Morale in the Workplace

Are we there yet?

2006-12-14T20:16:00.000Z

Why technology needs to take 2-steps back to make 3-steps forward.
A slight departure from the human side of morale (unless you're in the field of software architecture).

The proliferation of technology within the workplace should have enabled corporate Britain (America, Asia or from wherever you are reading this) to have achieved far more than it has. This is not to say that without the technology we have we could have reached where we are now, but to ask if we could be further. Are we really reaping the benefits from what we have? The sad answer is no. In this article I hope to explain why.

For the sake of an example we’ll pick on Microsoft’s Excel. One of the most widely adopted business tools across the globe. Most of its users are aware how to open the application and fill in its little boxes. How many truly open up the raw power of the solution? Very few without a doubt! To declare fairness lets assume Pareto’s rule of 80/20, with 80% of Excel’s true capabilities going untouched. This is a dismal prospect for such a commonplace application.

With more specialized applications, applications designed to perform very specific functions for a well defined user group, you would anticipate that the percentage of power in use would be more favorable to the user’s accessibility. After all, this is not a grand tool that can span across the needs of a multitude of user types such as Excel. This is a tool that has been so carefully crafted that it only addresses a single community. The sad reality is that the weighting could even make the great Pareto whimper. Where most people with access to Excel will praise their use of it regardless of their inability to access its potential, specialist applications are prone to complete and utter abandonment.

What is possibly more shocking is that these specialist applications can even go through a series of versions, patches, hot-fixes… continual maintenance and redesign and yet the result can be precisely the same. Zero uptake.

As someone who works in User Centered Design I am accustomed to these realities and fight the good fight on behalf of the users I represent. The challenge for most designers in pursuit of user adoption is the legacy and constraints that exist before the fight even begins. If the battlefield is already heavily laden with landmines, then any tactics that involve a straight line across this minefield are instantly ruled out.

A business who has invested in a specific direction is inflexible to the possibility of change.

A technology that has invested in a specific direction is inflexible to the possibility of change.

A user that has invested in a specific direction is inflexible to the possibility of change.

And yet change is inevitable. It’s as if we were all building a never-ending skyscraper together constantly being filled with tenants and after 30 floors up, we realize we need to change 20 of them before we can go up any further. The business is loathed to do so as it creates expense and would affect the tenants that have already moved in to the skyscraper. The technologists are loathed to do so as it means undoing all the hard work done to date. And the users are loathed to do so as they are already challenged enough to be presented with a whole new way of doing things. And all 3 are fearful of the unknown – will it work? After all, when we first built the last 20 floors we were convinced it would work and yet now we’re being told that it didn’t.

Instead of creating expense, undoing hard work, being faced with greater challenge and not being certain it will work we make compromises. After all, compromises are good aren’t they? Everyone is happy in a compromise? The tenants are not going anywhere, or if the did, we’ll find others. The business will be fine. The technologists will be busy and the users – well, they’ll just have to cope.

Why would someone only use 20% of an application? Worse still, why would someone abandon an application entirely? And bigger still – why would a business continue to invest more in to building on top of something with such poor adoption only with the glimmer of hope that the users will become more accustomed to it over time?

Excel is simply the only generalist tool that can manage mathematical equations beyond a calculator or your own noggin, and outside of specialist applications. This makes the tool indispensable. Sure, there are other spreadsheet packages available, and yet the majority of office workers will have become accustomed to Excel over its competitors. If you wish to perform any lengthy mathematical equation then it is imperative that you have grasped the fundamental principles of a spreadsheet and therefore Excel.

When faced with an entirely new application to perform what to a user appears to be very similar calculations the first thing they do is find a workaround. Inevitably that workaround is Excel. And as all users form the business, the business becomes accepting of this resistance to use the new application and will either turn a blind-eye, try to enrich the application further (usually to see how they can incorporate the workaround – Excel) or abandon it entirely. Which one is dependent on cost and pride. And in my experience pride often being the most predominant factor.

So if people are using Excel by almost ‘rule’, then why is so little of its potential used?

When a specialist application is written to aid specific user communities perform complex mathematical equations why do user’s abandon this to revert to the under utilized Excel once again?

What becomes even more bizarre when you delve in to this topic to the depths as I have, you will be in total awe to why a business would buy in a specialist application to perform the functions that Excel could do if it weren’t hidden in the 80% most of us don’t use. The arguments I hear most are around security, stability and integration.

Security? Anyone could access an Excel spreadsheet and know the most crucial elements of our business – our money.

Stability? Excel is unreliable. It crashes all the time.

Integration? Excel is a tool. It’s not a service and won’t work with our other systems.

The answer has to be something that is secure, stable and integrates well with our other systems. Therefore we must build a solution that we control who has access to it, will never fail and can be integrated in with our other system.

Let’s dispel the myths of Excel and then revisit this demand.

Security can be set to a single cell in an Excel spreadsheet, not only to a single worksheet, and to the entire workbook. I challenge anyone to crack an Excel spreadsheet once you have forgotten the password to unlock it.

The only time Excel becomes unreliable is when it is installed on a poor workstation or is asked to do calculations that have not been set-up properly.

The manner in which the data is saved in Excel is the most commonly used format for transferring mathematical data in systems, comma delimited or .CVS and can even be extracted automatically and in a mired of formats including the more pervasive .XML requirement of most modern day systems.

In contrast the security, stability and ability to integrate bespoke or specialist off-the-shelf application is more prone to failure because businesses are loathed to spend money on something that cannot be guaranteed, technologists are loathed to check every connection point during integration and users are loathed of new challenges. And all of this from an application that has been built on the same principles of loathing by the developing team.

Before it sounds like I am evangelizing the use of Excel, I digress. It is by the mere fact that Excel has penetrated the office environment through it’s attachment to Windows, the operating system for corporate Britain (etc, etc…) and being bundled with Outlook, a package even less understood by its users and yet even more imperative for the access of email, that it is significant enough to express my point. Excel is still a white elephant; an enormous calculator and we would all be lost without it.

If we were able to take our work tools back down to their simplest incarnations we would have a single piece of software; a very bare looking user interface. What do we need? Words and numbers, possibly the odd smattering of images to best represent those words and images. We would needs something that can send those words and numbers to other people who need them to do their job. We would need something to help us work out those complicated sums. From here on in we are adding complexity for its own sake.

It’s easy to see from this simplistic view that Excel fits the bill and yet there’s a lot more it can do, and we don’t use.

To return this to the original question: Are we really reaping the benefits from what we have? The answer remains no. The underlying question of whether or not we could be further along with our technology, the answer is most certainly ‘yes’.

Whilst we are faced with business led, technology driven solutions that invoke challenge on it’s users, all of whom are apathetic to change we will never have the shift that is needed to spur our use of what can be done.

As I typ Microsoft Word intelligently underlines my purposeful misspelling of the word ‘type’ in a red wiggly line. An artificial intelligence that does not recognize the letters I have used, I am prompted to take action and make the change. Right mouse clicking on the word brings up possible options for what Microsoft thinks I might be trying to spell. Extremely useful when, like me, you are hopeless at spelling and yet still not a true reflection of the power Microsoft could build. As you read the first line, you knew exactly what I meant and yet Word did not. It felt it necessary to check with me. Albeit it’s top suggestion was the word ‘type’.

For you and me we sit here apathetically feeling that this red squiggly line is pure wonderment. How did we, the literally challenged, ever survive from the constant embarrassment of our misspellings before the advent of the red squiggly line? And yet although our embarrassment is saved to the privacy of us and our word processor, the embarrassment still remains.

To extend this to a mathematical equation where I wish to work out what the average value of a string of numbers are I would first have to leave Word and open Excel (unless I knew the greater secrets that lay in the depths of Word which would allow me to perform this calculation without leaving my text). I would then have to know where to place each number, then how to create a formula that begins with an equal’s symbol and the word ‘average’, open parenthesis, the cell range, close parenthesis and enter. For me, someone who has spent a lot of time learning the nuances of Excel, quite easy, for most, and absolute mystery. Why can I not simply request the average of the numbers I type here: 10, 20, 11, 22, 12, 22, 10 and have the answer appear instantly as 15?

The technology we have today is advanced enough to learn from what we do and to anticipate what results we require, but the implementation of this fails because of the need to adopt change. We started with a disparate suite of overly complex solutions and we will continue to use them in such a way. To change would require ripping down 20-stories. And even the tenants are not convinced with that idea.

The option is not to rip down 20-stories, but to build another skyscraper, learning from the mistakes of the last one. The ones that do this with an immense amount of ingenuity start completely afresh from the foundations. These are normally guised as vigilantes and their products branded with ‘Web 2.0’ applications (a categorization given to development houses that use the simplest of user-friendly technologies). These vigilantes are inevitably a group of disgruntled employees of previous skyscraper projects and entrepreneurs who are easily enthused with the prospect of making money. Alas, because of this small start-up vigilante anti-establishment movement, corporate Etc, stick with what they know best, even if it hasn’t proven to be completely successful in the past. They have tenants now therefore they must have done something right. And to build a new skyscraper means carrying across what they feel that ‘something right’ was. Those that disagree become the vigilantes - a self-perpetuating and self-fulfilled prophecy.

The technology we have today is phenomenal. It can do vast amounts. It goes unused because of the failings highlighted above. Users can’t find it; don’t know how to use it; don’t know that it even exists. Our way to remedy this is to build more. After all the cost of building a new feature, a new function, a fix, or even a whole new application is relatively cheap compared to ripping down everything that you have achieved so far to start again.

In answer to my own question, we have yet to tap in to the true power of our existing technology and we are further compounding this reality by adding even more to it. In order for any technology to be truly unleashed and for all to adopt its full power (let alone potential) we have to all be accepting of ‘our’ mistakes and consider that the only way forward is through embracing ‘change’ whatever the cost.

Wanted: Full-time employees to work from home 4 hours a day

2006-11-18T22:35:00.000Z

Again the news is full of stories of global warming. The answer is never actually to do with making the planet greener, it's about taking the green from us, Joe Public, and giving it to the tax man. Sure there are many things you and I can do to make the planet greener, and actually save ourselves money too, but is there a way the government and business in general could be helping?

The big gripe about us not wanting to use public transport might have more to do with the chaos of getting to and from work than the actual means we use to do so. If you could take longer to get to work and the commute didn't mean squashing your nose up against some poor guy's sweaty armpit - would you then consider public transport? If the experience was pleasant, would you?

This is only a blog so I'm not going to delve to far back in history other than point out some obvious facts. When there was little transport we worked close close to our homes. We worked on farms or in shops in the local community. Sure, there are stories much like the Monty Python 3 Yorkshiremen sketch where someone would have to wake up before they went to bed to start to walk to the first of their four jobs to make ends meet. The reality is - over the many centuries we've worked to help our community and to stay alive.

The pace has changed over the years and in doing so we've latched on to some arcane ways of thinking and none of us have ever had the bottle to challenge it. I don't profess to have the answer, but I do profess to have the bottle.

Some questions which could help in solving this riddle - then maybe some hypotheses about why the answers to these could help with global warming, getting us back on topic.

Why is it that we consider full time employment as something you start and end at the same time every weekday ensuring it tots up to 40-hours or more?
Why is it that we have masses of property, designed to our individual comforts, that go empty for 8/9 hours a day and other masses of property, not nearly as accommodating, that equally go empty for the other 15/16 hours of the day?

9 to 5
That's what we work is it not? There or thereabouts. Who decided this and how did it become so wide spread in Western culture? Can someone be truly productive for a full 8 hours in a day? Does anyone take in to consideration one person who fulfills their quota in just 1-hour where another equally qualified colleague takes 12-hours to do the same work?

Parkinson's law suggests that however long you give someone to do a job, they'll take that long to do it. If you give somebody an hour - they'll do it in an hour. If you give them all week, they'll take all week.

Some very underpaid people in white lab coats have determined that we all have a different 'chronotype'. A type of internal clock. The closer our bedside alarm clock wakes us up to our inner alarm clock, the less likely we are to smoke (An article I read in the New Scientist a few months back). OK. Smoking probably has less to do with my current point, but what this is demonstrating is that we are all very different and that difference implies that we cannot all be expected to be alert and in charge at the same time as everyone else.

We are also all different in our abilities. Sure - that's why we all do different jobs, but what I'm actually saying here is that we are all different in our abilities even between people of the same job. That's why some people are seen as promotion material and others are not.

Lots of empty buildings
When you farm a field, you have to go to the field, the field isn't going to wake up at 6, brush it's teeth and travel down the M25 to get to you. Fair enough. Leaving your home to plow a field is extremely logical. There are a number of industries where this need for people to gravitate towards 'it' is mandatory for business. There are however a number of support industries that don't.

Corporates have large buildings stuffed full of paperclips, photocopiers and water coolers. These large properties are used to house hundreds of people to do their jobs. To capture data, analyze data, to regurgitate data and drink coffee. That's about it. The data is a little more flexible that a field.

The information age does not require us to go to the data, it will come to us. It will travel along wires, it will fly through the air and it will punch through walls just to get to us.

Let there be light
The reason for 9-5 is mostly to do with the number of hours it is light. Thank God we don't live on Venus. A day on Venus lasts more than 5,832 hours to our measly 24.

So the aim of the employer is to see how many hours of daylight they can use up. That's very nice of them. I'd rather work a little longer in the dark and make the most of the light, thanks. After all, I'm not dependent on the sun's natural light to see my computer for if I was, there would be more windows at my office.

So what does an employer get for their 8-hours? I suspect on average they get, at the most, around 2-3 hours of true productivity per day. Why do I claim that? I believe the work environment to be more of a social meeting place than a work place. But a social meeting place that everyone is dying to get away from. Go figure!

For the first hour of a morning, much is spent about getting ourselves 'awake'. Routine work. Stuff that we could do whilst sleeping. Check our email (no wonder people never remember receiving those all important announcements - they were still asleep when they read them). That's what we do first, we wake up. - That leaves us with 7-hours.

There is also the end of day wind down. This is where we think: "OK, I'll leave that for tomorrow, no point starting it now..." and discussions about what are you doing tonight ensues. 6-hours. Then there is that time before and after lunch. Once to discuss what we're doing for lunch and getting ready for it, then afterwards to discuss what we did at lunch before settling back down to 'work'. 5-hours

We'll have a few coffee breaks, a trip or 2 to the toilets, some milling about at the printer or wandering around aimlessly looking for a meeting room and then there are the times that we exchange friendly banter with our colleagues. 4-hours! We're now dangerously running out of time in our 8-hour working day.

The problem is that we tend to be so wrapped up with the idea that work is laborious, repetitive and mundane, that we actually make it more laborious than it needs to be. We don't think of efficiencies. We've got 4-hours to do our bit of work, we'll do it in 4, but really we could do it in less time than that - 2 or 3 hours maybe?

How lavish do you think I am being with my timings? Am I being too frivolous awarding such large volumes of time to seemingly incidental office pleasantries? Really? You should study people like I do.

What's worse is that even though there are only those 4-hours of productivity, I hear way to often how people are 'bored' or 'don't feel challenged enough' or 'don't see the point'... Hence why I believe my blog gets so many hits. Morale is low. Crickey - I wonder how when it is 4-hours of intense social interaction... but there you have it. Humans are never happy.

Bricks and mortar
The reason for office blocks? This is a bit of what techies like to call 'legacy'. Because that's how we've always done it. It's only more recently that we've truly been able to work from home, or from decentralized office spaces - 'satellite offices'. The biggest challenge has been less to do with 'how we could get data to you to do your job?', it's more to do with 'how do we keep that data secure on its journey?' or should I say 'how do we ensure that you don't go and show everyone our highly secret data to all your friends?'

The struggle thereafter is 'how do we manage your time?'. Considering that by my theory you are only getting the best part of 2-3 hours from your employee in a day, you're not doing too well at managing them now.

Green Employment
So how does this relate to helping the planet? One is that not everyone needs to start work, nor finish at the same time every day, therefore reducing the congestion so warmly criticized for it's contribution to the planets destruction. Reducing the time that one actually needs to work would encourage employees to take more 'casual' routes to work - maybe even try out that empty park and ride that's so cheap and planet friendly.

Empowering staff to work from home would also mean less cars on the road. Less need for cars at all. Sure, that means more power consumption at home, but in reverse, it should mean less power used at the office. And less need for offices means that there is less need to build more, returning property back to accommodation, meaning even less need to build homes, and with people living more centrally, meaning there is more opportunity for people to work for the benefit of their community and less need for travel.

I'm obviously trying to fit in a whole thesis in to a brief snippy blog and it just won't do. I realize I am leaving out thousands of occupations where being on site is essential or at the very least 'effective'. However I hope that someone reads these words and feels enough passion to investigate this line of thought further.

Happy debating during your 4-hours socializing at work tomorrow.

Chaos Theory

2006-11-12T22:39:00.000Z

There are 3 types of business:

Businesses in Chaos
Businesses Managing the Chaos
Businesses not in Chaos

Which business would you like to be a part of? If you answered '3', then I would worry. In order for there to be chaos there needs to be motion. Something has to be propelling forward. A business that is not in chaos, is a business that is not propelling forward. A business that is quietly milling about in an almost static state.

Answering '1' is not good either. Chaos is not necessarily something we wish for, it's simply a natural entity. To resolve chaos you need to be in control of every angle that impacts your business. The chances are, even if you have perfect control over every minute little thing (doubtful at best), your business will still be reliant on at least one factor that you cannot control... your customer's freedom of choice maybe?

'2' is where a business should be. There should be an expectation of chaos because it is moving forward. Expecting it means we can prepare for it. Preparation means we can manage the randomness of the potential outcome chaos can bring to a business.

For employees however this fact is clear. Therefore an employee who finds themself in chaos will demand the support they need to reduce the effect on them. Possibly a good thing... providing the chaos is felt by all. i.e. The business is in chaos, and not the person themself.

An employee who is not in chaos: pretends! Pretending that they are in chaos deflects the attention of their managers on the fact that the business is not going forward.

Heres a test for the workplace. Take a book. A blank sheet of paper will do just as well. Now walk about the office with a distant concerned look on your face. Don't look at anybody directly - just look very hurried and busy. See how long it takes someone to question you.

You might want to set a limit to how long you try this test as it's probably not healthy to continue it forever. However, this is just one of many simple, trivial things that an everyday employee of a lacking direction business will do to look 'busy'. To look like they are contributing to 'managing the chaos'. Chaos that just is not there!

I've heard managers detail exactly how busy their department's staff are and how they simply cannot take on any more work, when I've sat in that manager's exact same department and listen to how everyone is bored, with nothing to do, trying to look busy.

Chaos is neither good nor bad, however chaos is required for a business to exist. For a manager, make sure that that chaos is because of direction, because of something you can quantify and see moving forward, not simply because employees are bored and need to find something to justify their salaries.

Cold Hard Direction

2006-09-14T07:44:00.000+01:00

Can a director be emotive? Can they be happy to debate questions with uncertainty towards the answer or do they have to be direct. The latter being an obvious choice - direct... Director.

Racing through a variety of similes, an equivalent to a director in the military can surely not be emotive? An equivalent in catering however can be extremely emotive. Sure, both have a colourful vocabulary, and both have to shout out orders without a moment's hesitation. Yet whilst one is expected to 'know' exactly what to do regardless of how cold the request, the other is expected to demonstrate variety. The cruelty of the analogy being that I've never heard of someone loosing their life to a head chef.

In business, where a director is hardly required to 'shout out orders without a moment's hesitation' is it necessary to require militarian coldness? Indecision would be unsettling. So a director must provide clear 'direction'. Yet to get there, does that preclude a director from demonstrating variety as per the head chef?

Business is, and can only be, competitive. It is unbelievably fickle, or at least it's customers are. A decision today may not be the right decision for tomorrow. I suppose in the same way a Major has to make cold hard decisions with the intelligence s/he has at that time, so does a director - and sure, lives are on the line in both instances.

The analogy actually breaks down. A Major on the outside of it all is cold and calculated, yet in the 'War Room' he is challenging every ounce of intelligence. He is taking in all the intelligence and from his advisors will conclude a directive. So a Major is equally experimental and potentially emotive... after all, it's not in his interest to loose lives, especially on the battlefield.

It would appear to me that when someone is not a director (a Major) they perceive the decisions as lacking colour, variety, understanding of the detail - lacking emotion. Yet the needs for that vocation are the opposite.

My question then - when looking from within, promoting from within, looking at personal development, should you be looking for the cold, decisive, authoritarians? Possibly not. Yet how often does this happen? When you are looking for the ones that can really change your company, give it the competitive edge, save lives - who is it that truly stands out?

How many egos does it take to start a stampede?

2006-08-23T21:25:00.000+01:00

Ego. Who knew there could be so much of it? My boss has chosen to leave the company. Respectfully I think this is both good for him and for us. He never could really drive the department in the way that it needed (and needs) to be in order to give the company the support it requires to continue its aggressive growth plan. Of course, the result of one leaving means another is to take its place.

My new boss comes from an environment where I suspect when he asked for people to jump - they tended to do just that. He has mentioned some of the organizations of his past, and I can quite imagine that they looked upon him as a miracle worker. And rightfully so. His delivery might be a little off the mark, but the content of his delivery is smack bang - on the money. Being progressive in thought is something that new start-ups think they are but generally can't afford to do, and older institutions know they are not and couldn't be bothered to really sort out.

The interesting thing that this fresh blood has brought in to the business is another ego. An ego that might be somewhat larger than many of those I work with. Worse yet - larger than my own. At the minute, this makes for an extremely tense working environment. Everyone that is in possession of a smidgen of seniority are stamping their hooves and neighing as much as possible. The 'egotites' are competing for the top spot. The one to be reckoned with.

Sure, I am one of them - an 'egotite'. Interestingly, I don't feel as compelled to 'show-off', and more to present myself in equality. Pacing him, I suppose like horses, trotting alongside one another. I don't feel the need to 'keep up', just to show that I'm already at the same speed he is, a pace I've always been at. As if by chance the bridal paths we were taking happened to join up and we're gallantly enjoying the outdoors at the pace we've always traveled.

Others seem to be trying to edge out in front, as if in a race. Bizarrely, it's as though they are panting and snorting too. Maybe because they've had to suddenly add to their previous pace and are slightly out of breath.

There are two things I find the most interesting of all, one is the way in which 'egotites' are choosing to react to this new Stallion, and two, the way in which we all appear to be on the same path - but no-one wants to admit to it.

The Stallion, the über 'egotite', has come in with 'fresh' ideas - a clear new strategy. The problem is - it's not fresh. The difference may be, that he will be the one that finally achieves it... the idea, that elusive end goal. In my 4-or-so-years at the company, we've attempted the same piece of work no less than 3-times. The past attempt even matches what the new Stallion has recommended we put in place. The reason why stems from commitment, drive and follow-through. Each time we haven't been able to get enough of a noise out of it to start a stampede. Maybe he can.

The way in which the 'egotites' are reacting is pretty expected: My idea. My area of interest. My area of expertise. My hard-work. My control. Mine. The new Stallion appears to have been saddled up with some interesting headgear that prevents him from seeing any of this - or maybe he does (quite a bit more fiendish than I would care to suspect). The master of egotism merrily tramples over these feelings. And it's going 'noticed'.

In one respect he shouldn't fear to do so. As this previous ownership clearly has not worked. If he is to deliver it, then he is the one that must show complete ownership in it to generate that noise. In another, wounded egos are taking this bitterly, and this may weaken the support for the Stallion, leaving him to make way along the path - alone. At the minute, it's almost as if he has simply upset the whole herd. Horses that are so unsettled tend to bolt or break, neither are ideal when you're wanting to lead.

It's all about ME! ME! ME!

2006-08-15T21:14:00.000+01:00

It has been sometime since I've entered anything on to this blog and yet every now and then I get a reminder. This reminder comes in two parts. 1. Something happens in my day to day life which reinforces some of the work already here - or stirs another insight. 2. Somebody drops me a line or buys a t-shirt in recognition of this work. Thank you to those that have contributed to point 2. Those in point 1 - come on... how difficult is this stuff?

I've been hard at work over the past 6-7 months on a really high profile project within the company I work for. It has been providing me with the stress and motivation I thrive on. Typically with all projects within my particular organisation, brakes have been put on, and I find myself in spin mode. An analogy - everyone is busily piecing together a Ferrari and yet somebody forgot to order the tyres. You can sit revving up the Engine all day - but where is the fun in that? You want to take it out for a test drive!

In this period of spin, I've found I've had to deal with a lot of wounded and misguided souls. I've had to call software vendors - salesmen - and keep them 'warm'. (You never know when those tyres are going to arrive!) I've spent a good 6-months educating the business on what this project is going to deliver, now all they can see is doom and gloom. ME - I have to be Mr Happy and assure them that it's all going to turn out just fine! Keep the communication going. Let them hear that engine purr one more time before returning to their Ford Mondeos.

There's a lesson in all of this. It's all about 'ME'. Not 'me' ME. But the royal 'we' ME. When you are working on something the issues you are dealing with are less to do with the factual problems - the fact that things are broken - but the emotional problems. If you fix those factual problems with no emotional buy-in then have you really fixed anything at all? Fix those factual problems through emotional validation (recognition) then only are you doing your job.

That's probably a bit woolly. So let's break this down. If the problem is 'the way we sell cars at the minute means we'll only ever sell 2 a month.' For the business to really perform, you need to sell hundreds of cars all of the time. How do you do that? How do you allow a business to really achieve that?

2-cars a month might be a lot of hard work. The people that are selling those cars might put their heart and soul in to selling those 2-cars. It might take the dedications of tens of people to get just 1-car off the showroom floor. Paperwork is a mile high. Customer service is your core principle and your staff do nothing less than their best to impress your patrons.

When you now bring on a project that says 'we're going to sell hundreds of cars, daily!' you are going to have a bigger problem than that you started with.

Deal with the 'ME' factor. Do something that not only works for the business objectives but also do something for 'ME'.

'ME' - the project sponsor...
Make him/her look good. Warrant his/her fat bonus cheque at the end of the financial year. Make him/her be the envy of his/her peers.
'ME' - the project manager...
Make him/her look good. Make them feel in control. All important and full of self-worth. Make him/her feel like they're delivering the best project they've ever had the privilege to manage.
'ME' - the business analyst...
Make him/her look good. (Are you spotting a trend here?) Make them feel like they've nailed all the requirements and are the king in front of the poor forgotten employee, a force with their superiors.
'ME' - the business user...
Make him/her look good. Make them feel that they're getting what they've asked for. That they are in control. And that their superiors are recognizing them for their unwaning commitment to improving the business.
'ME' - the supplier...
Make them look good. Make them feel like they are the only supplier suitable for the job. Make them feel like they meet every need. Make their sales people, superiors and/or colleagues think that there is no better client to work so closely with.

The solution - the bit that you are really paying all that money for is inextricably insignificant to delivering a project - the business benefit - without having all the 'ME's, their egos, their statures, their needs absolutely buffed, shined and ready to roll.

It's a selfish world out there. Start thinking about me. Not just the 'you' ME, the 'we' ME's too. Do you understand ME?

People People

2005-04-23T11:28:00.000+01:00

For sometime now I have listened to managers say that they are 'usually' a People Person, but due to the current pressure, climate, insert-excuse-here, that they have been busily focusing on the tasks at hand.

A people person is someone you can instantly recognize. Like a moth, you are drawn towards their light. This people person appears honest, open, humble and surprisingly upbeat. A people person can ask you to do almost anything in such a way that you are only too pleased to be helping such a wonderful individual.

There are however people who 'wish' to be a people person. Yet to them to be that person they have to 'try'. It's a task. This would probably be the list of chores for such a wishful trier:

1. Wake-up, Shower.
2. Coffee.
3. Dress, Go to Work.
4. Check Email.
5. Greet staff.
6. Go to X-meeting.
7. ... and so on.

It's number 5 that's the problem. Greeting someone is a task. A chore. Something they have to do in order to retain their position. In order to afford time for people, they have to schedule it as a task.

A true people person naturally beams in to an office and catches up with everyone. This can be simply a smile and a raising of the eyebrows, so as to say: "Wow! You really do exist, you are there, you are such a wonderful person, I'm so glad to see you, speak to me, engage with me, approach me..." It's not a task, it's a genuine automatic response.

A task for a people person would be to 'ignore' another person. To 'not consider' their point of view. To 'devalue' another person. That would be a task.

When I meet these wishful triers, the task people, I wonder why they believe they are a people person. I wonder why they cower away in their corner offices, cubicles or even behind their computer screens in a wide-open open-planned office.

I got accused once. I was asked why am I always smiling. What was there to be so happy about. The strange thing at that very point in time, was that I had learnt that my company (I was a contractor working at a client site) was going to be laying off staff. I couldn't have been more unhappy or in turmoil than at that moment. And yet, whenever I saw someone I worked with I would naturally smile.

I could have apologized. But instead I said that I always smiled. There was nothing so terrible in life that I couldn't offer a friend a smile.

I escaped the redundancies that time, and the next. But the companies downward spiral did finally catch up to me. And I did leave. The nicest thing about leaving, is knowing that I left my smile with everyone I had worked with.

Don't get me wrong. I don't for one minute think I am the epitome of people people and smiling, or being a people person is not going to get the job done on it's own. The point is, that I can get the job done with a smile. I can get the job done with being the best part of a people person. No matter the task, no matter how I could be bitter, no matter the problems in front of me or my colleagues, I tend to do it with a smile.

There are occasions when smiles are hard. It may take a while. The people closest to me can see it. Yet the people around me can rely on my being approachable, enjoying the challenge, getting in to the task and (eventually) smiling.

The rarity of a pure people person is so that it was only a few months ago I met another true example. I was amazed. I waited to see when they would crack, to prove that a pure people person was fictional (sorry, I'm an analyst, it's my job to be skeptical). To date, they have proven me wrong and that pure people people do exist. Now the challenge is to see how to encourage wishful triers to become people people.

Leadership -vs- Management

2005-04-19T20:49:00.000+01:00

We talk about it all the time, yet do we actually understand the difference? Leadership and management are two totally separate entities and rarely packaged in to one person.

Leadership: A leader is someone who can understand what the drivers are for an individual and exploit them. They clear the road ahead of the employee alowing them to perform to their best.

Management: A manager is someone who can understand what needs to be delivered, by when, how and at what cost. They are focused on Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) and are concerned with measurements and reports.

A leader has to be charismatic and flexible, whereas a manager needs to be dogmatic and focused. These two qualities are rarely found in one individual, yet we often expect it. Why? Is there really anything wrong with having a manager and leader running a department or project? Sure there is a cost. But at what cost is poor leadership or poor management affecting the success of your business?

Remove the Barriers

2005-03-13T18:51:00.000Z

I've often witnessed this in one form or another, but never quite as profoundly as in this instance. My boss, recently back from holiday, went on sick leave. The next man in charge had moved to another business area. The final obstacle was also removed, he left only a few days earlier (a contractor of similar vocation). A colleague of mine was left without a choice, he had to take charge.

What amazes me is that I've seen him work like this before. In control. Not bogged down in detail. Just doing his job. Properly. He's a project manager and when in a situation like the one described above, really does shine.

Normally this man, a very nice man with a great sense of humor and an absolute passion for delivering on his word, is usually very unfocused. Project management is possibly the last thing you would see him do. He forgets how to communicate. He tries to do everything himself. It's as if he hides within the guise of somebody else's' job - not his.

Remove the barriers and he's magnificent. But why should it take so much to reignite this man's ambition and drive? Where should we look? At him? Or at the barriers around him?

Look around you. What barriers are around the people that you work with? How can you break those down and give your colleagues the opportunity to shine?

Think about it. It may be the change in work morale you are looking for.

Understanding Communications in Business

2004-08-10T17:19:00.000+01:00

There are 3 user areas with which communication is vital to maintain a healthy business. These are:

Customers
Organisation (The Business)
Suppliers

Each user area overlaps in communication

Customers will converse with the Organisation (e.g. Call Centre Agents, Marketing), and Suppliers (e.g. Carrier, Direct Despatch). In an instance such as Direct Despatch, all 3 user areas are in communication.

Within each area, there are many groups. Customers will talk with other customers. TAG agents will talk with other areas of the business. Suppliers will talk within their suppliers and so on.

For a business to succeed, the message they give needs to be direct and clear in order to ensure it carries well, as well as, the messages they send to the business are heard and understood.

A break down in communications has damaging affects. When customers aren’t able to communicate clearly what they want, we can’t offer it to them. When departments don’t communicate overall objectives are often missed. When we don’t keep suppliers abreast of changes within the business, they end up looking bad for not meeting our expectations. And so on.

How to create a good communication model:

Know Your User

Profiling users allows the business to best understand how to deliver the messages they want conveyed.

Profiling starts by gathering good data from each area and creating segments. Customers can be broken down into regions, economies, professions and so on. The organization can be broken down by job focus, skills, psychometrics, incomes and the alike. Suppliers can be grouped by regions, account sizes, dependencies, and more.

These profiling factors often change, so it has to be maintained. The last thing you want to do is communicate information about special offers in Scotland when the customer has moved to Wales.

Communicate Precisely

It is easy to complicate messages because of their broad reach. By breaking up communications into simple messages, targeted to the right person makes a big difference. Being consistent improves the appreciation of the message and being frequent increases the likelihood of the message being understood or acted upon.

In a work environment, being informed that their department succeeded with their objectives, week after week, will instill a belief of success. When a message is sent that offers a different outcome, e.g. poor performance, the message will stand out and be more likely to be better received. Naturally, morale plays an important part in this type of communication. Messages that consistently show up poor performance will have impact on morale.

Two-Way

Communication is often considered as a downward channel, which it is naturally not. By offering a message, we should prepare for a response. By not being prepared we are not communicating and the message becomes less valuable.

An example of being unprepared is with most advertising. As advertising is usually aimed at mass audiences, the message is already complex and without preparing for response we are unsure of the adverts success. This is why so much money is spent in market research, trying to get the message just right. Why simpler adverts tend to be more successful. And why advertising is so expensive as it needs to be delivered frequently in order to be understood.

Advertising in the form of competitions can be considerably more affective, as this generates the return communication required.

However, communications are equally costly to maintain a high level of effectiveness. Allowing a return stream that is limited such as multiple choice questionnaires (including technologies such as Interactive Voice Recording (IVR)) will have some benefit, but not as rich as a more free flowing interaction, e.g. contacting a telephone operative.

If you are able to follow the messages within this one, you have the potential to make your business succeed.

The Corporate Home-Office

2004-07-21T17:03:00.000+01:00

Although ad agencies have been using the work environment to promote creativity for years, other business sectors have yet to catch on. Dress-down policies have slowly been creeping through the barrage of grey suits. So there’s hope.

Creating a home away from home work environment has obvious affects on morale. Stocking up a kitchen, offering a selection of ‘current’ magazine subscriptions, a few books, a comfy couch, some desk lamps and a lick of paint, all cost relatively little to introduce and maintain yet do wonders for creating an atmosphere offering a sense of energy and support, yet still making an employee feel relaxed and settled.

The long term benefits include staff retention and overall job satisfaction. Employees are far less likely to think of the company as insensitive and lacking of care. Salaries and benefits are less likely to be judged (providing they are competitive). Additionally, the company becomes more appealing to new recruits.

Medium term affects offer improvements in communication, less sensitivity on the subjects of over-time (time away from home/family), and a reduction in stress levels. The number of sick-days will reduce in positive, thriving atmospheres where employees feel welcome. Naturally, maintenance and consideration for changing trends (décor, tastes, keeping the fridges well stocked) keep long and medium term benefits on the high side.

Short term benefits will relate to team-building, recognition/reward and entertainment.

Some things to consider: Don’t go overboard. The environment must still be conducive to getting ‘the job done’. Although initially, some novelty may have an adverse affect on productivity, this will quickly wear off providing the changes are not continually distractive. Go for clean modern simplicity with soothing tones, over brash, bright or cluttered where everything is loud. Consider the broad range of personalities that make up your workforce.

To complete the effect, involve employees in the exercise of making the environment feel more personal. A good way to do this is to offer a small annual budget to each employee to redecorate their ‘space’. This could be set against a theme to support the company brand or messages you wish for the different departments to reflect. Invite employee families to visit their loved-ones at work. A spouse, partner or child who knows where and what their significant others do during a day and feels they have access to them during office hours are less likely to apply outside pressures. It’s good to remember that every time an employee works overtime for you, it’s time taken away from their families.

Employees are more able to complete the blur between home-life and work-life when they can feel at home in the office.

Analogy: Communication

2004-07-16T12:14:00.000+01:00

You've been in a hurry all morning. You have a meeting planned for the afternoon. You'll need to take the train to get there. By the skin of your teeth you make it in time to catch the train. Ahh, but it's late.

Scenario 1:
5 minutes pass. No train. There is no one else on the plaform. You begin to panic. I'm going to be late. You phone to alert the person you are meeting. They ask 'how late'. You haven't a clue. There is too much at stake, you have to get to the meeting. You assure them you'll get there as soon as you can. 10 minutes pass. Still nothing.

In this scenario your mind is racing through all the various possibilities: Why is it late? Is it ever going to arrive? Maybe it's been canceled? How will I get there? When will I get there? How will this affect the meeting? And so on. It's possible that you will be upset with the train company, it's staff, the system.

Scenario 2:
5 minutes pass. No train. There is no one else on the platform. An announcement comes over the tannoy. Your train is going to be late.

In this scenario, you have at the very least been informed that the train is in fact on it's way. You are still left wondering why and when, as well as how this will affect your meeting. But so much else has been cleared up for you. Although you may still cling on to some bitterness towards the company.

Scenario 3:
5 minutes pass. No train. In this scenario, the announcement informs you why the train is late. It's getting better. In this scenario you can empathise with the problem being experienced and may even be thankful for the inconvenience, after-all one of the coaches could have experienced a problem injuring it's passengers. It could have been your coach.

Scenario 4:
On arrival, and every 5 minutes thereafter, the announcement informs you why the train is late, and provides you with an update of when it is likely to arrive or how far they are with the problem.

We can keep adding to these scenarios. If we know the exact time to expect arrival then that stands you in good stead for planning the rest of your day. If we apply reward or incentive on top (reduction in ticket price, free coffee, offer of alternate transport), the situation improves even further.

Sometimes we are unable to offer the answer, but we can still communicate. For whatever reason we've learnt that "no news is good news" is true for any situation. Not knowing the answer is less desirable than having it, but not communicating anything at all is worse.

Promote communication, whatever it may be. Learn to accept that you may not get the answer you want. After all, with the information you do get, it's better than what you were left thinking without it.

"No news is good news, any news is better!"

When Rewards Go Wrong

2004-07-14T23:14:00.001+01:00

Can you offer your employees a reward and have it taken badly? I’ve recently witnessed this. What went wrong?

During the heat of a ‘go-live’ installation of a difficult system upgrade a director felt humbled by all the commitment being shown by the implementation team. As a kind gesture, the director offered a trip to the team to a popular entertainment park. A welcome incentive as morale had already been a little frayed during the latter months of the project.

The implementation did not go well. In fact, truth-be-told, it is still proving to be problematic. The director has since gained composure and in the midst of fending off stakeholders and concerned management has attempted to fulfil his promise. In place of simplicity, the trip was ladened with options and conditions. The reward was no longer genuine and was to become insincere. The trip was delayed. To date: indefinitely.

What went wrong? What should have happened?

The moment was lost and the reward was watered down. If the director had prepared, working on skill and not emotion, he could have had invitations printed and ready to offer. The offer would be concrete and with the onset of emotion, the presentation of the reward, genuine.

A reward should not be complicated and should never be conditional. Treat a reward like cash. Once you hand over the praise, you’ve handed over the cash. If it’s a gift such as a trip to an entertainment park, consider that employees have lives outside of the company; in particular, employees have families. Alternatively, if it is felt that the reward should be focused on team building, then keep it within working hours. If this can potentially strike a jealous cord with spouses and spawn or holds employees back after hours (and away from the dinner table), then do consider a peace-offering for being greedy with their loved ones. After all, personal stresses reflect in the workplace and impact on fellow team members, it’s not surprising that this works visa versa.

Don’t expect anything in return for a reward. You reward for when something has already been done. Be prepared: Know who you are rewarding, what you are rewarding them for and consider their lives outside of the company. Keep the reward and details simple, book it or buy it now. When the time comes, offer the reward with sincerity. The result… is very rewarding!

Keeping Shtum!

2004-07-13T10:13:00.000+01:00

Have you ever wondered whether information is 'so' important that by letting other people know would be so detrimental to your self or your company? There is an art with senior management, especially those with share-holders to answer to. It's all about 'keeping shtum'.

What usually happens is human. Our brains cannot contain information without passing it on. We'd forget it if we didn't. It's psychological. You have to hear the words come out of your own mouth in order for you to retain it. Bizarre to think about. We have to let it out to keep it in. But until we have put it in to our own words, we can't be sure that we have understood it and know what to do with it.

Directors can do this with each other, and can therefore be quite good at keeping shtum. Yet directors talk to more people than just themselves. They have to talk to, at the very least, senior management. Successful directors communicate with the entire company. But what happens next is a demonstration of ego. Taking on the role of director, knowing something that others do not, we would have to communicate it. It's almost as if knowledge was like a powerful gas - try to retain too much of it, add too much to the container, we'd, it, would explode!

There are ways of communicating what we know. Consciously and sub-consciously. Unfortunately for us humans, we can't do the one, without the other. It's in the way we look, the way we write, in the way we act and the way we say things.

My message to you could be: "I value you as a member of the team." Consciously, I know this is the message I should be giving to you. Sub-consciously I'm leaking what psychologists call 'Tells'. A quick look away during the moment as I'm saying this to you, a slight tremor in the voice, the amount of emphasis I put on certain words could give it all away. I'm not telling the truth. I don't value you. I don't recognise a team.

Psychologist and Author Peter Collett (of recent Big Brother fame as their resident psychologist), details in his book 'The Book of Tells' those tells that even the most respected figures give away. George W, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair. Political figure heads that must communicate to large audiences (to us all) and yet keep some important truths to themselves. They can't.

So how does this affect us in the business place. Naturally, if we believe we are bad communicators, we try not to communicate. We hide. If we believe we are good communicators, we stand on metaphorical soap boxes. In-between, we blend, we find our click, a social niche, and remain. We share our truths and untruths to those we know will not question our honesty.

Socially, finding our click is supportive. Professionally, this is exclusive. In business, we are thrown together to support one another's job roles. This isn't a social click, yet professionally, we label this a 'team'. To become a team, we will need to break down the boundaries of one another's resistance to being honest. This can often take a long time, and require specialist attention. Once it's there, it's amazing. It's as if it were a social click.

Unfortunately, even if we get it right in one part of the business, unless the company is dedicated to communication and team building, it's rarely the same in the rest of the business. You may have many 'teams', but rarely, one 'team'.

We can create these teams ourselves. We can also attempt creating 'one team' for the entire company. Yet when a company employs a hierarchy that wishes to support secrecy, it's a virtual impossibility to get the Directors or Senior Managers on board.

The most successful companies are quite open. They have hierarchies, this is not the problem. Yet these hierarchies have chosen to openly communicate decisions between the levels. This is often known as 'transparency'. No secrets need to be kept. There's nobody to keep it secret from. Big mergers and acquisitions are communicated long before they happen. Ruling out someone picking up on the tells and beginning to rumour-monger. How this is communicated is often subjected to the level of detail required to keep a team informed, but none-the-less, it quells any possible misinterpretations and keeps everyone in the picture.

Keeping shtum is unhealthy. In order for us to believe what we know, we have to share it. If we hide, when we're expected to be visible, then those around you, whether trained in reading tells or instinctively picking them up (as we do), they'll know. Without communicating, they'll expect the worst. After all, why would you want to keep something 'good' from anyone? You'd want everyone to know, surely? Without successful communication rumours will brew, and that's the point that morale begins to latch on, going down for the ride.

Bob Nelson: Lead by Example

2004-07-12T14:15:00.000+01:00

Bob Nelson has a great way of getting his message across: By example!

I've purchased 3 of his books to date and they all follow the same format. He canvases companies all over the World (though mainly the States, after all, isn't that the World?), and collates their practices in to short snippets of inspiration. His style makes it easy to read through the pages and pages of successful ways that so many companies use to boost and maintain morale. It quickly gives you hope that there are companies out there that are great to work for, and one day, heeding to these examples, your company will be one of those places too.

Type 'Bob Nelson' in to any search engine and you'll find examples of his work, although the best place is from the horses mouth (sorry Bob): www.nelson-motivation.com

If you have any good ideas (in practice or not) of ways to improve morale at work, or have any valuable sources for such ideas, please send them to me. I will gladly review them and post them here for you all to see.

Who's To Boost Morale?

2004-07-12T12:28:00.000+01:00

In a recent communication forum held at my place of work, we were asked to investigate a noticeable lack of morale in our respective business areas. I sent out a quick questionnaire to all those that I represent at these forums to ask for their thoughts.

What I came to realize is morale can be repaired by more than just 'managers'. As employees I think it's easy for us to forget that managers are equally just employees. At some point, they were like you or I. The reason they are managers today, is probably less to do with their management skills and more to do with the jobs they did well before they were promoted.

My constituents include HOD's and other senior bod’s. The lack in morale has affected them too.

So how do you start improving morale if morale is the one thing that's affecting those we expect to be dealing with it? Well? Why don't we do something about? Yep. Us: The run-of-the-mill employee?

My target, for myself, is to communicate with my seniors about morale issues (Awareness), to offer support in communicating there thoughts to my colleagues (Support), to empathize with the difficulties they are facing (Empathy), and to reward them with hopefully improving morale, which goes along to making them look good (Reward).

What are you going to do today to help improve morale at your workplace?

What is morale?

2004-07-12T10:39:00.000+01:00

How strange that the one thing that drives a company the most is the one thing most companies don't drive... "Morale". Morale is often believed to be all to do with 'reward' and it's no wonder company directors are so dismissive of improving it. Better morale suggests better reward, and reward suggests 'money'. No company wants to see their hard earned profits go to something as frivolous and immeasurable as improving morale.

I've been looking into 'morale', on and off, for years. I've fallen victim to it's lows and have experienced the occasional high. I too have had to play the motivator of many. Dealing with my own morale issues is hard, but dealing with many other morale issues is a LOT harder. Morale teeters between a good day and a bad day. The undercurrent of long term morale is what tips the balance.

Do you want to know what morale is really about? It's not money. It's 'Recognition'. Recognizing that someone is valuable. Sure, you could do that with money. But how many people do you know that say that they never earn enough. We live in a society that encourages us to live beyond our means. We will never earn enough.

A colleague lent me her book titled “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” by Robert Fulgham. Written some time ago now, but yet still so relevant and true. Mr Fulgham describes, in one of his short stories, a love-hate relationship between himself and the (now late) Mother Teresa. For someone who had nothing and expected nothing in return, she made the best for everyone around her.

It's not money. It's recognition. How do you recognize someone?

Communicate. Wow! You would not believe how hard that is for mostly all of us. Where did we go so wrong? We have the latest in communications all around us: Email; Telephones; Mobile Phones; Postal Service; Couriers; Satellite Television; Blogs... And yet we still don't know how to 'communicate'!

Morale is normally high when everything is going 'just right'. When people come in to work, enjoy their job, go home feeling like they accomplished something, and are welcome home. Everything is just right.

What set's off morale on a downward slope?

Something inevitably goes wrong. Whilst morale is high, we tend to deal with it by happily going about fixing whatever it was that went wrong. If it's a short fix. A small problem. We deal with it effortlessly with ease.

So it's not when things go wrong? Or is it? No. It's when we stop communicating. It's when something goes wrong (or generally, when it's about to (we're all pretty intuitive to what upsets the balance of our happiness)), and we hold back communication.

Managers get blamed for this part of the problem. Why? Because that's what managers do. They communicate. They delegate. They manage. Yet when something goes wrong, they have a choice. They have the power to continue to communicate, delegate and manage. Or, they can choose to 'take control'. Roll-up there sleeves and muck-in.

Is this starting to sound familiar?

Managers are where they are today, for being able to do the job of mucking-in. Usually for being the best at mucking-in. Yet, it does not necessarily mean they are good at being 'managers'.

A good manager shouldn't be mucking-in. However tempting. And however encouraged. That's not there job. It's yours. As an employee you are expected to do a job. If something goes wrong within your reemit of work, then you are the best person for the job. Not your manager. It is your managers job to continue to communicate, delegate and manage.

But what should a manager be communicating?

To you, the problem solver: Support. Empathy.

To your fellow colleagues who may be impacted by whatever it is that has gone wrong: Awareness. Support. Empathy.

An even better manager will also add to the recognition by the use of reward: Rewarding a problem solver for their efforts, and rewarding the inflicted for their patience.

A word of warning to managers. Rewarding without communicating (i.e. Awareness, Support, Empathy) and whilst 'taking control', will not be well received. Sure. You may feel it's the right thing to do, and it may be a genuine heart-felt gesture, it unfortunately does not get received that way.

Morale is all to do with recognition. Recognition that a person is valuable. Recognition is achieved through management. Management is achieved by communicating, delegating and managing. Communication is achieved by keeping everyone aware, offering a feeling of support and empathizing with everyone the problems they are experiencing.

Oh, and reward is always nice, but is little to do with morale and more to do with adding value to the lives of the people that work so hard at making managers look good at their jobs.