Here’s an observation I’ve made in all the places I’ve worked:

The problems are usually not about systems, or how the company is organized, or marketing strategy.  The kinks in most businesses are found in the individuals that work there!!!! and it’s usually about those “soft” skills – communication, openness to honest feedback, a self-esteem that welcomes newness and growth.

What happens when you have a manager who does not listen?… if she ever visits your office, it is to tell you something. She interrupts, she glances at her watch, her eyes glaze over about the same instant she stands up and heads for the door. The result:  disgruntled employees, inefficiency, resentment.  I’ve heard that people join companies, but they leave managers.

I first became interested in coaching because in my last management position, things weren’t going well and I didn’t know why. I needed someone to walk through it with me, analyzing the problems and helping me to improve some methods and skills. Later, when I learned about coaching, I thought, “Wow! If I had only had a business coach, I could have improved sooner and saved myself a lot of time and trouble. Then I began working with a coach and became a believer.

#46

 I’ve come to understand there’s only one
prayer that works:  “May You Know God’s Will For You.”
Another way to say this prayer that’s fun?
“May sexual potency increase pour vous.”
It may seem to be wasted on Rudies.
I’d argue differently.  The lies on their brains
need the healing blue-flame sex for booties
in dire need of Star Goddess love!  Rains
of desire and joyous release can cleanse
so much detritus left by hate binges,
their rages toward projections of offense
taken by one’s mere existence.  Hinges
may come off the doorframes, and high time too!
Then clear ground can sprout innocence anew.

#47

Could this Great Unraveling of collective
consciousness ready us for Grand Separation
much like Sorting Hat, viewing paths objective
for the budding and eager magician
sitting under its ancient circumference
and determining whether Gryffindor
or Slytherin for talents’ emergence?
Witnessing hatred’s blazing, mad tinder
that finds exaltations most public, screened
by millions these days, I can’t but wonder
whether there is information’s being gleaned
from each, as humanity asunder
is torn and passions pull Moms here, mothers
there, to create new worlds with new brothers…

#48

 O.K.  Each day I sit in cubicle
hell, wait for bosses to give me the work
I’m paid to accomplish.  The cynical
path’s temptations call to me.  Yes, they lurk
inside micromanagers’ nervous eyes,
or inside stealthy psychopaths, vEmpire’s
heroes, in ruthless conquistador guise
plund’ring riches, necronomic fire.
Our children’s untapped vigor, streams wealth
from futures once bright, now mortgaged away
may stir yet, sleeping giant mental health
in a rush en masse, and sunlight warm, slays
these soulless bloodsuckers, poof! Combust!
Yea, dreams of jubilee!!! …
                                                   Still. Type.  I must.

 (“Hello, thank you for calling Fear, Misery
LLP.  Where we believe that grey’s CHEERY!”)

While a falling percentage of employees see their workplaces as efficient, they’re generally a happy lot, a new survey suggests.

The global study, Towers Perrin’s Workplace Watch for the second quarter of 2009, finds that 58 per cent of the people surveyed believe that their company’s current structure makes conducting business efficient ? a drop of 16 percentage points from the first quarter of this year.

And 73 per cent of those surveyed feel their company works continually to ensure processes “are as efficient as possible” ? down from 81 per cent in the first quarter.

The consulting firm attributes the change in perception to several factors.

First, many companies have stopped promoting their efficiency to the staff. Secondly, many employees feel underutilized in their organizations. And lastly, with management tiers restructured in many companies, and jobs not re-allocated, fewer decisions are being made at a senior level, leading to less efficiency within the workplace.

Despite these findings, the study finds that employee morale is still high. Sixty-three per cent of the study’s participants say that they are able to balance both work and their personal lives, an increase from 55 per cent in the first quarter.

And employees are backing their companies: 87 per cent say they support their company’s values, and 84 per cent say they feel proud to be associated with their company.

Only 12 per cent report they are considering leaving their firm, though 21 per cent say it would not take a lot for them to seek other employment.

The second-quarter survey, done through online questionnaires, polled 610,000 employees worldwide in 69 companies. It was conducted April 2009 through June 2009.

Accounting, finance jobs becoming available in NashvilleFormer Cossette executive bids for firm

While working on my project about the elderly, I continued shooting for “Panorama”. The recession is in the U.S. so much more present and worse than in Europe.It is impossible how many stores are abandoned here.

I decided to continue my series about personal decorated workplaces “Elvis and my Family”. Two days ago I cycled around and found close to my house this Photo Store. The photographer, an old Turkish man owns this shop now for 30 years. We talked for a while about photography and as Goodbye he gave me a banana.

Local authority staff will impose fines on those breaking the ban

Turkey has extended an existing ban on smoking in public places to all bars, cafes and restaurants.

The ban has come into force despite opposition from some bar and cafe owners who fear losing business.

It comes after the government banned smoking from most enclosed public spaces in May last year in an effort to improve the nation’s health.

Turkey has more than 20 million smokers but polls suggest 95% of people support the ban.

“We are working to protect our future, to save our youth,” said Health Minister Recep Akdag.

Anyone caught lighting up in a designated smoke-free area faces a fine of 69 liras ($45:£28) while bar owners who fail to enforce the ban could be fined from 560 liras for a first offence up to 5,600 liras.

Local authorities have hired thousands of extra staff to track down smokers and impose the fines.

Many people in Istanbul said they thought the ban was a good move.

“We were being destroyed in the places where you were allowed to smoke inside,” said Istanbul cafe patron Hanife Demirm.

“I was choosing the non-smoking places automatically, but after the ban is extended I will not need to be selective. I’ll be very comfortable in every place that I go,” he told the AP news agency.

‘Unnecessary stress’

Turkey is one of the world’s heaviest smoking countries

But the BBC’s David O’Byrne in Istanbul says many Turkish people see the ban as an erosion of their democratic rights and have called for bars to be able to apply for a smoking licence.

Some cafe owners have also said they were concerned the ban would drive away customers.

“They will simply leave and never come back, or we would get in trouble for letting them smoke,” said Istanbul cafe owner Selahattin Nar.

“Then both we and they would be filled with unnecessary stresses. In the end they will not be able to relax and we will have to shut down.”

But Mr Akdag said there was no reason for cafe and bar owners to be worried about a drop in trade.

“The public supports a smoke-free environment and the only ones to suffer will be the cigarette producers and sellers,” he said.

A no smoking rule has been in place for the past 15 months in government offices, workplaces, shopping malls, schools and hospitals.

All forms of public transport, including trains, taxis and ferries, are also affected but there are exemptions for special zones in psychiatric hospitals and prisons.

The sign-ups from workplaces arer “smoking along” even if one of them is well & truly smokefree – welcome to the Quit Group, who have just signed up. Joining them are the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services, Victoria University – School of Social and Cultural Studies and Vicbooks -  Victoria University Book store.

Vic students are working hard to make Victoria a fair trade university, there are already several places to find a fair trade coffee there.

It is great to have signed up some new Wellington workplaces as fairtrade workplaces: congratulations to Office Max, the NZ International Arts Festival, Museum of Wellington, UNICEF and Pacific Press who have all signed up since our campaign began.

If your workplace, school, community group or church is using fair trade products in the cafetaria, staff room and catering for meetings, then you can also sign up as a fair trade workplace and help show that Wellington really is going fair trade… Go to our Fair Trade Communities page to read more

Atelier Neudecker – My Workplaces

…a rock and a hard place…

how I spent my vacation….

…into the purple valley…

Guide Shows How To Transform Workplaces For Less

Morgan Lovell has uploaded ‘Ten Affordable Ways to Re-Design Your Office’, a free online guide to transforming workplaces on a tight budget. The guide is packed with ideas to create motivational offices that aid productivity and save money.

The guide covers the benefits of going open-plan, methods to reduce the amount of filing and storage, pointers on how to make energy savings and the merits of a design and build approach. It also includes ideas on saving money on furniture, making the most of breakout spaces and how clever space planning can stretch budgets.

An interesting post here from Idris Mootee on how social media can by-pass hierarchies and sources of inertia as a communications/ dialogue and collaboration channels. As he points out, its the smart companies that get this, which I take to really mean the smart managers, executives and people – afterall, it can be one thing to set up the infrastructure but the quality of what happens is down to the people. But of course, social media appears to be a mechanism to realise the rhetoric.

This is reflected in the specifics for HR by Graeme Martin here. Altho’ the potential of social media as inherently democratic is a debatable one. Also, as this article here makes clear, technology is an enabler – a major enable – of such sociability, but is not a necessity.

Wow, I finally have a blog!  Below are some of my pictures from my Easter project, in which I document the recession.

Woolworth, Elephant and Castle, London 2009

Pharmacy, Elephant and Castle, London 2009

Cafe, Kilburn, London 2009

Pizzeria, Hackney, London 2009

Real Estate Agent, Leyton, London 2009

Shop, London 2009

Insurance Office, Hackney, London 2009

I feel that these empty spaces embody the disaster our society is experiencing at the moment. Of particular interest were for me abandoned premises, in which one finds traces of the occupier before. Some of the premises seem as if they just have closed down or were left in a hurry. Vestiges as furniture, left products or decoration allow the viewer to reflect on the previous use of the displayed space and on the daily routines, which might have taken place. Signs and slogans remind of good times but also indicate some (last) attempts to advertise service or products (“Buy one get one free”, “Your No. 1 Local Agent”). However, the future of these premises (and therefore also of the people) remains not clear. They seem to be in a state in between, laying there and waiting, that something happens and revives them.

Instead of focusing on individual fates I rather document in an unemotional and almost fact stating way. My style is inspired by deadpan photography in which the photographer attempts to be more descriptive than subjective. In order to present all premises also as naturalistic as possible they are systematically taken from a straight vantage point. Instead of capturing specific objects and details (close-ups) the whole space is shown. Through a certain distance it is intended to make the viewer not part of the scene and to allow him/her to stay as detached and critical as possible. Without being sentimental he/she is encouraged to reflect on the recession and the fates, which are inevitable attached to these empty spaces.

In 2025, every individual in every organization uses their own personal computer for both personal and work applications. Almost all information is Web-based, with organizations’ proprietary information only accessible through authorization software. E-mail has disappeared, replaced by a virtual presence application that includes instant messaging, screensharing, voice/videoconferencing, filesharing, calendaring, tasklists.

The KM department still manages the purchase of external information, though almost all information in 2025 is free; information producers have realized that their business model is to apply that information to specific customers’ business environment, in consulting assignments, rather than trying to sell publications. Most of the mainstream media were nationalized after they went bankrupt using their traditional business models, and now operate as public services.

Most of what the KM department does now is trying to facilitate more effective conversations among people within the organization and with people outside the organization, including customers. They facilitate many meetings that use the virtual presence application, especially those that involve more than five people. That facilitation includes organizing the meeting, distributing advance materials, facilitating the discussion (conflict resolution, staying on schedule etc.), and even recording, editing and publishing the meeting as appropriate. They run courses in effective conversation, meeting and presentation skills.

I am a great admirer of Dave Pollard’s thought provoking posts, so I really don’t have anything to add to this one.

Read Dave Pollard’s post

I had answered on LinkedIn, quite a few weeks ago, a question about Women in the workplace. Thought Iwould share it here.

The Question

Girls, girls, girls

Image via Wikipedia

Since time immemorial there’s been a debate about why women are not in leadership positions. I just answered a question but thought I’d like to throw this into the debate. It’d be great not to add why you don’t think it doesn’t happen because that just keeps the status quo the way it is. Rather, let’s change things. If you a woman and want to get into leadership then what are you going to do about it? Take charge and blame no one. And if you’re in business, how are you going to get quality, brilliant women into your workplace at senior levels so that the ratio is equal to men?

My response to a question about women and leadership.

From my experience it’s got nothing to do with management models. Its women themselves. Many lack the courage to do what th

ey really want to and they believe the rhetoric they hear. That’s sad. And then worst of all then this all gets regurgitated and men are blamed. We girls have to stand up and be counted and know that we can do it, that it is hard work and not whinge (even a little bit) because we are the only ones who can change things. And MOST of all we have to stop blaming other things for the percentage of women being in leadership positions.

My Answer:

I have dealt with this issue both, in India and abroad, about women having equal positions in key leadership roles and here’s my take.

Several times, I have seen organizations do the math, and figure out that they have x% women in frontlines, sub-x% in management ranks and way below x% in the leadership team, and then wonder why this is so.

I think the issues are a little larger than just numbers.

I am largely going to speak about the Indian context because that’s where I have practiced the most, however, some of it may apply to other contexts as well.

Most Leadership team members are about 40+ years of age, which means they would have passed out of college about 20 years ago. 20 years ago, the %age of women who graduated out of MBA colleges and engineering colleges, in India, was miniscule. So the pool of women from which one can draw, for leadership positions is itself very small.

The large number of wom

en in frontline positions in India is a recent (decade old) phenomenon and we should see some impact of this, in terms of higher numbers of women in leadership positions in about 5-10 years’ time.

2 of India’s banks have the largest number of women in senior leadership positions. Not surprising, since banking was a career that most women were encouraged to take up back in the 70s and 80s. So was teaching and hence no surprises that a lot of principals and heads of department are women.

So first off, I believe we must recognize, the importance of the input factor in terms of numbers.

Second, even in organizations where there is a stated intent for a ge

nder balanced workforce, there are unconscious filters at play. The old boy network, selection of people who’re like me, gender biases, are all at play

. I have yet to come across an organization where the promotion committee has a defined process to “watch-out” for these blocks, in order to ensure ge

nder balance.

Next, women have to stop behaving like victims,but at the same time, not get into either persecutor mode or I’ll match you mode. The whole argument for diversity gets defeated, when women start playing the game the way men do, and start adopting the same rules.

I have several times come across strong women, who have grown up the hierarchy, only to realize that they have acquired the traits of men. I am extremely saddened when I see this (and I see it quite often).

It is indicative of a failure of the

system. A system which espouses the cause of women but continues to reward masculine behaviours, as a result leaving little choice for women, but to adopt those behaviours, if they are to succeed. This leading to a complete negation to the unique flavour that women bring to the workplace, and thereby nullifying the advantages of that diversity.

Somewhere,there have to be collective dialogs between men and women about how the workplace can be gender balanced, not in terms of numbers (which seems to be the current focus) but in terms of systems, processes, reward mechanisms, facilitative mechanisms for women and men, in terms of organization culture.

I appreciate what you say about women will have to stop whining and stand up to the challenge, and I see a lot of that happening, however they cannot win this journey alone. Men have to be included in it, and change decisions and journeys have to be taken together.

As long as macho workplaces continue, women will have no choice but to toughen up and become pseudo-men. That serves nobody. And women who comply get labelled as bitches (pardon the french) and the ones who don’t get labeled as wimps and cry-babies.

I have met a number of women, who don’t hire women into their teams because women will get pregnant, because they’re too emotional and can’t handle stress/pressure. And that’s another issue!

The last time I had a dialog with an organization, we realized that women face different challenges from men. And we identified 2 clear inflection points in a woman’s life (which might be more socially relevant to India) which lead to a drop-out from work/career.

1. When they get married (especially if they’re living in a joint-family), the pressure on the woman to manage home, the expectations of the in-laws, husband and work, make it extremely difficult. Nothing changes for the man. But for the woman, she suddenly has to do that much more in the same 24 hours day. Can we set up counselling for the woman and he husband to be, so that this can be discussed, and ways found for both of them, to help the woman manage more easily, this transition, and for the husband to share the load?

2.Motherhood. Similar to above, the woman’s world changes when she becomes a mother. And it’s more than just time. The emotional bond to the child and the internal conflict about giving time to the child while at the same time having to focus on her career.Once again,counselling at this stage would be very valuable and would help a woman deal with it much better.

It is in such directions that we must apply ourselves. Affirmative action, reservations, mandatory enforcement of gender balance. Will only lead to enforced compliance and not a change in attitude, spirit and culture.

So what are your thoughts? I would love to know.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Queen Bees, Sexism, and Human Resources (punkrockhr.com)
• Preoccupations: A Sisterhood of Workplace Infighting (nytimes.com)

It was 30 degrees. The cool water lapped around my feet. I sat on my desk, naked, drilling a pen into a pencil sharpener. I grimaced. Plastic shavings scattered my thighs.

The water poured in. My office was a reservoir of floating stationery. Bright cardboard folders drifted past. Foolscap paper sheets collided, floated apart, then reformed. Paperclips glided to safety in desk-tidy lifeboats.

I kicked to splash the ankle-deep water. My toenails were crude and jagged where I ripped them instead of cutting them. I’m so lazy. My arse felt heavy on the desktop, spread out like a sack of fish.

The room was only a fifth full. Maybe a sixth. I followed the line of the blinds to the suspended ceiling and tried to work out how tall the room was. People looked at me from office windows on the other side of the street. I should have felt self-conscious of my fat thighs, my insignificant penis, my significant man boobs. But I didn’t.

I realised all they could see was a man on the twentieth floor, naked, on a table. The window was their TV screen.; they couldn’t see the water yet. There was so much they couldn’t see: the pipe it took several hours to sever; the tools I stole from Homebase; the bruises I got fighting off a security guard; his blood on my shirt; the masses of plastic binbags and tape to stop the water seeping to the floor below; the seething anger at my pathetic life; the burning pain in my stomach. There was so much they couldn’t t see from their dry, sterile, corporate prison.

A stapler curled past, half submerged but floating, and I wondered if it was intentionally designed with just enough plastic to stop it sinking to the bottom. Which, incidentally, was where the water had reached. It seeped around my testicles. I shivered, but was no colder than the now-underwater desk.

If the water had been any warmer, I would have probably have got an erection. And I would have gone to my watery grave wanking opposite a windowful of office droids. As it was, every bit of me shrank. The lake, filthy from dust and skin, crept up my body. It sometimes tickled, and I laughed. The water reached the window pane: the office workers, in their summer shirts and indoor shades, screamed in hysteria.

I had to plan this next bit. As the water reached my chin, I had to do two things. First: hook my fingers under the lip of the desktop to stop me from floating to the top of the room. The second was to take a big breath, to buy me enough seconds to savour the last moments of this miserable life.

If I hadn’t swallowed a rogue toenail, I would have done that. Instead, I choked as the deluge swamped my face. I thrashed thinking a folder was poking my neck. But I kept choking and I somersaulted in the water. I felt embarrassed at my arse being on show out of the window. Talk about horses bolting.

I coughed heavy and hard. Water seized my windpipe and my lungs swelled. And for a short moment, in slow motion, I faced the window, at my assembled crowd twenty stories high, and mouthed a message.

Help.

Help me. I’m drowning.

I’m naked and I’m drowning. I can see my suit in the corner, wading through the murk like a bespoke jellyfish.

Faces pressed against glass. Someone phoning. Others pointing upwards, frantically pointing upwards.

Up. Towards the suspended ceiling.

I vomited brown watery puke and my eyes stung. My limbs relaxed and I knew there was no up. I reached to touch the window, to signal a goodbye for my imprisoned droid audience in the office opposite. I imagined darkness enveloping me, like it does at the end of books.

My arm rested on a piece of metal. It felt like a lever. I had no weight, but it gave easily. The window snapped open as though it was waiting for the invitation.

I escaped my office that day. Naked and flailing, I escaped. And the dry, sunbaked pavement hissed as an office-full of water and its contents hit it at force.

written by bionicmatthew (c) 2009

The fog of fear

If we are coming to a crisis point on this planet, (and I believe that we are, but I also believe that crisis can be a catalyst for change), then reductive, linear ways of thinking are not going to deliver the transformation we need (Well, have they, yet?). For transformation on a planetary scale we may be required to create a bigger context than just you, just me, just your workplace.

A social network is non-linear. But is it an ecology?

The ‘ecologies’ of networks

Network Citizens (available as a pdf download from Demos) reports on the shift of power created by social networking and the rise of ‘network citizens’, who no longer respect hierarchical and bureaucratic structures.

The Network of Public Sector Communicators (NZ) blog has this to say about networks and public sector agencies:

Many public sector agencies view access to social networks, the likes of Facebook, Twitter and – incomprehensibly – LinkedIn, with what can only be described as either fear or deep suspicion. Some of them even go so far as to block access …As if, in the minds of the people that think blocking access to these sites will make people more productive (or protect them from themselves…), there is some sort of impermeable divide between what we do at work and who we are.

The message is clear. Understand the change that is happening inside your agencies. Ensure that you provide people the sorts of tools that will allow them to develop professionally and to invest and grow their social capital. Attempts to restrict the ability of your staff to build their networks (online or off) will only result in a disengaged workforce. (Networked Citizens)