Coming About

It is circular, this process in which we engage, semester after semester, and there’s something exciting about it: a new beginning every 15 weeks.  By December, we are tired, students and faculty alike.  After a few short weeks’ break, we are starting afresh, a new semester: new tasks, new books, new challenges.  Welcome back, Adult Learning students.

This semester promises to be busy and full.  We have capstone course students working with three organizations on an action learning project: The Read Center, Luckstone Corporation, and WRIR radio.  The Change Strategies students will be digging deep into the nature of organizational change and facilitating three large group intervention strategies: Future Search, Open Space Technology, and Appreciative Inquiry.  The Groups and Teams class, after getting to know one another with a shoebox exercise (bring items that are important to you in a shoebox and share your “story” with members of your team in class), are ready to use film and video to explore group dynamics.

On top of that, we have the Academy of HRD annual conference just “up the street” this year, in Washington, D.C., with an opportunity for students in the Adult Learning program to attend one of the pre-conference workshops on action learning presented by Dr. Michael Marquardt of George Washington University and author of our texts. The weeks ahead promise to be full ones.  So grab your running shoes …. I’m hoping to keep up with you!

Photo Credits, Creative Commons Attribution License:

circular rhythm of life: nexus6, photo taken April 27.08

running shoes: karen_d, photo taken June 11, 2007

It hardly seems possible that we’ve reached the end of the semester, but papers are graded and the academic term has come to an end.  As a final assignment, I asked our master’s degree students to take stock of the distance they’ve traveled in Edublogs this semester by reviewing the posts they’ve written. Now’s the time for a little meta-reflection of my own, hence, the semester in review.

Since beginning my blog in Summer 08 in preparation for introducing blogging in the Adult Learning program, I’ve written twelve posts and engaged in written dialogue with others in 26 comments posted to my blog.  If I’ve counted correctly, I’ve also written more than 100 posts on students’ blogs over the semester. That’s a lot of writing, theirs and mine.

I suspect our students in Adult Learning have written even more, and, in the Org Learning class in particular, have a good many more comments since they have participated in the Reflector-Mirror exercise each week in which triads responded to each other’s posts. There are 30 students in my classes. That’s a fair amount of reflection going on. Keeping up with their posts on a weekly basis has been a challenge for me, some weeks more than others. I’ve found it immensely rewarding, however, and hope they have, too.

Fall 2008 Semester Highlights

In Program Planning, Management and Evaluation (ADLT 602), nine students developed plans for implementing a program, workshop, or course for learners that are as diverse as they are. From Sarah’s program for teaching seniors to use the computer to Ed’s on teaching Spanish to law enforcement and  Laura’s on a workshop for new School of Pharmacy professors, their plans were innovative, well thought-out, and well designed. Rosemary Caffarella,  who authored our text, would be proud. As the culminating assignment, these students created an academic-style conference poster session to provide an overview of their work. Take a look! 

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Learners in this class found the process worthwhile. Here are a few of their comments and reflections at semester’s end: 

I am coming away from this semester with a newfound appreciation for program planning and evaluation. I honestly came into this course with few expectations. All I knew about program planning was that my own experience had been frantic, disjointed and generally without structure. In contrast, the time that we spent reading about and working with the model presented by Caffarella was akin to the heavens opening up.

I’ve been lucky enough to have had work experiences, internships and involvement in school activities that have helped me with my own learning this semester. I mentioned in class last week how I want to try to take what I’ve learned and what I’m learning about adults and bring it into my workplace now. It’s my own personal goal to find little ways to do this.

I also learned over this semester what makes an effective program and what doesn’t. Over the years I’ve been a part of programs within work and school that really impacted me and others that I could have done without. I think having these experiences helped me plan my HRD internship program, because I tried to imagine if I were a student involved in it.

We spent the semester in ADLT 610, Consulting Skills for Adult Learning Environments, reflecting on the meaning of what it means to be in a helping relationship. Peter Block and Edgar Schein offer wise commentary on the nature of consultation, which is a far cry from what most people assume the consulting process involves.

Here are a few of their comments on what they learned about process consultation:

So, where am I now compared with the beginning of the semester?  I think my final thought is that I realize how much I learn from my colleagues and classmates.  As my blogs show, I am constantly relating new learning experiences with prior experiences.  These prior experiences include the stories and comments I have heard from other people.  This class is a perfect example of how well I learn from other people because some of the most important lessons learned came from challenges encountered by other groups.  Through classroom discussions and following their progress on the wiki, I was able to learn from the challenges faced by other groups and by their reactions to those challenges.  I have learned a great deal about the difficulty of entry, the importance of contracting, and the critical need for excellent communication.  I think everyone should always remember how much we learn from one another every day. 

As I read through my blog, it was made apparent to me that my thinking has developed over the semester.  At the beginning of this course, I felt a bit overwhelmed with the idea of “flawless consulting”.  I thought to myself, “Who is flawless?”  Well, I came to discover that Block provided the clear cut steps to encourage consulting that is nearly flawless. 

Although at the beginning of this course, I was a bit unsure of the new skills I was learning in the context of the classroom, I was even more unsure of how I would implement them outside of the classroom.  As we practiced inside the classroom walls, I felt a bit more secure in my new found skills.  I learned very quickly that there is no way to be prepared for every reaction that the client may throw at you and that I needed to take things in stride. 

Through our class discussions, I have learned through my peers experiences.  As a class when we provided advice, I felt that it was a valuable lesson.  Not only were we given the opportunity to assist our peers we were given the opportunity to learn from their frustration.  In addition to learning consulting skills, the class discussions have allowed me to learn new ways to use technology. 

 In this Consulting Skills class, we experimented with VoiceThreads as a form of digital conversation and learned what to do (and not do!) next time around. The scenario around which our enactment of a consulting assignment occurred was a merger of two securities firms. With the recent financial industry meltdown, the reality of such mergers and the challenges for organizations in successfully navigating them is all too real.  There will be a big demand for effective process consultants in the months ahead.

Our semester in Organizational Learning (ADLT 623) involved creating a concept map as a group. We created two maps: one on the nature of organizational learning, and the other on organizational culture. 
All the interactivity of CMap is somewhat lost in depicting them as a slideshow in this post, but we are keenly aware of copyright issues for articles that were attached to concepts. The maps are best viewed by clicking on the slideshow “full view” indicator.

The richness of concept map media for linking ideas, relationships, and resources is incredibly powerful, but most powerful of all is collective learning that happens as we struggle to depict the connections between our ideas through group dialogue. The cultural analyses that our students produced as their final assignment were rich with insights and learning, some of which are captured in these comments:  

Schein’s book on organizational culture and leadership will continue to be an important resource for me in my career. Understanding (or at least trying to understand) what makes up the culture at my organization will help me as I do my part to move the company towards becoming a learning organization.  I have much to learn and experience, but I am very grateful for what I have learned in this class because it has beeb a great springboard from which to jump into “the pool” of organizational culture and leadership.

Nancy Dixon’s book on organizational learning was mind-expanding. Building organizational learning into an enterprise is daunting, since it substantially goes against the grain of “normal” organizational life. Instead of withholding information to maintain power or avoid offense, organizational learning demonstrates the value of everyone at every level acquiring and spreading knowledge. Instead of withdrawing into specialized departments, organizational learning invites borders to be permeable and disparate people to mix substantively and frequently. And instead of depending on a command-and-control style of leadership, organizational learning opens up for all the opportunity to interpret information and assist in taking responsible action. Now that’s a challenge!

I never imagined that I would learn as much as I have over the last few months. Many of us have had ups and downs throughout the course of the semester, and we were all able to learn from those experiences. I have recently been told of my promotion that I have been after for quite some time, and I can’t wait to incorporate the strategies I have gathered throughout this program. The new year will indeed bring many new challenges for me and my department…and I welcome them all with open arms. Chatting with you all throughout the semester has given more confidence in my own abilities. The blogging over the last few months has been a wonderful experience, and I hope to continue the process. It really helps me put things in perspective. Furthermore, the Cmap exercise was extremely helpful and I have actually referenced it many times. It is amazing how much we incorporated into the map…and how BIG that thing got!

What I’ve Learned about Working with Web 2.0 Tools.  So, what have I learned about using Web 2.0 tools, such as blogs, wikis, Voice Threads, and more as part of the graduate classroom experience? Here are a few of my thoughts.

Blogging is a Unique Writing Genre
The blogs of my learners were as individual as they each are, from the designs they chose to display their work to each one’s mode of expression and type of reflection. The blog appears to be a more natural venue for expressing voice in a way that I seldom see in traditional academic papers. For some reason, writing papers in APA style has a tendency to mask much of the uniqueness of individual expression, or perhaps it simply takes more skill to have voice emerge from the pages of an academic document. The weblog seems to me to be a free-flowing medium, less constrained by convention. It may be that the author simply feels freer to say what she thinks, and in so going, gives voice to ideas that might not have emerged otherwise. I’m still pondering on this and why it is so. Your comments are welcome!

Learners (Students in the Adult Learning Program) Have Much to Say!

This exercise of voice was quite liberating for most, intimidating for some, and, eventually, embraced [I think!] by all this semeser, even though learners admitted that writing to the blog “added” more work to the assignments. Micro-publishing is an exciting endeavor, and seeing their own words in print seemed to bring pleasure and a sense of accomplishment to assignments that I’ve not seen in work submitted for “my eyes” only. This online journaliing was healing to some who had workplace trauma in the form of lost jobs, and enlightening to those of us who could give added meaning to our readings by incorporating the experiences of others. Most expressed their ideas boldly when they were clear in their convictions, cautiously when they considered the public nature of their comments and potentially adverse consequences, and reflectively when new ideas bumped up against old thinking. This online conversations were better than any we’ve ever had in class dialogues: troubling, but true!

Working with Wikis and Blogs Demands (and Creates) New Assignment Formats

Okay, I admit it. The first time I saw the blog posts on interviewing a program planner from a non-traditional background in working with adult learners (those with disabilities, the elderly, non-native English speakers, etc.), I was stunned.  This was an assignment I’d used before in the ADLT 602, Program Planning class.  The results of this assignment didn’t look anything at all like the papers submitted by last years’ class: they were shorter (some of them MUCH shorter), more succinct, and, well, DIFFERENT!  It was then that it hit me: this is a very different genre, and the work that appears in it is going to have a distinctively different feel and flavor. 

These interivew assignments were actually very well done; however, I was surprised by qualitites that were different from what I had expected based on previous years’ experiences.  Since that day, I’ve noticed differences in other assignments posted to the blog, as well.  After much reflection, It finally dawned on me that (1) this was okay; (2) I should have expected it, since a blog is a different form of expression than a paper written in APA style; and (3) I need to be selective in what gets posted as an assignment to a blog, and what remains a traditional, research-based, APA-cited paper. Our learners need to become adept at both. 

This also means that I need to re-think my assignments and the goals that I have for learners in accomplishing them, and find the right medium that best accomplishes these goals — whether it be a blog assignment, a wiki posting, or a traditional APA paper.  I’ve learned that as an instructor, you simply can’t “move” a course from a paper-based format to blogs and wikis without adjustments. Big learning.

 It Takes Time, but It’s Worth It

There is no doubt that writing in a publically viewable format, using technology that can go “blip” in a moment and lose your work, and adding rich media in the form of audio, video, and photo content, takes more time … much more.  I think it’s been worth that investment (mine and theirs) in the quality of learning that our Adult Learning students have acquired … deep learning, in which they have actively, and socially, acquired new meaning and constructed more complex understandings of their worlds in relation to Adult Learning.

We’ll Continue in the Semester Ahead

Next semester, I’m abandoning Blackboard for everything except the gradebook. It’s a duplication to post on Blackboard and also to a wiki.  We will use Wetpaint wikis for each of my three classes instead, and learners will have an opportunity to continue their online reflective journaling with the blogs. The experiment continues.  More to come!

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the  American Association for Adult and Continuing Education annual conference in Denver, Colorado. Our keynote speaker was Dr. Rosemary Caffarella who gave an inspiring talk entitled, “The Gift of Healing.”

Dr. Caffarella is special to us here at VCU, not only because we use her text, Planning Programs for Adult Learners in our Program Planning, Management, and Evaluation course and often refer to her writings in the Adult Learning program, but she was once the program director here during the 1980s. Dr. Caffarella was kind enough to agree to an interview for our VCU students after her presentation, and I share it here as a podcast for my readers. We’ll also post it to our VCU iTunes site.

“This I believe….”

Dr. Caffarella began her address to the members of AAACE with a description of an assignment that she makes of her adult education students at Cornell University entitled, “This I believe…” Each student writes  an essay describing his or her beliefs as an educator of adults, and Dr. Caffarella does the same. It is from this articulation of beliefs that Dr. Caffarella finds the inspiration for her talk on The Gift of Healing.

Healing, said Dr. Caffarella, involves recovering from the many major changes that affect adults and the organizations in which they function. Sometimes these changes are traumatic; they can occurr in both the best and worst of times. During major change, as individuals and as organizations, we experience emotional turmoil, spiritual upheaval, and feelings of uneasiness –even a sense of being downright scared; we don’t feel like ourselves and our thinking is often muddled as we lose the ability to listen and concentrate. The times we are living in now, said Dr. Caffarella, are filled with these major changes for many adults.

As adult educators, our role during difficulties such as these is to assist in the healing process, whether we are teachers, administrators, colleagues, program planners, researchers, trainers, mentors or fellow learners. Our contribution to others during these times should be framed as a gift, and not as an obligation. This gift involves listening, providing resources and giving space for recovery time; we let others know that is is okay to feel and think as they do. It is borne of sincere care about the other person. We let them know that it’s all right that they feel and think as they do during the stress of diffculty; we don’t expect them to be able to think or perform as they normally do.

Our gift to others experiencing difficult times involves sharing stories of our own experiences and the major changes and transitions in our own lives. Our goal should be to allow others to heal in their own way, and support them as they do.

The literature in adult learning is filled with examples of how this gift might manifest itself: it is described as experiential learning, as transformative learning, and as the contextual factors that support adult learning. Our literature frames storytelling as a way of knowing, the narrative of experience. Giving the gift of healing, said Dr. Caffarella, can be tough at times, but it also provides many blessings and can bring to the giver surprises that lead to new learning.

Among the master’s and doctoral students in the Adult Learning program at VCU, we have colleagues who are experiencing these difficult times for a variety of reasons … jobs that have been lost, health issues and concerns, and reasons not fully known to the rest of us. As I listened to Dr. Caffarella, I thought of these students, and others of whom I may not be fully aware; how timely her message is… how important it is for us to heed.

For those wanting the source for Dr. Caffarella’s talk, she cites The Twelve Gifts of Healing by Charlene Constanzo, New York, Harper Collins, 2004.

As the learners in my classes know, we have recently conducted a low-tech anonymous survey (index cards, no less) on whether or not I should comment on their blogs. This question arose for me in response to the recent webinar I participated in on e-flective practice and Paul Lowe’s comment that he and his colleagues in the College of the Arts, London do not comment on student blogs. In a recent post, I pondered aloud the wisdom of my approach to use the comment feature to provide feedback to Adult Learning program students: Did they find this a helpful practice or an intrusion into their private worlds of public musings?

Making Decisions with Data

At the same time that I was gathering these data, in all three of my classes, we are, at present, also involved in discussions of data collection — conducting needs assessments and administering evaluation instruments in the Program Planning class; gathering data from clients and stakeholders in the Consulting Skills class; and working with small groups of organizational “insiders” to gather data on cultural artifacts, espoused beliefs and values, and, ultimately, underlying assumptions in deciphering culture in the Organizational Learning class. 

With all this data gathering going on (mine included), it seems appropriate to remind ourselves about the real purposes of data collection in a non-research context.  Clearly, we are all involved in gathering data to make better decisions — decisions about how to design and deliver programs, solve client problems so that they stay solved, and understand culture and its influence on organizational learning.  This brings me to my conundrum …. what decisions do I want to make with the data I’ve collected? To comment or not to comment … that is the question (sorry, Hamlet).  If only it were that easy given the results expressed below!

The Survey Results

Among the index cards returned on the “to comment or not” issue, all but three asked that I continue commenting on their blogs. Two responded that I stop (no reasons given) and one said this:

I think we can be more relaxed and personal knowing that only our classmates are commenting. It allows for freedom of expression, and not the pressure of feeling like we’re being graded.

Among those who asked that I continue to comment on their blog were these written responses:

I personally value your comments. If I am working through something in my head, I like to know that I am on the right track.

Please continue commenting on individual blog posts. Many times I write and discuss topics that are unclear and the acknowledgement allows me to discuss things outside the classroom. I honestly love blogging; it has been an experience that allows me to leave the classroom, digest what I have learned, and put it “out” there.

I like knowing the professor is reading my posts.

I see these comments as conversations that can’t (or shouldn’t) take place in the classroom, much in the same way that I see the blogs themselves as comments, etc. that would distract from or altogether disrupt the lesson. I also like the non-confrontational nature of these “conversations,” since the emotional component is stripped from them.

I’ve enjoyed them so far. As long as it’s not like being graded.

I enjoy reading your comments. Your comments help me put my thoughts in context and confirm I’m headed in the right direction or making the right connections.

You are just another person to give me insight, which makes me reflect and learn more, so please — continue!

I actually enjoy the comments I have received from people other than my mirrors (not to take away from them). It shows me that people enjoy this aspect of class — reading other’s blogs for fun and constructive commenting!

I haven’t gotten a lot of comments so I would like you to start or continue. I like to get your perspective on things, along with my classmates.

I really do enjoy your comments! I feel like you keep me thinking in the right direction. I think the blogs are very helpful– I enjoy the exercise of reflecting on different topics… how I can or cannot apply our learning at work. I also like reading the thoughts of classmates and receiving their feedback.

I have not seen many comments on my reflections. I love the whole concept of blogging my reflections so I am excited to see your comments and would love to see more of them.

It’s taking me some time to get adjusted to blogging but I do think it’s a worthwhile endeavor. I also appreciate the comments … I don’t feel it inhibits me.

I like knowing that you are reading; it provides some sense of support and community to the (blogging) medium. I read all of my classmates’ blogs… I’m disappointed when I read others’ blogs and am reading a simple re-cap of the last class … I htink this is really missing the point. I also try to comment on my classmates’ blogs in hopes of drawing them back to mine for mutual feedback. I’m very open in my blog and like the free-form my thoughts take when blogging. It provides a unique venue for reflection.

So, What To Do Now?

What was I thinking? That everyone would respond alike?? How very unlikely for a group of highly individualized, mature, responsible, and thoughtful learners.

Here’s what I have learned from this exercise that is clear to me: commenting, exercised with care and respect, has the potential to be a good thing. It provides the sort of confirmation and support that Jack Mezirow writes about when he says that adult learners need validation in their attempts to revise meaning perspectives and grow as individuals.

It’s also clear to me that the blogging we are doing in our program is considered fun, creative, and an exercise in self-expression, leading to the development of ”voice,” a worthwhile goal for the graduate school experience.

Thus, the informality and freedom of expression discovered through blogging needs to be protected and nurtured, but not graded.  Of this, Adult Learning  program students can rest assured: while the practice of blogging may be a part of their participation grade, the content of their blogs never will be.  If any of you prefer that I not share my thoughts and reactions on your blogs, all you need to so is ask me privately not to do so. No grades, no penalties, but, hopefully,  commentary that you find helpful and supportive of your goals.

Feel free to let me know how it’s going. For those of you who want to deepen your reflective practice habits, I recomment Michele Martin’s blog post, Becoming a More Reflective Individual Practitioner.  Enjoy!

Photo Credits from Flickr:
Survey: Joe Gratz,
Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial License
August 6, 2006

Blogging pic: andyp uk
Attribution, No Derivative Works
January 1, 2007

Bloggers in the Adult Learning Program, you are to be admired! We’re only halfway through Fall semester in using blogs for reflective practice and my eyes have been opened to what you are learning in ways that I never imagined before — thank you for making your thinking visible … or as Buddy so aptly titles his blog, for Thinking Out Loud.

In this post, I want to capture some of what’s going on in our three classes this semester, your reaction to them, and the sensemaking that you are engaging in as you connect your learning to your work world and personal experiences.

Then, I’d like to reflect on what you are teaching me through this reflective blogging in action … or, in the term coined by Paul Lowe, director of the MA in Photo Journalism and Documentary Photography program at The University of the Arts, London, e-flective practice. I really like that term since it captures the reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action written about by Donald Schon, and adds to it the reflection before action that Lowe writes about, as well. For more on this, read about the webinar I recently attended on learning and e-flective practice, led by Lowe.

In the Consulting Skills class, You’ve Experimented with Digital Storytelling Using VoiceThreads

While you all did well in this re-enacted consulting skills assignment, I’m not sure that you found it that helpful in clarifying your thinking about consulting roles and how the consultant can lead the process, even when the client is  difficult.  Your insights on how we might make this experience better next time around …. comments such as less role structure, more exchange of roles (i.e. three different teams who could each plan how to conduct the re-contracting assignment from our Harvard Business Review article) were all worthwhile and heard!   

Your Thoughts on Process Consulting (a la Peter Block)

You’ve had some interesting thoughts and revelations on the process of process consulting, which we are just now beginning to dig our teeth into as you launch your own consulting projects:

As I continue to read about the business of consulting another of my previous notions of consultants bites the dust. I have always through of the consultants (since we were assuming the role of expert) to be someone from outside the organization. How many times have I heard/told the old joke, A consultant is an ordinary person a long way from home. Then there is the other old adage (with biblical roots), It’s hard to be a prophet in your own home town. How true. And yet, here we are, learning about the concept of internal consultants.

So these internal consultants come to the contracting table with an inherent disadvantage. Not only to they have to follow all of the rules of flawless consulting but they are automatically considered inferior in their abilities by the client.  The client doesn’t really expect anything from the internal consultant because they’re local but they often work without a written contract because they trust them (or perhaps because there is no money involved). They client expects the external consultant to be an expert but wants a written contract because they are not to be trusted, especially when the time clock is ticking. …

I’m liking this internal consultant role more and more. Low expectations – high trust factor. Maybe. More to ponder.

On Culture, Organizational Learning, Artifacts, Espoused Values and Beliefs, and Underlying Assumptions — the “STUFF” of ADLT 623

I am enjoying our org learning class this semester. If I had to pick a single favorite topic within the whole range of possibilities in the field of HRD, it would be organizational culture. To me, culture is one of the most fascinating, pervasive, under-utlilized concepts in management and organizational studies.  In our day-to-day work lives, we can feel it, touch it, and certainly experience it in myriad ways, yet it is awfully hard to identify those underlying assumptions even as we bump our heads up against them in the workplace. You’ve been thinking deeply about this concept, too. Here are some of your thoughts that are on target!

In reading Schein this week, I felt really connected to the text because it triggered so many examples in my mind. The first two chapters about culture and leadership really made me think about my own workplace. I can describe the culture there on so many levels. Schein posed the question of whether there is a culture within occupations, and I believe there is. People have told me many times that I am “such a teacher,” so there must be some broad culture of teachers in general. Then of course every school has its own culture, and within that there are many sub-cultures. I found myself thinking about the different grade levels in my school, and how each grade level team really has its own culture. There is a certain dynamic within each team, and an understanding among team members. One could even say that each team has its own “personality.”

As I read Schein’s ideas on culture and its development I can see why it is so difficult to change. I am sure that changing culture is even more difficult when those who are attempting to do this do not understand how cultures develop and of what they are comprised. As I watch the leadership in my workplace attempt to bring about ‘transformation’ in our culture it all seems so forced. It is as if they believe that if they talk about the changing culture enough it will just happen.

Making my way through the chapters in the Schein book this week, I find my mind repeatedly drawn back to a paragraph in the introduction to Part 1.  It seems like such a “Duh!” kind of thing, but I never really thought about how culture comes about in an organization and what impact leaders have on culture vs. the impact culture has on leaders …

What I realized for the first time in reading Schein is that leaders can change culture; it just usually doesn’t happen until it gets to a point where it’s unbearable.  It was interesting though to think about the impact leaders can have on the organization’s culture when necessary.  In thinking about my own organization, I have only known a positive culture since I’ve been there.  But I’ve heard stories of the way it was shortly before I came, what long-time employees call The Dark Years.  I’ve often wondered how it could have been so bad, considering the agency I know now is nothing like that, but I think that likely the leaders of the organization made a conscious change based on the fact that the culture was so bad.  I hope other organizations are able to realize that change as well. 

You’ve also been thinking a lot about what happened at Enron since we watched movie, The Smartest Guys in the Room during our last two class sessions as an example of cultural artifacts, espoused values, and underlying assumptions that created a very destructive organizational culture.  Given the current global financial crisis, this story of greed and deception for stockholders and employees alike hits home in ways that it did not for me when we viewed it this same time in the semester last year.  

Enron.  Wow.  What a nightmare.  If one questioned whether or not there are really bad people in the world, one could look at the attitude and arrogance of Jeff Skilling sitting at the table in front of the Enron hearing, and see that indeed, there are people who lack a conscience …The fallout from the Enron scandal impacts us all, every day.  FASB 157 of 2007 (Financial Accounting Standards Board) and the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 have created a nightmare of accounting red tape so that we can help to ensure that shady accounting tactics are stopped, and effective controls and accountability are implemented. 

 Many of these new laws make sense.  It is important that a CEO and CFO or a publicly traded company be held fully accountable for the reporting of the financial state of the organization.  They must sign off each year that they personally have reviewed the controls in place and are satisfied that they are appropriate in accordance with the Sarbanes Oxley Act.  The FASB rule provides the ability to suspend mark-to-market accounting procedures.  There is more scrutiny of the work that a corporation’s accounting firm may do for the corporation – recognizing that an accounting firm cannot be unbiased when they are raking in consulting dollars for other work on the side.  Consultants who advise publicly traded companies on executive compensation are now subjected to scrutiny regarding other work they may do for the organization.

 

So all of this happened as a result of Enron, Worldcom and other scandals at the turn of this century.  Here we are, only a few years later and we do not seem to have learned a lesson. 

 

The Enron movie is quite captivating.  It graphically illustrates how a culture can grow and then take on a life of its own.  This is essentially the same process that in an individual starts with a tendency, becomes a habit, and then progresses to become a deep character trait.

 

Enron seems to have started at some point to be a place for bold action, certainly a commendable value.  But this snowballed over the years into a testosterone-laden proving ground, for traders and corporate visionaries, and then extended to risky business moves and even to dangerous dirt-biking expeditions.  When the competition to be bolder and more risky starts, then is no backing down from the escalation.  No one wants to be a wimp.

 

This is just one example of a host of characteristics of the Enron culture that got out of control.  Any one characteristic starts (hopefully) as a positive trait expected by the leader.  But if the culture is not managed well it can overwhelm the leader (part of Schein’s point) and even pull the whole organization down the tubes.  Obviously.

Our Program Planning, Management, and Evaluation course is taking shape as you build a program by examining each of the many elements that Rosemary Caffarella describes in her book.

I recently contacted Dr. Caffarella, and she has agreed to an interview with me that we’ll share as a podcast when I return from the AAACE conference in Denver next month, where she is one of the keynote speakers. What sort of questions would you like for me to ask her?  

The descriptions of your field interviews with program planners who work with a variety of non-traditional adult populations led to a great discussion in class last week. Many of you had insights about the nature of program planning, and the program planning process as a result of this assignment and your readings:

One of the most important things I learned in this interview was to remember what your learner’s bring to the table. Retta stressed over and over how important and how powerful the information is that her participants bring to the classroom. As seniors, many of these folks have seen and done things many of us will never see or do. From the depression to slavery to women’s rights, the experiences of seniors should be respected, celebrated and related to others…“things we should never forget”, and these students are also truly teachers in the classroom.

 I would first and foremost like to say that I was truly excited about the assignment to interview a professional in the training and development field. Immediately I knew that I wanted to interview my mentor and reasons that I became interested in this field. For her confidentiality I have chosen to call her Ms. Smith…. Fortunately for me I was able to interview an individual who has worked with multiple non-traditional adults in a corporate field. Overall I have gleaned significant insight from this experience. Number one, the importance to always remain flexible, secondly the value in planning with your audience in mind, thirdly to learn from your previous programs, and finally to cater to your adult learners’ needs as much as possible. I would like to quote Ms. Smith with something that I feel sums up what I have learned from the interview, “I have never delivered two identical programs, and am proud of that because if I did it would mean that I was planning for myself and not my audience.”

I’m finding the readings and discussions on program evaluation to be more worthwhile than I expected. I have never done any sort of formal evaluation…not so much because I saw no worth in evaluation, but rather because I was ignorant. Informally, I have gone over in my head what has worked and what hasn’t – both during and after a program - and we have also had a couple of ESL program meetings where the discussion turned to successes and failures. But that has been the extent of it. I’m interested to spend some more time – precious time! – determining how our programs can benefit from enhanced evaluation procedures.   As a side note, while a large portion of the readings have come from an HR standpoint, I am not finding it difficult to transfer the information to the nonprofit world.

I’m realizing that my years working in a University have limited my vision. Whether reading course texts or listening to information in class, I find myself tuning out certain information that I’m thinking does not pertain to what I do. This is quite a shortsighted approach to learning. I need and want to be very careful to keep my eyes and ears open to all information. In fact, I should probably be focusing more on the info that I seemed to be dismissing as irrelevant, if not only to make myself more knowledgeable and thus more marketable, but also because my narrow view may overlook opportunities for new approaches to my own work – opportunities to think outside of my box. The many types of evaluative methodologies is a perfect example.

 The most important thing I learned during this interview is how different program planning can be for literacy programs, as oppose to programs relating to human resources development. The programs that we have studied thus far appear to be more structured and time consuming than this program…. In an effort to assist the many adult learners that are challenged with learning disabilities, literacy needs, English language speakers and the like; we have got to create and generate more funding, resources and programs to assist these individuals. They are all apart of this world, and if they are to be productive, law abiding, successful citizen, then we must provide the resources necessary to assist them.

What I’m Learning From You

I’ve found “seeing” what you’re learning to be interesting, and helpful, on many levels. I’ve had a chance to see what stands out for you from a particular class session, which may have gone unnoticed by me, but was meaningful in ways unique from your frame of reference.  I’ve seen how you take what we talk about and filter it through the lens of your experience to make meaning of your workplace and the dynamics within it.  As a result, I know you a little bit better … your needs, interests, and goals. That’s helpful, even in a small program like ours when I thought I knew you already!

Sometimes I am stunned by revelations, such as the one that occurred in ADLT 610 last week (Consulting Skills) when we did the “group” level Johari window exercise … an anonymous list of those things that you knew to be true about yourself, but which you do not disclose to others (your hidden side), and those things that you observe in others but which you are pretty sure they are not aware of (their blind sides). Several of you commented on the lack of confidence you had in your own abilities, part of your hidden selves. What do we need to do to change that self-image? In my mind, you are extraordinarily capable … it is my hope that the skills and knowledge you gain through this program enables you to revise that internalized view to one that is more confident, capable, and empowered! Let’s blog on…. and see what happens.