This Toastmasters Educational was presented at the Taupo Toastmasters Meeting in May 2013.  The introduction is not shown but included the audience brainstorming different types of techniques used to enhance the delivery of a message. This video starts with the speech “Hear Your Story” that includes several speech techniques. This speech was written to help answer the question ‘Where Do I Come From?”, a question that young people ask themselves when they find themselves growing up in a country outside of where they hold a passport. This is often due to their parents working abroad.

This speech was entered in the International Contest at Club Level and won 1st Place at the TGIS Toastmasters Club in Dubai.

This speech began with a question years ago that my 8 year old daughter asked me. It draws on a life time of experiences and finding a note that my Grandma gave me. It helps to answer the question “Where do I come from?” that many children ask today as they have parents from different countries and find themselves identifying with many cultures and people as they travel.

Companies and businesses today seek to improve organizational effectiveness.  Improving employee motivation and engagement are key factors in accomplishing this. It is important to first define each of these terms.

• Motivation is an essential driver of individual behavior and performance (McShane & Von Glinow, 2010).

• Employee engagement is defined as an employee’s emotional and cognitive motivation, self-efficacy to perform the job, perceived clarity of the organization’s vision, his or her’s specific role in that vision and belief that he or she has the resources to get the job done (Catteeuw, Flynn, & Vonderhorst, 2007).

As a teacher for twelve years I can confirm that engagement is essential in learning. Disengaged students are unproductive and disrupt others.  Motivating and engaging students has changed as our world has changed.  It is essential that organizations understand the drivers and essential needs of the new workforce to ensure productivity. Information technology and globalization has opened a pathway for a whole new way of learning based on collaboration.  Applebaum, Serena, and Shaprio (2004) point out that companies have not adjusted to the changing need and expectations of new workforce entrants. If workplace training is based on past top down methods than employees may easily become disengaged.

Feedback is an essential ingredient in motivating and engaging employees.  Sarova Panafric Hotel and other firms are returning to good old-fashioned praise and recognition to regularly motivate staff (McShane & Von Glinow, 2010). As our world tends to a more collaborative learning and work culture, peer recognition is becoming an increasingly popular method of offering feedback to employees providing the needed praise and recognition to motivate.

Researchers have found that managers have the greatest impact on employee standards, values and expectations during the initial training period (Clampitt, 2010).  After the initial training period, Clampitt acknowledges that employees tend to be influenced more by coworkers and other organizational factors.  He has found that employees are more likely to accept feedback from those who have directly experienced their work as they are seen to be more credible.  Communities of Practice can become positive environments where reflection, coaching and feedback exist through collaboration. According to Kelner (1989, as cited in Keyton, 1999, p. 271) effective managers and trainers encourage Communities of Practice autonomy and help the group develop to the point where members are the primary source of feedback information.

Employees’ efforts and accomplishments need to be acknowledged, supported and rewarded. Today, technology and community are intertwined and each helps shape the other (Wenger et al., 2009). Today’s information technology encourages collaboration.  Positive and constructive peer feedback encourages engagement and motivates employees.   A deeper provision for learning is gained when feedback is given and opportunities are provided for reflection (Steeples, Jones, & Goodyear, 2002) on a continual basis. The needs of the new workforce will be met when training and corporate culture seek to motivate and engage employees effectively.

References

Applebaum, S. H., Serena, M., & Shapiro, B. T. (2004). Generation X and the boomers: Organizational Myths and Literary Realities. Management Research News, 27(11), 1-28.

Catteeuw, F., Flynn, E., & Vonderhorst, J. (2007). Employee engagement: Boosting productivity in turbulent times. Organization Development Journal, 25(2), 151-157.

Clampitt, P. G. (2010). Communicating for managerial effectiveness: Problems, strategies, solutions (4th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.

Keyton, J. (1999). Group communication. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield.

McShane, S. L., & Von Glinow, M. A. (2010). Organizational Behavior. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.

Steeples, C., Jones, C., & Goddyear, P. (2002). Beyond e-learning: A future for networked learning. In C. Steeples & C. Jones (Eds.), Networked learning: Perspectives and issues (pp. 323-342). London, England: Springer.

Wenger, E., White, N., & Smith, J. (2009). Digital habits: Stewarding technology for communities. Portland, OR: Psquare.

Nurturing self-concept is an important ingredient in designing initial and on-going training of employees. McShane and Von Glinow (2010) highlight that North America’s largest luxury hotel operator, Fairmont, discovered that one of the secret ingredients for employee performance and well-being is supporting the individuals ‘self-concept’.  People want to feel valued and they will stay where they feel valued. However, it is vital that the right people are hired.  It is not a matter of just putting people into a job, training them and assuming they will be the workers that will be able to successfully complete a job. Personal qualities that are needed to perform a specific job need to be part of a person’s make up. These qualities need to be identified at the hiring stage so that the right employee is hired. The training of technical skills then becomes the easy part and will parallel the nurturing of an employees self-concept through on-going training.

Self-concept has been studied by scholars in psychology and social psychology and is important in understanding an individuals perceptions, attitudes, decisions and behaviors (McShane & Von Glinow, 2010).  People do not have a single unitary self-concept but think of themselves in different way in various situations (Campbell, Assanand & Di Paula, 2003). A person’s self concept involves ones personal identity, as well as, their social identity.  As learning involves collaboration, the nurturing of self-concept within the framework of training is beneficial as it influences team dynamics and organizational commitment.

References

Campbell, J. D., Assanand, S., & Di Paula, A. (2003). The structure of the self-concept and its relation to psychological adjustment. Journal of Personality, 71(1), 115-140.

McShane, S. L., & Von Glinow, M. A. (2010). Organizational Behaviour. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.

On this wet spring morning in New Zealand I have begun reading Steven McShane and Mary Ann Von Glinow’s book Organizational Behavior (2010) in preparation for a summer university course. My interest in learning and development within organizations has led me to delve deeper into understanding the organization and the social aspects that learning is embedded in.

Organizational behavior can be defined as the study of what people think, feel, and do in and around organizations. Understanding organizational behavior helps us to work more effectively and efficiently. OB theories, often drawn from knowledge in other disciplines, help us to make sense of the workplace and how to get things done in a workplace. Mary Parker Follett and Chester Barnard are the pioneers of contemporary organizational behavior thinking in describing organizations as holistic cooperative organisms instead of machine-like institutions.

The organizational learning perspective, also known as knowledge management, highlights an organization’s capacity to acquire, share, use, and store valuable knowledge (Shipton, 2006). A recent trend that effects employment is virtual work. It is becoming more common that workers can set up an office anywhere as long as there is a good Wi-Fi connection. One of the benefits of virtual work is that it allows for a better work-life balance. At the same time, there are real challenges with virtual work including social isolation and potential problems created with the work-life balance.

Understanding organizational behavior provides the knowledge and tools for building high-performance teams, motivating co-workers, handling workplace conflicts, influencing a boss, and changing employee behavior. It helps us to do our jobs more effectively. The success behind Pixar Animation Studios and other companies is founded on the notion that companies depend on the quality of their employees and how well they collaborate, motivate, communicate, create, and empower each other. Pixar deliberately centralized its cafeteria, mailroom and restroom facilities so that employees would ‘Bump into” each other and coincidentally share knowledge. Similarly, Googleplex at Google increases the chance that employees from different parts of the organization will mingle and share information.

References

McShane, S. L., & Von Glinow, M. A. (2010). Organizational Behaviour. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.

Shipton, H. (2006). Cohesion or confusion towards a typology for organizational learning research. International Journal of Management Reviews, 8(4), 233-252.

This video describes blended learning and is part of a larger presentation on Peer Ecologies in Blended Learning Environments, a workshop presented at the ULearn 2012 Conference in Auckland, New Zealand.  The research paper, Peer Ecologies in Blended Learning Environments, is published in the University of Canterbury Conference Proceedings.

This short video shows how to remove a location from a Facebook photo or post so that it does not appear on the map found on your Wall.

Bombarded with Information

A focal issue for many businesses today is finding a way to build more productive workplaces.  Communication stands out as the key ingredient to ensuring that this can happen.  But how do we communicate information in a world full of information? “It might be more appropriate today to view the organizational landscape as a mess, littered with debris, and in which competing groups attempt to scavenge some sense of meaning from the chaos – not always successfully” (Hargie & Tourish, 2009, p. 6).

A few months ago my father shared a George Bernard Shaw quote: ‘The biggest single problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.’  Hargie & Tourish remind us that as managers, we need to remember that the messages that we send may not be the messages that are received (2009). The purpose of managers communicating with employees is often to circulate information. It is important to consider the adequacy of the information, the timing of when it is received, and the load (Downs & Adrian, 2004).

Jack Welch accurately articulated that business isn’t complicated, the complications arise when people are cut off from information that they need (Clampitt, 2010). We can take that one step further as we are all too familiar with the fact that complications also arise when people are bombarded with too much information.

In today’s world with an overabundance of information bombarding us continually throughout the day it is important to streamline this information. More importantly, how do managers communicate accurate information without overloading an employees already overtaxed information state?  Clampitt (Clampitt, 2010, p. 122) discusses the D-I-K-A model and likens it to “a properly nourished organization with wise nutritional habits cultivating wise data, information, and knowledge management practices.” The D-I-K-A model is a framework to manage data, information and knowledge in order to produce actions (Clampitt, 2010).

D-I-K-A Model

Data – Information – Knowledge – Action

(Clampitt, 2010)

Timely and vital information today is essential.  Neuroscience shows that our brains were not built to handle this over abundance of information plaguing our personal and business lives. OnlineUniversities.com created an infographic titled Digital Stress and Your Brain (Business Insider, 2012) that shows how acutely information overload affects productivity and offers suggestions to manage this in the workplace.  Their three suggestions include: intentionally focus on tasks, complete similar tasks together, and scheadule breaks from technology and data information.

References

Business Insider, I. (2012). How information overload ruins your brain, 2012, from http://www.businessinsider.com/what-information-overload-does-to-your-brain-2012-8

Clampitt, P. G. (2010). Communicating for managerial effectiveness: Problems, strategies, solutions (4th ed.). USA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Downs, C., & Adrian, A. (2004). Assessing organizational communication: Strategic communication audits. New York: Guildford Press.

Hargie, O., & Tourish, D. (2009). Auditing organizational communication: A handbook of research, theory, and practice. London and New York: Routledge.

This speech ‘One More Thing’ was used for the 2012 Toastmasters Humorous Speech Contest. First Place at the Club Contest. First Place at the Area Contest. And third place at the Division Contest.

One of the most important skills a managers has is the ability to communicate. This video is the introduction to a seminar designed for newly inducted managers. It highlights that trategic Managers set their eye on the goal of becoming effective communicators. Strategic Managers are learning machines. They intertwine their personal attributes with effective communication competencies. Full seminar available on request.