increase learning. The more talent schools have, the more students will learn. The future will require more learning and more ways to acquire that learning. These practical strategies can be used with individual staff members as well as groups of any size. These facilitation skills are already in use. Let’s learn, adapt, and take positive action to increase learning.
With the competitive landscape changing faster than ever before, leaders understandably favor what has worked for them in the past. But that kind of approach doesn’t give anyone the motivation to develop new and better strategies to execute and navigate change. As a result, change leaders and practitioners find themselves asking the same-old questions: • With no time for failure, how can initiatives be moved forward? • How do you fit the right change method to the change objective? • How do you create a roadmap that is designed for success? • Why do some organizations succeed with change while others struggle? The authors share the insights of change management thought leaders that have stood the test of time within the scope of organization-wide change. Change managers today can review the work of these thought leaders to better understand and implement effective change in their organizations. The authors also propose a holistic meta-framework to create a path for enterprise-wide change. With the insights from case studies, you’ll learn how to create a customized and robust transformation plan for your own organizational change initiatives.
Managing Professionals deals with the tensions between managers and professionals within organizations, such as hospitals, universities, banks and judicial organizations. Often managers rely heavily on the skills and expertise of the professionals in their organizations, yet these professionals consider management a source of bureaucracy and paperwork. This tension is explored head on in order to answer the question of how to manage an organization effectively. With numerous real-world examples, the book analyzes the problems and complexities of management in professional organizations and makes recommendations on how to manage professionals. The book focuses on a number of key issues, including: Management as a problem Management as a solution Knowledge and innovation Strategy Cooperation Performance Managing Professionals presents an empirical analysis of the problems and offers solutions to the tension between management and professionals and will be of interest to managers and to students of management, organizational behaviour and business administration.
Contains nine papers that address the challenges in organizational change, report the results of change-related research, and advocate methodological advances in the field.
