Could you become a horse whisperer?

August 27, 2008
Well if Robert Redford can do it……..

I saw an interesting piece in Personnel Today in June that I’ve been meaning to post something on. Tony Pettengell reported a development programme run by Spring Partnerships and training company Choose2B called Horses for Courses – which uses the art of ‘Horse Whispering’ to develop authentic leadership, a topic I touched on at the beginning of July (http://carycooperblog.com/2008/06/19/authentic-is-always-best/)

Companies such as Carlsberg and BMW have used the technique, reportedly to good effect – but what is it all about and how does it benefit leaders? Well, the article reminds us of UCLA’s Professor Albert Mehrabian’s assertion that 93% of all communication is non-verbal and the theory is that working with horses can help us to tune in to how others (horses in this case) respond to our behaviour. Managing this behaviour requires constant effort and this at the heart of the development.

Gareth Chick, a director of business consultants Spring Partnership is quoted:

“It’s about authentic leadership, about being empathetic, getting your message across non-verbally and using positive reinforcement. Horses have no preconceived ideas and are not prejudiced by who you are, the house you live in, the clothes you wear, the car you drive,”

Trust is also a factor – so just as in the workplace with your staff, you have to earn the trust of the horse and then work to maintain that trust – and that requires concentration.

Lisa Brice, managing director at Choose2B, commented:

“By taking away words, we are forced to really think about the way we act and the impact this has on others. Achieving rapport with the horse to establish a relationship of mutual trust is not about showmanship and dominance; it’s about establishing ground rules and boundaries and communicating consistently.”

There are definite parallels here with what it takes to be an engaging leader or manager – consistently putting effort in to get best out of your staff and understanding their needs.

On the course, participants learn how to shape and position their bodies so as not to appear threatening to the horse. When they get it right the horse will follow them around the ring, but the journalist reports that as soon as he lost concentration, the horse picked up on his lack of focus and went off to do its own thing. Not unlike many people that I have worked with over the years!!

This will not be for every company or every leader, but it sounds like a good way to take time away from everyday tasks and focus on what’s important to your staff. What I like about this approach is something similar to what I discussed in my two recent golf-related blogs – by doing something new, taking a different perspective you can achieve things you didn’t know you were capable of. In this case, the new perspective is, strangely, that of a horse!

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Posted by Cary Cooper

Podcast – ‘How to communicate effectively at work’

August 22, 2008

Last week I was invited by Jon Coulter at Business Ears to record a podcast on ‘How to communicate effectively at work’ to feature on his website www.businessears.co.uk. I was delighted to be asked and this turned out to be a great experience and a really constructive conversation. I was, of course, keen to share this via the blog and I’d like to thank Jon for agreeing to let me do this.

In this podcast, I talk about what it takes to get staff to buy into change programmes – something you have to do when you’re trying to implement an integrated well-being strategy. We also explored the role of story telling as a form of communication, as well as discussing why it’s important for managers to communicate face to face with passion and authenticity.

You can listen to or download the podcast directly from the Business Ears website at http://www.businessears.co.uk/

I hope you enjoy the podcast and, as always, please feel free to share your comments or even a war story or two.

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Posted by Cary Cooper

What’s Your Well-Being Brand?

August 21, 2008

So, you’re responsible for well-being and engagement in your business and you’ve invested in a comprehensive approach that is designed to maintain and improve levels of both. You’ve consulted with the HSE and other experts and you feel like you have the makings of a successful well-being strategy. But, has your set of well-being initiatives got an ‘identity’ – a compelling brand that engages your workforce with the various aspects of your approach to well-being and engagement?

When I talk to well-being professionals in public and private sector organisations, I find that this is very often an area that gets forgotten when it comes to planning the investment in well-being. And this is risky – because you can have the best strategy, conduct a high quality risk assessment, consult openly and implement fantastic interventions for your staff, but if they don’t buy into it success will be limited. That is, unless you can bring it all together under a single ‘umbrella’ and communicate this effectively to staff it’s very difficult to build the kind of momentum required to move to a well-being culture.

So what is a well-being brand? Well, it’s much more than just thinking up a name for your well-being strategy. It’s about involving the key stakeholders for well-being at an early stage and working with them to explore the essence of the term – that is, defining what well-being really means ‘around here’. So typically, when consultants at my University Spin-off company, Robertson Cooper, work with clients on branding well-being they will assemble a broad cross-functional group (HR, Occupational Health, Divisional Health & Safety Managers, Internal Communications, General Line Managers) and facilitate a one day branding workshop. The aim is to consider what well-being means to your key organisational stakeholders – i.e. what value would working in a ‘well organisation’ add to their working lives.

As businesses work through this process a picture starts to emerge from the bottom upwards of what your staff mean when they talk about a working environment characterised by ‘well-being’. It is also an opportunity to link well-being to popular existing initiatives, strategic aims and other positive brands around the organisation. What you end up with is a set of 4-6 statements that sum up the kind of organisation that your well-being strategy will deliver for staff. Once you have this information you can start to consider a name for the strategy to pull it all together and then you can consult with internal stakeholders more broadly to gather feedback on the emerging brand.

The power of having a high quality brand name is immense – look at how it works for the commercial giants of our age – Nike, Coca Cola, Ebay, YouTube, the Olympics, all have an attractive set of values attached to them. But it’s no different inside your organisation – and because you will have established a relationship with Internal Communications through the above process you can now work with them to promote your well-being brand actively. Together, you can work to ensure that every new well-being initiative that is launched is clearly branded as being part of your well-being strategy. 

Over time your well-being strategy can become a valued and respected part of working life for staff, but this is very unlikely to happen if you implement a series of disconnected well-being initiatives with no cohesive brand identity. Well-being is a cross-cutting issue – it touches health and safety, HR, management training, leadership development, talent management, Board Development and operational management (and more) – so we need to give it a strong brand identity if it is to thrive when we send it out there into all these areas!!

2 Comments | Engagement, Leadership, Management, Well-being | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper

Team GB is sending the feel good factor back from China

August 19, 2008

So the Olympic Games are in full swing and I think it’s safe to say ‘so far so good’. True, there is a nagging feeling that the greatest show on earth is being stage managed a little too precisely by its hosts, but despite this the Games are doing what only the Games can do – creating a real ‘feel-good factor’ that connects almost all the countries of the world. True, Football’s World Cup does have this feel-good element, but it’s only for the select few who have qualified – so there’s no doubt that the Olympics really are unique.

And what about Team GB? As I write this blog we are third in the medal tables behind China and the USA with 16 Gold medals and more almost certain to follow. That’s the best result since London in 1908 and something that was unthinkable before the start of the Games. In fact, the British Olympic Association (BOA) had stated a goal of fourth place for the 2012 Games in London – not for Beijing. Add to this, the startling fact that the two Countries at the top of the table, USA and China dwarf Great Britain in every way: China has a population of around 1.4 billion compared with the UK’s 60 million and this is also reflected in the size of the teams – both China and the US have teams of over 600 athletes compared with the UK’s which is under 350.

All of this means that Team GB’s achievements so far are all the more remarkable and certainly makes it one of the strongest pound for pound teams at the Games. This starts to explain the positive buzz that these achievements are creating back home in the UK  – the performances, achievements and emotions at the Olympics are creating a genuine sense of national pride that is offsetting the bleak economic and weather outlooks this summer. As in our working lives, the hardest achievements are valued the most.

Success for team GB also creates connections and a greater sense of togetherness among the members of the United Kingdom – Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England. When the Olympics are not around it’s so easy to focus on our local rivalries – even down to the level of rivalries between cities (football supporters are the prime example). But when we see people from all over Great Britain representing us and doing us proud these divisions are blurred or removed altogether. It would be nice to think that some of this pride and togetherness could roll forward after the Games. It also sets an example for organisations – aspiring to develop a sense of pride among our workforces similar to that which is generated by our Olympic achievements has to be a good thing.

One more thought – I think a word of congratulations has to go to our Government for the investment they have made in Olympic sports such as swimming, cycling and rowing. You don’t achieve the kind results we have seen in Beijing by getting lucky with talented athletes. It takes investment and more than a little dedication from those who are charged with implementing the plans – the managers, coaches and, of course, the athletes themselves. I’m looking forward to seeing how much better it can get and this is all before 2012 in London!

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Posted by Cary Cooper

Don’t panic!

August 15, 2008

On a number of fronts these past few months, we have all been caught up in “panic mode”, whether it is about the price of houses, food, petrol (price and availability), Council Services, the security of our jobs or the competency of our financial institutions.

So why the panic? Why do we see irrational “binge buying” when petrol distributors go on strike? People buying fuel they don’t even need when, if thinking rationally, they would see that usually plenty of fuel will be available by the time they need it and that the problem will be short-lived. The government knows from past experience that this is human nature and in these situations they now go to great lengths to put out messages that downplay the factors reinforcing such behaviour.

There may be several reasons driving irrational buying behaviour. The first is the most obvious: the natural “herd mentality” of people. If people see queues at petrol stations, they will worry about why people are queuing – “do they know something I don’t” – they then reinforce and perpetuate the panic by queuing themselves. As Albert Einstein once wrote, “imagination is more important than knowledge”. So, in these situations the quicker individual petrol stations get people in and out, the better. If queues occur, forecourt managers should consider putting a sign out indicating that there is no point in waiting, since there is at least four days’ worth of petrol at the station, even if there is high demand.

The second reason is slightly more serious and deep-rooted: it centres on the underlying insecurity in society at the moment, regardless of any particular shortage or strike action that may occur. People at present are feeling worried about the economy, about our financial institutions, about the cost of food and, ultimately, about the security of their jobs. When people feel insecure, they often feel they have little control over events, which makes them susceptible to panic situations and irrational behaviour – behaviour designed to stand them in good stead if ‘the worst happens’.

Perceiving that you lack control over your environment lays the foundations for protective behaviour, which in the case of the fuel strikes means acquiring as much petrol as possible. The “control issue” also extends to how much control we think the government has over the situation – in effect, becoming a “trust issue”. Therefore, the more the government is perceived to be doing something, the less the panic – it’s like control by proxy since the consumer has little or no control in this situation. The recent lorry driver blockades are an example of individuals trying to gain some control (over petrol prices), by influencing government policy and action. Of course, when a nation doesn’t trust a government anyway panic can kick in even sooner.

And finally, as we become more and more dependent on technology like the car, we become worse and worse at rationally thinking through alternative travel strategies. Our lifestyles are now fashioned around the car, rather than the car being fashioned around our lifestyles. This makes the insecurity more profound than it would have been 100 years ago when most people were used to living their lives in their local community. All this panic behaviour is very natural and evolutionary, but it pays to take a moment to think a rational thought that might help you to avoid an irrational act!!

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Posted by Cary Cooper

Blame Games

August 13, 2008

So the Olympics have got off to a positive start with an incredible opening ceremony and gold medals in the pool and the cycling for Team GB. But not all athletes have been as successful as we saw in the case of the 14 year old Tom Daley and Blake Aldridge, who came 8th out of 8 in the final of the 10M synchronised diving event on Monday.

However, it wasn’t until afterwards that the bullets started to fly as Aldridge (almost twice the age of Daley) told the press that he blamed his partner for their failure. He said:

“Unfortunately it’s a partnership; you both have to be on the top of your game. I wasn’t on top of my game but Tom was nowhere near the top of his.”

These kinds of comments are dangerous in what is essentially a team event and there are parallels with the world of work here, where blame cultures never, ever deliver good results. When blaming others for failures and looking for scapegoats becomes the norm in organisations it becomes toxic for those involved and for the business as a whole. Trust and responsibility breaks down, people resent those who should have taken responsibility and take this behaviour as a message or role model that gives them permission to do the same.

People often find it easier to blame ‘the system’ or the organisation and, by extension, its leaders as a group of people. However, this is no better than employees blaming each other and is just another substitute for taking responsibility and working together to solve the problems that arise as part of working life.

I hope the swimming coaches in Team GB have taken the time to sit Aldridge and Daley down and explain the value of sticking together to solve their problems, rather than trying to do so in the media. They should also be taking steps to ensure that this is not the start of a blame culture developing in Team GB, where individual athletes value their own success over that of the team. The Olympic silver medalist Leon Taylor, who acts as mentor to Tom Daley, had it right when he said,

“Synchronised diving is a partnership and the last thing you need to be doing is apportioning blame.”

He could have substituted the words ‘Synchronised diving’ for ‘Work’

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Posted by Cary Cooper

Will China Deliver the Ideal Olympics?

August 7, 2008

With just a day to go before the start of the Beijing Olympics the run-up feels very different to the last two Games. In 2000, we had the excitement of the millennial Games in Sydney which was so well organised that the biggest question mark was over the size of the firework display. Then in 2004, the Greeks pulled it off, answering the doubters who said that they wouldn’t be ready in the best possible way. Looking back, both hosts delivered the one thing that all Olympics must deliver – the feel good factor!
 
This time, as the athletes travel to China it’s much more difficult to predict how the Games will play out. At home we’re all affected by the gloom of the credit crunch, the terrible weather and a summer without the buzz of the England Football team being involved in a major tournament. In China, there are concerns about human rights, the occupation of Tibet (and arrests following protests), the smog, a terrorist attack in Xinjiang and allegations of certain websites being off-limits to members of the press. All this makes the questions that were asked in the run-up to the Athens games look easy!

At the start of the games it’s hard to know how the world’s biggest sporting festival will play out. The Chinese people are undoubtedly looking forward to it and it’s almost certain that the event will be very good for their already burgeoning economy. There’s also a good chance that the westernised nature of the games will give the Chinese a taste of a somewhat more liberal society, but it will be interesting to see whether the Olympics will have a real impact on Chinese society and the happiness and well-being of its people. Like the rest of the world, I’ll be watching with interest over the next two weeks….. no doubt more Olympic posts will follow!

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Posted by Cary Cooper

Do ties save jobs?

August 1, 2008

In my last post, my colleague Ivan Robertson wrote about how UK plc is doing in relation to working smarter. On a lighter, but related note, I have noticed a major shift to more informal dress for men in the workplace. In particular, far fewer men seem to wear ties these days, which gives the workplace a much more informal and relaxed feel – I, myself, stopped wearing them years ago so, generally speaking, I support this move!

But I was talking to someone about this trend recently, and they explained it to me as a very positive signal that there is more flexibility and autonomy in the workplace – as well as lower levels of formality. But then I also noticed that The Financial Times just carried a piece about the sales of ties bucking the downward trend in high street sales – and actually increasing! Their explanation was that just as politicians like Gordon Brown and Barach Obama have reverted to wearing ties to project a more serious countenance during the downturn or running up to an election, working men are becoming worried about their jobs and have decided that “smartening up” might help them to avoid redundancy. This is backed up by sales figures from Moss Bros., Tie Rack, Jermyn Street’s Hilditch & Key and John Lewis, who have all reported significantly increased tie sales.

So, if this is true, the more casual approach to wearing ties is not a symbol of new ways of working or the new informality of office life – but instead it indicates that men who adopt it are supremely confident about retaining their jobs!!

You can see the article from the FT at:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/69725d96-4962-11dd-9a5f-000077b07658.html

1 Comment | Personal Resilience, Well-being | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper

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