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| Monday, April 23, 2007 |
| The Responsive Manager/Leader |
The Responsiveness Paradigm outlined elsewhere in this newsletter is applicable at a number of levels. For example, it applies to organizations in general, and the ability of the organization to respond to the needs of customers, staff and other stakeholders (eg. politicians, etc). It applies to non-supervisory staff, and their ability to respond to the needs of their managers, customers and co-workers. This month we are going to look at responsiveness as it applied to managers, leaders and/or supervisors....
Influence Of The Responsive Manager
The responsive manager tends to succeed by building bonds of respect and trust with those around him/her. Staff respond positively to responsive managers; they work more diligently, work to help the manager and the organization succeed, and will go the extra mile when necessary. That is because responsive managers act consistent with the principle that their jobs are to help their staff do their jobs. So, a basic inter-dependence emerges based on behaviours that show concern, respect and trust.
Responsive managers also influence those above them in the hierarchy. Because responsive managers have the ability to read and act upon the needs of their "bosses", they are perceived as helpful and reliable, or in a simple way, very useful. This allows them to get the "ear" of people above them in the system, and further helps get things done when needed.
Contrast this with the limited influence of the UNresponsive manager. The unresponsive manager is restricted in influence because those around him/her do not respect or trust them to look out for their welfare. Influence is more limited to the use of power coming from the formal position, and fear, a motivational component that is hard to sustain over time. Unresponsive managers tend to be perceived as self-interested, or at best uninterested in the needs of those around them. They also tend to be perceived by those above them as less reliable and less useful due to their focus on empire building, organization protection, and self-interest, rather than getting done what needs to be done.
How Do They Do It?
Responsive managers apply a number of specific skills and abilities to the task (as outlined generally in The Responsiveness Paradigm article). Above all, they appear to be "withit". Withitness
has a number of components. First withit managers are able to put aside their concerns to listen to (and appear to listen to) those around them. As a result, they know what is going on, and know what is both said, and said between the lines. They have the knack of appearing to know what people need even if those needs are not expressed directly.
However, knowing what is going on, and identifying the needs of those around them is not sufficient. The responsive manager also acts upon that knowledge, attempting to help fulfil the needs of employees, superiors, etc. Responsive managers wield influence to solve problems for those around them, often before even being asked.
Here's an example:
I was responsible for automating an office system in a government department. As happens sometimes, the Management Information Systems people were not keen on our going our own way on the project, despite the fact that they had indicated they could not do it for us in the near future. As a result their cooperation (needed for the project) was patchy. As team leader, I faced a number of roadblocks, despite the fact that our Assistant Deputy Minister wanted to see this project come to fruition. I regularly reported back to our Director, outlining progress and roadblocks. Every time I communicated roadblocks to the Director, they were removed within a short time, despite the fact that I did not request direct action. In addition, the Director advised and counselled me on how to deal with the "systems people" so I could have maximum impact. Despite the roadblocks, the project was completed on time and was very successful, much to the chagrin of some of the systems people, who I think were hoping we would fail.
This is a simple story, but one full of meaning. In this situation the Director was able to identify the project leader's needs with respect to the project, listening carefully, and identifying actions she could take to "smooth the path". Not only was the Director able to remove obstacles and fulfil the need of the project leader, but the Director responded on a deeper level, helping to teach the Project Leader methods of becoming more effective, fulfilling yet another need. All of this was assumed to be the proper role of the Director, and was done without expressing all of the needs specifically or explicitly.
We can contrast this with the unresponsiveness of the MIS people. They lectured, they fussed, they predicted dire consequences, rather than offering consistent, responsive help. They focused not on responding to the needs of their clients, but on some other factors having to do with control, and their own needs. Eventually, their lack of responsiveness resulted in the very thing they did not want; loss of control of the project. As a result of this project their overall status in the organization suffered, simply because at both an organization and individual level they were seen as barriers, rather than useful.
Let's look at one more example.
An employee had been working for a government branch for about a year, having moved to the city as a new resident. In a casual conversation, the supervisor noted that the employee wasn't looking at his best, and asked how he was feeling. The employee explained that he hadn't been feeling well lately, and sounded very tired and overwhelmed. The supervisor determined that the staff member didn't have a local family doctor, asked if he would like the supervisor to arrange an appointment, and proceeded to do so immediately. The problem turned out to be a minor one.
In this example we see again the ideas of "withitness" and responsiveness. The supervisor was able to identify that the staff member was in need of some help, despite the fact that the staff member did not state this explicitly. Note that the supervisor didn't pressure the staff member to go to the doctor, but identified needs, checked them out, and then acted upon them. In this case, help consisted of direct, helpful action.
Conclusion
These two examples are the stuff of loyalty and commitment. They are remembered years and years after the fact, and continue to extend the influence of managers. In this sense responsiveness is a critical component of management success, because it allows managers and supervisors to get things done, for the benefit of all players.
In the limited space we have, we have attempted to give you a feel of what responsiveness means. You might want to extend your own understanding by considering some of the following questions.
1. If you are a manager or supervisor, how can you modify your own behaviours so that you become and are perceived as more responsive by a) your staff, b) your boss and c) your customers?
2. Again, if you are a manager or supervisor what is your definition of the "responsive employee"? Can you identify your "favourite employees", and consider how they are responsive to you? Our bet is you will find that your most valued employees are responsive.
3. If you are non-management, what would you need to do to be perceived as more responsive by the people around you?
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posted by proletar @ 9:32 PM  |
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| Look Over Yonder Wall - Managing Change |
One of my favorite blues songs is called "Look Over Yonder Wall", and while the song carries no sublime messages, the title provides good advice for managers. If present information is any indication, it appears that there will be continued fiscal restraint, cutbacks and possible layoffs for next fiscal year, This indeed creates some "walls" that managers need to "look over".
Changes of this nature pose difficult challenges for managers. It is a time of great stress, not only for employees but also for managers and.....
executives. Unfortunately, because of the degree of stress there is a tendency to focus on the event, or "the wall", with insufficient attention paid to what comes before the wall, and what is to come after. It is important to understand that changes such as downsizing do not consist of an event isolated in time. Downsizing occurs within a flow of events which precede and occur after the actual change announcement.
An organization's ability to deal with drastic negative change will depend primarily on the degree to which management has demonstrated its competence in the past. If management has fostered a sense of trust and credibility, has communicated effectively, and has demonstrated effective planning and decision making skills, the change adjustment period will be shortened, and the organization will have a much easier time of normalizing what it does after the change implementation. If these and other components are not in place before major change, there is going to one heck of a bumpy ride.
It is important that management begin to lay the foundation for negative changes in advance. It is also important that managers be very clear what will be required of them in helping their organizations, and their staff, move beyond events like budget cuts, and staff losses. The stakes are high. Without adequate preparation and planning your organization can be put into a tailspin that can last for years.
In this issue, and over the next few months The Public Sector Manager will be concentrating on managing change. More specifically, we will deal with the high impact kinds of changes that will face all of us in the next 18 months. Much of the material you see is based upon the content of a course we are developing, called "Leading The Elephant Through The Swamp -- Managing Change Through Leadership".
So, for now, "look over yonder wall" to the future, and start planning for it. Begin to assemble the pieces you will need to manage this kind of change effectively.
Robert Bacal, Editor
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| posted by proletar @ 9:31 PM |
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| The Importance of Leadership In Managing Change |
The Role of Leadership
In an organization where there is faith in the abilities of formal leaders, employees will look towards the leaders for a number of things. During drastic change times, employees will expect effective and sensible planning, confident and effective decision-making, and regular, complete communication that is timely. Also during these times of change, employees will perceive leadership as supportive, concerned and committed to their welfare, while at the same time recognizing that tough decisions need to be made. The best way to summarize is that there is a climate of trust between leader and the rest of the team. The existence of this trust, brings hope for better times in the future, and that makes coping with drastic change much easier.....
In organizations characterized by poor leadership, employees expect nothing positive. In a climate of distrust, employees learn that leaders will act in indecipherable ways and in ways that do not seem to be in anyone's best interests. Poor leadership means an absence of hope, which, if allowed to go on for too long, results in an organization becoming completely nonfunctioning. The organization must deal with the practical impact of unpleasant change, but more importantly, must labor under the weight of employees who have given up, have no faith in the system or in the ability of leaders to turn the organization around.
Leadership before, during and after change implementation is THE key to getting through the swamp. Unfortunately, if haven't established a track record of effective leadership, by the time you have to deal with difficult changes, it may be too late.
Preparing For The Journey
It would be a mistake to assume that preparing for the journey takes place only after the destination has been defined or chosen. When we talk about preparing for the change journey, we are talking about leading in a way that lays the foundation or groundwork for ANY changes that may occur in the future. Preparing is about building resources, by building healthy organizations in the first place. Much like healthy people, who are better able to cope with infection or disease than unhealthy people, organization that are healthy in the first place are better able to deal with change.
As a leader you need to establish credibility and a track record of effective decision making, so that there is trust in your ability to figure out what is necessary to bring the organization through.
Slogging Through The Swamp
Leaders play a critical role during change implementation, the period from the announcement of change through the installation of the change. During this middle period the organization is the most unstable, characterized by confusion, fear, loss of direction, reduced productivity, and lack of clarity about direction and mandate. It can be a period of emotionalism, with employees grieving for what is lost, and initially unable to look to the future.
During this period, effective leaders need to focus on two things. First, the feelings and confusion of employees must be acknowledged and validated. Second, the leader must work with employees to begin creating a new vision of the altered workplace, and helping employees to understand the direction of the future. Focusing only on feelings, may result in wallowing. That is why it is necessary to begin the movement into the new ways or situations. Focusing only on the new vision may result in the perception that the leader is out of touch, cold and uncaring. A key part of leadership in this phase is knowing when to focus on the pain, and when to focus on building and moving into the future.
After Arrival
In a sense you never completely arrive, but here we are talking about the period where the initial instability of massive change has been reduced. People have become less emotional, and more stable, and with effective leadership during the previous phases, are now more open to locking in to the new directions, mandate and ways of doing things.
This is an ideal time for leaders to introduce positive new change, such as examination of unwieldy procedures or Total Quality Management. The critical thing here is that leaders must now offer hope that the organization is working towards being better, by solving problems and improving the quality of work life. While the new vision of the organization may have begun while people were slogging through the swamp, this is the time to complete the process, and make sure that people buy into it, and understand their roles in this new organization.
Conclusion
Playing a leadership role in the three phases is not easy. Not only do you have a responsibility to lead, but as an employee yourself, you have to deal with your own reactions to the change, and your role in it. However, if you are ineffective in leading change, you will bear a very heavy personal load. Since you are accountable for the performance of your unit, you will have to deal with the ongoing loss of productivity that can result from poorly managed change, not to mention the potential impact on your own enjoyment of your job.
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| posted by proletar @ 9:29 PM |
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| Go Management Information Now! |
There are lots of books, articles and web resources on specialized fields of Information Management, including records management, library management, information technology, various technologies such as XML, RSS, etc. - but it's is difficult to find an all-encompassing text dealing with Information Management as an integrated discipline.
For that reason, I have started this blog. If you like the theme and want to be kept informed of new posts, subscribe to the feed (you will need to install/have a news aggregator and to click on the red "XML" icon at the bottom of the menu on your right)......
Also for that reason, I have developed course I310, titled "Integrated Information Management", for the Canada School of the Public Service. The course will be opened to federal public servants next fiscal year (March 1st, 2006 onwards). The pilot will be given December 12th to 14th, 2005. The Course Package review was today - ah, I mean, yesterday. So far so good - looks like it will be a good course!
Finally, in the process of developing the course, I found myself challenged to go a step further - to actually write a book on Information Management. I have taken the step - and sent a query to a literary agent. Hope it works!
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| posted by proletar @ 9:21 PM |
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| Defining Requirements is Not Good Enough |
Once upon a time, the mainframe was. The mainframe hosted complex corporate applications that required a very disciplined and sequential approach to requirements definition. In particular, it required requirements to be fully flushed out before coding began. Changing requirements en route was a big no-no and (mostly) constituted a too expensive proposition.
That era is gone, although it has been noted that some environments still exact the same sequential and disciplined approach to requirements definition, which dates back from mainframe times. The generally accepted approach in software development now calls for iterative (or evolutive) development.....
You figure out what you need, then you build some. By building some, you can better articulate further requirements. The cycle continues.
Similarly to the passage from sequential and disciplined requirements definition to evolutive requirements definition; I advocate to go from "specific capability evolutive requirements definition" to "integrated information management planning".
It is not good enough to adopt, as a starting point, "we need a content management system", or "we need a document and records management system". Other starting points are equally not valid: "we need a new records management policy", "we need a new training program". The optimum starting point should be: "we need a sound information architecture promoting integrated information management". Note: I actually believe that integrated information management nicely paves the way to ulterior knowledge management, but this is a contentious issue best left to be discussed at another time.
What of reality? How to achieve "the real thing" - a supportive and compliant information environment?
Here's the recipe. Many of these concepts (including Standard Information Management Frameworks) are fully explored in a new 3-day course offered at the Canada School of the Public Service:
1. Just as architects need blueprints, general need battle maps and accountants need ledgers; information managers need a standard information management framework from which they can plan, design and develop the optimal information architecture for their Department - Agency - Company. The development of such a framework has been hampered by the lack of recognition of "information management" as a unified management discipline. I will explore these topics in a conference I'm giving at the ARMA Canadian Regional Conference in two days (sessions T31, T41).
2. The Standard Information Management Framework answers the following questions: what are the necessary and sufficient components, in order to implement integrated information management? What is necessary to take into account, in order to develop each of these components? How can information management Vision and key Principles be tied to these components? And, last but not least, how can directives and end user guidance be derived from all of this?!
3. The Standard Information Management Framework has nine components: information context, information requirements, information resources, information activities, information roles / services / products, information training / education / standards, Recorded Information (includes Data, Records and Library Management), Information Technology and Architecture Optimization. These nine components, when developed and applied to any particular environment, constitute an Information Management Architecture. You need all components. You do not need other components.
4. Six areas of considerations need to be taken into consideration when developing the IM Architecture: Compliance (with legislation, regulations, policies, etc.), Business Context, User Empowerment, Interdependencies, Constraints and Trends & Opportunities. Each of these categories need to be populated with relevants "considerations", for example, in any given work environment, a complete inventory of applicable legislation related to information management, and then, for each such Statute, the information manager should analyze what is the impact of that legislation on any, many or all IM Architecture components.
5. Vision and Principles need to be taken into consideration when developing the IM Architecture: Each organization, even within a large Department, is unique, and will warrant a distinct information management vision that should be tied to its role and mandate. Selected principles will vary over time; depending on where senior management wants to focus efforts. Examples of principles include Life-Cycle Approach, Accessibility, Security, Accountability, etc.
6. The IM Architecture needs to be translated into IM Directives to realize the potential of integrated information management. Directives should be written from end end user point of view and help them do what they need to do, daily (here is a draft example in a particular environment).
One of the fundamental changes brought by this integrated approach has to do with requirements definition. The integrated approach considers six areas of inputs to develop nine IM architectural components. One of these components is Information Technology.
To compare the old and the new, one could say that whereas the old approach saw Compliance (sometimes), the Business Context and User Empowerment (ideally) taken into account to flush out the requirements of a subset of Information Technology (any given IT capability - e.g. Content Management System, etc.); the new approach formally adds Interdependencies, Constraints and Trends & Opportunities into the equation, not only to define "requirements" for a specific IT capability, but to architect the complete IM solution (which is larger than the total IT solution).
In that integrated analysis, one must let himself or herself be influenced by Trends & Opportunities. For example, the ways in which the marketplace is naturally shaping itself into "categories of software" is pertinent. For example, there is a category of solutions catering to documents and records management. Another catering to practice and case management (often in law firms). Another catering to generic web content management. If your "client" has a set of requirements that spans the entire spectrum covered by these three category of solutions; will you ignore these "marketplace facts", or will you structure your Request for Proposal accordingly, by articulating three distinct sets of requirements?
Just defining requirements is not good enough. One must get involved in becoming more knowledgeable in current trends & technologies; one must become more knowledgeable in how the marketplace confirms standard ways to manage information (e.g. wikis, blogs, syndication via RSS, etc.) and, most importantly; one must take a stand on deciding how to best marry a set of business requirements to a set of solutions. If information managers do not do this, who will?
Along that vein, I believe that when these "categories of software" are studied, you become familiar with the good and the not so good. Best features will become apparent. From these best or desirable features, you can build a list of criteria to iteratively assess solutions in a particular category. All of this work and analysis should be done in the spirit of integrated information management, not with any agenda of promoting a specific product.
Now here comes the tough part.
If you have done all the work previously explained, then you can make some judgment calls. And start figuring out your top picks in any given category of solutions. For example, after completion of this kind of analysis; if you come to the conclusion that you require a web content management system; and that the environment in which it needs to be deployed corresponds to features A - B - C being mandatory or desirable; and that such features are best implemented in a particular solution, do not be afraid to take the next step. Do not let the old disciplined and sequential requirements definition process hijack common sense hardly derived from an integrated approach analysis. Go forward. That may take some wrestling with proponents of the old approach, insisting that you stick to "requirements definition" and do not concern yourself with investigating solutions; go forward anyway. And hopefully, in the process, your colleagues will realize that you are doing something potentially novel: implementing a solution that works from all angles. Of course: that solution flows from an integrated approach analysis. ;-)
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| posted by proletar @ 9:17 PM |
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| Integrated Information Management |
I often get asked what do I mean by "Integrated Information Management (IM)". Here follows a brief answer.
Integrated IM turns on three concepts: Integrated, Information and Management.
Management is concerned with six functions:
* Planning
* Organizing
* Directing
* Controlling
* Evaluating
* Reporting
Information, on the other hand, is best defined in context of data and knowledge:
* Data: series of facts
* Information: data given context
* Knowledge: information internalized
Considering users of information (creators, consumers, etc.) experience information through information activities, it helps to provide a sample list of such activities:
* Information activities: find, create, receive, acquire, monitor, classify (for records management), classify (for index management), safeguard, organize, use, publish, collaborate, disseminate, archive, dispose, transfer... The list goes on. Any information related verb is, potentially, an information activity.
This leads us to the following definition:
* Information Management: "the planning, organizing, directing, controlling, evaluating and reporting of information activities in order to meet client objectives and to enable corporate functions"
In a governmental context, "client objectives" can be replaced by "program objectives". Typical corporate functions are Financial Management, Human Resources Management, etc.
Finally, information management also deals with processes, systems and environments to the extent they encapsulate any information activity.
Graphically:
Now, what about integrated IM?
Integrated Information Management occurs when organizations integrate the following 18 facets of IM:
* IM Vision
* IM Principles
* IM Directives
* IM Architecture (9 components and 6 input categories)
These 18 facets are logically grouped into Standardized Information Management Frameworks (SIMFs).
A methodology must be associated with the framework in order to ensure the following:
1. The 6 input categories are well researched and documented, providing, for each category, an inventory of IM "considerations". Categories are: Compliance (e.g. considerations would be IM related statutes, regulations, policies), Business Mandate (e.g. business lines), Empowerment (i.e. what end-users want and need), Interdependencies (i.e. leveraging other initiatives or projects), Constraints and Opportunities (e.g. web 2.0 technologies).
2. Each consideration must be analyzed. In addition, each consideration must result in the identification of the impact on any, many or all of the following nine (9) IM Architecture components: Information Context (the Business Context), Information Requirements, Information Resources, Information Activities, Information Roles / Services / Products, Standards / Education / Training, Recorded Information (i.e. data, publications and records), Information Technology and Architecture Optimization.
3. In addition to having an impact on the IM Architecture (9 components and 6 input categories), each consideration will influence the shaping of the organization's IM Vision, the choice of its IM Principles and the development of its IM Directives
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| posted by proletar @ 9:09 PM |
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