Workplace Challenges
Mental Health at Work
I like to imagine how different the posts on LinkedIn might have looked when I first entered FTSE commercial life in the 90s.
Have a quick scroll… the brilliant posts around Mental Health First Aid, the importance of psychological safety and emotional intelligence and photographs of employees having fun together doing things only vaguely related to work would have been viewed as ‘nice to have’ or downright fluffy…
But as always, if we look to hard science we can find sound reasons why this evolution and investment in our people has gained huge traction. Mental health disorders cause more absence and reduced productivity at work than bad backs, broken limbs and every other muscular-skeletal issue added together.
A psychology study just published (March 2023) helps us understand more about the specific things that make a workplace or occupation ‘high risk’ for mental health problems – taking aside the actual nature of the work itself or the socio-economic profile of people recruited to that job.
People who reported that they had these three things in their work-life were significantly less likely to experience mental health issues at work. Unsurprisingly the ‘negative top three’ look quite similar:
1) Excessive Job Demands
2) Low Social Support at Work
3) Lack of Control over work
The research also found that staying in jobs where excessive demands, low support and lack of control persist over time increases the risk of mental health issues – we don’t become ‘immune’ or get used to it.
This is one of the first studies to be ‘adjusted’. Removing the jargon means that the results took into account the characteristics of the occupation (for example how dangerous or ‘stressful’ it was), the social and economic patterns of people who are recruited into particular roles (the old terminology of ‘blue collar/white collar’) and the prior mental health of the people studied or any life events that may have impacted their mental health.
What this ‘adjustment’ means in practical terms for those of us who just want to get on and do something about workplace absence or increasing productivity and engagement at work, is that there are no excuses! The top three are the top three.
Research like this is useful because it can remove any smoke and mirrors or doubt about what we should actually prioritise and get on and do.
So provide opportunities for social support, ask people whether they feel a sense of accomplishment – and if not what would and give people as much control and autonomy as you can and you won’t go far wrong!
Equally, continue with excessive work demands and social events or environments that don’t take account of your diverse workplace and expect nothing more or less than higher absence and lower productivity than your competitors.
Sometimes science does make it that simple!
How to Overcome the Challenges Faced by Women in Business
As published in the Finance Digest, by Dulcie Swanston
The business case for increasing the number of women in senior roles in business is startling. If companies with 33% or less women executives were to perform with the same net profit margin as companies with more than 33% women executives, this would lead to an additional £195bn of pre-tax profits.
With a broad acceptance of this evidence, the stated and positive intentions on social media (so evident recently on International Women’s Day) and robust diversity strategies in most workplaces, it can be hard to get your head around how gender inequality can still persist in business when it does not make good financial sense and so much effort is seemingly put in to level the playing field.
However, a little knowledge about the science behind gender bias and our personal ‘immunity’ to change can highlight the complex and concealed reasons that stand in the way of women overcoming the challenges they might face at work to progress – and help women and their organisations to work through and beyond them.
Unconscious Gender Bias
Our unconscious biases were embedded long before our careers began. We all have them, even when we believe ourselves to be genuinely committed to equality. One study highlighted that blind auditions increased chances of female musicians being hired by 46%. And, over 630,000 people in world-wide Implicit Association Test (IAT) for bias correlated males more strongly with competence in science and females with humanities when this competence has no basis in fact.
This evidence can help us to realise that whilst we might be actively committed to the idea that we want to contribute to having a progressive workplace where women can progress, there may be some things that we are doing that are unhelpful and work against our good intentions.
For example, if your organisation uses Cognitive Ability or GCA tests which look at thinking and reasoning then you might be interested to know that women perform less well on these tests (this applies to BAME and neuro-diverse candidates too). Non-cognitive battery tests which look at motivation, integrity, and interpersonal skills, don’t have these sub-group differences.
Your organisation may have research that shows these tests have ‘high predictive validity’, meaning that people who perform well in role, also do well in these tests. However, one study showed that people who do well in these types of tests (white males) have had resources given to them throughout life, such as schooling, childhood postcode and in some cases simply more practice at these types of tests, that make a difference to scores in later life. Another research study showed that men are simply more confident in their abilities to do these tests well. When no brief was given to a group before a GCA test, men performed better than their female counterparts. However, when the women in the group were shown evidence beforehand that women had just as much innate ability as men at maths, the female candidates outperformed the men.
Does your organisation measure commitment on output or presenteeism? There is lots of research to show that hours worked do not correlate with equal performance. Are people in your organisation penalised for working shorter hours? It might be worth questioning, aside from salary, what else they miss out on that has simply been overlooked.
It’s hugely discomforting to confront that you personally, or an organisation that you have worked hard to make more diverse, isn’t free of bias and that it is just something that a few stuffy, out of date colleagues have going on. Many of the barriers that women face to progression are unintentional. Appreciating that the ways in which we may all be contributing to making a workplace more difficult for women to progress in and which may even be hidden from the women themselves and their strongest supporters, will be crucial for individuals and organisations that really want to make a difference.
Personal Change Immunity
Whilst we can accept personal change is desirable and necessary, doing something about it and sustaining new habits is easier said than done. Our innate ‘immunity to actual change’ researched by two leading Harvard academics in 2009 soberingly summarised;
‘…a study showed that when doctors tell heart patients they will die if they don’t change their habits, only one in seven will be able to follow through successfully…
Business is not life or death so our ability to follow though with change that makes us feels uncomfortable or requires confrontation of personal biases is likely to be even less than one in seven.
Give up?
Understanding the hidden biases and the human difficulty of changing anything at all can help us to appreciate there isn’t likely to be a quick fix or a silver bullet for your organisation or yourself when it comes to levelling the playing field. Without a deeper understanding of the neuroscience that exists underneath our organisational cultures and values, we may understand the business case and actively support the initiatives intended to level the playing field but not understand why the return on investment is frustratingly elusive. Lasting change takes time, constant vigilance and a permanent commitment to cultivating a growth mindset for the women themselves and their supporters – let alone their detractors!
You’d be forgiven for thinking the changes seem insurmountable! Alternatively, we can take the view that by understanding this science and appreciating the complexity, we can avoid investing organisational finances and personal energy into initiatives that are well intentioned, but which don’t generate change that having a genuinely diverse workplace brings nor at the pace we need for growth.
Here are three things to invest your time and money in that just might make a difference!
Build trust to get permission to challenge
To have any chance of exposing unconscious bias and addressing our immunity to change, we must trust the person that is challenging our assumptions. As human beings, if we don’t trust that the person who feeds something back to us genuinely has our best intentions at heart and is being authentic and honest, then we can’t help but move into defensive mode to protect ourselves.
Leaders in an organisation who are trying to encourage more women into senior roles must cultivate trust for their teams to feedback openly, or people simply won’t speak truth to power. When it becomes normal to challenge and safe for people to voice uncomfortable truths and raise difficult issues, the organisation has a chance to confront difficult situations that don’t have easy, off the shelf answers.
Creating a culture of trust which gives people the courage to challenge is crucial when something the leader themselves or the organisation are doing is positively intentioned – but isn’t actually having the desired effect.
Equally women who want to progress can overcome some of the challenges they will face by finding a mentor or coach that they trust implicitly to give them difficult feedback when a behaviour or part of their style is holding them back.
Invest in the right support
Unfortunately, there is mixed evidence that unconscious bias training works, despite a McKinsey estimate that about $8bn is spent on diversity training annually in the US alone. The UK Civil Service halted their unconscious bias training in 2020 after carefully reviewing evidence which concluded amongst other things that implicit bias training had little effect on the growth of women in management.
A ‘tick-box’ training day might highlight unconscious bias exists, but it can do more harm than good if people think that in undertaking it, the problem is solved. Tackling unconscious bias will always be deeply uncomfortable because our brains are wired to resist challenges to our existing patterns. It’s therefore naïve to expect that lasting change can result from simple ‘tick-box’ training days. Any training that can even begin to unravel such complex and deep-rooted neurological wiring will need to be deep, thoughtful and ongoing.
An investment in training that helps both male and female understand how to build trust by being authentic and empathetic and then using that trust to provide positive and proactive challenge that people can hear is likely to have more positive impact and better long-term return on investment.
Coaching or specific female focused training can have an impact by improving resilience, confidence, and by enabling women to flex their style. However, if this is not being done within an environment where their endeavours will be supported back in the organisation in the layers above them, it’s likely to be a wasted investment, the best women will either leave with their newfound knowledge or revert to role modelling the behaviour that exists already in the successful people around them – which is over-represented with middle class white males.
Unconscious bias being part of, but not the sole focus of, personal development can show significant return on investment. Learning about the research and science into authenticity and diversity in mixed groups can be hugely beneficial. Becoming an authentic leader who people can trust necessarily involves understanding your limiting beliefs and unhelpful innate biases. There is huge power in understanding the importance of dialling up the qualities you might naturally possess that help others to trust you even though you may be unaware of the impact they have. Equally, without truthful feedback we can’t dial down the things we are doing with positive intent but are not aware that are getting in the way.
Start with yourself
If you are a woman in business challenge your own bias about what you can and cannot do. Of
course, it makes sense to focus on your strengths but try to identify when you are telling yourself or
others something that has no basis in fact but does have some truth in the way that gender is
perceived – for example “I’m no good with numbers” or “I’m useless with technology”. Question
whether you have tried to get better at numbers or whether you are investing enough time in
getting up to speed with the technology relevant to your marketplace.
Are you perpetuating some of the myths that exist in your organisation with your own words and
actions? Question yourself and others around you when you hear limiting beliefs about
presenteeism such as “I can’t really commit to the hours a more senior job needs” or over-
apologising for being a parent when inevitable difficulties arise “I’m so sorry, I feel terrible, but I
need to fetch my son from school because he is ill”.
It can be frustrating when an organisational process is getting in the way of your personal
development. It is also undoubtably ‘unfair’ that the same behaviour in a man can be perceived as
‘strong’ and in a woman as ‘aggressive’. However, investing too much thinking power and airtime on
things that you can’t control or influence can distract you from investing your precious brain fuel and
limited time on the things you can. Are you better spending hours railing at the injustice that if you
were a man that your work persona would be perceived differently? Or taking that unpalatable truth
as unfair but out for your control for now, and finding a smart, slightly different but still wholly
authentic way to present your ideas that gets people on board.
Lisa Wilcox 2020. Women Count 2020. The Pipeline p.16.
Forced Fun at The Office Christmas Party…
Christmas is a time for fun and celebration right?! Well, it all rather depends on your definition of “fun”. I recently joined Emma Barnett and Bea Appleby on Bea in my Barnett slot on BBC Five Live. We talked about Bea feeling obliged to take time away from her family to have “forced fun” with colleagues at Christmas. She recalled a scene from the day before. A group of visibly bored people at an office lunch party, looking like they would rather be anywhere else. Clearly not fun. However, as I hope I politely pointed out – the person who had organised that dull looking “do” had obviously done it with the best of intentions. It was unlikely they deliberately made choices to force people into not having fun!
So, that got me thinking.
If you are a reluctant guest, given you probably, (albeit reluctantly) are going, how can you help your reluctant brain to find a scrap of enjoyment? And if you are the party organiser, what can you do to help please most of the people, most of the time.
For Reluctant Guests
Listen to your self-talk
Be aware that as soon as you tell yourself “This is going to be rubbish”, your brain will look for evidence that this is true. If you want the science, look up “cognitive dissonance”. Our brains like what they know to be true already. If you think something is true, you will look for evidence you are right and ignore evidence to the contrary. So try telling yourself, “I’ll go with an open mind and find something small to enjoy”. This at least gives your brain the option to have a good time!
Beware being the “Bored Boss”
There are 2 things you need to know…1) There is a trick that our brain plays on us called Negativity Bias. It means that we are likely to pay more attention to criticism than we are to praise. 2) There is something called the Authority Index. It means people will pay more attention to what you do or say if you are the person in charge or with the most influence. Combine the two and if you are a boss looking bored, the chances are that your attitude will be infectious. This could mean that even people who are really looking forward to the event or were throughly enjoying themselves might align themselves with you and start to hate it. You could literally be a killjoy without knowing it.
For Party Organisers
Consult on what people hate
Ask around and find out what people really don’t want to do. It’s strange but our human brains are quite quick at coming up with lists of things we don’t like (What habits would you hate in a partner?) Whereas ask us what we do want (What does your ideal partner look like?) we can draw a bit of a blank. The question seems almost too big to answer. So chances are, if you say to people “What should we do for our team get-together?” People might say “Dunno”. Whereas if you ask, “What should we definitely avoid when we are thinking about getting together as a team?” People might give you a quick checklist. We can’t please all of the people all of the time. But the right question can get you closer.
Avoid delegating the job of party-organiser to the party-animal
Curious one. But people with a strong sense of fun can sometimes miss that one person’s definition of fun can be another person’s idea of a nightmare. So don’t always choose the gregarious, party going person to create your party. Choose someone that understands that people’s ideas of “fun” are inherently different.
Positively allow people to adapt
Try to choose an activity or an event where people can play along in their own way. Don’t create an event that will only appeal to the strongly outgoing – unless you have a whole team made up of the strongly outgoing! Instead create something where there is a role for the person who loves to observe the action, without getting embroiled in it too.
Be considerate about diversity
Most organisations have genuinely tried to promote diversity and provide so many more opportunities for flexible working. It means our work-places are so much more diverse than they use to be, so don’t chuck that away by not considering your social events! Be considerate when you are thinking about the provision of alcohol and things like location or start and finish times. Try to think about whether you can arrange the event for during the working day when people have already made personal arrangements to be with you anyway. Some people love an excuse for a late night and a belly full of beer. You don’t want the single parent, new to the town with no babysitting network who has no choice but to arrive sober and on time for a school pick up at 4pm to feel like more of an outsider than they probably already do…
It might be too late for this year. But maybe your next team event might go with a bang! If you need some help, get in touch with us at TeaBreakTraining.com. We have loads of ideas about how to make team events and learning new skills fun – for everyone.
Meeting Fatigue
A recent study in The Times reported what most of us know already. We are spending way too much time in meetings talking about doing things that we could actually be doing instead…If only we weren’t in a meeting talking about it.
Ask yourself:
Which meetings in your working week do you look forward to, enjoy and find a really productive use of your time?
How many times have you been in a meeting and thought a decision could have been better made with fewer people and/or on the phone or via a 1:1 discussion
Research in the US showed that lost productivity from ineffective meetings costs business up to $283 billion per year
Give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change…
Cultural Mapping and Change
Most of the work I do with organisations relates to change. I might be asked to help with an organisational change that will impact upon established ways of working, or to help them to introduce new ways of thinking, learning or leading.
It’s usually never easy!
But it can be a lot easier if the leaders who are responsible for the change don’t assume that they can simply tell people that they are going to do something new. And expect that will do the job.
I have seen many examples where despite following a sensible step-change model, a change or new initiative simply does not land as hoped. There had been an assumption that with good consultation and a firm project plan, it would be possible to “paper-over” the old culture of an organisation or an existing way of working. It is sometimes hoped that because the “new” is bright, attractive and fashionable that the “bumps” underneath – those places where the change doesn’t really fit or seem that popular – won’t matter.
When we pause to think about it, is it surprising that change does not always go down well – even if it looks like something that everyone would welcome. Most of the aspects of an organisations existing culture are man-made [sic?!] And if there is one thing that people aren’t very good with as a rule, it is change. Even change for the better. (Anyone who has ever struggled to stay fit, slim or sober will tell you that!)
So what can we do to plan where change might stick and change might struggle? How can we identify the unwritten rules of the organisation that might get in the way of the formal plan?
It is helpful to map out the organisation. Imagine the business as an island viewed from above with a bird-eye view. This aerial perspective would reveal the island’s own contours and the unique landmarks. Some parts of the island/organisation would have occurred naturally and been there forever. Other parts would be man-made and recent. The different parts would relate to each other – so roads would lead to particular destinations. Parts might be fenced off or protected. Some bits are beautiful and some useful but ugly. But they are all part of the island’s unique and individual aerial “map”.
Imagine the change you are seeking to implement was the equivalent of dropping a huge parachute that was big enough to cover the island from the sky.
Where the land was flat and uninhabited, the sections of the parachute landing there would cover the ground, settle quickly and almost instantly obscure what was there before.
The parts of the parachute that floated down towards hills or mountains, would have to adapt to the unique contours of the hill to find their settling point.
If the mega-parachute landed on a settlement and there was not a plan to adapt or move the people first, there is no doubt that they would find their own varied ways to get around that – either by finding a hole or an edge in the Nylon, or cutting through it and clearing the parachute off their part of the land completely. Either way damage would be done and panic would likely ensue.
Finally where the parachute came down towards a church steeple or a wind farm, the parachute would just rip, however solidly constructed it was. The steeple or turbine would proudly poke right through it.
It can be a useful image to think about when trying to change something in an organisation. We can assume that we can just land something and people will calmly and rationally adapt to it. But it’s never the case, particularly if they are not on board – It seems ridiculous to assume that people would happily live with a piece of Nylon over their heads! But actually why is any more ridiculous to assume that they would be happy to move offices and have an additional 20 minute commute or change a habit of a lifetime.
Thus it helps to think about the “map” of the organisation. Imagine you had a bird’s eye view and were looking at it from above. What are it’s own unique characteristics. Which are obvious – like the biggest mountains? And which are more subtle and unrecognisable because they are man-made and layered – but very important to someone. You are mapping out the different aspects to the organisation – such as the structure and the behaviours so that you can start to see what matters the most.
When you create a map, it can help you identify where are the bits of the organisation where the change will land with very few obstructions? Where will it land but need to adapt to the “contours” of the organisation but remain intact and still recognisable? And where because of the strength of feeling will people find a way to escape out from underneath it – either quietly or with aggression. And where will it simply rip on landing unless it is particularly well reinforced in that particular area – or patched-up quickly?!
I like the cultural map or web invented by Johnson and Scholes in the late 80’s because it does not just pay attention to the obvious things that we might look at when we are think about mapping out an organisation – such as the policies or the organisational structure. But it also reminds us to look for more subtle clues about where we might hit problems – What stories are proudly repeated in the organisation? What tangible and intangible symbols of power exist in the business? We can begin to think about whether the change is congruent with those symbols and stories. And if not, we can plan what to do about it.
Identifying what the stories, symbols and routines are that make the cultural map unique today, can help you understand what might be possible tomorrow.
One quick but really effective way to assess how well a cultural change programme might land is to draw 2 maps – One showing what the dominant aspects of the culture you have now and one showing what might be in the aspirational culture you want to create. When you compare the two it starts to become more obvious what the barriers might be. Will the people in your organisation see your “parachute” as essential to survival or providing the means to escape from some organisational practises that are no longer working? Or as a suffocating cover that destroys all that is important to them?
The cultural “web” that Johnson and Scholes used to map organisations contains 6 inter-related parts
The Stories and Myths that are told about past and current events.It is interesting to compare the stories that are told inside and outside of the company – do they match? Who are the heroes in the stories that are told and who are the villains? What stories are told about when people succeed or fail? How long have the Myths been in existence? How long does it take for a new story to take hold and what sort of stories capture the imagination of the people the best?
The visible Symbols that represent what the Company “stands for” This could be the obvious ones like the logo, but is also about the informality or the grand-ness of the offices, whether the dress code is formal or informal. Whether the car park has Director spaces right be the door.
The Power Structures that exist in the business. It may be that the power is held by one or two Executives, or that a whole department actually holds the most sway. How is power attained – is it earned or ascribed? Where are the pockets of real power and influence – who really influences decisions and direction regardless of role. Where does change usually emerge from? Who is socially successful and what characterises that informal power?
The Organisational Structures that exist in the business. Who reports where? What does that tell you about how different departments or different individuals are viewed? Which structural aspects illustrate whose contributions are most valued? It can help to look at meeting structures as part of this. Who attends which meetings and how is that related and reflected in the organisational structure.
The Control Systems – so the way that the organisation exerts control over itself and the people within it. How formal or informal are the financial and quality systems? How is performance rewarded and how is underperformance dealt with? What is expensed and what is not. How generous are the benefits and why? Are control systems followed religiously or “accidentally” ignored. If there is a difference between how different departments adhere to the control systems, does this inform what you know about the power structure?
The Rituals and Routines are the daily behaviours that you see that signal acceptable behaviour. What actions are taken that people perceive as “normal” which in another organisation might be interpreted differently? What behaviours are rewarded and punished – both formally and informally? What is supposed to happen in particular situations? What do managers pay attention to (and is this different to what they profess to pay attention to?!)
We hope that this provides you with a way to look at your organisation in a different way and provides you with some practical next steps that you can undertake to make change happen more successfully. For help, guidance or practical training to help get you there, please get in touch at dulcie@profitablyengaged.com or visit our websites at www.profitablyengaged.com or teabreaktraining.com
AQ – Adaptability Quotient and the Growth Mindset
AQ – Adaptability Quotient is being cited as the “New EQ” – the big thing that will make the difference between excellence and extinction in the modern workplace.
In a nutshell, it’s about how well placed you are as an individual or organisation, to adapt to the rapidly changing circumstances in which we now all operate.
When I’m talking to clients I use the Blockbuster example. It would not have mattered if they had the most engaged teams, the best leaders, the best sites and the most impressive labour and GP ratios. There business would still have died because people became able to watch films for free on their telephones.
It is super easy to be exceptionally busy with all the things that have always made you successful as an individual. Or focus almost entirely on the things that are driving the profitability of your business today.
But how much time and structured thinking do you put into the things that might make your business obselete in 10 years? Or maybe more scarily, turn you from someone with a proven track record in skills that are highly valued, into someone who is the business equivalent of a Betamax expert.
It’s not new science. How adaptable we are is closely connected to things you may have read already about Growth Mindset.
However the AQ or adaptive thinking terminology has helped emphasise one of the most difficult things we overcome when we develop a genuine Growth Mindset – that we have to learn to challenge our very deeply helps beliefs on things. And that sometimes these are the very things that made us successful in the first place.
I’ve summarised what it takes to train your brain to have a higher AQ at the bottom of this article, using the acronym ADAPTS so it’s easy to remember and pass on.
So if it is such an easy concept to get your head around, why is AQ so prized? It’s because it is easy to define, but really difficult to do.
This is because our brains don’t like adaption. So those with high AQ are likely to have done some pretty difficult thinking. Adapting in business is crucial, but when the “what’s in it for me” is more important even than that – and is the difference between surving or dying, our brains are great at coming up with very rational ways to resist adaption.
I am very fond of the sad story told in a HBR book Immunity to Change. A number of heart patients were told that they were faced with almost certain death if they did not change their lifestyle habits. Only 1 in 7 were able to make the necessary changes. 6 died.
Even when it is literally a matter of life and death, the motivation to change is not enough. We still listen to our faulty wiring. Our brain finds evidence that what we have always done is still OK and we listen to it because it means we don’t have to do something difficult or painful.
When our brain tells us “I know I have to find the time to do this a bit differently and I will definitely do it tomorrow” we can defer what we need to do, but will be difficult. And go back to focusing on what is comfortable instead.
It makes sense. Old habits die hard – especially ones that we think helped to contribute to previous success.
Take the scientific research that appears to prove irrefutably that there is a link between whether people like you and whether they rate you professionally.
In one Harvard study of over 57,000 leaders only 0.1% of who were disliked by their teams, were also perceived as being good at their job.
How hard would that be to read if you were a 50 year old Executive who has oft quoted the mantra “I’m not here to be liked, I’m here to be respected.”
Woah. Our brains just don’t like that sort of curve ball. We have a complex system of thinking that is there for good reason – to protect us from the shame of being wrong. Or the disappointment of wondering about what could have been.
So instead our brains try to keep us safe from shame and disappointment and quickly find “evidence” that justifies keeping that questionable belief intact. But that is what AQ is all about. Developing the confidence and mental agility to adapt even your most strongly held beliefs and assumptions if you find they might be wrong.
A leader who has not bothered previously about being “liked” with low AQ would probably stick with the first “rational” thought that dismisses that research out of hand and enables them to get back to the business of the day. “Yeah but that was just in America. It’s unlikely that it was in a tough environment like mine. Look at what I’ve achieved. It’s clearly tree hugging rubbish.”
It’s much, much harder to develop a personal high AQ. Where you allow yourself to feel a bit ashamed of yourself for being quite horrible at times and acknowledge you might need to adapt your thinking into something like “Well that blows my assumption out of the water that it is shows weakness to want to be liked. Wow, that’s uncomfortable. What would I have done differently if I had known this 20 years ago? OK. Let’s think. What can I do about this right now. Today”.
Given how hard genuine adaptive change is for us as individuals, why are we surprised that it is even harder – and sometimes feels impossible – in an organisation?
An organisation is simply a collection of people doing business together. If if the business environment changes, what makes us believe that those people can automatically follow suit?
Changing ways of working is difficult. I would say almost impossible. Getting people to let go of something they have found useful in the past takes time, effort and real focus. It is not something that can be achieved with a day’s training (or even a week of workshops) – no matter how good the training is or how hot the burning platform is to change something.
It is really common practise for us to work hard to set a vision, goals and values and invest a lot of time and money in encouraging maybe hundreds or thousands of people to “sing from the same hymn sheet”. But we remain surprised when people can’t remember the new lyrics, even if they agree the song has become old hat.
I’ve seen evidence where even if where we have uncovered that a business “myth” is actually propping up underperformance, teams and individuals can really want to hold onto it.
The article in HBR about AQ from 2011 resonates with me more than ever. We are learning more daily about why we find change difficult and why AQ or “adaptive quotient” may become the new EQ.
Reeves and Delmer write:
“Management paradigms die hard, especially when they have historically been the basis for success.”
The article is great. Please do read it. However if you are now too busy because you have read this instead, there are 6 key things that you can do to train you and your organisation to be more adaptive so that you can increase your AQ. Ask questions and spend time thinking about Alternatives, Disrupters, Assumptions, Plans, Threats and Speed – helpfully we have turned their recommendations into – ADAPTS.
Try these 6 things today to increase your AQ.
1) ALTERNATIVES: Insist any change proposal has several suggested alternatives as a matter of course – this encourages cognitive and organisational flexibility
2) DISRUPTERS: Ask questions that set an expectation that the leaders in your business are thinking about what the disrupters on the edges of your business are doing – not just what your competitors are up to.
3) ASSUMPTIONS: Get into the habit of thinking about and asking questions about what you think you all “know”. Are there some firmly and widely held beliefs that you need to have the courage to challenge?
4) PLANS: Do you spend quality time and energy thinking and reflecting on plans that take your business beyond what you know? What are the megatrends? What are you under-exploiting? What can you not know?
5) THREATS: Treat threats or risks to your business with rigour. Do you have people with time and a clear responsibility for exploring areas of potential market exposure. Do you set up and incentivise initiatives to measure future threats with the same passion as you measure yesterday’s performance?
6) SPEED: Increase your “clock-speed” – make any annual reviews lighter and consider how to transform any processes that you do on a monthly or annual basis into business as usual activity that takes minutes not hours.
I am frequently to be heard challenging my clients about separating “business fact” from “business fiction”.
We all have assumptions. We are wired to make them. But we can train our brains to stand back and check them out for what they are. We can then decide if the things that we are protecting are actually the same things that are holding us back.
To increase your AQ, remind yourself and your organisation regularly that some organisational widely held beliefs and firmly followed processes are actually based on questionable or outdated assumptions. Also remember that initially it will be normal that when you question them, your individual and collective organisation brains might be desperate to hold onto them!
Here are some questions I have found helpful to ask. I hope they stimulate some thinking for you.
“What trends are emerging that mean we just won’t have customers in the same numbers in 5 years?”
“What would X do if they bought our business?”
Insert whatever name you like for X.
“Is this actually “real” or a myth we like – that it suits us to believe?”
“Just because our brains can to find “evidence” to support that view, does it mean it is actually true?”
“Did this used to be a business fact but one we need to question now things have moved on?”
“What do we not want to know?”
“If we needed to overcome that risk within 6 weeks, who would we have working on it and what resources would they need to create a viable alternative in that time?”
“If we needed 3 other options, what would they be?”
“What would be ridiculous about us turning that annual review into a fortnightly one?”
I hope that helps explain what AQ is if you hear someone mention it!
More importantly, I hope it gives you a head start about how we could help you to do something about it before everyone else does!
Contact us via Teabreaktraining.com for more information and a cuppa to get you thinking. It’s our job to keep you. ahead of the curve.
New Year Resolutions Don’t Work
However just before tell yourself , “OK so if that is true, I may as well ditch my good intentions and stay in my boring job/get that glass of wine/cake or skive off the gym tonight”…read on to understand why that is the case…and how to be the exception to the rule and make your personal dreams come true this year.
One of the best books I can recommend about why new year resolutions probably don’t work is a book about business. It is called “Immunity to Change” by Harvard Business Press. The authors Kegan and Lacey talk about a recent study when doctors tell heart patients that they will die if they don’t change their habits. Now bear in mind most of us won’t die if we don’t keep a resolution…knowing that only 1 in 7 of the patients in the study were able to change – and 6 from 7 died instead – helps us to be know what we are up against. Ourselves. And the fact that our brains don’t want to change and are really good at trying to find good reasons not to! If we really want to change, we have to think hard about what we really want and what is actually stopping us from having it.
It’s useful to know a couple of bits of science. We are going to cover the science of habit. Also very useful though is the science about bias so if you have the time, go to our sister site ihttp://www.itsnotbloodyrocketscience.com/ for more on bias.
You have probably read somewhere that it takes between 21 and 28 days to create a new habit. So you are nearly there with turning your New Year’s resolution into a life-long habit, right?
Well,sorry folks…Those of you who read these blogs often or have come to know there is usually a bit of Lemony Snicket perpetual bad news…
So don’t read on if you are going to be gutted that it’s probably going to take a lot longer…
The myth of “it takes a month to make a new habit” did come from science. Most people have traced this back to a book called ‘Psycho-cybernetics’ written in the 60s by Dr Maxwell Maltz, a plastic surgeon turned psychologist. He wrote:
‘It usually requires a minimum of about 21 days to effect any perceptible change in a mental image. Following plastic surgery it takes about 21 days for the average patient to get used to his new face. When an arm or leg is amputated the “phantom limb” persists for about 21 days.”
Maltz then went on to find “evidence” that this translated into other situations. And as we know, if we set off to prove a hypothesis right, our brain can usually find evidence that we are…And once we have a definite number in our head that came from”science” it becomes fact right?
Well sadly not. So a real bummer if you were over the 21 day threshold in an exercise regime and thought you were home and dry…A much more robust and valid study undertaken at UCL* in 2010 tracked people for 84 days to find out how long it took them to feel that a new “health promoting” behaviour (so diet or exercise) had become “automatic” – ie a new habit.
They found it took on average 66 days for the habit to become “automatic”. So 6th March for those of you manfully hanging in there…
But there is good news! Hurrah!
Another myth that the study quashed is that if you miss a day or fail a few times then all is lost. That was found to be rubbish. Missing a day made no difference to the creation of the habit in the long term. Believing the myth that if you fail once you have failed period is really unhelpful – it makes it you feel you may as well give up trying to cut down your drinking, just because you succumbed to a night on the wine in dry January.
Unsurprisingly the “average” 66 days wasn’t that simple either. Even though all of the people in the trial did their “health thing” every day, it took them very different amounts of time to turn this into a real habit. They found people were very different. No?! Really?!
For one person it took just 18 days. Another had not fully embedded the habit by the time the experiment ended after 84 days – but was predicted to have succeed after 254!
The scientists also tested how “strong” the habit became by using a 1 to 42 scale. They formed another hypothesis about habits – It takes less time for a simple habit (e.g drinking a glass of water) to become “strong” and more time for more complex habits (doing 50 sit-ups).
Rather than find a convenient truth that it takes us 28 days, what the rigorous science found was “people differ in how quickly they can form habits, and how strong those habits can become”.
So how can this help us at work or at home? Well the study did prove that as long as you continue doing a new behaviour consistently in a given situation a new habit will form. But you have to persevere. It will take more than a month.
At work, when there is a new way of working, it’s likely that some people in your team will find it easy – they might nail it in a little over 2 weeks. But equally likely is that some may struggle and may need support for the best part of a year.
Remember that when you quickly get your head around a change or a new process, that does not mean that everyone else around you feels the same. And sadly, if you are the boss and people see that you have it sussed and are praising those around you who found it pretty easy too, they are likely to feel really reluctant to fess up to the fact that they are still finding it pretty hard…Whatever they might tell you! So just be careful about the language and signals that you use when you are encouraging people to do something new.
It’s worth knowing that habits are formed through a process called ‘context-dependent repetition’. For example, imagine that, each time you get into the office each day, you decide you won’t log into your emails straight away and instead you will pin up a post-it with a single achievement you want for that day first.
When you first write and pin up your post it upon arriving at your desk first thing, a mental link is formed between the context (arriving at your desk) and your response to that context (writing your post-it). Each time you do a post-it in response to arriving at your desk, this mental link gets stronger. When you arrive at your desk and this prompts you to post-it your daily objective automatically without giving it much thought, a habit has formed.
So again thinking about supporting your team to create new productive habits. Until it becomes automatic you can help by making the post-it something that you notice and ask about.
Our brain likes habits because they are mentally efficient – Having a habit frees up the energy that we would otherwise put into remembering to do something or controlling a behaviour into something else. So it’s helpful to begin to imagine what fantastic use you could put your “spare” energy into if you just created a new habit (say defining your daily objective) and got a bad habit (wasting hours recycling email) out of the way.
As a final thought, you might need to think about your good and bad habits in a different way. Imagine you are trying to stop doing something you really like, that you look forward to and makes you relaxed and happy – (say pouring a glass of wine when you get in from work). Imagine that are trying to create a habit that is “better for you” by trying to replacing that with something you don’t like and won’t look forward to (those 50 sit ups again). It’s going to be really difficult.
Look at what you really want and how your habit (good or bad) provided that. In the case of the glass of wine, perhaps you looked forward to it because it relaxed you and made you feel happy? If so it’s no surprise that it’s a hard habit to break if you are trying to replace it with something that doesn’t make you relaxed and happy and is something you dread and makes your heart sink when you remember you’ve “got to do it”. You will probably fail because needing to relax and wanting to be happy probably contributed to creating the habit in the first place! It’s no surprise that your brain will find lots of reasons to revert back to the thing that makes you happy and that you like. You’ll probably be able to find lots of evidence that your wine intake is OK after all…
So you’ll probably be more successful if you cut down your wine by replacing the first glass after work with something else that makes you happy (calling a friend who makes you laugh or indulging in a guilty TV pleasure). You might to accept that your desire to do those crappy sit ups is never going to be strong enough to turn it into a habit. Would leaving your desk for 10 minutes at lunchtime for a quick walk serve a similar purpose and be easier to turn into pleasure?
Good and bad habits persist over time because they are automatic and easy. And our brains like that. So your challenge for yourself and your teams is to create some good habits that override some of the bad ones. And stick at them long enough for them to become tactics for your success. Like most things, if it was easy we would all be doing it already. And the self-help market worth £millions promising a 28 day result would not exist…
So I vote for accepting that changing habits is not easy…but using some simple tactics to make it easier.
*(Lally, van Jaarsveld, Potts, & Wardle, UCL. 2010).
How to ask for a payrise… Supporting the BBC’s 100 Women season
There are 3 things it helps to think about if you really want to secure a pay rise. Only a third of women feel confident to ask according to recent research by the BBC as part of its 100 Women season. Whilst few people – men or women – would actively look forward to a conversation about money, there are things you can do to make it feel more do-able. Thinking carefully about these 3 things in advance should help you feel more prepared and hopefully to find the courage to give it a go.
So, before you knock on that door, think…
1) What facts will help ? – some good evidence and background information will increase your chances of success
2) Who you are asking and what do you know about them? – this will help you to prepare how to ask them in particular
3) What you are like under pressure? – you can then plan how not to be your own worst enemy !
So firstly – what facts will help.
Prepare and take along evidence of some great results or specific responsibilities that illustrate that you are worth more. To get a payrise you are likely to need to show that you are going above and beyond whaat is expected of you – Remember to show what you will do in the future as well as what you have done in the past.
Find out what your job is worth – look at similar jobs both inside and outside your company so that you can be clear about whether you are actually being underpaid at the moment and what a reasonable salary is for the work you do.
And think about the best time to ask – How your Company is performing and how the pay rise process works are important to know. It may be that there is simply a better time of year to have the conversation – maybe when budgets are being set or when cash flow is not an issue.
So on to the second piece of thinking – How to ask the person you are asking.
You are probably asking someone you know so think about them personally… When are they personally at their most receptive? – is there a good day of the week or a time of the day to avoid? Certainly don’t catch them off guard by asking them in passing or when they are preparing for an important meeting themselves.
Think about what you know about their working preferences. Would it be better to ask them for a formal meeting in the office or ask to speak to them informally first? Do they like making decisions in the moment? If not, think about giving them advance notice of what you want to talk about. Some people like to reflect and so it might be better to meet and then give them a summary in writing so they can think about it?
Think about what they value in employees in particular and draw their attention to when you have done those things. Also plan what not to say – avoid anything that hints at complaining, arguing or over-sharing such as “My pay is not fair because…or I’m desperate for more money right now….”
Finally think about your own responses in difficult conversations so that you can plan not to be your own worst enemy.
Neuroscientists think that these highly charged situations at work make our bodies react in the same way that our ancestors did when they experienced a physical theat – so having a payrise conversation might mean your body goes into “fight or flight” mode. When our heart is racing our our palms are sweating during these highly charged situations the neuroscientists have proved that up to 80% of the blood and oxygen that is normally helping the part of the brain that deals with rational thinking and problem solving is diverted to your heart and your extremities – so just at the point where you need your wits about you and need to be able to think clearly, your rational brain is working at about 20% of its usual capacity….great ! So what can you do ?
Well, getting angry or upset won’t do you any favours, whereas staying calm and considered will. So if you notice that you are becoming emotional, breathe and remember that you may not be able to respond in a level headed way, so try not to start talking until you have really taken a moment to think about what you are saying.
Practise out-loud – saying slowly and calmly the key points you want to make – and then practise leaving it there and staying silent! We can tend to talk too much when we get nervous. It’s often better to say what you have to say and then shut up so that you can really listen to the answer you are given.
And if you get a no, well that’s life. Rehearsing for this and preparing a question like “How would I make this a yes in 3 months time ?” is certainly better for your career prospects than threatening to resign !
So…Think about the facts. Think about how to ask the person you are asking. And think about how to prepare yourself.
Then my ultimate tip is – just do it ! Asking for a pay rise is a real “who dares wins” situation. Because it is difficult to do, your brain will try hard to find you all sorts of reasons not to experience the discomfort of that conversation. So look beyond your natural resistance.
Ask yourself honestly, what do you really have to lose by respectfully asking your boss to review some evidence that suggests you are worth more?
You might get a “no” … but in the process you may well get some feedback that will help you understand what you need to do more of to get a yes in the future.
And given practise makes perfect, asking for a pay rise once, will make it easier to ask next time!
There’s more information about how I can help you personally with these challenging conversations at profitablyengaged.com and teabreaktraining.com. Or view my video clip on the BBC website at the link at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04h5vvq
Maybe you can’t change your mind after all…
Have you ever tried to influence someone and failed ? Despite having a good business case with robust research and solid, hard statistics ?
Did you spend hours re-writing a paper or checking the maths…?
There is a piece of research on the science of influence that I find helps my clients enormously.
The research was done at Yale (so I reckon we can probably believe it…) by one of their law professors – Dan Kahn. I direct my clients not directly to the research paper but to an article I love by Marty Kaplan on Alternet which asks – “Is this the most depressing discovery about the brain ever…?”
Many of us know that our brains are wired to pay attention to seek out evidence of what we already believe to be true. It is well documented that we will selectively listen and filter out things we don’t want to hear, of using instead on the things that back up our deeply held, sometimes subconcious views.
The research is “depressing”, because the news is even worse! This research suggests that if you have a particularly strong belief about something, not only will you filter out information but when presented with statistics that may prove you wrong, you are simply unable to do the maths.
Yes. You read that right.
Kahan’s research suggested that when people were presented with statistics that backed up something they believed to be true already, then they could understand the stats and do the maths. But when presented with the same statistics to challenge something they didn’t believe, they actually struggled to do the maths!
So there seems to be something about our brains that means even if we are an FD or well versed in interpreting data, we might not be able to actually understand statistics that contradict what we already believe to be true.
This research was specifically about beliefs which were political in nature. But it would be foolish to ignore the implications for influencing when stakes are high and there are strong beliefs round the table. Particularly if you were hoping that your statistics would speak for themselves…
Kaplan notes that “in the experiment, some people were asked to interpret a table of numbers about whether a skin cream reduced rashes, and some people were asked to interpret a different table – containing the same numbers – about whether a law banning private citizens from carrying concealed handguns reduced crime. Kahan found that when the numbers in the table conflicted with people’s positions on gun control, they couldn’t do the math right, though they could when the subject was skin cream. The bleakest finding was that the more advanced that people’s math skills were, the more likely it was that their political views, whether liberal or conservative, made them less able to solve the math problem.”
…So we think that we are rational. But recent research endorses that emotion drives behaviour. We think it’ss logic. But what if it’s emotion masquerading as logic ? What if we are backfilling with logic to justify what we believe and data and maths simply can’t convince us otherwise ?”
I’ve quoted further research below. But if you are convinced already, is it time to be depressed?
Well I’m a glass half full person so I think perhaps not ! Perhaps knowledge is power we can share?
My dad (a joiner by trade who built our family home at super-low cost) always used to say, “If you can’t hide it, feature it” – I think the same could apply here…
If we help people to understand that in an internal battle between emotion and reason, emotion will win (even if disguised as reason!) perhaps that knowledge in itself can help people to grow, change and to be more open minded to genuine debate. They know they won’t be, unless they make a conscious and deliberate choice to try to listen and think differently. Could we see this emotion/logic challenge as a “feature” of being human – and not something we have to strive to “hide” because we don’t want it to be true?!
I think knowing this science has made me more careful and cautious about dismissing something I don’t think to be true…
…or can I just find good evidence for that belief ?!
Contact me at dulcie@profitablyengaged.com if you find yourself needing some help to influence when stakes are high and beliefs are strong. I’d hope with a good, honest and open discussion, we could find a way through it together !
Further Reading
Kaplan quotes further research that tried to identify whether facts actually matter. Sadly, the answer is more depressing than no…he quotes research that generally giving facts and statistics to people when they believe something to be true is unlikely to work and in fact “giving them facts to correct those errors only makes them cling to their beliefs more tenaciously.”
Here’s some of what the research that he quote found to be true:
People who thought George W. Bush banned all stem cell research kept thinking he did that even after they were shown an article saying that only some federally funded stem cell work was stopped.
People who said the economy was the most important issue to them, and who disapproved of Obama’s economic record, were shown a graph of nonfarm employment over the prior year – a rising line, adding about a million jobs. They were asked whether the number of people with jobs had gone up, down or stayed about the same. Many, looking straight at the graph, said down.
But if, before they were shown the graph, they were asked to write a few sentences about an experience that made them feel good about themselves, a significant number of them changed their minds about the economy. If you spend a few minutes affirming your self-worth, you’re more likely to say that the number of jobs increased.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2319992
http://www.alternet.org/media/most-depressing-discovery-about-brain-ever
To Do List… Do just one thing instead
Back of an envelope? Colour-coded list in a book? Diary entries in your phone? Most of us have a to do list somewhere, but how do you feel about it? Do you get that “Friday Failure Feeling” when you have not completed everything on the list? Do you get to the end of a day and think “I’ve been really busy but what on earth did I actually achieve today?”
If so, you aren’t alone. But try this trick. It seems to work for lots of people who I recommend it to. For best results do it NOW. TODAY. QUICKLY. (You will see that a lot on this blog…) Or I guarantee something less important will come along…
1) Look at the list and decide which one thing will make the biggest difference (to your profit, life, whatever).Be ruthless about this bit. Is the one thing not even on there ?!
2) Ask yourself “What is stopping me starting that right now ?”
3) Listen to the brilliant list of excuses that your mind can come up with (but don’t give yourself too hard a time – everyone’s mind plays the same tricks!)
4) Ignore the list of excuses and do JUST ONE THING to start this task. I love the phrase – “Eat your elephant in bite sized pieces” – I always add “…but bite it now, or it will run off”
5) Right. Done it ? (If not, stop reading, this blog isn’t for you !)
Do you feel a bit better? A little more in control of the things that matter?
OK so try it again, just once tomorrow too.
More than 95% of people who have tried this tell me it works. And I reckon the 5% just don’t want to tell me I’m on to something !
Next blogs…Quick ways to use GROW…The blagging police…