Ldrs320

Topic 3:  When talk becomes action

In organizations, dialogue is critical for effective decisions.   An organization starts out with strong dialogue that includes planning and dreaming.  As time goes by, the dialogue becomes clumsy; talking and effective decisions are fading.  What happens? 

 

In Unit one we looked at the many things that impact decisions.  It is difficult to even get to the point of decisions when the ability to dialogue is lost.  New budgets, new employees, corporate take-overs, conflicts, misunderstandings, and restructures are a few of the things that get in the way of effective dialogue.  Effective decision making becomes less than effective. 

 

How can we have dialogue that becomes action?

Charan discusses three primary things to practice when turning and organization of indecision into a culture of decision makers.  Identify these three topics in the chapter to gain a deeper understanding of who they can improve dialogue.

·  Intellectual honesty:  Trust and respect each other

· Social operation mechanisms:  Know who and when to talk to.  Make the environment comfortable for open discussions

· Openness

· Candor

· Informality

· Feedback and follow through:  Listen to suggestions.  Do what you say you are going to do.

 

Learning Activities

Activity 3.4:   Role Play – Copy To build or not to build

The citizens of the town of Smithville, population 1,500, decided to build a new school within the next two years.  Smithville has $500,000 of government funding for planning and development; additional funding is available as plans are finalized.   For the past 50 years, school children have traveled 10 miles each way to attend the Mars school.

Your Learning Pod will role play this scenario, debating about the reasons to build and not to build. Things to consider could be:  safety, best use of resources, traffic, community investment, tradition, taxes.   Each student will become their own “person” in the dialogue, taking up one or two of the things to consider.  Your “person” may be kind and gentle. contentious, have grudges, or just stuck in the past.  Develop your “person” as you go along.   The Role Play will last 3 – 4 minutes.  (Choose one person to be the time-keeper.)

After the role play, spend 5 minutes discussing why or why not this was a successful dialogue. 

Bing Search School bus children 

 

Activity 3.6:

· The response to COVID-19 brought world-wide changes and decision making.  Beginning with the World Health Organization, identify at least 4 levels of dialogue or people who were involved before national quarantine was in place.

· Write a brief 1-page reflection on the levels of layers of people/organizations involved before the quarantine was implemented.  Submit into the dropbox under Unit 3.

 

Key Terms

Read Making Decisions, pp 3 – 12.

DROP AND DRAG ACTIVITY

Define the following terms, dragging the key term to the correct definition.

Openness              The outcome is not predetermined

Candor                   A willingness to speak the unspeakable, to expose, and to air conflict   

Informality            Casual, encourages candor

Closure                  At the end of a meeting, people know exactly what to do.