Blogs

I am currently writing a chapter for a new CIPD book to be published next year and my theme is "developing an OD strategy from an HR perspective".

A friend of mine told me this story the other day:

He said that a major technology company invited a group of teenagers to discuss the following question - "To what extent has technology changed things forever?" A good question and not an unreasonable one for a technology company to consider.

After much discussion one of the youngsters raised their hand. When invited to speak she said - "I think you have asked us the wrong question."

On Saturday I managed to persuade my wife to spend the evening watching rugby. I know, I'm an old romantic!

But this was no ordinary rugby game. It was about the 1995 rugby world cup played in South Africa and we went to see the exceptional film INVICTUS.

In post-apartheid South Africa, the Springboks symbolised the old racist, apartheid regime. The Boks were beloved in the Afrikaans heartlands and Mandela faced a dilemma - what should he do about the Boks?

Last week one of my clients asked me to tell them in one sentence what I thought change management is. Wow! How do I get all that stuff about change into one sentence?

How do we know we are doing the right things in our organisations? It is not an easy question to answer of course, but it is a question that has surfaced frequently in recent discussions I have held with a range of clients. 

Three themes have emerged from these discussions - which are echoed in an excellent article in today's FT about the work of Russ Ackoff, and which prompted me to write this blog.

I came across a lovely article by a guy called Jim Ylisela today which adds to my ongoing collection of consulting jargon. See if you have come across any of these gems:

Risk managers in organizations have long understood that, contrary to popular belief, they don’t control risk. Their challenge has always been striking the right balance between the risk an organization is exposed to and achieving its objectives. Risk management therefore cannot be divorced from the overall strategic orientation of an organization and risk management is the responsibility of everyone in the organization who makes key decisions that affect risk exposure.

If you missed an excellent CIPD Thames Valley conference on June 4 I will be posting over the next week some of the key themes raised.

Firstly the contribution from David Fairhurst: Chief People Office for McDonalds North Europe; Vice-Chair CIPD and HR Magazine's most influential HR Practitioner Award winner.

Recently the news has headlined the expenses of MPs. MPs seem to fall into 3 camps:

1. those who have been extremely modest in their claims;
2. those who have claimed within the rules but whose claims seem excessive
3. those who appear to have made claims outside of the rules.

It has not been a good time for politicians, but it does raise interesting questions about our own predisposition to 'cheating'.

There is a lot of buzz these days about social media. For our teen-ies the whole world of web 2.0 is a natural part of their life. For the rest of us, we need to get fluent and familiar with this world. Becoming social media savvy is one of my goals and I intend to share some of my discoveries through this blog. About a year ago I joined facebook. To start with I was clueless - totally confused about whether it was serious (business) social (friends) or a way of sharing news primarily with family. I decided to focus on the latter two - using LinkedIn as my business site.