Technology Can Reverse the Pecking Order

Posted on by Stuart Murray
Photographers expand horizons in 2010 Army Digital Photography Contest 110311. By U.S. Army
Photographers expand horizons in 2010 Army Digital Photography Contest 110311.  Photo courtesy of the U.S. Army.

It’s funny how a small change in technology can disrupt hierarchy.  As new technologies collect better information about employees, it puts management under increased scrutiny.  In my last post I summarized Josh Bersin’s 2018 forecast of disruptive technologies in HR.  While it is interesting to see that there are tools available that allow us to be more effective, there are dramatic implications to the way we work.

After much delay, it appears that the long-awaited labour shortage has finally arrived.  Bersin notes that this will make an appearance as a “war for talent” with recruiting becoming more competitive.  Chatbots are automating parts of the recruitment process, applicant-tracking systems are making things simpler, there is a wider range of tools for assessing candidates, and I would note that it’s possible to use technology to reduce bias (assuming the AI has been taught to not pass forward pre-existing bias).  Many of these technologies have been pioneered already, which means 2018 will be a year of diffusion.

I think there is a social element of this war for talent that warrants more discussion.  That is, when good employees are being fought over they are more likely to ask for pay increases, apply for promotions, and leave their current workplace for something better.  But it can get even more dramatic when employees are bold enough to sign union cards, tell-off their harasser, and speak openly about how to improve management.  These shifts oblige managers to change.  We can’t pretend that everything is normal.  Hiring managers must start treating employees like they are valued, respected, and deserving of growth.  That’s what it looks like amongst managers who are keeping pace.  By contrast, it may suddenly look odd that there are managers who lack this collaborative orientation.

In the discussion of continuous performance management, Bersin references goal-setting and coaching.  We can’t really slip these items into a discussion of performance management without acknowledging that ground-up performance conversations are not yet fully established.  If emerging research recommends that good managers take a coaching approach, what are the implications for managers using a prescriptive approach running off a forced-distribution scorecard?  Simply put, command-and-control managers need to change their style.

For decades, the research has been bubbling just beneath the surface.  The reality is that for employees, true motivation comes from within, and their ability to align personal motivations to their employer’s strategic environment is key.  Engaged employees achieve two-times or three-times the productivity of other employees, and leadership style is a major factor in achieving high engagement.  The new technology is designed to help managers with that leadership style, but there aren’t a lot of apps that will help advance an archaic style.

On the wellbeing side, there is a variety of new tools to monitor cognitive overload and nudge people to exercise, sleep better, and eat better.  We have so overburdened people with meaningless and counter-productive work obligations that we have to reduce workload to improve productivity.  Deloitte has a good model that describes how engagement, productivity, and wellbeing are integrated into a unified concept.  Wellbeing is not really about fruits-and-veggies advocacy any more; it is integrated into peoples’ ability to focus on their best work.

I’m fascinated by the way this trend up-ends the hierarchy.  As a result of the wellbeing imperative, the people who need to “work harder” are management and leadership who are obliged to clarify goals, cultivate a positive work culture, and encourage employees to seek growth opportunities.  Looking back, it seems like a manager-driven culture which obliges employees to follow orders and be happy with their lot in life is hopelessly archaic.

Thankfully, we don’t need to debate the best leadership style because transformational leadership simply out-performs the alternative.  Just wait a few years and the only teams left standing will be the ones that have stayed at the forward edge.  Lucky for us, this collaborative style makes work more fun.

In my next post we will explore how subjective and qualitative information are making technology and analytics whole.

Waking Up is Not a Competition

Posted on by Stuart Murray
Shadows. By Stuart Murray
Photo by author.

Do you have a strange pang of guilt about your wake-up time?  You shouldn’t.  People have varied natural wake-up times, and the “best” time to wake up appears to be extremely personal.

One of the more important workplace numbers – and one that is rarely discussed – is the normal hours of work and the degree to which hours are flexible.  Work hours are a big deal because people need to make a lot of trade-offs between family size, housing, commuting distance, and family care obligations.  In an office environment, while it’s good to have a general sense of when we want people around for meetings, it also makes sense to ensure peoples’ work and home lives to be compatible.

One item that complicates normal work hours is peoples’ sleep times.  While a lot of people have a typical sleep pattern of 11pm-7am, plenty of people tend to be early risers or night owls.  The variety of sleep times are linked to something called chronotype.  There are many news articles implying that waking early is virtuous, but there is little discussion of whether we can choose to change our sleep patterns.  My reading of the research shows mixed results amongst those attempting to change their wake time.

There are several genetic variables that affect chronotype.  The Wikipedia entry on the topic notes that “there are 22 genetic variants associated with chronotype.”  The sleep cycle is related to our levels of melatonin and our variations in body temperature.  Our age has a major impact on sleep patterns.  Children and those aged 40-60 are more likely to be early risers, while teens and young adults are more likely to be night owls.

In an HBR article from 2010, biology professor Christoph Randler was interviewed about an article he published on sleep cycles.  He cited one study that found that “…about half of school pupils were able to shift their daily sleep-wake schedules by one hour. But significant change can be a challenge. About 50% of a person’s chronotype is due to genetics.”

Looking into people’s personal experiences in attempting to wake up earlier, they will often emphasize discipline and routine in waking up properly.  Other articles identify wake-up technologies that oblige you get out of bed promptly.  The best overview that I could find comes from lifehacker.org, which has a great info-graphic on why and how to become an early riser.

Dr. Randler notes that evening people tend to be smarter, more creative, have a better sense of humor, and be more outgoing.  By contrast, morning people “hold the important cards” as they get better grades and the opportunities that arise from them.  Morning people anticipate problems and minimize them, and are more proactive.  “A number of studies have linked this trait, proactivity, with better job performance, greater career success, and higher wages.”

Team Productivity and Genetic Diversity

What is notable is that early risers have the traits that are most beneficial for their personal effectiveness and their personal career success.  This is troublesome.  You see, if early risers are more likely to get into positions of power and status they are also more likely to end up with a captive audience through which they can imply that others should be more like them.  This may be a factor in the early-rising hype.

I would assert that an employer must always look beyond individual performance and pay close attention to teamwork.  It is common for some behaviours to cause one person get ahead to the detriment of the team, and part of good management is to nip this in the bud and put the team first.  If there is a solid talent pool of night owls who bring smarts and creativity which is historically less recognized in grades or career advancement, their contribution might be strong and also under-appreciated.  We must consider what is best for the entire workplace, and cultivate the best contributions from all sleep types.

If the purpose of our diversity and employment-equity efforts is to get the best out of all people regardless of how they were born, perhaps we should be open-minded about sleep patterns.  The correct moral standard should be inclusiveness and team effectiveness.

Dr. Randler, who is from Germany, is quick to acknowledge that our bias towards early-rising is more circumstantial than fact-based:

“Positive attitudes toward morningness are deeply ingrained. In Germany, for example, Prussian and Calvinist beliefs about the value of rising early are still pervasive. Throughout the world, people who sleep late are too often assumed to be lazy. The result is that the vast majority of school and work schedules are tailored to morning types. Few people are even aware that morningness and eveningness have a powerful biological component.”

We can’t choose to be a morning type any more than we can choose to be tall, male, white, a baby boomer, or someone with executive-face.  And for that matter, we can’t choose to be Prussian.  Under what circumstances would we oblige everyone to fit a single standard of excellence that elevates one genetic type to be superior to the rest?  Didn’t we sort this out already?

Handle Office Politics Like Fitted Sheets

Posted on by Stuart Murray
Women honoured at Herat hospital
Women honored at Herat Hospital, Afghanistan, IWD 2011.  ResoluteSupport Media.

Office politics and fitted sheets are basically the same thing.

Before you truly understand fitted sheets, they entangle you, waste your time, and you can’t fold and put them away properly.  Sure, there are people who have a proper folding method, but who has the time to learn this kind of skill?  Yet if your fitted sheets are a bundled mass at the back of the closet, you’ll never feel like you’re great at everything.  But if you ask those who have mastered fitted sheets, you will notice that they have no stress about this topic.  It’s all very simple and easy, just something that needs extra attention.

Office politics is the same thing.  It entangles your day-job with something you think shouldn’t be such a big deal.  There are “proper” ways of dealing with office politics, but are there a gazillion methods and it’s bewildering.

Are office politics even a real skill?  Or is it just some nuisance that sits at the back of your career history, making your best efforts seem unfinished.  The funny thing about office politics is that it’s always messy when you don’t do anything about it.  But there are people who just apply the correct efforts using a couple of simple rules, and they seem strangely calm.  How do they do that?

Here are your instructions for handling fitted sheets.

You need two sets of bedding so don’t have to wait all day for everything to dry.  Wash all bedding in one load, but place the single fitted sheet in the drier on its own.  It will dry quickly.  The rest of the bedding goes into the drier as another load, and will dry faster unentangled.

When folding a fitted sheet, just fold it in half like a towel, bringing two fitted ends together.  Match the corner of elastic bands together, and the sticky-out parts are nested inside one another.  Do this with all four corners in pairs.  Then fold it in half so you have three corners and a semi-circle hanging on the bottom.  Fold it again until most of it looks like a proper rectangle and the semi-circle is not visible.  It will look pretty good but not perfect.  Store it with the rest of the folded bedding, and leave it there until you need it.

Then stop complaining about fitted sheets.

Here are your instructions for handling office politics.  Perceive more than one set of overlords; the one you report to currently, plus their boss, plus the person you’re probably going to work for in three years.  Do all of your normal work as one effort, applying intelligence and exertion plus your own special thing.

Like putting a fitted single sheet in the drier, treat each office-politics-item as a single-purpose puzzle, and apply your best judgment with partial disregard for other concerns.  Who is going to backfill the senior vacancy?  We’ll have to rely on the selection process.  Why do those two people dislike each other?  If one of them trusts you, ask politely about their history.  Was that story I heard personal, and should I not pass it on?  When in doubt say nothing.  These items are confusing when bundled together and entangled with your normal efforts.  So keep it simple.

Now, bring it all together into a clear understanding of what the general dynamic is.  Store all of the agendas together in one place in your mind, simple and organized.

Leave it there until you need it.

And don’t complain about office politics.

Failing to Fail is Our Greatest Risk

Posted on by Stuart Murray
Anguish. By Porsche Brosseau
Anguish. Photo courtesy of Porsche Brosseau.

Failure is often imposed upon us, in settings where we didn’t get a fair chance to perform well.  It’s an incorrect word that we cling to when gripped by self-doubt.  Often this failure spurs an adaptability which sets us up for long-term success.  This means that failure is a word that we must take back and own, mid-process during growth.  There are not winners and losers any more, just those who adapt and those who do not.

Adaptability is the new smart.

Every now and then a good consulting firm offers some exceptional free material online.  Today’s find is Academic Impressions from Boulder, Colorado.  Academic Impressions prides themselves on providing “high quality learning opportunities for academic and administrative leaders in higher education.”

The article that caught my attention, Preparing Students to Lose Their Jobs, encourages postsecondary institutions to prepare students to get their next job, then lose that job, then move on to the next one.  The article calls on robust sources to interpret that “The future of work is adapting to change, failure as a norm, and …a longer career arc in which to experience many different and uniquely distinct careers.”  They also endorse the emerging opinion that technology and globalization will rationalize routine efforts, obliging all (employed) humans to focus on empathy.

Theirs is an opinion that adaptability to change will be the core attribute of successful and well-educated adults.  Therefore, learning to be adaptable must be a top priority.  Adaptability requires a variety of attributes that are agnostic to IQ and “the acquisition of predetermined skills”, the old hallmarks of a solid bricks-and-mortar education.

Adapting to Change Via Professional Development and Workforce Analytics

The new attributes required for workplace success are:

  • An agile mindset which relies on empathy, divergent thinking, and an entrepreneurial outlook.
  • Having the social and emotional intelligence “to adapt and thrive in a world that is increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous.” Their critique mirrors Elif Shafak’s TED talk on embracing complexity which also became public in September 2017.
  • Improving the speed at which we try, fail, adapt, and grow upward into the next level of challenge. External factors that drive us to failure or obsolescence will become more common, so avoidance of this change will not help.  Rather, we must learn our way into the next opportunity.  New opportunities abound, so get to them promptly… by moving on.
  • Developing a personal history of having changed context and perspective, either from a change of country as an immigrant, a shift in personal identity, or having adapted to some kind of “failure.” These shifts do not have to be shameful.  They can an important part of a meaningful story that makes us whole.
  • Our negative internal voice – the one that tells us the failure we are experiencing is because we are lacking in some shameful way – needs to be regulated, mitigated and subdued by self-reflection, meditation, and connecting our opinions to concrete evidence.

That last item is music to my ears.  On one hand, we need a general positive attitude and healthy self-image.  On the other hand, a little bit of good data can nourish us and help us overcome ill-conceived notions about our worth.  Logic and emotion come together to make the ultimate hot-and-sour soup, like a comfort food in times of change.  You need to seek new information, let it soak in, and talk yourself through it.  Then product-test your new self image with your friends, to make sure it rings true.  And, no punchline, just go!

Look at Her Go! Achieving the Perfect Quit

Posted on by Stuart Murray
Sigrid practicing. By Victor Valore
Sigrid practicing.  Photo courtesy of Victor Valore.

This is a provocative article suggesting that it’s a good thing if an employer loses good people.  To be clear, it’s not a good thing if an employer loses people who quit in disgust.  Rather, if you are cultivating an engaged work environment in which everyone is encouraged to move onward and upward, then there is a price to pay.  That price is that sometimes employees take advantage of external opportunities.

The author of the article is Drew Falkman from a firm called Modus Create, a technology services company with a soft spot for people development.  He suggests that if you are losing good people it is a sign of an engaged work environment that attracts transparently ambitious people.  Ambitious people will regard your workplace as an exceptional diving board into the pool of life.  These can be good people to work with.

What do you think? Could your new employer brand be “diving boards are us”?  The reason I ask, is that most people are only familiar with what competitive diving looks like moments after the diver has taken flight.  But in the years prior to jumping the diver will have put much effort into developing courage, strength, and skill. Would you have a better workplace if a larger fraction of your employees were constantly building towards a visible and transparent goal?  This spirit of growing and striving would be a great workplace culture for employee and employer alike.

This change of attitude on the employer’s part redefines performance excellence as an act of motion amidst a growth mindset, not a final accomplishment that presumes a fixed state.  A workplace that is always striving performs better than one in which managers treat their best staff as collectibles.

Managers are notorious for trying to hold onto their top-performers and keep them at their current level.   It’s so convenient for the manager, having excellent people who are prohibited from seeking new opportunities, locked into place just-so, delivering double the productivity.  These people practically manage themselves, and the manager doesn’t need to spend extra hours training them or replacing them when they leave.  If the manager can cultivate a team like this, perhaps the manager should get the biggest bonus.

But thinking about the whole institution and the economy in general, locking-down high performers is a recipe for stagnation.  Perhaps the millennials were right?  Maybe we should stop tolerating mediocrity and take for granted that generalized career ambition is part-and-parcel of performance and workplace engagement.

Employers are increasingly desperate for good hires into the senior ranks, and they’re blunt that they should always be free to bring in good people from other institutions.  So, as a society, the “correct” opinion is that employers and employees alike should be moving everyone upward and onward.  Therefore, career-growth exits are a good thing.

But it gets better.

Falkman suggests that former employees are valuable to your organization as well.  Former employees can speak highly of their work experience at your organization, improving the employer and customer brand.  Supportive former employees can also become committed customers, suppliers, or investors.  You can go the extra mile and organize this resource of boomerang employees, building current staff to eventually be part of an alumni pool who continue to grow, keep in touch with their peers, and make themselves available as boomerang employees.

Every now and then a contrary opinion comes along that you really need to take seriously.  This is one of the good ones.

Hippos Need a Devil’s Advocate

Posted on by Stuart Murray

Hippo II, by Andrew Moore
Hippo II.  Photo courtesy of Andrew Moore.
Hierarchy is the enemy of information-sharing.

In this Linkedin article by Benard Marr the author identifies that people are extremely reluctant to express views contrary to Highest-Paid Person’s Opinion, or HiPPO for short.  Marr cites the book Web Analytics: An Hour a Day, by Avinash Kaushik, in which that author describes the dynamic;

“HiPPOs usually have the most experience and power in the room.  Once their opinion is out, voices of dissent are usually shut out and in some cases, based on the culture, others fear speaking out against the HiPPO’s direction even if they disagree with it.”

Marr references the Milgram experiment in 1963 in which obedience to an authority figure overpowered peoples’ personal conscience.  There is an additional study that finds that projects led by senior leaders fail more often, because employees “…didn’t feel as able to give critical feedback to high-status leaders.”

What is the solution?  Marr asserts that relying on data is critical; we must line up the data to inform a decision prior to gut decisions being expressed by high-ranking people.  There is also an example of Alfred Sloan of General Motors who insisted that a decision should not be made until people have considered that the decision might not be the right one.  Sloan fosters the devil’s advocate in the process of decision-making.

I think this critique and the related research implies that modesty is mission-critical.  It’s an important contrary idea because it implies that confidence might not be a leading indicator of effectiveness.  We wish our leaders were strong and brave and looked the part, but it’s far better when our leaders are right… because they thought twice, and waited for new information, and new opinions, from people with less status.

I also think that a properly organized social network of knowledge is usually superior to the thoughts of any one individual.  With education and access to information, it should become evident that you barely know one percent of what could be known.  However, if you aspire to having a diverse network of people with different backgrounds, contexts, professions, and knowledge, you can bundle together better insights from those who each know a different one percent.

Finally, a pro-social spirit of dissent is key to getting the information moving.  When information goes up the hierarchy there are problems of posture, reprisals, hubris, and corrosive office politics.  If you love knowledge, you should develop a sense that all those things are silly little power games that have nothing to do with wisdom or effectiveness.  To be good at your job, is to regard your superiors as capable agents of decision-making who are morally your equal.  And it’s your job to make them stronger, whether they like it or not.

It’s a troublesome attitude, but that’s part-and-parcel of disrupting decision-making with new and relevant information.