Tag Archives: habit

And now for something completely different…

office desk lift

There is a time and a place to work of course. And there is also a time to rest and recuperate (Covey 1989).

We have discussed trends, fads and pseudo solutions in office layouts and design before. It is easy to think that changing layout will make people more productive.

However this solution addresses something quite different – a time and a place to work. The workplace is removed, so work time stops. This places the expectation on people to go away and recuperate.

For this company the ‘ritual’ of shutting away the desks sets the norm. It makes people get into the habit of switching off. And for a creative company that is important, letting the bran organise the day’s thinking without distractions of actually having to go back to work.

I wonder what the impact is on productivity…

 

Covey, S. (1989) 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Simon & Shuster, New York, NY.

 

See the office furniture solution on this video:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03yf3jl

 

 

 

Middle managers will copy the boss’s behaviour (if they work in proximity)

Here is an interesting one – Researchers at Erasmus University and Cambridge University  identified that middle managers copy their boss’s behaviour if they are working in close/adjacent proximity to that boss. Conversely, if the boss is not in close proximity (e.g. has an office down the corridor), then the middle manager may behave differently to the boss.This includes good and bad behaviour.

♦Red light warnings♦: an over-bearing, micro-managing and ever-present boss is likely to spawn equally over-bearing middle managers and subsequently a wonderfully consistent but wildly dysfunctional team. On the other hand an over-bearing boss who is remote from the team will get…er… disappointed and will wonder why the team doesn’t do what they expect (perhaps).

♦Amber warning♦: An effective boss who is too distant may not get the cooperation expected – good bosses need to get down to the coalface and see what is happening and whether their middle managers are doing things in the ways that are needed.

♦Green Light♦: An effective boss who is close to the team will have a coherent set of middle managers and a consistent culture across the team.

Dr. Gijs Van Houwelingen who co-wrote the survey says: “It is crucial that organisations understand the threat of overly close and highly interdependent relationships between lower and higher management in the organisation. Managers at all levels in any organisation need to strike a balance between a certain sense of closeness to ensure efficiency, and some sense of distance to ensure that negative top-level behaviour does not spread unhindered through all layers of the organisation.”

Finally the survey identifies two measures of distance: social (the distance you feel from the other person) and physical (i.e. space). Interestingly we have much more choice over social distance – i.e. who we choose to spend time with and be seen with – and how that impacts on the way that we choose to behave. You just need to be conscious of who to associate with and who to avoid.

Links:

HR Management (2015) Middle managers copy bosses’ bad behaviour. http://www.hrgrapevine.com/markets/hr/article/middle-managers-copy-bosses-bad-behaviour

van Houwelingen, G., van Dijke, M., & De Cremer, D. (2014). Fairness Enactment as Response to Higher Level Unfairness: The Roles of Self-Construal and Spatial Distance. Journal of Management.

Herzberg’s Dog – ‘Movement’ v ‘Motivation’

herzberg's dogHerzberg’s famous article ‘One more time: how do you motivate employees?’ has been reprinted by the Harvard Business Review at least five times since the 1968 original. Presumably this is, as suggested by John Seddon, because people continue not to get the message.

Seddon’s point is fair because Herzberg’s core message contravenes virtually every manager’s intuition about motivation and messes with the head of even the most sincere and enthusiastic leader.

Herzberg’s message?            You cannot motivate people.

What Herzberg advocates is for leaders to find ways to enable people to draw on their own (intrinsic) motivation to do work well. This means creating the environment where people can explore their creativity and abilities and thereby contribute more.

This is different to providing a ‘carrot’ or ‘stick’.  External incentives effectively shape the rules of work – they do not draw from the resources within the person. This means that as people interpret the rules, there may be unintended consequences – manipulation, cheating, internal competition (or hiding good ideas). If punishment is visible it creates fear, reticence to suggest anything new, and of course has a negative impact on morale.

Further Reading

Herzberg, F. (1968) “One more time: how do you motivate employees?”, Harvard Business Review, vol. 46, iss. 1, pp. 53–62

Seddon, J. (2003). Freedom from Command and Control. Buckingham: Vanguard Press.

Don’t let sight of knowledge be blinded by emotions

There are often occasions when we are presented with information or a situation which gets our hackles rising. A picky complaint, a misplaced rumour, an assumption, a one-off gaffe. We know that the situation does not reflect the general reality (our team doesn’t usually screw things up) but we still get annoyed.

Think about it – we get wound up, we try and button the emotion, perhaps it will annoy us for the next hour, the day, the whole week even. It really defeats us one way or another – and it might only be a trivial thing (although sometimes it can be more than trivial – for example if a senior colleague complains).

What can we do? Chew on it all (and get ourselves down or our blood boiling), stand up for it (and risk being seen to be defensive), roll over and take the negativity (and appear passive and weak)?

At the 2014 football World Cup we saw the first use of goal line technology – aimed to remove the subjective decision of a referee on whether a ball had crossed the line to indicate a goal. The goal camera’s  analytical video was shown on the stadium screens. In the match between France and Honduras a shot by a French player hit the goal post ran back across the goal, rebounded into the goalkeeper and headed towards the goal. Had it crossed the line? The referee indicated goal, then the video replay showed the movement of the ball onto the post and the indication ‘no goal’.

Honduras rage
Honduras player react to the ‘injustice’, but their outrage was based on imperfect knowledge

The Honduran players were apoplectic – it was no goal surely! But wait, what had really happened? The video instantly replayed the next sequence – the ball travelling across the goal, hitting the goalkeeper and crossing the line – and the video indicated for this second sequence ‘GOAL’. The referee’s decision was correct (he gets automatic signals only for GOAL).

Honduras ball line 2
…the ball instantly bounces back to the keeper who pushes it over the line, this time the cameras show GOAL. Simples.
Honduras ball line 1
The ball initially hits the post, the cameras are triggered, and identify that the ball does not cross the line…NO GOAL…but…

This is not about goal-line technology.

This issue is that the Honduran team not only had an unjustified emotional reaction, but also their reaction distracted them from their work (football) -they lost 3-0. If they had been rational about it they would have waited for the verdict on the goalkeepers ‘save’ on the goal-line.

The problem we have as human beings is that the emotional centres in our brains operate much more quickly than our rational centres, so we are triggered into an emotional response when a rational response would be better (Peters 2012).

What could be the solution to this? I suggest one. When you are confronted with a difficult situation that you are included to react towards emotionally – seek knowledge (Deming 1982). What do we know, does this always happen, why did they ask this, why did the incident occur, what does data tell us, is it a one off or a repeating occurrence?

Don’t focus on the people, but examine the situation first.

 

Reading:

Deming W.E. (1982) Out of the Crisis, MIT CAES, Cambridge MA.

Peters S. (2012) The Chimp Paradox: The Mind Management Programme to Help You Achieve Success, Confidence and Happiness. Vermillion, London.

 

Links:

BBC Sport (2014) World Cup 2014: Goallien technology TV process Reviewed. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27864393

 

 

The beauty of learning – nothing is wasted

Spider WebThe term ‘learning organisation’ first gained popularity in the 1990s and is, unusually in the faddish world of  ‘management-speak’, one which seems to have endured. What is a ‘learning organisation’ and why try to become one?

An organisation that learns is best able to adapt. It finds out what works and what doesn’t and, most importantly, does something with that knowledge.

However, a learning organisation doesn’t just accrue information. Some organisations appear to be addicted to data – searching for the ‘facts’ before decisions can be made. This is NOT a characteristic of  a learning organisation since it will cause one of two problems (or both): either the organisation will boil itself to death in trivia and noise and not pick up the important signals;  or statically churn data without adapting – paralysis by analysis. This is not learning.

A definitive feature about learning is that it involves proactively seeking out knowledge; to make good judgements based on insight. If we want people in our team, department or organisation to start learning, then we should steer them towards good judgements based on insights from analysis. The statement ‘costs are out of control’ is an opinion. However, if we define costs and out of control, we can then test that hypothesis and progress in our understanding (Scholtes 1998). This requires new disciplines of thought. For Deming, part of this transformation is about getting managers to see themselves as experimenters who lead learning.

The Learning Cycle (adapted from Scholtes 1998)
The Learning Cycle (adapted from Scholtes 1998)

A good way to represent this type of approach is the Deming Wheel (or Shewhart Cycle, as Deming labelled it) Plan-Do-Study-Act; the never-ending cycle of learning (Scholtes 1998). Deming called for a change from ‘opinions’ to hypotheses which we can test, understand and then apply to our work activities.

Scholtes explains the phases of learning. ‘Plan’ and ‘Act’ are the stages of developing and reviewing theories and hypotheses. ‘Do’ and ‘Study’ are about application – work and the examination of work and outcomes. The phases of thinking and doing are intrinsically linked.

“There is nothing as practical as a good theory”
Kurt Lewin

Further Reading:

Drejer, A. (2000)”Organisational learning and competence development”, The Learning Organization, Vol. 7 Iss: 4 pp. 206 – 220

Scholtes, P. R. (1998) The Leader’s Handbook: A guide to inspiring your people and managing the daily workflow, New York: McGraw-Hill

Senge P. (1990) The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organisation, Doubleday, New York.

 

Other references:

Lewin, K. (1952) Field Theory in Social Science: Selected Theoretical Papers, p. 346. London: Tavistock.

 

Still no ‘instant pudding’

In my first blog 18 months ago I mentioned that when we consider change “we should see things as a human system: people, the work that we do, the interactions we have with each other, the physical environment that we create and use. These are the routes to change.”

Don't go for the "quick mix-quick fix"
Don’t hope for the “quick mix – quick fix”

This is great because as humans we have the privilege of choice; we can be proactive and make things happen.

The down side is that this situation is by its nature complex – other people might not feel the same as us and may put up barriers or counter-proposals.

As a consequence, to make things change, we need to encourage people to change – or at least the people who have an impact on outcomes (note: trying to change people who cannot affect change is a sure-fire route to getting unpopular AND will fail to have impact in any event – so don’t make people the problem).

To encourage people to change we need to change their thinking, how they value people, how they understand why results occur, how systems work (or don’t work), how to distinguish between ups and downs, between real improvements and one-off blips in performance.

People may have an epiphany and see new ways to operate, other people may more gradually understand the need for a new perspective. Either way new thinking has to be embedded in our habits and ways of working and this usually takes practice.

This is consistent with Herrero’s (2006) suggestion that new behaviours are needed FIRST  to support proposed changes in processes and systems.

Quoting his mentor Deming, Donald Wheeler tells us  that “The [new] way of thinking – has to be cultivated. This will take both time and practice. There is no instant pudding. There is no shortcut.”

To effect change is to do it… and to keep doing it. To be the change … and sticking to it.

As Wheeler says “There’s nothing to it but to do it.”

 

Further Reading:

Herrero, L. (2006) Viral Change, meetingminds, UK.

Wheeler D.J. (2000) Understanding Variation: the Key to Managing Chaos, SPC Press, Knoxville, TE

Why the long wait? A ‘tour’ of competence

Winning ‘le Tour’ starts with the first wobble

It has been encouraging to see some positive action coming through this summer with new people being engaged in change activities. In our experience this year the Change Academy team has noticed that, on occasion, things have moved more slowly than expected in our first year. Is this normal?

We should be encouraged to hear that experienced practitioners often see that change efforts go through a ‘lull’. This appears to be caused by a typical learning curve experienced by people going through organisational transformation (Scholtes 1998). This can be attributed to the steps made by people experiencing the change.

If we challenge ourselves with new concepts, we are faced with the question – how do we do this? We move from a state of ‘unconscious incompetence’ (we didn’t know that we didn’t know) into ‘conscious incompetence’ (now we KNOW that we don’t know). It’s like learning to ride a bike; until we sit on it and make our first push forwards (and start wobbling, panicking and falling) we don’t really understand that we don’t know how to do it. With new experience and insight, now we truly KNOW that we don’t know how to ride! That experience leads us to consciously learn more: to balance and shift our weight, to steer (but not over-steer!), to pedal left and right.

Steps to competence – (Adapted from Drejer, 2000)

 

At that point it appears that people can sit in a lull, where we mull over how to put the new concepts, ideas and learning  into action. Scholtes suggests this lull can take a year.

 

Deming is more frank:

 “It does not happen
all at once.
There is no instant pudding.”

However, once people have got their heads in gear (I know, another cycling analogy) thereafter they are able, with conscious effort, to apply the new thinking in their work. Over time, with continued effort, this new level of competence becomes unconscious – a habit. As long as we keep our eyes open and purposeful in our efforts, we will not slip into complacency. Instead our proficiency will progress into expertise and we can look for other challenges.

More reading:

Drejer, A. (2000),”Organisational learning and competence development”, The Learning Organization, Vol. 7 Iss: 4 pp. 206 – 220

Scholtes, P. (1998), The Leader’s Handbook: A guide to inspiring your people and managing the daily workflow, New Yok: McGraw-Hill.

The Need for Speed : let’s not assume that change is a slow business

It is easy to slip into thinking that  ‘change’ as a slow and often difficult process. After all, we know that we can become creatures of habit, enjoying the comfort of the familiar. But this is not what defines us. Human beings are creatures that have mastered  (or, at least, have developed) the art of adapting; changing our knowledge, decisions, behaviour, environment, relationships. It is too easy to think that we ‘don’t like change’. This is simply not the case. We are beings that not only adapt to what is around us, but we often actively choose to influence what is around us. After all, it is not uncommon for us to choose to find ways to make things better or different (either for ourselves or, sometimes, others!).

My great-grandfather (who was still around when I was a youngster) was born into the victorian age in the 1880s. He was already a young man when the Wright brothers first flew at Kitty Hawk, yet he lived to experience being a passenger flying in jet airliners and saw the Apollo astronauts land on the moon. His life experiences, work and education had to adapt fairly radically, but I imagine it was a fairly natural process – that’s life.

Organisations can change faster that society as a whole. Perhaps we need to start seeing change in our organisation as a ‘natural’ process, although one which we can actively influence ourselves. We need to see change happen in noticeable timescales; weeks and months not years. If we want people to believe in the changes we want, then they need to be able to see those changes. This implies that changes should move over short timescales rather than at barely-observable ‘glacial’ rates. Herrero (2006) goes further, suggesting that if cultural changes cannot be observed in short timeframes, then something is wrong.

He suggests that we should reject two assumptions:

“Cultural change is a slow and painful long-term affair.”
No -it need not be slow – there is a better way.

“Short-term wins are tactical but they do not usually represent real change.”  Again no – with viral networks, small changes can lead to a big impact.

So, what is the challenge? We need to accelerate change by engaging networks of people in making things happen. In a previous post it was suggested that small sets of behavioural changes, taken on and shared by informal groups of people can generate improvements in a non-linear way, as Hererro terms it, a ‘viral’ spread.

Of course, our blog posts and comments have raised questions about how the position of our leaders influences change. What if leaders don’t want the change? That places the challenge on us to influence them. Influence changes to the way routines are followed and then enable people to see the impact as it evolves.

At a recent staff conference on Service Excellence we included a keynote speech and workshop led by the student union president. This is not revolutionary, but merely having students in the room at a staff development event changes perspectives and establishes new conversations and ways of thinking.

To influence others we need to encourage quick, meaningful changes; not just ticking items off the ‘to do’ list, but adopting new behaviours, new ways of thinking, new habits. These things may appear less tangible, but they do have impact, they don’t need to wait for a sign-off at the next Academic Committe Meeting and they do allow change to happen much quicker.

Remember to read:

Herrero, L. (2006) Viral Change, meetingminds, UK.