New animated video on YouTube--Breathless Mom Project Conversation

Just released on YouTube--a Breathless Mom Project Conversation animated video.  Melissa and Susan engage in a conversation about the Breathless Mom Project at the coffee area at work.  As they talk about the project, both agree to work with JoelMonty to get more people involved in working on and with the project.
I've learned over the years that cartoons--and now, animated videos, can do more to convey a message than email, face-to-face, or video-conferences.  While this may not be true for long-term messages, it is very true for small, tight messages.
Anyway, check-out the video, get involved with the Breathless Mom Project and tell me what you think.

Networking--Finding People for Jobs and Jobs for People

I received two contacts today from headhunters (recruiters).  One was an e-mail with a position the recruiter thought might be right for me.  The second was a telephone call asking my help in finding someone bilingual in English and French who might be interested in telemarketing for a Canadian technology company.

I network with companies who provide services I endorse (see http://www.joelmonty.net/information_links/information_links.htm).  I decided to add a job board to my joelmonty.wikispaces.com website.

I also went to LinkedIn and joined two groups who may have contacts which could help someone find that job.  For one of the groups I actually posted a link to my job board page.

Why help someone who is looking to find someone a job?  These days, so many people need jobs it only makes sense to help people who are looking to fill jobs.  In fact, people who have a job still may need contacts for a supplementary (or next) job.

I'm still looking for clients and, in the mean time, I'm happy to help others be more successful in their own jobs and in finding jobs for others.

Learning and Change--Action Steps for Teams and Organizations

Teams and organizations are created for different purposes.  In general, they have goals and intend to work together somehow to achieve these goals.    This post is a continuation of yesterday's post on Learning and Change.  There is a follow-up post focusing on individual learning and change.

Sometimes teams are more successful than at other times in achieving their goals.  Over time meta-models have been created that help explain what is going on in the groups and teams that make some more successful that others.

The Team Tracking Tool (see slide 12) is reproduced below.  Notice the "Do Not Enter" sign at the top.  Many teams and organizations think they can go immediately from inputs to outputs without moving through the process steps required.  Almost 100% of the time this spells disaster and the team or organization has to undo or redo everything--as well as recover the lost trust that failure promotes.  Note the trust building elements of the tool.  Blake and Mouton developed a Managerial Grid explaining the different focuses of people and production in teams.  (A variation of that grid is reproduced below the Team Tracking Tool and a link to Blake and Mouton's model is also provided here.)

(Click on the picture to see it separately and completely.)

Blake and Mouton created a management grid to explain the relationship of people (maintenance) focus and production (task) focus.  The grid is reproduced on Wikipedia.

(Click on the picture to view it separately and completely.)

 Both task and maintenance functions are critical to the successful progress of teams and organizations.  Over emphasis on one or the other delays the development of trust and the effectiveness of teams.  In my early career in Change Management, I learned to make people my task--thus ensuring that both task and maintenance functions were completed.  Trust is the bonding that allows teams to function well and is a critical maintenance function.

(Click on the picture to see it separately and completely.) (See slide 11.)

 If trust is not allowed to develop, synergy--the energy that allows the output to be greater than what could be produced by the sum of its parts (people) will be missing.  As new people are added to a team, group, or organization and as the vision changes, building blocks of trust need to be revisited to allow for the group energy to move freely to the next area.

Exploring Noetic Sciences and Thought System Research

In the research for my dissertation (published in 1992) I reviewed a body of research on the thought system (see slide 3).  The Institute of Noetic Sciences is exploring avenues of research I have been working with my entire life.  It is amazing to me that much of what I have been exploring for so long is starting to come together quickly and that a work of fiction has pointed me toward other researchers engaged in similar pursuits.

The concept of developing patterns or habits of thought has been explored throughout time.  We have more precise instruments to measure what people have "known" for years.  As we re-think in the same patterns we actually cut pathways into our brains.  When injury, an illness, or age interferes with brain function, we may lose access to that information.  In families, we can lose the continuity of family history if we have not recorded (in audio or written form) the memory of the oldest members of our families.  To some extent this is also true in terms of losing some of the memory of our times--if the books fade or are lost, if digital media becomes unstable or is destroyed, we are at risk of losing much of what we "know" as a species.

Our thought systems act as guides for our behavior and our future, as well as keeping a record of what we program into our bodies and behaviors.  Noetic sciences--learning more about how this works--can lead us to creating more opportunities for upliftment and healing for everyone.  That is something we can really appreciate as our population begins to enjoy an expanded lifespan.

Learning, Change, and Education--A dynamic relationship

Change requires learning and learning generates change. Education is a tool that makes the process flow more smoothly.

(Now aren't you glad you looked at this blog today?)

A common definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

The relationship between change, learning, and education is dynamic and synergistic. Each influences the other. There are similar steps and stages for individuals and organizations and the details of what happens in those steps and stages are different. Visit http://joelmonty.wikispaces.com/meta-models and look at two Meta-models—the Personal Performance Change Curve and the Organizational Performance Change Curve for details.


Change is not easy. Even when we know that something is good for us, it's hard to do it. I've lost weight using Jenny Craig's meals and I know they work. Over the summer I have "supplemented" the meals too much and have gained back a few pounds. I know better and know that I can trim the supplements and get back on my weight loss program. I'll do that "tomorrow." For me, at least I know what to do and what to change to. Jenny's meals have worked for me in the past and I'm still on the program.

In business and in K-12 education change is difficult as well. It is often difficult to decide what to change and what to change to. To make matters worse, people keep coming up with new technologies or fads or "sure fire techniques" that will "make it happen now." (Only these innovations fail to produce the results intended--at least for the people working to implement them. Why do they fail?

Many times the innovation or intervention could be successful if the people putting them into practice learned what they really need to know to make the innovation or intervention successful. That learning requires an investment of time and energy and a willingness to accept that there is something more to be learned. While some people who are committed to the change are willing to do the learning required, many others are not and that is often the cause of failure to change.

In education, research I've worked with this summer shows that many high school graduates in the USA read at a third to sixth grade level (instead of a 12th grade level or higher). I've found that statistic from research 13 years ago and found that to be true in my 7th and 8th grade classrooms this Spring. There have been lots of interventions and innovations over the past 13 years--yet the results of the research indicate much the same condition. What hasn't worked?

Education (in terms of the larger sense of the process of education rather than the sense of education as a business) can help individuals and organizations move through the steps and stages of the Change Process to achieve the change goals. In most cases—in business and in the education industry—education for the shared vision of change has not taken place. Most education being provided today is more tactical than strategic and the people receiving the training often do not find much value—in the proposed change or in the training they received to implement it. (This was feedback I found both in business and in education all over the world.)
Part of what needs to happen is to have an enlarged vision of the change—beyond just the intervention being proposed. People and organizations need to be prepared for the change, to learn what they need to in order to move through the stages of awareness, acceptance, and action.

A facilitator with a rich background in education and learning—(of course this is a plug: it’s my blog, after all)—can help guide the process so that more holistic learning and change can take place.

Another rich resource for helping organizations learn and change is the process of Action Learning initiated by Reg Revans out of the United Kingdom. Visit http://www.ifal-usa.org/ for more information.) I use both Action Learning and Action Research (pioneered by Kurt Lewin in the 1940s) as part of the tools in my toolkit—along with some of the work of Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt (author of The Goal and Critical Chain, among other works).