Evolutionary Provocateur Corporate Podcast
The Evolutionary Provocateur Podcast launched out of London based news portal www.management-issues.com is for executives, managers, and supervisors (OR for leaders at all levels) who have noticed that it is not what you know but who you are that has the biggest impact. Dawna Jones, the show's host, believes that by raising awareness and understanding we can make a quantum leap to a new level of innovation in business - but it has to be done collectively. What better way to do it than by provoking the evolution of how you see yourself and your role!
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Current Show: Follow the Joy-An Interview with Nick Zeniuk
If you want to find performance in an organization, follow the joy! That's the starting point for Dawna Jones' discussion with Nick Zeniuk, a former Ford executive who is now best known for his work on organizational performance and learning.
Nick argues that traditional management structures – which are all about control – are now redundant because the way that things really get done is via informal, self-organizing social networks - the antithesis of the sort of hierarchical order beloved by old-school managers.
So the role of the "new manager" must be far more to listen, understand and tap the power of these networks rather than seek to impose structure on them.
As a senior executive of Ford Motor Company, Nick Zenuik directed up to $5 billion of luxury car business and investment worldwide. His work in building the 1995-1998 Lincoln Continental, which set company performance records in multiple measures of quality, timing, and cost savings, was the subject of an MIT case study and subsequent book, Car Launch: The Human Side of Managing Change. Known for his results oriented approach, Nick's story has been featured in Fortune, Personnel Journal, Automobile and on PBS Television and National Public Radio. In addition, Nick's role in creating high performing teams through organizational learning was depicted in Working With Emotional Intelligence.
Based on his success at Ford, Nick has developed Team Learning Labs and Performance Leadership Labs. These Labs provide a facilitated process for engaging leadership to institutionalize performance through social networks. The Labs develop organizational capability for supporting, integrating and sustaining change. Nick is also the co-author of Project Based Learning and contributor to The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook and The Dance of Change. He has written numerous articles appearing in Managing the Rapids, The Systems Thinker, Reflections, and Fordˇ¦s Engineering World. After retiring from Ford in 1995, Nick began working as a consultant, executive coach, lecturer and research affiliate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also founded KINSoL (Knowledge and Innovation Network of the Society for Organizational Learning).
Show Archives:
Releasing Tacit Knowledge into the Workplace-Creating Innovation that Really Matters
With four generations in the workplace there are very different views about the source of knowledge particularly as it relates to experience. Generally the belief is the more experience you have the more knowledge you can contribute. Paying attention to this is important given the exodus of senior managers and the need to ensure knowledge transfer.
Yet the whole assessment of age and experience related knowledge ignores what we know about tacit or innate knowledge which is unique to all; it is not time dependent.
Tacit knowledge is considered to be THE most important competitive asset of the marketplace yet mention it and most people say: What?
Tacit knowledge is innate, natural know-how that is grounded in the knowledge one has gained from experience with life.
In the quest for performance overly mechanistic business cultures have devised all sorts of systems and processes to 'manage' performance which ignores or inhibits the process of natural collaboration. Secondly, many people perform according to outside expectations without realizing that their most valuable asset is their natural innate talent, one they rarely can see but others can recognize quite readily.
The secret to creating innovation that matters is embedded in two things: first gaining personal clarity that your talent is unique to you. Secondly, organizational clarity on what systems and processes unintentionally block the contribution of innate or tacit knowledge, both individually and collectively.
What does Cellular Biology have to do with corporate performance? For a six part audio interview with Dr. Bruce Lipton on how the invisible drives personal and organizational results click here.
Leadership and Self-Development
Equine Guided Leadership Development - Learning from the Horse: Masters of Heart Centered Non-Verbal Communication
Nick Zeniuk and his horse Guess have taught each other a lot. She came as a rescue horse off the track via a couple of homes. He is a retired executive from Ford. They are teaching each other how to be present, sense more than say, connect, converse by patiently learning how to communicate until they reach a place of agreement. Considering that only 7% of our conversation is actually verbal it makes sense to learn with a master of non-verbal communication...a horse. Horses are highly intuitive, and sensitive to subtle signals. They react to incongruence each in their own way and are very attentive and responsive to your energy.
The new leadership paradigms demands leaders who can listen with their senses well beyond words. Being present, increasing sensitivity, understanding how your energy impacts others, trust, and congruence are the personal qualities horses teach.
Equine assisted learning is a different way to draw out the skills that people have but have forgotten to use in the day to day rush and focus on action rather than receptivity. Leadership programs exist around the world with each horse bringing their talent to the table to match the participant's need. The original book on the subject was written by Linda Kohanov, The Tao of Equus.
Linda-ann Bowling in Langley, B.C. Canada at Equine-imity referred me to Barbara Rector in Tucson who referred me to her friends in Germany at Horse Dream and to Louanne at Horses Help in North Phoenix who referred me to Teaching Horse in Oregon.
More than leaders benefit. Youth at risk, people needing therapeutic recovery for a variety of reasons are being assisted by horses to heal, grow and attune their skills to the NOW. Barbara Rector has a facilitation training program coming up in August for those who can see themselves contributing in this way.
My dressage instructor the amazing Marcie Doyle, remembered having seen a documentary on the use of wild horses to rehab prison inmates. A quick google search turned up two exciting sites. Look under articles/equine-facilitated-learning for insight into how horses help autistic kids heal. The story of the inmate program where inmates learn how to communicate and train wild horses is another dimension to this fascinating way of learning.
The more I look at theatre and equine facilitated learning the more I am convinced that unconventional sources of learning are the best ways to get out of your mind and into the deeper level of skills mandatory for self and group leadership. This blasts open the possibilities which is super exciting and even if you have a tiny molecule of curiousity within you it is easy to get excited. More to come!
The Cowboy Credo
If you are ready to remember a time when a handshake agreement did not require a lawyer's supervision then talk to Kevin at www.americancowboy.com They put on corporate entertainment, and have some great stories to tell from the many movies they have been a part of. Whether you like horses or not, cowboys and their horses have a decency and mutual respect that is well worth remembering.
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