Diamonds to You
Vol 2, Issue 8
Project Management: Process Improvement-Streamlining-Re-engineering and Decision-Making
HI:
Some of you might have read my letter to the editor published in the San Jose Mercury a few weeks ago. I made a plea for a sensible response to accusations of harassment in the workplace. My point was that we are getting a flurry of over-reactions, so that behavior that might fall into the category of either infraction or mis-demeanor is being treated as a felony.
Managers and well respected leaders are being fired because they occasionally lose their cool and say things they probably shouldn’t have – or don’t respond strongly enough to stupid comments made by others.
Yes, we should respond to harassment, discrimination, and environments that are so hostile as to make working there uncomfortable for reasonable people. BUT, please, please, let’s not over-react. If we over-react we are making a mockery of the very things we are trying to change. One example:
I once heard a so-called expert in the field state publicly that all forms of sexual harassment are akin to rape and the trauma to the woman on the receiving end was as severe as if she had been raped. Do you mean to tell me that a rude comments about someone’s body is as horrible as grabbing them, throwing them down, and having un-welcomed sex with them?
Oh, I could go on – but if you want to hear more of my raving on this subject, please visit my blog: ArLyne’s Diamonds @ www.DiamondAssociates.net/blog/.
Just to remind you though, I conduct wokshops in preventing and handling complaints of harassment, diversity, and discrimination to managers, and employees in general. I try for a sensible approach, teaching people why they should be more sensitive to the sensitivities of others, as well as reminding them about the laws on the subject. But, I do not take a let’s damn all men approach.
Retainers & Consortiums
Last month I wrote: I thought I’d remind you that in addition to contracting with me for daily or hourly services, there are two ways you can save money.,
- A monthly retainer, of at least 10 hours per month, allows for extra hours, thereby creating a discount in your hourly rate.
- You can gather colleagues, friends, business associates and create a consortium – and I can meet with your group regularly at a group rate, thereby costing each member of the consortium considerably less in consulting fees.
A few people questioned me about Consortiums – and so I’d like to re-type something I wrote some years ago on the subject:
Several of my clients ae crating consortiums with their friends and colleagues to join together to receive management and employee training.
Here’s how it works!
- You decide which workshop you want. ( I offered a list of ideas that I won’t repeat here – they include a full range of professional development, leadership and management training, compliance issues training, etc.) Remember, we can customize combinations of our more popular ones or develop entirely new ones for you.
- Select three or more possible dates at one or more location of your choice.
- Contact us to reserve the dates for you.
- Invite others to attend and share the expenses with them. This allows you to have top quality training at one-third, or even one-quarter of the price you’d have to pay if our contract was with your company alone.
You and your friends/colleagues will benefit from combining your resources to provide the finest quality training workshops for all of your employee groups.
I really thrive on your referrals to me. Keep them coming!
My Blog
Several years ago I started a blog but never really followed through. Recently, Bill Lazar, a blogging expert (bill@billsaysthis.com) updated my blog and made some wonderful suggestions – including that I take it seriously and start writing in it regularly.
It is my ideas – not necessarily anything professional – but if you are interested in learning how I think about a variety of un-related topics, you are welcome to visit it. I am also hoping that it becomes inter-active, a conversation between you, me, and what my Bill would have called “500 of my closest friends.”
Project Management: Process Improvement-Streamlining-Re-engineering and Decision-Making
What follows comes from some of the handouts I use in some of my management training courses.
As promised, here is a continuation of the list:
- Define the working process of the streamlining work as something very different from ordinary meetings. This is not the place for votes, formality, rigid meeting structure, Parliamentary Procedure or other formal structures – until much later in the process.
- Using brainstorming and other decision making techniques from quality and continuous improvement processes. (If you want my handout on Group Decision Making and Problem-Solving, please contact me.)
- Control – manage – facilitate meetings so that they don’t deteriorate into a free for all. Use process to move the meetings – depending on the purpose of each meeting.
- If you are going to use sub-committees, pick your committee leader carefully. That person should NOT have a vested interest in the particular issue under consideration.
- Train your committee leaders in the quality/continuous improvement processes so that they know how to effectively run their committees. You might consider using an expert to train them.
- Use content experts when you need them – but don’t allow them to overly-control the decisions. Often they are wed to their own point of view.
- Do not re-invent the wheel. Find out what others have done before you embark on a streamlining process. Particularly where other committees are doing similar work and where other consultants and experts are involved in process improvement within your organization.
- Interview. Interview. Interview. Talk with people. Go outside of your own committee and department to get input from others. Research your own ideas as well with others before implementing them.
- Don’t be afraid of pilot projects (alpha and beta tests) before finalizing your recommendations.
- Don’t be afraid of disagreement – and know it is OK to say NO.
- Flip charts are great tools. They help control and codify the process and decisions.
- In additions, Flip Charts can be very helpful in stopping disruptive interruptions (and interrupters) by using a separate list for “items to be taken into consideration later.”
- Use formal tools before you finalize recommendations. These can be using scientific methods, math, logical constructs, research design and implementation, formal needs assessment, flow charting, etc.
I’m sure there are more suggestions – and welcome your additions to this list.
Next month I’lll write about Controlling the Process to Improve the Outcome.
Managing for Creativity – Part #3
What do you reward? Is it the number of calls your call center agents can handle in a shift, or is it the satisfied customers they’ve served well?
Do you reward your managers by the number of people they manage, or by the quality of the work and ideas produced by them and their group?
Is there time for brainstorming and exploring possibilities, or are all meetings controlled tightly with each person being allotted only x minutes to speak?
Do you make the mistake of accepting weird dress and inappropriate behavior in place of creative ideas and innovative products?
Is workplace “play” balanced with “work” – or has “work” become a four letter word?
Do you hire only in your image? Want only “yes men and women?”
What are the processes, parameters, permissions you and your organization create to encourage the creative and innovative ideas to come forward?
Please write me and give me your best suggestions.
More about creativity in the next issue.
Prior Newsletters
Several people have asked for information about my prior newsletters. Rather than list all the articles here, let me refer you to my website, where Pete has published them. (Pete is my great computer guru.) To find these newsletters please visit: http://diamondassociates.net/articles/Newsletters.shtml
Speaking Engagements
- I will be speaking at the American Dream Coalition on November 11, 2007. I am going to be talking about developing board, committees, and volunteers.
- I will also be speaking at the California Writer’s Association’s SF/Peninsula Chapter on November 17, 2007. My topic will be “Understanding the Psychology of your Characters, Their Families and Their Motivations.”
Recent Publications
Four of my articles have been published in dozens of e-magazines and newsletters. These articles are being published so frequently that I can’t list all of the references. Instead, I suggest you Google: ArLyne Diamond.
Here are some though:
- Change Management Strategies, in Outsourcing, August-September, 2007.
- Board Service is an Honor, Echo Journal, August 2007
- Real World Solutions: Hiding Disability Facts Leads To Misunderstandings, in Thompson’s ADA Compliance Guide, August 2007, Col. 18, #8.
- Team Buidling Strategies, in Outsourcing, WORDlabs MEDIA, Kuala Lumpur., June-July 2007.
- Building Trust in Distant Teams, in Management Issues Feb. 20, 2007.
- Workplace Conflict Resolution: What’s Creating Workplace Conflict and 9 Easy Ways to Resolve it appeared in Impact Articles: The Business and Coaching Network on January 26, 2007 With my permission, this article will also appear in a series of newsletters created and marketed by Haley Marketing Group to their staffing industry clients.
My two published books are available at www.ProductivePublications.com.
- Training Your Board of Directors:
A Manual for the CEOs, Board Members, Administrators and Executives of Corporations, Associations, Non-Profit and Religious Organizations - The “Please” and “Thank You” of Fundraising for Non-Profits:
Fifteen Essential Ingredients for Success
So, how can I help you?
You spoke to your audience with great sensitivity and empathy and shared many excellent concepts. Your dialogue with the various Pro-Match members was truly fabulous. Not only did you come up with workable solutions for painful situations, but your advice was real and gul level, pertinent to their individual needs.
Helen Gracon, Facilitator – ProMatch
Your degree of knowledge on the subject matter – Sexual Harassment, Myth vs. Facts – was extremely impressive and your delivery of the material equally skillful. The feedback from our employees has been wonderful. Thank you for making a subject that, in someone else’s hands, could have been very awkward. Not only was it not awkward, but I have actually received requests for additional training
sessions, from those same employees who felt they didn’t need it in the first place.
Ellen R. Fox, Personnel Director, Tichenor Media Systems, Inc.
ArLyne Diamond, Ph.D
Let me be your Aufin—your advisor to Kings.
ArLyne Diamond, Ph.D
ArLyne@DiamondAssociates.net