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 A free e-newsletter spotlighting systemic thinking and innovations in leadership, management, and organizational development. Please forward to your colleagues. 
 March 13, 2002 Issue 23 |
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FACE
TO FACE Beyond Silos at Sandia National Laboratories: From an Interview with Lynn Jones |
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FROM
THE FIELD Diversity Addressed by Dominant Culture Awareness |
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LEARNING
LINKS The "ARIA" Approach to Conflict Engagement |
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FACE
TO FACE Beyond Silos at Sandia National Laboratories: From an Interview with Lynn Jones by Kali Saposnick 
About two
years ago, Lynn Jones, then vice president of lab services at Sandia
National Laboratories, NM, decided to commit to a major change initiative.
Responsible at the time for overseeing facilities, environmental protection,
health and safety, and security at the lab, Lynn was one of several
leaders who recognized that Sandia's mission was shifting, and that
its entire infrastructure needed to be transformed if the lab were
to successfully meet the needs of its expanding customer base.
Since the 1940s, Sandia has been one of three government-owned labs that provide national security for the United States by developing nuclear weapons and atomic energy technologies. A program of the National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA), a semi-autonomous part of the Department of Energy (DOE), and operated by contractor Lockheed Martin, Sandia has a budget of approximately $1.7 billion and 7,700 employees. Its goal is to help parts of the U.S. government, universities, and private industry secure a peaceful and free world through developing technology in four mission areas: nuclear weapons, nonproliferation and materials control, energy and critical infrastructures, and emerging threats. After the Cold
War ended and the U.S.'s needs for national security broadened,
Lynn and her colleagues responsible for infrastructure—which
accounts for approximately $600 million of Sandia's total budget
and 2,500 people—recognized significant limitations in how
they provided services to the mission areas. For one thing, each
infrastructure unit (human resources, information, financial, legal,
and so forth) operated in a highly traditional work culture with
vice presidents and directors responsible for individual service
functions, and units rarely coordinated work efforts. For another,
the lab struggled to sustain staff diversity and creativity in the
face of a strict compliance and oversight environment. This restrained
culture often stifled innovation and added costs for items such
as high security checks and constant auditing that some customers
with less stringent requirements didn't need. |
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FROM
THE FIELD Diversity Addressed by Dominant Culture Awareness Understanding the dominant culture in a given setting may be the best way to foster diversity in the workplace. Why? Because all aspects of diversity—such as age, race, gender, management status, education, and thinking style—have dominant and nondominant sides and, consequently, varying gradations of power and privilege. In the United States, for instance, we favor left-brained, analytical people over right-brained, creative ones; women dominate the nursing profession while men dominate as firefighters; and in many locations English speakers prevail over other language speakers. But with power come privileges that dominant members often fail to recognize. For example, most U.S. organizations structure themselves around European-American procedures and concepts—about competition, job performance, communication, and decision-making styles. Many European- Americans assume these rules are "natural"; they can't imagine other ways of organizing. Their assumption implies a deeper inability to see other people—with their various perspectives—as equally human and complex. To grasp these issues more fully, we all need to see ourselves as operating in specific cultures—and that other cultures are variations, not deviations. Developing this awareness requires consistently challenging our dominant viewpoint, engaging in real conversation with people different from us, entering situations as the noticeable minority who doesn't know the unspoken rules, consciously reading books and watching movies about other groups, and so forth. When we take someone else's perspective, we can see how cultural conflicts unfold in our organizations and thereby address diversity issues more effectively. —KS Source: Patricia Digh, "Culture, What Culture?" in Association Management, February 2001 |
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LEARNING
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| Copyright 2002 Pegasus Communications. LEVERAGE POINTS™ can be freely distributed in its entirety or reproduced or excerpted for another publication with written permission from Pegasus Communications. Contact permissions@pegasuscom.com. | |||||||||||||||||||
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Utilizing
a "world café" format to enable deep learning
and conversation, the conference will begin with
a dramatic presentation by The Breakthrough Group
of the "extreme" challenges faced by the Antarctic
expedition led by Sir Ernest Shackleton. From
this tale of collective leadership in perilous
circumstances, the conference program will explore
the challenges we face today in optimizing our
individual effectiveness, our teams, our organizations,
and our institutions. We will be joined by Juanita
Brown, David Isaacs, Peter Senge, Margaret Wheatley,
Daniel H. Kim, and other thought leaders
and practitioners.
The
Tip of the Iceberg is the fourth in the Learning
Fable Series from Pegasus Communications. This
book explores the discipline of systems thinking,
vividly illustrating how organizations can be
trapped by systems when they fail to understand
them. The transparencies (capturing the best b&w
illustrations and captions) will help managers
create a transformative learning experience for
their teams, departments, and organizations.
