Intro -- Hyacinthe Josiah LO4837

Hyacinthe Josiah (hjosiah@enterprise.ca)
Fri, 12 Jan 96 21:57 EST

...and, following up "Virtual teams (LO4771)"

My name is Hyacinthe Josiah and I work for the provincial government of
Ontario as a Police Services Advisor. My clients are 20 small (3 members)
to large (over 750 members) police services, their police service boards
and police associations in mid-western Ontario. I work with a partner and
we function as external consultants to these three stakeholder groups,
providing them with advice on a broad range of topics including human
resources management, organizational development, administration and
management and police operations. Policing in Ontario has come a long way
from the para-military structures that we were familiar with. The
profession is still evolving, with police managers grappling on a daily
basis with the complexities of a highly educated, motivated, diverse
workforce, rapidly shrinking financial resources, increasing scutiny and
external controls and a demanding, sometimes highly critical public. In
terms of becoming learning organizations, they are strung along the entire
continuum, from barely started to well along the way.

I was interested in the post dated Wednesday, 10 January 1996 by Dave
Birren, on the subject of Virtual teams (LO4771). His comments reflect
many of the challenges we advisor/consultants face every day. We are
technical experts operating in virtual teams yet, perhaps because we are
road-people and are not perceived to *serve* the larger organization
directly, we are seen to be (and sometimes feel) detached from the
desk-people. Money is always an issue - it is easier to cut what you do
not see. Problem avoidance, a cost effective, effiecient, interaction-rich
service delivery by internal/external advisors may be considered as
concrete value-added in the eye of the client; however, it may not be
viewed with as much appreciation by a widely dispersed organization with
annual expenditures of over $1 B. - the "in your face" dichotomy that Dave
alludes to.

In my case, my nearest client is an hour's drive away from my residence.
All of our virtual team have home offices and the electronic accoutrements
of being distance workers. We couldn't manage without the technology.
Many of us also have "secondary activities" operated as SOHOs. The
challenge to balance the many roles we have and to comfortably wear the
many situational-response hats we must wear, is sometimes daunting.
Perhaps that is what makes our successes - large and small - and our
survival against hostile forces, so rewarding.

I look forward to learning from this discussion group, so that I can become
more knowledgeable in providing advice to my stakeholder group clients.

--
Hyacinthe M. Josiah
EXEMPLARY Police & Security Service Consultants
Thornhill, Ontario, Canada
hjosiah@enterprise.ca