Dreams Coming True

(EN ESPAÑOL MAS ABAJO)

After 36 years of civil war and a wrecked economy, Guatemala needed to find a way to recapture the optimism of its youth. This paper explains how Franklin Covey consultants, together with the Ministry of Education, taught 7 Habits to 2,500 school teachers in all public and private schools in the country. Eventually 1 million youth will be influenced by the principles embedded in the 7 Habits. Our good friend Marta Sánchez was very directly involved and we shall be bringing María del Carmen Aceña, Minister of Education responsible of the programme and Marta to Chile shortly to explore opportunities to share the experience with Chilean educators.

To read the full article click here:

http://franklincoveyresearch.org/documents/textsearch?criteria=GUATEMALA

To See Video Click Below :

La Situación

Por 36 años, Guatemala, la tierra de la gran civilización Maya, sufrió los estragos de una guerra civil. Pelotones de fusilamiento, masacres en las villas y batallas entre el gobierno y grupos guerrilleros dejaron 100.000 muertos y la economía en ruinas. Pobreza, corrupción y desconfianza en las instituciones a cargo eran evidentes en todas partes. Finalmente, en el año 1996, en una acuerdo de paz gestado por las Naciones Unidas, las partes beligerantes rindieron sus armas. Guatemala ahora tenía una segunda oportunidad para el progreso.

El Desafío

Pero los cuarenta años de guerra causaron una pérdida inestimable: el optimismo dentro de la juventud. Creciendo en medio del temor, la gente joven sólo deseaba que se los dejara tranquilos. La apatía reinaba entre ellos y la esperanza, visiones y sueños parecían ser relevantes tan sólo para las clases altas. En el año 2003, María del Carmen Aceña, la recién nombrada Ministra de Educación en el gabinete de Óscar Berger, comenzó a visitar algunos colegios. Después de entrevistar a profesores, estudiantes y padres con alarma de dio cuenta que nadie se refería al futuro, ni al de ellos ni al de Guatemala. Considerando que el promedio de vida de la población Guatemalteca era de 18 años, donde más de un 40% era menor de 14 María del Carmen Aceña sabía que si la juventud no tenía esperanzas, Guatemala tampoco las tendría.

Por medio de una profesora rural Brasilera, la Señora ministra supo de un programa innovador que enseñaba a los estudiantes a soñar, a crear y a establecer una declaración de misión personal para ellos y para el país. Su deseo fue el poder implementar este programa a nivel nacional, pero¿cómo? ¿Cómo poder sobrepasar la inercia y la desconfianza por parte de los profesores, la apatía de los estudiantes y la inflexible infraestructura política? ¿Cómo poder introducir nuevas ideas al sistema educativo de toda la nación?

Para leer el artìculo completo y/o ver el video respectivo haga click aquí:
http://franklincoveyresearch.org/documents/textsearch?criteria=GUATEMALA

Esperamos traer a Marta Sánchez, una de las consultoras de Franklin Covey más involucradas en este programa a Chile muy pronto. Además, contaremos con la presencia de María del Carmen Aceña con quienes buscaremos oportunidades de compartir y apalancar esta experiencia con educadores chilenos.

Publicado por EQUIPO DE CHILE en 17:07 0 comentarios

Etiquetas: EDUCATION, EN ESPAÑOL, LEADERSHIP, POLITICS

A picture is worth a thousand words

See Below for English

MICARE MINA DE CARBON EN MEXICO (PIEDRAS NEGRAS)

Este video les explicará, mejor que mil palabras, varias de las razones por las que tomé la decisión de unirme con Franklin Covey para relanzar el proyecto en Chile. El proyecto educacional (ver "Dreams Coming True") es otro.

Estaremos programando algunas sesiones especiales durante Abril para darles a miembros de nuestro equipo local más experiencia en la entrega de este contenido en el mercado nacional.

Cualquier persona que desee asistir, puede hacerlo, a un precio muy especial, contactándose directamente a: pray@franklincoveyla.com.

Los programas de Franklin Covey son un excelente complemento a "Conversaciones Cruciales". Sigo colaborando con Boyden y Vital Smarts para estos efectos.


ENGLISH

For those of you who are still wondering why I moved back to Franklin Covey - take a look at this video about the Micare Coal Mine in Mexico which will save a lot of explanations. The stuff they are doing with "4 Disciplines" and xQ as well as with the new versions of Seven Habits is having a profound effect on productivity, safety and bottom line.

We shall be programming some special sessions during April to give members of our local team some more experience in delivering new workshop content. Anyone interested in attending these programme at very special rate can contact me directly on: pray@franklincoveyla.com.

The Franklin Covey content is a tremendous complement to the Vital Smarts programmes and I shall be available to provide support to clients of Boyden and Vital Smarts for the Crucial Conversations workshops in the forseeable future.

FRANKLIN COVEY - RELOADED !

Acuerdos en Mexico

En la foto; Roberto Schüler, Bill Beeson, Jose Luis Candela, Philip Ray, Thelma Aguiire, Guillermo Ganem, Sofia Soccorro y Ricardo Acevedo con el Director de Capital Humano, Ovidio Guillén y queridas amigas Marta Sanchez y Barbara Hauser, quienes condujeron intensas sesiones de recertificación en los nuevos programas de Franklin Covey en las oficinas de Leadership Technologies en Mexico.

A partir del 9 de enero este año, Roberto Schüler y yo volvimos a la carga con Franklin Covey, acompañados por María Paz Rioseco, formando parte de la red de consultores integrales de Leadership Technologies operando en Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, México, Nicaragua y Panamá.

Durante las próximas semanas espero tener tiempo, a través de este blog, de compartir algunos de los nuevos programas que podemos ofrecer en Chile y nuestros planes para sinergizar con Boyden institute para seguir atendiendo a los clientes de Conversaciones Cruciales y Coaching Transformacional, por lo menos durante un periodo de transición.

Mientras tanto, les invito a la portada de la nueva página web de Franklin Covey que espero les ayudará a entender mis motivos para tomar esta decisión trascendental - http://www.fcla.com/quienes_1.html

Publicado por EQUIPO DE CHILE en 3:01 0 comentarios

Etiquetas: EN ESPAÑOL, FRANKLIN COVEY LATAN, LEADERSHIP, ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Financial Agility

Financial Agility: The Four Crucial Conversations for Uncertain Economic Times
By VitalSmarts

VitalSmarts surveyed more than 2,000 managers and executives from more than 400 different companies to learn what it takes to be financially agile.

The results were remarkable. We found four moments that happen in every organization that predict with incredible precision how well and how fast an organization responds to economic threats. Those who handled these four moments well were more than five times more likely to respond within days or weeks rather than letting responses drag on for months or even years. Furthermore, those who stepped up to these crucial moments effectively were more than ten times more likely to respond in a way that positioned the company for future success rather than making cuts that ultimately hurt its potential.

The Four Crucial Moments

1. Debate, Dithering and Denial. A crucial moment when the team is confronted with financial data that may or may not signal a crisis. Teams that are unable to discuss their differences effectively can delay action for weeks or even months. On the other hand, teams that are able to discuss disagreements about the urgency of a financial issue are twice as likely to act on it within hours or days, and, as a result, are nine times more likely to resolve issues.

2. Undiscussables. In this crucial moment, teams are hampered by the fact that some of the biggest opportunities for adjustment aren’t “politically correct” to discuss. More than three‐fourths of the leaders cite times when the biggest barriers to cost savings were politically sensitive cultural practices; even more cite times when the barriers were leaders’ pet policies or topics. More than half report that the inability to address these prickly issues delayed their response by weeks or months and more than a third said the entire effort was derailed by these taboos. On the other hand, about one‐fourth of managers were able to bring up these sensitive issues and were four and a half times more likely to act on the financial crisis within days instead of weeks or months; and nearly five times more likely to resolve it.

3. Silent Collusion. This crucial moment happens when decisions have been made, a plan has been put in place, and predictably, some team members go back on their agreements and when this happens, 89 percent of their peers and 73 percent of their bosses let them get away with it. Without this accountability, 85 percent of these teams end up off plan. Teams that hold each other accountable for commitments related to the financial crisis are six and
half times more likely to take effective action quickly. However, teams that fail to hold each other accountable are seven times more likely to have their boss pull the responsibility out of their hands.

4. Irrational Slashing. The final crucial moment is a result of failure to address the previous three. Senior leaders see (or simply expect) denial, avoidance, and collusion. They don’t trust their reports to make the hard calls, and they fully expect disingenuous support from the organization. In this crucial moment, when leaders are driven by mistrust, they can either talk it out or act out. Our study showed that fewer than 29 percent of leaders confront the trust issue head on. Rather than talking, they act out by demanding across‐the‐board cuts rather than intelligent reductions.
Leaders who exclude the team instead of confronting their actions are nearly three times more likely to undermine their own purpose by either undercutting their mission, making ill‐advised cuts, or resorting to uniform across‐the‐board cuts rather than implement a more tailored approach.

What Leaders Can do to Create Financially Agile Teams

Our agile teams are 250 percent more likely to say they “may miss a few opportunities, but generally do okay.” Our less agile teams are 360 percent more likely to say they miss hundreds of thousands, millions, or tens of millions of dollars in lost opportunities. So here’s what leaders can do to take control:

1. Model and Teach Dialogue Skills. Leaders must overtly foster the dialogue skills required to address these four crucial conversations. In the best organizations, leaders make sure they have the skills, and then take the lead in teaching them to others.

2. Schedule Regular Financial Workouts. These are complex conversations that require dedicated time to play out. Leaders need to commit regular and substantial blocks of time to address these four topics.

3. Publicly sacrifice a sacred cow. Sacrifice breathes life into new values.

4. Support decisions that favor timeliness over perfection. Most managers believe their leaders expect perfection. This tacit belief can create peril in bad times. The most agile leaders accept that their team’s information will never be perfect, help them determine the nature of the uncertainties they face, and encourage them to tailor their decisions to the information they have.

5. Create safe “sub dialogues.” Break the fiscal challenge into discrete problems and assign small crossfunctional
groups of peers to work in a time‐bound way to generate solutions.

Conclusions

The greatest barrier to financial agility is not a lack of intelligence or a lack of time; it’s a lack of focused and unified dialogue. While the need for financial agility is greater today than at any time in recent memory, the capacity to engage an entire organization in candid, timely and wise deliberation pays returns in any season. The present study shows that quality and speed are not at odds. If leaders invest in the skills, time, and support required to allow people to hold the four crucial conversations we outline here, they can generate both profoundly wise (10 times higher quality solutions as judged by their own managers) and surprisingly rapid solutions to their financial challenges.