Leading and Managing Change

                In 1983, I was on the ground floor of a management transition from the Traditional Style of Management to the Team Concept of Management in a small foam & flexible fabrics factory in Auburn Hills, Michigan outside of Detroit. At that time, the automotive industry was making a major conversion to this en vogue management  style,  and started to require its vendors to follow suit to maintain lucrative contracts. This movement  was considered cutting-edge thinking at the time because  it was open to interpretation about how to proceed. New ideas and new ways of doing business were challenging old ideas and old ways of doing things at every bend of the road. This created tension, eroded the trust factor between current management and employees. It also taxed and crumbled an already ineffective communication structure. My consultant work was initially identified as 1) establishing a new Training Department and 2) training employees to establish and maintain the new management system. Training was broken into 3 different major areas: 1) White collar employees, 2) Blue collar employees and 3) Sales staff. There were 2 shifts, and 350+ employees.

                My original assessment pointed to a serious problem in communication between teams, shifts, union and management, and new/established workers. The establishment of common ground understandings were enhanced by an in-house created booklet that explained what the factory did, the process of the manufacturing line, and the function of each of the teams. Seeing themselves as being a collective part of an understandable process started to build the One team made of many teams cultural thinking change. Employee’s contributed to the Wall of Fame employee board recognizing accomplishments by individuals and teams, and a company newsletter went into production so that news channels would signify a new and improved was for sharing information. A two-hour training class was delivered to each team in the factor to help establish the benefits of better communication. It was well-received and started a momentum towards the change process.

                The next step was clearly to give the teams the structure to govern team choices and 6 major areas were identified as a start point for training: 1) Mission Statements, 2) Ground Rules, 3)Goal-Setting, 4) Goal realization (within established time frames), 5) Recognition and Rewards, 5) Team Assessment, and 6) Problems solving & Conflict resolution. The training was inter-active, and was based on criterion-based performance objectives. Demonstration of understanding was measured based on the learning that took place and could be verbally explained, explained in writing, and using hands-on activities.

                Our success after one year was presented at the Michigan Labor/Management Council in Lansing, Michigan because we had the highest profits ever after using this system. Employee Quality of Life and Increased Production were the two major accomplishments of change under this new system. None of it could have been accomplished without first establishing a communications structure that could support the change. Better communication leads to better trust, allowing for emerging leaders to be identified and utilized.

About the Author: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/nancy-bell/30/231/855

Gears of My Childhood

My Object of Influence and Inspiration

Gears of My Childhood

M.I.T. - Creative Learning - Assignment WK2

There can be no question that my object of choice was a clean sheet of paper. With crayons first, then finger paints and then pencils and pens, my "workshop" or, “drawing board,” was created each time I was presented with a new piece of paper. As I began to focus on learning, I become a visual learner very quickly, translating single topics into an aerial view of topics that could be laid out on a piece of paper. In higher education, I could draw schematics, process models, and demonstrate relationships either with words, or pictures, or graphs or some other visual aid.

The workshop jumped off the sheet of paper and became documents on the computer. No matter where I roamed in research or writing, I always came back to my paper...or papers...or computer documents….that created my evolved "drawing board" of ideas. What started with my piece of paper was the whole idea of capturing ideas and fixing them into a form that could be shared. The paper became my medium for self-expression and communication, learning and demonstrating knowledge as well as pursuing innovation. Composition stemmed from one drawing board into the next in a series of drawing boards at each step of the process, until a finished product was realized.

As I started working with computer programs, my drawing board became an Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or Data spread sheets to gather my information and bring it back to documents to work with. Surfing the internet, I found I could bring back links, clip art, quotes, take screen shots, search for graphics and expert opinions. and bring them all back to work with on my workshop (akin to my piece of paper), in any of its forms. The piece of paper symbolized me as a working pallet, all the artistic creations I had yet to form. I AM the pallet, and have been since that first clean piece of paper that was mine to design. It was a mirror of my first attempts to see myself, through self-expression of my own ideas and creativity.

 About the Author:  http://www.linkedin.com/pub/nancy-bell/30/231/855   

Create A New Voice, America

Create a New Voice, America

It must be a common voice, not just the rare voice.

It must be one voice, trumpeting the truths of American ideals.

 

Freedom is the base tone of musical timing that guides our march into America’s future.

If not freedom, America represents nothing, since each breath committed to its undertaking as a united people, continues. It pumps through our lungs as we give breath to its precepts, ideals and dreams.

 

We are not helpless, we are not lost, we are not inconvenient, nor unworthy.

We take up issue with all things righteous in building on the structure of freedom and truth.

 

“Find the good and praise it” –Alex Haley

 

In praise of our united collaboration, we weave our destinies with the promise of beautiful freedom, not only for ourselves, but for our children and our entire progeny. As Americans, who are we more than those who take on the torch of our founders and who pass it along to our generations forward.

 

Like a ship that has survived and learned from peaceful and turbulent waters, we direct today’s journey on the longer road. In peaceful days we flourish with innovative discovery. In turbulent days we keep our sights on the prize to draw us forward.

 

Freedom. Our strength comes from within, resonating with the wish, the hope, the witness and the promise of freedom. With each actuality of freedom, we move toward an encompassing freedom that leaves no one out.  We do indeed bear witness to the enduring strength of our Consitution and offer allegiance to the promise that all men are created equal.

 

We are endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

 

Newly re-elected President Barack H. Obama spoke about how these self-evident rights must be self-executed and secured by the people on earth. All people are the Creator’s people on earth, which means all of us in America and indeed on Earth. For if not His, than whose?

 

Given that we declare to be a nation of the people, by the people and for the people, we must work together to secure the blessings of liberty. We keep it safe by not looking away, but watching it jealously as a reason to value ourselves as a people.  We take the steps in the continued forming of ourselves taking steps toward those moments when there is Liberty and Justice for All.

 

This is what Freedom Looks Like

 

We guide ourselves, under our chosen leadership, to seize the freedoms guaranteed by living them, defending them, teaching about them, and redefining the better expressions among a united people. We are dynamic and our Freedoms are dynamic.

 

We are equal in the eyes of the Almighty and by our faith in Him, we embrace His faith in us to be free. We execute our freedoms among ourselves because there is no one else who can. Or will. Or should.

 

I urge this reader to take up the standard of freedom and invest in America’s people, the strength of her leadership and the everlasting promise of freedom to all our posterity, to help us withstand the storms that time yet holds for us, and to share the life of freedom in peace. I stand with President Obama in his movements towards these ends. I stand in this voice and speak its freedoms.

About the Author: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/nancy-bell/30/231/855

Fight for Freedom

It starts as a feeling
That something's not right
Then walks in your mind
While you're up late at night.
The problems are many,
The solvers too few,
So the work that needs doing
Starts pointing at you.

You ask, "Who am I
Who can bring about change?
I've my own things to do
And this world is so strange..."
Then you think of the faces
And hurdles you'll greet
As you work to solve problems--
All the hate you will meet.

And you just have to wonder
If it's worth all the pains,
When by closing your eyes
You won't see freedom's stains.
But you know you can't do it
There is no way at all
'Cause once you have seen them
You've heard Justice call.

The song starts out softly
And travels so slow...
But along come the others
And soon you will know
That many are willing
To work through the day
And lift up their voices
When FREEDOM's held sway

There can be no more silence
When hate comes to stand
In the midst of a people
Who share the same land.
Come together to heal!
And grow strong in what's true!
Join the voices of others
Who love justice, too.

Hate can't breed us out
And it can't hold us down
And it won't stop the voices
That rise from the ground
'Cause the land still remembers
All my brothers who bled
To fight for our freedom--
The struggle's not dead.

When you first have the feeling
That something's not right,
Don't just look away,
Take courage and fight!
'Cause the hangman keeps coming
To cloud what is true
If you don't fight for freedom,,
Who'll fight to save YOU?

Teach your children to love,
Help the poor not to drown
In the sea of oppression
That keeps people down.
Keep freedom alive
And continue the Call
'Til the day we say truly
"There is Justice for ALL."

--N.J. Bell
----------------------------
The AWESOME story, The Hangman, by Maurice Ogden, inspired me as a child (see link below). In the Civil Rights era of the 70's, we were watching this film on reel-to reel-projectors, but the truth of it still stands. They say that freedom is renewed by the blood of patriots, but it also renews by the breath and deeds of free people. Don't give up the fight!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZSS3yxpnFU

About the Author: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/nancy-bell/30/231/855

Corporations are people, too! Bedtime Stories for Juvenile Corporations

Corporations are People, too!: Bedtime Stories for Juvenile Corporations

All people start out as children, and children usually enjoy bedtime stories to help them think about life and how to guide them as they grow up. Lessons are shared, to take into their dreams as they lay themselves down to rest. If, as Mitt Romeny declares, that corporations are people, too, why should they not get their own bed time stories to help shape them into the people (corporations) they aspire to be? Below is a sample of list of corporation bedtime stories for the young ones.

*new releases

*Animal Farm, or why I have to keep hurting the animals - by George O-Well
     Disgruntled animals do NOT have to be fed on time to keep them from trying to take over. Tasers, pens, drones, drugs, and rabid abuse will keep the "animals" so beaten-down, that they will appreciate slop when you do toss it down. How to BULLY the under-trodden and still stay in charge. Might Kills Accountability Issues.

*How the Grinch Stole Christmas, then sold it back - by Dr. Sue, Sue, Sues
     Christmas, one of the biggest money makers of the year, should be grabbed with the least amount of money and extol the greatest profit by exploiting hopes, dreams and value of a person. Profane gifts, weapons and sugar offer the best bang for your investment buck. If anyone interferes with your strategies to bloat profits, tie them up in court and sue, sue, sue. Tips for underhanded ways to drink in cash from consumers from the cradle to the grave.

Jack and the Bank Stock - FABLE
     Young Jack starts with some magical seed money and watches a bank stock grow and grow, climbing along it until he arrives in the land of economic giants. There he finds a goose that lays golden tax loop eggs in off-shore accounts. Then Jack sees all the other riches at his disposal and runs from country club to golf course, brothel to Mitt fund raisers. But the singing harp must be stolen and saved from all the Giant Regulators who would have the harp singing to them. Follow Jack to see if he gets out of this one by running for President and learning how to change all the rules in his favor.

Good-Bye Moon - by Market-Wise Green
    Every night, just like most children, juvenile corporations must learn to say good night, as practice for later exercises in saying good bye. This cheerful book helps corporations to say good bye to everyday things without worrying about where they go. "Good bye, Social Security," "Good bye, Unemployment," "Good bye, Health Care," and "Good bye, 47% of voters who vote for corporations or their puppets." But don’t stop there, Good bye, mountain tops, Good bye Gulf, Good bye clean air, Good bye endangered species…these are just a few of the fun Good Byes young corporations begin learning about. Come read this book to see more of the darling Good byes juvenile corporations practice leaving behind before sleeping peacefully.

One Slip, Two Slip, Pink Slip, Blue Slip  - Dr. Sous
    All grown up corporations know that firing people is one of the powers given to them when they have employees. This story is like an early game to help young corporations normalize the rejection they will one day force upon hundreds, if not thousands of people during their successful corporate lives. Who will get these slips? Let's see: Some are glad and some are sad and some are very, very bad. Some will travel near, some will travel far, by bus or boat or even car. But where there're from or where they be, is not important, you will see. We’ll watch them come, we see them go, but most of all we watch them blow, fast or slow, high or low, they’re only there to make us glow. And when we’re done we toss them out. And that’s what slips are all about. .

Little Boy Blue Collar & Other Nursery Rhymes

    Little Boy Blue Collar come blow your horn, we’ve had  whistleblowers before in our corn. Discredit, discredit, discredit, lie, lie, lie by the time the dust settles, they’ll be motes in your eye. Where is the regulator who looks after the sheep, he’s counting his money then going to sleep.

    Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his workers could eat no lean, and so between the two of them, Jack got a corporate lawyer to keep him in the green.

    Hey didde-diddle the corporation and the fiddle, inflation jumped over the moon. The stockholders laughed to see such a sport and the CEO ran away with the silver spoon.

‘Twas the Night Before Outsourcing

    Twas the night before outsourcing, and all through the place,

Not a dollar was stirring, not even its face. The stocks were all hung on the vault wall with care, in hope the CEO soon would be there.  The workers were nestled at home in their beds, with visions of paychecks that hug in their heads. The Veeps in their neckties, the secretaries in their heels, were leaving their parties with vodka and squeaks. When out of an elevator there arose such a clatter, surveillance cameras tuned in to record the whole matter. .Follow along with the antics of this story as St. Nick comes in to determine who has been naughty and nice…

Sleeping Bane Corporation

    At a gathering of investors, ready to christen the new-born corporation, it was discovered that one very important, and very mean, investor had mistakenly been left off the list of invitees. When he arrived, he was filled with wrath and ready to lay a curse on little Sleeping Bane. “One day, a stranger will come along, and using only his Mitt, he will cause sleeping Bane to be fingered by a prick and fall into disrepute.” With smoke and noxious bad-breath gases, the investor left his curse and the others worried about the ill-fate that might befall this newest, little infant corporation. Read all about how the Mitt showed up and fulfilled the curse. Would Sleeping Bane ever recover? Would true love be able to save it from complete embarrassment and unethical behavior?

Other Bedtime Stories for Juvenile Corporations Coming Soon…

Goldilocks and the 3 Hostile Take-Overs

Corporations Poo, too. A Potty-Training Book for Toddler Corporations

Little Corporation on the Prairie

Horton Hears a Loop-Hole

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stock

UPDATED 5 27 2013. LA Voters Approve "Only People Are People" Resolution against corporate personhood. http://occupydemocrats.com/l-a-voters-approve-only-people-are-people-resolution-against-corporate-personhood/

About the Author: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/nancy-bell/30/231/855

Leader Teachers-Are You One?

Leader Teachers-Are You One?

"The most important thing to remember is this: To be ready at any moment to give up what you are for what you might become."
__W.E.B. DuBois

     As a life-long political activist and teacher, trainer and leader, I know first-hand that my education includes an unusual upbringing, over four decades of community work, and the culmination of three successful university degrees. In Northeast Detroit, I took part in intense teachings and trainings by my community's pro-active leaders following the 1967 race riots through the 1970's. This education became a necessary means to freedom's better ends. What the schools didn't teach us, our leaders taught us. What the textbooks didn't teach us, our leaders taught us. What we didn't know ourselves, our leaders taught us. Our leaders were many teachers of the Civil Rights Movement, as well as individuals who lead politically aware lives. One of my early teachers used to tell us that she had a "Ph.D. in Life" and she did. She was and is wise, celebrating now 84 years young.

     Detroit, during these turbulent times, imposed the controversial STRESS (Stop the Robberies and Enjoy Safe Streets) program, especially prominent in use among Black males, Vietnam War protestors, and community people who began activating to address local social, economic and educational issues. Keeping good people out of trouble became a major concern for our community. In efforts to organize and unify community people towards better ends, we were taught by the leaders of a newly developed non-profit community organization. North End Concerned Citizens Community Council (NEC4). They provided us with free lectures, seminars, retreats and other functions intended to uplift people's hopes and realizations. They offered conversations and sharing of experiences, applied to our local community, our nation, and the Civil Rights Movement. Their intentions were to educate and activate positive change. Irrespective of race, we took part in strategies to offset the unfair limitations that were imposed through a wide variety of racist and prejudiced systems. Self-education became part of the lexicon of our plans to create change, allowing us to believe we can gather knowledge and exercise wisdom, giving us the power to break our economic, educational and self-imposed bonds.

     A lot of students didn't finish school in my neighborhood. The paths of formal education dwindled over time, especially among the schools serving the impoverished people of color. The majority of young people often fell into only a couple of categories. They 1) joined the military, 2) went to jail, 3) moved away, and/or went to college, or 4) died, often violently. It was necessary for community leaders to stem the tide of failure and help us recognize our real potential as young people who took part in our own life decisions. All too often, there were others that decided for us that we were "locked in a poverty cycle." Poverty and civil rights issues have been around for a long time, but we have to ask ourselves, and answer ourselves, whether or not we can do better than to embrace the limiting ways of poverty's traps, racial traps, gang and violence traps, drug traps, or any other crooked roads laid before us. As young adults, we were taught to become aware and informed, and to step out of the suppressions, oppressions, and depressions we faced. We were taught to recognize the limitations and learned how to define ourselves as capable, and our goals as attainable.

Education comes from schools, yes. But it also comes from parents, mentors, from community leaders and church leaders, and volunteers whose work furthers community goals. We all can learn from books, from essays and poems, from experience and from others' experiences. We can learn from President Barack Obama whose community organizing skills LEAD our nation, in more ways than one. As a nation, we continue to learn from each other in our continued walk towards full citizenship, endowed with full citizenship rights and responsibilities.

During the Civil Rights Movement, I benefitted from the teachings of my community leaders, my community teachers, who taught us that we could advance ourselves by following effective strategies, to develop an understanding of “self-awareness, self-determination and self-respect to attain self-sufficiency.” These became the goals that we were taught—to offset the limitations imposed and perpetuated by racism and classism in America. We learned that we do not let others keep us ignorant, define us, or convince us to lower our opinions of ourselves, no matter the race, or culture, or religion, or creed. What I came to realize is that the beautiful individuals that our youth are can only lay down all the arguments against success—by growing success anyway. Education plays a key part of success’ growth.

Educating our communities can be accomplished by efforts of leaders and teachers, by reading, thinking and communicating, witnessing and steering yourself toward worthy goals. It is important to come together in unity and strength when creating strategies for positive and effective change. Self-education can be improved by each one assuming the responsibility of being their own first teachers. It can be improved by taking counsel from those who came before us, and are with us still, that share valuable lessons learned. Literacy allows the book learning necessary for us to prevent mistakes made from happening again, by not repeating them. Historical and future reference points can be constructed through knowledge gained. Ask yourself, “What has your solid education showed you that are worth sharing?” We automatically become teachers when we have learned, hopefully helping each other to achieve and practice self-awareness, self-determination, self respect and attaining self-sufficiency.

Although education does not guarantee absolute success, not learning takes you nowhere and keeps you there. Learn and learn how to lead, and you will become a leader who is a teacher.

“Ignorance is a cure for nothing.”
W.E.B. DuBois

About the Author: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/nancy-bell/30/231/855

Working with Vulnerable Populations in Chattanooga

As I mentioned in an earlier post, when I first moved to Chattanooga, I took a job living at a motel and worked in exchange for my room. I may have sought other work when I first arrived, but my decision to take the job at the motel was twofold: One, it was meant to help me to better understand the vulnerable populations in Chattanooga by living among them, so that Two, I could determine how to better help them challenge a rampant spread of HIV/AIDS contagion in the U.S. South. Although I have been exposed to impoverished people through previous community work in the Greater Detroit area, there were definitely some obvious cultural differences between them and those I learned from and lived with in Chattanooga.

In April 2001, I became an ordained minister and took a vow to do missionary work among the most vulnerable populations in society. Although I thought that HIV/AIDS would be my area of concentration, after living among the transient people in Chattanooga, I changed my focus in my Ph.D. program to homeless people, who are at risk not only for HIV/AIDS, but also for many other public health adversities. My capstone project at Walden University for my doctorate included designing an NIH-based grant proposal for funding to help create a bridge program that would blend homelessness with domestic violence, since the local area did not really have a homeless service for domestic violence, nor did the domestic violence shelter have intervention strategies that could accommodate the homeless.

I moved to Red Bank after that and endeavored to become involved in community work, which I did, including volunteer work. Each of these volunteer activities are chronicled in some way in direct relation to field-based classes at Walden University. In each class the product of the assignments were translated into measureable and explainable data and analysis. No private information about anyone involved in these projects was disclosed without a reason and express permission to do so.

 *  Chattanooga Cares (HIV/AIDS), working health fairs in at-risk neighborhoods and at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga.
 *The Urban League of Chattanooga, where I did pro-bono work by developing a program of computer training classes to help assist job-seekers who were unfamiliar with computer-driven job applications
 *The Boys and Girls Club, where I worked with children living in public housing to develop artistic ways to positively express themselves including photo-mosaics of our sidewalk chalk event, posters with positive messages, and creative decorations to make their gathering place reflect their positivity through individual expressions.
 *ACT-SO program through the Chattanooga Chapter of the NAACP by serving as a judge in the categories of poetry, essay writing, and playwriting for the last two years.
  *Clarence T. Jones Observatory, associated with the University of Tennessee Chattanooga, to help encourage students' interest in science by acting both as a presenter and a hostess for public open nights of sky viewing.
  *University of Tennessee Chattanooga, I coordinated and presented information to the campus population, as well as the community at-large to help inform them about the Extreme Toxic Waste spill that took place in Kingston, TN, approximately 50 miles upstream from Chattanooga. I was able to retain the Director of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation as a guest speaker who responded to questions and concerns, especially from the Society of Physics Students (SPS) who sponsored our event, and a large number of Environmental Science staff and students.
  *Homelessness remained a major interest to me, and I am currently working with a long-time (or contronically homeless) individual who is writing about her personal experiences. I have already published an article on the Walden University blog on how to organize a community collaborated public lecture and gain press coverage and resource information for continued interest. (Over 100,000 current students in the International Laurate have access to these articles).

One of the things I realized with my higher education knowledge is that whether or not I am paid a wage for my work, I can still always contribute to my community and focus on the vulnerable populations I care so much about. Although I do still have in my mind the priority of HIV/AIDS as an ongoing problem, my work in the community helped me to realize that one issue alone will not address the companion issues that co-occur in public health. I am also working on another website, being done in conjunction with a former University of Phoenix Masters student, who is also an MD, so that we can present HIV/AIDS information to people about the virus, the disease, the modes of transmission, testing and screening, and where to turn for assistance and more information, peer-to-peer counseling resource lists and treatment and family response information. That website is still being crafted and is in research and redesign stages of presentation. We intend the website to be dynamic, updating our audience on the latest in medical technologies, the law and policies related to HIV/AIDS in America, and to create a forum for people to be able to become engaged in dialogue with others interested in this pandemic, either personally or professionally at local, state, national or international levels.

I look forward to seeing what my future will bring as I move forward in social activism, environmental activism, producing educational material for health, homeschool or family enhancement of student preparedness for higher education, and publishing more children's stories.

About the Author: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/nancy-bell/30/231/855