The 4 Enabling Disciplines
DexterityDynamism
Discourse
Discovery
More than 100 different topics offered Ensemble Enabler is proud to be a certified provider for CoachingOurselves© – the company which was inspired by Professor Henry Mintzberg of McGill University (Montreal). This peer coaching concept was launched in 2007. Over the years, CoachingOurselves© has developed an extensive library of content for use in peer coaching sessions in conjunction with world renowned experts and business leaders in their fields. For instance, Professor Edgar Schein of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has written modules on leadership and organizational culture. What to do if your topic is not found in the CoachingOurselves© Library? [...]
How does Peer-to-Peer Networking support the Five Disciplines? The Five Disciplines of the Learning Organization include: Personal Mastery, Mental Models, Team Learning, Shared Vision, and Systems Thinking. The discussion which follows demonstrates how Peer-to-Peer Learning supports all five of these disciplines. Discipline 1 - Personal Mastery Personal Mastery describes the strength of people to be proactive and keep on learning in order to continuously achieve results which are important for them. The two key factors of this discipline are: 1. Defining what is important to us and 2. Being able to see the current reality as it is. The essence [...]
In his epic book The Fifth Discipline published in 1990, Peter Senge – a Professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – coined the phrase “Learning Organization”. This idea of an adaptable organization that transforms itself through learning caught the attention and imagination of many academics and management practitioners worldwide. Peter M. Senge, The art and practice of the learning organization: Currency - The Crown Publishing Group - New York 1990, second edition 2006 You can see why such a concept was attractive then and is arguably equally if not more attractive now. Learning at the level of the individual [...]
NEZWORK CONNECTIONS is an innovative approach to employee development The use of NETWORK CONNECTIONS enhances a company’s development programs in a myriad of ways. At the same time it also improves organizational effectiveness. Any business or organization can achieve the following goals through the use of NETWORK CONNECTIONS by: 1. Providing development opportunities for KMUs or Family-owned companies 2. Enhancing existing development programs 3. Supporting the effectiveness of existing competency models 4. Promoting inter-organizational networking 5. Bolstering change initiatives and 6. Turbo-charging internal communications Your employees can use NETWORK CONNECTIONS to work towards these goals either face-to-face on-site in your [...]
Solving the Challenge of Sustainable Learning in a Business Setting: Introducing Peer-to-Peer Networking Peer-to-Peer Networking is a flexible and agile concept which consists of bringing four people together with an experienced Learning Enabler for a 90 minute learning session. The content of these Peer-to-Peer sessions draws from a growing library of more than 100 modules on topics which have been written by a select group of the world's leading business experts. When special company topics are required, custom-designed Peer-to-Peer modules can be developed by Ensemble Enabler to meet a company's distinctive needs. All Peer-to-Peer modules can be made accessible to [...]
A unique process to foster individual, team and organizational learning Coaching Ourselves is a Peer-to-Peer Networking process which enables employees to learn from and with each other. It provides a framework through which employees are able increase both their knowledge and skills in specific business areas either digitally or on-site at their business location. By expanding their skill-set and know-how, employees are empowered to personally contribute to creating a more agile organization. (Take a look at the following introduction for a detailed overview to Enable Enabler's approach to Peer-to-Peer Networking: The Value of Peer-to-Peer Networking for your Organization Recognizing the [...]
Emotions and Leadership As we prepare tomorrow's business leaders, not enough is being invested in teaching them the basics of what it means to be human. Their preparation typically consists of an on-going accumulation of factual knowledge combined with the acquisition of a spectrum of business skills. It is apparent when looking at this kind of work preparation, that the focus is on the content and the process of the work to be done. Much less is invested in the ability to relate to whom they are actually leading: human beings. Learning to work with and lead people is for the most part often left to be learned on the [...]
The Peer-to-Peer Networking process combines state of the art management content with the benefits of social learning. This approach provides a cost effective way to develop people and is easy to implement. Employees can either have a face-to-face experience in your organization's meeting rooms or participate in a Peer-to-Peer Networking module virtually with other colleagues online. Your business can take the following three steps to introduce this process into your organization: 1. Test it with a team If you are intrigued by the concept of the Coaching Ourselves approach by Henry Mintzberg - try it out. Select a team for a 90 minute [...]
Focusing on the future Feedback is an essential element of good leadership and high performance teams. Individuals cannot function in a vacuum. They need to know what they are doing well and what they need to improve. Dr. Marshall Goldsmith - a well known management educator and coach notes that feedback has a fundamental limitation. Feedback by its very nature looks at the past instead of looking ahead towards the future. This makes feedback potentially static and undynamic. The past cannot be changed. It is in the future that possibilities for development reside. To address this fundamental flaw in feedback [...]
Encountering Holocracy I became aware of Holocracy in 2016 when I read an article in the German language newspaper Handelsblatt on the recent work of the distinguished Professor Gary Hamel who is known for introducing the concept of c ore competencies in the 1990s. This theory suggests that companies can build a sustainable competitive advantage by identifying and investing in the core processes that drive their business. In more recent years, Hamel's work has taken a very different direction. He is concerned with the future of management. He believes that in many ways hierarchical management is actually impeding the generation of value. Somewhere in the footnotes of [...]
Lifelong Learning Knowledge is accumulating at an ever increasing pace in today's world. As a result, fostering lifelong learning is regarded as essential for a company's on-going success. Individuals need to continue learning throughout the course of their working lives. Companies support their employees' learning journey by offering a broad spectrum of courses and training programs as part of their management development programs. Normally such formal courses and training programs are based on an established template which are carried out repeatedly. External experts with specific know-how are often engaged present this knowledge to the participants. This top-down approach may provide [...]
The challenges of the digital revolution are compelling us to review our understanding of what comprises good leadership. In the not too distant past, one of middle managers’ main responsibilities was the transfer of information throughout the organization. Today much of that information is available at a click of a button. In the not too distant past, most of the information was to be found at the top of the organization. Today it is everywhere throughout the organization and it is quite likely that key strategic information does not necessarily reside in the C-Suite. As a matter of fact, in [...]
PMG is a medium size company specializing in the manufacturing of automotive parts. New management was recently hired to lead the organization into the next phase of the company's development. After a review of the business, the leadership embarked on several strategic change initiatives. How could the management be better prepared to guide these initiatives in an effective manner? Taking the Fish out of the Water A fish does not know what water is until it is taken out of the water. Similarly, leaders and managers in organizations often do not see the water around them either – until [...]
The Context The EKN division of E.O.N. - a German based energy company - convened a meeting in the form of a systemic dialogue in order to enhance employee engagement. 150 employees out of a total EKN workforce of approximately 800 participated at two locations - Hamburg and Landshut. During the course of these meetings, multiple proposals were made that could potentially have a considerable impact on EKN's workplace. However, over 600 employees were not able to participate directly in the formulation of these proposals. How could these employees not only be informed of the potential proposals being considered, [...]
In the wheat growing areas of the world, grain is stored in large towers known as silos. Each silo rises high into the sky, independent of the other silos. Multiple silos are usually required. This colorful metaphor that has become commonplace to describe separation and lack of coordination in organizations and in society which is not necessarily understood across the entire world. Silos are not to be found in rice based economies. When in 2005 the newly appointed CEO to Sony – Howard Stringer (an Englishman who had led Sony’s North American operations) – made his first strategy speech in [...]
