Workshops/Seminars

The following list is the series of seminars and workshops that PivotPoint has developed for presentation to various groups. If your organization is interested in any of these presentations or others that are within our area of experience, please contact us for more information.

LOE Index Tutorial

Featured in the Change Management Tutorial Series on the website: Change Management Learning Center (Sponsored by Prosci)

The LOE Index: A Quantitative Tool for Measuring the Individual Response to Organizational Change

Seminar Title: Measuring Individual Response to Organizational Change

Organizations of the 21st Century are influenced by the technological environment, enhanced by the quality of group interactions, and subject to the continuous learning processes necessary for sustaining growth in the global marketplace. During this unique period of significant economic crisis, the value of integrating the aforementioned qualities is critical to the transformational opportunities awaiting the next generation of successful organization. The Organizational Loss of Effectiveness (LOE) Model (2005) and corresponding LOE Index (2009) are exciting new tools in the field of change management that help management anticipate and adapt efficiently to organizational change initiatives.

The unique contribution of the Model of the Organizational LOE and the corresponding LOE Index is the focus on the individuals experiencing the change. The index is based on 9 years of research that demonstrates any change in an organization may cause a "loss of stability" in the individuals affected by the change, this loss of stability results in a predictable and measurable set of symptoms. Persistence of these symptoms leads to the development of an organizational LOE.

The results of the LOE Index generate a collective report that provides a snapshot of the organization that then forms the baseline for evaluating the overall "change" health of the organization on the baseline date and into the future. The LOE Index can be administered intermittently, at set intervals, or before-during-after each change initiative. The timing of the LOE Index is specific to the needs of each organization and its respective intent for the use of the results.

Seminar Title: The Binky in the Boardroom… and on the Factory Floor ©

Organizations of the 21st Century are challenged by a lack of organizational trust, rapid technological advances, incoherent organizational structure, and a marketplace with competitors that now have a global footprint. This creates an unprecedented volatility in the workplace that is precipitated by the frequency of change necessary to sustain growth.

The nature of organizational change challenges the foundation that we as leaders, managers, and employees in the organization have grown accustomed to "Leaning On". In addition, the change implementation process inherently leads to instability first within the individuals and then collectively within the organization. Unresolved, this instability contributes to the organizational change failure rate approaching 70%. (Standish, 2009)

This staggering potential for failure and our individual instinctive need for attachment to our workplace objects (people, things or ideas) are collaborative factors justifying the need for a comprehensive and sustainable process for organizational change implementation.
In the absence of a quantitative diagnostic methodology to implement organizational change, many organizations will find themselves searching for alternatives to alleviate the perceived chaos that often accompanies integration of new technology, new business process, new leadership and new office space, etc. It is the "search" that is often the catalyst for the instability that can plunge the organization into an Organizational Loss of Effectiveness (LOE).

Seminar Title: MBTI (Myer-Briggs Type Indicator)

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is based on the ideas of Carl Jung about how we approach life, how we take in information, and how we make decisions. There are many variations on this approach, but the MBTI is the original effort, and the one that has been scrutinized the most. It deals with the sixteen primary variations in personality types, and describes the characteristics of each. Human experience in everyday life is sifted through filters that create a specific bias for that experience. Difficulties in communication can often be explained due to differences in perception of an event or circumstance. Understanding the origins of these differences as expressed through these various personality types can go a long way toward solving and eliminating problems. This seminar is intended to provide a basis for understanding and using type related information in the family and/or business world.

Seminar Title: Issues of Organizational Trust

Organizational trust has been a topic of frequent consideration in the first few years of this century. A quick search in the book section of Amazon.com in April 2009 revealed a listing of 2,685 books published in English since 1990 with "organizational trust" listed as the search criteria, and 904 since the beginning of 2006. In contrast, there were only 42 listed in that category before 1990.

Dr. Victoria Grady and Professor John Kotter at the Inaugural Conference for the Association for Change Management Professionals

In order to support life in more primitive times, individuals were members of a group that had to function as a unit. In today's groups—which we now call organizations—perhaps we focus too much on the individual, and too little the cooperative function that was necessary for survival in the primitive group. Perhaps, at least a part of our propensity to be mistrustful is due to these emerging but persistent trends in our personal development, our organizations and in our societies. In addition, perhaps our attempts to force trust, as evidenced by the previously mentioned publishing trends, into a system that is becoming more untrustworthy is only adding to the chaos….

Subject material supporting this seminar has been presented for past three years at The George Washington University, and at the Organization for the Purpose of Understanding Society (OPUS) Annual Conference in London, England 2009.

This topic can be adjusted from a one hour overview to a two day workshop.

Seminar Title: Trust Yourself

The "self", or as it is more commonly called the ego, is the center of our consciousness and as such serves us as our primary means of identity. Yet the mind is divided into two parts that can be compared to an iceberg—the part you can see makes up only about 10%, the part that is submerged under the surface makes up the other 90%. Likewise with the mind, there is a conscious part of which we are readily aware that makes up only a fraction of our knowledge, there is so much more that influences us that lies just below the level of our awareness.

While our conscious self (ego) attempts to defend its autonomy and preserve its integrity by directing our attention toward other resources, that certainly does not inhibit unconscious knowledge from having a tremendous influence on us. If we are to become aware of our wider sense of self, to understand the limit of our egos, we should explore some of these aspects of our selves that lie beneath the level of our awareness….

Subject material supporting this seminar has been presented for past three years at The George Washington University, and at the Organization for the Purpose of Understanding Society's (OPUS) Annual Conference in London, England 2009.

Seminar Title: Issues of Organizational Structure:
Are We Ready to See the Elephant in the Parlor?

There is a metaphor that likens the inability to recognize the importance of a monumental point or event to being in the parlor with an elephant and not realizing that it was there. Dr. Elliott Jaques may well prove to be one of those as yet unrecognized "elephants". He based a management theory around what he called its requisite function, and defined it as follows:

"Requisite: required by the nature of things. A requisite organization
(is a human relationship and) is organized as required by [human nature]...
and in [being organized] in such a way as to make it possible for people
to work with full exercise of their [abilities], and to work together
under conditions which strengthen bonds of MUTUAL TRUST."

SST is postulates that in human relationships there is a requirement for a certain "order of things" as established by our inherited social instinct system. The essential relationship of hierarchy in human social systems is similar to the structural divisions of military geniuses such as Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Napoleon, etc. There is only one way to organize the social system of a wolf pack, of primate societies, or successful military operations, and organizational bureaucracies. There are just so many divisions that can be supported if the organization is to maintain its efficiency. It is built around the levels of leadership necessary to function at a level necessary to complete the tasks of the organization. Each position has its responsibilities and its privileges.

It was from these beginnings, looking at socially structured animal groups and the structure inherent in remarkably successful human endeavors, that Dr. Jaques began this work. Dr. Jaques' Stratified Systems Theory is an effort to establish a workable order for bureaucracies that is compatible with our inherent and acquired natures, and it is in that statement we may find the reason why it has not yet been fully recognized….

Seminar Title: Dealing with Life's Disruptions

A seminar designed to help you understand the nature and inevitability of change in today's job market. We will assist you in understanding why we are resistant to these changes, and in turn, how not only to accept but take advantage of the inevitability of these changes. We will discuss trust and trustworthiness and why in the modern organization there are so many difficulties in this regard. We will consider why "loss" feels like a betrayal, and how best to work through those issues. We will help you determine how you can re-define and further develop your assets, assess your options, and work to position yourself for a more secure future. And we will review how you may re-discover and recall some of those forgotten aspects of your nature—things you can "lean on" as you work to accomplish your goals.

Publications and Presentations

PUBLICATIONS:

Grady, Victoria M and Grady, James D. (2011). "The Relationship of Bowlby's Attachment Theory to the Persistent Failure of Organizational Change Initiatives." Journal of Change Management. Under Review.

Grady, Victoria M, Magda, Beverly, and Grady, James D. (2011). "Organizational Change, Mental Models And Stability: Are They Mutually Exclusive Or Inextricably Linked?" Journal of Organizational Development, Fal1 Volume 29 no3.

Grady, Victoria and Grady, James. (2011). "Critical Components of Organizational Trust: Raising the Issue, Exploring the Origin, Pondering the Cure…." Journal of Organisational and Social Dynamics, Volume 11 no 1.

Grady, Victoria M, Magda, Beverly, and Grady, James D. (2011). "Organizational Change, Mental Models And Stability: Are They Mutually Exclusive Or Inextricably Linked?" Journal of Organizational Development, Accepted, Date TBD.

**Grady, Victoria M., Gleckel, Erikka A., and Grody, Erin R. (2009). "The Organizational Loss Of Effectiveness (LOE) Model And The LOE Index: A Quantitative Measurement Tool For Identifying Individual Symptomatic Response To Technological Change," Integration Journal, 97-106.

**This article received the Leadership Excellence Award.

Grady, Victoria and Grady, James. (2008). "Winnicott's Potential Space And Transitional Objects: Implications For The Organizational Change Process And Its Previously Defined Relationship To An Organizational Loss Of Effectiveness (LOE)." Journal of Organisational and Social Dynamics, vol 8 no 2, 278-297.

Grady, Victoria M. and Grady, James D. (2007) "KM Technologies and the Organizational LOE: The Unintended Consequence of Constant Organizational Change," Kevin O'Sullivan (Eds), Strategic Knowledge Management in Multinational Organizations, (pp 104-118). Pennsylvania: IGI Global.

Grady, Victoria, (2005)."Studying the Effect of Loss of Stability on Organizational Behavior: A Perspective on Technological Change," dissertation manuscript, The George Washington University.

Grady (Goetz), V. and Hamner, M. (2004)."The Effect of Technological Change on Organizational Effectiveness," American Society of Engineering Managers Practice Periodical. Vol 1, no 2.

Grady, Victoria, (2002). "Development of a Tool to Measure Organizational Anaclitic Depression as a Result of the Turbulent Technology Revolution," unpublished dissertation proposal manuscript, The George Washington University.

ACADEMIC CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS:

Grady, Victoria M. and Grady, James D. (2010, November). "The Correlation Between Bowlby's Attachment Theory and the Failure of Organizational Change Initiatives: Further Exploration of the Organizational LOE and Its Roots in Psychoanalytic Literature." Proceedings of the OPUS International Conference- Organisational and Social Dynamics, London, England.

Grady, Victoria and Magda, Beverly. (2010, May). "Organizational Change, Mental Models And Stability: Are They Mutually Exclusive Or Inextricably Linked?" Proceedings of the Eastern Academy of Management, Portland, Maine.

Grady, James D. and Grady, Victoria M. (2009, November)."Critical Components of Organizational Trust: Raising the Issue, Exploring the Origin, Pondering the Cure…." Proceedings of the OPUS International Conference- Organisational and Social Dynamics, London, England.

Grady, Victoria M. (2008, June)."The LOE Index: A Quantitative Change Measure for the Individuals that are Collectively the Organization." Proceedings of the International Society for the Study of Organizations 25th Annual Meeting, Phildelphia, Pennsylvania.

Grady, V., Davis, E. B., Olsen, N., Duffy, S., & Ciampaglio, T. (2008, May). The Power of Effect. Panel presentation: Papers on organizational effectiveness. Proceedings of the Eastern Academy of Management, Washington, DC.

Grady, Victoria M. and Grady, James D. (2007, June) "Potential Space and Transitional Objects: Implements for The Understanding and Management Of Organizational Loss Of Effectiveness (LOE)," Proceedings of the International Society for the Study of Organizations 24th Annual Meeting, Stockholm, Sweden.

Grady (Goetz), V. and Hamner, M. (2004, October)."The Deterioration from an Organizational Loss Of Stability Into An Organizational LOE," Proceedings of the 2004 American Society Engineering Management National Conference, Alexandria, VA.

Grady-Goetz, V. and Hamner, M. (2003, October). "Identifying Behavioral Symptoms in the Workplace That Can Evolve Into An Organizational Loss of Effectiveness," Proceedings of the 2003 American Society Engineering Management National Conference.

PRESENTATIONS:

Grady, Victoria. (2011, May) "The Qualitative Process and the Quantitative Tool." Proceedings from Best Practices in Change Management: ACMP Inaugural Global Conference. Orlando, Florida.

Grady, Victoria M. (2010, November). "The Binky in the Boardroom….and on the Factory Floor." TEDx Huntsville, Huntsville, AL.

Grady, Victoria M. and Grady, James D. (2010, October)."Complexity and Organizational Change: The Impact on the 21st Century Workforce." Alabama Workforce Development Conference: Hosted by Governor's Office of Workforce Development, Birmingham, AL.

Grady, Victoria. (2010, April) "Measuring Individual Response to Organizational Change." Proceedings from Best Practices in Change Management: ProSci Global Conference. Las Vegas, Nevada.

Goldstein, Dahna and Grady, Victoria. (2009, December). "The Doctor Is In: Technology Meets Psychology In Your Organization." Monthly Web-Teleconference for the Non-Profit Technology Network (NTEN).

Grady, Victoria M. (2009, June 6-17)."Organizational Change: Defining the Process," Intensive Program on Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Leadership. State University of Management, Moscow, Russia.

Grady, Victoria M. and Magda, Beverly (2008, August) "A Model for Managing Technological Change in an Organization," Proceedings of the American Society of Association Executives Annual Meeting, San Diego, California.

Grady, Victoria M. and Magda, Beverly. (2008, April)."Change: What is it Good for?," Proceedings of the Team Approach User Forum: Executive Track, Boston, Massachusetts.

Grady, Victoria M. and Magda, Beverly. (2007, December)"A Model for Managing the Human Side of Technology Change," Monthly Web-Teleconference for Executive Council of Chief Information Officers.

Grady, Victoria M. and Magda, Beverly. (2007, February). "The Human Side of Technology Change," Proceedings of the American Society of Association Executives: Technology Conference, Washington DC.