Crossing the Threshold

Ok, seriously, who out there has NEVER run into frustrations with their IT department??  In most organizations, it seems to be an ongoing battle.  Everyone knows that the IT folks are just “different” from everybody else.  They think differently, in bytes and bits, very analytically and logically – sometimes hard for us “right-brained,” creative types to follow.  Those IT people speak in alien tongues, often incomprehensible to the rest of us earthlings.  And doesn’t it always seems like everything they do has to be planned, approved, checked to meet national security standards before you’re allowed to use something?? I say this all jokingly, of course.  (I don’t want anybody from IT waiting to jump me in the parking lot on the way out the door…) 

I know, I sound petty and irritated, but it’s been one of those weeks where out of everything I read in the Schein chapters, the piece on the functional/occupational differentiation among subcultures is what has been screaming out to me.  Most specifically, of course, because of the example and development about how the subculture in IT departments is often vastly dissimilar from other subcultures in an organization.

 A powerful subculture based on technology and occupation is information technology (IT), built around a number of assumptions that conflict with other subcultural assumptions.

~Schein, pg. 275

It started Monday when I (and everyone in my agency) came in to an e-mail chastizing us about storing non-business files on agency computers and networks.  (Oh horrors!)  While I realize this can cause some major problems when it comes to space and file management, I wasn’t sure it was worthy of an e-mail that required me to scroll more than twice to get to the bottom.  Couldn’t the explanation have been a little shorter?  Like “Clean up your drive and stop storing your crap out here or we’ll fire you!”  That would have gotten the point across for me…

Then there are the other encounters with IT I have had this week, all equally if not more frustrating.  My team has been trying to create and publish a variety of new projects that require the use of new software (unlimited research period before we can get back to you on the approval/denial for that!) and we have gotten a lot of pushback regarding what we can use, the time frame in which we can accomplish it and how and where we can store it.  I do realize that there are reasons behind checking into these things, but as Schein has pointed out, the “operator” or “executive” culture makes completely different assumptions.  My team and I just want to meet our goals in the most efficient way possible, and we don’t want to wait for results based on technological issues.

To top it all off, I just called the IT Help Desk to ask an unrelated question and found out that the IT request I put in a week or two ago to get equipment for my new hire (starting Monday) is…unlocatable, let’s just say…and the person supposed to be filling that request is out of the office until Monday.  I guess my poor new hire will have nothing to do on Monday but sit at her desk and stare down at the carpet squares…

I feel like Erica, ranting and raving like a madwoman.  Someone had to do it this week.  She’s been too quiet.   

So when we broke into groups in class to talk about the Schein chapters and how we were going to articulate those concepts for concept map,  Jess and I had chapter 8 - Assumptions About the Nature of Time and Space.   I found some of this fascinating,a nd I spent some time thinking about time being monochronic vs. polychronic for different people or cultures.  I’ve always been intrigued by time because I seem to have such a hard time with time.    Time is a fluid thing to me…a roundabout and not a definite, and that gets me in trouble sometimes, considering our western culture is very monochronic and time-driven.  I truly think I function best in a more polychronic environment where I can work on multiple things at once rather than having to compartmentalize my work.  Must be why my current position is such a good fit for me.  My boss always says, ”it’s not how long you sit in the chair; it’s about what gets accomplished.”
 
Speaking of time, just a little Halloween fun for you…

Last week with a reading day rather than class, I did a bit of procrastinating and left most of my reading for this week before we went back.  As I picked up the Schein book I hadn’t layed eyes on in over a week, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to easily sink back in.  I figured I’d have a hard time remembering where we had left off.  And a hard time reading 5 chapters all this week…

I was wrong though.  The great thing about the Schein book is that is is so conversational and insightful that it’s really a breeze to pick it up and get sucked right back into it.  I found myself reading a couple of chapters a day with no problem, and even wanting to read more.  One of the great things about it is that I can make so many connections with my organizational life.  Culture is certianly something I’m immersed in every day and I spend a good deal of time reflecting on it. 

 (Oops…my first blogging blunder!  I wrote this little post last week and never published!  Look for another post this week – 10/27 – before class)

Making my way through the chapters in the Schein book this week, I find my mind repeatedly drawn back to a paragraph in the introduction to Part 1.  It seems like such a “Duh!” kind of thing, but I never really thought about how culture comes about in an organization and what impact leaders have on culture vs. the impact culture has on leaders.  I always thought it was a “chicken or the egg” relationship. 

I see now that the way Schein describes the relationship between cutlure and leadership makes so much sense.  When an organization is new or forming, it’s the leaders that create the initial culture.  Their values and norms are the culture, and the organization develops in that vein.  I am reminded of companies such as Apple, described below in an article by Jim Pinto:

 The Apple Ethos

Consider the way of thinking in the Apple culture; you can see it in both the hits and misses. The Lisa and Newton were both recklessly ambitious projects that failed. But both pioneered features such as the mouse and a graphical user interface that had previously existed only in research labs. Apple has always had a grander vision. It wasn’t enough to create good products; the aim was to reinvent the products. Apple executives were not afraid of risk. Often, key decisions were based on personal likes and dislikes—not just those of Steve Jobs, but of others who “owned” the projects. At Apple, there is no micromanagement responsibility is pushed down; talented people are let loose.

Apple’s biggest accomplishment can’t be measured by growth of product revenues or design awards. The biggest long-term impact de-rives from the company’s culture of innovation and its existence as an incubator of the best designers and engineers. When Apple’s talent moves on, they take some of the culture with them and go on to create great products elsewhere. And even when they’ve exited, the Apple culture still thrives.

Developing an innovative culture takes dynamic leadership with the vision, strength and stamina to imbue an organization with that special something that makes the difference.

 This of course is a positive example of how the creators and leaders of Apple built the organization based on their beliefs, and the organization lived those beliefs. 

As new leaders are enfolded into organizations, it makes sense that they generally inherit the traits of the existing culture.  We’ve all probably joined a new organization at some point and melded ourselves into the culture there.  As Dr. Carter has pointed out many times, it generally takes about three years, and then employees become the culture.  This is great when there’s a positive culture, of course, but unfortunately it happens that way when the culture is negative as well. 

What I realized for the first time in reading Schein is that leaders can change culture; it just usually doesn’t happen until it gets to a point where it’s unbearable.  It was interesting though to think about the impact leaders can have on the organization’s culture when necessary.  In thinking about my own organization, I have only known a positive culture since I’ve been there.  But I’ve heard stories of the way it was shortly before I came, what long-time employees call The Dark Years.  I’ve often wondered how it could have been so bad, considering the agency I know now is nothing like that, but I think that likely the leaders of the organization made a conscious change based on the fact that the culture was so bad.  I hope other organizations are able to realize that change as well. 

Try to understand culture, give it its due, and ask yourself how well you can begin to understand the culture in which you are embedded.” ~Schein, pg. 2 

 In reading these first three chapters, I really must say that I am finding Schein’s book quite an enjoyable read.  The tone is so conversational and intimate, which keeps me awake for longer than usual when reading late at night.  And many of his observations are so genuine and insightful that I’m reminded somewhat of Erica’s hero Marvin Weisbord.  I feel like I am going to get a lot out of this book and  subsequently the rest of this class…

 ”Learning, then, is about making sense of the world through an existing frame.  Development is about a change in the frame it self.” – Nancy Dixon, pg. 169

I really identified with Dixon’s Developing Managers for Organizational Learning chapter this week.   Maybe it’s because I am still relatively new in the management field in my organization, and development as a manager is one of my own personal struggles and interests.  I’ve been quick to jump at any opportunities for “management development” that have arisen in my organization, and believe me, there have been quite a few.  I have attended several workshops, training classes and lectures, both onsite and off and based on a variety of different methods.  I’m not trying to knock them all either, since I have come away with some helpful tips from some, particularly Hersey and Blanchard’s model of Situaltional Leadership.  But I find myself in the midst of some of the dilemmas Dixon describes – how am I going to use this when it’s completely different from the way we’re used to doing things?  Is anyone ever going to follow up on this?  Are other people in the agency applying this?

 Dixon is spot on in her identification of four changes that would make management development programs more compatible with organizational learning:

• Situating learning in real work
• Defining a less central role for experts
• Spaced rather than compressed time frames
• Learning in commnity rather than individually

 I’ve certainly found that the best of ideas I have learned in a training class have vaporized before my very eyes the minute I get back to my desk.  Or sometimes before I’ve even left the class, I’m sitting there thinking, “How am I ever going to mold this to fit what I really do??” It doesn’t make sense that to learn something new, we compartmentalize ourselves away from reality to try to gain new skills or knowledge and then have to weave those things back into our environment.  Shouldn’t the learning be in how we shape or learn to deal with the environment we have?

The related thing I really take issue with is that most development programs take place in that compressed time frame Dixon talks about.  Obviously it’s logical in some instances, since travel and budget come into play.  Not to mention, it’s hard sometimes to put aside time during the day to work on development opportunities.  Getting managers out of their environments and away to a place where the everyday distractions are not glaring down on them may help them to concentrate, but I don’t think it pays off in the long run.

For example, my organization brought in an “expert” to train us on the Hersey and Blanchard model I mentioned.  The 2 day class was GREAT.  I really got a lot out of it, and upon returning to my unit, I initially used a lot of what we learned.  It made sense to me, and I acquired the knowledge at a time when I was really floundering for direction as a manager.

But a couple of months went by and I forgot all about the model.  One day I was looking through some books on my shelf, and I came across the pretty, colorful picture we got in class and the guilt set in.  I wasn’t even thinking about this anymore!  Our HR folks who had brought the expert in had promised there would be follow up afterwards, but I hadn’t heard a thing about it.  There were no in-services, e-mail reminders, managers meetings or any type of communication or context in which anyone revisited the model.  What a waste of time and money!  Here was something that I had actually found useful and would have continued to use regularly if I had some support or knew others in the organization were using it, but it had fallen by the wayside.

I do still pull out the model from time to time and refresh my memory and my committment towards it, but it seems as if I’m only using it to frame my current world (learning) rather than using the tool to change the frame (development).

Days later, I am still thinking about our poor clasmate (a.k.a. K-Spon) and his unfortunate blog episode.  While I’ve always been a little wary of putting myself out there in cyberspace, I’m still quite shocked to learn that there are companies or people out there who have software capable of tracking down a webpage that mentions a particular word or name!  I know, it’s probably naive of me, but I find myself continuously amazed at how much smaller this world becomes every day.  Big brother really IS watching us… 

The worst part about that situation though is that here we are, unassuming students, baring our souls (some of us for the first time) and trying to dig deep to share our thoughts, feelings, learning experiences in the hopes of forging some sort of collective meaning together, and some of the wind has come right out of our sails.  I bet a lot of us never considered that our employers might potentially see what we share with others in class.  (or that they really cared…)  And I would hope that any employer who does participate in this sort of “search and discovery” mission would be understanding that these pages are intended as a forum to voice our opinions, experiences, frustrations, and learning curves to help each other grow in an educational setting. My hope is that the folks who discovered K-Spon’s blog understand how truly dedicated he is to his company and his job, and how much he cares about making their organization a better place.

That being said, how do we avoid a repeat of the uncomfortable feeling that someone you hadn’t expected has just seen you naked??  I think our job is to be better prepared.  As kids we learn the importance of safety and awareness, but as adults, we tend to think we don’t need to worry about it.  In the technological world we live in, we probably owe it to ourselves to be better informed about the internet, the reprecussions of blogging, leaving a cyber footprint.  (I just googled myself and was happy to learn that I am MUCH more anonymous with my married name…too common.  But throw in my previous last name, and it’s easy enough to find me…)  For this class (or program) in particular, I think it would probably be a good idea for a class discussion before beginning the blog.  Had I thought about it more in the beginning, I probably would have chosen a different name or address for my blog.  But live and learn…  I know Dr. Carter never imagined this would happen. 

I did a little poking around about internet anonymity and blogging and found TONS of stuff out there.  Just a few links to share…

How to Blog Safely (About Work or Anything Else)

The Trouble with Anonimity on the Web

Last class as we were discussing Dixon’s meaning structures, I had a lot of random thought racing through my head.  They may come across as rather disconnected, but I am going to share them here…

As we looked at Dixson’s diagram of meaning structures – private, accessible, collective – I began to think of our classroom in relationship to the metaphor.  If ADLT 623 were an organization, private meaning would be our individual interpretation of what we’ve read throughout the week in Dixon’s book as well as our interpretation of Dr. Carter’s lectures combined with our individual work experiences.  Our blogs, the responses from and to our mirrors and our class discussion are the areas of accessible meaning – the way we make meaning of our private learning together through sharing.  We create the collective meaning for the class (how we roll and what we walk away with at the end of the semester) through our accessible meaning structure.

Then there’s my work situation…  I consider my state agency fairly good at being a learning organization.  We do a lot to create accessible learning structures – build cross-fuctional teams, hold bi-weekly Department Issues meetings that span both the breadth (multi-unit) and height (all levels) of the agency, and even hold informal Breakfast with Bob sessions where our agency director eats and chats with different departments each month to discuss successes and challenges. 

 What I find interesting though is that while I consider my individual agency to be a learning organization, state government as a whole is not.  Theoretically we are all employees of one organization – the Commonwealth of Virginia – but I think most state employees would agree: there’s no collective learning going on.  In most instances, one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing.  We’re basically like one big dysfunctional organization where everyone is stuck in their own private meaning structures.  I wonder if that will ever change… 

One last thought.  I was really taken by Jess’s comment last week about how even the janitor has a pulse on the school where she teaches.  I was reminded of one of my favorite movies (that I actually mentioned to Dr. Carter in the Groups and Teams class and said I would try to dig up since she’d never seen it) – The Breakfast Club.  Wasn’t there a scene where the janitor talks about how he knows everything about the kids from cleaning up behind them?  Well, I rooted through some of my (still unpacked) boxes and found the movie.  And yes, the scene with Carl the janitor was what I was thinking of.  As I speak I’m trying to rip and copy the scene here, but I’m new at this.  I’ll definitely bring the DVD tomorrwo to share with Dr. Carter…

Ok, I was unable to rip the scene I wanted from The Breakfast Club, but I found a really bad copy on YouTube…

Carl in the Breakfast Club

Last Thursday’s class really gave me some mental food to chew on.  (No, I’m not using that analogy just because I’m pregnant and hungry…)  I mean, there was some real meat in there to think about, particularly surrounding the discussion of the themes in Dixon’s book.

The first theme – the idea that learning and work are not separate functions, but rather are intertwined, seemed like a given.  But if you think about it, many organizations must not “get” this most obvious concept.  Just think about the way many companies operate – you start work and you’re given a 6-month probationary period, during which time you’re expected to learn your job and begin performing at a satisfactory level (all the while avoiding any attitude or disciplinary missteps).  In most cases, employees are expected to know exactly how to do their jobs at the conclusion of the probationary period.  Sure, they may get the yearly in-service training or attend some offsite class, as budgets permit, but that’s generally the way any additional “learning” is seen. 

Wouldn’t it be a novel idea to understand that employees are continually learning by coming across new experiences and continually crafting and revising meaning from their experiences?  The world isn’t a static place, so why is it that people so often expect learning, whether their definition of it is obtaining knowledge or making meaning, to be a static thing?

Ah, but that’s where Dixon’s second theme comes in…  Many people seem to have a misunderstanding, or at least a miscommunication, about what learning truly is.  Is learning merely obtaining knowledge?  I’d certainly argue that it’s a form of learning.  But I’m reminded of the theories of 2 HRD big guns: If you think about the cognitive domain of Bloom’s taxonomy, sure, we admit that acquiring knowledge is certainly a form of learning.  But Knowledge and Comprehension are low on the totem pole; any good trainer or teacher knows you want to strive for the higher level of developing skills and meaning, like Synthesis or Evaluation. 

And think about Kirkpatrick’s Levels of Evaluation –  if we evaluate someone on a Level 2 (measuring the increase in knowledge or capability), it’s not as effective as measuring on a Level 3 or 4, which strives to evaluate the meaning learners make, as evidenced in behavior or results.  

In pondering the meaning of meaning making, I’m also reminded of ADLT 601 – The Adult Learner.  Drs. Carter and Muth really left a vivid picture in my head when they talked about taking your experiences and hanging them on the “hooks” you already have.  Fitting new knowledge into your schema and then rearranging your image accordingly.  That’s how meaningful meaning is made!

Who can believe the summer’s almost over already and we’re headed into a new school semester?  It seems like we just left school yesterday.  Oh wait, it was actually only 3 weeks ago…

So tonight we got the low down on what to expect from Org Learning this semester.  Truthfully, much of what we covered tonight put my mind at ease for the semester.  Since I already had the chance to experiment with the Web 2.0 tools (wiki-wiki and CMAP) this summer in the HRD Overview class, I’m feeling pretty comfortable. 

I’m hopeful that the semester will be a productive and rewarding one.  I found this summer’s HRD class to be particularly rewarding since it was such a small class.  We all really got a lot out of that.  I think this semester may be similar since it’s a smaller class again and most of us know each other pretty well by now!

Ah, my first attempt at a blog!  I know that other “experienced” bloggers have been doing this for quite some time, but I just haven’t felt the need to expose my innermost thoughts and feeling to the world.  At least, until Dr, Carter convinced me to…  (Ok, required me to)

Yes, I am creating this blog as a requirement for my Organizational Learning class at VCU.  But that doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy doing it.  I’ve actually been wanting to start a blog for a while now, but haven’t for a couple of reasons… 

Firstly, if I haven’t been “forced” to do something, well, it probably hasn’t made it to the A list.  Too many projects, not enough time.  And then there’s that whole exposure issue…  Will I have anything worthwhile to say?  Will the world laugh at me?  Worse yet, will people fall asleep reading my blog??

So here goes.  I’m putting myself out there under the guise that I have to do this for school.  I am crossing the threshold into uncharted territory.  And I’m hopeful that the journey will be a meaningful one.

You may already be familiar with Joseph Campbell’s version of a journey – the Hero’s Journey.   Campbell was an prominent writer and mythology professor whose ideas about archetypes and monomyths have been influential in the literary, psychological and cinematic worlds.   

His thoughts and research led him to the idea that all heros follow a universal pattern in their journeys, with particular stages to navigate and conquer.  One of these stages is known as crossing the threshold.  Below is a diagram of his Hero’s Journey:

What’s fascinating is that Campbell’s model is applicable to so many stories, from Star Wars to the Lion King to Beowulf.   We can see it in our literary characters, and we can see it in ourselves as ordinary people.

The anticipated outcome of a hero’s journey is to achieve a level of personal transformation.  In order to do this, heros are called upon to push themselves to their limits, stretch out of their comfort zones and try new things for the sake of personal growth.  For me, this blog will be my newest and scariest endeavor of recent months.  But I’m going to cross that threshold and set sail on my latest journey…