Request for help LO3900

Willard Jule (75272.3452@compuserve.com)
27 Nov 95 13:41:50 EST

Greetings everyone. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving holiday (U.S.
folks); everyone else, I hope you had a great weekend.

I would like your input on two items: a talk on the changing employee
contract; and a game for conflict resolution.

First, the talk. This talk is part of a two-day conference entitled,
"Redefining the employment relationship: The changing psychological
contract between employer and employee."

My presentation is:

Managing the transition from a traditional hierarchical infrastructure
towards a job-free workplace

Case study: A large equipment manufacturing organization

* Changing market demands forcing new organizational designs are rendering
traditional jobs obsolete
* Learning to deal with the ambiguities arising as a result of the new
workplace
* Acknowledging the fact that traditional corporate, career and job structures
have been permanently replaced by uncertainty
* Allaying employees' fears by adequately preparing them for the unknown
workplace
* Surviving and prospering without the narrow boundaries of written job
descriptions
* Reconceptualizing the traditional perspective of a "job" as the basic
organizational unit of work
* Throwing out the old job descriptions; the modern alternative to traditional
"jobs"
* Creating self-managers intent on doing what needs to be done

Postscript: Conditions for individual and organizational success in the
new psychological contract

With the above outline in mind, I would appreciate thoughts from anyone on:
* Their experiences re: these topics
* The topics themselves - are they psychobabble hype? Do they fit with your
experience? Are they reasonably complete or have one or more key concepts been
omitted?
* Does your experience lead you to conclude that the "new" contract is
situationally specific, generally applicable, or a combination of both?
* What conditions lead to a successful (low pain, high return) transition from
the "lifetime security in return for good corporate citizenship" to "we'll
provide you personal growth opportunities to develop your ability to be
successful in a broad range of internal and external opportunities as long as
you give us your best while we employ you."
* How would you define the "new" contract if your definition is significantly
different from the one immediately above?
* Anything else anyone would like to contribute.

Responses on the above will be helpful if received before Jan. 15, 1996.

[Host's Note: Please respond with Subject: Employee Contract LO3900]

Item 2 A conflict resolution game

I would like ideas on a game that can be used to help people learn how to
deal effectively with conflict. It can be a game that incorporates the
concept that it is easier to use synergistic creation processes and
thereby preclude conflict in the first place. Or it can build on the
premise that conflict is occurring or has occurred and therefore use the
predetermined process to resolve the conflict. Or any combination of
conflict resolution/prevention.

The game will be used with nine managers. They are all schooled in
Covey's 7 Habits and Principle-Centered Leadership and have been working
in a team like environemnt for several years. They are implementing high
performance work teams as part of their standard leadership.management
style. Yes, I know, you would expect that with this background they would
already have well developed skills in this area. Well, they don't, but
they do have a lot of awareness (first step) and a desire to do things
differently.

I would like a game that can involve everyone in a team format (probably
two teams), can be done indoors in a typical conference room, can be
completed in an hour, and will set a frame of reference for them to
develop their own conflict resolution/prevention process within about one
more hour.

In this case, any ideas I receive by Friday Dec. 1 will be helpful.

[Host's Note: Please reply with Subject: Conflict Resolution Game LO3900]

Thank you everybody for your time and ideas.

You may want to send ideas to my individual address so you don't clog the
posting cyberwaves.

--
Willard Jule
75272.3452@compuserve.com