July 29, 2010
My University spin-off company, Robertson Cooper, has developed a free personal resilience tool and I’d like to invite all visitors to my blog to try it out…
Contrary to popular belief, resilience – our ability to bounce back from setbacks – is not something you either have or don’t have, it is a quality which can be developed. Because our natural resilience comes from various aspects of our personality, as well as our experience, a great starting point for building resilience for individuals, managers and whole groups is to understand which of these aspects we draw on for our own resilience. The four key sources of personal resilience are: confidence, adaptability, purposefulness and need for social support.
Your personalised i-resilience report tells you which of these key areas you draw upon for your resilience, then gives examples of how these might play out in common workplace situations which require resilience. The i-resilience questionnaire takes around 20 minutes to complete and you receive your personal i-resilience report immediately. After you’ve read and digested your report you can get free access to the i-resilience portal which contains further online resources for developing resilience – including insights, articles, video and book references. You can return to the portal and continue development as often as you like.
‘A free product? Where’s the catch?’ I hear you say. Well, in this case there is no catch – it’s part of Robertson Cooper’s mission to promote well-being and resilience in the workplace. This means that resilience can be developed using the i-resilience tools for free, for everyone, forever. You’ll find simple processes to invite larger groups or whole organisations to use the tool if you find it useful. To try i-resilience please click here, I hope you find it useful and informative and if you give it a go I would very much welcome any comments or feedback on the report and portal. I’ll be sure to pass your comments on to my friends at Robertson Cooper.
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Uncategorized | Tagged: adaptability, bounce back, Confidence, experience, free, i-resilience, Personal Resilience, personality, portal, purposefulness, report, resilience, social support | 
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Posted by Cary Cooper
July 23, 2010
Manage change, but first lead it…
The NHS structural changes announced earlier this week are resulting in much discussion and speculation - will they ultimately deliver better care to patients within the reality of tight resource constraint? The jury is out, but what is certain is that once again the Health Service is going to have work through a period of major change. This change will need to be efficiently managed to avoid the chaos that could ensue as Primary Care Trust (PCT) commissioning migrates to GP consortia. However, before the change project plans are developed and implemented there is a need to consider not how these transitions will be managed, but rather how they will be led. The distinction is that change management is about efficiency and control, but change leadership is about direction and inspiration. Isn’t the main risk right now that the impending changes in the NHS will lack coherent and clear direction and that staff will not be motivated to deliver them, rather than the logistics of how the new processes will function?
Providing direction for the NHS may prove easier, though still challenging, than inspiring its workforce to deliver the new arrangements. How do you inspire a busy GP to spend a significant amount of time working out how to commission secondary care through consortia arrangements that don’t yet exist? How do you inspire PCT managers who have spent the last few years developing world class commissioning systems to embrace probable redundancy while engaging constructively in the transition to GP commissioning? Designing and implementing efficient change processes will be important but probably not enough to win hearts and minds.
As with all major change it will require leadership that creates a compelling vision and creates a believable story of how the vision can be attained, as well as listening to those closest to the action along the way. The Health Service in the UK is underpinned by values and principles that need to be kept to the fore; a dialogue with those that deliver care at all levels should be initiated and on-going. Let’s not make the classic mistake of creating new systems and processes that should work but don’t, because those asked to operate them have not been engaged and are demotivated with a weakened sense of purpose. When we see the inevitable change management plans for the NHS let’s check that they are underpinned by leadership that is capable of releasing the effort that will be required from all staff, if they are to result in a better reality for patients and ultimately the health of the nation.
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: change management, commissioning, consortia, control, demotivated, direction, efficiency, engaged, GP, Health Service, inspiration, Leadership, managers, NHS, PCT, Primary Care Trust, secondary care, structural changes, tight resource, UK, vision | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
July 21, 2010
Today, the Academy of Social Sciences in conjunction with the British Society of Gerontology and Age UK, will be launching a booklet* highlighting a number of issues our society will face as a result of the increasingly ageing population in the UK and other nations. The Office of National Statistics (ONS) predicts that in twenty years there will be more than 15 million people over 65 – that’s 23% of the population. Rises among the ‘oldest old’ are even greater: in 1984 there were around 660,000 people in the UK aged 85 or older, by 2009 that had risen to 1.4 million, and is expected to rise to 3.5 million by 2034.
Issues such as the rising costs of social care and early onset dementia are, and will increasingly become, some of the most significant social challenges of our time. In the Foresight project on Mental Capital and Wellbeing**, it was predicted that as life expectancy increases the number of people living with dementia will double to 1.4 million by 2038, with associated costs trebling from their current rate of £17b to over £50b.
There are a number of questions surrounding this emerging social phenomenon which remain to be answered. For example, how do we prevent cognitive decline in the elderly? How long should people work for (given the pension crisis and the changing age of retirement)? How do we deal with social care of an ageing population? How do we support those that care for elderly and sick relatives? These are real and pressing concerns that we literally cannot afford to ignore and we have little time left to plan and prepare for how to deal with these issues.
That said, I think we can do it – we have a new government that is focusing like never before on cost and efficiency savings in society and the economy alike – this will include managing the cost of social care. If you add to that the work of the institutions mentioned above who will continue raising awareness, stimulating debate and identifying innovative solutions then I think we have a chance of getting a grip of this difficult social challenge.
*Making the Case for the Social Sciences, No. 2 AGEING, London: Academy of Social Sciences.
**Cooper, CL, Field, J., Goswami, U., Jenkins, R & Sahakian, B (2009). Mental Capital and Wellbeing. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Academy of Social Sciences, Age UK, ageing population, British Society of Gerontology, cognitive decline, cost, dementia, efficiency, Foresight, Foresight Project on Mental Capital and Well-Being, government, life expectancy, mental capital and wellbeing, Office of National Statistics, oldest old, ONS, saving, social care, social challenge, UK | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
July 16, 2010
Reading the newspapers at the moment can be a pretty depressing business, so this week I looked to the TED website for something a little bit different. For those of you who don’t know TED, it’s a small not-for-profit organisation ‘devoted to ideas worth spreading’. The organisation holds talks by leaders in their field from around the world on a really wide range of topics, including technology, entertainment and design. It’s definitely worth a look, although I warn you, you’ll need some time, it’s quite addictive!
One talk that really caught my attention (and not just because he’s local) was by Professor Brian Cox, from the University of Manchester. It built on his recent TV programme, ‘Wonders of the solar system’, but the focus of his talk for TED was on why we need to continue our investment in curiosity-led science. Obviously as a social scientist myself I’m a bit biased but I think his case is equally valid, and I found his argument very compelling, not to mention timely given that public spending is under such scrutiny.
His argument revolved around two main ideas. Firstly, he mentioned the emotional impact of curiosity-led science; primarily that it inspires us. I agree wholeheartedly with this; there are certain scientific discoveries that have been made within my lifetime that have had a real ‘wow’ factor… (e.g the human genome) and we know that inspired people demonstrate more drive and persistence – qualities that it’s hard to put a price on.
Secondly, Professor Cox highlighted the importance of the innovation that comes from curiosity-led science. The example he used in the talk, was that understanding the structure of the atom led to the development of transistors and silicon chips! In turn Social Science has really challenged how we interpret and change behaviour e.g. the theory of cognitive dissonance. These innovations have been the facilitators of globalisation and have fundamentally changed the nature of the lives we lead. When you think about it – and thanks to TED I did – pretty important stuff!
The UK science budget is currently around 3.3 billion pounds – which represents about 0.5% of GDP. Brian Cox has certainly convinced me that it’s money well spent.
http://www.ted.com/talks/brian_cox_why_we_need_the_explorers.html
Leave a Comment » | Social Science | Tagged: 'Wonders of the solar system', curiosity-led science, Professor Brian Cox, social scientist, technology, TED, theory of cognitive dissonance, University of Manchester | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
July 12, 2010
With Britain having the longest working hours in the EU, and the link between long hours and ill-health firmly established, we need to ensure that as many people as possible have access to better ways of working in the future.
Rather than working longer hours we should be working more flexible hours – and reaping the rewards of the productivity and efficiency gains this can bring. And as technology increasingly allows many of us to work away from the office – why not? That’s why I’m glad to hear that organisations that support flexible working are receiving the recognition they deserve. The Working Families charity has launched the ‘Top Employers for Working Families award’ for organisations that encourage flexible working, paternity leave, carer provision, emergency childcare and other innovative type of policies. As 40% of the workforce have responsibilities for dependents (children, elder parents, etc.), the importance of these initiatives should not be underestimated.
I also think this approach can and should be adopted even more broadly. The evidence from the government’s Foresight report on ‘mental capital and wellbeing’ indicated that because of the benefits to the health and efficiency of individuals it is cost-effective for the ‘right to request’ flexible working to be open to all, rather than just those with children. By providing their support, employers can promote greater work-life balance, which in turn enhances the productivity and health of UK Plc. Our productivity as a country, both now and in the future, depends on our ability to ensure better balance in life by working smarter and not longer.
If your organisation would like to enter the award scheme you can contact Working Families via the link below, the closing date is the 16th July. If you win the award it could do wonders for your employer brand and, in turn, your employees will benefit.
http://www.workingfamilies.org.uk/
1 Comment | employee engagement, health, Productivity, reward and recognition | Tagged: employers attitude to flexible working, Flexible Working, flexible working initiatives, mental capital and wellbeing, productivity adn flexible working, rewards of productivity and efficiency, The Working Families charity, Top Employers for Working Families award, work-life balance, working longer | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
July 8, 2010
So, we near the end of another World Cup and how do we feel? Needless to say, England supporters remain disappointed by the lack-lustre display that was served up by their ‘heroes’. All that hope, all that excitement and expectation that we invested in the team’s performance – and what did we get back? If it was a financial investment there’s no way on earth that you’d go for it, but sport is different.
Uniquely, sport offers a release, a (mostly) safe place where our emotions, hopes and dreams can be expressed wholeheartedly and without fear of reproach. It enables us to put the doom and gloom of the economic situation and all the grim news stories to one side by directing our emotions towards both national pride and the thrill of winning. Well, that’s the idea! But where does it leave us when the people nominated to deliver the dream don’t turn up or just weren’t good enough in the first place? Should we now be expecting a period of national emotional deflation caused by the huge gap between what we hoped would happen and what actually did happen?
I think the fact that for most of us football, indeed all sport, is not ‘real life’ is our insurance against national depression when things go wrong. It’s precisely because we see sport as an escape from real life in the first place that the huge, tear-inducing disappointment when our country gets knocked out of the World Cup is actually quite ‘disposable’. Even the day after the Germany game people in offices and shops all over the country began to joke about England’s demise and carry on with their lives as the disappointment gradually receded into the background.
So sport, unlike so often in life, offers us a win-win: as fans it lifts us sky high and provides lifelong memories when we get the result we want, but when our teams fail we can move on from and rationalise the disappointment relatively easily. I’m not sure that this is exactly what he meant back in 1981, but when re-read in this light the famous words of the great Liverpool manager Bill Shankly still ring true…
“Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.”
1 Comment | Community, economy, emotion, Personal Resilience, Productivity, Well-being | Tagged: emotion, emotions, end of world cup, football, football and emotion, happiness, improving well-being, Personal Resilience, Positive psychology, psychological well-being, resilience, Robertson Cooper, sport, sport and emotion, Well-being, World Cup | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
July 6, 2010
I wrote recently about the impact Capello’s management style was having on the England team’s performance. Having given this topic some more thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that football management at all levels is in need of a complete overhaul.
If we start at the top and look at FIFA, we find an organisation steeped in early 20th Century thinking. For over a decade pundits, players, journalists and forward looking managers have been arguing about the need for the introduction of new technology, so that more accurate judgements can be made by referees. Time and time again they are blocked by the senior FIFA officials, on grounds that are so old-fashioned that the word Luddite is too liberal to describe them. Following high profile incidents in both the qualifying rounds and the World Cup itself, I’m not sure how they’ll be able to hold out much longer!
Then we have the FA in England, a body in turmoil with the regular comings and goings of their top team. In a situation primed for incentive-based management, the England manager was instead awarded a two year contract a month before the World Cup – rather than being given a bonus for qualifying, with a contract to follow after ‘success’ in the tournament. Now they are stuck with a reported £10-12m bill to pay if they decide to relieve the England manager of his command.
And finally, in general we need a new type of football coach/manager; one who engages with his players and staff, and works with them in collaboration rather than being macho-manager, a demi-god, whose team selection or tactics can never be questioned. We need people who understand the game, but who also have good people skills, adaptability and a willingness to assimilate the opinions of others into their decisions. This should also include female managers at all levels of the game!
The beautiful game as it stands is totally out of date with the management practices of our time. We need a fresh approach to who we select at all levels; from FIFA, to the FA to the managers of clubs and even the coaches in local youth teams—we need a new generation for modern times. If British industry behaved in the way that senior management in football does, our economy would have floundered during the last two decades. This highlights the progress that British management culture has made over the last ten years – it’s not perfect, but looks very good compared with football management culture!
Leave a Comment » | Management, Uncategorized | Tagged: bonus, Capello, demi-god, England, FA, FIFA, football, football coach, incentive, Luddite, macho-manager, Management, manager, referees, team performance, The beautiful game, World Cup | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
