Category: Organization Design — a Collaboration Platform

Purpose & Function Setting out on the journey of organization design means consciously choosing to align all the parts of an enterprise.  The aim with this deliberate business solution is to ensure the organization’s strategic or competitive advantage—PURPOSE (why it exists) & FUNCTION (what tasks it does in service to its purpose—is delivered effectively and efficiently to its customer base.  Excellent customer service is directly correlated to whether or not these parts are aligned. Shared Experience Broadly speaking, all organizations share the same three parts: • a Social system—customer demands, rewards/recognition, people processes, ways of working, culture, strategy, value-creation activities) • a Technical system—structures, technologies, management/ coordination processes and systems • an Environmental system—geographic-social-political-economic trends surrounding and influencing the business Bringing this “whole system” into a design exercise can daunt even the best of multi-taskers, which is why a collaborative approach not only eases the brain strain and workload but also enriches creativity, innovation and engagement. Whole System Collaborative Design By collaboratively co-designing their entire enterprise, employees and managers learn how to best serve all their stakeholders not just for today’s circumstances but for future change as well.  Designing your enterprise’s collaboration platform creates the stable, agile foundation capable of surviving and thriving in the rapidly changing environment of the 21st century. Collaboration Platform

Living in the New Normal: There’s a T-shirt for That

My Socio-technical Systems (STS) writing co-horts and I loosely refer to the current global economic and social environment as the “new normal”  — a term we did not invent but are seeing used to define conditions in diverse contexts. As…

Helen Maupin

Discovery & Design: The Personal is the Universal

(Co-authors:  Doug Austrom, Don de Guerre, Bob Laliberte, Bernard Mohr and Carolyn Ordowich) STS-RT Discovery Process Action research has been the foundation of Socio-technical Systems theory and practice since the 1950s work of Trist and Emery in the British coal…

Helen Maupin

Occupying Wall Street: Reinventing Democracy

In the 1960s, Stephen Stills of Buffalo Springfield wrote the following lyrics as both a testament and protest to the current events of that era. There’s something happening here What it is ain’t exactly clear There’s a man with a…

Helen Maupin

Celebration Time – Come On!

It’s time to come together? It’s up to you, what’s your pleasure Everyone around the world? Come on!         Celebration by Kool & The Gang          Celebration of Life   by Deepaz              http://bit.ly/rMDr5B Today, I celebrate two special events — 1 year…

Helen Maupin

Governance Frameworks – 1.0 versus 2.0

Although governance is not a new term when we consider corporate, political, economic and development models, it appears to wear different masks in different arenas.  Whatis.com defines corporate governance as the rules, processes or laws by which businesses are operated,…

Helen Maupin

Social Responsibility: How Do You Build Community?

  As futurists predicted, corporate social responsibility programs are growing faster than economic recovery.  Most participating enterprises are seizing this opportunity to enhance their competitive advantage in the market place by flexing their charitable muscles.  With savvy consumers basing buying…

Helen Maupin

Joy Is An Inside Job

In today’s working world, we hear a lot about personal and organizational transformation often without fully comprehending how much transformation is already embedded within the work we now do. When I began my coaching practice in the early 90s, the…

Helen Maupin

Inspiration: The “Eye” not the ‘Be All’ of Innovation

There is a lot of talk these days, around the online ‘water coolers,’ about the value of inspiration in both leadership and organizations.  A quick reference to its definitions produces •  divine influence •  a sudden brilliant, creative, or timely…

Helen Maupin

Anti-Hazing: There’s An App for That!

Last week a small community hockey team in Neepawa, Manitoba, made the national news when a young man courageously reported incidents of hazing against himself and his seven rookie team members.  For those of you who have not experienced hazing,…

Helen Maupin

Transformation’s Stutter Steps — A New Growth Cycle

After 10 months of growing Right to Joy as an online enterprise and reversing an 80:20 ratio from consulting:writing to writing:consulting, I feel as though we are turning a corner.  All our recent clients first connected with the web site…

Helen Maupin

Are You a Network Citizen?

Whether you are on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Bebo, Qzone or any of the hundred other social networks, the boundaries between our personal and professional lives are blurring. The ability to meet core human developmental needs such as connecting, collaborating and…

Helen Maupin

The Value of Paradox

Paradox … some ‘thing’ that is constructed by individuals when oppositional tendencies are brought into recognizable proximity through reflections or interaction.     Ford & Backoff   Paradoxes or contradictions emerge when our beliefs or assumptions fail to keep up with external…

Helen Maupin