If you copy and paste this saying into Google you’ll get 3520 hits attributing the saying either to Aristotle, Confucius or some native American wizard. Yet it is just as true today as it was hundreds of years ago. Perhaps it’s even more true today. We live in a world where information abounds and where people from diverse backgrounds are more in contact with each other than ever before. This post-modern world is one where traditional views are challenged and authoritive statements are doubted. Why should I believe you? Who says you are right? My Japenese friend says they’ve been doing it differently for centuries and he believes they are right. It is in a world like this one where a social constructivist approach becomes critical. An approach where people develop their own meaning from experiences and from interacting with each other. Using experiences. Based on relationships.
Author Archive for Jean
Frank and I have designed and proposed a diversity process for Tshwane. Barrie and Keith are lecturing on Diversity in Hawaii every year. Graeme is busy proposing a Diversity process to Tiger Brands. Are we all talking the same language when it comes to embracing diversity? Can we learn from each other on this topic?
I would love to know, for instance, what exactly Barrie and Keith are focusing on in Hawaii in order to enrich my own thinking on the topic.
Here is a broad outline of Frank and my process with Tshwane:
When you talk embracing diversity, you first need to understand that diversity goes way beyond black and white. Black actually refers to Sotho, Tswana, Zulu, Venda, Xhosa etc while white includes English, Afrikaans etc. Except for cultural / racial diversity we also need to be aware of diversity in terms of age, gender, professions, personality, social background / class etc.
If you want to get a diverse group of people into harmony, you have to move with the group through three “spaces”:
Space 1: Accept, acknowledge, understand and be proud of your own unique background, culture, heritage. No need to throw this way. No need to be ashamed of this.
Space 2: Explore and understand the other person’s culture, background etc. Acknowledge the differences which might be worlds apart. Do not downplay the differences.
Space 3: Explore values and needs that you share. Work towards a shared culture shaped by everyone involved to work in the specific context. You thus end up with a contextualized culture that still gives every individual the opportunity to be congruent to him/herself.
Final thought on organisational culture. Remember culture grows from norms which grows from values which grows from really getting to know, respect and trust each other.
Barrie, Keith: How does this framework differ from what you are doing in Hawaii?
Last week a 35-year old, brilliant consultant from Atos-KPMG died of a heart attack. We worked together on the DWAF project. He was an in-shape, lean-looking guy. He leaves behind two small kids (9mnths and 2 years) and his wife.
Lesson for myself: Get out on the road and stay fit and get rid of stress and frustrations.
Lesson to all of us: Hold each other accountable for being healthy in body, mind and spirit.
Lesson to our clients: Take care of your BYT’s. Do not burn your brilliant young people. BYT’s are by nature smart, ambitious and willing and able to take on more than their peers. Do not abuse this. If someone runs in over-drive from age 25, he/she can be dead by age 35.
We know the world is changing faster than ever before. We also knowthat much of this change can be ascribed to the explosion of information andcommunication technologies. But if it is true that information and knowledgedoubles faster than ever before, and if it is true that the skills we learntoday might very probably be totally redundant tomorrow, how do we go abouttraining people for the future? How do you train someone for a world thatdoesn’t yet exist?
In the January e-zine I presented an in-depth description of the changes the world are experiencing, how these changes are affecting the workplace and what characteristics one will need to succeed in tomorrow’s workplace (read it at http://www.tomorrowtoday.biz/articles/article_100.htm). I also gave a description of an educational theory that might give us some clues on how to approach training and development for the future. Now, let’s get practical. How should we develop people for the future? Whether we speak of formal training or coaching or the continuous empowering leadership required to develop your teams and individuals, this framework should prove to be helpful in various situations.
Jean was awarded his Masters in Industrial Psychology cum laude in January 2005. This article is based on intensive research for his Masters thesis. More details of how to access his research will be available soon.
During recent years the world has experienced unprecedented technological advancements, which left indelible marks on how people live and work (Ridderstrale and Nordstrom 2004). This rapid rate of change is increasing exponentially (Molebash and Fisher 2003) and poses challenges that the workforce never had to deal with before (Koschmann 2000). This means that the workplace that people were trained for ten years ago does not exist anymore and nor will the workplace as we know it today exist in ten years’ time (Grulke 2001; Ridderstrale and Nordstrom 2004). Traditional methods of education and training, however, are not regarded as being sufficient for turning individuals into the Bright Young Things of the future workplace (Senge 2000; Dixon-Kraus 1996). If these methods of education are not sufficient to prepare people for the workplace of the future (Senge 2000; Dixon-Kraus 1996), how should one go about training people for a workplace that does not yet exist (Cetron 1999)? One educational methodology that is suggested as a possible solution is the social constructivist theory of Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896 � 1934), a Belarusian psychologist whose work only became translated, known and respected by the Western world in the late 1960’s (Smith 2003; Holt and Willard-Holt 2000).
The purpose of this article is to shed some light on how to approach training and development if one wants to turn individuals into the Bright Young Things of the workplace of the future. Attention is firstly given to a theoretical description of the future workplace as well as the characteristics needed to be regarded as a Bright Young Thing in such a workplace. Secondly, a theoretical discussion of social constructivism as a possible educational approach, takes place.
Continue reading ‘Turning your employees into the Bright Young Things of tomorrow’
Why are we struggling so much to keep our bright young things? Why do all our efforts aimed at coaching and mentoring programmes just not seem to produce the benefits we hoped for? Why is our BEE programme failing? Where are the supposed results that our team building sessions would have delivered? We have the latest state-of-the-art performance management, job evaluation and incentive systems but still it feels as if motivation is lacking! Why pay so much for all these HR stuff when it doesn’t really work??
In last month’s e-zine Keith Coates touched on a very hot topic: Why, in a world where harnessing people’s full potential has become more crucial for business success than ever before, have HR Departments become more irrelevant than ever? Keith explored the fact that we are rapidly moving into a business environment that increasingly puts emphasis on who we are, rather than what we sell � meaning that the business that can most effectively attract, develop, nurture and retain talent, will have a definite edge. But why, then, is it still so difficult for us to manage our ‘human resources’?
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