The Elephant and the Stapler: Developing a Common Language of Efficiency, Effectiveness and Timeliness
#WESTperspective

Do you feel that sometimes your organization mirrors the old tale about the blind men and the elephant? The tale says that when the blind men were asked to describe the elephant, they could not produce a unified picture of the elephant because they were describing its different parts. In today’s organizational environments, this tale is used to illustrate how people have to ‘collaborate’, ‘communicate’, ‘align perspectives', etc. Yet, these valuable concepts are vague and non-prescriptive, i.e. they do not tell you how to change behaviors in a concrete way so that day-to-day decisions capture and act on the whole picture of the elephant. The result is that you end up with a stapled version of a complex situation and difficult interpersonal dynamics. In this workshop, you will learn how to escape the blind men conundrum by helping your team 'see' situations in all their complexity. You will learn: 1. how to capture the various perspectives as a unified view, and 2. how to develop and track appropriate metrics of performance. This interactive workshop offers practical application of tools created to support decision-making in complex work.

More about Iris

Iris Stammberger, Ph.D. is a business performance improvement consultant who has worked internationally with IT, energy, biotech, pharmaceutical, energy and higher education organizations. She is the founder and CEO of the Learning Management Institute, a consulting firm supporting business performance improvement in organizations through the use of TALBOK™, a framework and methodology for effective decision-making in organizations. Prior to this, she held the Project Management Professional Certification (PMP) and worked internationally in strategy execution and project management as the CEO of a boutique management and engineering consulting firm in Latin America. She holds a Ph.D. from Tufts University (Cognitive Studies) and an MSEE from Universidad Central de Venezuela.

Date and Time:
November 12, 2015
6:00 - 8:30 PM

Agenda:

5:50-6:10pm: Registration, mingling, and light dinner
6:10-6:30pm: Facilitated networking
6:30-8:00pm: Workshop
8:00-8:30pm: Optional networking

Location:

Microsoft, One Cambridge Center, 4th Floor, Hawthorne Room, Cambridge, MA 02142

Map and Parking Information

We appreciate Microsoft donating the use of their event space. Microsoft requires all attendees to check in on the first floor with a government issued photo id card.