Ten years ago, the guy in charge of IT had a relatively non-collaborative and straightforward job. Broadly we were responsible for the traditional management functions of planning, organizing, leading and controlling. Specifically we oversaw the procurement, installation and repair of hardware and software, the network and servers. We seldom interfaced with faculty and staff other than to take direction, respond to service requests or request funding. Given the hundreds of tasks involved in successfully performing those functions, we were busy and, if we were lucky enough to have them, our staffs were busy.
The truth has changed. What we do less of and what we do more of, more or less cancels each other out. We still are very, very busy. In most institutions, we are well beyond integrating technology into our classrooms (provisioning with operable computers and interactive whiteboards). A major change, the main goal of the modern IT director/manager, is to facilitate (read "manage") the successful integration of technology into the curriculum, instructional units, lesson plans and learning activities. The ideal approach is through coaching/mentoring, professional development and learning communities. A great discussion about these approaches is at the Center for Public Education website. I couldn't say it better but I will emphasize that we're not talking about traditional workshop-based professional development, which as been shown by numerous studies to be ineffective. Please read the article.
Other affective truths are the changes (I hesitate to use "advancements"--I'll wait for validated results) in educational technology, the students, and pedagogies including: the shift toward mobile technologies; cloud computing (SaaS -software as a service; PaaS-platform as a service; and IaaS-infrastructure as a service); all students are now "digital natives", many being technologically sophisticated; open source software; the need to ensure that students remain familiar with technologies that they might be using after school; learning management systems (LMS) (e.g. Moodle); online courses (MOOC); staying ahead of the available apps and software to support each content area; one-on-one computing in the classroom; bring your own device (BYOD); the flipped classroom; blended learning; learning partnerships; game enhanced learning; project-based learning; peer teaching; brain-based learning; differentiated instruction; just-in-time teaching; deep learning (whatever that is); etc.
Educational technology changes are accompanied by fear and operational and resource problems: privacy, security, safety, available band width, available funding, qualified technicians, committed administrators and board members, and push back to name a few. The technology manager/director must become an expert in change management and an integral part of the change planning and execution team. As technology becomes more infused into administrative and management functions, the curriculum, instructional units, lesson plans and learning activities, the more involved the educational technologist should be.
Showing posts with label organizational development. Show all posts
Showing posts with label organizational development. Show all posts
Sunday, June 7, 2015
Monday, April 13, 2015
What are the desirable personal and professional characteristics of a good manager/supervisor?
A good manager is a manager in the traditional sense: performs the planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling functions in an acceptable and safe manner. However, an “excellent” manager is a manager and an excellent leader. Successful leaders are creative visionaries who develop and pursue goals, objectives and values in a collaborative, communicative, transparent, motivational and cooperative manner while demonstrating that they sincerely care about and respect the stakeholders. An excellent leader realizes that mission accomplishment and valuing and taking care of people are not a zero sum game but are interdependent. Leaders can readily extrapolate operational objectives from strategic missions and goals and facilitate accomplishment. Being visionaries, leaders are not afraid to take calculated risks. A good manager is reactive; an excellent manager is proactive. Manager-leaders are experts in their field, lead by example, are team players as well as team leaders and are capable of applying differing leadership styles depending on the nature and urgency of the situation.
Monday, January 26, 2015
Organizational Development (OD) – a Systems View
The traditional view or organizational development is a linear approach: (1) symptom analysis (identification of one or more dysfunctions that inhibit effectiveness); (2) diagnose the dysfunction(s) (determine the cause(s) of the dysfunction(s)); (3) intervene to correct the dysfunction(s); and (4) check to see that the dysfunction(s) are gone and effectiveness enhanced. This is, of course, a simplistic condensation of a rather complex process derived from the traditional standard definition of OD developed by Richard Beckhard in his 1969 book, Organizational Development Strategies and Models, wherein he states, “Organization Development is an effort (1) planned, (2) organization-wide, and (3) managed from the top, to (4) increase organization effectiveness and health through (5) planned interventions in the organization's "processes," using behavioral-science knowledge”. In other words the objective was to find and fix non-productive issues.
In the years preceding 1969 and probably well into the 1970s, most organizations were relatively static. Systems were fairly well-defined—hierarchical structures established, roles enumerated, employment/union contracts agreed upon; processes and procedures published, controls in place—it was a tidy world. The OD practitioner/stakeholder team’s objective was to find the dysfunctions negatively affecting effectiveness and eliminate them through implementation of change with minimum operational disruption, management discomfort and employee dissatisfaction.
Despite recognition that modern dynamic organizations are of ambiguous structure; competing in a volatile world-wide market subject to various and numerous often conflicting and changing laws and regulations; made up of self-defining, self-regulating and diverse employee teams whose members may be physically separated; chasing ever-changing technologies; training and retraining employees at an exponential rate caused by dysfunction turnovers; dealing with greater community consciousness; and dealing less with unionization and rigidly defined job descriptions, OD practitioners have yet to settle on a new coherent definition of OD. Rapid and frequent change in modern organizations is their defining nature. However, the nature of change itself has not changed. Change continues to be rife with stress and anxieties and in this environment the linear approach to OD will only result in greater frustration. As the initial dysfunctions are in the process of being corrected a plethora of old symptoms will come to light and new ones identified. Obviously, dissecting and fixing piecemeal “ain’t gonna git it.” It is generally agreed within the field that a system-wide or holistic approach need be taken and a few new definitions have been offered:
“Organization Development is the attempt to influence the members of an organization to expand their candidness with each other about their views of the organization and their experience in it, and to take greater responsibility for their own actions as organization members. The assumption behind OD is that when people pursue both of these objectives simultaneously, they are likely to discover new ways of working together that they experience as more effective for achieving their own and their shared (organizational) goals. And that when this does not happen, such activity helps them to understand why and to make meaningful choices about what to do in light of this understanding.”
-- Neilsen, “Becoming an OD Practitioner”, Englewood Cliffs, CA: Prentice-Hall, 1984, pp. 2-3.
"Organization development is a system-wide application of behavioral science knowledge to the planned development and reinforcement of organizational strategies, structures, and processes for improving an organization's effectiveness."
-- Cummings and Worley, "Organization Development and Change", Sixth Edition, South-Western Publishing, 1997, p.2.
"Organization Development is a body of knowledge and practice that enhances organizational performance and individual development, viewing the organization as a complex system of systems that exist within a larger system, each of which has its own attributes and degrees of alignment. OD interventions in these systems are inclusive methodologies and approaches to strategic planning, organization design, leadership development, change management, performance management, coaching, diversity, and work/life balance."
-- Matt Minahan, MM & Associates, Silver Spring, Maryland
Explicit in all three definitions are that the goal is enhanced performance/effectiveness and that organizations must be viewed in the whole as organic systems. Implicit in the definitions is the absolute need for authentic and candid collaboration by all team members throughout the entire process. It seems that most practitioners agree, probably more by default than by studied experimentation, research and deliberation that the same in-practice processes apply to a systems approach as they did under older OD theories.
The primary difference is the recognition that any change to any one part of a system affects the other parts: people; culture; cliques; emotions; performance; structures (formal and informal); norms; values; attitudes; lines of communication; goals; objectives; standards; processes; products; structure; training; roles; other teams; etc. Such recognition will perforce engender system wide effectiveness and performance evaluations which will likely identify additional dysfunctions, dysfunctions even brought about by previous or ongoing changes.
In the years preceding 1969 and probably well into the 1970s, most organizations were relatively static. Systems were fairly well-defined—hierarchical structures established, roles enumerated, employment/union contracts agreed upon; processes and procedures published, controls in place—it was a tidy world. The OD practitioner/stakeholder team’s objective was to find the dysfunctions negatively affecting effectiveness and eliminate them through implementation of change with minimum operational disruption, management discomfort and employee dissatisfaction.
Despite recognition that modern dynamic organizations are of ambiguous structure; competing in a volatile world-wide market subject to various and numerous often conflicting and changing laws and regulations; made up of self-defining, self-regulating and diverse employee teams whose members may be physically separated; chasing ever-changing technologies; training and retraining employees at an exponential rate caused by dysfunction turnovers; dealing with greater community consciousness; and dealing less with unionization and rigidly defined job descriptions, OD practitioners have yet to settle on a new coherent definition of OD. Rapid and frequent change in modern organizations is their defining nature. However, the nature of change itself has not changed. Change continues to be rife with stress and anxieties and in this environment the linear approach to OD will only result in greater frustration. As the initial dysfunctions are in the process of being corrected a plethora of old symptoms will come to light and new ones identified. Obviously, dissecting and fixing piecemeal “ain’t gonna git it.” It is generally agreed within the field that a system-wide or holistic approach need be taken and a few new definitions have been offered:
“Organization Development is the attempt to influence the members of an organization to expand their candidness with each other about their views of the organization and their experience in it, and to take greater responsibility for their own actions as organization members. The assumption behind OD is that when people pursue both of these objectives simultaneously, they are likely to discover new ways of working together that they experience as more effective for achieving their own and their shared (organizational) goals. And that when this does not happen, such activity helps them to understand why and to make meaningful choices about what to do in light of this understanding.”
-- Neilsen, “Becoming an OD Practitioner”, Englewood Cliffs, CA: Prentice-Hall, 1984, pp. 2-3.
"Organization development is a system-wide application of behavioral science knowledge to the planned development and reinforcement of organizational strategies, structures, and processes for improving an organization's effectiveness."
-- Cummings and Worley, "Organization Development and Change", Sixth Edition, South-Western Publishing, 1997, p.2.
"Organization Development is a body of knowledge and practice that enhances organizational performance and individual development, viewing the organization as a complex system of systems that exist within a larger system, each of which has its own attributes and degrees of alignment. OD interventions in these systems are inclusive methodologies and approaches to strategic planning, organization design, leadership development, change management, performance management, coaching, diversity, and work/life balance."
-- Matt Minahan, MM & Associates, Silver Spring, Maryland
Explicit in all three definitions are that the goal is enhanced performance/effectiveness and that organizations must be viewed in the whole as organic systems. Implicit in the definitions is the absolute need for authentic and candid collaboration by all team members throughout the entire process. It seems that most practitioners agree, probably more by default than by studied experimentation, research and deliberation that the same in-practice processes apply to a systems approach as they did under older OD theories.
- Contract with and gain commitment from key personnel
- Establish the change team
- Analyze systems to identify dysfunctions and/or unmet goals/objects of the systems
- Determine likely causes of systems dysfunctions
- Identify all the parts of the system that are negatively and positively affected by the dysfunctions
- Organize additional change teams as needed; establish inter-team collaboration
- Identify methodologies (as much as I detest the term, “interventions” if you will) designed to improve effectiveness of the organization and performance of its employees
- Apply consensually selected multi-team methodologies to improve effectiveness while building internal ability to create sustainable change
- Evaluate the effectiveness of the changes on the entire system, reinforce, recycle as needed
The primary difference is the recognition that any change to any one part of a system affects the other parts: people; culture; cliques; emotions; performance; structures (formal and informal); norms; values; attitudes; lines of communication; goals; objectives; standards; processes; products; structure; training; roles; other teams; etc. Such recognition will perforce engender system wide effectiveness and performance evaluations which will likely identify additional dysfunctions, dysfunctions even brought about by previous or ongoing changes.
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