Foresight reminds us to invest in our line managers

October 31, 2008

Last week the Foresight project was launched and although the focus is very broad (the future of mental health in Britain, the role of childhood and all stages of adulthood), a lot of space is dedicated to the crucial role that work plays in a life characterised by high levels of well-being.

One key area of focus is the importance of the line manager’s role in preventing mental ill-health and creating a well-being centred climate in the workplace. This is a point that can be missed because there is often an assumption that ‘management’ as an amorphous mass will take care of well-being rather than it being their responsibility to ensure that each individual line manager has the skills and confidence to play this role effectively.

There’s no doubt about the impact that the line manager can have on the well-being and engagement of the employee. The Foresight report quotes Rolfe at al who…

“…highlight the importance of the manager’s role in dealing with mental health problems at work and how the day-to-day management of such problems depended on ‘the skills of the manager and relationship with the employee’ ”

It’s also well known that a person’s line manager is one of the most commonly cited reasons for an employee leaving an organisation:  If you think about your own career history, I’m sure you have relevant experiences where you couldn’t continue working for a particular person or in the climate that he/she created.

And the manager’s role is not just about managing existing mental health conditions either – it’s also about developing positive relationships that generate motivation and energy in the workplace….and which, in turn, prevent mental ill health and stress. Line managers are the central operating force in the most positive work climates – they keep the objective of the enterprise (the purpose the organisation and the individual employee’s role) at the forefront of their team’s minds, while providing a balance between challenge and support to help them get there.  Challenge to add drive and stimulation; support to ensure that the challenge doesn’t become too much and end up causing unnecessary stress or burn-out.

Given the number of managers in the UK economy,  the consequences of not getting this right are huge – de-motivated, disengaged staff who are likely to leave, go off on sick leave or perform poorly;  wasted investments in well-being because managers are unable to operationalise the interventions that have been designed and a lack of resilience in workforces when times are tough. The Foresight report is right to point us in this direction and its call to include funding for this kind of training for small and medium-sized companies in the Government’s ‘Train to Gain’ scheme is a good one.

You can download all of the Foresight project outputs for free at:
http://www.foresight.gov.uk/OurWork/ActiveProjects/Mental%20Capital/ProjectOutputs.asp

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Posted by Cary Cooper

My latest column in The Times – taking the credit

October 29, 2008

Today’s post just a short one directing you to my latest column in The Times – it’s about how to make sure that your boss doesn’t present all your ideas as his/her own. This is something that can be very de-motivating for us all if it happens on a regular basis, so it’s well worth taking active steps to prevent this from happening.

Click here to read the article on the Times’ website: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/career_and_jobs/article5033450.ece

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Posted by Cary Cooper

The Foresight project on Mental Capital and Well-Being delivers

October 23, 2008

Over the last year I’ve been advising the government’s landmark Foresight Project on Mental Capital and Well-Being. This week the project, headed by the government’s Chief Scientific Advisor Professor John Beddington, delivered the full report and I’ve been in London all week helping with the launch of this ground-breaking work that has involved more than 450 experts from all over the UK and the rest of the world.

Over the next couple of weeks, I will be posting reflections on the project’s findings. For now, you can read the BBC coverage of the report launch which includes comments I was asked to give earlier in the week.

To read the story on the BBC website go to:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7680788.stm

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Posted by Cary Cooper

Financial Crisis? Correction, it’s an opportunity for us all

October 21, 2008

We’re entering a new era and the banking crisis has caused us all to take stock (or sell it!). It’s forcefully reminded us that we can’t take anything for granted anymore and that our well-being and that of our families is the most important thing. Material possessions are starting to seem a little less important and fundamental aspects of life, like relationships and how we feel day-to-day, are coming to the fore.

Interestingly, this dovetails with the key messages of the wider environmental movement and populist social ‘activists’ like Jamie Oliver – whose ‘Jamie at Home’ and ‘Ministry of Food’ shows focus on the pleasures of growing food to eat and the importance of getting your family’s everyday diet right. The ‘good life’ self-sufficiency lifestyle portrayed in the former programme has never been presented so attractively as when it was broadcast last year, but now that money has become a major concern for millions of Britons it’s not just the lifestyle that’s attractive – it’s the cost savings too!!

Another angle on this was provided by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s ‘River Cottage’ show. It focused on the West Yorkshire town of Todmorden whose residents have committed to growing fruit and vegetables in all available public areas – including bus stops, graveyards, schools and railway platforms. The mission is that within 10 years the community will be producing and trading their own meat, fruit, vegetables and dairy produce – but in the meantime the hope is that this encourages a culture of growing and consuming fresh produce in the town.

So it seems to me that all this is a good thing – that the ‘correction’ economists have been talking about for some time is starting to trickle down from Wall Street and London’s Square Mile into our lives. If the credit crunch encourages people to grow and eat their own vegetables, rather than buying ready meals that would be progress. If solar panels became more affordable and the prospect of saving on energy bills caused millions of households to invest in them it would be a step forward. And if we could focus a bit more on making sure that we feel good most of the time, rather than feeling tired and unfulfilled as a result of harbouring unrealistic aspirations, then I think we’d all be a lot happier.

So, maybe it’s time for us all to think about the positives for us in the current situation. No doubt there are things that you will no longer be able to do as a result of having less money and credit, but think about what you can do instead. Maybe it’s time to reacquaint yourself with some long lost relatives; maybe it’s time to visit a part of the UK that you have always wanted to see or maybe, like Jamie and Hugh, it’s time to get your hands dirty and make, create or grow something. Whatever you choose, this is an opportunity to change your mindset and open your eyes to the world of possibilities that is out there.

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Posted by Cary Cooper

Using a form of voyeurism to ‘get real’

October 16, 2008

Back in August I read an interesting piece in The Independent about Sasha Cagen, someone who collects other people’s ‘to do’ lists or ‘notes to self’ ………and finds the results therapeutic! I found this interesting because part of the modern condition is the way we build walls around ourselves and our problems, assuming that nobody suffers quite like us – a (mis)perception that can be the source of untold stress. And that’s because we’re wrong – there’s hardly a problem out there that has not been encountered by someone else before.

Cagen’s compilation of lists is like an informal benchmarking system that provides a voyeuristic insight into the private worlds of others…without betraying their confidentiality. In the article Cagen describes reading the lists as being like…

“the guilty pleasure of looking in someone’s medicine cabinet, refrigerator, or iPod. It’s everyday voyeurism, but it’s also therapeutic. We all wonder, ‘Am I normal? Am I the only one who doesn’t have it all figured out?’ When we see other people’s polished exteriors, it feels as though they have some secret we don’t. When we look at other people’s lists, we see that functional adulthood doesn’t come naturally to everyone else either.”

That phrase ‘functional adulthood’ caught my attention – like there’s a mode of being that is ‘the answer’. Well, it’s easy to see why some people are led to believe that by the media and cult of celebrity, but these lists are a useful reminder that everyone has their problems and what’s more, many of them are no different to those we face on a daily basis.

Much of modern day stress comes from striving to reach unrealistic standards – we’re sold these standards by the media, TV and films, but we often forget that it’s not real. The people we see portraying perfect lives are fictional, they just don’t exist and we shouldn’t feel guilty about not achieving what they seem to have achieved effortlessly. Setting yourself stretching targets in life is healthy, but setting truly impossible goals always ends in disappointment.

On a lighter note, I liked the observation that both lifelong hopes and daily tasks mix together indiscriminately in the lists – for example ‘Organise sock drawer’ is on a par with ‘Get teaching credential’ which, as Cagen wryly remarks,  “is sometimes how life feels.”

You can read the full article from The Independent at: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/healthy-living/note-to-self-the-therapeutic-effects-of-reading-other-peoples-todo-lists-881190.html

And read a selection of the ‘to do’ lists at
www.todolistblog.blogspot.com

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Posted by Cary Cooper

How important is it to share knowledge and experience? Critical…

October 9, 2008

Last week I was part of a panel discussion at the Business Well-Being Network Conference in central London – an annual event organised by my University spin-off company, Robertson Cooper. They host a UK-based network of well-being and HR professionals who are interested in sharing knowledge and experience – as part of the package members can attend various events throughout the year, as well as receiving research updates and an annual well-being report. Fellow speakers included the Government’s National Director for Health and Work, Dame Carol Black and the employee engagement expert, David Macleod.

I have to say it was great to see so many people coming together with the aim of working together across organisations to drive well-being up the corporate agenda. And it was especially good to see that people still consider this to be an important issue during these difficult economic times. It has long been my view that it’s critical for professionals working in this area to share their knowledge and experience freely and on an on-going basis.  Seeing the passion of people in this field when they get together always inspires me and giving such people mechanisms to interact is critical. Now is the time to blend our extensive, existing knowledge-base with creative thinking and debate about new solutions and I saw plenty of examples of that last week.  Well-Being practitioners are in a position to shape employee experience in organisations, but often they feel isolated and this is where they need the help of their peers. 

I mentioned the Network’s Annual Well-Being Report above and I am very pleased to say that my colleagues at Robertson Cooper have given me permission to share the Introduction to the report with you via my blog. It focuses on the current UK context, including the key drivers for focusing on well-being, both in and out of the workplace. I hope you find this valuable in your day-to-day work.

You can download the introduction to the report here.  The report is provided to members of The Business Well-Being Network as a benefit, but if you found this extract useful you can also buy it online. If you would like more information go to the Robertson Cooper Website.

The full report contains a section that focuses on organisational trends in well-being and the related concept of employee engagement, including new research findings that reveal how to leverage well-being to improve engagement levels.  The final section focuses on the practicalities of how to improve well-being and provides tools for building the business case for investing in well-being and designing interventions to improve it.  Finally there is an appendix which contains a review of the latest research evidence for the link between well-being and the bottom-line – great for helping you to convince senior managers of the value of investing in well-being.

I hope you find this information as useful as I found the conference.

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Posted by Cary Cooper

Who cares about the greater good?

October 7, 2008

Last week global events forced an unusual situation – what has been referred to in the US as the need for ‘Bi-Partisan Working’. The need for both sides of Congress to agree on the financial ‘bail-out’ package for the US economy has contrived a situation where the most senior politicians have been asked to put their beliefs, opinions and ideologies aside in favour of the national good. Tellingly, at the first time of asking they were unable to do so, with Republicans who believe in a free market economy refusing to sanction the $700billion influx of cash.

In their press conference after the initial failure to pass the bill, the Democrats repeatedly referred to the need to work in a bi-partisan manner for the good of the American People, but couldn’t quite resist criticising the Republicans for their inability to do so – thereby making political capital out of the situation ahead of the forthcoming presidential elections. It seems that all parties are so entrenched in their tribal values these days that hardly anyone is capable of just thinking about the good of the country.

This set me thinking about how this relates to working life – it seems to me to be pretty important that people with strong beliefs and values (often the very characteristics that drive leaders to success and prominence) have the ability and desire to switch these off when it comes to the crunch for the organisation. Like the example of the US economy, sometimes the message is clear- “it doesn’t matter what you think or what you believe or where this decision leaves you personally – this is the only decision available to us right now that is for the common good.” You could probably have heard discussions along these lines in the Boardrooms at HBOS, Bradford and Bingley and Lehmann Brothers recently!

I don’t think that being able to embrace these tough decisions is a skill or ability as such – it’s more an outlook, a certain level of emotional maturity or morality. It leaves us all hoping that our own organisational (and national) leaders were selected for such qualities and that they would make the right decision if the time came. But this is not to underestimate the challenge – it’s easy to group those who opposed the US financial package together with the greedy few who played such a big role in creating this crisis, but I think we have to admit this would be an difficult dilemma for us all.

Most of us are unlikely to ever find ourselves in this situation, but imagine an equivalent. What if you believed passionately in the workers’ rights to a happy healthy working life, but you were told that delivering this over the next 6 months would drain resources and probably cause the downfall of your organisation – what would you do? Yes, you could go elsewhere, but if you want to stay because you care about your employer’s fortunes you may be forced to re-consider the importance of values that you hold dear for the greater good.

In some ways, I see parallels here with the debate and recent law change regarding smoking in public – many people who were committed to the principle of freedom and the right of people to choose how they want to live their lives changed their minds when it became clear that this was actually damaging people’s lives and, in turn, the very health of the nation! This would be a good example to present to the Republicans and Democrats alike in a country which was amongst the first to adopt anti-smoking laws – it may remind them that sometimes it’s necessary to take a hit on freedom for the good of the many!!

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Posted by Cary Cooper

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