Category Archives: GoA-Employment

How an Organizational Biology thought supports or impacts being a member of the provincial Alberta Public Service.

Teaching Gears to Be a Better Manager

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In the Spring I run a weekly program called ‘Wheeleasy Wriders‘ which teaches newbie cyclists how to go from a painful 20KM ride to thinking that a 60KM ride is a breeze. Although this is a hobby, the techniques that I use are directly translatable into a work environment and the reverse as well – Wheeleasy Wriders makes me a better manager – last week is a good example.

How To Explain The Round Gizmos On a Bike

Many new riders are scared of their gears.  Although a marvel of engineering, they do require a small investment of time to learn how to use them properly.  But using gears effectively is not what this blog is about (however the blogs listed below DO talk about such things).  Last week I took a page out of my work environment and did the following:

  1. I broke the riders into groups of three composed of 2-newbies and 1-experienced rider.
  2. I separated married couples into different groups (more on this later).
  3. My request was that each newbie explain to the other newbie how their gears worked on their bike (as if the other explainee-newbie was going borrow the explainer’s bike).
  4. After a couple of minutes they switched roles and the explainer became the explainee.
  5. The experienced rider was there to listen and provide additional information, corrections and encouragement.

Teaching Focuses the Mind

The result was that most of the newbies self-assessed their gear knowledge higher after the explanation than before.  Why, for the following reasons:

  • They had to actively recall past explanations and externalize the content and concepts.
  • Based on the recall, they had to match the explanations to what they were seeing.
  • There was a small amount of anxiety to get the explanation right.  This anxiety actually helps to better form memories.
  • Anxiety notwithstanding, the experienced rider represented a safety net.
  • The experience rider had to compare their own mental-model of how gears work into two different newbie explanations.  This conversion strengthen their own understanding of the gears.
  • I separated the couples because people who know each other very well can have a harder time communicating.  They use codes, shortened forms of speech, etc. that takes away from the effort to externalize and codify a complex topic (such as how bike gears work).

Giving Training the Gears

I use similar teaching methods at work when I need to train people.  Rather than standing around in a parking lot explaining bike gears, at work this is done through webinars and conference calls.  One of my ‘rules’ is that I actively encourage cheating on my exams. Thus, other audience members are encouraged to help the ‘trainer’ out. Because the audience knows they be asked next to provide an explanation, there is better attention and retention for the content.  I have learned a few cautions/guidelines though:

  • Always Build Up: This is not about ridiculing or embarrassing the person. Before asking the question, be reasonably assured the person can answer the question or be guided to the answer. Only use this technique (or select the person) if the person can feel more positive about themselves after they have done the activity.
  • Be Ready to Move On … QUICKLY: You may discover that you asked a person who simply does not know or is getting flustered by the attention.  If so, quickly move on so that person is not social embarrassed.  Moving on could include: providing lots of clues, going to someone else or changing the subject.
  • Gentle Humour Lubricates: use gentle and positive humour to help the situation. Be careful that the humour is not caustic or ridicules the person. A bit of self-depreciation works for me.
  • Mix Up the Couples: mix and match people who don’t know each other well.  This forces different levels of communication effort.
  • Bit Size the Learning: if possible, focus on only one to two key concepts in each session.  More than this will overload the person and create too much anxiety.
  • Summarize, Crystallize and Repeat the Learning: be sure to repeat the 2-5 key messages from the learning so that the memories can quickly form around these kernels. Memory and learning works best when there are mnemonic devices or conceptual construct to hang the details on.

Good luck with your efforts to train and explain in your organization.  Also, if you want to learn more about riding or how to use your gears, be sure to read:

 

 

SharePoint – 101

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I like SharePoint, it is not a love-level relationship but it has matured definitely to the like stage.  Through this and future good-intention blogs, I want to put down what I think are some pretty cool ways to use SharePoint and just as important, some good ways to use the tool.

SharePoint, huh?

If you are reading this and have never used or heard of SharePoint, go onto some of my other postings on this website.  Unfortunately SharePoint is kinda hard to explain and so therefore I will assume that you know about the following things:

  • Its general architecture (e.g. there are farms, sites, sub-sites, lists and items)
  • Its typical structures (lists, libraries, workflows, webparts, pages, search, etc.)
  • Who uses and how access is managed (e.g. super-administrators; site-administrators; users with contributor, read and other access)

If any of the above is makes you go huh?, sorry I can’t help you but I can point you in the right direction:

  1. Wikipedia has a good over-view description.
  2. Read the Microsoft Sales Stuff.
  3. Take a course, there are lots out there including those from Microsoft.
  4. By a book, Chapters or Amazon sells lots, and
  5. Most importantly – start using it!

How Not to Use SharePoint

… but before you start using SharePoint, here is something to recognize about how not to use SharePoint.  Don’t use SharePoint as a glorified Network File System.  It can do so much more, so why do so many people do so little with it?  Hopefully the next few blogs will give you just some examples.

How to Use SharePoint

In my ongoing effort to remember what the heck I have done, I have the good intention of writing a series of blogs about some cool uses of SharePoint (and associated technologies).  Check back to read about cool stuff or to see a post of shame of good intentions gone bad.

  • SharePoint Wikis as a Desk Reference Tool
  • Data Dictionary (of SharePoint and other stuff)
  • Looking up a Look Up of a Look Up
  • Managing Sites, Structures and People (a poor man’s content management strategy)
  • Using SharePoint as a Budgeting Tool

Business Case Example

I have used SharePoint for a variety of uses including:

  • An internal facing team-site with a handful of users having access
  • A highly restricted decision making site with very sensitive information
  • A status reporting system for dozens of project teams who in turn need to consolidate their work into a few sentences for an executive office
  • A ministry briefing binder in which hundreds of documents were managed that had varying degrees of sensitivity and right of access
  • Widely available budget site in which budget clients uploaded their working papers for consolidation
  • A project site composed of numerous teams working on a complex system transition

For the purposes of this and other blogs, I will use a fictional example of a budget site in which internal clients need to submit content and documents.  This example will centre around a government organization and specifically one that primarily manages projects but also manages contractors, contracts and staff.

Maximizing a Secondment Experience

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This past Friday I met up with a fellow Government of Alberta (GoA) employee by the name of Henry (name changed to protect the innocent from bad blogging) who is soon off to Washington DC for a two-year secondment with an international banking organization (the Bank). Henry wanted to pick my brains about my secondment experience with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) a few years back. I thought the advice I gave him so good that I figured I would take some notes on the off-chance anybody ever asks me again (hey, it could happen).

Before, During and After

As it is always good to start with a definition, thefreedictionary.com defines it as:

2. secondment – the detachment of a person from their regular organization for temporary assignment elsewhere.

From this definition, a secondment involves three parties. Henry; the GoA or the ongoing employer; and the seconding organization – in this case the Bank. Secondments also have three distinct time periods: the time before you go, the time on secondment and then the return. While good to think of them in three distinct periods they should nevertheless have a constant theme – the Value Proposition to three parties involved in the secondment.

Before the Before – The Secondment Circumstances

A secondment happens because a person has:

  • a) applied for a position possibly unbeknownst to their current employer,
  • b) the ongoing-employer encouraged the person to apply, or
  • c) the person was requested by the seconding organization.

There is a subtle difference between these circumstances. Henry was encouraged to apply to the Bank position by the GoA. Thus his boss (his home Ministry) is behind him 100%.  In contrast, I have found myself in both circumstance a) and c). In 2003 I had sought out an opportunity to work in Munich Germany – type a). Unfortunately the employer at the time did not grant me a leave of absence and as a result I quit that job to go to Germany. In 2010, the IAEA sought me out to assist with an accounting project – type c). In this case, I was able to secure a leave so as to take the secondment. What changed in the intervening seven years? I had a better understanding of how to sell the value proposition of the leave to my ongoing employer.

To support this value proposition, it was critical that the IAEA email/write to my boss and describe the circumstances behind why they specifically wanted me and the value to the GoA of my involvement. This provided credibility to the experience and started the process of making my experience a larger organizational experience.

Before – Start with the End in Mind

Henry, assuming you have the full endorsement from your Assistant Deputy Minister (ADM), it is now time to start planning for your return from your secondment. Steven Covery calls this ‘starting with the end in mind’. Envision the first day/week/year of your return from the secondment and define how you want to be thinking about success for the experience. To help you with this visioning, enlist the aid of your boss (and your boss’ boss); ask questions such as:

  • What are the three critical things you want me to accomplish while on this experience?
  • What is the number one problem for our organization the seconding organization can help us with?
  • If you were me, what would be your personal and professional priorities for this experience?

You don’t have to accept all of their advice but you should accept those that align best with your own ambitions, interests or priorities. The benefits for you to start with the end in mind includes:

  • It reinforces the fact that you will be returning to the ongoing employer.
  • It begins the process of making your secondment a shared experience with the organization.
  • It helps you to define the ongoing value proposition themes.

I have been focusing on your employer Henry but don’t forget to do the same thing for your friends and family. What does your wife want to have accomplished in the same time period? Can you offer to host family members so as to share the experience? Can you take your children and can they take part in the international school experience? For myself, here are the goals I had when I went to Vienna:

Goal 1: Family & Health

  • Setting up circumstances to share this experience with my wife and son
  • Maintain my health so I can continue to be productive
  • Experience the Austrian cultural life as much as a non-German speaker can

Goal 2: Exit Gracefully the IAEA

  • Contribute positively and effectively to the project
  • Over the course of the year, complete about 90 ‘things’ well to support the project

Goal 3: Re-Enter the Government of Alberta Gracefully

  • Re-charged, reset and ready for new challenges.

Goal 4: Prepare for Future Opportunities

During the Secondment

In a very short period of time you will be living the dream – the secondee in Washington DC. Then, in a few months the honeymoon will end. At this point you will start to feel (at least a bit) depressed, in limbo, out of touch and isolated. Fortunately the cultural difference between Washington DC and Edmonton are not as extreme as say Edmonton and Haiti. Nevertheless, more than likely you will be living in a small apartment, working in a small cubicle for seconded staff*. And the permanent staff members and those around you will have their own lives and families to go home to.

* small aside, I had a great office and room-mate while working for the IAEA – nevertheless I have worked in some crappy places as a consultant.

So feeling tired, out of sorts and a bit crummy is normal; expect it, deal with it and get over it. A two-year secondment means that you will have 780 days on the ground. 780 is not a large number and it will go by fast. Nearly 25% of the time will be the weekend or statutory holidays (and you will be working a few of these, trust me). 10-15% of these days will be vacation/leave (guard these jealously!). Now you are down to 500’ish work-days. Be clear with your new boss what you want to/can/must accomplish in those 500 days.

Just as important, for the weekends and leave days, what do you want to accomplish? Do you want to visit every memorial/museum in the city, drive the entire east coast of the United States, explore the Southern United States – set a goal and have a great time accomplishing it!

At the same time though, don’t forget about your ongoing employer. While I was in Vienna I tried to provide a monthly ‘blog’ to my home Ministry. Generally I would alternate between a technical themes (e.g. on accounting, governance structures, etc.) and personal matters (e.g. Christmas markets, cycling or Vienna wall murals). Contact your communications person and establish a writing schedule, possible themes – and then stick to them! Amongst other things, it will force you to better understand your experience, your organization and it will give you some great memories (see the links at the end of this Blog).

After the Secondment

Here is a curious fact Henry – a week or so after finishing the experience, it will be as if you never left. If you don’t plan your return carefully this fact can lead to a sense of loss or make you question why you went in the first place. In contrast a well-planned return can give you a sense of closure, purpose and context for the experience. Here are some suggestions for a ‘gracefully re-entry’ to your Ministry:

  • Keep your goals up to date. The will evolve and change, that is okay, but keep focused on why you took the secondment in the first place before, during and after its completion.
  • Keep in touch with your boss, organization and co-workers. See the blogs discussed above but include a few phone calls to your boss, emails to co-workers, etc. to stay in touch.
  • Share the experience by presenting it. Plan to do a series (e.g. 2-4) brown bag lunches on your experience. Space them out every 2-3 weeks. During the presentation don’t forget to profusely thank your boss and the organization for the experience.  I have included links to the three presentations I did below.
  • Stay in touch with the Bank and its family of employees.  They are part of you and your network now.  And of course, if they need a good accountant who writes blogs, I can send you my resume….

So Henry, that is my advice in a nut shell. Your secondment experience will go by fast! Best wishes to you and your wife and make the best possible use of your 780 days. Also, don’t forget to include me on your blogs about your experience!

 Sample Blog and Presentations

(Links fixed, 2013-11-27)