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: autonomy, flexibility, Ivan Robertson, The Financial Times | 
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Posted by Cary Cooper
July 24, 2008
Reflecting further on the British Open and reading the coverage in the papers this week, I realised that another lesson about pressure management was played out at Royal Birkdale last weekend. The eventual winner, Padraig Harrington almost had to pull out of the tournament after injuring his wrist in practice. He got through an Open Championship that was played in hellish weather conditions to win out – and when he was interviewed afterwards he cited the wrist injury (and the threat of its return) as a positive factor in enabling him to win and, more specifically, in helping him to manage the immense pressure of the situation.
When questioned about why this was the case, he revealed that he actively used the injured wrist as a distraction from the pressure over the four days of the tournament. By focusing on protecting the wrist and how he needed to flex his game to take account of the injury he found a way of improving his concentration for ‘managing’ his way around one of the toughest courses in the world. It also enabled him to focus on his own game and not worry unduly about what the competition was doing. Harrington gave us all a great example of how a positive mindset can work to our advantage in adversity – he took a potentially disastrous situation and made it work for him in the context of defending the championship.
Another player who used a different perspective to his advantage was the leading Amateur Chris Wood, who like Justin Rose ten years ago, managed to beat the majority of the professional golfers by coming in the top five. Unlike Harrington, no one had any expectations of him, but he used this lack of pressure and attention to put in an amazing performance. Because he had not been there before there was nothing to be afraid of so he used his inexperience positively and to good effect. I suspect that this week he will not be ruing the fact that, as an amateur, he couldn’t collect the £150,000 his finish merited, but will be celebrating the performance, media attention and the experience it gave him.
Both of these great sportsmen have shown us that by taking a different mental approach and by being positive – great things are possible. And Harrington, in particular, reminds us that when things go wrong at work you can still have a happy ending!
1 Comment | Management, Personal Resilience, Uncategorized | Tagged: managing, performance, pressure, pressure management | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
July 21, 2008
I’m no golf fanatic, but I couldn’t help but be struck by the remarkable events of the last four days at Royal Birkdale where the best golfers in the world battled it out by the sea in the wind and the rain.
The tournament was remarkable for several reasons – not least for the sensational performance delivered by Greg Norman as he bid to become the oldest ever winner of the British Open at 53, competing as only a part-time golfer. He led after the first round (a nice story, but surely he’d fade away as the full-time pros got used to the conditions?); he led after the second round (this was getting interesting!); he led after the third round going into the final day and he even held the lead jointly going into the last nine holes. Although, in the end, the brilliance of last year’s champion Padraig Harrington came through, Norman’s third place has been widely hailed as one of the great Open performances of all time.
It’s also testament to the powers of physical and psychological well-being. Norman looked in great shape for a 53 year old (he looked ten years younger) and he also looked incredibly happy and relaxed. Much has been made this week of the bitter divorce that cost him dearly. On the other hand his recent marriage to former tennis star Chris Evert has reportedly been the key to his rehabilitation, he spoke in interviews about the strength and balance he took from having his ‘soul-mate’ around.
During his glittering career in the ‘80s and ‘90s he was the World Number 1 for over five years (a record), but he only won two major tournaments and earned a reputation as someone who threw winning positions away under pressure. Norman’s battles with his demons were well known, but this weekend they were banished - I suspect permanently. He displayed a mental approach that was characterised by well-being and positive psychology, as he coped with the enormous mounting pressure. And you could see him using his maturity to enable him to smile when things didn’t go his way – he was resilient.
Unlike, the eventual winner Padraig Harrington, Norman had no official right to be walking onto the 18th green at Royal Birkdale to receive the adulation of the huge and appreciative crowd on the final day of the Open. Although he didn’t win, I suspect that as someone who never thought they would experience that buzz again he feels like a winner this morning!!
No Comments » | Personal Resilience, Well-being | Tagged: performance, physical well-being, Positive psychology, psychological well-being, resilient, Royal Birkdale, under pressure | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
July 9, 2008
Have you ever dreaded going in to work in the morning? And I mean really dreaded it. I’m not talking about those mornings that we’ve all had when we’d rather stay in bed and avail ourselves of the infamous ‘duvet day’. I’m talking about something more fundamental than that – where a particular aspect of your job makes you feel so anxious, uncomfortable - or even fearful - that you just can’t face it.
Joseph Heller, the author of Catch 22, captured this feeling in his book Something Happened when he wrote the following about life in the office of his main protagonist, Bob Slocum:
If you asked any one of them [employees] if he would choose to spend the rest of his life working for the company, he would give you a resounding No!, regardless of what inducements were offered….. If you asked me that same question today, I would also give you a resounding No! and add: “I think I’d rather die now.”
Elsewhere Bob adds “Something did happen to me somewhere that robbed me of confidence and courage and left me with a fear of discovery and change and a positive dread of everything unknown that may occur.”
While not all of us have experienced this feeling at work, I’d be willing to bet that there are plenty of people out there who have done or are doing right now. There are many sets of circumstances that can cause these feelings – work relationships, feeling that you are going to lose your job at any minute, lack of role clarity / sense of purpose, unrealistic workload / timescales, unbalanced working hours, the general climate / atmosphere of the workplace, your depressing working environment / office, the level of autonomy you have over your deliverables …..the list of potential causes goes on and any combination of these that might lead to feelings of dread.
What’s interesting is how many of these ‘sources of dread’ stem from relationships – particularly that with your boss which, of course, can be such a key determinant of what work feels like. Other aspects influenced by your boss include level of pay, whether you know what’s going on higher up in the organisation and whether work feels like fun.
But what you can do if you feel this way? The first and most important thing is to take control. Stand back and look at the situation to understand which of the above factors are at play. But also consider your own role in this – have your needs gone beyond what this department in this organisation can offer you? Have you played any role in causing this situation?
Once you understand how things have got to this situation you have to take appropriate action. You may need to discuss the matter with a work friend to get a reality check and find out whether others share your perceptions. You may need to speak directly with your boss and find a way to raise the problem in an open and honest way. Or you may need more help with understanding the problem from a counselor or welfare officer. You may simply need to leave. The important thing here is that you move yourself on, that you don’t accept the status quo and drag yourself to work every day for the next five years hating every second. Taking action will change your perspective and help you to generate options for change: Change the job design, change the environment, work in a different part of the organisation or even a different organisation. The bottom-line is – if you don’t like it, change it.
Most importantly, don’t be like Bob Slocum who said “No one understands that carrying on bravely was the easiest thing to do.”
No Comments » | Management, Personal Resilience, Well-being | Tagged: Anxious, autonomy, Bob Slocum, Confidence, control, Joseph Heller | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
June 16, 2008
I recently did some work for City & Guilds, the awarding body associated with vocational learning, who have just released the results of a national survey focusing on ‘happiness’. They found that ‘pay’ ranked only 4th in their Happiness Index behind the following aspects of working life:
• A stimulating and interesting job
• Financial security
• Good work-life balance
With all the strike action going on in the UK at the moment - Shell’s haulage workers went on strike this week - you’d be forgiven for thinking that pay is still as important as everyone thinks it is for employees. But these results offer an alternative view and reflect what I hear when I talk to both workers and managers – that, yes, fair pay is a factor, but without stimulating, challenging work and a good work-life balance it’s not enough.
Having good relationships with work colleagues was also seen as important by respondents. This should be no surprise as we all have examples of our working lives being damaged by poor relationships with our boss and/or colleagues. Conversely, if you have good relationships work-based friends can be a critical source of support when times are tough or when the pressure is on.
All of the above factors are fundamental to employee well-being and happiness, as well as a firm’s ability to retain their employees and deliver sustainable success. Of course, given the current negative economic climate and the associated media hype, it is harder for employers to maintain levels of well-being / happiness. Staff are focusing on the security of their jobs and may not give much credence to their employers’ overtures about the benefits of well-being at work. But if well-being levels were good before the economic downturn resilience levels are likely to be higher now, staff more receptive to change and the task of managing them in the current context easier all round.
There are lessons for all of us here in terms of how we motivate, retain and develop our people. This survey, together with the Learning and Skills Council’s ‘Train for Gain’ programme, is encouraging all employers to stimulate people, give them more autonomy, provide a reasonable level of security and invest in creating a high morale work environment - and that’s no bad thing.
1 Comment | Engagement, Management, Personal Resilience, Productivity, Well-being | Tagged: autonomy, happiness, motivate, pressure, resilience, Well-being, work-life balance | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
May 8, 2008
With the teacher’s strike, the Grangemouth oil refinery worker’s strike in Scotland and other groups considering industrial action, we have to ask the question: Are we going back to the bad old days of industrial relations we saw in the 1970s - the ‘them and us’ mentality that caused so much damage all those years ago?
It is certainly the case that in difficult financial times, with jobs insecure, pension funds under pressure and financial markets in turmoil relations between management and employees often get strained. On the other hand, if employers engage with their staff, treat them with respect and communicate with them accurately and honestly about what’s happening the consequences can be managed more easily.
Senior management must be proactive about trying to empathise with the perspectives of their employees - who at times, like these, feel less secure about their jobs and more worried about their own personal financial situation. They therefore rely on the skills of their manager and other organisational leaders to provide accurate information about the viability of the organisation and future plans so they can make good decisions to safeguard themselves and their families. Where possible, employers should be making every effort to involve staff in decision making on these important issues – this effort will be repaid tenfold when things settle down and the workforce appreciate that they were dealt with fairly. Ultimately, engaging staff in any process of change helps to ensure survival now and growth in the future.
Taking a step back, I think there are signs that the current unrest is not so much to do with salary issues, but more an underlying concern about the openness of management and their lack of engagement with and trust of their employees. There are also signs that the shear amount of work that certain professions are being asked to do is taking its toll and is not in line with the rewards offered – and that’s rewards in all their forms, not just pay. For example, earlier this month figures from The National Association of Head Teachers showed that more than a thousand Head Teachers and Deputies are leaving the profession early every year because of work pressures.
General Secretary Mick Brookes blamed a long-hours culture which saw nearly 44% of his members working 60-hour weeks. This is reflective of a general sea change in public attitudes which indicates that people have started to think that ‘enough is enough’, and that society will have to change. Undoubtedly, it’s going to take some strong leadership and a reappraisal of our values to get us out of an ever frenetic life style, so I’ll leave you with a question even bigger than the one I started with:
Where is the drive for that change going to come from?
1 Comment | Engagement, Leadership, Management, Personal Resilience | Tagged: Engagement, leaders, Leadership, engage staff, work pressure | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
May 1, 2008
Reading my last post, I realised that it painted a pretty grim picture of childhood in Britain today and I want to balance that off with some more hopeful news. At the end of 2007, the Education Secretary, Ed Balls, announced that lessons in happiness, well-being and good manners are to be introduced in all state secondary schools. I remember thinking that this was a major step forward for education in the UK – one that begins to align the Education sector with some of the latest thinking from the world of business.
By introducing this initiative, the Government is acknowledging that well-being, self-awareness and a sense of purpose are just as important as the tasks that pupils are required to complete in order to achieve their academic objectives.
Pilots of the ‘Seal’ programme (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) – an idea which originated in the States - have already been successfully implemented in primary schools here and have been found to boost both academic performance and discipline by helping children to better understand their emotions. So, the Government concluded that it’s important for children to develop an emotionally intelligent way of approaching their work, as well as producing good results – Hallelujah! Exactly the same is true for adults in the workplace.
The hope is that the benefits of teaching children how to express their feelings, manage their anger and empathise with other people will create calmer, more productive school environments, as well as boosting the concentration, engagement and motivation levels of students. It is no coincidence that these are the exact same benefits that employers can expect when they commit to creating workplaces characterised by high levels of well-being and engagement.
And this emerging alignment between the worlds of education and work bodes well for the future of the UK economy – because tomorrow’s employees are likely to enter the workplace with a much more mature and productive approach to work. They will bring with them a holistic attitude which will include an understanding of the importance of balancing work and life to deliver sustainable levels of high performance, more sophisticated people skills and higher levels of personal resilience. So, although our children are reporting that they are more unhappy than ever, change is afoot and I’m delighted that these classes are set to be a standard part of the national curriculum. Because, as I explained in a recent post, you can learn to be positive!
Click here for the full article in from The Times.
No Comments » | Engagement, Personal Resilience, Productivity, Well-being | Tagged: Engagement, holistic, Motivation, people skills, Personal Resilience, productive, Sense of purpose, Well-being | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
April 28, 2008
I’ve been watching football again! The other day I saw Liverpool play their hearts out against Chelsea in the first leg of the semi-finals of the Champions League. They were motivated, dedicated and displayed real team spirit. But in the last few seconds of the game, an own-goal turned victory into a disappointing draw. Not only will the player who scored the own-goal feel extremely bad for letting the team and the fans down, but also the team will feel deflated after losing a game they dominated and thought they had won.
However, the player shouldn’t feel too guilty because he played his heart out throughout the game. The true test of any person, team or organisation is how they cope with adversity, disappointment and setbacks. If you use the knowledge you gain from failure you can bounce back and win next time and this comes down to how we attribute the causes of the failure – it has to be positive!!
Of course, being optimistic and reframing events positively comes more naturally to some people than others – but both of these ‘habits’ can be developed and strengthened. For example, when we fail the “attributional style” that we adopt is critical. Attributing failure to factors that are permanent (“I will always be bad at this”) and global (“It’s not just this – but all of these kinds of things”) mean that we feel much worse and less positive than if we see it as a temporary blip that is very specific to this situation. So, maintaining optimism relies on seeing failures as temporary and specific (to the situation). Of course it has to be valid - if we don’t really believe, or are unrealistic about events, the resulting optimism will be fragile and unrealistic.
The way your workforce processes failure is just as important as how it deals with success and if you get it right your business will be more successful in the long run. How we cope with our setbacks is a true reflection of our character as individuals, as teams, and as organisations. As the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius once said “Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already”. Today he might have said “Stay positive!”
No Comments » | Personal Resilience | Tagged: motivated, attributional style, failure | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
April 18, 2008
The tide seems to be turning for Gordon Brown - Labour are way down in the polls and every other headline seems to voice or imply some negative view of him and/or his leadership. But I wonder how this makes him feel?
We all need to feel valued and appreciated in our roles - when we’re not it starts to affect our motivation, engagement and feelings of self-worth. Whatever you think of Gordon Brown you can’t fault him for effort - he probably works in excess of 90 hours a week and (in his own way) has the best interests of the country at heart. But however focused and determined he is it can be demoralising to work this hard and still constantly receive negative feedback.
We don’t know what those close to him are saying to bolster his confidence or exactly how he feels right now, but the Prime Minister wouldn’t be human if he didn’t feel in some way depleted after the events of the last two weeks.
My university spin-off company Robertson Cooper hosts a Business Well-Being Network which brings members together to communicate about well-being issues in the workplace. A theme that comes up time and time again is that organisations have to try to find ways to ensure that their employees feel valued, appreciated and involved. First, the business and its leaders have to create the right environment for this to happen. Then, Line Managers have to play their role by providing clear direction and feedback to employees (both positive and negative) on a day-to-day basis.
Of course, Mr Brown is unfortunate because his ‘organisation’ doesn’t work that way. He doesn’t have a boss - unless you count the Queen, and I doubt she is providing too much in the way of structured feedback on his behaviour! It can be lonely at the top and the people there need to be courageous when times are tough and Mr Brown will certainly need bucket loads of courage and support in the coming months.
No Comments » | Engagement, Leadership, Personal Resilience, Well-being | Tagged: Well-being, Engagement, motivated, Leadership | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
April 3, 2008
Twenty years ago I would have been laughed out of the room for suggesting that organisations needed their staff to be ‘good citizens’. But now this kind of language is commonplace for describing the kind of behaviour expected from employees. In fact, many competency frameworks (the touchstone for most recruitment and development professionals) include ‘citizenship’ as a discrete competency with a detailed set of underlying behavioural indicators. And in reality you only have to look at the dedication of the BA staff who worked over the weekend at Heathrow Terminal 5, some of them voluntarily, to see how citizenship can add value (see post from 31st March).
So what is so important about citizenship? One of the key developments that is influencing organisational life and culture at the moment is the rise of positive psychology. This movement emphasises the benefits associated with taking a positive psychological approach to work and to life in general. For example, the principles can be applied to how failure is interpreted in order to ensure that it is ultimately a positive experience as opposed to a debilitating one. Good organisational citizens are positive, energetic, engaged, committed and resilient – these are some of the qualities that result from adopting a positive psychological approach.
The importance of citizenship at work has also been influenced by wider societal developments as well. The ‘respect’ agenda which tries to encourage respectful attitudes and good behaviour in the young has now made its way into mainstream language. Businesses, in this sense, are microcosms of society and therefore, the better the citizens the better and more productive the community.
Of course, it’s usually easier to manage behaviour in organisations than it is in society at large. A business is a more discrete entity and there is always more of a shared vision among the workforce based on the purpose of the enterprise. Having said that, just like governments, much depends on the ability of the top team to impart a credible and attractive vision to the members of a business community.
High quality leadership and honest communication are critical for encouraging good citizenship and a leader’s first responsibility is to create the conditions in which the right behaviours can flourish. Their second is to model these behaviours every day - if leaders are seen demonstrating contradictory behaviours - like a politician being caught committing fraud - the whole system is undermined.
So, do you think your business is filled with good citizens? If so what does this look and feel like? If not, what’s preventing this kind of behaviour? And what’s the result? I’d love to hear your experiences.
No Comments » | Leadership, Management, Personal Resilience, Productivity, citizenship | Tagged: citizenship, development, engaged, good citizens, Leadership, Positive psychology, productive, recruitment, resiliant | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
