Days 10 and 11: Rolled into One

It's 9.06pm (21.06) and I've just returned from Study Group. These happen after dinner with a smaller, select group of  participants (5 in our case). The purpose is twofold; to review the day's sessions and discuss what is relevant to our individual organisation, followed by a list of study questions relating to tomorrow's topics. Thanks Clare (YouthNet School Based Mentoring) for suggesting this structure - it really worked! Prior to our classes, we have a lot of reading to do: academic and journal articles by our professors, extracts from published books and case studies that prepare us for the discussion and these groups test our thinking. Last night, for example was a study of a very large non-profit, AARP (American Association of Retired People) and tonight was the Wild Salmon Center.

Monday was a full program: Gaming for the Greater Good (yes it exists!), Capacity Management, Understanding Congestion and Delay in Business, Social Innovation in Large Established Nonprofits and then our final session for the day was a workshop with Chip Heath (Switch, Sticking Point) in a research project on decision-making. A BIG DAY! Not helped by the earlier starting time due to daylight saving.

Going back over my notes for the day some 'bright spots' stood out (I'm misusing the term, I know, but it works for me).

Gaming for the Greater Good
The question our professor, Byron Reeves posed was: how to engage people in things we care about? The focus here being interactive technologies, in particular online gaming, and more importantly how can these games can be used in the workplace to provide personal and purposeful engagement. "Play is not the opposite of work" - this will please my staff no end!

Reeves reminded us that "people remember information better in a story". [One of our course reading materials was The Goal by Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt. Described by Wikipedia as a management-oriented novel, it combined the trials and tribulations of a middle manager struggling with work and relationship troubles, while explaining the Theory of Constraints in manufacturing]. Games are big, worldwide. Millions of people play them everyday. According to recent research, the profile of a gamer is 30someting, in full time employment, with an average annual income of US$85,000, predominately women spending up to 25 hours a week, replacing TV by 5 hours per day - a million miles away from the unwashed, pimpled-faced, pizza eating, dark-circles-under-the-eyes geek you first think of as a gamer. And what the research is saying, is this pastime is creating leaders because many of the skills utilised in these games are the same used in business - even non-profit business.

"In the realm of online games, specifically massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs), leaders emerge that deftly navigate the motivational, emotional and social needs of their direct reports in a highly competitive, distributed, virtual environment. And there are many lessons to be learned." Virtual Worlds, Real Leaders, Global Innovation 2.0 

Capacity Management
Process is described as a continuous and regular action or succession of actions, taking place or carried on in a definite manner, and leading to the accomplishment of some result. We are pretty good at process at Downstage, shows go in and shows go out, on time and generally to budget. The variable here is the Box Office which peaks and falls but averages out (or not ) by the end of the year - after all, we are a not for profit! But there's a hitch (or is that a Herbie!?*) every organisation has a bottle neck. A bottle neck is any resource whose capacity is less or equal to the demand placed on it; it sets the maximum ability to produce products or services. "Often CEOs are bottle necks" says, Prof. James M. Patell. Jim summarises, clearly and succinctly, The Goal, which he reminds us, is to produce satisfied customers or constituents by delivering goods or services better, faster, cheaper. Better being quality, faster being responsive, and cheaper being to budget in our case.

* You have to read the book.

Congestion and Delay in Business
Jim continued after the break with Queueing Theory. This is the mathematical study of waiting in lines, or queues. The theory enables mathematical analysis of several related processes, including arrival time at the back of the queue, wait time in the queue and service at the front of the queue.

At the outset, Jim asked us if we had ever stood in a line. (LOL, especially from US citizens). When the answer was clearly yes, he speculated the amount of time standing in lines took up in our lives and wondered why we never talk about it or teach it. It seemed disproportionate to the time we talk about sex, he suggested.

The example explored was the mathematical equations of lines in airports where we compared statistics pre- and post- 9/11. Naturally, I thought about our Box Office in the 20 minutes prior to a show. But I also thought about the congestion around the creation and funding of work, especially new works, and began to use the airport line as an analogy to examine ways to ease congestion.

Social Innovation in Large Non Profits
Led by Jim Phills, this session asked the question whether large non-profits could be social entrepreneurs or innovators? When revenues from royalties and other sources of earned income exceed revenues from membership dues or core business, does this create an actual or apparent conflict of interest? It's a problem I'm looking forward to the theatre having!

Decision-Making Workshop
This session looked at the sequence of decision-making. Chip Heath with his brother Dan is writing another book and we were provided with the opportunity to trial a process they have formulated to help people come to a decision that avoids a 'confirmation bias', which I understood to be a forgone conclusion. What I took away from this session was a better way for the comapny to structure and test our decisions before implementation. Can't wait!

Sunday in the (Sculpture) Park
Yesterday, I took time out and visited the Cantor Arts Centre which houses the complete Stanford Rodin collection (200 works). As I wandered through the galleries, I found myself ruminating on the sexual politics of Rodin's working life. I read  a book once that was colouring my view. It looked at how he had 'relations' with his models, many of whom were young, aspiring artists, that never graduated from a position of making copies of the "great man's" work. I find myself skipping through the 24 galleries - the art of Asia, Africa, Oceania, Native Americas, and am instantly reminded of an anecdote fellow student Lori (Girls for Change) told me about her trip to the Louvre, Paris. We were talking about Americans overseas. She said, she and her daughter took a half hour to look around the exhibitions and one and a half hours in the gift shop!! LOL. (sorry, Lori) I wasn't quite that bad but as I thought of this, I looked up and saw a large sign for contemporary American works. Where did I spend my time? - Go Figure!

Go Figure includes 25 figurative paintings and sculpture, including witty examples by Karel Appel, Richard Shaw, Richard Stankiewicz, Viola Frey, and Roger Brown; politically charged works by Robert Arneson.  Why do I love the contemporary above all else? It's a good question. I guess, at first glance, it is not obvious what it is the artist is asking you to see and the work demands you take a deeper look, or at the very least, a second look. Sometimes these work are so left of field they do not resonate. But unwittingly, these images have provoked thoughts or feelings that return, not at the time of viewing, but later, having been embedded in your subconscious. And I simply love the transition within art movements when something moves from being reviled to being revered. Think French Impressionists! We are such strange creatures, we human beings.

 I have always loved the words of Australian artist Margaret Olley, "to understand a piece of modern art you have to live with it." We have to live with ourselves a long time before we can understand who we really are, and sometimes it takes the next generation to reflect back to make sense of it all.

Yipes 24.38!!!