the michelangelo project - meta management · the michelangelo project aims to help its...
TRANSCRIPT
THE MICHELANGELO PROJECT
management
Helping people who are disadvantaged in
employment into work and financial independence.
(CONCEPT DOCUMENT, APRIL 2017}
Long-term unemployment and underemployment takes a heavy personal and social toll,
with those who suffer from either more likely to experience issues with physical,
emotional and psychological health. In the limited work opportunities they may have,
the stress and pressure of inadequate and insecure work interferes with their ability to
perform, further contributing to the problem.
Without enough people working, the economy will run out of all the things it needs to
be healthy: consumers, individuals engaged in purposeful activity, investment in growth,
taxpayers and stable communities. As we move towards the elimination of the
estimated half of all current jobs, employers will need people able to transition to the
new jobs that will be created.
If people cannot undertake enough work to develop the contemporary skills and
experience employers are already struggling to find, enterprises will stagnate. The
standard approach of training people in vocational skills for jobs and work
environments that are fast disappearing is not only a waste of resources, it sets them up
for further disappointment as the world of work changes.
We want to be part of a solution by equipping people with skills employers need to
compete in the rapidly shifting digital environment, and giving the unemployed and
underemployed a chance to participate meaningfully in the workforce.
To achieve this, we are putting together an initiative called ‘The Michelangelo Project’.
HELPING THE EMPLOYMENT DISADVANTAGEDTHE WHY
They can struggle to
maintain their
relationships with
family and friends
They are more likely
to suffer physical and
mental illnesses
Unemployment places
pressure on the health
of the community
INNOVATION & ENTERPRISE SKILLSTHE WHAT
For years, enterprises have prioritised workforce management around a mindset for
maximising productivity and minimising costs. This is the talent management approach
that has prevailed for years. It works by narrowing employment criteria down to the
finest match between people and production needs. With this approach refined over
the years, it became easier to measure performance, outsource roles, and eliminate
‘waste’.
But in doing so, enterprises also eliminated diversity, deep work, creativity, risk taking,
outliers in the workforce, counter viewpoints and upsetting the status quo – together
which make up the essential components for innovation.
Innovation is defined as new ways to create new value. Without innovative capabilities
enterprises will not only struggle to identify emerging opportunities, they will fail to
adapt effectively to the digitisation of business, leaving themselves open to disruption.
Innovative capabilities depend on organisations that are rich in enterprise skills.
The Michelangelo Project aims to help its participants develop enterprise skills, which
we define as personal skills (emotional, interpersonal and social) combined with
organisational and business acumen and adeptness in different thinking abilities
(critical, creative and systems) to come up with, apply, learn from, and adapt solutions in
different – often new and/or unstructured – environmental contexts.
Enterprise skills are innate meaning they cannot be learned through information alone.
Instead they need practice, feedback and experience to develop. We will use an
immersive, experiential process in which participants work on real business problems to
develop enterprise skills they can apply in real world scenarios.
Workplaces are being
deprived of much-
needed diversity
Enterprises cannot
innovate without the
relevant enterprise
skills
NOT-FOR-PROFIT PARTNERSTHE WHO
We will develop relationships with not-for-profit organisations that work with clients who
are at any stage of seeking work, but find it difficult to do so, such as those with a disability,
are victims of domestic violence and those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.
Through these organisations’ referrals we will select participants who only need to
demonstrate they have been trying to find work, are able and willing to work, and will
commit to turning up reliably for the duration of the three month program.
Our not-for-profit partners are:
• Encompass Community Services supporting universal opportunities for people with
disabilities
• TBA
• TBA
• TBA
THE MICHELANGELO PROJECT KEY DETAILSPROJECT HOW
Participants will run an enterprise from planning through to implementation. The focus is not on the
enterprise itself but the factors that makes a business successful and organisations and their people effective.
Intake: the program will run in three-month intakes. Each intake will consist of 14 places.
Timeline: places will be made available one month before each intake begins. Not-for-profit partners will be
provided program details to ensure the most suitable candidates are selected. The program runs for three
months, culminating in a ‘demo day’, i.e. presentation day and graduation.
Format: participants will attend three days per week from 10AM to 4.30PM. The format will favour interactive
group work alternating between facilitator-led sessions and group tasks.
Facilitators: A program facilitator will work continuously with the group. Speakers, industry professionals and
specialist facilitators will be invited to help the group as their business progresses. A topic will also be
presented each week by a specialist facilitator.
Support: a program administrator will provide on-site support and assist with everything from catering to
printing to research assistance.
Content officer: a content officer will capture videos and images and produce marketing and public relations
materials, post social media updates, issue press releases and provide updates to sponsors. Because online
activities are so important today, the program’s content officer will also help participants to create and
manage their own online and social media accounts. This will not only teach them how to use this important
medium, it offers an avenue for participants to share their learning and experiences with the many others with
whom we cannot directly work.
THE MICHELANGELO PROJECT PROGRAM OUTLINEPROGRAM HOW
The program will run over the course of three months covering the following:
1. Using interactive sessions, participants will be asked to draw on their personal experiences to identify a
problem in the market for which they can practically develop a solution.
2. The group will decide the culture they want for their organisation and how it will be enforced.
3. Drawing on design thinking techniques and lean startup principles, participants will create user
archetypes and define the user experience their offering aims to deliver.
4. The basic offering is taken through early user testing and feedback following a design sprint process.
5. Key financial targets are set. Participants will be led through the process and will need to make key
decisions for use of their limited resources.
6. A marketing and sales plan to reach the target users with the beta offering is developed.
7. As the offering is established and rolled out, the participants will consider operational considerations.
At each stage, participants will be prepared for the interactions they can expect and will practice the skills
they need to make those interactions a success. They will debrief the process undertaken and lessons learned,
as well as how well they managed the process.
The aim for participants is that they develop a sense of the value they can contribute as active participants in
the economy. Traditional employment is not a solution for everyone, therefore the program will also help
participants learn how to work as contractors, online entrepreneurs, or in the sharing economy.
THE MICHELANGELO PROJECT SPECIALIST SESSIONSWEEKLY WORKSHOPS
The specialist workshops are designed to enhance the participant’s abilities to work on their business. The
topics delivered over the 12 weeks (subject to change depending on availability of facilitators) are:
1. Mindfulness
2. Ethics and courage
3. Design thinking
4. Story telling
5. Cyber security
6. Working agilely
7. Digital tools and programming basics
8. Working collaboratively
9. Enterprise and performance tools and metrics
10. Copywriting and design
11. Speaking in public
12. Health and wellness
SPONSORSHIP LEVELSPACKAGES & BENEFITS
MAJOR PARTNERS
• Sponsorship promoted with the Project
• Prominent logo displayed on all marketing
and program materials and social media
channels
• Places for 2 representatives to attend the
entire program (with limited participation) and
take all materials to share their experiences
back in their workplaces
• Invitation to book a facilitator for two days’ of
workshop time to work with the sponsor’s
team or speak on a topic of choice related to
the Project
• Logo featured on content re-packaged for
future programs to be delivered in workshops
or online
• Invitation to attend the end of program ‘demo
day’ (graduation) and present awards named
after their organisation
Investment: $30,000
PROGRAM SPONSORS
• Logo displayed on all marketing and program
materials and social media channels
• Places for 2 representatives to attend the formal
workshops that may be shared back in their
workplaces
• Invitation to book a facilitator for one day’s
workshop time to work with the sponsor’s team
or speak on a topic of choice related to the
Project
• Logo displayed on content re-packaged for
future programs to be delivered in workshops
or online
• Invitation to attend the end of program ‘demo
day’ (graduation) and present certificates
named after their organisation
Investment: $15,000
PROGRAM PARTNERSHIPSDONATIONS
The success of The Michelangelo Project will depend on the generous contributions of organisations and
individuals able to provide supplies, equipment and/or their expertise. Donations for the benefit of the whole
program, one-off or to make things easier for individuals are appreciated. Suggested items/services:
• Laptops and tablets
• Furniture, furnishings, room decorations
• Catering
• Coffee breaks
• Reading and maths tutoring
• Managing personal finances
• Stationery
• Professional services (marketing, accounting, etc.)
• Photography
• Professional grooming
Donations will be acknowledged in the marketing materials and social media channels. Program partners are
invited to attend the end of program ‘demo day’ (graduation).
Michelangelo Buonarroti was born in Caprese, Italy on March 6, 1475. As a boy,
Michelangelo’s father’s attempts to make him study were so unsuccessful that
eventually he was allowed, at 13, to enter an apprenticeship with master artist,
Domenico Ghirlandaio.
As Michelangelo’s reputation spread, he received painting, sculpting and architectural
commissions from many famous clients including Lorenzo De Medici and Pope Julius
II. Michelangelo, however, hated being boxed in by people’s expectations and often
accepted work only reluctantly. His dissatisfaction between the work he wanted to do
and the work he was doing saw him fail to finish, and even damage in frustration,
many of the projects he began.
When in 1524 Michelangelo received a commission to design the Laurentian Library
in Florence, his response was characteristic, “Farò ciò che saprò, benché non sia mia
professione.” (“I’ll do what I can, although that’s not my profession.”)
Roderick Conway Morris for The Spectator, writes: “...despite his universally recognised
brilliance in every art he turned his hand to (including poetry)…beneath the proud and
difficult exterior there lurked the autodidact, constantly in fear of failure.”
Before his death in 1564, Michelangelo destroyed many of his drawings and papers
because he did not want people to see him in a less than perfect light.
We have named our project after this man because he reminds us that we are all, in
own way, difficult, insecure and apt to fail to see our own brand of brilliance.
THE MICHELANGELO PROJECTABOUT THE NAME
ABOUT US
management
The Michelangelo Project is an initiative of Meta Management. We are a management company that works
with values-led enterprises to navigate and leverage the benefits of the new world of digitisation.
The time between the onset of digital disruption and a reshaped industry is critical. It begins with all players
feeling the pinch before those with the weakest value proposition become critically if not fatally, injured. But
to make a successful transition from a legacy business to a digital one needs two essential ingredients:
organisational confidence – to explore its opportunities and act to move on from the world it knows – and
people with the skills to move them forward. This is the work that Meta Management does.
When we work with clients to help them to recruit for their teams, we are struck by the number of people
who gamely apply for jobs they have slim, if any, chance of securing. Their CVs show both in content and in
presentation how little work they have done over the years and how unskilled and unprepared they are for
the future. Many of them rely on the guidance of welfare officers whose advice is rooted in the 1990s. We
also meet many talented people in our work with not-for-profits who, but for these organisations, would
never be offered work simply because they do not fit the mould.
The stories of people like these are our inspiration for The Michelangelo Project. We hope that we can make
a material difference to many lives, but we also know from experience that they are likely to make more of a
difference to ours.
When I started Meta Management as a consultancy in 2003, I enthusiastically built a
portfolio of clients, working from my background in marketing, human resources,
organisational development and organisational behaviour, to help to improve their
organisations’ performance and build their team capabilities. I researched and wrote
all my own material and often wrote materials for other consultants and trainers.
But in all this research there was also growing evidence that many ‘truths’ of
organisational performance we took for granted were, in fact, merely artefacts of the
industrial era: structured hierarchies, strategies, job specifications, competencies,
leadership attributes, competitive advantage, standardised work – just some of the
popular approaches that, until then, seemed immutable.
By 2007, I was convinced that digital technology was going to produce social
changes so significant, it would not be enough for organisations to merely upgrade
their business processes, they would also have to change their practices. I set out to
work and research as widely as possible to understand what those changes should
be and how to apply them.
Now it is time for me to share the benefits of ten years’ applied research and practice
with people who are vulnerable in our society, the disadvantaged in employment.
FOUNDER, ISABEL WUMY (META MANAGEMENT) STORY
INQUIRIES & MORE INFORMATIONCONTACT US
META MANAGEMENT
103/125 Fitzroy Street
St Kilda, Victoria, 3182
Website www.metamanagement.net
Telephone +61 9016 3827
ISABEL WU
Email [email protected]
Mobile +61 411 748 096
Skype @metamanagement
Twitter @metamanagement