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Living with the Contractor
Initially I worked to become part of the team. I got beyond the review meetings to where the real work was going on. It was important to spend some energy becoming part of the team and proving my value. All new leaders or team members must do this to be effective. I think we all need to earn the right to be part of a team regardless of what our official roles and responsibilities are. Humans are social creatures and team dynamics play an important role in one's effectiveness. Initially engaging others in what they do, listening more than talking, and helping others accomplish their tasks are all great ways to earn the right to influence the process. For the customer at a contractor's facility, this is also a great way to gain in-depth knowledge of existing processes. It's difficult to really understand what is broken without rolling up your shirtsleeves and doing some of the work yourself. You learn where the processes are breaking down. Read more...
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CompanyCommand: A Professional Community That Works
CompanyCommand is a professional forum through which soldiers who have been given command of a company (about 150 soldiers) learn from each other in the mess hall, over the hood of a Humvee in Iraq, and online at http://companycommand.army.mil. CompanyCommand has been heralded by the army as its premier professional forum, notwithstanding its grassroots beginnings in 1995 by two young U.S. Army officers. Read more...
Democratizing Knowledge at NASA and Elsewhere
A couple of years ago, I assigned a case study on NASA's approach to knowledge management to several teams of MBA students as a final exam. As part of the exam, the teams were expected to make recommendations for how NASA should revise its approaches to knowledge. One MBA team suggested a major change in direction. Their recommendation went something like this: “NASA should abandon its current systems and approaches to managing knowledge and adopt a series of wikis instead.” Read more...
