A Note from Ujima Donalson,
POD Director
Even if you’re not in school or your particular job isn’t affected by the vagaries of the academic calendar, there’s just something about summertime. From the array of fresh fruit at the market to the golden sunshine well into the evening hours, the world presents its abundance to us. I find myself feeling a touch of that "school’s out for summer" joy and an extra burst of appreciation for life.
Maybe you’ve found yourself taking more walks, lingering after your al fresco dinner on the back patio, or engaging in a long conversation with a neighbor while watering your plants after work. Meanwhile, the work of a manager never takes a vacation—but you can bring some summertime habits into your work life. Read more
"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better." ~ Albert Einstein
Leadership Inspired by Nature
Denise DeLuca, Director & Co-Founder, BCI: Biomimicry for Creative Innovation
You need not be a biologist to understand that nature reflects and is a result of continuous innovation. We have always looked to nature for beauty and inspiration, rest and recreation, well-being and, more recently, "ecosystem services" such as pollination or flood protection. Now we’ve developed frameworks and tools to look to nature for radical technical innovation (biomimicry, biomimetic design), as well as for transformational organizational learning and development, including leadership inspired by nature.
Leadership inspired by nature reflects and reinforces nature’s paradigm and principles. Where traditional leadership reflects assumptions that the "real world" is driven by individuals, scarcity, competition, greed, fear, and resistance, natural leadership emerges from a worldview based in systems thinking, a sense of abundance, synergies, trust, curiosity, and resilience. Read more
"I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." ~ Maya Angelou
Ask an Expert: The Development Side of Training
Amy Hawkins, Training & Organizational Development Consultant, POD
We all wish our employees could intuit exactly what is expected of them. That we could clearly convey expectations or disapproval via an arched brow or plaintive sigh. That our soft-pedaled suggestions could be interpreted as loud and clear calls to action. Unfortunately for us, most humans are not mind-readers (and our faculty and staff here at the UW, though gifted, are no exception).
Performance management is key for organizational success, and in my work I’ve found that many leaders—supervisors, administrators, directors, deans, and chairs alike—are only really comfortable when managing stellar performance. When there are issues or concerns, people get a little squeamish. Leaders sometimes reach for coaching or training for their employees to solve performance problems, but these tools may fall flat, or even backfire, if used indiscriminately or punitively. Read more
"The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do." ~ Galileo Galilei
Leadership by the Book: Summer Reads
You don’t have to turn to mindless beach books for sunny day page-turners! With help from external consultants and UW colleagues, we’ve compiled a list of engaging books that won’t bog you down. The top pick was Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, which was recommended by Kurt O’Brien and Beth Speck of UW Medicine Organization Development & Training, as well as by external consultant Chuck Pratt. Beth says, "I think anyone who reads it will come away with at least one ‘Oh! I should try that!’ idea."
Download a printer-friendly PDF of our recommended summer reads, or click through for the list. Read more
POD by the Numbers
Through its various training programs in the 2013–14 fiscal year, POD presented 228 offerings, comprising 1230 total training hours, for 4829 total participants. This included 11 New Employee Orientation sessions, 8 Strategic Leadership Program workshops for UW supervisors, 145 quarterly training classes for staff and faculty, and 64 POD Webinars.
Please click through to see the full infographic with a breakdown by program:
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