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Thursday, July 29, 2004

Tribal wisdom in Abandonment Retreat

THE MANILA TIMES
Business Times p.B1
Thursday, July 29, 2004
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2004/jul/29/yehey/business/20040729bus6.html

LEARNING AND INNOVATION
By Moje Ramos-Aquino
Tribal wisdom in Abandonment Retreat


THIS example from Alan Chapman of www.businessballs.com would help you further appreciate doing an Abandonment Retreat.

Confronted with a dilemma of a dead horse, people in the government, education and the business world would meet for hours or days on end, or exchange seemingly inexhaustible memos or even employ consultants and, eventually, come up with advanced strategies, such as:

• Buy a stronger whip.
• Change riders.
• Give horse and rider a good bollocking.
• Restructure the dead horse’s reward scale to contain a performance-related element.
• Suspend the horse’s access to the executive grassy meadow until performance targets are met.
• Make the horse work late shifts and weekends.
• Scrutinize and claw back a percentage of the horse’s past 12 months expenses payments.
• Appoint a committee to study the horse.
• Arrange to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride horses.
• Convene a dead horse productivity improvement workshop.
• Lower the standards so that dead horses can be included.
• Reclassify the dead horse as living-impaired.
• Hire outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
• Outsource the management of the dead horse.
• Harness several dead horses together to increase speed.
• Provide additional funding and/or training to increase dead horse’s performance.
• Do a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse’s performance.
• Declare that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses.
• Rewrite the expected performance requirements for all horses.
•And the highly effective . . . promote the dead horse to a supervisory position.

Now, get off the floor and stop laughing.

Mr. Clapman reports that tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians (so legend has it), passed on from generation to generation, simply says that, "When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount."

That is the kind of thinking or wisdom that prevails in real Abandonment Retreat. Pradeep Sindhu, the founder of Juniper Networks, says that ideas are flowing much faster now than they ever used to. Unfortunately, there are as many useful ideas floating around as there are basically useless ones. That is why it is very important that before you even embark on an Abandonment Retreat, you must define the basic direction and goals of your organization.

All the strategies mentioned above are good and useful ones (or utterly useless, in this case) depending on your corporate strategic intent. This strategic intent sets the tone and general context which should guide the thinking and creating tasks of participants in Abandonment Retreat. This strategic intent gives people the freedom to be themselves, to work with honesty, sincerity and integrity. As Randy Komisar, virtual chief executive officer says, "The authenticity with which you make decisions about your life [and your company] will lead you where you want to go."

Congratulations are in order for new Fellows in Personnel Management, namely, Efren C. Aguirre, Pinky R.A. Diokno, Ma. Loudes L. Fernando, Elenita F. Hernandez, Hector V. Hernandez, Roberto Maglalang and Lorenzo B. Ziga. Likewise to Associate Fellows Francis L. Lacson and Maribel V. Umali.

Heartfelt thanks to the Accreditation Council led by Orlando S. Zorilla, chair; Met N. Ganuelas, vice chair, and members Sally T. Estrada, Virgie B. Mendoza, Dina B. Orosa, Raffy Z. Perfecto and Roy C. Tarriela. With the addition of these energetic and brilliant new members, we are looking forward to more dynamic and assertive Society of Fellows under the presidency of Lucy C. Tarriela.

(Moje Ramos-Aquino, FPM, the president of Paradigms & Paradoxes Corp. is an active member of the Personnel Management Association of the Philippines and is a lifetime member of the Philippine Society for Training and Development. Give her feedback at moje@mydestiny.net.)

Thursday, July 22, 2004

Encouraging fresh thinking

THE MANILA TIMES
Business Times p.B1
Thursday, July 22, 2004
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2004/jul/22/yehey/business/20040722bus4.html

LEARNING & INNOVATION
By Moje Ramos-Aquino, FPM
Encouraging fresh thinking

TAKE note of the initials FPM after my name. Please share with me a personal triumph. I have just been accepted as a Fellow in Personnel Management (FPM) and I am now a member of the Philippine Society of Fellows in Personnel Management. It is the recognition that I have been yearning for all these years that I am in human resource and organization development field. It is also recognition by my peers in the profession. Kumbaga, allow me to brag, “I have arrived.”

My acceptance into this elite group of professionals brings to mind a favorite quotation of my friend Bheng Relatado. She quotes the first lady of American theater, Helen Hayes, who was taught the difference between achievement and success by her mother, “achievement is the knowledge that you have studied, worked hard and done the best, while success is the praise you earn from others. Achievement is fulfilling—success is motivating.”

So, whenever I sign my name now, I shall always proudly affix to it the initials of professionalism—FPM. I can now stand proudly beside the likes of Noli Payos, Orly Zorilla, Met Ganuelas, Lina Azeneta, Virgie Men¬doza, Sally Estrada, Dina Orosa, Lucy Tarriela, Mon Medina, Ernie Espinosa, No¬nong Contreras, and many other highly esteemed pillars of human resource management and development here in our country.

Being a Fellow is not just sporting the initials, though. It entails a lot of responsibilities that call for adherence to lofty ethical standards, commitment to excellence, a passion for continuous learning and taking pride in the profession. I shall always remind myself with the words of author Stephen Ambrose (Nothing Like It in the World) that the past is a source of knowledge and the future is the source of hope.

It will take a long time and lots of hard work, but I am gearing up to becoming Diplomate in Personnel Management (DPM) and join the trio of King Doromal, Tito imperial and Orly Peña.

Now going back to our Abandonment Retreat, being a Fellow also means rejecting, not just knowing, those thoughts, ideas, feelings, behaviors and attitudes that signals, in two words, unprofessional and counterproductive. Achieving and being successful also means getting unstuck. Keith Yamashita, principal at Stone Yamashita Partners, says, “There is no voodoo to how to get unstuck. It’s about taking actions every day in a sensible way with a little bit of creativity and invention.”

Abandonment Retreat encourages fresh thinking. In their book Retreats that Work, authors Sheila Campbell and Merianne Liteman suggest the use of Wide Open Thinking which sparks associations that can help the group solve old problems in new ways.

“Using the names of organizations that have lots of character and personality, participants work in silence and write ideas on Post-it notes. How would this organization go about solving this problem?

“For instance, if the problem were how to speed up processing time in the accounting department, and someone has the CIA on his list, he might write, ‘Give rewards when somebody spies accounting employees doing something helpful to speed up the process,’ which could be a good idea. He might also write, ‘Give them truth serum to find out what the real problems are.’ Now, that’s an outlandish idea, but ridiculous ideas not only acceptable but very valuable at this stage of the process. When participants run out of inspiration from the first organization on their lists, they should move on to the next one, generating as many ideas as possible.”

Then, participants share their ideas and post them on flip charts. They work to find the kernels of great ideas that emerge from the bizarre ones. This is definitely a fun way to find ways to address long-standing problems.

Abandonment Retreat is not a one-off activity. It is regular meetings, in-house and off-site, until every product, service, process, market, distribution channel, customer and end-use has been examined and decisions made about what to do with them such as retain as is, improve or totally renounce. Yes, this is going to be tedious and painful but Chris Doyle, vice president at Altrec.com, prods “Pain is a good learning tool.”

Becoming a Fellow does not end in the Investiture; it is a continuing journey to more successes.

(Moje, the president of Paradigms and Paradoxes Corp., is an active member of the Personnel Management Association of the Philippines and a lifetime member of the Philippine Society for Training and Development. Her email address is moje@mydestiny.net)

Thursday, July 15, 2004

Abandonment retreat

THE MANILA TIMES
Business Times p.B1
Thursday, July 15, 2004
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2004/jul/15/yehey/business/20040715bus7.html

LEARNING & INNOVATION
By Moje Ramos-Aquino
Abandonment retreat

WHENEVER I talk about Abandonment Retreat (AR), I notice that people get uncomfortable. I read emotions of either sadness, panic, anxiety, shock, aghast, confusion, disgust, fear, caution, being overwhelmed, bored, surprised, suspicion, or even mischief or guilt suddenly cover their face. No way, Jose!

Understandably because doing so represents a break in tradition. Traditions are usually etched in memory and in the heart. I am sure that you still have tons of pictures chronicling your life from when you were born to your latest experience. They are neatly tucked into photo albums collecting dust in the living room or forgotten in your closets together with other memorabilia. When you are gone, who will look at them? Yet, you cling to them and wouldn’t even think of getting rid of them.

How many pieces of clothing, shoessesses and many others, do you have that you don’t anymore use? It’s time for general cleaning or, as in a new business parlance, an Abandonment Retreat.

In managing change, concentration is given to the transition—that awkward gap between the now and then, the present and the future, the old and the new, the last one and the next, the here and there, the letting go and the coming to terms—because it is considered crucial to the success of any new initiative.

Let us focus on the now first and do an Abandonment Retreat. Richard Bolles, author of What Color is Your Parachute reminds, “You want to take action every day, not sit around waiting for something to happen.”

Shiela Campbell and Merianne Liteman, authors of Retreats that Work, started the idea of ARs in the workplace. They emphasize the one important requirement before going into an AR is that your organization needs to be very clear about your strategic intent and direction, i.e., your organization vision, mission, values and goals (VMVG). It is also critical the AR participants are clear about this VMVG to guide them which way your organization is heading and more importantly which direction it is renouncing. This will enable all participants to march to the same beat, row to the same direction. “This important discussion is key because it helps clarify the activities that will really get the organization where it’s going and those that are marginal.”

In an AR, participants examine processes, not people. They decide where a process contributes to the achievement of your VMVG and adds value to your customers and your organization. If you look purposefully around your work station, you will see a lot of materials, tools, equipment, supplies, etc. that are part of a process that have already served their useful time. These items occupy a lot of expensive real estate and they clutter your space and your mind. Most often they impede your creativity. It will be a waste not to use these items; hence, you stick to the old system and you waste more.

Take your hiring process as an example. This comprises defining competencies and results expected of that particular job, selecting mode and channel of making known your job opening, initial screening, application forms, interviews, shortlisting, selection, hiring on probationary status, orientation, training and regularization.

There is no law that prevents you from hiring your own friends, family and relatives or their friends, family and relatives, too. However, if they are not qualified and don’t have the proper motivation, it could be costly to be hiring, training and eventually keeping or firing them.

Cut the vicious cycle by examining your entire hiring process and philosophy with the intent of abandoning those areas that are not serving your VMVG well.

Karen Beckwith, vice president of Ceridian Corp., advises, “Just because you made the choice once doesn’t mean you have to live with it forever.”

(Moje Ramos-Aquino, the president of Paradigms & Paradoxes Corp., facilitates organization and human resources development initiatives. Please email her your feedback at moje@mydestiny.net)

Thursday, July 8, 2004

Letting go through an abandonment retreat

THE MANILA TIMES
Business Times p.B1
Thursday, July 8, 2004
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2004/jul/08/yehey/business/20040708bus7.html

LEARNING & INNOVATION
By Moje Ramos-Aquino
Letting go through an abandonment retreat

“INSANITY,” according to international idol Albert Einstein, “is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” He also said, “The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.”

To continue your Journey on Entrepreneurship, let’s focus on the idea of “abandonment retreats” or “validation retreats” if you may, in order for you to encourage fresh thinking, to streamline your processes and to become resource efficient.

Most planning, problem solving/decision making and change management workshops you do are more the validation retreat type with emphasis on what works and what else to do. Participants add new programs or activities to their current ones. In such meetings, nobody dares to question the effectiveness of current programs. If at all, they are just ignored and silence is taken as an affirmation that the status quo can persist. Like sending memos to one and all. As Sunny Vanderbeck, co-founder of Data Return Corp., says, “You already know the answers. You just don’t want to hear them from yourself.” And so the organization does the same things over and over again with great expectations of better results.

Let’s consider how people usually feel, think and react to change: We’ve always done things this way and we’ve been successful. I’ve been in this company since its founding and I know what works and what doesn’t work. We have limited resources. We tried that before. Blah, blah, blah.

In validation retreats, people gear up to protect their comfort zones and come up with all sorts of justification or rationalization. Everybody simply continues to dig in his or her heels and want to hold on to what’s familiar. Just like the trapeze artist whose hardest problem is not grabbing hold of the new trapeze as it swings within reach but letting go of the one she’s already gripping.

Robert Sutton, professor at Stanford Engineering School, reminds us that the only thing that is more important than optimism is the capacity to pull the plug on a bad idea.

In their presentation at ASTD 2004, Retreats that Work authors Sheila Campbell and Merianne Liteman said that you gather together representatives from all key areas of your company to an off-site meeting for an abandonment retreat. There, you “put everything on the table with the ultimate goal of eliminating those aspects of your operations that are holding your company back - even if they worked for you in the past. In an abandonment retreat, which by its nature requires people to relinquish their comfort zones, resistance almost goes without saying.”

They gave these tips for handling resistance.

• The first step is to encourage resistance to emerge throughout the retreat. Invite dissenting views frequently and have the group consider what objections are communicating about the feasibility of some of the proposed changes.

• If you sense that people are reacting to the fear of loss, ask the whole group (not just those resisting change) to identify what’s important to them, what they want to keep. This may help reassure resisters that not everything they care about will disappear.

• If resistance asserts itself just as the discussion is winding down and decisions are near, don’t dismiss it as coming too late. Eleventh-hour resistance may mean the participant is doing you and the others a favor. In this case, it’s better to address it openly than to force participants to deal with it back at the office, where it can derail the effort to implement what they worked so hard throughout the retreat to accomplish.

Next column, we’ll discuss the other “how to’s” of abandonment retreats.

(Moje is the president of Paradigms & Paradoxes Corp. that helps organizational initiatives such as strategic thinking and planning, management of change, learning and innovation, human resource development and teambuilding. Her email address is moje@mydestiny.net)

Thursday, July 1, 2004

The evolution of memo making

THE MANILA TIMES
Business Times p.B1
Thursday, July 1, 2004
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2004/jul/01/yehey/business/20040701bus7.html

LEARNING & INNOVATION
By Moje Ramos-Aquino
The evolution of memo making

TIME was when you needed to talk to somebody, you do it face-to-face. It only costs you time.

Then, when you had to put your memo in long handwriting, you only prepare one for your one and only recipient and one for your file. You choose your recipient very carefully. Consider the cost of your time, one scroll, gum eraser and some ink.

Then, when you had the manual typewriter, you prepared one original and 2 to 4 carbon copies. Other than the major recipient, you choose 2 to 4 others, who may not even know the real intent of your memo. One small mistake in typing and you had to redo the whole memo. Also, you didn’t want to send a memo with eraser smudges. You used about 20 bond papers for a one-page memo, carbon papers and typewriter ribbon, filing cabinet, office space, staff and executive time. Or when you spotted a mistake and asked the typist to retype the whole memo, your costs doubled.

Then came the electric typewriter and liquid or tape paper eraser and you prepare more copies and send to more recipients who don’t know why they receive the copy. They reply and you reply and they reply and you reply, and so on and so forth.

You use about 50 bond papers, carbon papers, liquid paper eraser, printer ribbon and electricity, bigger table, in-and-out box, more filing cabinets, bigger office space, not to mention your time and staff time.

Then came the stencil printer and you produce a lot more copies and send to as many recipients. You spend bond papers, stencil, ink, the stencil machine, electricity, bigger table, bigger in/out box, more filing cabinets, bigger office space, electricity, staff time and your precious, precious time. You needed to hire a stencil operator and allocated a budget for repair and maintenance.

Then came the electric typewriter with memory and you became more emboldened to prepare even more copies and send to even more recipients. Imagine the resources required.

Then came the personal computer and copying machine and you had a feast making voluminous copies of your memo and send to many more recipients. Then, you also went into a copying frenzy and make copies of everything. You thought it was cheap.

Now we have the e-mail that allow us to send just about any written thing or graphics to thousands of recipients using a short simple process. All of the above costs plus lots of wasted executive and staff time retrieving, reading and replying to all e-mails.

Questions:
1. Who should receive your memo?
2. How and when do you want your recipients to respond to your message?
3. Do you really need to prepare and send that memo? Won’t a simple phone call or a short hop to the next office/cubicle have the same, if not better, impact?

At the ASTD 2004 Conference and Exhibition, authors Sheila Campbell and Merianne Liteman say, “you know something’s not right in your company. How do you even begin the challenging process of figuring out what you’re doing right so you could build on that, and what you’re doing wrong so you can get rid of the junk that’s bogging you down?”

They mentioned that the management guru Peter Drucker “advises companies to embrace a policy of Organized Abandonment—to put every product, every service, every process, every market, every distribution channel, every customer, and end-use on trial for its life.”

Let’s discuss how to go on an Abandonment Retreat with tips from the book, Retreats that Work by Campbell and Liteman.

Moje, the president of Paradigms & Paradoxes Corp., assists companies in their strategic thinking and planning, learning and innovation and HR, and organization development initiatives. Please send your feedback to moje@mydestiny.net