July 30, 2008
Once again I’m really lucky to be able to share my blog with Professor Ivan Robertson, I hope you enjoy his post!
Professor Ivan Robertson
A new report by CIPD on Smart Working set me thinking about the big changes that are taking place in our workplaces. In particular, which ones are important, which are not? For example, globalisation and the latest technology are generally seen as good things, but they also mean that many people have to work long and unsociable hours to communicate with customers or colleagues in other countries.
In their report, the CIPD authors focus on several key areas which can drive smarter ways of working, such as job redesign and high performance work practices. They describe smart working as:
“An approach to organising work that aims to drive efficiency and effectiveness in achieving job outcomes through a combination of flexibility, autonomy and collaboration, in parallel with optimising tools and working environments for employees”.
According to the report the kinds of things that exemplify smart working include more flexible working practices (such as home-working and tele-working), increased autonomy and empowerment for employees, greater latitude in decision-making and more participation for employees. The report also makes it very clear that there is no single or simple collection of changes that move organisations smoothly towards smarter working practices.
So, we’d all probably agree that these are generally good things to be aiming for, but when we look around the workplace what should we make of new ways of working such as tele-working, empowerment and flexible working? Things are definitely changing, but maybe not as quickly as elsewhere. The Equal Opportunities Commission recently accused British companies of being among the least successful businesses in Europe in terms of flexible working practices and a study that they released last year showed that just 20 per cent of UK employers allowed workers to tele-work, compared with about 40 per cent in Germany, Sweden and Denmark. And apparently, flexi-time is available at only about 48 per cent of UK companies, compared with 90 per cent of German and Swedish employers. So maybe we haven’t come as far as we thought!
If we are lagging behind in terms of important changes in the workplace – that may help to explain the “productivity gap” between the UK and many other developed countries and also why the UK consistently is ranked low in worldwide and European Happiness Indices.
To find out more about the CIPD report go to: http://www.cipd.co.uk/subjects/corpstrtgy/orgdevelmt/_smrtwrkgri.htm
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Guest Blog Spots, Productivity, Well-being | Tagged: autonomy, CIPD, collaboration, employees, European Happiness Indices, flexi-time, flexibility, Flexible Working, productivity gap, smart working, tele-working | 
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Posted by Cary Cooper
July 2, 2008
One again I have the pleasure of sharing my blog with my good friend and colleauge Gordon Tinline who is a Director at my University spin off company Robertson Cooper - I hope you find Gordon’s post of interest and as always I welcome your comments!
Understanding how to balance Control and Support is critical for managing pressure and maintaining a sense of well-being – indeed, both are acknowledged in the Health and Safety Executive’s Management Standards for Work-Related Stress. Research shows that when work demands are high the difference between the highest and the lowest levels of performance is largely predicted by perceptions of control and the extent to which employees feel supported.
However, it seems to me that there is quite a difficult balance to strike between these elements. This is because performance outcomes are influenced by multiple factors – including your line manager’s behaviour, your behaviour and the context you are operating in.
I’ve recently been working with a team of professional footballers at the very highest level of the game. They encounter a version of this issue as they try to maintain control over the direction of their careers when surrounded by agents and other advisers who present themselves as essential sources of support. The risk here is that an over-reliance on these sources of support turns the puppeteer into the puppet – the result is that situations where agents end up exerting a controlling influence over the player are commonplace. This is understandably frustrating for many football managers, who are keen to educate young players to be able to make good judgements about when to exert control and when to draw on their support network.
There are obvious parallels here with the workplace situation – we need to be given enough space and autonomy to do our best work, but at the same time we need to know that we are not alone and can call on our manager / organisation for support when we need it.
Over-reliance on support means losing control. The solution lies in understanding where you need to exert control and where you need to seek the advice of others with more knowledge of a particular area - or whom you trust as truly having your best interests at heart. You are at the centre of the axis and to get the balance right you have to make good judgements about what you need as you go through your career.
Gordon Tinline
No Comments » | Guest Blog Spots, Leadership, Management, Productivity, Stress, Well-being | Tagged: autonomy, control, Gordon Tinline, HSE, managing pressure, support, Well-being, work related stress | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
June 26, 2008
I think I saw the future today. Of course, I’ve seen it all before….but that was in an episode of Star Trek. This was the real thing!!
I’d encourage you to visit http://www.musion.co.uk/Cisco_TelePresence.html and take a quick look at this demo of the ‘Cisco On-Stage TelePresence Experience’ where holograms of two executives in California are beamed to a Stage in Bangalore, India and interact seamlessly with the CEO of Cisco, John Chambers. I’m not exaggerating when I say it looks virtually no different to if they were actually on the same stage together.
The two companies have clearly invested a lot of money in this system and they probably stand to make a lot of money too. But my interest is in the potential of this technology to change working lives. Business will be the first market for Telepresence and it has already been sold to companies in 23 different countries. After that it won’t be long before they start appearing in our homes!
There are several positive aspects to this advance – first, I can almost hear the sigh of relief from salesmen who pound out the motorway miles to get to and from customers each year. Imagine how stress levels will fall when you don’t have to get up at 5am to drive to the other end of the country – instead, you go to the office at the normal time and use Telepresence. Second, I can hear an equally large sigh of relief from the environment as cars are taken off the roads (which also benefits those who do have to commute) and less people need to fly for business purposes. Finally, consumers will benefit as the time to market for new products and technologies will be dramatically reduced because of the ease of having ‘face-to-face’ meetings using this system or ones like it.
Of course, it won’t actually be a face-to-face meeting – but you can’t get much closer to having one without actually being in the same room. I’m sure that using this system would take some getting used to, but compared with the stop-start nature of tele-conferencing it seems like this offers a whole new level of remote communication. Anyway, check out the demo and let me know what you think….and remember, this is not science-fiction!
No Comments » | Productivity, Stress | Tagged: business meetings, CEO, environment, stress levels | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
June 20, 2008
This week Labour MP Tom Harris hit the headlines after he wrote a blog post entitled “Heaven knows we’re miserable now”. He suggests that although we are richer and more secure, we are actually less happy and more miserable than we were decades ago. He implies that even with the credit crunch we are wealthier and relatively more secure than ever before - because in the past we had the fear of nuclear war, poverty and the average wage was much lower. In some respects, I agree that we are better off now and that this hasn’t led to corresponding increases in happiness – the well-rehearsed ‘money and material goods doesn’t buy happiness’ theory!
However, I disagree that our cynicism, whinging and apparent pessimism is part of the intrinsic British makeup. On the contrary, as an American who has lived and worked here for over 30 years, I think we have become more optimistic, less cynical and less whinging. The ‘70s saw the height of pessimism, conflict and cynicism - but since the ‘80s we have progressively become more positive and the benefits of a positive mindset have been demonstrated and acknowledged in the fields of professional sport, business and our language – for example, the proverbial glass ‘half full’, ‘positive mental attitude’ from the ’80 and ‘90s and more recently ‘positivity’.
In my opinion, what we are seeing today is not ‘national miserableness’, but a reaction to an underlying concern about our security. The insecurity of our jobs, financial insecurity, insecurity because we live in a world where we know terrorists are prepared to give up their lives to destroy others, the lack of community as we hunt the almighty ‘buck’ to look after ourselves and our families.
I suspect what is happening is that people at the moment don’t feel they have much control over their own lives. At the same time, they don’t feel that the ‘significant others’ in society (e.g. government, employers, Bank of England, FSA, etc.) are in control of events either. This lack of control - whether it relates to the cost of fuel and food or the decline of the economy or the rising influence of the EU - causes concern and anxiety for people. So, this so-called nation-wide ‘miserableness’ is a means of expressing our worries, a reaction to a specific way of life that characterises our society – it’s not an intrinsic national negative personality trait!
Read Tom Harris’ Blog post at http://tomcharris.wordpress.com/2008/06/19/heaven-knows-were-miserable-now/
No Comments » | Productivity, Stress, Well-being | Tagged: credit crunch, happiness, harris, miserable, unhappy, Well-being | 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 27, 2008
This week I’ve been at the Police Federation conference in Bournemouth presenting the results of a survey that my University spin-off company Robertson Cooper administered to Inspectors and Chief Inspectors in England and Wales. The Police Federation is the staff association that represents rank and file officers in all 43 police forces in England and Wales – that’s the majority of serving police officers so its views carry some weight!
Much of the debate at the conference centred on police officers’ right to take strike action. In this country this is a right that they don’t currently possess because of the critical role that the police play in upholding law and order. This is something that has been taken for granted for many years, but now that we have entered more uncertain economic times where strike action is becoming more commonplace (see my earlier post on the Oil Workers strike things are changing. This situation for police officers was exacerbated by the Home Secretary’s refusal to grant police officers a pay rise for which they had been lobbying earlier in the year.
All this got me thinking about the psychological side of strike action and what having the right take it is really about for police officers. The conclusion that I came to was that it’s about feeling in control. Police officers have to deal with some of the most difficult, dangerous and stressful situations that you can imagine – where often they can not control what will happen next. Having the right to feed back to their employers about their working conditions through political lobbying alone is just not going to feel like it’s enough – particularly when all other sectors have the right to strike. Entering a protracted process of negotiation (where someone that they don’t know and have never met is representing them) is hardly likely to give officers the sense that they are in control of your own destiny. In this sense, it’s easy to see why having the right to withdraw their services in extreme circumstances may provide a powerful means of taking control. In many ways, it’s the ultimate form of feedback to the organisation!
I’m not saying that police officers definitely should have the right to strike – there are clearly issues of national security and the need to uphold the law to consider. But equally, not having the right when the rest of the UK workforce does have it fundamentally affects the psychological contract between officers and their employers. As always, I’d welcome your views.
1 Comment | Management, Productivity, Stress, Well-being | Tagged: control, police, Stress | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
May 21, 2008
I’ve been struck recently by how widespread the application of Lean Management principles has become in the UK economy – both in the private and public sectors. Traditionally reserved for the manufacturing and retail sectors, Lean is a model for managing organisations in a way that focuses only on delivering exactly what the customer wants, when they want it. In other words, there is no slack or waste in the system and this allows businesses to keep costs to an absolute minimum. The current trend for using these principles pre-dates the credit crunch, but the shortage of cash in the economy makes them more relevant than ever.
However, these are not new ideas. In fact, the American Edwards Deming pioneered many of the techniques associated with the Lean approach when he exported this way of thinking (which became Total Quality Management and Just-In-Time manufacturing) to the Japanese car industry in the ‘50s - a time when US car manufacturers were on top of the world - rich, comfortable….. and complacent. This complacency came back to bite them over the next forty years as leaner foreign manufacturers gradually eroded their market share. And the effects of this abide to this day, as I’m reminded by the proliferation of Japanese cars I see every time I return to the States!!
The claims made for the efficiency gains that Lean processes can deliver sound impressive – with 50% improvements in performance and quality being perfectly achievable in relatively short timescales. But are we to believe that there are no negative consequences to such major change? Think about it for a minute - even if the costs vs. outputs balance better on paper after the changes are made, removing cost generally means removing people (often in significant numbers) as well as other resources. How can removing hundreds of people from an organisation not affect morale, motivation and employee engagement?
As a result of such changes, the workload of some people grows exponentially which, in turn, puts pressure on work relationships, communications and employees’ ability to maintain quality under pressure. For some this will change what work feels like forever in terms of the nature of the relationship they have with both their job and their employer. These people may feel that their employer has broken the psychological contract and the risk of the best people leaving is increased. All of this is against a new background of relative job insecurity that has accompanied new economic times and this is a particularly unusual feeling for public sector workers who in the past have been immune to such concerns. But these days, given the current climate, we can all justifiably ask ourselves the question “Will I be next?”
It’s here that the spotlight falls upon leadership and internal communication. Because I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with the Lean model, just that this kind of ‘all or nothing’ cost-based approach requires extremely high levels of leadership skill and ability if it is to be a success. Apart from managing the aftermath of the change process itself, this is fundamentally about culture change and the trick is not to lose all of the good aspects of the old culture while bringing in the new ways of thinking and acting. For example, I have talked before about discretionary effort - something which has been given willingly in many organisations where in the past there has been space and time to go beyond the current task. But one of the likely side-effects of the Lean approach is a new employee mindset that sees spending time thinking about the bigger issues as a waste of time in a world where it’s only important to focus on the essentials of the next deliverable. Of course, organisations can manage impressions to the outside world so that it looks like they are becoming leaner and fitter for purpose, but inside these things can quickly take on a life of their own and before you know it you have a completely new culture! This is fine if you want a completely new culture and weren’t fussy about what you lost from the old one, but most organisations have positive differentiators that are worth holding onto – cherishing even.
Radical change always has consequences. Lean is a very efficient way of finding the dead wood, but it can be a brutally blunt instrument so the changes it suggests should be thoroughly evaluated for sustainability and implemented wisely. Above all, it should only be considered if a leadership group is confident and talented enough to pull it off.
1 Comment | Engagement, Leadership, Management, Productivity, Talent | Tagged: culture change, employee engagement, Leadership, Lean, morale, Motivation, performance | 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 17, 2008
Flexible working is not only important for those at the start and in the middle of their careers – it matters just as much for our most senior workers. There inevitably comes a time when senior leaders actively seek more flexibility because they want to start to enjoy the fruits of their labours - but this is not to say that they don’t still have a lot to offer the business. I can really empathise with this perspective and I’m fortunate enough to have employers who provide plenty of opportunities for academics to work flexibly: The benefit for them is that we stay productive and feel motivated to perform our jobs to the best of our abilities; and can do it in different contexts.
But this is not true for all senior leaders – as often they feel (sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly) that the business cannot function without their full attention. This is exacerbated where there isn’t any sign of a well-developed succession plan that delivers the next generation of leaders to the organisation. In this situation, the pressure is piled on a small number of senior leaders with no end in sight - in some cases cutting potentially impressive careers short.
However, where succession planning is well-developed, all sorts of innovative options are available. For example, outgoing CEOs can spend a number of months / years actively mentoring potential successors, and can generally get much more closely involved in inspiring and developing high potential employees.
This kind of behaviour hints at a concept known as ‘Eldership’. Eldership has its roots in African and Asian tribal culture where former leaders pass over into a council of Elders at a certain point in their lives. The role of the Elder is to be a challenging sounding board for the current leadership. So each tribe - itself an organisation - has an impartial group of people who they know only have the best interests of the group in mind. Their role is to draw on their individual, collective and cultural experience to ‘quality assure’ the decisions of the current leaders.
To me this sounds like something that could work well in many organisations I know - both public and private. Of course, some might say that this is the role of Non-Executive Directors, but this is not always the case because, unlike Elders, Non-Execs could be younger but have specific professional skills (i.e. financial accounting, legal) and they may have multiple roles in many different companies. No matter how well-meaning and impartial the individuals concerned, they’re really just acting as consultants.
The closest equivalent to Elders in the western world are experienced statesmen such as Nelson Mandela, Kofi Anan and Jimmy Carter. These are people who have been there and have done it, and who have now crossed a line from being full-time politicians to acting as trusted advisors to the world. In the case of these people, I think the vast majority of us believe that they have the world’s best interests at heart.
Commercial organisations are not tribes, but they do share plenty of characteristics with these most ancient of communities which evolved with the narrow goal of survival. It may be too idealistic to expect senior executives to continue working for the good of the business ‘gratis’ into their dotage, but there are aspects of the concept of Eldership that most organisations could fairly easily adopt anfld integrate with their succession plan for the top level. This is all part of the recipe for designing a sustainable, successful organisation - and of course, providing extra flexibility in the latter stages of a career means the business is looking after those who spend a large part of their careers looking after the rest of the workforce – which, when you think about it, is only fair.
1 Comment | Leadership, Management, Productivity, Talent | Tagged: CEO, Challenge, Eldership, Flexible Working, Non-Executive Directors, pressure, Senior Leaders | 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
