Why do you do what you do?

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First published on LinkedIn, December 21, 2016.

I wrote a post around Christmastime last year saying I believe in Father Christmas, which received a comment about aligning what we do with what we believe in, and that if we could align what we do with what we believe in, then wouldn’t the world be a better place?

Today, I had a great conversation with a colleague concerning why we do the things we do, which got me thinking about why I do the things I do, and whether it is about aligning what I want with what I believe in.  My conclusion is that there is a third dimension – what I do.  Bringing all three of these together might perhaps uncover why I do what I do.

A framework to help you align your thinking

I present this thinking here for no other purpose than to suggest it as a framework for thinking about what you believe in, what you want and what you do.  You might just uncover why you do what you do, and if not, give pause for thought as we approach a New Year and those resolutions to choose something new or different.

I believe in people; I help people be the leaders they want to be; it makes me happy and fulfilled.  These are the ‘whats’ in the Venn diagram.  The intersections are, I believe, the ‘hows’:

  • I believe in people and I help people. I do that by consulting, coaching and facilitating. That is how I align what I believe with what I do
  • I do it with a non-judgmental attitude. I accept the leader you are now, confront the challenges you have and support you to make better choices, so that you become more potent as a leader.  This how I align what I want with what I believe in
  • Being part of a larger corporate machine would not make me happy or fulfilled. So, I do it as a freelance, self-employed consultant – coach – facilitator.  This aligns what I do with what I want.

The final intersection, right in the centre of the diagram, which brings together these ‘whats’ and ‘hows’ is, of course, the ‘why’: why do I do what I do?  And for me, that is the higher purpose of making a difference.

And so, I’m curious, why do you do what you do?

Jeremy J Lewis

CMdeltaConsulting

“Committed to making a difference”

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Eco-friendly consulting?

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First published on LinkedIn, December 14, 2016

According to recycling.org.uk, being eco-friendly can be confusing and it can be difficult to know whether you’re doing it right.  It suggests you improve your recycling efforts by learning which type of collection is best and why different areas recycle and collect in different ways.

Is consulting like recycling?

Consulting can be confusing and it can be difficult to know whether you’re getting good advice.  You can improve your use of consultants by learning which type of consulting is best for you and why different firms deliver their services in different ways.

Expert, pair of hands or collaborative?

For example, do you want to hire an expert because you do not have the skills yourself?  Might work in the short-term, but how is this going to build capability to solve similar issues in the future?  Or perhaps you’re just short of a pair of hands to deliver a change programme.  Arguably, this is not consulting at all, more like hiring an expensive interim manager and again, once they leave, who will pick up the reins?

And then there is true collaborative consulting, where a whole-system and people-centred approach is taken to jointly understanding your issues, shaping and delivering solutions together and building your capability to solve similar problems for yourself in the future.  This requires consistently applying fundamental, robust principles and practices to achieve sustainable change.  You can think of this as Eco-friendly consulting because it makes best use of what you already have.  It does this by following that maxim of managing waste: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Reduce your use of consultants that use management fads

Wherever you look, there are fads: celebrities waxing on about the latest crash diet, ‘experts’ explaining how to use live snails or bird poo for skincare, and ‘tweet mirrors’ in the clothing section of department stores to name a few recent ones I’ve spotted.

The world of management and change can also sometimes appear full of fads: total quality management, lean thinking, six sigma, I could go on and on.

You can even have a go at inventing our own management fad: pick three numbers from 1-10 and have a go, for instance 3-6-9 will generate ‘Authentic Customer-focused Partnering’, doesn’t that sound good?

Management fad generator

Extract from the Management Fad Generator, courtesy of Sheffield Business School 

Add a few more words of your own and generate your very own management fad!

How do you know which of the ‘latest thinking’ is real and grounded in robust change theory and which are just fads that have been hijacked by firms looking to get hold of your money, with no real insight into the processes of sustainable change?

Thankfully for every fad, there is an antidote: perhaps listen to a dietician rather than a celebrity for slimming advice, try a value and common sense product for skincare such as NO AD (a company that does not advertise and has no brand and no superfluous packaging and hence is half the price of other ‘brands’, and wins awards for best sun care products), or even shop at Springfield’s traditional department store Costington’s, whose slogan is “100 years without a slogan!”  Okay that last one is from the Simpsons, but you get my point.

Ironically (nay, satirically) Costington’s does indicate that becoming fad-free can itself become a gimmick.

Reuse old theories that work

I believe deeply in tried and trusted processes of change; I believe there are three things you need to do well to effect change: (1) be clear on what needs to change; (2) invest in the support people need to make the change; (3) provide (positive) consequences for those who embrace the change and (negative) consequences for those who resist it.  Consistently applying this theory will save you time and money, and build a reliable approach you can reuse again and again.

Recycle those theories into practice

“Nothing is so practical as a good theory”, as one sage once said (it was Kurt Lewin, btw, in 1941).   And he was right.  Re-badging old theory as new techniques might even be desirable, modernizing ideas that work in today’s reality.  A bit like upcycling, really.  However, I’d recommend you check the theory that underpins your consultant’s techniques is robust, tested in the real world and not just another management fad, otherwise you might just be buying cheap tat that will fall apart when you try to put it to good use.

Jeremy J Lewis

#eco-friendly consulting from @growthepig

The messy job of restructuring, and how not to do it

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First published on LinkedIn, December 2, 2016

Strategy informs structure, right?

Something needs to change.  So, you convene a strategy session with your leadership team, commission some market research, and in a relatively short time frame, you’ve set your strategy.  Logically, it is time to lift that off the page.  You need to put the right team in place to deliver it.  So, you sketch out a structure chart that will deliver it and then go about slotting names into places and recruiting for the gaps.

This is often the way of things.  Organisations set their strategy and then create a structure that supports that strategy.  On the face of it, this is eminently sensible.  The goal of organisation design is to maximise the effectiveness of the organisation in serving its purpose.  However, such formal structures are impacted by the informal structures, the power plays, the routines and the symbols of the existing culture.  And culture itself tends to be either ignored or taken for granted when restructuring is underway.

Typically, leaders assume purpose informs strategy informs structure in a linear, predictable way.  They draw a structure chart.  Then they hire into that structure based on capability and expected cultural fit.  And then names appear on the structure chart.  Some new, some existing.  And then the prevailing culture remains steadfastly in place, whether this was the intention or not.  If the culture is out of alignment with the strategy and purpose, then the desired future will never be achieved.

Where should culture feature?

A better mindset going into restructuring acknowledges the causality between strategy, structure and culture is mutual.  This means that the organisation design combines:

  • Appropriate formal and informal structures
  • The capabilities to deliver products/services
  • In a market where those products/services are valued
  • The internal machinations that serve the purpose.

In other words, structure, strategy and culture interdependently in alignment.  It means aligning head, heart and hands.

This requires a different approach to restructuring, more of a configuration of the subsystems.  Indeed, in his 1989 work Mintzberg on management, Henry Mintzberg suggests organisation design is more a LEGO construction than a jigsaw; a creation that goes beyond configuration.

Current theories and good practices in organisation design combine all the above.  They advocate a forward-looking systems-based approach, coupled with an assumption of mutual causality between subsystems and hence a ‘beyond configuration’ approach to designing organisations.

So far, so good.  However, I suggest this is only half the story.

Organisational change is culture change

I believe organisational change is culture change and so culture should be given special attention during change.  I believe the first step in restructuring is to understand the past by considering culture and specifically how the organisation learns.  What are the values, beliefs, behaviours and underlying mindset that collectively define the organisation? I then advocate using organisation development techniques to understand how the organisation got to where it is today by learning from its past.  This will likely consider incrementalism, retrospective sense-making and the development of emergent strategies and structures.  I tend to do this by facilitating workshops with leaders and then with managers and other members of staff to triangulate the findings.

Only then should leaders turn their attention to the future and sketch out some ideas for an appropriate organisation design.  This inherently requires considering the mutual causality between strategy, structure and culture.

By reflecting on the backward-looking loop and engaging others in that reflective exercise, leaders will achieve a deeper understanding of where the organisation is today and what really needs to change to realise the desired future.  And generally, it is not just names on a structure chart.

Jeremy J Lewis

@growthepig

Look after your shiny pennies

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First published on LinkedIn, November 14, 2016

Everybody seems to be talking about talent management and succession planning.  Mostly, they’re criticising the dreaded nine-box grid.  I’ve noticed this dread some up in conversation last month at the Northern Organisational Development Network and recently in client meetings.  The issue is neatly summarised in this excellent article by Lucy Adams https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/9-box-grid-fatigue-lucy-adams .

*Metaphor alert*

I think of talent as the shiny pennies you sometimes get in your small change, gleaming with potential to be different to their weather-worn contempories.  We are told if we look after the pennies, the pounds will look after themselves.  Do we nurture these new pennies, or do we toss them into a piggy bank or oversized whisky bottle to dull alongside their tarnished brethren?

If you treat your talent this way – in other words, the same way you treat all your small change – you will lose sight of their shininess, their potential.  And, of course, you don’t ever see them again unless you shake out the piggy bank and rifle through your change.  Worse still, you must smash the bottle to release the potential since expecting talent to rise to the top automatically and find its way through the bottleneck is clearly nonsense (and it’s no accident the bottleneck is always at the top of the bottle!)

A possible solution

Perhaps it would be better to drop your change into an open-necked jar.  That way, you might still see your shiny pennies and can reach in and grab a few, you know, if you want to.  But you don’t.

Talent management and succession planning are processes that were created to address this issue.  Liken them if you will to an automatic coin sorter.  My kids were given automatic coin sorters when they opened their ‘LittleSaver’ (or some such thing) bank accounts; you pop your coin in a slot at the top and it slides into a different holder dependent on the size of the coin.  Doesn’t work with 50 pence pieces though and it doesn’t encourage you to do anything with your savings.  Even electric coins sorters that can deal with huge volumes and tally up the coins into baggable denominations don’t do that.  They just sort it, bag it, bank it.

It strikes me we are dealing with our small change like we deal with our talent in the darned nine-box grid.  Sort it, bag it, bank it.  Let it fester.

Why?

HR professionals have good intentions when designing talent management processes, however they are processes.  They have over-rationalised an emotive subject to pretend it is not emotive.  They are colluding with managers to avoid the real work of managing talent and planning succession.

The antidote?
  1. Reconnect with the reason you are managing talent.  To plan succession, use those shiny pennies.
  2. Scrap the process-centred thinking.  I suggest root cause analysis of what works and what does not. Talent management is not working.  Start with culture, not process.  Your (talent) culture eats your (talent) strategy for breakfast, and goes on to polish off your (talent) processes for lunch.  Use a culture web analysis to uncover what’s going on
  3. DO SOMETHING with talented people to nurture and develop them. In the words of Marie Kondo (from the awesome Life changing magic of tidying), to “see these coins, stripped of their dignity as money, is heartrending.  I beg you to rescue these forgotten coins wasting away in your home by adopting the motto, ‘into my wallet’!”

It’s heartrending to to me to see these talented people, stripped of their dignity as human beings, populating a nine-box grid as initials in a succession plan that will never be fulfilled.  I beg you to rescue these forgotten people wasting away in your organisation by adopting the motto, [complete the sentence in not more than 10 words].

Jeremy J Lewis

@growthepig

A scary thought – could a robot do your job?

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First published on LinkedIn on Hallowe’en, 2016

Another month over and time to reflect.  I attended two conferences this month.  The first was the Shared Services UK annual conference in Manchester.  I ran a breakfast seminar on behalf of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales on the importance of attending to culture when establishing a shared services function.  Then it was straight off to Gateshead for the SOLACE Summit.  SOLACE is the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, in case you didn’t know.

The audiences and speakers were quite different at each conference: mostly private sector finance and a few HR professionals at the former, mostly Local Government senior managers at the latter.  Despite these differences, the sessions I managed to catch had eerily a similar message: automation is going further than ever before; digital transformation is happening right now; ultimately; should you be afraid … could a robot do your job?

Digital transformation

The Guardian reported this month 47% of jobs in the UK will be lost to automation by 2050 (Oxford University research).  Global consulting giants McKinsey & Co. have evidence that companies who have embraced digitisation across the entire enterprise have higher revenues and share prices some 20% – 30% higher than the ‘digital laggards’.

The MJ (the leading publication dedicated to local government in the UK) has a view too.  They sagely note that digital transformation only makes sense across silos, which means that local authorities can only embrace digital transformation if they first work on a common shared services infrastructure.  It is not lost on me that this sentence neatly brings together the two conferences I attended.  It is interesting to note the absence of local authorities at the Shared Services Conference though!

In a special report on digital transformation published last month, The MJ noted that Artificial Intelligence can help prioritise citizens’ needs and direct them towards appropriate services 24/7.   Thankfully, they also recognised you still need ‘the human touch’ to deliver those services.  Surely this applies to any service that transcends commoditisation, regardless of sector?

That said, you can always do more to standardise, eliminate waste and centralise service provision.  Surely, the next logical step once this has been achieved is to automate it?

Whether it’s automation or digitisation, the need to work across silos is paramount.  This means more collaboration is needed, and better quality collaboration at that.  For me, this points to the need to understand and deliver whole system leadership.

Whole system leadership

Whole system leadership means attending to strategy, operations and relationships and having the leadership skills to balance the needs of each of these organisational elements.  To do this effectively you need to develop a collaborative mindset and skill-set in your leadership team.

On strategy, you might want to take heed of Chris Paton.  He spoke at the UK Shared Services Annual Conference, recommending you deploy strategy as a live framework rather than a five-year document, obsolete from the moment the ink on it has dried.  This requires agility in operations to ensure the strategy remains flexible and responsive.  In operations, you’ll need to use this agility to operate beyond vertical silos, invest in efficient common services and then automate.

On relationships, you must provide staff with a vision of how digital technology can improve their working lives and the quality of the services they provide and then invest in their skills to deliver those services excellently.

But whole system leadership means more than that too.  There is a real risk of becoming too internally focused and too design-led and as such lose sight of your customers’ needs.  So, you must balance the external pull of the market in which you are operating against the internal pull to efficiency.  And you must balance the rational, design-led approach to optimising operations with the developmental, emotional engagement of the people you lead, and serve.  This is where effective organisational diagnosis comes in.

Collaborative partnering

In the spirit of reflecting on the month, and indeed the year to date, I’d like to share some of the work I’ve been doing recently.  I’ve undertaken a lot of work with clients in developing a system-wide view of their organisational effectiveness.   We then create joined-up development plans to deliver organisational readiness for the future, perhaps a future of digital transformation.  And it’s curious that I’ve delivered more facilitated learning in collaborative partnering skills than any other leadership development topics this year.

You can’t replace customer service with machines, but you need to be ready to work with the machines, collaboratively partner across organisational boundaries and lead the whole system.

 

Jeremy J Lewis

@growthepig

#growthepig

How effective is your organisation at making change stick?

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First published on LinkedIn September 28, 2016

People often think transformational change is all about aligning your organisational structure with your strategy and improving the efficiency of your business processes.

They are partly right.

Your organisation is a system with three basic levers – strategy, business process and people.  Transformational change most commonly addresses the issue of aligning strategy to business processes through restructuring.  But unless you also engage your people in your strategy and nurture the right team culture to deliver it, your organisation will look good on paper, but will fail to live up to your expectations.

The role of leaders in making change stick

There is another lever that determines your overall chances of success, and that is your leadership capability to hold these disparate yet connected elements of the organisation in alignment.

The problem with many transformations is that they overplay the rational and structured elements of that system (strategy, organisation and business process), underplay the emotional connections (people, engagement and team culture), and often do not assess leadership capability at all.

So, how effective is your approach at making transformational change stick?  How have you engaged your people in the new strategy and nurtured the right team culture to deliver it?  And how as leaders will you hold it all together?

Take part in my research project

I am undertaking some research into the factors that make organisational change stick, which considers this systems-thinking view and other factors that promote or inhibit change.  I’d be very grateful for your opinion.  The survey will only take a few minutes.

You can take the survey here

Please share with your network

Many thanks

Jeremy J Lewis
@growthepig

The Great Big Data Swindle: aka you don’t Grow the Pig by weighing it

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First published in LinkedIn August 9, 2016

It’s not the quantity of data that’s important – it’s the way you use it that truly matters

– Matthew Sharp, Senior Hacker at LinkedIn

Weigh the pig

We all know (especially if you’ve ever listened to me ranting on about it) that you don’t Grow the Pig by weighing it.  And yet everyone’s talking about Big Data. The truth is you should only measure what you can use.

The first example of Big Data dates as far back as William the Conqueror.  His commission in 1086, twenty years after the invasion and defeat of the English in 1066, heralded the end of the Dark Ages. He commissioned the report to assess the extent of the land and resources owned in England so he could maximise the tax due. He needed the tax revenue to wage more war in northern France.

It took around a year to complete the data collection.  Some 900+ years later, a vault in Kew holds the resulting two volumes.  It really is an astonishing story. Commissioners were dispatched to create a comprehensive survey that would provide irrefutable evidence of every single landowner, villager, smallholder, tenant and slave, together with the extent of land owned, occupied and the livestock grazed upon it, as well as details of all buildings. Across the whole of England! It was said at the time that “there was no single…pig left out” (which seems apt here). Its definition as irrefutable fact led it to being named after the Christian tradition of Judgement Day, or Domesday, where every soul is laid bare for judgement.

Anyway, William the Conqueror knew how he was going to use his Big Data, to tax people. Ironically, he died before Domesday was completed. Do we know what Big Data is being collected for nowadays? Do you know why you would want to collect Big Data on your customers, processes, people, and what you are going to use it for?

Domesday today

At a societal level, here in the present day, governments and large corporations appear to be maintaining Domesday databases through Big Data. In fact, Big Data goes beyond databases.  Those governments and large corporations managed it through interconnected networks using the power of the internet and social media. And now, instead of manually collecting all our data by hand in large ledgers, they do it automatically in these vast technology networks that track and model everything from simulating the outcome of referendums to predicting what you will do tomorrow based on your credit score, geographical location and shoe size. Ok, so I made that last bit up, but you get my drift.

Liz Ryan (CEO of the Human Workplace) observes that “when in doubt, fearful humans put their trust in data! (Bad choice)”. Should we put our trust in Big Data, or is it all a bit too much like Big Brother, all a bit too scary? Surely it is us who provide the data that makes Big Data scary. It’s scary not because the machines we have created are getting smarter, but because we are now processing information on such a scale it is impossible to keep track of it.

Paralysis by analysis

And the truth is that data will only go so far. The measurement of demographics, credit cores, shoe sizes, whatever, is useless. What matters is the interpretation of that data into meaningful decisions.  Keep your data limited to what you can use to make effective decisions, and learn to use it, talk to your customers and staff and discuss it. Progress your collection to more sophisticated analytics when you need to, but avoid the pull to paralysis through information overload. Do not let the tail wag the dog, or the pig, for that matter.

(rant over)

Jeremy J Lewis

@growthepig

#growthepig is my philosophy of organisation design and development

Take Alan’s advice: a three-step approach to become a trusted business adviser

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First published on LinkedIn July 13, 2016

To paraphrase Alan Partridge, “Lynn’s not my wife.  She’s my accountant.  Hard-worker, but there’s no affection.”

The work of corporate support functions has changed.  This applies to accounting, human resources, learning and development, legal services, risk, IT, corporate strategy and planning, financial and systems analysis, project and change managers and more.  In fact for anyone who has professional experience, limited direct authority over the use of their expertise and the desire to have some impact at an organisational level.

Regardless of Alan’s view, the traditional role of hard-working expert represents only half the story.  You must be able to have that expertise listened to and used.  To do this, you require a commercial ‘business-like’ mindset, a collaborative partnering approach and the skills to develop trusted adviser relationships.  Dare I say it, to develop a certain affection?

The most effective way for professionals in corporate functions to gain respect, lead change and add value to their organisations is to develop these skills.  I have helped the corporate functions of B2B and B2C private service sector clients and clients in the Health sector do this.  Whilst each of the organisations I’ve worked with is unique, with its own unique set of circumstances, they often share similar challenges, i.e. how to:

  • Find the time to cut down on doing the work in order to build relationships?
  • Get business managers to take accountability for its finances, people, IT investment, etc?
  • Prevent the professionals from ‘going native’?
“Knowing me, Alan Partridge; knowing you, my trusted business adviser; Aha!”

You start by adopting a new professional mindset (‘Knowing me’), and go on to develop deeper relationships (‘Knowing you’) and then consistently apply these fundamentals in your role (‘Aha!’).

Knowing me

Professionals are increasingly anxious within organisations.  Two examples of the risks corporate functions face from their customer-facing colleagues are continual downsizing of the ‘back office’ and the democratisation of information through technology.  Professionals in corporate functions must continually demonstrate their worth to the organisation.  And be seen to do so.

Unfortunately, professionals have an unconscious tendency to pay more attention to their own discipline than the direct strategic goals of the organisations they work for.  We call this ‘basic-assumption’ mentality.  In this mode, the corporate function’s directs its behaviour at meeting the unconscious needs of its members by reducing anxiety.  However, professionals have been trained to use their basic-assumption mentality in a sophisticated way that supports the organisation’s strategic objectives.  This sounds confusing, so let me give a few examples[1]

Finance

Chartered accountant firms require their junior staff to be dependent on senior staff while they are training.  This approach delivers a qualified accountant who insists on being independent and behaves hierarchically to juniors.   They review all their subordinates’ work and hold on to decision-making.  This is the basic assumption of dependency, which is sensibly deployed to manage risk.  Remember the partners of the accounting firm are personally liable and stand to lose their all their worldly possessions if things go wrong.

There is a high risk of this behaviour degenerating into an insistence for freedom for its own sake.  This leads to a lack of accountability to the organisation.  It can lead to a culture of subordination and hierarchical power requiring unquestioning obedience from juniors (and business managers).

Human Resources

The HR professional deploys collaboration with management as the best way to deliver change.  We call this the basic assumption of pairing.  Pairing is a psychological coping strategy where a helpless person assumes two other people will come together to create a messiah baby to save their world.

If overplayed, such a collaborative approach can lead to colluding with the business, whilst simultaneously refusing to examine whether HR interventions help or support the organisation’s strategic objectives.  This can lead to a culture of ‘soft’ HR outputs without the requisite action required to make the change.  For example, creating future-oriented organisational vision and values statements that end up merely as posters on the office wall.

Information Technology

IT professionals have the capacity for sophisticated use of the fight/flight basic assumption mentality.  They sell their proposed technology solutions to clients whilst defending against alternative solutions with doomsday premonitions of catastrophic outcomes if they are not heeded.

Frustratingly often, IT projects do not deliver the purported benefits.  When that happens, the fight/flight mentality degenerates into denial of responsibility, assertion that the IT professional is still right and that the business managers need to change to exploit the technology in full.  Projecting responsibility in this way disables the professional/client relationship from productively devising a course of action to resolve issues.  This can lead to a culture of paranoia and aggressive competitiveness.  It can also lead to a preoccupation with the ‘enemy within’ as well as perceived external enemies.   And it can lead to the promulgation of complex and bewildering rules to control these dangers.

Professionals really need to look at themselves and recognise the approach they are prone to taking.  Only then can they choose a new professional role and identity.

Knowing you

When professionals have gained a deeper understanding of themselves, they can choose a productive professional identity (i.e. one of collaborative business partner).  They are then better placed to notice what drives and motivates the business managers they are seeking to partner.  Developing relationships is probably the most important single thing a professional can do.  In this way they can avoid the dual risks of (a) being treated like a ‘pair of hands’ to do the tasks their business colleagues cannot or do not want to do and (b) being treated like a specialist expert who sits outside the workgroup and can only comment from the sidelines.  Importantly, avoiding these risks actually saves time.

Not only can professionals avoid these risks, but they can transcend them to become a trusted business adviser.  They do this by sitting within the workgroup and operating collaboratively (read: high support and high challenge).  This allows them the opportunity to help the business take accountability.

It also allows them to develop into the strategic partner that not only turns data into insight, but also brings perspective and commerciality.  This enables them to retain their professional integrity without going ‘native’.

Aha!

These skills are neither magical nor mysterious, but come about by mastering the basics of ‘knowing me, knowing you’ and practising the skills needed to deepen relationships.

I often run business simulations and action learning sets with clients so they can practise and reflect on their progress in developing their collaborative partnering skills.

And so the penny finally drops.  As Jim Rohn once said, “Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practised every day”.

And I agree.

And even, I suspect, would Alan Partridge.

 

Jeremy J Lewis

@growthepig

[1] These examples have been adapted from the work of Jon Stokes (1994). The Unconscious at work in Groups and Teams: Contributions from the Work of Wilfred Bion, in Anton OBHOLZER and Vega Z. ROBERTS (Eds.) The Unconscious at Work. London, Routledge.

 

I am not a four-letter acronym, I am a free man

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Updated copy of a post first published on LinkedIn July 6, 2016

The 1960s TV series, The Prisoner, invited viewers to consider the psychological implications of being labelled and conforming to collectivist ideals, versus being a free-willed individual.  “I am not a number, I am a free man,” proclaimed protagonist Number 6 (Patrick McGoohan).

Well, I have decided I am not an ISFP, or whatever my personality type says I am.

“An ISF-who’s-doing-what, now?” I hear you cry.

Millions of people across the world have undertaken an assessment to determine their personality type.  There are other behavioural and personality type psychometric instruments out there.  However, one of the most recognised and commonly used is the psychology of Carl Jung, as adapted and interpreted by one Isabel Briggs-Myers and one Katharine Cook Briggs (aka the Myers-Briggs thing).

Personality types

Here comes the “science”.  In a nutshell, four dichotomies determine your personality.  Firstly, how you take in (or Perceive) information, which you can do in a detailed, sequential sort of way (Sensing) or a big picture, snapshot sort of way (iNtuition).  Then, you need to consider how you make decisions (or Judgements) based on that information, which you can do objectively (Thinking) or empathetically (Feeling).  One of these Perceiving or Judging dichotomies will dominate your approach to dealing with the world.  Finally, you will put your energy into your dominant approach either by focusing on the external world (Extraversion) or by internalising it (Introversion).  The answers to these four dichotomies yield 16 personality types, each identified by a four-letter acronym.  Only it’s not “science”, it’s just a metaphor for observable behaviour.  you might as well refer to the Native American Medicine Wheel or even Astrology to determine your personality.

Confused?  You should be!  Yet we are told how these four dichotomies apply most often to you determines your personality type.  This in turn determines how you are likely to respond to external stimuli.

The problem with all of this is that people are, well, people.  We are just trying to categorise certain observable behaviours.  Neuroscience now shows that our rational and emotional minds are quite able to be trained to respond in whatever way we choose to any given situation.  So why straight-jacket us with a “type”?  And why make that type so darned complicated?

The concept of preference

What if we viewed some of these types simply as behavioural preferences?  What would these preferences be?  It turns out four such behavioural modes will suffice.  It seems having 16 types really does seem excessive.

What if we could recognise we already have relatively easy access to more than one behavioural mode, say two or even three of these modes?  Would personality typing continue to be appropriate to define us?  I suggest not.

I know I extravert my perceptions and introvert my feelings (apparently this means I work with bursts of energy and makes me a P), but I am quite able to plan out my day too (J).  I’m also happy taking in information in different ways (S and N) and applying both rational thinking and emotional feelings (T and F) to make decisions.  I spend long periods of time focusing on others’ needs and taking in others’ perspectives (E) and I spend long periods of time on my own reflecting and making sense of that data (I).

I am all these things and more.  We need a behavioural psychometric that understands people.  I believe I have found one such tool, called MiRo.  I use it a lot in my organisation development consulting, coaching and facilitation practice.  I’m so excited about it, I have recently become accredited to provide training to others to become MiRo Practitioners.

If you think there’s a better way to help people understand and adapt their behaviour, then I’d like to hear about it.  Get in touch to share your thoughts.  Alternatively, click here to find out more about the MiRo behavioural psychometric.

Jeremy J Lewis

@growthepig

We need a changeforce, not a workforce!

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First posted on LinkedIn June 20, 2016

Let’s face it, as far as the Knowledge Economy goes, the concept of a traditional workforce is dead and buried.

What is a workforce anyway?  A force that does work, perhaps?  What work?  Why that sort of work?  How does it do the work? Where and when does it do the work?

Today’s knowledge economy reality
Traditional Workforce rules of engagement                Today’s Knowledge Economy reality
What A manager tells you what to do A leader sets direction and expects you to get on with it
Why You do it for pay, recognition and the social aspects of going to work You do it because it aligns to your own vision of what you want to achieve as well as the organisation you work for
How You get some training in what to do You get some development in how to take accountability for delivering the organisation’s purpose
Where In a workplace such as a factory or office Anywhere you can get Wi-Fi or 3G
When ‘Nine to five’ Anytime that suits

 

Clearly some aspects of today’s reality can lead to organisations taking the proverbial ****, such as expecting people to be always available and willing and able to turn things around in the hours of darkness between working days.  That said, the new reality enables personal agency and demands people take accountability for delivery, and when the freedoms of technology are used judiciously, this can help with choice and work life balance.

One thing’s for certain, change is accelerating at an incredible pace.  Politically (Irreversible Public Sector cuts, coalition governments, referenda requiring us to take accountability to determine our own futures), economically (1 in 7 are now self-employed), Sociologically (Big Society) as well as technologically.

Perhaps the new normal requires a new approach to the idea of a workforce?  Perhaps organisations need a changeforce, rather than a workforce?

A force for change

A changeforce still needs direction from a leader to set the course, but they would know how to go about delivering that course because they have been raised on dealing with and leading change, they do it because leading change aligns to their personal life choices, and they definitely do it any time, any place, anywhere, because they are truly ‘always on’.  The average Smartphone user already checks their device 150 times a day (source: Vodafone).

I’m reminded of a military analogy – the armed forces spend much of their training developing the skills the troops need to do their jobs (i.e. the ‘hows’).  In ‘theatre’, when a commanding officer instructs the troops what is to be done, (s)he does not waste time telling them how to do it.  They already know.  Rather, the ‘what’ direction is interpreted by the troops on the ground into ‘how’ to get on with it by drawing on their trained-in skills.

A changeforce should therefore spend most of their developmental time learning how to be a force for change.  This is NOT learning project management skills, but rather learning how they will go about:

  • Communicating the change vision with clarity
  • Engaging others in change
  • Facilitating organisational learning
  • Assessing organisational readiness for change
  • Realising the benefits of change.

So I’m curious; how’s your changeforce development shaping up?

 

Jeremy J Lewis

Committed to making a difference in organisation effectiveness and sustainable change