Exactly three years ago, I embarked on investigating the construct of resilience for a PhD. At first, I thought resilience was the innate ability for some people to bounce back from life’s challenges . It was a thing you either had or didn’t have. A trait you are born with. Oh how wrong I was! As my research unfolded, I realised that resilience is a construct that should be defined and measured (contact us if you want to know more) in a specific context dependent way. It is a term that should be used in a constrained way as resilience is decidedly different depending on the context in which it is inferred.
What does that all mean? Well, I guess in short, resilience is best seen as a range of resources internal and external to the individual that are drawn upon to positively adapt to adverse experiences. For example, my research was situated in the palliative care context and some of the key resources I identified in this group of professionals included social support, optimism, and self-efficacy. Building on these findings I decided to develop a method of measuring resilience using both a survey and situational judgement test. The point of this was to come at resilience from a person-environment assessment approach rather than measuring resilience as a trait. Once you get the measurement of a construct such as resilience right, only then can you start to think about identifying these people in organisations that may need to build their adaptive resilience resources.
In the end, I decided that resilience was probably not a word I would use any more in its own right. I concluded that instead of referring to a global ‘resilience’ term, it should be used as a referent term for a multitude of adaptive resources that infer resilience.
Well, I have tried to keep this précis of my PhD blog short at the request of my Lucent colleagues. Not an easy task! On a final note, I can highly recommend doing a PhD to anyone who loves to learn. I can honestly say the PhD experience has been the most challenging thing I’ve ever done. It has also been the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. If I have learnt anything….it is that a PhD is a good test of persistence, drive, and passion. It’s hard work but worth every ounce of effort - maybe it was in fact my own personal test of resilience.
Some more on Organisational Silence
As many of you know, Lucent has been researching the topic of Organisational Silence*. We conducted the latest phase with a medium sized professional services company (approx 120 employees) to investigate further the factors which cause Organisational Silence and to begin to understand the different degrees of silence versus openness inside organisations. And of course, what we really want to know is what can be done to prevent it.
What did we find?
The professional services company we worked with has a friendly, participative culture. The employees generally trusted the senior team and regarded their managers as approachable and accessible. Yet, even within this culture, just under 20% reported feeling uncomfortable speaking up about a problem or idea, suggesting there may be a sizeable minority who find it difficult to speak up under any conditions. Even more (around 40%) felt uncomfortable questioning a manager’s decision that they disagreed with – even if it may be damaging to the company.
We found that managers are the most critical factor in contributing to or preventing organisational silence. The manager relationship emerged as the most significant driver of speaking up, controlling for job level, and above organisational factors. Organisational factors, such as trust in leaders, having a learning culture, feeling valued and understanding the values of the company were found to influence speaking up, but not as much as the manager relationship. Age and tenure did not make a difference – but formal hierarchy (whether someone was called a manager or not) did have a small impact.
Interestingly, personality did predict whether someone found it comfortable to speak up. Psychologists talk about ‘the Big Five’ elements of personality. These are Extroversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability (often known by its opposite label, Neuroticism) and Openness (sometimes called Intellect). We found that Agreeableness and Emotional Stability both positively predicted speaking up, even controlling for job level.
Another factor which emerged from our interviews was the importance of people having previous positive (or negative) experiences of speaking out. Positive experiences build what psychologists call self-efficacy, which is the belief that you can do something successfully. People learn self-efficacy through their own experiences and through observing others – so people are more likely to speak out in an organisational culture where they have observed their managers and colleagues speaking up openly. And it helps if they have seen or have had experience of a manager acting on the information they have been given. Resilience was also considered important, as, we were told, you have to be able to take the knock-backs and accept those times when speaking out does not seem to make any difference.
So what?
So, there appears to be a sizeable minority who don’t feel comfortable speaking up, and may never have done so. Some of this is probably down to personality, but some is influenced by a person’s experiences and by the organisation they work in. And even those who feel comfortable speaking up, may not do so if they think it is pointless. So we believe there are things organisations can do to create a more open culture and reduce the conditions under which Organisational Silence will thrive:
- The line manager relationship is critical. When organisations train and support managers so that they build better relationships and are more accessible, they are able to respond more positively to challenge. They need to know how to be responsive and be given the autonomy to act. And if managers are recognised and rewarded for behaving like this, there’s much more chance of building a positive, more open culture.
- Time is also a factor. Managers and teams need the time to seek input and value openness – silence is more likely to prosper if teams are constantly busy.
- Past experiences matter. Organisations can help to build their employees’ self-efficacy by providing positive speak up experiences, and by publicly acknowledging and rewarding times when people have successfully spoken out about an idea or raised an important issue.
- Organisations which value individual contribution and which seek explicitly to learn from mistakes are more likely to encourage speaking out. But these values need to be authentic, and supported by behaviours from top leaders down. And they should be followed through in all processes especially appraisal, reward and recognition.
- And finally, it’s no surprise that relationships are what matter. Hierarchy can create restraint and this helps silence thrive. Organisations that want to be open should actively encourage the building of networks and connections across levels and functions, especially from the most senior leaders to the youngest newcomers. Encouraging people to build personal relationships and really appreciate the worlds of those at different levels of experience, age and backgrounds can make a fundamental difference to your organisation and its performance.
Why diversity matters
Like many other professional advisers in business, Lucent talks a lot about diversity. We sometimes think that some of you think we talk about it too much. Yet this past week has presented some good examples of why diversity is important and that things are more likely to go wrong without it. The first is the rather sad case of an arrest of one of David Cameron’s senior Downing Street advisers, allegedly for child pornography offences. While we clearly can’t make any judgements specifically about this case, it did remind me of an observation someone made to me recently. This was that when making new appointments, the scrutiny of candidates tends to diminish at senior levels, when knowledge of reputation and experience often become substitutes for a thoughtful selection process. If you add to this an operating context where most people are from similar backgrounds, are aware of each other and many are personal friends and contacts, the opportunities for challenge can be even fewer. The lack of diversity can conspire to unwittingly trip us up.
The second reminder came to me by way of the Horizon programme called ‘’How You Really Make Decisions’’ (available on iPlayer and well worth watching). The programme talked about and demonstrated through experiments some of the different biases that humans are prey to. Anyone who’s read even a basic psychology textbook will probably know about some of these biases. They, like us, will also be familiar with the tendency to shrug biases off and think that knowing about them means that we will not be fooled by them. But what this particular programme did beautifully was show just how hard wired they are and how we are fooling ourselves if we think we can evade them. And again, this is where diversity is so important. If organisations are populated by similar sorts of people from similar backgrounds, they are much more likely to be subject to poor decision making and Groupthink. Returning to Downing Street for a moment, this is perfectly illustrated by the run to the war in Iraq where confirmatory bias was widely displayed. And there are lots of other examples of this on a less grand scale. Diversity is a very important weapon in helping organisations get to the top of their game.
Organisational Silence - preliminary findings
This autumn Lucent embarked on the first part of an investigation into what is termed organisational silence – the conditions under which people will and won’t speak out about problems, improvements and other issues in the workplace. In the world of information overload and minute by minute changes, leaders and managers need their staff to tell them what’s going on and not keep vital information and observation to themselves.
Thank you to all the people who participated. 163 people from the general working population from a wide variety of industry and service sectors completed our online questionnaire. The results are pretty startling, suggesting that many people really find it difficult to speak up in organisations, even about serious and potentially damaging issues. The preliminary results find:
- Around a quarter of people report difficulty in speaking up to more senior managers (26%)
- A slightly higher number report difficulty speaking up even for an issue that is unsafe, immoral or illegal (nearly 30%)
- 50% of people are uncomfortable speaking up when it involves disagreeing with a more senior manager – even when it’s about a decision they think might damage the organisation
- 30% of people think speaking up is futile and 18% fear retaliation
These are fairly large groups of people - certainly large enough for organisations to give this some serious thought. The factors which people most cite as affecting silence are managers’ attitudes and organisational culture, and these are factors that organisations can do something about. Managers can be supported to develop the skills to handle speaking out positively. Organisations can also drive behaviour change through strong and authentic values which support the culture of the organisation.
A more detailed view of the results can be found here.
We will be exploring more about the factors which inhibit and encourage silence in organisations early next year. If you would like to take part in an interview about this, please get in touch.
We will be exploring more about the factors which inhibit and encourage silence in organisations early next year. If you would like to take part in an interview about this, please get in touch.
Thanks again and Merry Christmas from everyone at Lucent.
Organisational Silence - please help!
It has been recognised for at least a decade that getting employees to speak up aids good quality decision making in organisations as well as contributing to good overall performance, increased learning and innovation. The trouble is that it’s all too common for employees to feel that ‘speaking up’ is difficult and for organisational silence to descend like a fog.
At Lucent we're undertaking some research on this topic, and are looking for respondents to participate in a short questionnaire. Please do take 5 minutes to help us with this research https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/N95FNN6
We'll publish our findings later in the year.
Marginal gains
There was a great article in The Times on Monday (23rd Sept). The sports journalist Matthew Syed interviews Sir Dave Brailsford and they discuss the concept of ‘marginal gains’. Brailsford, of course, is the coach who transformed British cycling, to a large degree thanks to his dedication to applying this concept. Marginal gains is all about analysing every aspect of an athlete’s performance, from the obvious to the mundane, and determining how you can improve each by a fractional amount – these fractions adding up to real and meaningful performance improvement. This includes all the high tech stuff about training methods, kit and equipment, but also covers nutrition, ergonomics and, excitingly to us, psychology. When asked what the single most important marginal gain has been in achieving all their success, Brailsford’s answer is “ownership”. Giving athletes control over how they train rather than telling them what to do – this, he says, has been “the biggest game changer”. People perform better when they feel in control of their behaviour. Now there’s something to think about for all managers in any organisation, and indeed for us all.
What makes a resilient workforce?
We spent some time talking to Antonio this week about his research on resilience. (By resilience, we mean the ability/capacity to bounce back from adverse events). He has been particularly focussing on people working in palliative care, but from what we know already, his findings are likely to generalise to much of the working population. From extensive interviewing he’s identified 7 major themes that have an effect on resilience:
- Adaptive behaviours – boundaries, self care, work/life balance
- Emotional regulation- recognising own feelings and those of others and expressing them appropriately
- Positive affect – hope, optimism, efficacy
- Support – workplace, family and friends
- Meaning and purpose- values, reflection, sense making
- Active coping – having a structured and planned approach to coping
- Experience – experience, maturity and learning from the past
So why is this important for organisations? What his research shows is that much of what affects our psychological resilience at work is not down to an individual’s disposition or personality, but is impacted by the organisation (feeling supported by managers and peers, work-life balance, shared values, and so on). And these themes are informed by processes across the employee life cycle, especially development and retention. So to create a resilient workforce, organisations need to pay attention to the whole employee life cycle and on an ongoing basis – much like watering your plants!
Some thoughts from this week at Lucent
We’ve had an interesting week experiencing different kinds of workshops and planning some new ones to help support clients through change. One of the challenges in psychology is the eternal conundrum of what is fixed versus what is changeable. Is our approach to change partly governed by innate, deep seated personality characteristics? Or is it something we can learn to adapt to and develop skills to deal with? A couple of things struck us this week.
One of the workshops was on personality type theory. At Lucent you won’t be surprised to learn, there are long debates about this subject and I, for one, am resistant to the idea of having my personality sorted into categories. Apart from anything else, it encourages us to feel that we’re fixed, and at its worst provides an excuse for poor behaviour. So the first minor revelation of the week was observing the contrast between people with different personality types and the distinct ways they deal with change. Some of us deal with change through the lens of the outcome – the big picture if you like – and work back from there, while others really do have to have a proper grasp of the detail before they can contemplate it. This stark dichotomy is helpful in understanding how different people react to the same circumstances - we find it much easier to manage change in our own style.
Then second revelation was Michael Mosley’s Horizon programme on BBC2. It’s probably still available on iPlayer if you didn’t watch it. Mosley was interested to explore how his own anxious, pessimistic mindset had developed and whether it could be altered. Many of us, including those of the psychologist variety, have tended to think that seeing the glass as half empty or half full is a thinking style that is more or less fixed and unchangeable, at least in adults. Yet recent research, as Mosley demonstrated on himself, shows that such patterns are surprisingly mutable. They are ingrained habits that can be reversed. Increasingly, neuroscientists and psychologists are showing that the brain is exceptionally malleable and can change in all kinds of ways, even in mid life.
There’s no doubt that it helps us to explain and describe behaviour by categorising it. This gives us a perspective and language to share, discuss, negotiate and change our behaviour and create a genuine basis for mutual understanding. But perhaps we shouldn’t so quick to assume that our habits are who we really are.
Media Week
We were excited recently to receive a mention in Media Week about our work with MG OMD...
Email overload?
That other scourge of modern life, email, seems to have hit epic heights with people telling us that they’re getting up to 500 emails a day. This is a massive amount of information for anyone to process alongside their normal tasks. The sheer volume means that any small improvements in managing email pay dividends. Here are a few insights from research to help us think how to deal with it.
There are a few studies that have analysed office workers’ habits in relation to email traffic. A study in one organisation showed that in 70% of cases, workers began to respond to incoming emails within six seconds of their arrival in their email box – or, as the authors put it, faster than letting the phone ring three times! 85% began responding within two minutes. This sounds pretty efficient until you consider how this impacts on people’s focus on their main task. For knowledge workers who are high users of email, this continuous pattern of interruption has a number of detrimental effects. These arise from the fact that as humans (that covers most of us), while we have the capacity to improve attention switching and become more efficient with practice, our attentional resources are ultimately finite. The most important effect is the time it takes to get reabsorbed in your main task (researchers call this "resumption lag"). Studies have estimated that about half an hour a day is lost in attention switching – and this is likely to be quite a lot higher for people at the 500 email a day level. It also has secondary effects as workers are more error prone when they are interrupted. This is difficult to generalise about but one study of workers processing large amounts of data showed that their error rate doubles after interruption. It also takes longer – up to 25% longer- to complete your primary task because of interruption. This pattern of working is fatiguing, it raises stress and makes some people feel overwhelmed.
So what to do about it? One study used some of this data to computer model different patterns of responding and recommended setting aside three periods in the working day as being an efficient way of reducing these detrimental effects. This might be too much for some, so organisations and teams could encourage a culture of only checking email in the break between tasks rather than feeling pressure to respond continuously. Pop-up notices announcing all incoming mails should probably be disabled as these are a definite source of interruption. Setting up a triage system to direct incoming emails into different priority folders is also a possibility so that responsiveness can be more easily prioritised. To reduce the overall volume, pop-ups asking people whether they really need to send this message to everyone when they hit the 'reply to all' button could help to drastically reduce the number of internal emails, as could some initial training about when to use email and when to pick up the phone. The key message is that putting some frameworks in place to help people deal with their overflowing inboxes will help to reduce stress, increase productivity and make people happier.
Gupta, A. (2006) Understanding the Rhythms of Email Processing Strategies in a Network of Knowledge Workers. Unpublished doctoral thesis Oklahoma State University.
Gupta, A., Li, H., & Sharda, R. (2013 ) Should I send this message? Understanding the impact of interruptions, social hierarchy & Perceived task complexity on user performance and perceived workload. Decision Support Systems, 55, 135-145.
Jackson, T., Dawson, R. & Wilson, D. (2003). Reducing the effect of email interruptions on employees. International Journal of Information Management, 23 (1), 55-65.
Mansi, G. & Levy, Y. (2013) Do instant messaging interruptions help or hinder knowledge workers’ task performance? International Journal of Information Management (33), 591-596.
Sykes, E. R. (2011) Interruptions in the workplace: A case study to reduce their effects. International Journal of Information Management (31), 385-394.
Vidgen, R., Sims, J., & Powell, P. (2011). Understanding email overload. Journal of Communication Management 15(1), 84-98.
Meetings overload?
One of the most common themes that comes up in conversations with people in the organisations we work with is simply ‘’meetings’’. If I had a pound for every time someone said to us, ’’I waste so much time in meetings’’ – well, let’s say that I’d have enough money for a good few rounds in the pub. We know that there are some very good reasons for meetings, although so much of our experience of them can feel wasteful and frustrating. So it’s worth taking some time to think why this is the case and how we can try to make them work better for the whole organisation.
People have a tendency to just say ‘’meetings’’, without thinking about what kind of meetings in particular cause them grief. What is it about those meetings in terms of behaviours that they find so frustrating? So in our view, it’s worth doing a bit of research inside your organisation to uncover your people’s day to day experience and find out what they really think. Sometimes it takes a bit of drilling down to the detail to get away from generalisations. Diary studies can be a good way of getting people to identify the size and shape of what’s causing their complaint. Short but structured interviews and may be focus groups are useful ways you can get people to identify what they really think wastes their time. It’s also good to focus on the positive as well as the negative. What are the hallmarks of a productive meeting? In our experience, most people are experts in their own organisations and, given the time and tools, can diagnose for themselves what works well and where things go awry.
One school of thought holds that one of the reasons we think meetings are such a plague may be because we see them as interruptions in accomplishing the work goals we’ve set ourselves for the day. This can make us feel frustrated, particularly if the meetings that interrupt us are perceived as being of low quality. This is especially true for people who are classed as Type A personalities and are more driven to achieve. More generally, when people feel that they have spent time in ineffective meetings this has a negative effect on their productivity and their well-being at work. Studies show that over a period of time this can have a direct effect on their intention to leave. So what makes the kind of day to day meeting that we all experience feel ineffective? There’s some research that suggests that perceived meeting effectiveness is influenced by really simple disciplines – use of agenda, clear purpose, starts on time, participants come prepared and participate. Hardly rocket science, but while we know some or all this, why do we find it so hard to practise?
We suggest that you tackle it, at its simplest, by getting teams to first admit their frustrations and then to sign up to new ways of behaving, and to hold each other accountable for them. What are the particular factors that cause misery for your people and what can they do about it if they sign up collectively to a new way of behaving? A recent study has shown, for instance, that being late for meetings is a subjective experience. If the participants are sitting in a meeting room with door open chatting amongst themselves, the latecomer may well not interpret their behaviour as lateness. So if people are regularly late in your organisation, something as simple as getting everyone to sign up to shutting the door and starting the meeting on time can send out a clear deterrent message. And if you’re one of those people who is habitually late, it’s worth being aware that the same study highlighted our tendency to levy negative judgement, however unfairly, on the perpetrator.
If you do find the number of meetings you go to is getting you down, remember that they have plenty of unspoken benefits in addition to their overt purpose. They can act as a conduit for information about politics, people and performance as well as being opportunities to strengthen relationships and collaborative working. Some psychologists even suggest that meetings are not as much a waste of time as people claim – that perhaps they are just a convenient thing to moan about!
Perhaps part of the answer to increasing meeting satisfaction lies in how we arrange the space in our offices.....more of this another time.
Rogelberg, S. G., Scott, C. W., Agypt, B., Williams, J., Kello, J. E., McCausland, T., & Olien, J. L. (2013). Lateness to meetings: Examination of an unexplored temporal phenomenon. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2012.745988
Rogelberg, S. G., Leach, D. J., Warr, P. B., & Burnfield, J. L. (2006). " Not another meeting!" Are meeting time demands related to employee well-being? Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(1), 83-96.
Welcome to Lucent
Welcome to Lucent's new look website celebrating three years in business.
We hope you enjoy our new blog where you can also find our archive of wit and wisdom from our last website. Visit from time to time with a cup of coffee to see what we're thinking.
Welcome to Lucent!
We hope you enjoy our new blog where you can also find our archive of wit and wisdom from our last website. Visit from time to time with a cup of coffee to see what we're thinking.
Welcome to Lucent!
Olympic fever
I was listening to Alastair Campbell speak last week and he kept making the point that we can learn a great deal from sport when it comes to running things. Olympic fever has brought the sports psychologists out in droves to consider the Games from numerous psychological angles1. So with Alastair Campbell's words ringing in my ears, I thought that I'd try and see which lessons are transferrable to business.
Perhaps the most striking insights can be derived from work that has been done on competition. Yes, sport is all about competition to win. Basketball teams in the US when playing teams with whom they have a history of close rivalry (think Arsenal, Tottenham) have been shown to put in extra effort2. Studies in Asia have also shown that a competitive culture increases the extra voluntary efforts that employees put in and therefore enhances performance. But the downside of rivalry is that it can become a distraction, especially if it's focussed internally within an organisation, taking attention and effort away from the 'real' competitive threat in the external business environment. Simply creating a competitive culture does not guarantee success as competition can also increase unethical behaviour3. Having said that, the effects of competitive pressure on athletes are variable depending on whether they think they have the skills and resources to rise to the challenge, or whether they see the pressure as a threat4. Building athletes' confidence in facing challenge and building employees' confidence in their abilities to deal with stretching, difficult situations are the essential activities of management life.
There seems to be a balance between competition and co operation that promotes optimum performance. Studies show that a mix between the two enhances performance, probably because this increases levels of enjoyment5. Sports people who enjoy themselves are more likely to succeed and this rule applies equally well to the workplace. Being deeply involved in an activity increases concentration and focus, sometimes known as flow6, and can lead to the higher performance and enjoyment – being in the 'Zone'. In another study, cricketers whose moods were assessed as happier and more enthusiastic were linked with better performance, and their positive mood communicates itself to other team members, which is again linked to better playing7. This isn't surprising as previous studies in organizations have shown that positive emotions are contagious, particularly those of leaders, and generate upward spirals of well-being and optimism that make for thriving companies8.
Other nuggets of wisdom to be gathered from the sports psychologists include a mantra invented at the 2000 Sydney Paralympics for dealing with crises that can equally be applied to business: De-escalate, Normalise, Simplify9. Crises often arise in pressurised situations when perceptions can become distorted and emotions heightened. De-escalating and normalising encourage detached, objective analysis and simplification promotes straightforward solutions. One practitioner also advises applying the 24 hour test: ask yourselves - If we wait 24 hours, might the problem or parts of the problem have gone away? As they point out, in pressurised situations there can be an overwhelming desire to leap in and fix things, which can be a hazard in itself. This applies as much to high stakes business as to the management of high stakes sports tournaments.
A further theme for thought is that of the Home Advantage. This certainly exists in all team sports studied (rugby, football, basketball, hockey et al), as well as at the Olympics. For the season 2010-11 in the Premier League, average goals scored at home were 30.9 to 22.3 away. The reasons for this are – perhaps surprisingly – disputed. Support from the home crowd can be double edged; it can be inspiring but also act as a distraction10. Some studies suggest that home advantage is at least in part attributable to lenient scoring including at the Olympics11. It seems that judges may feel some social pressure from the fans and the situation and it's certainly true that the home team gets it easier in terms of preparation and familiarity. There has even been a suggestion that there's a hormonal surge in the home team that can be traced back to animals defending their territory. So when you're next in a pitch situation or meeting a potential client who you haven't met before and have control over your venue, it's worth considering playing the home advantage.
And a final thought, research has shown that amongst athletes competing at the very highest level, their psychology was a greater predictor of their success than their physiology12. That's the edge the right mindset can give.
References
1 Jarrett, C. (2012). Faster, Higher, Stronger. The Psychologist, 25 (7), 504-517.
2 Kilduff, G.J., Elfenbein, H.A. & Staw, B.M. (2010). The psychology of rivalry. Academy of Management Journal, 53, 943-969.
3 Lam, L.W. (in Press). Impact of competitiveness on sales people's commitment and performance. Journal of Business Research.> Doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2011.10.026.
4 Jones, M., Meijen, C., McCarthy, P.J. & Sheffield, D. (2009). A theory of challenge and threat states in athletes. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 2, 161-180.
5 Tauer, J.M. & Harackiewicz, J.M. (2004). The effects of cooperation and competition on intrinsic motivation and performance. Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes, 86, 849-861.
6 Seligman, M. & Csikszentmihayli, M. (2000). Positive Psychology: An Introduction. American Psychologist, 55 (1), 5-14.
7 Totterdell, P. (1999). Mood scores: Mood performance in professional cricketers. British Journal of Psychology, 90, 317-33; Totterdell, P. (2000). Catching moods and hitting runs. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85, 848-859.
8 Fredrickson, B (2003 ). Positive Emotions & Upward Spirals in Organisations. In Cameron, K.S., Dutton, J.E., & Quinn , R.E. (Eds.) Positive Organizational Scholarship: Foundations of a New Discipline. Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco.
9 Lindsay, P. (2008). Supporting combat sports before and during the Olympic holding camp. The Sport and Exercise Scientist, 18, 18-19.
10 Wallace, H.M., Baumeister, R.F. & Vohs, K.D. (2005). Audience support and choking under pressure: A home disadvantage. Journal of Sports Sciences, 23, 429-438.
11 Balmer, N.J., Nevill, A.M. & Williams, A.M. (2001). Home advantage in the Winter Olympics (1908-1998). Journal of Sports Sciences, 19, 129-139.
12 Gould, D., Dieffenbach, K. & Moffett, A. (2002). Psychological characteristics and their development in Olympic champions. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 14, 172-204.
Perhaps the most striking insights can be derived from work that has been done on competition. Yes, sport is all about competition to win. Basketball teams in the US when playing teams with whom they have a history of close rivalry (think Arsenal, Tottenham) have been shown to put in extra effort2. Studies in Asia have also shown that a competitive culture increases the extra voluntary efforts that employees put in and therefore enhances performance. But the downside of rivalry is that it can become a distraction, especially if it's focussed internally within an organisation, taking attention and effort away from the 'real' competitive threat in the external business environment. Simply creating a competitive culture does not guarantee success as competition can also increase unethical behaviour3. Having said that, the effects of competitive pressure on athletes are variable depending on whether they think they have the skills and resources to rise to the challenge, or whether they see the pressure as a threat4. Building athletes' confidence in facing challenge and building employees' confidence in their abilities to deal with stretching, difficult situations are the essential activities of management life.
There seems to be a balance between competition and co operation that promotes optimum performance. Studies show that a mix between the two enhances performance, probably because this increases levels of enjoyment5. Sports people who enjoy themselves are more likely to succeed and this rule applies equally well to the workplace. Being deeply involved in an activity increases concentration and focus, sometimes known as flow6, and can lead to the higher performance and enjoyment – being in the 'Zone'. In another study, cricketers whose moods were assessed as happier and more enthusiastic were linked with better performance, and their positive mood communicates itself to other team members, which is again linked to better playing7. This isn't surprising as previous studies in organizations have shown that positive emotions are contagious, particularly those of leaders, and generate upward spirals of well-being and optimism that make for thriving companies8.
Other nuggets of wisdom to be gathered from the sports psychologists include a mantra invented at the 2000 Sydney Paralympics for dealing with crises that can equally be applied to business: De-escalate, Normalise, Simplify9. Crises often arise in pressurised situations when perceptions can become distorted and emotions heightened. De-escalating and normalising encourage detached, objective analysis and simplification promotes straightforward solutions. One practitioner also advises applying the 24 hour test: ask yourselves - If we wait 24 hours, might the problem or parts of the problem have gone away? As they point out, in pressurised situations there can be an overwhelming desire to leap in and fix things, which can be a hazard in itself. This applies as much to high stakes business as to the management of high stakes sports tournaments.
A further theme for thought is that of the Home Advantage. This certainly exists in all team sports studied (rugby, football, basketball, hockey et al), as well as at the Olympics. For the season 2010-11 in the Premier League, average goals scored at home were 30.9 to 22.3 away. The reasons for this are – perhaps surprisingly – disputed. Support from the home crowd can be double edged; it can be inspiring but also act as a distraction10. Some studies suggest that home advantage is at least in part attributable to lenient scoring including at the Olympics11. It seems that judges may feel some social pressure from the fans and the situation and it's certainly true that the home team gets it easier in terms of preparation and familiarity. There has even been a suggestion that there's a hormonal surge in the home team that can be traced back to animals defending their territory. So when you're next in a pitch situation or meeting a potential client who you haven't met before and have control over your venue, it's worth considering playing the home advantage.
And a final thought, research has shown that amongst athletes competing at the very highest level, their psychology was a greater predictor of their success than their physiology12. That's the edge the right mindset can give.
References
1 Jarrett, C. (2012). Faster, Higher, Stronger. The Psychologist, 25 (7), 504-517.
2 Kilduff, G.J., Elfenbein, H.A. & Staw, B.M. (2010). The psychology of rivalry. Academy of Management Journal, 53, 943-969.
3 Lam, L.W. (in Press). Impact of competitiveness on sales people's commitment and performance. Journal of Business Research.> Doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2011.10.026.
4 Jones, M., Meijen, C., McCarthy, P.J. & Sheffield, D. (2009). A theory of challenge and threat states in athletes. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 2, 161-180.
5 Tauer, J.M. & Harackiewicz, J.M. (2004). The effects of cooperation and competition on intrinsic motivation and performance. Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes, 86, 849-861.
6 Seligman, M. & Csikszentmihayli, M. (2000). Positive Psychology: An Introduction. American Psychologist, 55 (1), 5-14.
7 Totterdell, P. (1999). Mood scores: Mood performance in professional cricketers. British Journal of Psychology, 90, 317-33; Totterdell, P. (2000). Catching moods and hitting runs. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85, 848-859.
8 Fredrickson, B (2003 ). Positive Emotions & Upward Spirals in Organisations. In Cameron, K.S., Dutton, J.E., & Quinn , R.E. (Eds.) Positive Organizational Scholarship: Foundations of a New Discipline. Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco.
9 Lindsay, P. (2008). Supporting combat sports before and during the Olympic holding camp. The Sport and Exercise Scientist, 18, 18-19.
10 Wallace, H.M., Baumeister, R.F. & Vohs, K.D. (2005). Audience support and choking under pressure: A home disadvantage. Journal of Sports Sciences, 23, 429-438.
11 Balmer, N.J., Nevill, A.M. & Williams, A.M. (2001). Home advantage in the Winter Olympics (1908-1998). Journal of Sports Sciences, 19, 129-139.
12 Gould, D., Dieffenbach, K. & Moffett, A. (2002). Psychological characteristics and their development in Olympic champions. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 14, 172-204.
Creating the right climate for innovation
Innovation leads to high growth in terms of both employment and sales and it's exactly what our economy needs right now1. It's easy to say, however, but harder to do. Fortunately, research can give us quite a few clues as to how to create the right climate for innovation in a business2.
Innovation has three phases: generating ideas, developing them into viable solutions and building support for them, and then implementing them. Recent studies show that managers can stimulate innovative behaviour by the way they manage on a day to day basis3. Setting stretching goals, giving autonomy and creating a space for dialogue within teams all go some way to developing the conditions in which innovation flourishes4.
Our half day workshop introduces managers to the different phases of innovation and discusses how this impacts on their daily lives. We discuss the behaviours that support innovation and how they can change team processes and behaviours to promote innovative working. We help them to understand how they can go about changing behaviours in their teams and encourage them to commit to taking practical steps to do so. Our approach is interactive and hands on, but based on the evidence of what works. Contact Claire or Helen if you'd like to find out any more.
References
1 The vital 6 per cent: How high-profile growth businesses generate prosperity and jobs. NESTA, October, 2009.
2 West, M.A., Hirst, G., Richter A., & Shipton,, H. (2004). Twelve Steps to Heaven: Successfully Managing Change Through Developing Innovative Teams. European Journal of Work & Organisational Psychology, 13 (2), 269-299.
3 Nederveen Pieterse, A., Van Knippenberg, D., Schippers, M. & Stam, D. (2010). Transformational and transactional leadership and innovative behaviour: The moderating role of psychological empowerment. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31, 609-623.
4 Aryee, S., Walumbwa, F., & Hartnell, C. (2012). Transformation Leadership, Innovative Behavior & Task Performance: Test of Mediation & Moderation Processes. Human Performance, 25 (1), 1-25.
Innovation has three phases: generating ideas, developing them into viable solutions and building support for them, and then implementing them. Recent studies show that managers can stimulate innovative behaviour by the way they manage on a day to day basis3. Setting stretching goals, giving autonomy and creating a space for dialogue within teams all go some way to developing the conditions in which innovation flourishes4.
Our half day workshop introduces managers to the different phases of innovation and discusses how this impacts on their daily lives. We discuss the behaviours that support innovation and how they can change team processes and behaviours to promote innovative working. We help them to understand how they can go about changing behaviours in their teams and encourage them to commit to taking practical steps to do so. Our approach is interactive and hands on, but based on the evidence of what works. Contact Claire or Helen if you'd like to find out any more.
References
1 The vital 6 per cent: How high-profile growth businesses generate prosperity and jobs. NESTA, October, 2009.
2 West, M.A., Hirst, G., Richter A., & Shipton,, H. (2004). Twelve Steps to Heaven: Successfully Managing Change Through Developing Innovative Teams. European Journal of Work & Organisational Psychology, 13 (2), 269-299.
3 Nederveen Pieterse, A., Van Knippenberg, D., Schippers, M. & Stam, D. (2010). Transformational and transactional leadership and innovative behaviour: The moderating role of psychological empowerment. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31, 609-623.
4 Aryee, S., Walumbwa, F., & Hartnell, C. (2012). Transformation Leadership, Innovative Behavior & Task Performance: Test of Mediation & Moderation Processes. Human Performance, 25 (1), 1-25.
Sleep deprivation and cyberloafing
There are plenty of reasons for thinking about the well-being of your staff. As Lucent has suggested to you before, happier people tend to more productive. A 2010 study showed that the happiest group of employees spent on average 78% of their day on task compared with 53% for the least happy group1. That's four days a week on the job versus two and a half days - an eye watering difference in terms of productivity. And we've all read about the amount that stressed employees cost our companies in terms of lost productivity. Investigations of work stress show that employees with good levels of mental health tend to be more resilient and are less vulnerable to stress. And a number of rigorous and well regarded studies have shown that interventions designed to reduce stress and build resilience can significantly reduce sick days and absenteeism, as well as increasing well-being2.
In the last couple of weeks, two new studies have been published which shed light on these issues from rather different angles. The first is a study about cyberloafing- wasting indecent amounts of time unproductively surfing the net at work– which has been estimated to cost companies £330m a year3. Using impressively rigorous methodologies the study found that when people are sleep deprived, even to a relatively minor degree (40 minutes per night) or when they suffered from interrupted sleep, they spent more time cyberloafing the next day. The effects weren't the same for all participants; people who had greater conscientiousness were less prey to the effects of sleep interruption on their online loafing behaviour, but even their augmented self discipline didn't keep them free from the effects of sleep deprivation on their cyber behaviour.
The second study has a top class methodology as it was randomised and controlled and shows that it is possible to improve well-being and reduce sleep deprivation through simple means4. 239 employees from a single company who were otherwise healthy but described themselves as stressed were selected to participate in the trial. They were randomly allocated to a 12 week course of either an hour's yoga a week or an hour's mindfulness training or to a control group who were given information about workplace stress. At the end of the 12 weeks, people from the yoga and mindfulness groups reported lower stress levels and also showed an improved cardiac pattern in response to stress indicating that they had learnt useful techniques for coping with stress. They also reported better sleep quality. This demonstrates the potential value of simple stress reduction programmes in the workplace.
We know that sleep deprivation isn't good for most people (some Prime Ministers are commonly cited exceptions, but we can't speak for their mental well-being!) and it's not good for companies either. The first study gives an interesting illustration of how stress and sleep deprivation can adversely affect performance and lead to reduced productivity in unexpected ways. We also know that, in more extreme cases, it can be a precursor to burnout, which costs businesses millions of pounds a year5. The second study shows that quite simple (and reasonably low cost) steps such as offering activities that actively promote relaxation and coping strategies help to protect us all against the pressures of tough times.
References
1 Pryce-Jones, J. & Lutterbie, S. (2010). Why leveraging the science of happiness at work matters: The happy and productive employee. Assessment and Development Matters, 2 (4), 6-9.
2 Bond, F.W. & Bunce, D. (2003).The Role of Acceptance & Job Control on Mental Health, Job Satisfaction & Work Performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, (6), 1057-1067; Bond, F.W., Flaxman, P.E., & Bunce, D. (2008). The Influence of Psychological Flexibility on Work Redesign: Mediated Moderation of a Work Reorganization Intervention. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, (3), 645-654.
3 Wagner, D.T., Barnes, C.M., Lim, V.K. & Ferris, D.L. (2012). Lost Sleep and Cyberloafing: Evidence From the Laboratory and a Daylight Saving Time Quasi-Experiment. Journal of Applied Psychology, DOI: 10.1037/a00275507.
4 Wolever, R., Bobinet, K., McCabe, K., Mackenzie, E., Fekete, E., Kusnick, C., & Baime, M. (2012). Effective and viable mind-body stress reduction in the workplace: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 17 (2), 246-258.
5 http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/2007/c07021.htm
In the last couple of weeks, two new studies have been published which shed light on these issues from rather different angles. The first is a study about cyberloafing- wasting indecent amounts of time unproductively surfing the net at work– which has been estimated to cost companies £330m a year3. Using impressively rigorous methodologies the study found that when people are sleep deprived, even to a relatively minor degree (40 minutes per night) or when they suffered from interrupted sleep, they spent more time cyberloafing the next day. The effects weren't the same for all participants; people who had greater conscientiousness were less prey to the effects of sleep interruption on their online loafing behaviour, but even their augmented self discipline didn't keep them free from the effects of sleep deprivation on their cyber behaviour.
The second study has a top class methodology as it was randomised and controlled and shows that it is possible to improve well-being and reduce sleep deprivation through simple means4. 239 employees from a single company who were otherwise healthy but described themselves as stressed were selected to participate in the trial. They were randomly allocated to a 12 week course of either an hour's yoga a week or an hour's mindfulness training or to a control group who were given information about workplace stress. At the end of the 12 weeks, people from the yoga and mindfulness groups reported lower stress levels and also showed an improved cardiac pattern in response to stress indicating that they had learnt useful techniques for coping with stress. They also reported better sleep quality. This demonstrates the potential value of simple stress reduction programmes in the workplace.
We know that sleep deprivation isn't good for most people (some Prime Ministers are commonly cited exceptions, but we can't speak for their mental well-being!) and it's not good for companies either. The first study gives an interesting illustration of how stress and sleep deprivation can adversely affect performance and lead to reduced productivity in unexpected ways. We also know that, in more extreme cases, it can be a precursor to burnout, which costs businesses millions of pounds a year5. The second study shows that quite simple (and reasonably low cost) steps such as offering activities that actively promote relaxation and coping strategies help to protect us all against the pressures of tough times.
References
1 Pryce-Jones, J. & Lutterbie, S. (2010). Why leveraging the science of happiness at work matters: The happy and productive employee. Assessment and Development Matters, 2 (4), 6-9.
2 Bond, F.W. & Bunce, D. (2003).The Role of Acceptance & Job Control on Mental Health, Job Satisfaction & Work Performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, (6), 1057-1067; Bond, F.W., Flaxman, P.E., & Bunce, D. (2008). The Influence of Psychological Flexibility on Work Redesign: Mediated Moderation of a Work Reorganization Intervention. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, (3), 645-654.
3 Wagner, D.T., Barnes, C.M., Lim, V.K. & Ferris, D.L. (2012). Lost Sleep and Cyberloafing: Evidence From the Laboratory and a Daylight Saving Time Quasi-Experiment. Journal of Applied Psychology, DOI: 10.1037/a00275507.
4 Wolever, R., Bobinet, K., McCabe, K., Mackenzie, E., Fekete, E., Kusnick, C., & Baime, M. (2012). Effective and viable mind-body stress reduction in the workplace: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 17 (2), 246-258.
5 http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/2007/c07021.htm
A starter for ten for 2012
Gazing forwards into 2012 it's easy to feel a bit back-up-against-the-wall. We all know that it's going to be a tough year, and it's not as if the last few have been booming. One of the big challenges is keeping staff optimistic and focussed when there is little scope for pay rises for yet another year and not much money in the budget for training and treats. Yet there are things that managers can do that are shown to make a difference to workers' happiness and productivity that don't require a big cash outlay.
One of the factors that is known to improve job performance is the degree to which employees have autonomy in the way they work. According to the classic model of work design1, job autonomy is the extent to which people have perceived control over the work they do. Yet there has been a long term trend in the UK for the reduction of job autonomy across all occupational sectors, as captured by the 2006 British Skills Survey2. It's not difficult to see what some of the driving factors might be here - control has been increasingly centralised, as more uniform and stringent processes are dictated to improve efficiency and quality standards everywhere, from globalised corporations to production lines and call centres. The downside is that a lack of job control has a direct relationship with poor outcomes for physical and mental health as well as productivity. This is shown most clearly by what are generically known as the Whitehall studies, an impressive group of longitudinal studies of large cohorts of UK civil servants. These studies3 show, broadly, that the greater an individual's perceived job control, the less likely they are to suffer from mental distress and ill health. The good news is that some pretty rigorous studies4 show that even inviting employees to participate in finding ways to improve autonomy in their work can reduce sickness and absenteeism, and increase productivity. So one of the ways that we can improve life in the office this year could be to have a look at the way work is organised. Ask people to think about how they might improve their control over what they do. What are the blocks to more efficient working? What simple steps could they take? The studies show that making a couple of small changes in controlling the way we work can have a really positive impact. And it needn't cost a penny.
References
1 Hackman, J.R. & Oldham, G.R. (1976). Motivation through the design of work: a test of a theory. Organizational Behavior & Human Performance, 16 (2), 250-279.
2 Felstead, A., Gallie, D., Green, F. & Zhou, Y. (2007). British Skills Survey. ESRC Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance.
3 e.g. Stansfeld, S.A, Fuhrer, R, Shipley, M.J. & Marmot, M.G. (1999). Work characteristics predict psychiatric disorder: prospective results from the Whitehall II Study. Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine, 56, 302-307.
4 Bond, F.W, Flaxman, P.E. & Bunce, D. (2008). The Influence of Psychological Flexibility on Work Redesign: Mediated Moderation of a Work Reorganisation Intervention. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93 (3), 645-654; Bond, F.W. & Bunce, D. (2003). The Role of Acceptance and Job Control in Mental Health, Job Satisfaction, and Work Performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88 (6), 1057-1067.
One of the factors that is known to improve job performance is the degree to which employees have autonomy in the way they work. According to the classic model of work design1, job autonomy is the extent to which people have perceived control over the work they do. Yet there has been a long term trend in the UK for the reduction of job autonomy across all occupational sectors, as captured by the 2006 British Skills Survey2. It's not difficult to see what some of the driving factors might be here - control has been increasingly centralised, as more uniform and stringent processes are dictated to improve efficiency and quality standards everywhere, from globalised corporations to production lines and call centres. The downside is that a lack of job control has a direct relationship with poor outcomes for physical and mental health as well as productivity. This is shown most clearly by what are generically known as the Whitehall studies, an impressive group of longitudinal studies of large cohorts of UK civil servants. These studies3 show, broadly, that the greater an individual's perceived job control, the less likely they are to suffer from mental distress and ill health. The good news is that some pretty rigorous studies4 show that even inviting employees to participate in finding ways to improve autonomy in their work can reduce sickness and absenteeism, and increase productivity. So one of the ways that we can improve life in the office this year could be to have a look at the way work is organised. Ask people to think about how they might improve their control over what they do. What are the blocks to more efficient working? What simple steps could they take? The studies show that making a couple of small changes in controlling the way we work can have a really positive impact. And it needn't cost a penny.
References
1 Hackman, J.R. & Oldham, G.R. (1976). Motivation through the design of work: a test of a theory. Organizational Behavior & Human Performance, 16 (2), 250-279.
2 Felstead, A., Gallie, D., Green, F. & Zhou, Y. (2007). British Skills Survey. ESRC Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance.
3 e.g. Stansfeld, S.A, Fuhrer, R, Shipley, M.J. & Marmot, M.G. (1999). Work characteristics predict psychiatric disorder: prospective results from the Whitehall II Study. Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine, 56, 302-307.
4 Bond, F.W, Flaxman, P.E. & Bunce, D. (2008). The Influence of Psychological Flexibility on Work Redesign: Mediated Moderation of a Work Reorganisation Intervention. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93 (3), 645-654; Bond, F.W. & Bunce, D. (2003). The Role of Acceptance and Job Control in Mental Health, Job Satisfaction, and Work Performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88 (6), 1057-1067.
Productive and purposeful meetings
The very thought of writing about meetings makes me want to yawn…but a team of psychologists1 has recently assessed what we know about making meetings more effective, which has to be valuable when you think how much time we spend in them. So to save you the bother of reading the whole paper, I've summarised the main points, and while not exactly racy reading, there are some useful gems.
1. Brainstorming has long been known to be a relatively inefficient way of stimulating ideas2 but recent research shows that it can actually act as an obstacle to idea generation because people can become fixated on one or two specifics3. Brainstorming has benefits, such as building group morale, but Lucent's view is, if generating new ideas is your first priority, start with asking people to contribute on an individual basis. This is more likely to produce higher quality responses and ideas from left field. Follow this up with small group (2s and 3s) collaboration to develop more detail.
2. Studies have found that agenda items tend to get airplay on the basis of order rather than importance. While circulating agendas in advance is good practice, reviewing items at the start of the meeting and prioritising them in order of importance may lead to better use of time4.
3. Humour in meetings is good for breaking down barriers and building team spirit5. As Lucent tells you regularly, there is much to be gained from positive emotion in terms of the productivity and satisfaction that humour can bring6,7. It has to be used judiciously though, as perceived in-jokes can provoke alienation and exclusion, and while self-deprecating humour can be self-effacing and help to diffuse conflict, overused it can be perceived as communicating weakness.
4. Don't just go through the motions. Think each time you fix a meeting. Be sure to know why you're meeting and don't be ruled by fixed one hour time slots when twenty minutes might do. It's also useful to bear in mind that the more participants there are, the less input each person is likely to get, and when people don't participate, the less satisfied (and therefore supportive) they're likely to be of decisions made8. This can also have a knock on effect in terms of attitudes to meetings in future. So the best way to encourage a culture of positive, purposeful meetings is to invite as few people as are really needed to get decisions made9.
5. And take responsibility for your own engagement. If you feel bored or zone out, re-engage. That way, the meeting will feel and probably be actually more productive for everyone10.
And so we've devised our own (only slightly cheesy) but evidence-based reminder:
M ake sure all meetings are actually necessary and invite only people who are central to getting the job done.
E nsure the time of the meeting is appropriate.
E njoy your meeting- use humour and use the meeting to strengthen social bonds.
T ake time to prioritise the agenda items.
I nvolve yourself in every meeting- it's your responsibility to be engaged.
N ever rely on traditional one hour time slots.
G enerate ideas individually for the best results.
And that hoary old chestnut turns out to be true – meeting standing up makes for shorter meetings without jeopardising decision quality!11
References
1 Sutton, J. & Millar, A. (2011). Towards Healthier Meetings. The Psychologist (24), 9, 668-671.
2 Diehl, M. & Stroebe, W. (1987). Productivity loss in brainstorming groups: Towards the solution of a riddle. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology (53), 497-509.
3 Kohn, N., Paulus, P. & Choi, Y. (2011). Building on the ideas of others: An examination of the idea combination process. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, (10), 1016.
4 Littlepage, G.E. & Poole, J.R. (1993). Time allocation in decision making groups. Journal of Social Behaviour and Personality, 8, 663-672.
5 Rogerson-Revell, P. (2007). Humour in business: A double-edged sword. Journal of Pragmatics, 39 (1), 4-28.
6 Frederickson, B. (2003). Positive Emotions and Upward Spirals in Organizations. In K.S. Cameron, J. E. Dutton & R.E. Quinn (Eds.), Positive Organizational Scholarship (pp. 159-176). San Francisco: BK Publishers.
7 Harter, J.K., Hayes, T.L., & Schmidt, F.L. (2002). Business-Unit-Level Relationship between Employee Satisfaction, Employee Engagement, and Business Outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, (2), 268-279.
8 Kerr, N. L., MacCoun, R. J., & Kramer, G. P. (1996). Bias in judgment: Comparing individuals and groups. Psychological Review, 103, 687–719.
9 Bennett, R. J. (1998). Perceived powerlessness as a cause of employee deviance. In R. W. Griffin, A. O'Leary-Kelly, & J. M. Collins (Eds.), Dysfunctional behavior in organizations: Violent and deviant behavior (pp. 221–239). Stamford, CT: JAI Press.
10 Cohen, M.A., Rogelberg, S.A., Allen, J.A. & Luong, A. (2011). Meeting design characteristics and attendee perceptions of staff/team meeting quality. Group Dynamics, 15, 90-104.
11 Bluedorn, A.C., Turban, D.B. & Love, M.S. (199). The effects of stand-up and sit-down meeting formats on meeting outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84, 277-285.
1. Brainstorming has long been known to be a relatively inefficient way of stimulating ideas2 but recent research shows that it can actually act as an obstacle to idea generation because people can become fixated on one or two specifics3. Brainstorming has benefits, such as building group morale, but Lucent's view is, if generating new ideas is your first priority, start with asking people to contribute on an individual basis. This is more likely to produce higher quality responses and ideas from left field. Follow this up with small group (2s and 3s) collaboration to develop more detail.
2. Studies have found that agenda items tend to get airplay on the basis of order rather than importance. While circulating agendas in advance is good practice, reviewing items at the start of the meeting and prioritising them in order of importance may lead to better use of time4.
3. Humour in meetings is good for breaking down barriers and building team spirit5. As Lucent tells you regularly, there is much to be gained from positive emotion in terms of the productivity and satisfaction that humour can bring6,7. It has to be used judiciously though, as perceived in-jokes can provoke alienation and exclusion, and while self-deprecating humour can be self-effacing and help to diffuse conflict, overused it can be perceived as communicating weakness.
4. Don't just go through the motions. Think each time you fix a meeting. Be sure to know why you're meeting and don't be ruled by fixed one hour time slots when twenty minutes might do. It's also useful to bear in mind that the more participants there are, the less input each person is likely to get, and when people don't participate, the less satisfied (and therefore supportive) they're likely to be of decisions made8. This can also have a knock on effect in terms of attitudes to meetings in future. So the best way to encourage a culture of positive, purposeful meetings is to invite as few people as are really needed to get decisions made9.
5. And take responsibility for your own engagement. If you feel bored or zone out, re-engage. That way, the meeting will feel and probably be actually more productive for everyone10.
And so we've devised our own (only slightly cheesy) but evidence-based reminder:
M ake sure all meetings are actually necessary and invite only people who are central to getting the job done.
E nsure the time of the meeting is appropriate.
E njoy your meeting- use humour and use the meeting to strengthen social bonds.
T ake time to prioritise the agenda items.
I nvolve yourself in every meeting- it's your responsibility to be engaged.
N ever rely on traditional one hour time slots.
G enerate ideas individually for the best results.
And that hoary old chestnut turns out to be true – meeting standing up makes for shorter meetings without jeopardising decision quality!11
References
1 Sutton, J. & Millar, A. (2011). Towards Healthier Meetings. The Psychologist (24), 9, 668-671.
2 Diehl, M. & Stroebe, W. (1987). Productivity loss in brainstorming groups: Towards the solution of a riddle. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology (53), 497-509.
3 Kohn, N., Paulus, P. & Choi, Y. (2011). Building on the ideas of others: An examination of the idea combination process. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, (10), 1016.
4 Littlepage, G.E. & Poole, J.R. (1993). Time allocation in decision making groups. Journal of Social Behaviour and Personality, 8, 663-672.
5 Rogerson-Revell, P. (2007). Humour in business: A double-edged sword. Journal of Pragmatics, 39 (1), 4-28.
6 Frederickson, B. (2003). Positive Emotions and Upward Spirals in Organizations. In K.S. Cameron, J. E. Dutton & R.E. Quinn (Eds.), Positive Organizational Scholarship (pp. 159-176). San Francisco: BK Publishers.
7 Harter, J.K., Hayes, T.L., & Schmidt, F.L. (2002). Business-Unit-Level Relationship between Employee Satisfaction, Employee Engagement, and Business Outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, (2), 268-279.
8 Kerr, N. L., MacCoun, R. J., & Kramer, G. P. (1996). Bias in judgment: Comparing individuals and groups. Psychological Review, 103, 687–719.
9 Bennett, R. J. (1998). Perceived powerlessness as a cause of employee deviance. In R. W. Griffin, A. O'Leary-Kelly, & J. M. Collins (Eds.), Dysfunctional behavior in organizations: Violent and deviant behavior (pp. 221–239). Stamford, CT: JAI Press.
10 Cohen, M.A., Rogelberg, S.A., Allen, J.A. & Luong, A. (2011). Meeting design characteristics and attendee perceptions of staff/team meeting quality. Group Dynamics, 15, 90-104.
11 Bluedorn, A.C., Turban, D.B. & Love, M.S. (199). The effects of stand-up and sit-down meeting formats on meeting outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84, 277-285.
Bouncing back from adversity
Reading the Economist’s leader entitled ‘’Sticky patch or meltdown?’’ this week (18th June) is a sapping experience even for the more optimistic among us. As the piece outlines, factory production is down, consumer spending is weak and nearly all US economic indicators are looking pretty feeble. This recession shows few signs of imminent useful retreat. In addition, many organisations have long term structural and technological challenges to contend with on top of grim economic times. So how can we help to build the capacity and resilience of an already buffeted workforce so see us through a few more tough years?
Resilience is our ability to bounce back in the face of adversity; it’s about adapting successfully to changes in the business environment with mental, physical and financial well-being intact. It creates the capacity to cope with challenges for the individual, the team and the whole organisation. Most important, evidence shows that there are plenty of things we can do to build and support it at every level.
Starting with the organisation as a whole, you need to be asking (preferably with a psychometrically designed measure) are the messages about purpose and values getting through to the workforce and do they believe them? Are managers supporting those values in the way they behave? Are your survivors going to feel that they can hold their heads high because leavers were dealt with in a fair and principled way? Research shows that these are all key to an organisation’s resilience and interventions can be designed to support all of them.
At a team level, research shows that collective resilience is strengthened by support networks. People do better under pressure when they feel they have the support of their manager and colleagues. When people feel relaxed enough to make light of their problems and share them rather than feeling constantly oppressed by the difficulties and pressure they feel around them, research shows that they are more likely to retain their well being and be productive. There is mounting evidence that maintaining a positive working mood creates an upward spiral that contributes to team resilience.
There are many techniques available that help to build people’s individual resistance to pressure and stress and engage their sense of personal responsibility for their own and others’ well-being. Individual programmes can be designed and tailored to the organisation. This can include coaching – either one to one or in teams – and workshops which use language appropriate to your organisation. The added benefits of these are that they can keep reminding your people of your common purpose, while also offering some respite from the daily routine.
The Economist concludes that the world economy is probably just going through a sticky patch (although there is some possibility of meltdown). But regardless of how long it takes, you want do all you can to ensure your organisation emerges fit to thrive rather than exhausted and demoralised.
Here's the detailed research on resilience that Antonio’s been involved with.
Resilience is our ability to bounce back in the face of adversity; it’s about adapting successfully to changes in the business environment with mental, physical and financial well-being intact. It creates the capacity to cope with challenges for the individual, the team and the whole organisation. Most important, evidence shows that there are plenty of things we can do to build and support it at every level.
Starting with the organisation as a whole, you need to be asking (preferably with a psychometrically designed measure) are the messages about purpose and values getting through to the workforce and do they believe them? Are managers supporting those values in the way they behave? Are your survivors going to feel that they can hold their heads high because leavers were dealt with in a fair and principled way? Research shows that these are all key to an organisation’s resilience and interventions can be designed to support all of them.
At a team level, research shows that collective resilience is strengthened by support networks. People do better under pressure when they feel they have the support of their manager and colleagues. When people feel relaxed enough to make light of their problems and share them rather than feeling constantly oppressed by the difficulties and pressure they feel around them, research shows that they are more likely to retain their well being and be productive. There is mounting evidence that maintaining a positive working mood creates an upward spiral that contributes to team resilience.
There are many techniques available that help to build people’s individual resistance to pressure and stress and engage their sense of personal responsibility for their own and others’ well-being. Individual programmes can be designed and tailored to the organisation. This can include coaching – either one to one or in teams – and workshops which use language appropriate to your organisation. The added benefits of these are that they can keep reminding your people of your common purpose, while also offering some respite from the daily routine.
The Economist concludes that the world economy is probably just going through a sticky patch (although there is some possibility of meltdown). But regardless of how long it takes, you want do all you can to ensure your organisation emerges fit to thrive rather than exhausted and demoralised.
Here's the detailed research on resilience that Antonio’s been involved with.
Why board quotas for women miss the point
There is plenty of high quality research (Eagly & Karau, 1991, 2002, just for starters) showing that gender bias, as well as all the other biases we know about in the workplace, are alive and kicking (have a look at Antonio's piece on the subject). This has led recently to a campaign for board quotas for women in the UK, as has been introduced in countries such as Norway. The enforcement of selection of particular groups via quotas feels demeaning to many of us who are members of these groups, in our case because we don't want to be identified as a category (arguably naïve) and because we like to think we stand a chance of being selected on our own merits.
There is a further line of argument recently rehearsed in the media in support of board quotas for women which is that they bring a different set of characteristics and skills to the boardroom than men. Getting into the topic of gender differences is to enter shark infested waters; are we talking nature or nurture; are they social and educational constructs? Genuine sex differences in ability are fairly slight and are more a matter of superficial style and interpretation1 (Kimura, 2000; Cameron, 2007). Differences in social groups tend be preferences expressed in behaviour and superficial identity that are useful shorthand in the way we categorise and navigate the world.
The output of any organisational teams is the result of complicated interactions between people. We tend to like to work with people who are similar to ourselves at a social level. Psychologists call this similar-to-me bias (Searle, 2003) and it helps to smooth the process of these interactions. It's therefore not a surprise that most boards, but particularly those of the country's largest public companies, are dominated by a demographically homogenous group which just happens to be white men from similar backgrounds. What has historically made this group strong in so many ways is also its Achilles heel. Its cohesiveness born out of superficial social characteristics, makes for strong bonds, easier communication and a common frame of reference (Brown, 2000) but also leads to conformity, an over blown sense of the group's abilities, self referencing, a lack of vigilance and the tendency to extremes in making decisions that can lead to Groupthink (Janis, 1982) and other potentially risky behaviour. And clearly it's not just companies that are subject to these processes. As the Iraq Inquiry has shown, high level committees in governments are just as vulnerable. The similarity of these groups may make the initial phases (sometimes referred to as the ''forming and norming'') easier, but it can also restrict their output. There is a mounting body of evidence, for instance, that such homogenous groups tend to be poor at innovating (West, Hirst, Richter & Shipton, 2004).
The best way of avoiding these pitfalls and getting the highest levels of output is to have balanced teams; this means not just people of both genders, but people from diverse backgrounds, ages and ethnicities. While this may make teams harder work initially in terms of selection and induction, and may lead to more challenging discussions in the boardroom, studies show that this will yield results down the line in terms of decision making and innovation, as well as financial performance (Gratton, 2005, McKinsey, 2007). So in our view, organisations shouldn't need quotas to select women or any other social group but should rather be encouraged to see the commercial benefits of selecting from a wider pool. We need to help them be more energetic and imaginative in identifying and attracting talent. There is enough evidence that well balanced teams make organisations fitter and stronger and have a direct commercial benefit. This is why we need more women (and people from a wider range of backgrounds) in top teams and we shouldn't need legislation to hammer this message home.
1 As Diane Halpern observes in her book on cognitive abilities, female-favouring fine motor skills were, not so long ago, considered to make women especially suited to clerical jobs, but are also pretty useful for careers in brain surgery.
References
Brown, R. (2000). Group Processes. Blackwell Publishing, 2nd edition.
Cameron, D. (2007). The Myth of Mars and Venus. OUP.
Eagly, A. H. & Karau, S.J. (1991) Gender and the emergence of leaders: A meta-analysis. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 60 (5) , 685-710.
Eagly, A. H., & Karau, S.J. (2002). Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders. Psychological Review 109 , 573-59.
Gratton, L., Kelan, E., Voigt, A., Walker, L., & Wolfram, H-J. (2007). Innovation Potential: men and Women in Teams. London Business School.
Halpern, D.F. (2000). Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities. Lawrence Erlbaum, 3rd edition.
Janis, I. L. (1982). Groupthink: Psychological studies of policy decisions and fiascoes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Kimura, D. (2000). Sex and cognition. MIT.
McKinsey & Co. (2007). Women Matter: Female Leadership, a Competitive Edge for the Future.
Searle, R. (2003). Selection and Recruitment: A Critical Text. Palgrave Macmillan.
West, M.A., Hirst, G., Richter, A., & Shipton, H. (2004). Twelve steps to heaven: Successfully managing change through developing innovative teams. European Journal Of Work and Organizational Psychology,13 (2) , 269–299.
There is a further line of argument recently rehearsed in the media in support of board quotas for women which is that they bring a different set of characteristics and skills to the boardroom than men. Getting into the topic of gender differences is to enter shark infested waters; are we talking nature or nurture; are they social and educational constructs? Genuine sex differences in ability are fairly slight and are more a matter of superficial style and interpretation1 (Kimura, 2000; Cameron, 2007). Differences in social groups tend be preferences expressed in behaviour and superficial identity that are useful shorthand in the way we categorise and navigate the world.
The output of any organisational teams is the result of complicated interactions between people. We tend to like to work with people who are similar to ourselves at a social level. Psychologists call this similar-to-me bias (Searle, 2003) and it helps to smooth the process of these interactions. It's therefore not a surprise that most boards, but particularly those of the country's largest public companies, are dominated by a demographically homogenous group which just happens to be white men from similar backgrounds. What has historically made this group strong in so many ways is also its Achilles heel. Its cohesiveness born out of superficial social characteristics, makes for strong bonds, easier communication and a common frame of reference (Brown, 2000) but also leads to conformity, an over blown sense of the group's abilities, self referencing, a lack of vigilance and the tendency to extremes in making decisions that can lead to Groupthink (Janis, 1982) and other potentially risky behaviour. And clearly it's not just companies that are subject to these processes. As the Iraq Inquiry has shown, high level committees in governments are just as vulnerable. The similarity of these groups may make the initial phases (sometimes referred to as the ''forming and norming'') easier, but it can also restrict their output. There is a mounting body of evidence, for instance, that such homogenous groups tend to be poor at innovating (West, Hirst, Richter & Shipton, 2004).
The best way of avoiding these pitfalls and getting the highest levels of output is to have balanced teams; this means not just people of both genders, but people from diverse backgrounds, ages and ethnicities. While this may make teams harder work initially in terms of selection and induction, and may lead to more challenging discussions in the boardroom, studies show that this will yield results down the line in terms of decision making and innovation, as well as financial performance (Gratton, 2005, McKinsey, 2007). So in our view, organisations shouldn't need quotas to select women or any other social group but should rather be encouraged to see the commercial benefits of selecting from a wider pool. We need to help them be more energetic and imaginative in identifying and attracting talent. There is enough evidence that well balanced teams make organisations fitter and stronger and have a direct commercial benefit. This is why we need more women (and people from a wider range of backgrounds) in top teams and we shouldn't need legislation to hammer this message home.
1 As Diane Halpern observes in her book on cognitive abilities, female-favouring fine motor skills were, not so long ago, considered to make women especially suited to clerical jobs, but are also pretty useful for careers in brain surgery.
References
Brown, R. (2000). Group Processes. Blackwell Publishing, 2nd edition.
Cameron, D. (2007). The Myth of Mars and Venus. OUP.
Eagly, A. H. & Karau, S.J. (1991) Gender and the emergence of leaders: A meta-analysis. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 60 (5) , 685-710.
Eagly, A. H., & Karau, S.J. (2002). Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders. Psychological Review 109 , 573-59.
Gratton, L., Kelan, E., Voigt, A., Walker, L., & Wolfram, H-J. (2007). Innovation Potential: men and Women in Teams. London Business School.
Halpern, D.F. (2000). Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities. Lawrence Erlbaum, 3rd edition.
Janis, I. L. (1982). Groupthink: Psychological studies of policy decisions and fiascoes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Kimura, D. (2000). Sex and cognition. MIT.
McKinsey & Co. (2007). Women Matter: Female Leadership, a Competitive Edge for the Future.
Searle, R. (2003). Selection and Recruitment: A Critical Text. Palgrave Macmillan.
West, M.A., Hirst, G., Richter, A., & Shipton, H. (2004). Twelve steps to heaven: Successfully managing change through developing innovative teams. European Journal Of Work and Organizational Psychology,13 (2) , 269–299.
Effective remedies in difficult times
We have found that a really cost efficient way of stretching your learning and development budget in these austere times is to get your people working in facilitated groups targeting problem solving. Small cross functional groups of up to six members meet regularly (monthly or every six weeks) and, with the help of a coaching psychologist, work on urgent and important problems that each member can bring to the group. This technique rests on a principle called Action Learning which was designed specifically to help develop managers1. We have found it particularly helpful as it encourages group members to learn with and from each other. The coach focuses the group on using learning to support action, allowing each group member to listen, analyse and generate alternative solutions. These groups can really help to change behaviours and improve manager/team relations while yielding the added benefit of forming strong peer networks across the organisation2.
References
1 Revans, R. (1982). What is Action Learning? Journal of Management Development 1,3, 64-75 .
2 Lee, T.B. (2005). A case study of an action learning program with regard to leadership behaviors and characteristics. Unpublished dissertation, George Washington University.
Further Reading
Marquardt, M. (2004). Optimizing the Power of Action Learning. Davies-Black: USA.
References
1 Revans, R. (1982). What is Action Learning? Journal of Management Development 1,3, 64-75 .
2 Lee, T.B. (2005). A case study of an action learning program with regard to leadership behaviors and characteristics. Unpublished dissertation, George Washington University.
Further Reading
Marquardt, M. (2004). Optimizing the Power of Action Learning. Davies-Black: USA.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)