Work life flexibility - a useful business strategy
Posted by Sharon 13 June 2009
A Fast Company leadership article about CFO views of work life flexibility strategies is yet another example of the knowing - doing gap. Yost’s study of CFO perspectives confirms that American CFOs recognise the business potential of work life balance, yet few of the American companies surveyed have formal policies, or their use is constrained by leadership teams who see such flexibility as perks.
The practices are indicative of the research by Avery & Bergsteiner into sustainable leadership practices in Rhineland Europe, where downsizing has not been a regular practice because leaders realise the value of maintaining a skilled workforce through economic cycles.
For Australian HR professionals, Yost’s research and articles providing a starting point in building a business case for flexibility practices as a viable alternative to downsizing and Avery & Bergsteiner’s research provides the examples of leading organisations that have already turned the knowing into doing.
Customer service resilience - riding the waves of emotionality
Posted by Sharon 2 June 2009
Have you found that as market and job uncertainty creates additional pressure on people, emotionality has increased in the workplace and employees are subject to poor behaviour from clients, suppliers and even peers or managers?
One of our clients noticed this trend and has engaged us to build the resilience of their customer facing staff and managers. We were challenged to make the learning “fun”, so we’ve developed four key lessons using the language of the surf (with accompanying loud shirts and leis):
Lesson 1: “Duck, don’t fight a big wave”. When someone is emotional, they won’t listen to reason, so these people learn to hear an insult or angry voice and say, “This is not really about me, it’s about my role / the product / the company”. Thus, they were less likely to get angry or sarcastic in return and could focus on successfully pointing their clients towards the “shore”.
Lesson 2: “Watch for the end of a set”. They learn to listen for the underlying concern or pattern and to watch for the ending of a tirade. They practiced using the magic word “OK” to express empathy, rather than “Yes, but”ing their client and facing a new wave of anger.
Lesson 3: “Get prepared in the lull”. They learn to make co-operative suggestions in the calm between the angry waves, e.g. “what we can do is…”, “what our options are…”. They also learned to minimize the tendency to say “no”, by exchanging it for “I’d like to help you and ….”, or the softer ending, “…and just not now”.
Lesson 4: “Keep getting back on the wave”. They learn to take a no from the client in their stride and to focus on the progress they were making.
The benefits are happier, more confident team members, who can stay focused on client outcomes and can joke about difficult clients and shrug off the emotions quickly.
If your team is suffering from emotional dumpers, consider a two hour Hawaiian escape session. It’ll be fun and it works.
Give Paul or Sharon a call to arrange a no-obligation, feel-good, discussion.
Working with the Paradox of Brain Plasticity
Posted by Sharon 2 June 2009
I recently listened to author Norman Doidge at the Sydney Writers Festival and promptly bought and read his book The Brain that Changes Itself. What I most liked was the discussion on the paradox of plasticity. It answered the question: “If our brains have plasticity, why do so many of us have habits that are hard to change?”
The answer relates to the title of one of my other favourite authors - Robert Fritz - and his book The Path of Least Resistance (for Managers).
Doidge quotes the metaphor of medical director Alvaro Pascual Leone, who says that our plastic brain is “like a snowy hill in winter” and our genes represent the features of the hill. When we first snowboard down a hill we can take any path we like within the constraints of the hill, but the second and third time we will tend to take a path similar to the first path and thus “the path of least resistance is born”. By the end of the afternoon, we will have created a preferred path and for some, this will be the only path we use because it is fast, efficient and we can snowboard down without thinking too much. Hence a neural path is born and that path is mirrored in our body’s musculature following the same path.
Others who crave variety may wish to try new paths, but they will have to actively focus on looking for and setting new routes - which requires more effort.
So what does this mean for changing existing habits?
Doidge quotes researchers Taub and Pascual - Leone, who found that when it comes to learning new physical skills - you have to block or constrain the commonly used pathway (the competitor for mental energy). E.g. when they want a stroke victim to learn to re-use the non-functioning hand, it happens more quickly if the good hand is bandaged and not available for use. They talk about setting up roadblocks to help change direction and they also talk about “massed practice” giving a person lots of practice in the first few months to develop the new skill.
So this got me thinking about overused mental habits of thinking or feeling - what then? What is the equivalent of bandaging up our strongest thinking and feeling processes so that we can’t use them, thus allowing other areas to develop?
I don’t have firm answers yet, but the question helps explain why it is hard to learn new habits in these areas, unless we engage in some sort of “massed practice” - intensive development opportunities - where we immerse ourselves in the new learning, we encourage our colleagues, friends and family to support us in making the changes and we limit ourselves as much as possible from using our habitual responses.
My challenge this month is to stay appreciative - not critical - of every opportunity. It will be fun I’m sure!!!
Rolling out the Red Carpet for Stakeholders
Posted by Sharon 18 May 2009
Imagine organising a stakeholder meeting, say for staff, community or suppliers, where there was a red carpet leading to the door?
What message would that send to participants of the meeting?
What expectations would that create for you as the organiser?
How might the conversation be different?
This idea comes from Peter Block’s book Community: The Structure of Belonging
Block sees “welcoming” as one way to increase our sense of community and reduce our sense of isolation, on the basis that people are much more likely to support friends than strangers.
A local Sydney-based initiative by colleague Jono Fisher, from WakeUpSydney, challenges us small acts of anonymous kindness or generosity. Without really thinking about it, I have been doing these deeds for years at clients sites when I organise lollies and morning tea treats if management have “forgotten”. The result is that participants think better of management and I trust that this improves the culture just a tiny bit.
What is a friend?
Posted by Sharon 14 April 2009
“A friend is one to whom you can pour out the contents of
your heart, chaff and grain alike, knowing that the gentlest of
hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and
with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”
—anonymous
Courtesy of Guy Kawasaki, The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardeded Guide for Anyone Starting Anything (entrepreneur’s business-book)
Why grow a Growth mindset?
Posted by Sharon 14 April 2009
I read education researcher Carol Dweck’s book on Mindset over the break and the message is intriguing - our mindsets are self-fulfilling prophecies. If I have a “growth mindset”, I believe that I have the capacity to learn and grow and develop, so I will look for every opportunity to do so. If, on the other hand I have a “fixed mindset”, I believe that I have a fixed amount of intelligence, social skills, street smarts, influence. “I’ve either got it or I haven’t”, so I will give up on new skills if I don’t learn them quickly and easily.
This solves a riddle I have noticed in my workshops, where those who are good at something, often want to learn more, while those who aren’t skilled often spend much of their time telling me how they can’t change and how what I am explaining won’t work for them, or it didn’t work the first time they tried it. This has been a tragedy because what I (Sharon) am very good at is breaking down managerial and social skills into their components so that they can be learned and applied and equally Paul is great at explaining how people can organise their electronic workspaces with practical examples that can be applied immediately.
Now it makes sense, if clients have a fixed mindset and have decided they are not good at the skillset, then the conversation in their head will constantly revert back to “what’s the point trying to learn something that I’m not good at because if I was good at it I would be able to do it already?” In fact this little phrase “what’s the point?” is my hint that I am dealing with someone who has a fixed mindset.
Dweck’s book is aimed mostly at teachers and parents and it spreads the good news that we can grow fixed mindsets into growth mindsets. A number of researchers, including Australian Robert Wood and Americans Peter Heslin and colleagues have taken her theories and applied them to management and particularly to performance management and appraisals.
Next week we will discuss how you can grow a mindset in yourself and others. In the meantime, make a list of at least 10 things you have learned to do well and put an asterisk beside any of the items where you remember a time when you had no skill in that area and it was frustrating (compared to other things on the list you learned easily and quickly).
Meaning is the most powerful motivator
Posted by Sharon 14 April 2009
According to author Guy Kawasaki, entrepreneurs don’t ask themselves “Do I want to make money and gain power and prestige?”, rather they ask “Do I want to make meaning?”, or typically “do I want to make a positive difference in this world?”
Kawasaki credits meaning with being the most powerful motivator in the world and I agree. It won’t guarantee success, but it will keep you going long after the money has dried up.
Are you an Indian Giver? And do you want to be?
Posted by Sharon 14 April 2009
I came across a reference to the original definition of an “indian giver” in the 25th anniversary edition of the book The Gift, by Lewis Hyde. The American Indians gave gifts with the expectation that the gift would be returned or passed on, or an equivalent gift given in return. Rather than describe this as a negative, Hyde explores the impact of gift giving and how gifts differ from capital. According to Hyde, the essential rule of the gift is that “one man’s gift must not be another man’s capital” - use it or pass it on.
Hyde also explores the role of gifts in building social capital through building relationships and also through the sharing of ideas. You know the saying: “If I have two dollars and I give you one, I am poorer, but if I have two ideas and give you one, I still have my two ideas”. However, in the days of intellectual property laws, if I give you one of my ideas I may expect a fee in return for your use. In this instance I am not gifting my ideas to you but rather renting them out. I notice that I have long been a gifter when it comes to ideas, but over the past few years I have stopped giving physical presents - because I believed everyone has too much stuff. More recently I have been tempted to gift things from fair trade shops etc. and Hyde’s arguments have helped me reconcile the competing urges.
In addition, I love the “pay if forward” concept and Jono Fisher’s wonderful ambition to start a Kindness Revolution here in Sydney. Check out the website: WakeUpSydney and order your Kindness cards. I got my pack of Kindness cards and sat with them for three weeks before I realised that the aim is to pass them on as quickly as possible. What fun it’s been.
PS If you want to forward on stuff you no longer want, log on to ReUseIt (formerly Freecycle) and find a group near you.
PPS thanks to Sascha Molitoritz from the Sydney Morning Herald, whose gift of his article alerted me to Hyde’s book.
Vote 1 Earth
Posted by Sharon 26 March 2009
I must be one of the many people who haven’t yet met Todd Sampson via the Gruen Transfer, but as of next week I will be an avid viewer. Tonight I listened and watched teary eyed, to his story about the growth of the Earth Hour movement and now I’m all inspired to find other ways for self interest to meet planetary purpose.
As we discussed at dinner, it’s a sign of true democracy at work and I look forward to hearing the numbers come in as over 90 countries - and potentially over a billion peers around the world - vote for a sustainable future for us all.
It’s a long shot, but I’m trying to organise for REMO to print Vote 1 Earth tee-shirts, with proceeds going to the Earth Hour and WWF, so watch this space for news and contact us:info at apassion.com.au if you’d like a tee shirt or two!
A picture is worth…
Posted by Sharon 26 February 2009
I spent a chunk of last year trying to get my head around the research into sustainability, to help position the new “Sustainable Leadership Practices” (SLP) tool I was testing, courtesy of Professor Gayle Avery at MGSM.
In frustration I turned to Wikipedia and found this image (reproduced on the left below) and suddenly all the research clicked into place. The issue for me was that the SLP tool largely measures equitable practices located in the purple space (see below) and I was mainly reading in the green spaces and feeling like the tool didn’t cover enough of that space. Now I am creating my own image so I can confidently locate the SLP tool within the bigger picture.
