The Transition or Change Curve
During a set of change management workshops that I designed for people in different national Kazakh companies who were involved in ‘Transformation’ a couple of years ago, I used to ask who had heard of the Transition or Change Curve. And in any group of twenty-plus people only two or three hands would raise. And one of them was mine! …
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Open Space
There is one organizational development process that I have used occasionally and really wish I had been able to apply more often in my career: Open Space Technology. And why have I not been able to use it more? Well, Open Space is not for the faint hearted. Most business leaders like at least a little bit of control and …
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GAPS
I wrote in my introduction to this series of blogs about them ‘containing my ideas, thoughts, observations and helpful tools, based on my experience’. GAPS is one of those incredibly helpful tools. In the late 90s and early-to-mid Noughties when I was at Shell, I did a lot of work with the PDI consultancy, Personnel Decisions International. We were introducing …
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External or Internal Executive Coaching?
It seems that at almost every Russian or Kazakh company for which I work, I end up helping them design their Executive Coaching programme and process. I am of course more than happy to help. It’s pleasing to see Executive Coaching becoming more acceptable and mainstream, in itself a relatively new development in this part of the world. Nevertheless all …
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Development activities: a guide for individuals and their managers
I shouldn’t still be surprised, I know, but the number of line managers I continue to meet in different companies and different countries, who still only think about formal training courses for the development of their staff, (or even the individuals themselves who suggest they should follow a training course, usually in a nice location), remains almost as high as …
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70-20-10
Having worked with CCL (Center for Creative Leadership) in both Russia and Kazakhstan, who were the originators of the 70-20-10 meme for corporate learning & development many years ago (sometimes written 70/20/10 or even 70:20:10), and also being a researcher by training, it isn’t difficult to find out what the 70-20-10 originally meant and was based upon. Because I believe …
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Corporate Universities: different levels of maturity, scope and expectations
Having run the leading Corporate University in Kazakhstan and now advising one of the top Corporate Universities in Russia, both of which were under the expectation of their stakeholders that they would be developed and ‘transformed’ into something better – without these stakeholders maybe knowing exactly what that might mean – I have done a lot of research and benchmarking …
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People Bingo
One of my favourite icebreakers that I have used for people to get to know each other better, especially in new organisations, is People Bingo. There are different versions of the game, but the one that I think works best is when the people involved are (confidentially) asked by the facilitator to provide an interesting fact about themselves. These are …
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Talent Magnet
I was having lunch with somebody who used to work for me in Kazakhstan and who had recently left to join an international consulting firm. In fact I had hired him and seen him grow and develop so that he was actually heading up our HR Consultancy team before he left. A talented and modest young Kazakh man. A promising …
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Left hand column
I have written previously about the Ladder of Inference, one of my favourite tools for promoting productive conversations. https://valshebnik.com/blog/the-ladder-of-inference/ This helps us understand why we jump to conclusions, rightly or wrongly, and gives us a technique to explain our own thinking or to get others to explain their thinking to us. Another tool I learned at the same time twenty …
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