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White-paper: Vernieuwend Leiderschap: De kunst van leiden en innoveren in complexe tijden.

'Vis ruikt nou eenmaal zo'

Voor wat en wie het waard is...

As labour is becoming more and more knowledge controlled, it also getting closer to the individual person. We sometimes seem to forget this. To an increasing extent it is becoming a part of oneself and therefore of the personal identity. The increasing humanization of labour asks for an HRM-policy and an organizational context in which the individual is able to identify with the organization, colleagues, customers/clients and product. Heterononimous or abstract organizations, organizations in which the employees and civilians have been reduced to numbers and in which there is no real consideration for the individual differences, have to make way for organizational structures in which the individual feels (self) responsible again. The future lies with personal, tribally inspired organizations in which managers will be leaders and where employees and managers can show social commitment. Images like that of: the egocentric boss who by making swift career moves avoids responsibility for employee/co-worker and customer/client; of colleagues taking the day off without consultation or who are putting their phone through to someone else without saying so beforehand, meeting rooms which are not being cleaned up after use and the image of a Xerox machine not being refilled up with paper by anyone, are all too frequently dismissed as not being part of productivity.

Congresverslag Symposium Leiderschap en Diversiteit

Op vrijdag 14 mei 2004 heeft de Haagse Hogeschool/TH Rijswijk een internationaal symposium over 'Leiderschap en Diversiteit' georganiseerd. Het symposium handelde over de dynamiek van gender, nationale cultuur en etniciteit in moderne organisaties. Door de diversiteit van medewerkers, klanten en afzetmarkten worden nieuwe eisen gesteld aan de leidinggevende en is de bedrijfscultuur blijvend veranderd. Veel bedrijfsactiviteiten strekken zich uit tot buiten de landsgrenzen. Leidinggeven in of in samenwerking met bijvoorbeeld vestigingen in Zuid-Amerika of Aziatische landen vergt een andere leiderschapsstijl. Kennis van elkaars achtergronden, ofwel transcultureel inzicht, is nodig om optimaal te kunnen samenwerken. Internationaal gerenommeerde sprekers zijn ingegaan op: • leiderschap in de Arabische wereld. • leiderschap, gender en etniciteit. • leiderschap en culturele dynamiek in organisaties. • leiderschap en nationaliteit. Na de inleidingen van de gastsprekers werd in vier werkgroepen over deze thema's verder met de gastsprekers van gedachten gewisseld. Het symposium werd afgesloten met een gezamenlijke forumdiscussie en een borrel. Dit verslag is tevens het startsein voor verdere studie over het thema leiderschap en diversiteit binnen het HRM lectoraat. De leden van de HRM Kenniskring gaan verder onderzoek doen en hun kennis over dit thema overdragen in de dagelijkse onderwijspraktijk aan de Haagse Hogeschool/TH Rijswijk.

Advisering van het midden- en kleinbedrijf. Wie wil voelen zal niet luisteren.

This relationship between external knowledge providers, e.g. consultants and academic institutions, and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is a difficult one. SME entrepreneurs think external advice is expensive, not required and/or not useful. In this paper these arguments are explored against the specific characteristics of SMEs. The argument of price probably tells more about the consultants’ inability to quantify the returns on their advice than about the cost of their services. Support policies enable free consults for SMEs on numerous topics, but the use of these facilities is relatively low. The suggestion that SME entrepreneurs do not need external knowledge is contradicted by their own assessment of their qualities. Typically the entrepreneurs lack expertise in supporting business functions like HR, IT, Finance and Legal. In SMEs these ‘blank spots’ are not compensated by specialist staff members because the of the scale of the organization. The argument that the advice of an external consultant is generally not useful raises the question whether the insights gained in several business sciences only apply to large companies. This seems unlikely. Given the characteristics of SMEs the difference is probably more the context in which the insights are applied than the content of the insights itself. From the analysis of the characteristics of SMEs the dominant influence of the person of the owner/director, together with the absence of specialist staff, appeared as two of the most significant differences between SMEs and large companies. Given the personal profiles of these owners/directors as studied by Blom (Blom, 2001), the external knowledge providers should realize the ‘three ways’ in consulting. The first ‘way’ is the way of thinking. For this way it was stated already that the content of business sciences is not likely to differ for SMEs. The second ‘way’, the way of working, represents for the way information is gathered and the entrepreneur and his staff is involved in the process of developing the advice. In this ‘way’ the consultant should allow for interaction and should make it fun for the participants. In this aspect, the process approach of consulting shows promising. The third ‘way’, the way of communicating, represents the way the knowledge is transferred from the advisor to the entrepreneur. In this ‘way’ it is crucial to acknowledge the different personal profiles of SME entrepreneurs and consultants and to adjust the communication accordingly. Taking the ‘three ways’ into account, the conclusion could be that the transfer of knowledge should be more the ‘sharing of experiences’. The Chair of Management Consulting will adjust her activities to explore this insight further.