English Archieven

2012/07/10 by Jac Rongen

How to catch a dolphin by train

Headache riddle for a manager: ‘How can you organise large groups of people so they keep in close contact without stepping on each other’s toes?’
Knee-jerk answer: write manuals. Many many manuals. With procedures.

Sure: if your bank goes bankrupt, you want to know who burnt your money. And everyone wants solid procedures to prevent these things.

But, procedures muffle personal communication. The good news is: a smart employees will develop the wildest work arounds. Bend a rule or two. Just to do his work as he thinks it should be done. Or to keep things fun.

The other day I took the train with our youngest. As soon as the conductor laid his eyes on her, he seemed to remember something, and started smiling. Out of a hidden pocket, he magically produced a kid’s paper puncher. The tension rose slightly. I could hear a drum roll. Then a dolphin jumped from the ticket punch. It kept my 5-year old grinning for the rest of the train ride.

Still, the little ticket keeps popping up in our house. My daughter is a driven train lobbyist for life.
Thanks a red little plastic puncher.
And a professional out of his box.
naar Nederlands

2011/09/22 by Jac Rongen

Mass Psychology for Dummies

Highlights from mass psychology brought together in a funny 3-minute video. About the overrating of leadership, and the importance of first followers.
(with thanks to Krijn Korver)
naar Nederlands

2011/09/06 by Jac Rongen

“Wish you were here”

“Why write holiday postcards,”was the recurring question from people around me this summer, when they observed the many hours that I spend writing cards, also the addresses. “You can print those nowadays, you know.”

To me, however, this offers a yearly moment of reflection. Noticing that I haven’t seen someone for a(nother) year, I become acutely aware if not having seen the person makes me sorry or not. Ever so often I stop writing, but usually the mailing list gets longer every year, with good memories attached.
In some cases it also provides a good exercise. Especially if the interaction wasn’t all that smoothly in the past year, I force myself to keep searching until I find something that I can truthfully thank the other for. And I write that down.

If you read this, and you unexpectedly didn’t get a card, I probably lost your address, or Outlook did something funny. Please drop me a mail at jac@rongen.com with your snail-mail address , and I will be thinking of you next year as I write an old fashioned postcard.

The Swedish Mail has developed a new approach to sending cards, and uses Facebook and other applications in an ingenious way to automatically produce postcards that are supposed to convey a feeling of intimacy.

naar Nederlands

2011/07/14 by Jac Rongen

Preverbal colouring

When involved in some serious learning, you can end up in an area where your language falls short in describing what is happening. Your new experiences are not connected with known words, yet. As soon as the first surge of enthousiasm is gone, the very source of that enthousiasm seems to have been washed away, simply because of a lack of connection with your existing world of reference.

To facilitate retention of the new, I sometimes invite participants to express themselves about the new experiences in ways that they are not very familiar with. It helps to form connections between their old knowledge and what is newly learned. One way to do this, is by making a colourful painting, while keeping a certain theme in mind. The small pieces of art that are the result of this, often carry a lot of meaning for their maker. Once I ran into a former participant two years after a programme, and she opened the conversation showing her painted object: “Look, I always have this with me in my car. It helps.”

Further reading: a short and powerful recount of this type of experience by a participant, from the PhD study of Roger Greenaway.

Kleur
naar Nederlands

2011/07/01 by Jac Rongen

Inspirational leadership

Now that the producer of the Blackberry is in stormy weather, it comes as no surprise that critical noises are rising, as in this open letter. The writer asks for positive action, whilst referring to a TED speech by Simon Sinek on inspiring leadership. At 17.00 minutes there is the quote ‘Martin Luther King gave the “I have a dream” speech, not the “I have a plan” speech.’

2011/04/29 by sihw

Work/life balance

As a facilitator I often introduce myself by answerring questions from the participants. The advantage is that they get an answer to any question they want to ask, and it prevents me from talking about things people don’t want to hear. It also gives an idea of the frames of mind in the room.

Recently a participant asked me about my work/life balance. In honest I started to answer that I do work a lot, and that I really love my work. It dawned upon me that it was a peculiar phrase, since it carries the assumption that there is a difference between my life and my work. I made a small remark on it without giving it any further attention.

Somewhere on day three, halfway through the programme, we looked back to see where people had encountered issues to think about, or cues for change. ‘The remark on the seeming divide between life and work,’ it came without a trace of hesitation from that participant. A bit surprised I realised that
– one can design a good programme, but you cannot plan where or when a participant has an experience or an insight;
– as facilitator you may have to offer most when you think least about it, when there is no divide between work and life.

Read more: Academic article from ’97 against the use of the phrase work/life balance.

Reaction: Bring Back the 40 Hour Work Week