I recently came across the following question on LinkedIn: Can Conflict at Work be Productive? At the time of writing there are 118 answers to that question. In other words, it’s an engaging topic. My interest in the subject is also fueled by the fact that constructive conflict management in teams was the subject of…
Author Archives: Lars-Christian Elvenes
Challenge: Make That Call
For this post I wanted to do something a little different. I thought I’d pose a challenge that can have two very important benefits: Pushing your own boundaries a little, and possibly improving and developing your network. Running Into Someone You Know I’m going to assume that like most people, at some point you’ve run…
Improving Organizational Culture With Social Media
Having discussed various ways to use the social web in organizations, I wanted to touch on how we can use web 2.0 to create an even better understanding of the true background of any company; the organizational culture. Introducing Organizational Culture Through The Social Web We can define organizational culture as “The distinctive norms, beliefs,…
Web 2.0 & Organizational Decision Makers
In the posts on social media and organizational psychology I’ve talked about many benefits and advantages for taking charge and to begin using blogs and platforms like twitter and facebook in the quest for stronger and better organizational awareness. Getting there, however, requires getting leaders and management on to see your side of the story,…
Blogging Organizational Development
In the post Organizational Development 2.0 I started to touch on some of the ways we can combine social media and organizational psychology. Facilitating Change By Blogging One of the biggest reason for why organizational change initiatives fails happens because the organizations’ leaders have made decisions without making sure their employees know the result they…
Organizational Development 2.0
Lack Of Social Media Awareness An interesting article in one of the main newspapers in Norway said Norwegian businesses don’t “get” Twitter. While the focus was on twitter (which is hot stuff these days), the article went on to include social media in general as well. Now there are plenty of reasons for this to…
Change Through Informal Leaders
All organizations are built up of, and by people. This means that people are an extremely important factor when making changes. With this in mind, I think it’s a paradox that when change is being planned, people and systems are not given equal value. Sure, there’s a balance sheet present, measuring the ROI of each…
Healthy Change Processes
The Nature of Change Processes During my graduate studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), I got to be a part of an exciting project titled Healthy Change Processes at the Department of Psychology. I was involved with the project in the initial data collection phase and data collection at a later…
The Search for (unwanted?) Leaders
Judging by job ads, a great number of organizations are looking for leaders. Not a big surprise, but it’s still something that’s important to look into. We have a financial situation that has led to massive layoffs, and the organizations are still looking for the same people as they were before the crisis struck. Who…
From Quick-Fix Change to Organizational Fight-Or-Flight
The times being what they are, organizational change is a big presence today. As much as top management likes to portray change as a path to greater effectiveness and efficiency, to employees it often has a different meaning. Layoffs, losing colleagues, and new and (not necessarily improved) ways to work may be standard associations as…