New Attitude

I was debating about going back to school after I had gotten my bachelor’s degree. No more for me – I was tired and I wanted a break. However, I remembered conversations with my friend, Janice, years before when I had just returned to undergraduate work after a 25-year hiatus. I complained that it would be years before I would get a degree and be so much older then. She said something that changed my direction and my motivation. She said “you will be older in a few years with or without a degree.” That statement kept me on the path to getting a bachelor’s degree. Now, I thought about her words again as I considered attaining a master’s degree.

My first class, “The Adult Learner” (ADLT 601) was taught by Dr. Yvonne Thayer. I was really mesmerized by her and the class in general. A lot of the classes have begun to run together through the last four years. But not this first one. I learned about androgogy and pedagogy. It was my first taste of adult learning – working in a semicircle. I also remember my first paper because it was returned to me with the comment, “academic papers do not use bulleted points. Should be discussed-narrative.” Also, “your comparison of adults to children is ok but not presented in a scholarly way.” Wow, was that ever a shock. Dr. Thayer let me write it again and I did get an A but it certainly was a wake up call.

At the same time that I took “The Adult Learner” class I was also enrolled in Research Methods (EDUS 660). As fascinated as I was with The Adult Learner class, I was as disenchanted with this class. Someone I worked with was also in this class. We commiserated about the continual barrage of PowerPoints with little explanations. The course was sprinkled with statistics, too, which I had taken as undergraduate but certainly was not proficient in. Taking both classes at once was taking its toll on me. I was training out of town. I can remember training one day in Roanoke until about 3:00 and then driving back for class. Then, after it was over, I returned to Roanoke. I didn’t really have a choice. I had to train in my job and I had missed a couple of classes already. Even though I was an adult learner and teaching methods are different, I still was caught in the traditional classroom with expectations of attending all of them or having a good excuse for missing. I remember thinking that true adult learning should allow for life’s circumstances. Possibly online attendance as well as a regular classroom.

One of the classes I took, “Adult Development” (EDUS 604) was taught by Dr. Carol Baron whom I had worked with before in Social Services. This class was enlightening. Dr. Baron asked us to keep a journal throughout the semester. Included in that journal were my experiences with “meaning making.” But the most memorable and rewarding topic of that paper was the section “Ten People Who Influenced My Life.” I can remember thinking about the people I love who have been in my life since I was a child; those who have come and gone; casual acquaintances; and those whom I just held in high regard. That paper brought back to mind many wonderful people who have helped shape my life.

I have been pleasantly surprised to see how many classes fit into my career path. Program Planning, Management and Evaluation (ADLT 602) is a good example. One assignment was to design a program. Considering my work in Social Services,  my concentration is on delivering Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program -SNAP (previously called Food Stamps) benefits timely and accurately to over 280,000 households. (At the time of this project, caseload size was around 240,000). Anyway, I used this class time to think about a program I would like to see that could enhance payment accuracy. Some of the ideas that I wrote about in the paper are ones that we are now implementing.

I was in Learning Strategies for Adults course (ADLT 603) about the same time that I was promoted to a curriculum developer for VISSTA. One of my assignments at work was to write a course for the state’s eligibility and fraud workers about Food Stamp and TANF overpayments. The emphasis of Learning Strategies was to develop a class, workshop or training program. This was great timing! However, as I moved forward at work and at school with this goal in mind, there soon appeared great differences. At work, I was instructed to focus on the trainer and had to write it as the trainer was reading it. The classroom assignment was to write this from the learner’s perspective as if the student was doing this online or had instructions in the classroom. This proved to be very challenging. I would write the material one way in class and then have to change the methodology at work. I titled the course, “Benefiting Too Much” since the emphasis was in receiving too many food stamps or TANF money. My supervisor at work was also a student in the same Master’s Program and understood some of the challenges I was facing. She reviewed my work from school and then we took the same ideas for the course I was writing for VISSTA. “Benefiting Too Much” continues to be trained across the state for new workers and fraud investigators within Social Services.

Groups and Teams (ADLT 612) was absolutely one of my favorite classes. Every time I see the title, Hoosiers, I think of this class. “Twelve Angry Men” was also a movie we reviewed in this class. My team wrote about both movies and it was a great way to learn how teams work. Twelve Angry Men” stands out as to how one person even when not outspoken can still make a difference in someone’s life.

I was in “Lifespan Issues for Adults with Learning Disabilities (SELD 688). One of the projects in this class was to interview someone with a learning disability. I chose a co-worker’s husband. He was happy to give me an interview about his challenges with dyslexia. I learned so much from that interview and this class. Dr. Gerber’s easy style and his ability to communicate the objectives of this class made it worth attending in the summer!

Theory X and Y are forever etched in my psyche! Human Resource Development (ADLT 620) expounded on this. McGregor’s theories about leadership has caused me to consider the ways leaders approach those who work for them.

Change Strategies (ADLT 625) with Dr. Petrella was also a great class. Her approach to teaching was different from some others. She encouraged me to seriously consider writing.

Consulting Skills (ADLT 610) was absolutely one of my most favorite classes but it was also probably one of the most time consuming. I can remember thinking that this was equivalent to a second job.

Educational Evaluation (EDUS 661) taught by Dr. Abrams was interesting. The research we did in that class forced us to decide if a project would or would not be beneficial.

Organizational Learning (ADLT 623) was fascinating too. I was very interested in the project we did about companies and whether they actually instilled organizational learning. I researched NASA – what an overwhelming agency. So many mistakes they have made and yet they bounce back with new ideas. They have incorporated (from what I can tell) organizational learning.

Finally, Capstone. Wow, that definitely was a culmination of all the learning we have had in the last several years. What an experience. I was blessed to be in a wonderful action learning set.  We were able to provide a good presentation to our client and I feel like it was beneficial to them.  It was certainly beneficial to me as I learned about so many aspects of adult literacy.

It has been about nine years since I decided to go back to school. The last five years have been in pursuit of a Master’s Degree. I would not trade this experience for anything. Even writing this blog, and looking at past work done has brought back great memories of classes, teachers and friends. Now what do I do???  

The last few weeks have been illuminative as I did formal and informal interviews with staff. I learned a lot about myself as well as the others in this journey. I was glad to learn from those I talked with, that through it all, no matter the current culture whether easy to work in or not, will not keep them from serving those in need. Most of the people I work with have chosen this career path to help others. We get caught up in red tape and often feel like we are not making a difference but the purpose for us being there overrides those feelings.

This class has not only been challenging and fascinating but also has given me new insight where I work. I think about the culture now on a regular basis. I have been there over a year and slowly becoming part of the culture. Even though I am relatively new, I feel discouraged at times because some things don’t get changed and I either lack the ability or insight to fix that. I am trying one day at a time to do those things I can.

I have appreciated my mirrors, Carol and Christina. Both have had wonderful, creative blogs and have provided me with ideas along the way. Thanks to you both.

Looking forward to the next semester’s class, Capstone, and then…Graduation!!!

Schein says in the last chapter of his book, “The toughest problem for learning leaders is to come to terms with their own lack of expertise and wisdom. Once we are in leadership position our own needs and the expectations of others dictate that we know the answer and be in control of the situation.” In the hierarchical organizational structure where I work, it is expected that leaders know all the answers. However, I don’t. I have determined to be authentic about that – to say I don’t know and to lean on the expertise of others. Much of the work we do within the food stamp unit is answer policy questions posed by local social service eligibility workers, program specialists in the field and trainers. Today we received several from a training for new workers. Sometimes, as I did today, I try my hand at answering the policy questions. (I actually did better with policy as a worker than I do now as the Food Stamp Director) Anyway, we have a small group that answers questions – I sent these to them with my proposed answers. Out of three questions, we agreed on one!! Oh well, I am a learning leader. Schein also talked about learning leaders must have faith in people and believe that human nature is basically good. I thought of McGregor and Theory X and Y. As I continued reading, Schein, discusses McGregor’s theory. He believes the real relevance of Theory Y may be the learning organization of the future. It is unrealistic to be a learning leader and yet distrust your staff or believe they are not capable of doing their work. Communication and information are central to organizational well-being. To be a learning leader, one must be constantly willing to share and receive information. It is not easy to be operating as a learning leader in an environment that does not consider this relevant.

Chapter 16 in Schein’s book actually made me laugh in places. The creation of enough disequilibrium to force a coping process go beyond just reinforcing assumptions in place – that would be unfreezing! Unfreezing means to create a motivation to change. What a great, ordinary word to use. Now, if we could actually motivate others to change, we could all be as famous as Schein!

Our food stamp unit held a conference last week and those invited were the 40 largest social service agencies in the state. We developed the agenda around the needs of the agencies. Because of rising food stamp case loads and no expectations of additional staff, business as usual must change. Rather than one person carrying a caseload, new processes are being considered. Functions of caseload management are being extracted and completed by a worker, almost like an assembly line process. Anyway, we learned all about the concept of LEAN from the Lean Enterprise Institute. I took the following from their website: “Many of the key principles were pioneered by Henry Ford, who was the first person to integrate an entire production system, under what he termed “flow production.” Following World War II, the Toyota Motor Company adapted Ford’s principles as a means of compensating for its challenge of limited human, financial, and material resources. The Toyota Production System (or TPS), which evolved from this need, was one of the first managerial systems using lean principles throughout the enterprise to produce a wide variety of products at lower volumes and many fewer defects than competitors.”

Yesterday at work I had a staff meeting and stated that one of the ideas we learned from the LEAN process, I would begin to incorporate. Everyone was on board except one person who is rarely in agreement about anything. She immediately said unequivocally, “I do not want to do that.” I ignored her at first. Another staff member said she would email the form I wanted us to use and this employee said “Don’t mail it to me.” Once again she said, “I don’t want to do it.” Upon which I said, “Thank you for your comment. Do it anyway.” Probably not the best thing to say in the middle of a meeting… Later, I asked her to meet with me and we talked about her disgruntled attitude. Reading this chapter, I wondered what I could do to motivate this person to change. She typically is the one who does not see a reason to do anything different. Or what can I do to change the culture and thereby she changes too. The chapter goes on to say that change is hard for many reasons, one that people do not feel safe until they know the change will be for the better.

I seems like when I pick up one Schein or Dixon’s book, something from the reading coincides with what is going on at work. Learning about the culture and now reading about changing that culture is perfect timing for where I am now.

As it is now 30 degrees outside, unfreezing seems like a great idea.

Nancy Dixon, in Chapter 9, explains our responsibilities in an organization that offer a new way of thinking:

1-Be engaged in organizational dialogue that examines the worth of the organization’s purpose. She says it is our responsibility to continually reexamine our purpose. I think as we go along in our jobs, putting out fires, we do need to make sure that we are doing those things that are purposeful. We don’t talk often enough about that where I am – our purpose is to make sure eligible citizens receive food stamp benefits timely and accurately and receive kind courteous service along the way.

2-Bring the best available available knowledge to bear on organizational issues. Dixon tells us to be the bearer of bad news when we have to be. I must admit I sometimes fall into the category of “not sayng anything” in order to not rock the boat. Where I am, seems like the boat is rocked a lot and I just sometimes don’t want to add to it.

3-Function as a co-participant in the creation, maintenance and transformation of organizational realities. Dixon’s point is that we have to see ourselves as someone who can transform and not jut feel like a player in a game. If I don’t approve of the way the organization is going, do I have the power to change it?

4-Willingly share what each knows with colleagues and create forums and systems to accomplish it. This involves lateral communication; I think within our food stamp unit (not in the entire division) we try to do that and if knowledge is not shared, it is an oversite and not intentional. This is because in order to function well as a team, we must share knowledge.

5-Learn from experience every day to develop as a responsible, participating member of the organization. We have to take an active not passive role in the day to day opportunities at work.  We must be committed to learning as a whole and not just individually.

Schein’s chapters about how leaders develop and imbed organizational culture  was  interesting to me as  I want to know how to change the culture where I am.  The point Schein makes about how employees watch to see what is important to the leader gave me some ideas. When I first came to this job, I emphasized talking about what good/creative things were happening within the state in our program and asked others to bring to meetings things that were positive in their region of the state.  Usually when this was brought up, it was quiet. No one could come up with something to share.  I then stopped asking.  I didn’t realize I stopped asking until a few weeks ago.  I want to bring this back.  The emphasis so much where I work is on putting out fires.  I want people to find things that are working well and learn from those things as well as the broken areas.

I realized, reading Chapter 13, that I need to be more consistent to display what is important to me so staff will focus on those things. We just had evaluations.  Last year when I started, I had made the decision to meet with employees quarterly to evaluate performance, talk about goals, discuss how we could help each other and communicate better.  That never happened.  At this evaluation, I met with the home office staff, and set up the next meeting while talking with them so that the quarterly “mini evals” will take place in this new year.

In Chapter 12, reading that founders have a high level of self-confidence and determination certainly makes sense because you cannot make someone else believe something is important if you as a leader do not have confidence in it.  Interestingly, DEC’s Olsen, who had strong beliefs about how good ideas could come from anyone could also admit he was not “that smart.”  So, you can have confidence in the idea but maybe not so confident in how it will eventually work.  This is a good display of how team work is necessary.  Good ideas can come up by the leader; the team provides feedback to come up with the mechanism to make the idea work.

I was reading Carol’s blog and she referenced Erica’s so I read hers next. Erica referenced Vanessa’s discussion about the culture at her new job. So this blogging exercise is bringing us all together! I compared the artifacts where Erica works to where I am. Before my present job, I worked for the same employer that Erica has now and I remember some of the things she mentioned. I am expounding on her list:

• Shoes – I remember kicking them off at last job. No kicking them off where I am now.
• Relaxed dress code – That was great at last job too – didn’t really have to think about what to wear when you are writing curriculum in a cube. The culture where I am now espouses business casual attire. On Fridays, employees are allowed to wear jeans but managers usually don’t and I have not yet.
• Talking about politics and religion – This was a little different where I used to work than for Erica. I worked in a different building than she did with a different group of people. We talked about everything – nothing was left off the table. And speaking of table, most of these conversations were saved for lunch time. If something got a little out of hand, one of the others would get us back on track. Or we would finally agree to disagree. I have not worked anywhere where the conversations between employees was like this. A lot of that had to do with the outgoing, outspoken personalties of most of the people in the unit. Where I am now, I get into few conversations about politics or religion. There are a few people that I will have these discussions with but the conversations are not as boisterous!
• Personal revelations – at the last job, everyone seemed to know at least a little about each person’s private life. We each had a cube (manager had office). We almost always ate together as there was a small kitchen close to all of us. Eating together was definitely new for me. Here we worked together all day and then had lunch together almost every day. Talk about close knit! That does not happen where I am now. I have to force myself to remember to eat lunch. And people eat by themselves or find one or two co-workers to eat outside the work setting.

As opposite as the cultures at DEC and Ciba-Geigy, the culture at Erica’s job and where I am now are vastly different even though they are both state entities.

In Schein’s book, the chapter titled “Assumptions About Human Nature, Activity, and Relationships” discusses the the assumptions we have about how to make the work place safe, comfortable and productive. He states, “this set of assumptions deals more with the nature of the group itself and the kind of internal environment it creates for its members.” In the last job, the internal environment was certainly created by those in it. There were only about six to seven employees and the culture was almost the same as a family. When someone new came in, it took a while for new employee to feel comfortable in this culture. Feeling safe, comfortable and productive was easier if we all worked together. If someone chose to be alone in that setting, i.e. eating alone, working on projects alone, then I think that would have been uncomfortable for that person and the rest of us. Even though we had separate programs we wrote curriculum for, we often sought out each others opinions about context of what we wrote. That is different than where I am now although I have been encouraging my unit to work together on different tasks and solicit their help and advice.

As soon as I left class, I called two of my sons. One is an advisor for hedge funds in Manhatten and the other is Senior Vice President of a small bank outside of Atlanta. I wanted to make sure they had both seen this movie. They had (several years ago in college).

The corporate conscience was dull. The results of what that means was illustrated in this movie.

I  don’t believe most of the people who worked there intended to be a greedy employee but I can’t say that for Jeff Skilling. He had a plan and followed it through to the end. To see people follow him so blindly is scary in itself. The culture at Enron was created by Skilling and the fact that some people tried to copy his appearance (contact lenses instead of glasses) is bizarre. I have heard that you can put a frog in water and he will never jump out even when the water is boiling. (I should look this up, seems pretty crazy!) Anyway, employees should have jumped out of the water before it began to boil at Enron.

I thought reading four chapters would be rather burdensome but “Ortanizational Culture and Leadership” is as interesting and easy to read as Nancy’s Dixon’s book. Maybe, it is because as I read I can see my current organization and previous ones I have worked in a different light. As I was reading tonite, I was thinking about the culture where I work. Even closer to home, I was thinking about the culture in my own Food Stamp Unit. Regarding espoused beliefs and values, I thought about how I have viewed my employees. I see them sometimes as stubborn and rigid. Several people make statements and insist they are correct in whatever the discussion is. However, if through the next few weeks, it is uncovered that the person was not correct, she will espouse the new belief as stubbornly as the last. This goes along with the example Schein gave regarding a manager and her belief that advertising increases sales. If the solution works, and the group has a shared perception of that success, then the perceived value that advertising is good gradually becomes transformed; first into a shared value or belief and then into a shared assumption. I began to see tonite that possibly there is a cultural reason to the perceived stubbornness I see. If I can determine what the espoused belief is in this situation, I may be able to break through this.

I thought the example of the American supervisor in an Asian country a great example. There definintely should be cultural training for anyone who works in another country. But I can see how something similar can happen here.  We don’t call it “saving face” of our employer but there may be the underlying espoused belief that we do not question the boss during a meeting or when others are around. That may be considered disrespectful.

Schein’s example about how we view workers brought the X and Y theory back to mind. He references McGregor as he explains that if people are treated consistently in terms of certain basic assumptions, they eventually behave according to those assumptions. I am trying to remember this theory in my interaction with staff.

The article on Culture and Organizational Learning had several points that struck me. To the question, “Can organizations learn?” the authors give a resounding “yes!” but how they learn is of varying opinions. One suggestion is that organizational learning is a particular type by key individuals whose learning is tied to subsequent organizational change. The second approach says organizations learn because they possess capacities that are identical or equivalent to the individuals and this approach treats organizations as if they were individuals. The first way seems to indicate that there are a few within an organization that can create change through learning. The second seems to include all of the individuals. I would say where I work is more of the first way – we change because of the learning of certain individuals. We are going though that now as leadership is revamping the ways we have done things. Every division will be asked to explain their internal processes and be willing to try new methods in order to streamline. In this time of budget cuts (which does include layoffs where I am) management is looking at different ways to work more with less. The funny thing is, is that the changes are cyclical. Some of the ideas coming about now are ones that were in place many years ago and then abolished when a new administration came in. Maybe this falls into the category of learning that the authors also talk about – learning from your mistakes. Taking from the past what has worked and cutting out things that don’t.