MetaPower had two parties this year.  The first party was held in Vancouver, Washington USA, just across the Columbia river from Portland, Oregon.  The second party was held up in Fort McMurray, Alberta Canada.  We have a diverse group of employees and contractors who work for MetaPower and we all come with our own unique capabilities and ways of celebrating.  We each bring something different to the table.  However different, we enjoy coming together each year to celebrate the Holiday season.  Thanks to everyone at MetaPower and MetaPower Canada for another great year!

MetaPower Canada Party:  On December 4th, MetaPower Canada celebrated a year of hard work at their Holiday party.  I was VERY excited to find out that this year’s party had the best turn out yet!  Ken and Peggy Allen flew out to Fort Mac to be part of the festivities which included dinner, gifts and a trio of stringed instruments.  Ken gave his annual speech which touched on the company’s performance and what MetaPower has in store for the future.  A slideshow of photos from the party is displayed in the window below.

MetaPower U.S. Party:  On November 17th,  MetaPower employees gathered in Portland, OR for their annual Fall party.  We had great food, gifts, and …

Most likely, you’ve never heard of IPXI, UCoDA, or BPWS, but if you use Business Process Management software on behalf of clients, you should circle back early in 2013. In my job at MetaPower I can see under the hood of a relatively small company that could have a big impact on the BPM world.  This week I touched base with our gurus and learned the status of three development efforts now underway.

Patents On The IPXI

The Intellectual Property Marketplace is a way for thought leaders in business, academia and technology to make their intellectual property more available to the world.  At the forefront of this new marketplace is the Intellectual Property Exchange International (IPXI).  MetaPower is a founding member of IPXI, as are companies like Ford Global Technologies, Sony Corporation of America, and Philips Electronics. Each member is bringing a new technology to market and has an interest in protecting the rights to their Intellectual Property.  IPXI takes a fresh approach to the licensing of technology and other forms of Intellectual Property.  They are “the world’s first financial exchange that facilitates non-exclusive licensing and trading of Intellectual Property (IP) rights with market-based pricing and standardized terms.”  At the …

MetaPower has just released another White Paper entitled Performance Programs – Are You Prescribing Success? Since its founding, MetaPower has been actively exploring how human processes work in organizations. Over the years, we have come to realize that the modern corporation is an interconnected collection of human process that represents the essential mechanism for accomplishing the organization’s work. Enterprise workers use these processes to conduct the organizations business by manipulating objects and collecting, recording and exchanging information about these activities. Most organizations have now accepted the notion that the enterprise is made of “Business Processes”. A discipline has sprung up that is dedicated to studying and understanding these complex concepts. This discipline has come to be known as “Business Process Management” (BPM).

While the BPM discipline has made significant progress in developing an understanding of process, there is a nagging feeling that the practice has not fulfilled its theoretical promise. Performance Programs references a delightful article by DR. Russell Ackoff, entitled “The Second Industrial Revolution”. In his article Dr. Ackoff introduces Systems Theory and explains why we can’t make a complex system better by making its parts better. The new MetaPower White Paper explores how systems theory concepts relate to …

Our MP Media team has been busy publishing what they learned at the National Safety Council’s conference in Philadelphia. Infused with advice from safety gurus like Rosa Carrillo and Shawn Galloway and flush with new insight from expo presentations, our team came away with “new eyes” of safety awareness. Wrapping up the “Listening To Learn” series, INTO THE STREETS (video below) discusses their reaction to the world around them. And strangely enough, it includes an intellectual dance with street-art. I was curious. Why did Jordan Griska, the artist of the “Grumman Greenhouse Sculpture” located near the conference building, encourage our team to find a connection between his work of art and their experience at the safety conference? In this video, the team discusses Griska’s crashed airplane and their heightened sensitivity to workplace hazards.

This video touches on the power of workforce culture and its role in change management. The NSC conference attendees include Air Force pilots, nuclear engineers, and petrochemical pros. Particularly within the oil sands industry, managers are looking to train their leadership in appropriate relationship building techniques with their employees. And, safety programs are always in need of improvement.

Many “creatives” have an ability to view their environment differently. An American Psychological Association …

Our past several blogs have contained alternating clips from Shawn Galloway of ProAct Safety, a prominent commentator on occupational safety from a Behavior Based Systems (BBS) point of view, and Rosa Carrillo, author of Complexity and Safety, an article published in the September issue of the NSC Journal of Safety Research. We interviewed both at the 2010 National Safety Council Congress in Philadelphia.

In the video above, Carrillo’s remarks position her, it seems to me, in juxtaposition to the Behavior Based Systems (BBS) world, which adds extra dynamism to the ongoing Listening to Learn conversation we are reporting. Or does she? I think not. She does not say that behavior observation programs do not work. She argues, instead, that this useful tool is neutralized if it is not properly grounded in the kind of relationships necessary to create trust and open communication.

What we have then is not an argument; we have the opportunity to synthesize two points of view. Each point of view, properly understood, has a complementary relationship with the other. That is, either one, apart from the other, is incomplete. This synthesizing view is refreshingly articulated in a recent BPTrends article, Bridges Over Troubled Water…

What is it that makes an instructor effective? Is it luck, skill, knowledge, understanding, wisdom, personality, certification, plaques, degrees, …… or maybe it is just “flyin’ from the seat of my pants”? While a combination of these elements is helpful, an effective instructor also has a plan that is adaptive to the strengths and weaknesses of the audience. Such a plan provides a pathway for clear communication about what is being taught, rationale for mixing the available toolset. Early on, communicating “why” the material is being taught helps lead the audience to the end result. In a perfect world, each trainee would understand the need in personal terms, and actively “choose” to acquire the new, revised, and/or additional sets of behaviors (or skills). Of course, the usual items should not be forgotten (as forgetting them can sink the ship): the handouts are ready, technology has passed testing (we all know what it’s like when the power goes out, the microphone hasn’t been turned on, or the necessary files cannot be located).

Personally, using instruction tips from Cindy Tobias on “Learning Styles” helped make my teaching more effective. A good summary of her background and instructional approach can be …

Maybe I should ask, is your plant management autocratic or is it collaborative? It is possible that your leadership could simply be ”talking about” changing work or safety culture, but going about it all wrong. Management may be trying to apply new techniques using an outdated model. Do they know how to sort the conflict between a Proposed Change and Unconscious Assumptions?

One of the significant barriers to improved performance in industrial facilities is the failure to adopt a more progressive management style.  It is clear that we need to shift from a top-down autocratic manner to a collaborative style that empowers first-line workers.  In the past, many facility managers tried the “empowerment” route with less than sterling results.  The last time Empowerment was in vogue, it was seen as “letting folks do their own thing” and was not successful. The problem with this approach is that it loses the power of collaboration; the collective wisdom of the group is muted.   Fortunately, more recent recognition that Organizational Culture is a significant factor in determining the success of an organization, provides focus for a more progressive approach. There is a reason “culture” is on the lips of most industry gurus; it is the key to sustained improvement. And management needs to know how to harness it.

In …

In the fable Alice in Wonderland, the Cheshire cat said:

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”

This feline observation can be applied beyond the Queen of Hearts to the world of safety as well. I was thinking about Carl Green’s interview (below) with Shawn Galloway. They discussed safety ideas after his NSC Expo presentation entitled “Using Near Miss Data for Successful Loss Control – Why We Fail To See Risk.”  Shawn, a prolific industry thought-leader, is President and Chief Operating Officer of  ProAct Safety, Inc.

Too often a successful safety program is equated with a lack of safety incidents, when in fact, success and excellence are two totally different things.  MetaPower has found quite often that the periodic analysis of incidents results in identification of personal safety issues, which normally emphasize day-to-day safety practices.  As a result, the “incident-prone” person performing the task is relegated to the “penalty box.” In addition to the recommendation that further safety training might be needed, the worker may be admonished for not following prescribed safety practices.  It’s no wonder there is a tendency …

MetaPower is actively publishing our thoughts on continuous improvement for businesses in high-risk industries. In more than 15 years of doing this work, our “best practices” are ripe with real-time experience. MP Media has the charge to share what MetaPower knows… and to weave it into an industry-wide dialogue. We try to act as the quicksilver between our internal gurus and international thought-leaders. Our tag-line is “Messages That Matter”, although sometimes I think “Listening To Learn” might wear better on our branded gear. Carl Green and I recently went to Philadelphia and attended the National Safety Council’s (NSC) Congress and Expo. There we picked sessions of interest, and we made connections with consultants we thought had interesting views we wanted to ask questions about. In this first video segment we managed an interview in a dark and noisy hotel lobby with an impromptu gear package. Shot on my phone and augmented with audio from the recorder on the table, we captured this conversation with Rosa Carrillo about her work on leadership training.

Rosa Carrillo is an internationally recognized leader and author in transformational culture change and leadership development. Carl had exchanged some ideas with Rosa earlier, and we wanted to follow up when we …

MP Media, a newly minted MetaPower initiative, is headed next week to Philadelphia for the National Safety Council’s 2011 Congress & Expo. There we will give away a custom designed BE THE REF jersey to the person who expresses the best personal goal related to Continuous Improvement in Safety. Our purpose is to have fun and, at the same time, to listen and learn. MP Media’s by-line is “Messages That Matter.” At the Expo we will interview Presenters and Attendees, publishing this learning in a variety of venues, including future blogs.

We believe that listening is a core leadership competency and it is essential if one wants to move work and organizational culture into sync with each other. Getting in sync is essential if we want to simultaneously enhance productivity and maintain safety. And it is essential if we want to build shared understanding as the basis for compliance rather than depending on coercion.

Messages do matter. And the constructive exchange of messages, wedded to listening, must take place for learning (personal or organizational) to occur. A recent experience demonstrates the point: I posted a comment to a LinkedIn discussion just the other day and, within just a short …