Tag Archives: positive behaviours

Culture

And now for something completely different…

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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

 

 

 

Change Principles, Integrity, Leadership, Professionalism

Let’s focus on ‘what’ and worry less about ‘how’

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Right Way and Wrong thingsThe emerging consensus in discussions about leadership and management behaviour in recent decades  has focused on ‘changing the way that you lead’.

Although the ‘how’ you do it and ‘what’ you do both contribute to effective leadership, the research literature is overwhelmingly focused on the how (Kaiser et al, 2012). Hunt (1991) reviewed the body of published scholarly articles on leadership and estimated that 90% of them were focused on interpersonal processes. It is also most likely that the majority of leadership developers and consultants have a ‘how’ bias, which may influence the debate. The focus is on how you go about things.

But do leaders know ‘what’ to do? Should we agree aims, develop a vision, inspire people, create teams, empower, engage, delegate, set targets, punish, reward, restructure, enable, measure results, improve services, prioritise, plan or problem-solve? What do these things mean? Which are helpful and which just cause problems?

Of course, HOW we think about these things is important. What is the logic behind reward, recognition or blame? Is it sound logic, or convenient logic, or unfounded assumption, or testable theory (if you are into that). Do we really know what we are doing and assuming? These things must be tested in our own minds, or else we are doing little more than sleepwalking. But the outcome from this thinking must start with what needs to be done. Otherwise we will focus on the hows e.g. (doing it nicely or respectfully or considerately) and end up doing the “wrong things righter”!

Let’s be clear, of course, there is never any excuse for ‘doing the wrong things wronger’, and little benefit in ‘doing the right things wrong’. So this doesn’t let bad management off the hook. Instead, getting our own thinking right (‘what’) is an important start point because it drives better consideration of ‘how’ to go about our business.

Our own styles and preferences (hows) are different to the preferences of each member of our team. We need to be able to adapt in order to interrelate with others effectively. Whilst positive interactions with people are sometimes the icing on the cake, the cake itself must be always be sound. Remember – if we don’t get the ‘whats’ right we will only be deluding ourselves.

Hunt, J. G. (1991). Leadership: A new synthesis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Kaiser, R. B., McGinnis, J. L., & Overfield, D. V. (2012). The how and the what of leadership. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 64(2), 119.

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

Culture, Integrity, Leadership

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

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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. doi: 10.1177/0149206314530166
Culture, Excellence, Leadership, Process Improvement

Avoid the ‘bolt-on’ management method

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Maybe not the best way to improve management

Sometimes approaches to managing people simply do not work. However, I have heard people defend the failure of particular management approaches (like appraisal, ISO9000, quality circles etc.) by saying ‘its because it is not being done right‘. While this may be ‘true’ (in the sense that successes can occur), I think that a more circumspect approach must be taken when considering these methods:

  1. If it doesn’t’ work, is this failure a generally observed occurrence? (i.e is it something that predictably fails)
  2. Is it only failing on an unusual, ‘exception basis’ – once in a while?
  3. Might the approach be fundamentally flawed?
  4. Could there be a better way of achieving the desired outcome (assuming the desired outcome is genuinely that the manager wants to do a better job of managing) – in other words is the well-meaning manager barking up the wrong tree?

The problem with bolting ‘good’ approaches onto bad is that it proliferates the work of management, which adds cost, hassle and meddling with the real work (of serving customers, providing public services, educating, making cars, or whatever is our business).

Treating people well, usually involves doing something (‘nice’) to compensate for the default situation, where they suffer some sort of indignity, disappointment or frustration as the general state of affairs. The ‘nice’ idea masks the fundamental problems.

John Seddon openly criticises this type of woolly thinking – not because he thinks people are not worthy of being respected and treated with dignity, but because the respect and dignity should start in the way that their work and the system they work within is managed. In other words:

  • don’t punish people for things out of their control,
  • don’t design work to frustrate them from doing a good job,
  • don’t waste their time.
  • don’t make systems which expose them to unnecessary grief
    (from customers and users)

Deming used to talk about dignity (long before most others used the term) and, as shown throughout his writing, appears to assume that everyone would be following the same ethos. Doing a ‘respect for people programme‘ would, to Deming,  be absurd. Just as doing appraisals would be absurd, or adhering to standards, or setting targets. What do these approaches say about what managers really think about their staff (lazy? untrustworthy? unmotivated? stupid?)?

Some things in life are worth restoring and refurbishing, even upgrading. But others are just so fundamentally flawed that an upgrade is not worth the effort. The same can be said for many management methods.

Just make sure that you are not applying bolt-on management.

 

Helpful reading:

MacDonald, J. (1998) Calling a Halt to Mindless Change, Amacom, UK

Seddon, J. (2005) Freedom from Command and Control, Vanguard Press, Buckingham, UK.

 

However, the alternative perspective is offered by Bob Emiliani:

http://www.bobemiliani.com/kudos-to-john-seddon/

 

Change Principles, Culture, Excellence, Process Improvement

Happy staff, happy work ; happy work, happy staff

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santaTo paraphrase Richard Branson, ‘happy staff = happy work’, and for Branson, that means that customers will also be happy and your organisation will be successful.

Motivational theory and systems theory tells us that a work (the way it is designed and the constraints placed upon people doing it) also influences whether people are satisfied with what they do. In other words, happy work creates happy  people.

Deming talked about dignity in work decades before it became a focus of attention in Human Resource departments. His philosophy was ‘centered on people and the dignity of work. He believed that people should have joy in their work, that the system within which they work should be designed to make this possible and to enable workers to reach their full potential to contribute to the enterprise‘ and that system is management’s responsibility (Tortorella, 1995).

So for happy also read ‘joyful‘. Quite an expectation! But consider this: whilst a happy person is satisfied, a joyful person brings renewed energy and vigour into their activities, interests and relationships – exactly what we need in a high performing team. And a joyful person can be as quiet and dignified as they wish, or as outwardly enthusiastic as they wish, but their joy will rub off positively onto the people around them.

It is motivation…for free.

Reading:

Oswald, A.J., Proto, E. and Sgroi, D. (2014) Happiness and Productivity. http://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/35451/1/522164196.pdf

Nazarali, R. (2014) Happy People are more Productive. http://ridiculouslyefficient.com/happy-people-are-more-productive/

Raymundo, O. (2014) Richard Branson: Companies Should Put Employees First. Inc.com, OCT 28, 2014. http://www.inc.com/oscar-raymundo/richard-branson-companies-should-put-employees-first.html

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

Tortorella, M.J.  (1995) The Three Careers of W. Edwards Deming. Siam News https://www.deming.org/content/three-careers-w-edwards-deming

 

Updates

Four years of reflection: many years of learning

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search arrowThis article sees the completion of four years of blogging on this site and this is the 112th article. There is a wide range of material available across the site.

Use our search facility for any keywords you wish, to find a relevant resource.

Key themes we have highlighted over the years include:

Back to work• Don’t do it to people: understand the system of work first

trend line•   Don’t chase things that don’t
exist (like supposed trends in data)

•   Build knowledge, not opinion

•   Don’t rely on top down changeCulture change is not something that you 'do' to people

•   Change can be quick & painless at the right point of intervention

•   Leadership is about followers more
than about the leader

Bradford City ‘picked up the ball & ran with it’, working together, playing to strengths, committing effort, taking responsibility, keeping discipline, and always believing the dream!

•   Decision making can involve people in many different ways

•   Teamwork is about Purpose, Goals & Process more than about Behaviour

Some key searches which may be of interest include:
Team; Improvement; Leadership; Motivation

Key source articles include those by:
Deming; Herrero; Seddon; Senge; Covey; Scholtes

 

Integrity, Leadership, Professionalism, Trust

You reveal your commitments in what you say and what you do

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Deke Slayton
Not a banal team building task…                    Deke Slayton’s CO2 scrubber fix, designed to save Apollo 13 astronauts from asphyxiation.

When it comes down to it, what are we really committed to? How can we test our integrity, our true priorities and principles? How do people judge our choices and interpret our values? How do we show what we think is important? The answer is startlingly simple. In the words of a valued former colleague, Derek Middleton, whom I worked with many years ago,

  “You show your commitments by what you say and what you do“

Derek implied that he was quoting someone else, but I have yet to find a source in the intervening years, so I will attribute it to him.

 The statement is far from a banal truism. It is a test of character:

  • Do we link what we say with what we do?
  • Do we do the things which we say are important?
  • Do we say the things which we know are important?
  • Do we prioritise  our actions just as we do our words & ideas?

Lets face it – are we really committed? We can apply this to our ethics, our respect of others, our work values, our plans, goals, priorities, sense of self, use of time. It forces us to be honest with ourselves, to reject the  excuse: ‘I haven’t got the time‘. It is about self-management and real priorities.

Analogies from the worlds of sports and entertainment tend to fail in these discussions; dedication tends to be relatively time-bound (to achievement, excellence or skill acquisition) and is a relatively poor relation to true commitment; what we say & what we do.

Reading:

Coppin, A. and Barratt, J. (2002) Timeless Management, Palgrave MacMillan, NY

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

Lovell, J. and Kluger J. (1994) Lost Moon – the perilous voyage of Apollo. Houghton Mifflin, NY

Integrity, Leadership

The Head, Heart and Guts of Leadership Character

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leader babyAre leaders born or made? This question dominated leadership thinking until the 1940s and, despite the growth in leadership development (particularly since the 1960s and 1970s) is a question that is still frequently asked.

The question (or its answer perhaps) is usually framed in terms of ‘personality’ on one hand and ‘skills and abilities’ on the other. The suggestion is that ‘personality’ is what we are born with, whilst many of our ‘skills and abilities’ can be learned. We can achieve this learning to some degree of effectiveness or another. However , as human beings we have enormously elastic capabilities – our learning is often governed by choice, not just genes.

When I discuss practical leadership – working with people to get things done, I use a simple three-part model – Head, Heart and Guts. An imbalance in one of these three dimensions would make us appear cold, or gushing, or irrational, or inconsistent, or unpredictable, or a steamroller,  or someone who bends in every wind (or worse).

Covey talks about balancing ‘consideration’ with ‘courage’ (Heart versus Guts), but we also know we need to balance our ‘rational’ side with ’emotional’ empathy (Head versus Heart), and we also need to balance Guts with Head! If you want to develop as an effective leader, then your skills in planning and decision-making need to be combined with interpersonal skills and the development of sound judgement.

Reading:

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

Jacobs, C.J. (2009) Management Rewired: Why Feedback Doesn’t Work and Other Surprising Lessons from the Latest Brain Science. Penguin Group Portfolio, NY

Integrity, Professionalism, Trust

High Flyers & Team Players winning at any cost ?

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It is possible to get the best results by cheating the system.  However there is more to success than just the result. People are judged on other things, their values, their previous decisions, their credibility. Integrity is an often used word. What does it mean?

Stephen Covey picks out integrity as an essential element of character. For him, integrity is defined as ‘the value we place on ourselves‘. Clearly, however, if we value one aspect of ourselves (e.g. personal success) above everything else we could get a skewed understanding of personal integrity. As John Donne said in the 1600s, ‘No man is an island‘. We have to value ourselves in a rounded way. A person who achieves success by deceit needs to understand that when discovered the deceit erodes other’s perception of the success – and that being the case, the very deceit in the first place should erode that person’s own perception (so should discourage them from short-cutting or cheats).

Extreme examples are easy to pick out. Cyclist Lance Armstrong famously held his entire team in the thrall of his doping cheats (and, at the rawest level, you could argue that the whole team benefitted from his success). Armstrong appears still to be in self-denial about his deception, others less so. Jutin Gatlin, the Olympic sprinter, was banned twice for drugs offences, yet continued his career (within the international rules of short term competition bans). However return-to-competition rules aside, his achievements since returning and his credibility as anathelete are questioned by many in the sport.

In the world of work it is rare for performance enhancing drugs to be the ‘cheat’ of choice. But can we tolerate other short-cuts or attempts to climb the slippery pole? Withholding information, lack of collaboration, criticism behind people’s backs – all to help ‘self’ at a cost to others in our team? This is a win-lose mentality, reflected in win-lose behaviours.

Dirk-Kuyt-12x8-unsigned-photo-Liverpool
Dirk Kuyt – a picture of commitment

Fortunately, there is another more positive side to things. Some team members are valued for bringing a work ethic, a collaborative spirit or set of values which enhance the team. In sport Dirk Kuyt, the Netherlands footballer would be a good example. His international career has seen him play as a centre forward, a midfielder and, at the Brazil World cup, as a defensive player. His work rate in all positions was unquestionably high. He was prepared to take on whichever role was required for the sake of the team. It is no suprise that, despite Kuyt leaving my son’s favourite football club in 2012, the player still remains one of his favourite and most inspiring sportsmen. Few professional footballers maintain that type of loyalty with young teenagers!

When people think of us at work in a few years time, what will they be thinking. Will we be seen as a Dirk Kuyt or a Lance Armstrong? And which do we think would be better?

Reading:

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

 

Integrity, Myths, Professionalism

Don’t let sight of knowledge be blinded by emotions

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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