Seminar stresses ‘informal organizations’

Find out if you’re a leader or a follower at the next Technet Innovation event, focusing on organizational project management and leadership training.

On Feb. 16, David Schmaltz, founder of True North pgs, Inc. and Amy Schwab, president of the consulting company, present a workshop entitled “Mirroring Local Customs – Working with Informal Organizations.” They will lead the audience in an exploration of the real territory through which corporate projects, and project managers, must navigate. This workshop will provide a framework for understanding the dynamics driving project conflicts, politics, turf battles, reorganizations, mergers and day-to-day cross-functional operations.

“David Schmaltz is an excellent speaker; it is a great opportunity to see him again in Spokane,” said Ken Brann, director of information technology at Avista Advantage.

Schmaltz has said that “too many project managers mistake the formal organization chart for an accurate map of their organization. No matter what this chart shows, real work happens through networks of relationships called informal organizations. These informal organizations determine how things really get done.”

Schmaltz and Schwab will guide the attendees through a series of exercises that will help them identify different informal organizations; understand and work effectively with key cultural differences within each type of organization; and mirror local customs to produce project result.

The next day, Schmaltz will present “Leadership Training and Other Oxymorons,” a guide for organizations and managers that view leadership as their most critical corporate strategy.

“People say they want to be innovative, yet find themselves adopting other leadership styles and practices that may not fit their temperament or life situations,” Schmaltz said. Instead, “individuals need to discover how to teach themselves to become the leader they aspire to be. By discovering how they succeed and fail in their unique situations, they begin to learn the lessons that allow them to more consciously employ their skills.”

If you haven’t been challenged or intellectually stimulated lately, now is your opportunity.