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ASTD 2009 International Conference & Expo


Bullish on Uncertainty: How to Create Adaptable Organizations

Session #: 339-W114
Presenter(s): Alexandra Michel; Stanton Wortham
Session Length: 1 hr. 15 min.
Event: 2009 ASTD International Conference & Expo
Date: May 31-June 3, 2009

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This session introduces a new and highly effective way to assist your organizations in managing the uncertainty generated by globalization, rapidly changing markets, technological change, and political instability. We'll present best practices from more than 20 Wall Street professional-service firms and other organizations in diverse industries that all deal with complex and dynamic business environments. Traditionally, organizations reduce employees' uncertainty. For example, organizations design explicit roles, goals, and strategies; staff employees on projects in their domain of experience; and otherwise give employees all the tools needed to do their jobs. Employees like this approach because it gives them a sense of control. This approach, however, has the unintended consequence of creating the "dumb expert"—a person who believes that he or she knows what a situation is all about and, therefore, simply deploys a habitual action repertoire. This isn't problematic as long as the business environment is relatively stable and actions that worked in the past continue to work. But as soon as markets change, such habit-following experts can commit costly errors. As the current trouble on Wall Street exemplifies, experts' judgment errors can topple high-flying CEOs, undo venerable organizations, and cause thousands of layoffs. Some firms, however, weren't only relatively unaffected by but even profited from past and present turbulence. What did these firms do differently? We'll show how they increased employees' uncertainty to constantly keep them on their toes, to make them question what they think they know, and to draw on the organization's entire resources to come up with unique solutions. This approach requires a different design of strategies, roles, training, and feedback that you'll learn to apply to your own organizations.



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