Symbiosis

A matter of "recognition"...

2010-06-21T13:24:00.000-07:00

After a while working in Polimax, I understood that I wasn´t only a consultant. I couldn´t handl

e the need for action, and the inertia of the organization.
I couldn´t accept the guerrilla inside the company agains our project, and I couldn´t believe that it has being like this for a while and we´ve never acted.

Fear, loath, unprepareness, unwillingness, inertia again?
Whatever it were the reasons, whoever was the responsible, whenever we should had taken action....

And now I can give you all the reasons for this conduct, but they don´t matter anymore.
We are still on time, and NOW we are acting. We all are convinced, willing, prepared, positive, that this is the path.

So, is there a right time for everything?
Did I lose 3 months of work, or it was fundamental to develop all the project that we still have?
How many times do we run over the others, do not build a consensus and fail?
How many times do we wait to long, lose the momentum and fail?

Therefore there is a right time for everything, the problem is to recognise it.

What am I?

2010-04-25T20:29:00.000-07:00

Image by lrargerich via Flickr

One month and two weeks since I´ve began the work at Polimax.

Read 3 books in the meanwhile.
The Sustainability Advantage, Advanced Facilitation Strategies and One from Many.

Had countless meetings, conversations, discussions.
Got a good picture of our challenges, and began to work in a great number of them.
Brought good ideas, and methods. As well as some eficiency that I learned in Finland.
Recognize great problems with dialogue, saw a small company stucked in it´s own structure. Met unmotivated employees.
Got involved sometimes more than I should as a consultant and less than I needed as a company partner.
Optimism and pessimism alternate their influences on my mood.
Fill in 12 flip charts planning all the actions, and explaining them.
Bought an agenda, and incredibly got it full for the next 3 weeks prety easy.

And from all those things what really is sustainable? What would remain when I leave?
How can I structurize a company that has problems with methods and organization without bureaucratize it?
How much from the ideas of Dee Hock and a self-organizing corporation is feasible for us?
When we achieve the tipping point in 3 weeks, will we be prepared for taking the hard choices?
For how long will I be able to keep some of my weaknesses buried?
Am I at the right track?
How strong it has to be the internal leadership to make sure all this work will be maintaned?
Do I need "A strong leadership", or a bunch of leaders?

Those and hundreds of questions keept my mind busy lately, and a mix of feelings maintained me in an emotional roller coaster.
I am sticking with my purpose clear, for me and for all. But understand the role of a consultant in your own company is something quite complex.

It is very hard to accept but I am not making my work as I should - if I were a consultant.
So it seems I´ve to define what am I, and what should I be.

When I left Finland I was warned of this issue, and at that time it was put as the difference between success and failure.

As far as I came in this process I understood that at this moment they dont need/want a consultant they need a manager. And this is not me.

Peter Senge, Keith Richards and Star Wars

2010-03-16T15:00:00.000-07:00

Image by Americans4Arts via Flickr

Interviews, Belbin Tests, Chats and .......:

I´m still missing 5 employees to interview, but after 30 I´ve to admit: - It really drains loads of energy! However this energy is not wasted, and results can already be seen. I´m really curious when we start with some action.
On Friday our big map will be ready “Polimax Joyful Challenges Map”

I decided to do not apply the Belbin Test to everyone, just the top 10 in responsibilities. (Due to their education level, and questions that they are not used to, I might do this in the future, after we´ve built teams with them, and as a trial without great expectation). How do you see this Oracle?

Being outside the normal routine of the company is an unimaginable advantage. I´m quite uncomfortable when I see so much to do, and a necessity for action now. But I know that any kind of personal action now will result in a waste of energy and I´m sure it will be inefficient. So I´m still improving my patience skills. I keep saying to myself to trust the process, and I really do, perhaps too much, but I´m quite confident in good results pretty soon.

Elton Mayo and the Humanization of a company:

The most latent issue inside our company now is the motivation of our employees, listen to them, and organize them in a way that they will keep themselves self-organized.
Elton Mayo made this research in 1930´s, and we still didn´t understand (here in our company) the amplitude of his work and how to apply it.

Summary of Mayo's Beliefs (Wikipedia):

Individual workers cannot be treated in isolation, but must be seen as members of a group.(TEAM)
Monetary incentives and good working condition are less important to the individual than the need to belong to a group.
Informal or unofficial groups formed at work have a strong influence on the behavior of those workers in a group.
Managers must be aware of these 'social needs' and cater for them to ensure that employees collaborate with the official organization rather than work against it.

A Self-organized company and the Tipping Point influence:

Image by Alex Osterwalder via Flickr

Once we´re part of a group, we´re all susceptible to peer pressure and social norms and any number of other kinds of influence that can play a critical role in sweeping us up in the beginning of an epidemic....
The spread of any new and contagious ideology also has a lot to do with the skilful use of group power... [John Wesley, founder of the Methodist religious movement,] realized that if you wanted to bring about a fundamental change in people´s belief and behaviour, a change that would persist and serve as an example to others, you needed to create a community around them, where those new beliefs could be practiced and expressed and nurtured.
- Malcom Gladwell, The Tipping Point

Changing a routine-driven company for a team/project-driven:

Show our employees the importance of teamwork, is not difficult, I will reach the difficulty when they´ll have to adapt, to listen, to dialogue and to accept.

How can I make this process easier?
How do you show people that their way maybe is not the best way?
How do you make people build a team? (working the individuals? Strengthening their personal skills and knowledge? So, are we moving for a Learning Organization? )
If this is our path... How do learning organizations look like in Brazil? Or in any other part of the world?

As deep as we go, deeper we see the necessity to go. And it seems it is a journey without turning back possibility and exactly this excites me the most.

Next post you will meet some of our employees and a little story of them, as well as the first draft of our marvellous (Polimax Joyful Challenges MAP)

Arrival & Development of Strategy

2010-03-08T01:32:00.000-08:00

Just arrived in Porto Alegre once more, and things went really smoothly. Good food, great friends and nice conversations. Tomorrow I´ll start my 6 months project in our company.

I´m starting to put a strategy down for the next 2 weeks, and need some feedback:
- Appreciative inquire of the current situation (as a mental model in the process);
- Interview (Listen our employees, and their perpective of company and challenges that we are facing);
- Mapping challenges and necessities ( graphical visualization);
- Understanding diversity and organize this diversity in teams;
- Open chat and dialogue between managers, owners and core employees;

Interview Questions:

1. Use a dependacy chart (organizational structure), to ask the employees:
1.1 Of whom do you depend to do your job?
1.2 Is it clear who you should contact in all situations? (production, payment, HR)
1.3 What is your job?

2. Problem in the company
2.1 What are the problems in the company, or in your sector?
2.2 How would you solve it?
2.3 What is your motivation to work?
2.4 What demotivates you?

3. Learning
3.1 What would you like to learn during your stay in here?
3.2 How can the company help you with your learning goal?

4. Teamwork
4.1 What is teamwork for you?
4.2 Do you think you work in a team nowadays?
4.3 Would you like to work in a team here?
4.3.1 How work in a team would change your work?
4.3.2 Do you think it would be easier?
4.3.3 Do you think it would be funnier?
4.3.4 Is it possible to have fun during at work?

Mapping challenges and necessities ( graphical visualization);

Our goal for this week is to map the problems/challenges that we have NOW in all areas:
Ask for each "sector":
- Make a list of your challenges and a description in another sheet;

Changes What would you change in your job, routine, responsabilities? What would you change in the company? (anything, everything, free to dream)

Understanding diversity and organize this diversity in teams;

Reflections about the "learning contract" and Teamwork.

It is extremely important to understand the goals of our employees and use their motivation in our favor. Developing their potentialities, building the basis for their development and bringing motivation, innovation and happines to their work.

During the interviews I´ll go deeper in this topics, and after interview it will be applied the Belbin Test, to understand how we can creat this teamwork, and the types of "players" that we have in our core team.

Creation of team for our floor employess:
Due to the lack of culture of our floor workforce, I might use representatives from their groups, and also create teams within those employees that nowadays are just working in the company.

Open chat and dialogue between managers, owners and core employees;

How much do these dialogue sessions must be prepared?
(We need a clear goal to take from those meetings and explain clearly the rules, and the goal of the dialogue that we´ll be creating.)
What else is needed to be prepared? What is important to be discussed?

Motivations took from Margaret Wheatley
Sense of urgency, exaustion and anger....

About this Blog

2010-03-07T19:03:00.000-08:00

Image by Tomer Arazy via Flickr

This Blog is my communication with the external world, that I´ve accessed during the last year.
Publishing here my steps for the next 6 months, is a strategy to update my friends about the challenges that I´m facing in Brazil, and also a channel to receive their inputs and ideas.

My name is Rogerio Gonzalez, Brazilian and 25 years old. Passed the last 6 months in Team Academy Finland and this is part of my project for the next 2 years, to prepare myself to be able to work with consultancy for small, medium size and start-up companies.

So for the next 6 months I´ll be working with my family business called Polimax (website under construction), this is a recycling plastics company with 35 employees and great challenges. After this 6 months I´m planning to go back to scandinavia, this time to Karlskrona to take part in MSLS (still waiting their reply but this is the plan).
I don´t have any experience in consultancy, so it will be a great lab for me, an opportunity that I couldn´t let go.

Thanks for your visit, and hope we can exchange some ideas.
Please also help me to create a better blog for you visitors.

I leave you with a question...

What would inspire you to visit my blog, and take part in my challenges?

Symbiosis -Life did not take over the world by combat, but by networking.-