An Interesting Perspective

Chat with Larry Brumsey yesterday led to what went wrong with PMP, which has degenerated into an efficient automation of forced ranking. We reminisced about how Saeeds led to the illegally reversed engineered "son of Saeeds" which led to PMP: the major culprits were Larry Tedrow and Darryl Shields.

It was a shame that

stub

Proficiency in English - a 6.5 score on IELTS test of English, 580 in written TOEFL, 240 in computer-based TOEFL, or 94 or better in internet-based TOEFL

Contractor Training Center

Flatter Organization

Take out stuff about Solly Neasden

Go to the next level


My approach is that when faced with complexity we should: 1) organize as networks 2) continuously develop emergent practices 3) collaborate around common goals.


What does it take for an individual to be resilient for example in overcoming or living with a chronic disease or a trauma? Antonovsky http://bit.ly/wHTdv suggests there are three elements:
Comprehensibility - Do I understand what is happening?
Manageability - What can I influence and how? and
Meaningfulness - Why does it matter, why is it worth it for me.


http://www.cognitivesolutionslc.com/
http://www.soa.org/about/overview/creative-solutions.aspx


http://www.csptoday.com/eu/brochure.shtml


Cognitive Edge Sensemaker:- http://www.sensemaker-suite.com/concept.htm

Phil Rees suggests this expert on this topic:
• Laurence Fouweather
Laurence combines an extremely broad perspective with an in depth knowledge of technical developments. He understands the strategic issues in e-learning development, and in scaling solutions to cope gracefully with large scale deployments.
http://www.pdf-search-online.com/lms-pdf-24.html


Document activities in CRM system (Salesforce.com)

http://www.creative-learning-solutions.com/

creative knowledge solutions?

Intellectual capital: (Emerald) http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do?contentType=Article&hdAction=lnkpdf&contentId=864978

More on Action Research

http://www.alara.net.au/publications/monograph
(Action Learning & Action Research Assoc.- Australia
purpose: "To promote by all available means the scientific study, practice, research and teaching of Action Learning, Action Research and Process Management, and to bring together those of whatsoever professional discipline who are concerned with AL, AR and PM."

quality case studies will be published. In this situation, quality refers to:
evidence of rigorous data collection
strong theoretical underpinning
deep reflection on results and
professionally written using APA guidelines.

Geoff Brown slideshare:

"Action Research & Social Media":

http://www.slideshare.net/GeoffBrown3231/the-space-between-action-research-and-social-media

Action Research "seeks to remove the gap between deciders and doers"
A craftier way would be to introduce Action Research without using the label which is easily decried..Call it "our own eclectic method"

Geoff Brown's blog: http://www.yesandspace.com.au/

Action Research and OD

The best way to find out about action research:

Put it into the brint portal:http://portal.brint.com/

There is a lot of stuff from googling "action research" "organizational development" "grounded theory"

http://www.exalead.com/search/web/results/?q=action+research&last_link_type=submit_search


OD and AR in a single article:  http://people.bath.ac.uk/mnspwr/Papers/ActionResearch&OrganizationDevelopment.pdf
:
This definition brings together five dimensions of action research: it is pragmatic,concerned with addressing practical issues and making links between theory and practice; it is democratic both in the sense of involving people and in being liberationist - seeking to enable all people to create their own knowledge in learning organisations and communities of inquiry; it draws on an “extended epistemology” (Heron 1996) of many ways of knowing, valuing the experiential, narrative and aesthetic, alongside the propositional and conceptual; it is value oriented, asking how we can contribute to the flourishing—economic, political, psychological, spiritual—of human persons and communities, and of the wider ecology of the planet; and it is developmental, evolving over time from tentative beginnings toward more significant influence (Reason & Bradbury, 2001a).

Brint...exalead.... Southern Cross University http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/ar/arhome.html
[Action research can be described as a family of research methodologies which pursue action (or change) and research (or understanding) at the same time. In most of its forms it does this by using a cyclic or spiral process which alternates between action and critical reflection and in the later cycles, continuously refining methods, data and interpretation in the liht of the understanding developed in the earlier cycles. It is thus an emergent process which takes shape as understanding increases; it is an iterative process which converges towards a better understanding of what happens.

In most of its forms it is also participative (among other reasons, change is usually easier to achieve when those affected by the change are involved) and qualitative.]

open courseware free course:
http://ocw.umb.edu/eduCommons/graduate-college-of-education/evaluation-of-educational-change


http://ocw.umb.edu/join_form

registered
username: stanlecn
password: s...z

Senge and Whaetly in the Shambhala Sun:
http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2382&Itemid=0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_research

Contents [hide]
1 Overview
2 Major Theories
2.1 Chris Argyris' Action Science
2.2 John Heron and Peter Reason's Cooperative Inquiry
2.3 Paulo Freire's Participatory Action Research (PAR)
2.4 William Torbert’s Developmental Action Inquiry
2.5 Jack Whitehead's and Jean McNiff's Living Theory approach
3 Action research in organization development

Action Research and OD:

http://www.plusdelta.net/articles/Action_Research_OD_Practice.pdf

All about Learning

http://www.authorstream.com/tag/learn
http://www.authorstream.com/tag/learn

Physician, Heal Thyself

Kotter (2003) on Transforming an Organization:

John Kotter appear to have repeated his idea of the eight step process several times, beginning with "Leading Change" (Harvard Business Press, 1996):

1. Establish a Sense of Urgency
2. Form a Powerful Guiding Coalition
3. Create a Vision
4. Communicate the Vision
5. Empower others to act on the vision
6. Plan and Create short-term wins
7. Consolidate Improvements and produce still more change
8.Institutionalize new Approaches

Mark Payne, Don Quesnell can you set up a process to change T&CD and improve it as well..?

1. The Pivotal Role of English

Saudi Aramco has always been a bilingual company, but the meaning of the term has changed over the years. Since the Saudization drive after the inception of Saudi Aramco, the opportunities for Saudis to practice English in the workplace have been severely curtailed due to the fact that there are relatively fewer expatriates to interact with. Given this, the optimum solution is for a culture of continuous improvement in language skills to be implemented.
A program to redress the situation of falling levels of English proficiency company-wide would be expensive (est. $10mm annually), and would only make sense of if such levels are measured independently using international benchmarks before and during the program. Such measurement is known as a language audit and will provide maximum benefits if administered at three levels:
1. ITC trainees and program participants (including CPP, PELP and regulars)
2. ITC teachers and middle managers (up to Principal level)
3. Saudi employees company-wide on a sampling basis
Anecdotal evidence suggests strongly that levels of English proficiency have fallen considerably in the past fifteen years to an extent that communication between nationals and expatriates is severely hampered in plants and in the field. The only way to test the veracity of this assertion is through a language audit.
After the ACCET report of 2006 , it was decided to implement an online program (Global English) for the improvement of English. At present this is available for approximately one third of all trainees and needs to be extended to all trainees as soon as practicable.
The quality of trainees is a subject of intense criticism for T&CD. Much of this can be laid at the door of insufficient preparation in English language skills. This issue alone warrants a detailed investigation, but some possible reasons are:
a) Low proficiency in English by teachers and trainers. It is recommended that the Michigan test be replaced by the IELTS test of English as this puts more emphasis on spoken fluency (A score of 6.5 should be the minimum for all new non-native teachers, with retesting every three years.)
b) Zero toleration of use of Arabic in the ITC’s. This has been a running sore in T&CD and there can be no real improvement in quality of training programs until this bullet is bitten.
c) Lack of tie in between the top level of English (6B) and an internationally benchmarked standard such as TOEFL or (preferably) IELTS.
d) Testing which is over dependent on multiple choice and does not assign enough weighting to spoken skills which should be at least 30% of the total grade for each level.
e) Lack of placement tests for regular trainees. Amazingly, a regular trainee fulfills the prerequisites for an ITC class by virtue of having passed the previous level no matter how far back in the past this occurred. “Use it or lose it” is a truism in language development. A rule requiring placement tests is urgently required, but will only work if remediation and self study activities are made available.

2. The Limits of Technology-based Training

Great strides have been made in the company since 1997 when Technology-based learning was made (in learning center) available to all employees rather than being confined to the ITCs. Corporate Integrated Learning Services (CILS), the standard-bearer for technology-based learning has been extremely successful, marking up over half a million course completions in the past five years. This was only possible because it had evolved out of an entity that (the Corporate Learning Taskforce) that reported directly to the General Manager of T&CD. In the past two years CILS has lost its effectiveness and ability to innovate due to the fact that it has been reduced to the status of a unit in the Computer Training Division. CILS can continue to meet learning needs for all company employees, but only if its former “special” status is restored, for example by making it report directly to General Manager of T&CD or, preferably, to the executive director of Employee Relations & Training.
Learning Centers, the original standard-bearers of technology-based learning in the company, could also be at the forefront of the necessary drive to make training and learning relevant to the present and future needs of the company. Unfortunately an opportunity was lost when the facilitators of the centers were selected from the 3-10 workforce rather that developing 11+ teachers to move into the role of learning facilitator. Rather than allow learning centers to gracefully fade away, T&CD should breathe new life into them by bringing in (11+) professionals as Learning Counselors and creating a new job family to make the posts attractive.
There is still considerable resistance to the use of technology by teachers that could be partially overcome by either allowing reduced contact hours for teachers who are prepared to promote the use of the web to improve learning outcomes or allowing them to operate as high level learning counselors in learning centers for, say, three month stints. The ones who are most successful at promoting learning should be given the option of getting onto the Learning Counselor job ladder.

3. Communication as a Crucial Underpinning of the Drive to Excellence

As T&CD makes its way forward, it of vital importance that there is management buy-in to the idea that bottom-up comments are ultimately as valuable as top-down directives. There are several ways to effect this:
· It is widely acknowledged that the Innovation website has led to great improvements company-wide. Such a website where constructive comments and innovations can be gathered and consolidated for action teams will prove to be of great value. It is important that such a site permit anonymous comments. The argument can be made that this will lead to a lot of griping, however, the experience of the Innovation site has been that this is temporary phase and that ultimately the site will gather constructive ideas that lead to significant improvements.
· Surveys frequently serve to confirm the prejudices of the survey makers and are static. Genuine and useful feedback requires something more sophisticated. There are two pieces of software that should require serious evaluation because they concentrate on qualiatative as opposed to quantative research: Atlas TI (http://www.atlasti.com/ ) and Cognitive Edge Sensemaker (http://www.sensemaker-suite.com/ )
· Focus groups should be organized to give feedback at all levels of T&CD regarding how improvements can be made. The results of these focus groups need to be entrusted to a mover and shaker who ensure that ideas are recorded and will follow through with them.
· Recently-retired employees from all business lines can be contacted and interviewed over the telephone to give their feedback regarding the status of employee preparedness for the tasks faced by the company and their suggestions for improvement of training and learning throughout the company.

4. Standards and Truth in Testing

Initially the Training Quality Assurance Division needs to be given teeth to evaluate all training operations . Education Criteria for Performance Excellence (such as the Baldridge National quality Program - http://www.baldrige.nist.gov/Education_Criteria.htm ) need to be established and the TQAD needs to recommend internationally benchmarked measurable standards. The role of the TQAD is central to the transformation of T&CD. As well as determining measurable standards and performance criteria, TQAD should be not only the organizer of feedback initiatives and collator of results, but also the driving force behind initiatives to push through improvements. At present TQAD organizes the ACCET visit once every five years. This accreditation visit is extremely useful, but a similar, more regular (say, yearly) internally organized visit would be of great benefit to the continuous improvement process.

Almost all improvement efforts will be in vain if rigorous standards are not introduced and adherence to them measured honestly. As the secure web-based testing tool Questionmark Perception is available there is really no need to continue paper-based test. QM Perception uses categorized test banks and scrambles both the order of questions and distracters in such a way that cheating is made almost impossible.

5. Instructional Design and e-Dev

One of the most important tasks still to be performed in order to optimize learning outcomes is to make all curricula available online. Several years ago the Massachusetts institute of Technology began to put their most important courses online for free. At the time this caused several raised eyebrows in the academic world which was used to the idea that “knowledge is power”. In retrospect, this was a brilliant move because the most important thing that a training or educational institution can provide is not content but inspiration to accept the challenge of learning independently. This idea is of particular importance to the Saudi learning landscape where the pre-university education system has traditionally put emphasis on the rote learning of facts rather than encouraging self-reliance in learning.
How has T&CD fared in this shift? The results are mixed. One group, the job skills e-dev group in Ras Tanura has produced results far beyond what could be expected for its relatively small size. This has been in large part due to the group leader who has now left the company. Furthermore the Ras Tanura job skills e-dev group has not co-ordinated its efforts with that of the Dhahran-based Academic Curriculum Development Group the consequence of which is that the two groups that should be spearheading the drive to the new learning culture are going in their own separate directions rather than pooling resources. It is strongly recommended that cohesion and co-operation between these two crucial groups be increased.
Four years ago, the T&CD general manager, asked for all curriculum to be put online “within a year”. This has not happened and an investigation needs to launched into why.

6. The Changing role of Teachers

A shift needs to take place in the mentality of ITC teachers. There has been persistent resistance to the introduction of learning technologies by teachers, although less so by Western teachers. This is a problem that was recognized at least five years ago, but little progress has been made in addressing it. Rather than suggesting a solution to the problem, the author suggests that focus groups be formed to suggest solutions. In this way management will come to understand teachers concerns more and the there will be increased buy-in to the implementation of a solution.

7. Meeting Company Needs

A two-way process is needed to a)communicate T&CD offerings to the business lines across the company and b)create a conduit whereby the needs of business lines are continuously communicated to T&CD. This idea is not new and eight years ago an excellent program to produce Performance Improvement Consultants was started. Potential high fliers were selected from every business line and received six months training with the idea that they would return to their business lines and provide the expertise for them to take advantage of the latest ideas in learning and performance improvement. As things turned out, many were moved on to other important non training related tasks and their numbers shrank and the program was shelved.
Despite these difficulties, a cadre of knowledge workers is urgently needed to counsel employees at all levels on the learning and training opportunities offered by T&CD and to provide feedback to T&CD on the relevance of their programs. Potentially such a group exists, but is has been laboring under several difficulties. Spread throughout the business lines are approximately 2,000 Training Co-ordinators who, if upgraded imaginatively, are in a position to provide this urgently-needed two-way communication. However, training co-ordinators lack a job description and a job family. “Training Co-ordinator” is a role, not a job, which means that employees perfom these functions at the same time as their regular job; some employees dedicate 20% of their time to the function, some 80% 0- such is the variance. Furthermore, a Training Co-ordinator could be on any grade code between 9 and 13. Their work is largely mechanical, receiving requests from their departments or organizations to register employees in classroom courses. Most importantly, there are no training opportunities for the co-ordinators themselves. In the past ten years they have not even had a yearly “Training Co-ordinator Day”.

It is recommended that the formation of a new job family of Learning Consultants be treated as a top priority. Such Learning Consultants would be fully aware of all learning opportunities, both classroom- and technology based and would advise any employee on how best to use such opportunities to meet personal and company performance targets.

8. The Transfer of Knowledge

The most important traits an organization can have are growth, innovation and flexibility. However, growth should not be understood as growth in numbers of employees or NDE’s. Rather T&CD should put the greatest emphasis on growth of intellectual capital. How can this be measured?

There are several aspects to the transfer of knowledge and they are all of the deepest importance to the fate of the company. It is gradually becoming clear that a central pillar in the movement to wean the Saudi Arabian economy from over dependence on crude is the idea of the knowledge economy. The phrase “Our most important resource is our people” is often trotted out by upper management, but the time has come to walk the talk.

9. Developing a Customer-oriented Culture

Many of the comments that deal with major problems encountered by line organizations in attempting to avail themselves of T&CD services have a tione of frustration. Certain problems (such as availability of IT courses in the Western Region) come up again and again, so much so that customers ask themselves if there is any point in complaining because nothing happens anyway. This problem is so serious that it can only be remedied by investing in a help desk (customer-relationship management) system and personnel, including the development of the relevant job family. It is recommended that such a help desk should be a newly-created unit within the Training Quality Assurance Division.

10. The Development of Competencies

The workforce of the future will need to possess a wide range of both technical and soft-skill competencies. The recent MySkills initiative to produce competency maps is a jewel in T&CD’s crown. The system used is an adaptation of Petroskills CAT (Competency Assessment Tool) and it has been proposed that these C-maps should be integrated into the next generation learning management system. If this is successful, for the first time relevant e-learning courses will be “pushed “to employees. This project will bring about a true transformation of the “learning landscape” on the country and deserves full support from upper management.

11. Linking e-Learning with Performance Improvement

The corporate e-Learning group has produced phenomenal results since its inception in 2002 – over half a million course completions. This is extremely praiseworthy, but the time has come for CILS’ key performance indicators to move from the quantative to the qualitative. HOW?

12. The Character of the New Work Force

One of the most important points that needs to be taken into account is the accelerating rate of change, in the worlds of business and oil, in technological developments and in the company itself. New tools and methods are urgently needed to cope with this challenge of change. The days when an employee learned just what his supervisor told him was needed are long gone. The only way to cope with increased expectations is for employees to be flexible learners. The drive to technology-based learning, evidenced through learning centers and the company e-learning website, has gone a long way to transform the learning culture for employees at large, but much remains to be done with the T&CD organization.

13. Strategy and Management Culture

Whatever change initiatives are proposed, the most important is follow-through. Many initiatives have been proposed in T&CD over the years, but frequent movement of middle management and corporate inertia have meant that some excellent initiatives have remained unimplemented. In fact it is a common saying among non-managers that it doesn’t matter if a manger comes up with an off-the-wall idea because he will most likely not be around long enough to see through its implementation.
Furthermore there needs to be a shift in management and middle management thinking. Historically, Saudi Aramco has been run on a top-down, “need to know” approach to what is required from a manager. The consequence of this is that the vast majority of manager know about their own little bailiwick and nothing more. In his Nobel lecture of 1970 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn stated that “ Mankind's sole salvation lies in everyone making everything his business” . T&CD managers would do well to ponder on this statement. Continuous excellence is only possible when managers are required to justify their actions not only to their supervisors, but to their peers and reports. There is a widespread perception that there is severe lack of “big picture” thinking by managers which results in them being administrators rather than leaders. An administrator is process –oriented while a leader id results- oriented.

Unfortunately at present the Leadership Center does not offer the kind of course that is likely to remedy this situation. Nevertheless, with the move to new HRD Center in Ras Tanura and the promise of a complete rethink of the Leadership Center functions, a special course or conclave could be constructed. For many years the Saudi Aramco Leadership Forum found that a week in a hotel in Bahrain allowed participants to free themselves from mind shackles. Unfortunate indications are at present that the most successful feature of the Leadership Center over the past ten years, interventions with graduates of the demanding “Leadership for Results” program , may be dropped in favor of Blanchard and Covey type programs.

14. Developing Future Leaders

It is not easy to plan for the future of an uncertain world.
Mentor-mentee relationships
Development of young talent not included in job descriptions or considered to be part of job requirements by the majority of Saudi Aramcons, including middlew and upper management.

15. Leading Organizational Change

The most important skill business leaders can have today is the ability to lead significant organizational change. It is rapidly becoming clear that business not only has to cope with change but with an accelerating rate of change. (see “the Singularity is Near, Ray Kurweil, 2006). As the rate of change increases (exponentially, not linearly), problems increase in complexity.
How can any organization, and in particular T&CD, face down the dual challenges of rapidly increasing complexity and rate of change? It is the author’s opinion that exploiting synergy is the course most likely to lead to success. Focus groups drawn from all across the organization (see section 3) can give a jump start to this process. Trained facilitators should assist the groups to organize as networks which will continuously develop emergent practices and collaborate around common goals. Although collaboration tools such as ShareK are available, it is unlikely that anything substantial can be achieved using web-based tools alone. Sharek was basically introduced to replace the ill-fated Livelink, but this cannot capture the imagination of the new generation brought up on online games. Serious consideration should be given to acquiring a 24x7 social environment for online teaming such as Protosphere (http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=protosphere&search_type=&aq=f )

16. Conclusions

Several areas which demonstrate a need for improvement have been identified and possible solutions suggested. A process to initiate improvements which are sustainable could begin with a questionnaire given initially to all T&CD middle managers from Team Leader up. One pertinent question is provided for each of the sections of this white paper. Questions are open-ended, have no “right” answer and are designed to be thought provoking.
1. In your opinion, why are complaints from line organizations regarding low levels of English proficiency amongst newly-graduated trainees on the increase?
2. In your opinion, how can technology be better integrated into the “learning landscape” of the company?
3. In your opinion, does T&CD need a “Continuing Excellence” group? Kindly state the reasons for your answer.
4. Does cheating in tests reduce the effectiveness of T&CD programs? If so, how can the situation be improved?