Merielee's Story
My work application example is more of a “which-one-is-the-right-choice-for-my-situation”:
I work in the Mental Health and Drug Alcohol Office (MHDAO) of NSW Health and the large group of staff consists of people from various professional and cultural backgrounds. The best self-awareness approach for this group’s leaders would have to be the Action Science and the double-loop learning model, for the following reasons:
The organisation has a bureaucratic nature where each branch is headed up by one Director, with layers of section managers and program supervisors. But essentially, underneath the leaders there is a large employee base. Due to this, the need for efficient and effective managers is more pronounced.
The typical complaint of staff, including the managers, is being under-resourced and stretched by the workload. Implementation of any exercise would have to be one that can be workshopped fairly conveniently and briefly, one that would use a clear case to be worked on and it would have to be prescribed. Otherwise participation will be difficult to attain.
Given that it is a dynamic organisation which requires great interaction and more importantly, cooperation between staff, building and maintaining relationships and effectual communication is paramount. A method that required feedback from others would be able to drawn the most useful recommendations.
NB: All of the self-awareness approaches will be of benefit, however this group of people would find:
– The results from Holland, Eysenck and Cattell approaches somewhat general to have real applicability.
– Drucker’s method quite intensive, as there are a number of areas to be looked at
– England and Johari Window might be too confronting, without the guise of a goal that can be applied with the Action Science.
