7th ISPI Europe Conference -- Call for Proposals

 

An Organization IS its people

    The competitive advantage of balancing structure and process with organization culture.  Ignore either at your client's risk.

October 23-25, 2008

Galway, Ireland

You are invited

The International Society for Performance Improvement Europe (ISPI-Europe) invites you to submit a proposal for its upcoming conference focused on the following important theme - "An Organization IS its people: The competitive advantage of balancing structure and process with organization culture.  Ignore either at your client's risk." The conference is scheduled from October 23-25, 2008 in Galway, Ireland.  The due date for submissions is June 1, 2008.

 

Download the invitation to submit proposals here : http://www.ispi.org/Euro2008/CallforProposals2008.doc 

 

Organizations ARE Their People

As performance professionals, we can identify an organization's need(s) for improvements and recommend or design brilliant solutions or solution sets.  However, if the people who are the organization and, in particular, those who must participate in as well as manage and support the changes that will be implemented, are not an integral part of any and all solutions, they will very likely fail to deliver the results anticipated.

 

An organization's people must "own" both the definition of opportunities for improvement and the resulting action or actions that are planned to address problem areas and/or capitalize on opportunities.  Therefore, if we are to help clients to achieve a real and enduring competitive advantage, we must focus on BOTH the organization's structures and processes AND its people and organization culture.

 

Consider, for example, the experiences of some early business process reengineering efforts.  Brilliant, elegant and comprehensive improvement strategies and solutions were designed and implemented.  Yet, results were not always forthcoming.  Why?  Hammer and Champy who introduced the name, Business Process Reengineering or BPR, indicate a number of reasons that these large, comprehensive and expensive interventions fail to deliver expected results.  Of the 18 reasons for failure articulated by Hammer and Champy in their book, Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution (1993, Chapter 14) – the 7 items (below) extracted from their list, all deal with aspects of addressing BOTH processes/ structure AND people/culture.

 

 

q       Ignoring everything except process redesign [e.g. reorganization, reward system, labor relationships, redefinition of responsibility and authority]

 

q       Neglecting people's values and beliefs [need to reward behavior that exhibits new values and behavior]

 

q       Allowing existing corporate cultures and management attitudes to prevent Reengineering from getting started. [e.g. consensus, short-termism, bias against conflict]

 

q       Trying to make Reengineering happen from the bottom up

 

q       Concentrating exclusively on design [forgetting implementation]

 

q       Trying to make Reengineering happen without making anyone unhappy.

 

q       Pulling back when people resist making Reengineering changes

 

What has your own experience told you about implementing important and dramatic improvement efforts?  How do you ensure that you address both structural and process components and also people and cultural aspects of any effort to improve an organization's results?  Do you have stunning successes or, as important, cautionary tales that you are willing to share that we can all learn from?

 

Join us in Galway, Ireland this October 23 – 25, 2008 to share your ideas, theories, observations, insights, case studies, testimonials, formal and informal experimentations with techniques, models and approaches to supporting performance improvement efforts that really work and that truly address both processes and people.

 

Invitation to come and join us

 

Last year in Heidelberg, Germany, we successfully piloted tested a unique new format for our conference.  We started the conference with four (4) professionals playing the roles of key executives of a real company that was seeking assistance in improving its results.  The company and the situation presented were real with specifics and names changed to ensure the anonymity of the company and its executives.  Participants had conference presentations, presenters, other participants and their team mates to use as resources for developing a project approach which they presented to the Executive Board at the end of the conference.  We plan to use this approach again in Galway, with a new case and having implemented the great enhancement suggestions received in Heidelberg.

 

So, whether you are interested in sharing your experiences in a formal way by being a presenter or if you would rather come to learn, share, and contribute on a personal level, we encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity.  This forum will be a way to:

• Reinforce the exchange within our European network about how to optimize performance and help our clients create a competitive advantage.
• Meet new business colleagues and professional partners in the fields of human performance improvement, human resources management and development, organizational development, training and learning, public policy, and business administration.
• Prepare for the challenges that lie ahead of all of us to create healthy, prosperous organizations and communities.

 

More information

For more information about the International Society for Performance Improvement, check out the website www.ispi.org.  For more information about this upcoming ISPI Europe conference (such as conference venue and fees), please refer to the ISPI Europe website http://www.ispi.org/Euro2008/default.htm .