Is Transparency the Missing Link?

I started my career nearly 40 years ago now and remember my first job as if it was yesterday. What I distinctly remember from that time is the transparent cultures that I worked in. I remember feeling part of the organisation even as a young inexperienced graduate as the organisations leadership made me feel a valued part of the organisation, where my thoughts and inputs were actively sort by my manager on a reasonably regular basis.

 

Obviously there was confidential, high level information that wasn’t so transparent, often until after the fact, but that didn’t bother me, as I genuinely felt that I was a ‘cog in the organisational wheel’ albeit a very small cog and part of both a small departmental team and a much larger organisational team. 

 

When I talk to employees today, however, they often tell me that they feel that they are seen simply as a ‘warm body’ filling a position, to do as they are told and do not feel that they are employed for their thoughts and ideas. It seems, sadly, that transparency is not a business principal that is embraced by many 21^st century leaders. I wonder why?

 

There definitely seems to be a negative trend, back towards command and control leadership which is really sad, as this leadership approach does not build strong organisational cultures. Organisations that encourage or turn a blind eye to this negative style of leadership may feel that their choice is validated because they get the results they want – but they naively don’t appreciate the cost in terms of ‘lost’ employer loyalty, innovation, and performance. Because the allure of the power that comes with the command and control style – these leaders blindly continue on their path, believing that they are solely the ones who have any brains in the organisation – and that employees are there to do as they are told; and not to think or question ideas.

 

These command and control leaders fear transparency as they believe it will show their weaknesses and shortcomings; and as individuals who can’t stand solely on their ‘work record and skills’ need ‘power’ to keep them in their leadership role – and the ‘perceived feelings’ that this brings. Hence they avoid transparency and create a ‘brick wall’ between themselves and the employees they ‘lead’ – allowing them to operate with perceived impunity. In the end command and control might get results but it doesn’t get optimum performance, sustained growth and innovation – business principles that are vital in today’s cut throat world of business.

 

Because command and control leaders are rarely transparent, this just fuels the distrusting culture even more, creating a very negative environment for their employees who simply adopt a ‘survival’ culture until they either find an alternative job or until they retire. Creating, in the end, a lose-lose situation for everyone – if only these modern day leaders had the courage to open their eyes and see it.

 

Transparency is the ‘competitive advantage’ between organisations and leaders you want to work for and those you strive to avoid or escape from. Transparency is one of the key elements of what organisational cultures should be all about. For example some of the benefits of transparency include;

 

It opens up a trusting relationship between leaders and employees;

It allows employees to contribute and innovate towards clear goals and objectives – a win-win for everyone;

Employees feel part of ‘something’ and feel valued – hence this helps with talent retention;

Day-to-day business discussions focus on genuine ‘pro-active’ honesty in all aspects of the work cycle – where, for example, mistakes aren’t hidden but transparently embraced and actively learnt from; and

Transparency makes an organisation a ‘rich’ place to work in, learn and develop your career.

 

It seems in today’s hectic global business environment that too many organisations have let poor leadership become the acceptable norm – often because once in place these leaders surround themselves with incompetent people who will follow them and be the ultimate ‘yes’ men – pushing out the best talent – but sadly still getting good enough results to remain in post.

 

It needs a strong CEO, with a strong board, to constantly challenge and investigate their ‘real’ company culture rather than the one that is portrayed by those in positions of power – as there may be a real difference between perception and reality, which can have a huge impact on an organisations future. A lack of transparency is like a cancer slowly eating away and ‘killing’ the good parts of an organisation.

 

Often by the time organisations find out that their middle management is not that good, it’s way too late to do anything about it – as by now all the really good talent has already left.

 

Leadership comes from the top and hence so does transparency. As a leader you need to ‘get out’ and meet you employees – have genuine and transparent one-on-one chats with them to find out what the real culture is like – and then you can more easily adapt and respond.

 

Just by getting out and having genuine, meaningful, transparent conversations with your employees will go a long way to developing a transparent culture; from there you can build a very special organisation. Why not give it a go today, you won’t regret it…..

How Effective is Your Team, Really?

There’s a great quote by the author Simon Sinek, who wrote, “a team is not a group of people who work together. A team is a group of people who trust each other.” There’s nothing mind-blowing about this quote on the surface – but how often do teams spend real quality time assessing their genuine cohesiveness? And who’s the right person to be ensuring they have the best performing team, where each member trusts the other, both today and into the future?

 

Trust is a huge issue and not something that can be assessed accurately unless, to some extent, trust already exists within the team. Confused? It’s a bit like the chicken and egg. It’s unlikely that you’ll ever really know if you have a truly high performing, trusting team if the team doesn’t operate in a culture where full transparency is the rule and not the exception – and for transparency to exist you first need at least some degree of trust to be present or a genuine desire to get to a point where the team can trust each other.

 

The general rule in most organizations seems to be to ignore this part of team dynamics and just let the group sort out their problems if and when they arise; tacitly accepting that not everyone is going to get on and allowing levels of dysfunctionality to exist – without fully understanding the impact on team performance and hence optimum output. In fact it seems that unless the underlying mistrust starts to negatively affect short-term performance goals, the problem will be ignored, in most cases, simply because leaders don’t have the confidence and skills to deal with it.

 

This approach fails on so many levels (1) you’ll never optimise your teams true potential; (2) individual team members will not support their colleagues above the very basic level; (3) the team will not innovate best in class solutions due to the distrust among its members; (4) ‘underground’ splits occur in the team where often one section thinks they are superior to another part of the team and gain favour with the leader, creating messy silos of distrusting self-serving sub-teams.

 

Another sad fact about dysfunctional teams are that they are the playground of command and control type leaders. These leaders thrive on their team being dysfunctional as it gives them more power to manipulate the business environment for their own personal gain. They have absolutely no interest in developing a cohesive team, as they fear losing their own slightly misplaced perception of control. Further they do not subscribe to one of the core roles of a leader that being to develop each team member to their optimal potential – as they fear this may threaten their very existence.

 

So how does one reverse this trend? Here are some fundamentals;

 

1) You have to want your team to be the best they can be?

2) You want an authentic team where honesty is a core value – which leads to a trusting environment (note: genuine honesty can be hard initially as team members hear the truth about how they are perceived, often for the first time and their ego’s get dented; but in the medium to long term the team, through focused leadership, get over themselves and focus on a honest future together).

3) You’re prepared to invest the time to build a successful team.

4) You set ground rules so you create an authentic environment, not a bitchy one.

5) You focus on the benefits of building the best team of highly motivated individuals.

6) You’re prepared to set the example.

 

 

So the starting point is for the board and executive team to ensure that they develop a leadership philosophy that rejects any form of command and control leadership; and they set the example to encourage leaders to develop high performing teams as a core responsibility. This means that as a leader you must be prepared to deal with team dynamics head on and be prepared to invest time and effort in developing a culture of trust – however hard that might be in the short term – as failure to develop a team that trusts each other means you will have accepted mediocrity as one of your core business values.  

 

As Patrick Lencioni, author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, wrote; “remember teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability.”

 

Besides reading the theory on team dynamics, business leaders can learn a lot from observing the best sports teams around the world where for example Phil Jackson (former coach and former player, currently serving as president of the New York Knicks) said “the strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.”

 

One strength of great sports team is their authentic communication – it’s one of the things that makes them stand out from the crowd of wannabe teams where, as the author Michele Jennae states “if we don’t communicate, we certainly can’t get much done and if we don’t communicate authentically, what we get done is less effective.” Players on and off the field are authentic about their strengths and weaknesses; they understand their primary team role; but are also prepared to support other teams mates as and when necessary – they know that if their communication isn’t authentic, the team will not play to its best potential and they won’t be the best.

 

It’s worth noting from a business perspective that this sports analogy isn’t saying the ‘dysfunctional’ team might not win – it just won’t win by the margin it could if it was working together as ‘one’ cohesive unit. And this is often where the confusion exists for the business leader – they see their ‘team’ winning and hence assume that things must be ‘good’ and don’t get involved enough in the team dynamics to understand that the winning is more ‘luck’ than due to the team ‘playing together’.

 

So it’s your choice as a leader, are you confident and good enough to truly examine your team dynamics to find out if you have an environment of transparency and genuine trust; and are you prepared to invest time and effort in developing the best team dynamics possible?

 

 

Remember “leadership is not about your ambition. It is about bringing out the ambitions of your team” ― Cheryl A. Bachelder, Dare to Serve: How to Drive Superior Results by Serving Others

How Do Organisations Create Stress in the Workplace?

I was fascinated when I found there’s a journal entitled ‘Work and Stress’ and in a 2009 article Raymond Randall, Karina Neilsen and Sturle Tvedt wrote that “organizations and researchers often encounter difficulties when evaluating organizational level stress management interventions. When interventions fail, often it is unclear whether the intervention itself was ineffective, or whether problems with implementation processes were to blame.” They highlight how “in current European legislation there is a clear emphasis on the use of organizational-level interventions (changes in the design, organization, and management of work) as a way of improving working conditions and tackling problems such as work stress.”

 

Stress is a topic that is rarely discussed in most businesses and would be considered a ‘negative’ reaction to ‘normal’ work pressures by many managers throughout the world. With the world still struggling from the global financial crisis and further economic recessions on the horizon – should employees feel more stressed anyway, and what should organisations be doing about it if anything?

 

Individual reactions to stress will always vary and will be determined by many influencing factors at a specific point in time – remembering that employees will bring personal issues to work that if not identified can lead to stress at work depending on the organisational culture and how ‘safe’ they feel discussing personal issues that may affect performance.

 

Randall et al highlight how “several studies have discussed the importance of employees’ perceptions of involvement and participation in determining the success of an intervention. These constructs appear to be multi-faceted since they appear to be important at both the design stage and the implementation stage, and at a local level and an organizational level (e.g. Nytrø et al., 2000). Participation also plays a major role in well-known stress intervention theories such as the German Health Circles (Aust & Ducki, 2004) and risk management approaches to work stress (e.g. Cox et al., 2000). Participation may help to ensure employee buy-in and commitment and make use of employees’ expertise, thus improving the chances of intervention success (Kompier, Cooper, & Geurts, 2000; Kompier, Geurts, Grundemann, Vink, & Smulders, 1998).”

 

What I find fascinating with this work is that it takes all this research to determine what most would think is very obvious when it comes to change and minimising stress – it's all about communication, communication, communication. Letting people know what’s going on and keeping them involved are the cornerstones for successful implementation of anything – and by being transparent and keeping involved any stresses, both real and perceived, are reduced.

 

Around the world management for some odd reason miss the very basic concept that stress will always be minimised in an organisational environment where employees feel ‘safe’ to speak their mind – to discuss issues in a non-threatening, transparent environment.

 

A lot of organisational stress is caused by the failure of management to communicate on key issues that affect employees and instead for some misguided reason prefer to leave them in a state of uncertainty where many stresses are in fact ‘non-founded’ perceptions driven by a way too creative grapevine – creating too many negative self-fulfilling prophecies that end up not only harming individuals but the organisation as well.

 

Unfortunately it’s poorly run organisations where stress exists and but is not recognised by the management as anything other than the sign of a weak employee – someone who can’t hack-it in a tough business world. These organisations are often run by command and control leaders who have no empathy for an individual who feels any form of stress – even when the stress is created by an employee who only wants to do their very, very best.

 

In a healthy organisation there should be healthy levels of stress – that means that employees like the organisation are being pushed to be the very best they can be. Most of the time this should be exciting and motivational, but there’s no denying that at some points in time there will be levels of stress, but these should be recognised and embraced.

 

References:

 

Randall, R., Nielsen, K. and Tvedt, S. D. (2009). The development of five scales to measure employees' appraisals of organizational-level stress management interventions. Work and Stress, Vol. 23, Issue 1, p. 1-23.

Let's Talk About Leadership?

Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind highlight in a 2012 HBR article that “the command-and-control approach to management has in recent years become less and less viable. Globalization, new technologies, and changes in how companies create value and interact with customers have sharply reduced the efficacy of a purely directive, top-down model of leadership. What will take the place of that model? Part of the answer lies in how leaders manage communication within their organizations - that is, how they handle the flow of information to, from, and among their employees. Traditional corporate communication must give way to a process that is more dynamic and more sophisticated. Most important, that process must be conversational.”

 

Groysberg and Slind mention that “smart leaders today, we have found, engage with employees in a way that resembles an ordinary person-to-person conversation more than it does a series of commands from on high. Furthermore, they initiate practices and foster cultural norms that instill a conversational sensibility throughout their organizations. Chief among the benefits of this approach is that it allows a large or growing company to function like a small one. By talking with employees, rather than simply issuing orders, leaders can retain or recapture some of the qualities -operational flexibility, high levels of employee engagement, tight strategic alignment - that enable start-ups to outperform better-established rivals.”

 

Yet one has to ask if this is ‘nice to have’ theory or if it is really happening in the work place? It’s strange, as over the last 20 years I must have asked over 5,000 employees at various levels and across all business sectors – “what makes a great leader” – and you know what, 99% of them know the attributes of a great leader, the problem always comes in the application.

 

Leaders know that ‘communication’ and ‘people conversations’ are vital to optimise an employee’s motivation, innovation and performance – yet for some reason that has been identified yet; most leaders are constantly bad at having these conversations.

 

Groysberg and Slind highlight how “personal conversation flourishes to the degree that the participants stay close to each other, figuratively as well as literally. Organizational conversation, similarly, requires leaders to minimize the distances - institutional, attitudinal, and sometimes spatial - that typically separate them from their employees. Where conversational intimacy prevails, those with decision-making authority seek and earn the trust (and hence the careful attention) of those who work under that authority. They do so by cultivating the art of listening to people at all levels of the organization and by learning to speak with employees directly and authentically. Physical proximity between leaders and employees isn’t always feasible. Nor is it essential. What is essential is mental or emotional proximity. Conversationally adept leaders step down from their corporate perches and then step up to the challenge of communicating personally and transparently with their people.”

 

It was Stephen Covey in his 7 Habits Programme who recognized that the trick to highly effective communication was learning to listen with the intent to understand and not with the intent to reply. It’s a simple philosophy and one that most people embrace as ‘correct’ – and yet again in the workplace you still find leaders who know a principle is right, yet fail to apply it on a daily basis.

 

Finally Groysberg and Slind conclude that “this intimacy distinguishes organizational conversation from long-standard forms of corporate communication. It shifts the focus from a top-down distribution of information to a bottom-up exchange of ideas. It’s less corporate in tone and more casual. And it’s less about issuing and taking orders than about asking and answering questions.

 

Conversational intimacy can become manifest in various ways - among them gaining trust, listening well, and getting personal. Where there is no trust, there can be no intimacy. For all practical purposes, the reverse is true as well. No one will dive into a heartfelt exchange of views with someone who seems to have a hidden agenda or a hostile manner, and any discussion that does unfold between two people will be rewarding and substantive only to the extent that each person can take the other at face value.”

 

Although the command and control approach to leadership might be less viable in today’s global economy it appears that the ‘mail’ to most leaders got conveniently lost in cyberspace; since ‘trust’ is a trait many leaders simply don’t know how to garner. Where there is a constant contradiction between leaders demanding that their employees both trust and respect them, without making an attempt to earn it first.

 

If you’re a leader then the simplest way to more effective leadership and building a culture that includes trust is through regular, open two-way communication – it’s as simple as that – the more ‘people conversations’ you have the more optimal your results will be.

 

References:

 

Groysberg, B. and Slind, M. (2012). Leadership is a Conversation. Harvard Business Review. July. [on-line:http://hbr.org/2012/06/leadership-is-a-conversation/ar/1]

Is Technology Making Us Better Communicators?

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” This quote is attributed to Stephen Covey (and multi-million dollar training programme), the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change.

 

Though, to be honest, I’ve always had a feeling that this concept has been around for longer than Covey, and goes way beyond just listening to include how we read words on a page, especially now in the world of social media, and how we see things as well.

 

Covey believed that “communication is the most important skill in life. You spend years learning how to read and write, and years learning how to speak. But what about listening? What training have you had that enables you to listen so you really, deeply understand another human being?”

 

But there are many detractors to Covey’s thinking and as one critic, Art Petty, mentions “listening with intent isn’t a technique, it’s a personal value backed by behaviors that cause us to shift from the movie about ourselves running in our own minds to focusing on the movie or picture being created by another.”

 

Covey’s underlying premise is that “if you're like most people, you probably seek first to be understood; you want to get your point across. And in doing so, you may ignore the other person completely, pretend that you're listening, selectively hear only certain parts of the conversation or attentively focus on only the words being said, but miss the meaning entirely. So why does this happen?

 

Because most people listen with the intent to reply, not to understand. You listen to yourself as you prepare in your mind what you are going to say, the questions you are going to ask, etc. You filter everything you hear through your life experiences, your frame of reference. You check what you hear against your autobiography and see how it measures up. And consequently, you decide prematurely what the other person means before he/she finishes communicating. Do any of the following sound familiar?”

 

This desire to respond has gone way beyond listening and can be seen on a daily basis in social media, like on LinkedIn, Twitter, etc – where many people make comments without first trying to understand the topic under debate and/or understand the comments already made. They just want to make a point – any point – as long as it’s their point. 

 

There is a danger for society with this behaviour as it’s encouraging people to focus on their ‘intent to reply’ rather than their desire to first understand – and this potential ‘shift’ in behaviour can have very serious consequences for civilization in general, both from a business and personal perspective – as how we engage with others has a significant impact on the ability to build relationships and trust. 

 

One of the key points in Covey’s thinking is that we must first spend the time trying to understand the other person or people – since if we don’t, what follows has no synergy to what is going on either in the verbal or written communication.

 

History is full of disasters built on misunderstanding - but it doesn't have to stay that way, since in today's modern world we have the tools and the ability/intelligence to communicate much faster and more effectively than ever before.

 

So it does come down to desire, personal values and personal choices – do we want to engage in meaningful conversations where we first really want to understand the debate, and the thoughts behind it and then contribute to it in a meaningful manner – or do we just want to be heard – hoping that someone somewhere will like what we have to say.

 

There is a real danger with social media that we will forget how to listen, read and see things with a real intent and desire to understand – often learning something in the process; and that we will instead become people who just want to reply, regardless of how irrelevant that reply might be – and in the process fail to learn ourselves.

Do You Value Feedback?

Cindy McCauley and Michael Wakefield highlight how “honest feedback is vital to effective talent management systems. Without positive feedback, good performers may lose motivation. Without receiving constructive criticism, poor performers never learn where they fall short and are unlikely to improve. Giving and receiving such valuable feedback is an essential way that you can contribute to your organization's talent development.”

 

But as much as organisations need to understand the importance of giving feedback and the correct ways of doing it – individual employees need to adopt a mindset that isn’t just open to receiving feedback but one that actually craves feedback – which means that if the feedback isn’t forthcoming that they actually go and look for it.

 

This doesn’t mean taking an egocentric or aggressive approach to seeking feedback – as this approach will be counter productive. It means seeking constructive feedback on ones performance on a periodic, task by task, basis that actually allows them to assess their strengths and weaknesses; self-develop and grow.

 

Individuals that value feedback are often those that have a "learner's mindset" that helps shape everyday experiences into valuable learning opportunities. They are often inquisitive about things in general, in and outside work, and seek answers to questions that will help them understand.

 

Three key elements - assessment, challenge, and support - make the difference between an average experience and one that develops your performance and skills. First, you need to assess your current strengths and level of effectiveness, as well as areas that need improvement through seeking independent constructive feedback.

 

Next, you need to take on challenges that, by stretching you out of your comfort zone, enable you to improve your strengths and work on your weaknesses. Finally, you need to solicit support from others; since support, well the right kind anyway, can make your learning experience positive, while a lack of support can lead to frustration or even failure.

 

Cindy McCauley and Michael Wakefield ask, “what skills and experiences do you need for success, both now and in the future? Set specific, measurable goals for gaining those skills and experiences, and monitor your performance for improvement. Solicit feedback as often as possible. Continually assess your progress: Are your efforts having the expected impact? If they aren't, you may need to change your approach.”

 

In many 21^st Century business cultures, many employees are grappling with understanding how to interact with social media, and what this means about being open and honest about performance and seeking feedback on various business events – there seems to be a tendency to shy away from getting honest and constructive feedback on performance, preferring instead to live in a world of contentment where possible weaknesses don’t have to be highlighted and dealt with.  

 

The danger with this approach is that it allows for the creation of an individual and organisational culture of mediocrity – where employees aren’t given feedback to allow them to constantly improve – but instead are given feedback that encourages the status quo, allowing employees to have that ‘feel good’ factor – meaning they ‘talk’ about how well they are doing rather than a future state of how good they could become.

 

In most cases you and the culture you work in will influence if you regularly seek out honest, constructive feedback that will allow you to constantly improve – and this very much depends on your own levels of confidence and your business mind-set.

 

If you really want to succeed in your career and you don’t currently have the mind-set and/or confidence to look for feedback on the things you do; then the best thing you can do is to embrace a mind-set of continual improvement from now on. This will mean seeking continuous feedback that can help you improve.

 

This mindset not only allows you to learn and develop, but it shows the organisation your determination to succeed and a desire to add value to the organisation – surely a win-win scenario for all involved.

 

 

References

 

McCauley, C. and Wakefield, M. (2006).Talent Management in the 21st Century: Help Your Company Find, Develop, and Keep its Strongest Workers. Journal for Quality & Participation. Vol. 29, Issue 4, p.4-7.

 

Whose Reality is Reality TV? And Can it Negatively Impact Performance in the Work Place?

Most reality television shows these days seem to have ‘small print’ somewhere actually letting people know that the programme is far from reality and events have been staged to make the ‘show’ more interesting. Where their definition of interesting encompass words like confrontational, sensationalist, hurtful, rude, inflammatory etc. 

But since as a ‘species’ we’re pretty bad at reading the small print – I often pause to wonder if the youth of today actually believe that because it’s called ‘reality’ that this must actually be how life is in the world in general and hence they adapt their behaviours to ‘fit in’ with this reality.  

In an article for ABC Nightline, Andrea Canning and Elizabeth Stuart highlight how “a slap here, a table flip there, and if we're lucky, an all-out brawl -- violence was once just a scene-stealer on today's reality shows, but it now has become a part of some stars' real lives. Stars from the hit MTV reality show "Teen Mom 2" are the latest to fall into controversy for fighting.  

Janelle Evans, 19, was arrested Sunday after video surfaced of her punching another woman at her Oak Branch, N.C. hometown. She was charged with simple assault and simple affray, ABC affiliate WWAY reported. In the video, Evans can be seen attacking her former friend, Brittany Truett, as others can be heard urging them on in the background.” 

The problem isn’t just the basic violence and abuse but that believe it or not more people tune in to see it.  “Last year, ‘Jersey Shore’ aired a video of Nicole ‘Snooki’ Polizzi being punched in the face by a man at a bar to promote its upcoming season. Not only did the video go viral online, it helped double the show's ratings from the previous season.” 

Now what has this got to do with business one might ask. Well, I’d say everything – what are we teaching the next generation about ‘real’ reality in the work place – what are we teaching them in respect of how to develop interpersonal relationships, how to deal with conflict, how to communicate with your peers, customers etc. 

Stacey Kaiser a psychologist who has appeared on reality TV shows is worried that people's perception of reality are altered when they watch these shows. "Things that we used to look away from are things that we now watch on television on a daily basis," she said. "It sends a message to viewers that it’s something that's socially acceptable to our society these days." 

Known for sparking up vicious fights on "The Hills," Jayde Nicole said looking back, she was embarrassed by her behaviour, but that some of the blame had to lie with the show's producers. "The producers have a big role in what's happening on the show," she said. "They create a lot of drama and they start a lot of the fights...they will say so and so said this about you behind your back, and she said she slept with your boyfriend. It's like high school." 

Psychologist Stacy Kaiser said that the unusual situations that reality shows force their participants into can sometimes be detrimental to them. "I like to parallel some of these reality shows to a caged tiger that is used to being in the wild," she said. "They're being watched all the time, they start to feel anxious, they start to feel aggressive and they begin to behave in ways that are way more extreme." 

Of course reality-based television is not new, of course. Alan Funt, with his 1948 TV series Candid Camera is often credited as reality TV's first practitioner. In fact, he started a year earlier with Candid Microphone on radio. Truth or Consequences started in 1950 and frequently used secret cameras. Both of these two pioneering series created artificial realties to see how ordinary people would respond; the reality series of today borrow a lot from these precedents and differ mostly in scope and locale. A number of "who am I?" game shows accommodated the clunky nature of early TV technology by bringing real people into the studio. What's My Line premiered in 1950; I've Got a Secret in 1952; To Tell the Truth in 1956. These shows seem tame by today's standards, but were certainly cutting a new edge in the 1950s. The judge who married Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller appeared live on What's My Line within a week of performing the wedding. Even in the earliest days, the camera roamed out of the studio occasionally with film technology. You Asked For It took the viewer to amazing sights and spectacular phenomena as early as 1950. 

So is TV negatively influencing behaviours, especially in the young, which could be detrimental to their own careers going forward – as they misunderstand the basics in interpersonal skills? And if it is, is it something we as, business people, entrepreneurs, managers, leaders should concern ourselves with? Or are we happy to make it someone else’s problem – simply telling ourselves that we wouldn’t recruit these degenerates in the first place.

How Do You Set Expectations at the Right Level?

We all have different expectations for everything we do – some are very consciously calculated and others more subconscious, but our ‘expectations’ affect our lives on a daily basis. So how we create and respond to our expectations will have an impact on our lives in general. Expectations impact everything, from our personal relationships and our day-to-day interactions with others (in and outside work) to how much we enjoy eating out or enjoy a holiday and yet we rarely seem to review and assess how realistic our expectations are.

We all know how different people have completely different expectations for exactly the same activity – in fact there isn’t one ‘activity’ that everyone has the same expectation for. So how do we deal with this in business and how do we minimise discrepancies in expectations.

Getting expectations ‘right’ has an impact on how we optimise the efficiency of effort and ‘enjoy’ what we are doing. But this doesn’t mean that we can simply lower our expectations on everything, so that we’re always ‘happy’ – because expectations are linked with standards and ethics.

Lower expectations too far and standards start to drop, which can start a total decline in standards and/or values. But, similarly at the opposite end, if your expectations are too high then you’re likely to be constantly disappointed, which from a leaders perspective means that you’ll be constantly unhappy and your staff are likely to be constantly demotivated – which leads to a decline in performance and a loss of respect for the leader.

Expectations are ‘created’ through personal knowledge, experience, as well as feedback from others (that we may or may not trust, i.e. sometimes we can be misled leading to incorrect expectations – like when you watch a movie trailer, which leads you to have high expectations for a movie that you then end up being disappointed with).

So in business the word ‘expectations’ gets mentioned quite a lot; in describing meeting customer expectations, or staff expectations, for example, or how a vision creates an expectation of a future state – but how well to we manage the ‘creation’ of expectations in the first place and are leaders and organisations as a whole doing enough to align ‘expectations’ throughout the organisation – both from an internal and external perspective.

If not, then an organisation mustn’t be surprised when either customers become confused with the level of service they receive or different departments and/or individuals have different perceptions about how well they are meeting the organisations expectations of them, leading to different levels of perceived operational efficiency (which can cause chaos when it comes to appraisal time and an employee thinks they’ve met expectations and their boss has a different perspective).

So executives and managers need to spend more time clearly defining and aligning expectations in their organisations – where expectations are a two way street. This has a significant impact on a multitude of activities and factors within a business; which strangely are rarely discussed, except in the very best organisations – for example, discussing what is expected to be required from an organisation (at the individual level) to reach the ‘vision’ and, just as importantly, what the expectations are once the vision has been reached.

If these simple expectations aren’t discussed organisations mustn’t be surprised when in reaching a specific objective, the leadership is ecstatic, but their staff are demotivated and disappointed; as this will simply be because expectations have not been aligned and discussed. 

The reader will probably think that the points raised are simply common sense – yet in our day to day lives much of our disappointment, demotivation and even conflict is caused by non-alignment of expectations. How many ‘arguments’ do you have in your personal life that can, in the end, be simply put down to a difference in expectations? And how once expectations are discussed and aligned life becomes much smoother; whether it’s agreeing about household chores, to who’s going to get the take away on the way home, to what shade of white the wall is going to be painted.

As individuals we, too often, project our expectations on others, assuming that since these are our expectations, they must align with the other parties – and are often shocked to horrified when these expectations aren’t met and even more shocked when we find the other parties expectations were nowhere close to ours - where this leads to disappointment, mistrust and even anger.

So to make your life easier, whether a leader or a staff member, always take the time upfront to discuss expectations with the other individual or group for any task you are involved with – this will ensure expectations are aligned, (which through the process  may even lead to a restructuring of the task, for the better). And as a leader, when you’re selling your vision of the future, take the time to discuss expectations with everyone involved, to ensure that everyone has the same expectations from the outcome and the process.

Downsizing and Ethics: Do They Go Together?

Once upon a time, a loyal and faithful employee might have expected both a career and a gold watch from an employer in whose service they toiled, good years and bad, for 40 years or more. No more. Over the last 20 years, corporate downsizing, in the form of massive layoffs of employees, has become a business-as-usual response as well as a socially legitimate activity for western organisations.

Carl Rhodes, Alison Pullen and Stewart Clegg (2010) mention that “in an era of ‘new capitalism’ characterized by ‘stiff international competition, state deregulation of industry, institutional ownership of firms and rapid technological change’, organizations have used downsizing in a bid to achieve structural simplicity and flexibility as well as to respond to heightened financial demands,” (p.535).

Rhodes et al, state that “given that those who exercise power frequently claim ethical justification for their actions in terms of authoritative rhetoric through narratives, not least in the everyday unfolding of organizational action (and organizational change and downsizing), ethics can be regarded as the domain through which power asserts legitimacy,” (p.536). This is such a strong statement and one that leaders need to reflect upon.

As an example, in the dot.com era of the late 1990s, V-Tech (not their real name) had experienced unprecedented success as a financially prosperous industry leader envied by its competitors. The end of the dot.com boom and associated economic and technological changes, however, did not favour this company. Faced with a declining market and rapidly changing technology, V-Tech failed to maintain its market position. The organisation was changing in ways that no one could have envisaged in the heady boom time. The reversal in V-Tech’s fortunes was catastrophic. In the mid-1990s, the organisation had been riding on a wave of financial success and was generally regarded as the most innovative firm in its market. As the 1990s came to a close, however, the computer industry was changing. With developments in personal computing, the types of products and services that could once only be delivered by specialist companies with expensive technical infrastructure were becoming increasingly cheap and available. V-Tech did try to invest in different technologies to mitigate the erosion of their core markets, but these decisions proved unsuccessful and, in some cases, disastrous. The financial implications of this were significant: the company’s market capitalisation in the mid-2000s being less than 2% of what it was in the 1990s. The passage between these two points was one of continual unprofitability and a spiralling program of cost cutting and downsizing. By 2005, the staff base had been decimated and in 2006, V-Tech had been de-listed from the stock exchange and had filed for bankruptcy – only to emerge soon after bolstered by a new swag of capital investment in 2007, (Rhodes, Pullen and Clegg, 2010, p.536; 540).

Like many organisations that have suffered from the recent global financial crisis, V-Tech’s past, characterised by informality, was directly linked to its financial performance. Executives talked of a carefree organisation whose pursuit of ‘customer intimacy and technical differentiation’ meant that the focus was less on operational efficiency and financial prudence and more on excessiveness. This should resonate with many who have read the stories of other organisations, especially in the western world, consumed by their own success, and living the excessive ‘life-style’ – supposedly telling the world; “hey, look at us.”

Rhodes, Pullen and Clegg highlight how “the presence of strong collective narratives in organizations can limit the scope of ethical deliberation and action, organizations seeking to engage in organizational change ethically should encourage debate, critique and contestation over the meaning of those events. In order to do so, they would engage in an ‘ethical vitality’ whereby the presence of multiple and competing interpretations of organizational change would highlight the need for individuals to take a more active role in both making sense of their organizations and taking action within them. Practically, this would suggest that dominant narratives, such as those in V-Tech, needs to be actively contested and disrupted to create an organizational environment conducive to active ethical deliberation,” (p.547).

In a brilliant summary, Rhodes, Pullen and Clegg state that, “we can surmise the relationship between storytelling, change, power and ethics in organizations – when narratives of organizational change become dominated by an organizationally legitimated plot, the narrative serves to close down the openness required by ethics,” (p.546).

So maybe it’s time to relook at the rhetoric and re-establish transparent channels of communication within our organisations, so that we can encourage open and ethical dialogue, in the best interests of the organisation as a whole, which includes the employees.

References

Rhodes, C., Pullen, A. and Clegg, S. (2010). ‘If I Should Fall From Grace...’: Stories of Change and Organizational Ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 91 Issue 4, p.535-551.