REPORTER:
Don McIntosh Avoiding
Performance Technology Myopia: Using All of the Available Levers to Help an Organization
Change - Joe
Durzo, CPT, Ph.D., Senior Vice President and CLO, Archstone-Smith
Joe
gave one of the Masters' presentations on Friday morning. His company, Archstone-Smith,
is a large US property management company based in Denver, Colorado. Joe's subject
was the soft side of consulting. We are good at the technical stuff (by technical
in this case, we mean the processes of human performance technology) but sometimes
we need to look at the people in the equation. He
addressed reasons for change projects' successes and failures from his own experience.
Joe's address was dynamic, funny and he offered wise advice for all of us based
on stories from his own experience. His
"Levers" are: - Maximizing
personal effectiveness
- Ensuring
team effectiveness
- Managing
expectations and communication
- Ensuring
client ownership of procedures and results
He
had photographs of a number of unusual signs which elicited genuine laughter.
My favourite was one from right here in North Vancouver which said "Owners:
Please keep your dogs on a leash. Dogs: Woof, arf, bark, bark" (or words
to that effect). He used it to make the point that you need to speak the client's
language rather than the language of HPT. It is also good to know that there is
someone in the municipal sign department of North Vancouver with a sense of humour. His
paper is in the March 2005 issue of Performance Improvement Quarterly Vol. 44,
No. 2. I
am biased because both Joe and his wife Judy and I were graduate students together
at Syracuse University 100 years ago and it was great to see him again. |
| 
Check
out Don's other reports: My
conference impressions How
do you want to learn today? - Connie Cassarino and Ginger Swope, IBM Avoiding
Performance Technology Myopia
- Joe Durzo Wow!
Where Did That Come From? - Peter Honebein |
