I am
planning to produce a short free monthly ezine that will have ideas
and tools that I hope you will find useful. I will also
give some uses of the material and some ideas about possibilities. I hope to
respond to your needs and interests so this can be a useful means of two-way
communication and raise awareness of what people who are active in development
are doing and needing.
I will only send this material to people who
actively choose to have it.
What follows is a sample of the sort of thing I
hope to send. If you have any comments about what you like about it, or how to
make it better, I would be very glad to have them. This is a new venture
for me.
"Practical Developmental Ideas
Extend teamwork
When we think about team working or team
building, we usually think about a work group of four to eight people
working to a boss. Lots of organisations have invested heavily in improving
the way these teams function with good results. However, there are other areas
of team working that can also give good returns.
How about improving the way teams of two
people work together?
A very great deal of the work of an organisation happens in pairs. You could think about managers and secretaries, salespeople and customers, a researcher and her internal client, an IT professional and a customer manager for example. These relationships are common but I rarely hear of people spending time together to make them mutually rewarding. A few years ago, I sat down with my part-time secretary and invented and tested a very simple tool that works reliably.
Each of us wrote down on one piece of paper a
list of "Things I could do to help you" and "Things you could
do to help me". Then we talked to each other about what we had on each
other's lists and decided what we were going to do as a result. It was a very
easy, natural and productive conversation. The things I learned look
"obvious" in hindsight but were not at all so at the time. I learned
that I should let her know where I was going so she could find me easily
and that she was keen to do a job I had been avoiding and did not think I
could ask her to do. This chat strengthened our working relationship
too.
There is more about how to use this
on http://homepage.ntlworld.com/nick.heap/Teamoftwo.htm
I am working with a client using this tool with
pairs and small groups to develop co-operation between bosses and secretaries.
If you would like information about the way this works, please call or e-mail
me.
How about team working along systems?
All organisations have systems for doing
routine work. Sometimes they "just happen"
apparently. They work because people make them work. You can
gain much benefit by stopping from time to time and having people who work in
the system describe to each other what they do and help them see how it fits
into the whole. The results are often surprising. You may find that you can
stop doing some work altogether. I give below an example that shows what
is possible and how to proceed.
A company made ethical products from a raw
material that was variable and needed rigorous testing before it was used. It
worked in a highly regulated environment. The manager of the quality assurance
function specified the minimum requirements of the testing and results
handling process.
I interviewed the people who did the
work to find out what they did and later led a workshop where they talked
to each other. You could do this too. They discovered that they there were
several redundant steps in their system that they simply did not need to do.
They transcribed results from one form to another for different purposes and
then had to check these. Each time they transcribed and checked they
increased the possibilities of errors and this was boring work too. The
people saw this was daft and modified their forms so one form
did everything. This saved time, eliminated some work and reduced the
number of errors.
There is a bit more about this on http://homepage.ntlworld.com/nick.heap/Impsystemsbro.htm .
I also have a a detailed write up that I will send you if you
ask.
I am working with a client on a broader
approach to eliminating unnecessary work called "Work
laundry" that improving systems is part of. If you would like more
information on this, please call or e-mail me.
Feedback please
So, I hope you have found this information
interesting and in a useable form. The subjects I might cover in the
next issues are: -
Eliminating unnecessary work
Improving working relationships
Thinking tools and processes
Improving meetings
Developing your people
Are these important to you?
I am sure there are many ways to make this more
useful to you. Please let me know what you think of it, if you have time. If
you have any particular developmental interests you would like me to cover,
please let me know. I will try and respond if I can and if I don't know
anything about the subject, I will tell you.
Subscribing
To subscribe, please send me an email with
"subscribe" in the subject line. To unsubscribe at any
time, please send an email with "unsubscribe" in the subject
line. I won't pass your e-mail details to anyone else.
If you think that your friends or colleagues
would like to see this, do forward a copy on. If you have received
this from someone else, you are most welcome to subscribe.
Commercial!
I am an effective and
imaginative facilitator of change and development. I work with small
groups to help people listen to each other and work together better. My
other important work is listening to, supporting and challenging senior
people who want to change their organisations for the better. Most
of the problems that organisations have are caused by people not
listening to each other and can be solved by better listening. I can help
with this.
You will find more information about my
background and the work I do and have done on my website www.nickheap.co.uk
If you want to follow anything up you find
there or have an exploratory conversation, please give me a call me on
+44(0)1707 88653 or email info@nickheap.co.uk."
Using these materials
I am entirely happy for you to use or draw on
any these materials in any way you think will be helpful. I am keen to have my
work, and the work of the people I have learned from, used.
Please will you say where you found them? One way might be to give a link back to the web site, www.nickheap.co.uk or email info@nickheap.co.uk. This will help these positive ideas to spread, and help my business, too.
Best wishes,
Nick Heap
43 Roe Green Close
Hatfield
Herts AL10 9PD
UK
01707 886553
Web, with many resources: www.nickheap.co.uk
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