Workers Have Upped Their Game. It’s Your Move!

Posted on by Stuart Murray

039-hard-work, by jdxyw
039-hard-work.  Photo courtesy of jdxyw.
Does business make people productive, or is it people that make business productive?  It’s the latter.  Increasingly, in the modern economy, it’s people who keep the engines running, people who bring in revenue, and people who create profits.  And it’s becoming increasingly obvious that people have been neglected to the point that their full potential is not put to full use.

Eric Garton has written a compelling article for Harvard Business Review entitled The Case for Investing More in People.  Garton, from Bain & Company, has created and/or found strong research that makes the case that high-functioning human resources can be the best driver of corporate performance.  I haven’t read his book, but it looks like the article is an overview of his 2017 book Time, Talent, Energy.

Restoring Fairness in Wage Growth and Labour Productivity

There is a variety of metrics that show that labour market productivity (i.e. how much an individual worker puts out) has been growing at a very slow rate in the US relative to other countries and years past.  While labour market productivity is normally a good predictor of wage growth, the link has been broken such that even that meager growth that has been realized has not been passed along to employees.  This failure to re-invest in labour productivity is a problem.

The article cites a book by Zeynep Ton from MIT entitled The Good Jobs Strategy.  Ton notes a variety of businesses that have chosen to pay above-market wages in order to encourage employee engagement, which is increasingly seen as a driver of customer engagement.  The higher wages lead to “…lower levels of employee and customer churn, and correspondingly lower employee hiring and customer acquisition costs.  The compounding and virtuous effects of increasing customer and employee advocacy more than offset the higher cost of wages.” The decision to spend more on wages is not actually an expense so much as an investment.

We Are So Busy That We Are Unproductive

Garton also frets about employers carelessly wasting employees’ time.  Research shows that the over-abundance of interruptions and time-wasting meetings is causing employee burnout.  Particularly amongst managers “…great ideas that drive breakthroughs in productivity come from human beings with time, talent and energy to innovate.”  In my estimation an accidental or deliberate decision to slam managers with workload is a decision to reduce productivity.  Being cavalier about work volume implies a flippant view of workplace productivity, especially when people are working too hard.

The obligation to see every email, show up at countless meetings, and “look busy” is the hallmark of an organization that has chosen to do everything the same way, every day.  This hamster-wheel organization brings little hope to the future of labour productivity growth.  Yet there are opportunities to remedy this problem through productivity efforts such as Agile and Kaizen… if the workplace decides creative time is a desired business goal.  Remember, this is all about making choices.

Emotions Prevail: Employee Engagement is the Jet Fuel of Productivity

Another missing ingredient is employee energy.  In this case employee engagement is the focus.  “An inspired employee is more than twice as productive as a satisfied employee and more than three times as productive as a dissatisfied employee.  Yet, only one in eight employees is inspired.”

Personally, I’m fascinated by these performance metrics of an engaged employee.  If what the author says is true, and an inspired employee is producing 300 units, a satisfied employee is producing 200 units, and a dissatisfied employee is producing 100 units of output.  Can it be the case that turning an employee from dissatisfied to satisfied is proportional to a doubling their productivity?

That sounds about right to me.  People who are still feeling pretty good (i.e. “satisfied”) can probably get inspired and pour it on, increasing their productivity from 200 to 300 units (a decent 50% increase).  This means that for every 10% of the workforce that experiences a jump in employee engagement level, the return for the employer is in the realm of 5-10%.  And that’s mostly based on intangible items such as job design, power sharing, compassion, and open conversations.

That rate of return significantly out-performs most of what can be produced on the capital investment and cost-containment side of the productivity agenda.  I think that’s why we should conclude that the American investor class has completely screwed up their country’s ability to reach its full potential.  Low investment in labour productivity has been driving lower shareholder returns, flat wages, and generalized discontent.

Amongst society’s greatest woes is that people are working harder but not seeing any results in their paycheques, free time, or government services.  The instinct that we’re making sacrifices for the benefit of nobody but the investor class increasingly rings true.  The article notes that in addition to higher wages, investments in health care, training, and education are among the possible additional improvements needed to achieve a better economy.  If only there was some entity in the American economy that had accumulated extra money in the past few decades which might be available to pay for all of this…

The Real Big Picture Is Your Own Personal Experience

Posted on by Stuart Murray
dawn-flight-by-john-fowler.jpg
Dawn Flight.  Photo courtesy of John Fowler.

I think we’re entering an era where the real big picture is just a composite of individual subjective experiences.  I’m sure this concept has been done to death by a bunch of great philosophers, but I want to lay this out in simple terms.

As we look at workplace disruptions, it seems each disruption just blurs into the next in an overall environment of unwieldy surprises that we can’t get on top of.  Amazon has begun to displace bricks-and-mortar retail, trade and immigration have let to major political disruptions everywhere, Artificial Intelligence is expected to change jobs significantly, and the gig economy is disrupting work relationships in many ways.  In each case, it is a combination of technology and globalization driving big-picture disruption.

The Ground Level View of Big-Picture Change

Yet the real-life impact is personal.  I encourage you to step away from the objective birds-eye view and consider that you yourself are affected by these changes.  These changes affect the work you do, how you get goods and services, and probably your personal life as well.  You don’t have an opportunity to sit still even if the changes are favourable to you.  And if the changes are unfavourable, you are put-upon to mitigate, resist, or take better advantage next time around.  We’re anxious and we struggle with the acceptance of ambiguity.

Now, let’s switch back to the birds-eye view.  If you are in human resources or if you are a leader in some way, you must also consider the perspectives of many employees trying to make their way in a similar manner.  You’re probably expected to help guide them.  This means that you need to foster a general environment of empathetic relationships, trust, and an awareness of context.  While some of the impacts of change are measurable and technical, first you need to help others become comfortable in their own skin.

First Build Your Own Resilience to Change, Then Help Others

You can’t help others with this until you have gone through the process yourself, and figured out where you place yourself in this crazy world.  If you’re a fast learner, you can figure yourself out before you’re obliged to teach others to do the same.  It’s like the airplane safety demonstration; install your own emotional oxygen mask before helping others.

What is most significant about this business environment is that it heralds an era where people outrank the system.  You can talk all you want about how we should organize citizens and families and employees towards their best efforts.  But if you attempt to advance a birds-eye view of people at all times, it begs the question, are you just some bird in the sky?  When people are standing on the ground and a bird sails past, under what circumstances are they concerned about the bird?

You can attempt to prescribe a vision, foster collective purpose, and create policies and systems that are somewhat universal.  But then one person puts their hand up and says, “what about me?”  And you’re stuck.  You’re stuck because you want to say the same thing.  And if you take a moment to look at peoples’ eyes, you realize we’re all thinking the same thing.

Look at the desks, the walls of the buildings, and the mouse under your hand.  These physical things have no soul.  So what’s so special about your organization?  The secret ingredient is you.

Don’t Hate Mayhem. Love Complexity Instead.

Posted on by Stuart Murray
You Better Hold On. By Jane Rahman
You Better Hold On. Photo courtesy of Jane Rahman.

The strongest defense against a bewildering world is a love of complexity and ambiguity.

Elif Shafak, Turkey’s most popular female novelist, has provided a brilliant critique of our modern times.  In her TED Talk from September 2017, she expresses concerns about economic uncertainty, the impact this uncertainty has on our emotional bewilderment, and knock-on effect this has on the appeal of demagogues.

“Ours is the age of anxiety, anger, distrust, resentment, and I think lots of fear.  But here’s the thing:  Even though there’s plenty of research about economic factors, there’s relatively few studies about emotional factors.  …I think it’s a pity that mainstream political theory pays very little attention to emotions.  Oftentimes, analysts and experts are so busy with data and metrics that they seem to forget those things in life that are difficult to measure, and perhaps impossible to cluster under statistical models.”

Speaking as a workforce analyst, these are my sentiments exactly.  People like me often try to figure out what is happening inside the workplace while thinking of employees as livestock or machines.  But then the people talk, and their souls come through.  Their context and their lives prevail over objective definitions of effectiveness.  Workplace culture overpowers the declarations of those with authority.

Emotional Complexity Amidst Demographic Over-Simplification

Nowhere do I see this more than when I split a dataset into demographic categories.  The categories are usually either-or scenarios, such as age bracket, binary sex, or length of service.  And just as we find the definitive behaviors and opinions of a certain category of people, with a little more digging we find that there is a deeper human story that defies categories.  I see men taking parental leaves, older workers expressing career ambitions, and high-school dropouts with unmet educational needs.  Putting people into categories only helps find a demographic that best gives voice to the human story.  But that human story will usually speak for everyone.

Shafak, who understands human stories, notes that demagogues “…strongly, strongly dislike plurality.  They cannot deal with multiplicity.  Adorno used to say, ‘Intolerance of ambiguity is the sign of an authoritarian personality.’  …that same intolerance of ambiguity, what if it’s the mark of our times, of the age we are living in?  Because everywhere I look, I see nuances slipping withering away.  …So slowly and systematically we are being denied the right to be complex.”

To Shafak, it is the bewilderment imposed upon us by change that makes us susceptible to the simple ideas offered by demagogues.  “…In the face of high-speed change many people wish to slow down, and when there is too much unfamiliarity people long for the familiar, and when things get too confusing, many people crave simplicity.  This is a very dangerous crossroads, because it is exactly where the demagogue enters into the picture.”

Emotional Intelligence, Embracing Complexity, and Building Resilience to Organizational Change

Shafak suggests that “…we need to pay more attention to emotional and cognitive gaps worldwide.”  Those who struggle with complexity and ambiguity need our help.  We’re not at liberty to define non-complex people as the “other,” as people whose opinions we can reject in yet another polarizing simplification.

I felt this concern when I followed the James Damore incident at Google.  A programmer on the autism spectrum was fired for writing an anti-diversity manifesto, and his memo showed that he struggled with sensitivity training in a culture of diversity.  He attempted to attribute the onus of emotional intelligence to a liberal bias and the imposition of allegedly feminine social concerns.  The true lesson was not so much that bigotry sucks; it is that simplified emotions make us prey to extreme opinions.  I think we need to devote more time and energy to empathizing with the perplexed.

Shafak is insistent that we must cherish complexity.  We must value ambiguity.  We must allow ourselves to carry multiple identities and become the cosmopolitan people who can adapt to the world.  For me, I felt reassured that a deep curiosity for new information and enthusiasm for diverse views is the ultimate resistance against bad ideas.

With complexity we can have a meaningful society, meaningful work, and a resilient sense of self that allows us to move forward.  Only then can we get back to work and do our jobs well.

Forget About Strategy. Reality is a Mosh Pit

Posted on by Stuart Murray
CROWD S U R F E R. By Keami Hepburn
CROWD S U R F E R. Photo courtesy of Keami Hepburn.

Strategy is not superior to tactics.  At best, strategy and tactics can be integrated as equals.  In this day and age it is looking increasingly unlikely that a senior leader will come up with one brilliant idea from the top of the organization and cascade it downward through the chain of command.  Rather, we live in a world where ground-level employees determine business success; information is diffused through friends and cube-mates; and the best ideas move diagonally through the organization’s subject-matter experts with minimal regard for the org chart.

A classic example of the disputed importance of strategy is the difference between Workforce Analytics and Strategic Workforce Planning.  I routinely use Workforce Analytics to help a variety of managers and professionals adapt to an unpredictable array of questions.  Workforce Analytics has a kind of “older sister” business practice called Strategic Workforce Planning which has been around for a little longer.  Strategic Workforce Planning is the practice of using analytics in the formal process or organizational re-design.  The re-design is intended to align human resources to internal and external context, a forecast about the future, and organizational strategy.  It makes perfect sense on paper.

In my opinion, there are three major frustrations with strategic alignment.  First, it makes a presumption that organizational strategy in your organization is in its prime.  If your org strategy is in its final approval stage or a complete re-write of that strategy is about to begin, then alignment to that strategy is a dubious effort.  Second, if any of the organization’s major leaders are in transition (both incoming and outgoing) their personal enthusiasm for the formal strategy could be in play.  To some extent, strategy is a debate amongst executives, and that debate can shift as the players are in flux.

Third, forecasting is a moving target.  In the middle of the Strategic Workforce Planning process there is an attempt to identify a future state and assess scenarios where a different staff composition would prepare the organization for that future.  However, society is changing so quickly and in so many ways that speculation about any likely future state has the shelf life of about a month.  Try writing down your predictions about the future on a piece of paper and then come back to it in 30 days.  With the passage of time you will either be humbled, or you will assert that it’s been doctored and you couldn’t have written something so clueless.  As such, alignment to strategy is brief, making the overall process less tangible and less relevant.

A good example of the struggles of strategic alignment is Uber.  Uber appears to have been built around a culture of rules-breaking on taxi licensing, grey-ethics exploitation of private information about a customer’s physical location, and a backroom culture of dot-com, locker-talk bravado.  With just a little bit of blowback from the public, Uber has been obliged to change senior leaders and reverse elements of the very organizational culture that made it great.  Good luck identifying what their sector will look like in two months, what this week’s executive team is going to do about it, and calibrating staff accordingly.  They might be fine in the near future, but we won’t really know until after the fact.

Consider by contrast an impactful tactical change which adapts to emerging evidence.  There is evidence that an equitable and inclusive work environment fosters better commitment and idea sharing.  There is evidence that workplace incivility has a dramatic impact on general productivity.  There is evidence that customer engagement is hyper-sensitive to employee engagement.  It is possible to develop a supposition that millennials are quitting at a higher rate, only to discover evidence that this is more nuanced and is really about career advancement at all ages.  These insights can have a dramatic impact on an organization’s opinion about what their core function should be, how managers should treat employees, and what kinds of employees and managers you should be hiring or promoting.

Then you would need to double-down and anticipate that even more disruptive evidence will continue to arrive at an even faster rate.  And if you did not adapt in this manner, you can bank on the fact that this adaptation is happening at rival organizations.  This brings us back to the possibility of even more leadership change and yet another re-vamp of organizational strategy.

If you are a manager, a human resource leader, or an analyst you might need to abandon all delusions that you can chart a clear path.  Rather, you are in the mosh pit of life, and your prime directive is to keep moving and not get hurt.  Keep your tempo, have fun, and follow the mood.  You cannot simply obey the directives of those with money or rank.  You must arrive at work fresh and rested, and play hard.  Every day.

Workplace Incivility Drags Workplaces Back to Stone Age

Posted on by Stuart Murray
neanderthal-museum-by-clemens-vasters.jpg
Neanderthal Museum. Photo courtesy of Clemens Vasters.

How important is good manners?  Really, really important.  And it extends much further than knowing what an oyster fork looks like.

Incivility weakens health in areas such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, ulcers, and of course mental health.  For reasons of reducing health care claims alone, mistreatment of staff should be curtailed.  However, preventing workplace incivility is actually a bigger deal than originally thought.

In fact, there is significant research that shows being outright rude to colleagues is a major killer of workplace productivity.

In my jurisdiction, there was legislation brought in a few years ago that obliged employers to curtail bullying and harassment.  The legislation goes beyond the long-standing human rights legislation preventing harassment on prohibited grounds, such as sexism or racism.  The new rules say that if we are to compel others to action we must not be aggressive, humiliating, or intimidating.

Uncivil Workplace Culture Adversely Affects Productivity

According to her research, Christine Porath found that for those treated rudely by their colleagues:

  • 47% intentionally decrease the time spent at work
  • 38% deliberately decrease the quality of their work
  • 66% report that their performance declined
  • 78% said their commitment to the organization declined
  • 80% lost time worrying about the uncivil incident
  • 63% lost work time in their effort to avoid the offender

In addition to the reduced productivity of those who stick around, there is also the consideration of those who quit.  Twelve percent of those treated poorly leave the job because of the incident and, by contrast, those who are treated well by their manager are more likely to stick around.  What is interesting from an analytics perspective is that those treated poorly don’t tell their employers why, making it a blind spot in the data.  We know this from other sources; it’s always okay to say that you’re leaving for a better opportunity elsewhere.  But employees usually quit because of their manager and refuse to talk about it in exit interviews.

In addition to those directly treated in an uncivil manner, those who observe someone else being treated in such a manner are also affected.  “You may get pulled off track thinking about the incident, how you should respond, or whether you’re in the line of fire.”  Those who witness incivility see their performance halved and they “weren’t nearly as creative on brainstorming tasks.”  It makes sense that behavior is social and contagious, and that we feel for those around us.  That includes emotional pain.

The impact is not just contagious between employees, but it also spreads to customers.  In research conducted with two colleagues form the University of Southern California, Porath found that “…many customers are less likely to buy from a company they perceive is uncivil, whether the rudeness is directed at them or other employees.”  When customers witness an uncivil episode between employees, that customer makes generalizations about the company.  This has happened with Uber; customers who perceive a toxic environment have turned to competitors.

It’s more evidence of an emerging business model I refer to as double engagement.  That is, that it is engaged employees who attract and retain engaged customers, causing the revenue flow that marketing and finance want so desperately.  The days of investors and marketing teams driving a product or service into the hands of witless customers is long gone.  We live in a world where being human dictates business strength.

But before we put this all in the hands of the worker, we should note that the main source of an organization’s emotional tone comes from its leadership.  Simply put, when leaders treat their team fairly and well, they are more productive.  The team goes above and beyond.  They have more focus, better engagement, more health and well-being, more trust and safety, and greater job satisfaction.

For leaders, the new bottom line must also now include compassion, emotional sensitivity, and engagement.  You must step away from individual heroics and reverse your sense of who is important.  Why? Because way down at the bottom of the pecking order there may be someone who is not treated so well.  Whether you’re a caveman or a gentleman, if you are stronger and more powerful it is your job to carry them.

How to Become Strong By Understanding Disadvantage

Posted on by Stuart Murray
2012 Marine Corps Trials Day 2.  Photo courtesy of DVIDSHUB.

We hear lots about excellence these days.  So what are the opportunities for persons with disabilities and disadvantages to drive excellence?  It may be that those who are in the throes of disadvantage might not have a fair shot at success.  But there are opportunities for everyone to aspire to excellence, through the cultivation of empathy for those who are disadvantaged.

This is a touching article about a doctor who was concerned about his own mother during her  disabling illness.  The illness was Parkinson’s disease, a degenerative disorder that affects movement.  In the Times article, Dr. Sandeep Jauhar is rigged with a device that allows him to personally experience the sensation of his muscles turning to jelly, like those who have Parkinson’s, like his mother.

Why would he do such a thing?  Because he always wanted to understand his mother’s perspective during the illness.  Devices are also available that replicate the effects of emphysema, psychiatric illness, and nerve disease related to diabetes.

While I haven’t experienced it yet, I have also heard rave reviews about a similar effort called Dark Table.  Dark Table is a restaurant in Vancouver where food is served and eaten in a room which is completely dark.  The servers are blind or visually impaired, and the guests commit to keeping their gadgets off and eating their meals in the dark.  The dark dining experience increases the awareness of other senses such as hearing, touch, and taste.  It creates jobs for persons with disabilities.  And it also helps people empathize with the perspective of the visually impaired.

Emotional Intelligence in Workplace Conflict

On the human resources side of the fence, it’s possible to develop greater empathy for those we are in conflict with.  The nurturing of empathy is important for industrial relations, the professional development of managers, performance conversations, and the general growth of all staff.  How do you teach workplace empathy?  I have been involved in complex roleplay scenarios called Conflict Theatre.  The theatre scenes are designed so that each scenario is integrated into well-developed back stories and emotional perspectives of the actors.

The theatre is presented so as to invite audience members to step into the shoes of an individual actor and attempt to change the course of the conflict.  It’s one thing to sit back and observe from and armchair, and develop an opinion about how things should be done.  But the real expertise is to understand the full emotional context of each player in a conflict, an understanding which is far more vivid when experienced directly.

Empathizing with diverse perspectives turns out to be a key attribute of those who face conflict with dignity and grace.  It takes you beyond the negotiations that resembles bartering for trinkets, and even beyond the interest-based bargaining of those vying for a win-win solution.  You have to learn how to understand people as individuals based on their perspective and story, not their category or “type.”  This includes understanding their perspective when they struggle with ability, whether it’s professional ability or impairments.

Using Emotional Intelligence to Improve Workplace Culture

The thing I find fascinating about these initiatives is their scientific and cultural back-story.  The Parkinson’s device was built in response to well-documented complaints that patients perceive their nurses and doctors lack empathy for their hardships.  Blind dining is traced back to Switzerland by a man named Jorge Spielmann, whose concept was imitated in restaurants in London, Paris, and New York.  Conflict Theatre in Vancouver comes out David Diamond’s Theatre for Living, which itself comes out of Theatre for the Oppressed, created by Augusto Boal in Brazil in the 1970’s.  Theatre for the Oppressed, as you might guess from the name, arises from social critiques and movements to overcome repression, with an intellectual legacy dating well back into the 50’s.

To affect society on the larger scale we need to reach into the emerging science, the social experiments in many countries, and the lessons learned many decades into the past.  The knowledge and confidence of those with power and privilege can pale in comparison to the universe of individual experiences.  In order to take full advantage of the best information when advancing ourselves in this world, we need humility about how right we truly are, curiosity for knowledge that is new, and sensitivity to the lessons from other cultures and other moments in time.  Only then can each of us aspire to excellence.