informal coalitions

Leadership communication in organizational change

In Lessons in Communicating Change, on her Body Talk blog, Dr Carol Kinsey Goman, challenges conventional wisdom on leadership communication in organizational change.

In particular, she stresses the critical importance of informal communication - the "complex web of social interactions and informal networks" as she puts it – which accounts for upwards of 70% of all organizational communication. Her post goes on to underline the powerful role that she sees non-verbal signals playing in the communication process.

Mobilizing commitment - The motive, means and opportunity to excel

As a youngster, I used to play a card game called "I Commit" (opposite), which was originally devised in the 1930s. During the game, players competed to collect sets of three cards which would enable them to ‘commit a crime’. I should add that, to redress the moral balance, they also strove to collect 'policemen' to thwart the criminal activities of their opponents!  In essence, before a player could say “I commit ...”, they needed to show that they had the motive, the means and the opportunity to do so.

So what has a 1930s parlour game got to do with mobilizing commitment in 21st century organizations? Well, if people are (figuratively speaking) to say "I commit" in relation to their everyday roles and relationships at work, then they too need the motive, means and opportunity to do so. 

Changing the conversations - Patricia Shaw

In his personal weblog (On conversations ... 4 December 2006), Johnnie Moore sets out some of his early thoughts on re-reading Patricia Shaw's book Changing Conversations in Organizations. The book is one of the series published in 2002 by members of the faculty and students on the University of Hertfordshire's Doctoral Programme in Organizational Change, which are referred to elsewhere in this blog.

I had the pleasure of participating in a workshop run by Patricia Shaw at the university in May 2002, timed to coincide with the launch of the book series. Some of Shaw's concluding remarks and my own thoughts on what she said are set out below.