Change Management Made Easy
In this ever-changing economy, businesses often find themselves in a constant state of flux. This often leaves employees in a lurch either rushing to adapt or refusing to change. Change management is a hard thing for any individual to swallow. Getting an entire company on the same page progressing towards any modification can be a daunting task. Lionel Wijesiri in a recent article shared some advice from Erika Andersen, a Management Consultant and Author: Identify the problem clearly and convey the problemun ambiguously. If the predicament is unclear, arguments may arise over what needs to be changed. To communicate adequately, call a strategic planning meeting for all your key employees. At the beginning of the meeting, state exactly what the dilemma is. For example, if sales have decreased for your product or service, is it due to poor customer service, a change in marketing strategy, or a manufacturing error? Once the issue is identified and all parties involved understand what area needs focus. Educate everyone on the history of the problem. When did it begin? How many times did it happen? Perhaps the problem has only happened once or twice. On the other hand, if it is an issue that [...] Read More
Testimonial – Six Sigma related
Last month I facilitated a Village Mapping exercise at the major global engineering/construction company that employs me. The objective was to develop a plan for implementing a knowledge transfer program in our biggest division. The division is facing the loss of a great deal of engineering knowledge because of retirements in the next few years. The mapping exercise helped the team look beyond immediate tactical concerns and understand the nature of relationships among the many organizational functions with a stake in knowledge transfer. One major ‘aha’ was how many functions the knowledge transfer process touches that have not been involved in the program heretofore. The result of the exercise was the creation of a basis for a longer range plan to ensure the success of the program. This was not strictly speaking a Six Sigma initiative, but the mapping model does incorporate many of the concepts employed by the Six Sigma methodology. It deploys a systematic, team-based approach to defining the current process, identifying problems and opportunities embedded in the process, and visualizing creative solutions to streamline the process. It also highlights the importance of quality communication and control measures that satisfy the requirements of critical internal customer and stakeholder [...] Read More
Employee engagement
An interesting new ebook titled The Engaged Employee states that “Companies with high engagement experience more than 5% in operating margin and more than 3% in net profit margin as compared to those companies with low employee engagement.” http://www.kaptasystems.com/resources/Employee_Engagement_ebook.pdf Metaphor Mapping is a great tool for employee engagement in that it provides a easy mechanism for involving employees in strategy setting, where they can efficiently bring their experience and perspectives to bear on matters critical to company success. Read More March Update on the world of Metaphor Mapping
Application areas: During March, Metaphor Mapping was used to facilitate group meetings in Morocco, Jordan, Serbia, Moldova, Lebanon and the Philippines. Meeting sponsors were looking for ways to establish new structures, processes and habits for organization operations – to enable them to develop innovative solutions to address significant change, and to build ownership for joint goals. They needed to build effective teams to address critical priorities. The workshop sessions addressed an array of specific issues including: developing strategies to improve elements of national security, public safety organization improvement and process optimization. Metaphor Mapping was employed as the workshop vehicle in each case. This innovative method is best described as a new twist on the proven strategy development technique of assessing the current state of a situation, visioning an ideal state and developing an action plan. Its uniqueness is the extraordinarily high degree of openness and interaction it provokes and the creativity and ownership it generates through use of visual metaphors and sticker symbols. In each case the sponsor’s objectives were met in a single day session. In spite of not having worked closely together before, in each case the groups became highly energized and began developing the emotional bonds that [...] Read More
Library Categories
- Library (48)
- eBooks (5)
- Intro to Metaphor Mapping (4)
- Case Studies (8)
- Metaphor Languages (9)
- Training and Tutorials (5)
- Gamification (2)
- Applications of Metaphor Mapping (3)
- Creativity (3)
- Change Management (5)
- Metaphor Mania (9)
- Photos (1)
- News (4)
Call Us
Tel: +1 720 233 8946
Email Us
Copyright © 2011 Metaphor Language Research Center LLC. All rights reserved