In LO2921, Ted Forbes commented,
>So why the resistance to asking questions in the first place? Could it
be that our most critical job as educators or as manager/coaches is to
first frame (or reframe) the set of expectations? Why do we seem to
view risk, uncertainty and ambiguity as an enemy to be conquered rather
than a friend to be embraced?
Am teaching a Hoshin Kanri (Strategic Planning) workshop all this
week. First day, a participant asked about the value of strategic
planning. He made the comment - "I am concerned about doing
strategic planning because I may not get all of the components in place
which need to be identified." (As he said - I might not be right!)
After two days of talking with me on the side, he has come to recognize
there is a huge organization of customers (approx 100) and employees
(approx 200) who are ready, willing, and able to assist with
completeness, accuracy, wholeness, etc. It took 48 hours of thinking
about it for him to understand he did not have to KNOW ALL the
answers. It was a new thought for him as an "unofficial leader" to ask
the group to help him and that he would coordinate their helping. I was
attempting to create a new field of working for him and will know in a
couple of years if it helped.
Question: Has anyone posed new roles for those who had to be the
knowers in the past; new roles which allow them to give up the
omniscient knowing role for new fields of working? If you have, what
kinds of roles are you describing to these folks? Do you have it in some
form of a list? I am presently working on my own list of new roles for
the learner and would give ample credit to those whose ideas I might
use.
(Besides it being simply good ethics, I have a hidden agenda in giving
credit. It allows me to tacitly show Dow people where the LO disease is
infecting organizations.)
Have a great day and make yourself a few minutes of fun!!
-- Dave Buffenbarger Organizational Improvement Coach Dow Chemical Company dwbuff@aol.com (517) 638-7080