Staff Spotlight with Megan Seneque
Megan Seneque joined the Ensemble at the end of 2008. Having worked in fields as diverse as education, health, the built environment and auditing practices, Megan’s career has been devoted to creating organizational cultures in which people can learn to span the traditional organisational boundaries to counter the affects of the silo mentality.
It is a real pleasure to be joined by Megan, whose engaging and enthusiastic personality makes her an absolute pleasure to work with.
Hi Megan. Welcome to staff spotlight. I would like to get a better understanding of your background and how and why you came to join Ensemble, but first I would like to ask a question directed at the skills and expertise you bring to the client relationship.
Why do you think the collaborative cross-functional disciplines such as creating learning organizations which you have devoted yourself to throughout your career are key to some of the fields Ensemble specializes in such as complex project management?
Effective traditional project management can deliver solutions to reasonably simple problems but it is limited in being able to deliver solutions to complex problems. Large, complex projects often have deliverables which are tangible but attached to these tangibles is the desire for something far more complex to achieve simply by executing tasks on a Gantt chart. Sometimes project environments aim for large goals that will impact the business as a whole. However, if the organizational culture is not geared to deal with the complexity of the task that change will be painful and drawn out at best. The social ramifications of project environments need to be considered carefully in order to achieve what is wanted and not to produce the undesirable effects that can undermine the organisation.
Creating the culture change necessary to build the right environment to realize both tangible and non-tangible elements of the project is an extremely powerful thing when combined with an execution methodology like Critical Chain and a tool like Concerto. That is why Ensemble’s offering is a holistic one and why cross-functional disciplines and the creation of learning environments is key to Ensemble’s complex project management.
Why were you attracted to working at Ensemble?
My Masters dissertation was called “Creating Communities of Inquiry and Learning” and was a study about organisational learning. In part I looked at how work environments which do not open up the space for people to learn by having deeply entrenched power relationships constrain people’s potential. In innovative organizations, this is not the case, because the space for creativity is open and people can be themselves and achieve their full potential. What interested me about Ensemble was the understanding the company has about learning organisations and how they use that knowledge in a strategic way for creating alternatives beyond their client’s current realities. What Ensemble brings to an organisation is both highly skilled technical expertise but also a deep understanding of social process such that the latent potential in organisations can be released to achieve what they might not think is currently possible. What draws me to Ensemble is that it aligns strongly with my beliefs. The company deeply understands the fundamentally flawed assumption that organisations which are set up into strict functional units that aim to be as efficient as possible are optimized to deliver organisational goals.
What were the underlying trends and threads that have underpinned your career?
When I look at my CV and career path as anyone does I realize how non-linear life is. It has been checkered by all sorts of experiences. The trend I have found is that I would study one thing and then go into that field. However I would then get completely fascinated by an aspect of that work and go and study something new!
I’ve always used my work as a source for my research so there has always been an abiding interest in ongoing learning and how to create environments where people can learn and lead. There is so much power invested in a teacher-student relationship and that relationship manifests itself very differently in every organisational context. The best way to get the most out of that relationship is to learn how the environment and context for learning can be made suitable for real knowledge transfer.
Can you tell us a little bit more about your career history and the fields you have worked in?
I did a postgraduate degree in education and enjoyed it however the way serendipity works is that I was working as the only English speaking teacher in an Afrikaans speaking school, so I got really interested in how language is applied and how we use language to shape our identity. I consequently started an honors program in applied linguistics whilst I was teaching full time. During the course of that program I got really hooked on it and was fascinated by how the whole enculturation process works through language. Applied linguistics is not just about learning a language it looks at the power of language and how that language is used to shape power structures, for example in the work place. I was asked to teach on the program because I did quite well and I got into communication and healthcare. So, I then got really interested in health and the whole nature of the way language is used in that context, for example in the doctor-patient relationships. Because we had so many students for whom English was a second language studying on the program, I became fascinated by how the students coped with the program when they had very different worldviews underpinning their frames of reference as to what constitutes health and well being whilst they were being put through quite a conventional program. So I then I became fascinated by how to create shared world view to enculturate the students into a profession so that they could cope with the norms of the profession and so that their learning experience was richer. So I then got interested in curriculum transformation and how to bring people of various worldviews together to learn a body of knowledge. I then started a Masters in curriculum development. I have also spent time working in large corporate environments like Ernst and Young in their Centre for Business Knowledge as well as in an architectural practice.
Why do you think it is so challenging for organisations to create learning organizations and places of true innovation?
Well, it has a lot to do with how people are measured in organizations. Most people will behave according to the measurement systems that are imposed upon them and few of these systems are adequately designed to create long term innovative practices. As a consequence innovation and learning practices are viewed as potential risk. In addition, there is no cookie cutter approach to creating a learning organization or innovative practice because innovation is a messy process. Most firms, particularly large ones, want to be able to institutionalize these practices, but frankly this is antithetical to the very notion of creating learning organizations. Firms want answers but what is needed is a social process that acts as an enabling methodology to allow people in a system to discover for themselves what it is they need to do and how best they can organize themselves to do it. This is for example is what Otto Scharmer’s Theory U is all about and why programs such as Vision Quest are so successful. It’s not methodology as a straight jacket but rather is a technology of freedom that allows for creativity. However it requires persistent buy in from key influencers who understand how such social process can set an organization apart and create competitive advantage. Why? Because attracting and retaining the best talent is not only cheaper and easier if you have built an environment that has opened the space to learn, it also means that the best talent will be available in the long term to innovate services, products and processes that ensure the company thrives.
Comments