tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/organisations-2095/articlesOrganisations – The Conversation2023-11-30T19:03:38Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2161752023-11-30T19:03:38Z2023-11-30T19:03:38ZIt’s beginning to look a lot like burnout. How to take care of yourself before the holidays start<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559015/original/file-20231113-27-eru7jb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C6%2C4555%2C3027&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/sad-lonely-woman-complaining-christmas-sitting-2384321809">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s getting towards the time of the year when you might feel more overwhelmed than usual. There are work projects to finish and perhaps exams in the family. Not to mention the pressures of organising holidays or gifts. Burnout is a real possibility.</p>
<p>Burnout is defined by the <a href="https://www.who.int/standards/classifications/frequently-asked-questions/burn-out-an-occupational-phenomenon#:%7E:text=Burn%2Dout%20is%20defined%20in,has%20not%20been%20successfully%20managed.">World Health Organization</a> (WHO) as having three main symptoms – exhaustion, loss of empathy and reduced performance at work.</p>
<p>Australian <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34052460/">research</a> argues for a broader model, particularly as the WHO’s third symptom may simply be a consequence of the first two. </p>
<p>So what is burnout really? And how can you avoid it before the holidays hit?</p>
<h2>More than being really tired</h2>
<p>The Australian research model endorsed exhaustion as the primary burnout symptom but emphasised burnout should not be simply equated with exhaustion. </p>
<p>The second symptom is loss of empathy (or “compassion fatigue”), which can also be experienced as uncharacteristic cynicism or a general loss of feeling. Nothing much provides pleasure and <em>joie de vivre</em> is only a memory. </p>
<p>The third symptom (cognitive impairment) means sufferers find it <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-13/gordon-parker-says-the-burnout-definition-needs-to-broaden/101920366">difficult to focus</a> and retain information when reading. They tend to scan material – with some women reporting it as akin to “baby brain”.</p>
<p>Research <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34052460/">suggests</a> a fourth symptom: insularity. When someone is burnt out, they tend to keep to themselves, not only socialising less but also obtaining little pleasure from interactions.</p>
<p>A potential fifth key feature is an unsettled mood.</p>
<p>And despite feeling exhausted, most individuals report insomnia when they’re burnt out. In severe cases, immune functioning can be compromised (so that the person may report an increase in infections), blood pressure may drop and it may be difficult or impossible to get out of bed. </p>
<p>Predictably, such features (especially exhaustion and cognitive impairment) do lead to compromised work performance.</p>
<p>Defining burnout is important, as rates have <a href="https://dspace.library.uu.nl/bitstream/handle/1874/420608/Burnout_Fatigue_Exhaustion.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">increased</a> in the last few decades. </p>
<h2>‘Tis the season</h2>
<p>For many, the demands of the holidays cause exhaustion and risk burnout. People might feel compelled to shop, cook, entertain and socialise more than at other times of year. While burnout was initially defined in those in formal employment, we now recognise the same pattern can be experienced by those meeting the needs of children and/or elderly parents – with such needs typically increasing over Christmas. </p>
<p>Burnout is generally viewed according to a simple stress-response model. Excessive demands lead to burnout, without the individual bringing anything of themselves to its onset and development. But the Australian <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34052460/">research</a> has identified a richer model and emphasised how much personality contributes. </p>
<p>Formal carers, be they health workers, teachers, veterinarians and clergy or parents – are <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003333722/burnout-gordon-parker-gabriela-tavella-kerrie-eyers">more likely</a> to experience burnout. But some other professional groups – such as lawyers – are also at high risk.</p>
<p>In essence, “good” people - who are dutiful, diligent, reliable, conscientious and perfectionistic (either by nature or work nurture) – are at the <a href="https://journals.lww.com/jonmd/Abstract/2020/06000/A_Qualitative_Reexamination_of_the_Key_Features_of.4.aspx">greatest risk</a> of burnout.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559016/original/file-20231113-22-dpz0vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="person with notepad, small christmas tree on desk" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559016/original/file-20231113-22-dpz0vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559016/original/file-20231113-22-dpz0vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559016/original/file-20231113-22-dpz0vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559016/original/file-20231113-22-dpz0vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559016/original/file-20231113-22-dpz0vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559016/original/file-20231113-22-dpz0vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559016/original/file-20231113-22-dpz0vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Breaking down tasks into realistic goals can stop them becoming overwhelming.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/goals-plans-make-do-wish-list-1860771079">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/bring-a-plate-what-to-take-to-christmas-lunch-that-looks-impressive-but-wont-break-the-bank-196565">Bring a plate! What to take to Christmas lunch that looks impressive (but won't break the bank)</a>
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</em>
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<h2>6 tips for avoiding seasonal burnout</h2>
<p>You may not be able to change your personality, but you can change the way you allow it to “shape” activities. Prioritising, avoiding procrastination, decluttering and focusing on the “big picture” are all good things to keep in mind.</p>
<p>Managing your time helps you regain a sense of control, enhances your efficiency, and reduces the likelihood of feeling overwhelmed by responsibilities.</p>
<p><strong>1. Prioritise tasks</strong></p>
<p>Rank tasks based on urgency and importance. The Eisenhower Matrix, <a href="https://www.amazon.com.au/7-Habits-Highly-Effective-People/dp/0743269519">popularised</a> by author Stephen R Covey, puts jobs into one of four categories: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>urgent and important</p></li>
<li><p>important but not urgent</p></li>
<li><p>urgent but not important</p></li>
<li><p>neither urgent nor important.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>This helps you see what needs to be top priority and helps overcome the illusion that everything is <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10159458/">urgent</a>.</p>
<p><strong>2. Set realistic goals</strong></p>
<p>Break down large goals into smaller, manageable tasks to be achieved each day, week, or month – to prevent feeling overwhelmed. This could mean writing a gift list in a day or shopping for a festive meal over a week. Use tools such as calendars, planners or digital apps to schedule tasks, deadlines and appointments.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-deal-with-holiday-stress-danish-style-195522">How to deal with holiday stress, Danish-style</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p><strong>3. Manage distractions</strong></p>
<p>Minimise <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2023-66900-001">distractions</a> that hinder productivity and time management. <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/691462">Research</a> finds people complete cognitive tasks better with their phones in another room rather than in their pockets. People with phones on their desks performed the worst. </p>
<p>Setting specific work hours and website blockers can limit distractions.</p>
<p><strong>4. Chunk your time</strong></p>
<p>Group similar tasks together and allocate specific time blocks to focus on them. For example, respond to all outstanding emails in one stint, rather than writing one, then task-switching to making a phone call.</p>
<p>This approach <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7075496/">increases efficiency</a> and reduces the time spent transitioning between different activities.</p>
<p><strong>5. Take breaks</strong></p>
<p>A <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2022-90592-001">2022 systematic review</a> of workplace breaks found taking breaks throughout the day improves focus, wellbeing and helps get more work done.</p>
<p><strong>6. Delegate</strong></p>
<p>Whether at home or work, you don’t have to do it all! Identify tasks that can be effectively delegated to others or automated.</p>
<p>To finish the year feeling good, try putting one or more of these techniques into practice and prepare for a restful break.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-make-the-perfect-pavlova-according-to-chemistry-experts-196485">How to make the perfect pavlova, according to chemistry experts</a>
</strong>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216175/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gordon Parker receives funding from NHMRC. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sophie Scott does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Start by categorising tasks. Are they urgent and important, important but not urgent, urgent but not important or neither urgent nor important?Sophie Scott, Associate Professor (Adjunct), Science Communication, University of Notre Dame AustraliaGordon Parker, Scientia Professor, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1481182020-10-15T12:57:02Z2020-10-15T12:57:02ZIn defence of jargon – it might be infuriating but it also has its uses<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363667/original/file-20201015-23-1u0opxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/many-people-speak-together-91734869">lolloj / Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Anyone who tried to get their head around the financial crisis of 2008 soon found themselves drowning in an alphabet soup of BEITs, CDOs, CDCs, ETFs and MBS. When British novelist John Lanchester wrote about this world <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/04/money-talks-6">he commented</a> that “you are left wondering whether somebody is trying to con you, or to obfuscate and blather so that you can’t tell what’s being talked about”. He wasn’t wrong. </p>
<iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/in-defence-of-jargon-it-might-be-infuriating-but-it-also-has-its-uses-148118&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p>One <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0749597820303666">recent study</a> shows how people are more likely to use jargon when they feel insecure. Led by psychologist Zachariah Brown, it shows how some groups use jargon specifically to make up for having a low social status. </p>
<p>In one experiment, they looked at 64,000 dissertations from hundreds of universities in the US and found that those written by students from lower-status institutions used more jargon. In another part of the study, they asked participants to pick a pitch for a start-up. When people were put into a lower-status position, they found they were more likely to pick jargon-laden pitches. In a range of other settings they noticed that when people found themselves in a low-status position, they were significantly more likely to reach for jargon. </p>
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<img alt="Speech bubble saying: " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363671/original/file-20201015-21-1wozab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363671/original/file-20201015-21-1wozab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363671/original/file-20201015-21-1wozab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363671/original/file-20201015-21-1wozab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363671/original/file-20201015-21-1wozab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363671/original/file-20201015-21-1wozab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363671/original/file-20201015-21-1wozab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">No thanks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/business-buzzword-enthusiastically-incentivize-usercentric-emarkets-611958686">one line man/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Clearly, there are pitfalls to jargon. Research shows how it can be a major turnoff in the business world. One study found that knowledgeable investors were unimpressed by investment propositions that <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165410119300163">were filled with unnecessary jargon</a>. Similarly, jargon can make non-experts see new technologies in a more negative light. Another study found that when new technologies are presented to people using jargon, they tend to see them <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0963662519865687?casa_token=jE0EeUQ2vFMAAAAA%3Ai1VsG5JtLYDuiw2VGWLDCHTJoJ2JS52xetBMfNEeu3_Z8oZL50P_yZz9PkFvTApfs-bKkbTolkxz">as much riskier</a>. </p>
<p>Jargon is, by definition, exclusionary. This means it can get in the way of understanding crucial information. One study found that the frequent use of medical jargon by doctors meant their patients didn’t understand about <a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/png/ajhb/2007/00000031/a00100s1/art00011">half of what their doctors said to them</a>. </p>
<p>Even between experts, it can be counterproductive. A <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.721.2591&rep=rep1&type=pdf">study of different subfields in ecology</a>, for example, found that key terms would often mean very different things to different experts. This would then trigger heated but ultimately fruitless disagreements. </p>
<h2>The upside of jargon</h2>
<p>Jargon might be infuriating, but it’s also useful. Jargon sums up complex issues in fewer words. This enables experts to talk precisely to each other about concepts they are familiar with. </p>
<p>Jargon can help remove emotion when tackling difficult topics. Doctors, for example, often dehumanise patients by talking about a person in pain as an interesting case of some specific disease. Research shows that this helps create emotional distance, which allows them <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1745691611429706">to make more reasonable decisions</a>. </p>
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<img alt="Two doctors looking at clipboard." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363673/original/file-20201015-23-eee1u1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363673/original/file-20201015-23-eee1u1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363673/original/file-20201015-23-eee1u1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363673/original/file-20201015-23-eee1u1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363673/original/file-20201015-23-eee1u1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363673/original/file-20201015-23-eee1u1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363673/original/file-20201015-23-eee1u1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jargon has its place.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/doctor-giving-his-younger-colleagues-piece-113416138">Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But this can also be problematic. In 1984 the US State Department replaced the word “killing” with <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/42579392?mag=the-tangled-language-of-jargon&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">“unlawful deprivation of life”</a> in its human rights reports to help cover up the unpleasant reality of government-sanctioned killings in countries the US supports.</p>
<p>Jargon is also used to solidify a sense of belonging within groups. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3050508">Professional wrestlers</a>, for instance, talk about their sport as “business”, getting into the ring as “going to work”, and putting on a convincing performance as “selling”. Similarly, North American truck drivers use expressions like “bobtailing a twin screw jimmy” to purposefully exclude non-truck drivers <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/454584?seq=1">from their conversations</a>.</p>
<h2>Resisting a full ban</h2>
<p>The dangers of jargon have spurred frequent calls to ban it altogether. In 2015, the then British prime minister, David Cameron asked civil servants <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-tells-civil-service-use-simple-language-when-communicating-ministers-10391681.html">to ensure their communications were jargon free</a>. In 2010, then US president, Barack Obama signed the <a href="https://www.dni.gov/index.php/plain-language-act">Plain Language Act</a> which required federal government documents to be written in a “clear, concise manner”. Presidents Nixon, Carter and Clinton all signed official orders requiring simple and plain language <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/pushing-the-government-to-speak-plainly/2011/11/18/gIQA7TmpLO_story.html">be used in government</a>. </p>
<p>These world leaders were all following in the footsteps of George Orwell who in 1946 <a href="http://www.public-library.uk/ebooks/72/30.pdf">recommended</a> that you “never use a long word where a short one will do”. But Orwell’s advice was preceded by Thomas Sprat, who in 1667 wrote how members of the newly founded Royal Society resolved “to reject all the amplifications, digressions, and swelling of style: to return back to the primitive purity, and shortness, when men deliver’d so many things, almost in an equal number of words”. </p>
<p>Despite these constant calls for plain language, jargon seems to have a habit of returning. Instead of trying to take on the impossible task of creating a jargon-free world, we might narrow our ambitions and just try to cut out what the scholar Russel Hirst calls <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2190/j8jj-4yd0-4r00-g5n0">“bad jargon”</a>. </p>
<p>Some potential indicators of bad jargon are words that look or sound strange, hybrids or terms that are difficult to pronounce. After chasing out the bad jargon, we need to ensure that any specialist terms which are left are “good jargon”. That means they should be economical, precise and as universal as possible. Instead of fighting against all jargon, we should follow Russell Hirst’s advice and become champions of good jargon and its staunchest defenders.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148118/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andre Spicer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Differentiating between bad jargon and good jargon.Andre Spicer, Professor of Organisational Behaviour, Cass Business School, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1038922018-10-09T09:25:58Z2018-10-09T09:25:58ZToxic workplaces are feeding the impostor phenomenon – here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239710/original/file-20181008-72124-1uv0hk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C86%2C4437%2C2991&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Impostor feelings include fear of failure, fear of success, a sometimes-obsessive need for perfection, and an inability to accept praise.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/depressed-woman-office-200373902?src=GTjfgn4RTjiQ_G2ZHQUe2w-1-64">KieferPix / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Research suggests that around 70% of people will experience an illogical sense of being a phoney at work at some point in their careers. It’s called the <a href="http://www.paulineroseclance.com/pdf/ip_high_achieving_women.pdf">impostor phenomenon</a> (also known, erroneously, as a syndrome). These impostor feelings typically manifest as a fear of failure, fear of success, a sometimes obsessive need for perfection, and an inability <a href="https://theconversation.com/someone-will-find-me-out-impostor-phenomenon-and-the-toll-it-takes-on-working-women-84729">to accept praise and achievement</a>. The phenomenon is also characterised by a genuine belief that at some point you, as the “impostor”, are going to be found out for being a fake in your role.</p>
<p>The phenomenon has been researched for more than 40 years and <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/blogs/women-stem-stories-mit-students">recent research</a> into women working in sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), suggests that there is a much higher incidence of it in women in these non-traditional roles.</p>
<p>Despite being something that affects people at an individual level, the relationship between toxic workplaces and well-being is <a href="http://www.instituteofhealthequity.org/resources-reports/psychosocial-pathways-and-health-outcomes-informing-action-on-health-inequalities">well established</a>. It seems that the impostor phenomenon breeds from a mix of genuine personal doubt over work abilities and the collective experience of a toxic work culture.</p>
<p>Simply put, our modern workplaces are feeding a sense of inadequacy in the face of a track record of achievement and success of individuals. The “impostor’s” internal drive for perfection and their constant expectation of external criticism pushes them to underestimate their abilities, while striving to exhaustion for advancement to <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9f77/246d3633941ac4bfcb6b683ad8b49186dd4f.pdf">avoid perceived failure and exposure to criticism</a>. </p>
<p>Where this meets an ever-increasing demand to do more with fewer resources and a barrage of evaluation in risk-averse workplaces, impostor tendencies will thrive. </p>
<h2>An unhealthy marriage</h2>
<p>Toxic workplaces are often characterised by an environment that diminishes or manages out the humanity of the place and its people, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199664719.001.0001">as well as promoting competition</a>. A focus on profit, process and minimising resources is pronounced. Bullying is normalised and embedded in managerial and colleague behaviour, while leadership is inert and ineffectual against it. </p>
<p>In toxic workplaces, work is often seen as drudgery, the motivating elements sucked out of the environment. Unmoderated criticism and punitive measures stifle original thinking, thus reducing the intrinsic rewards of work, such as having an outlet for expressing one’s unique talents and creative thinking. </p>
<p>The unhealthy marriage between the impostor phenomenon and toxic work cultures is sustained at an individual level by the basic human need for safety and belonging. This interferes with “rational” decision making and supersedes the entrepreneurialism and risk taking that would challenge the status quo. This is detrimental to both a person and their employer who might otherwise benefit from new ideas.</p>
<p>While technology continues to transform the nature of work, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323751494_The_Digital_Revolution_and_the_Organization_of_Work_Contemporary_Management_Techniques">organisations are lagging behind</a> in how they manage people. Corporate performance management practices are often little more than thinly disguised <a href="http://www.hrmaturity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/SHRM-Perf-Mgmt-EPG-FINAL-for-web.pdf">carrot and stick approaches</a>. Employees are goaded along by financial and status incentives that glorify overwork and toeing the line. Toxic workplaces force people to jump through endless hoops on the way to an elusive, future state of success and happiness. Intellectual honesty, unorthodox thinking and self-care, meanwhile, are penalised.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239698/original/file-20181008-72130-1dqtp3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239698/original/file-20181008-72130-1dqtp3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239698/original/file-20181008-72130-1dqtp3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239698/original/file-20181008-72130-1dqtp3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239698/original/file-20181008-72130-1dqtp3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239698/original/file-20181008-72130-1dqtp3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239698/original/file-20181008-72130-1dqtp3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Overwork is glorified in too many organisations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/busy-businessman-under-stress-due-excessive-551850775?src=BSg8aMTil0lXMOf5edyjCQ-1-9">Elnur/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Dysfunctional competition</h2>
<p>A rampant competitiveness in certain workplaces often provides a breeding ground for anxiety, depression and self-degradation. The <a href="http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02166">finance sector</a> is especially prone to this. Here constant winning is the cultural norm, even though it’s just not possible to win all the time. </p>
<p>This breeds perfectionism, which also fuels people’s need to micromanage. Dysfunctional competition gets prioritised over collaboration. People who feel like they are impostors will often fail to delegate for fear that others won’t meet their own exacting standards and that this will reflect badly on them. As a result, they take on more than they can realistically manage.</p>
<p>The imbalance this produces between effort and rewards exacerbates the feeling of inadequacy and creates a negative feedback loop, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0030541">which leads to mental exhaustion</a>. And if both the person and the organisation implicitly fail to recognise the toxic combination of impostor tendencies and an unhealthy work culture, they both passively endorse this social contract. </p>
<p>Sadly, as the digital revolution progresses, it is becoming clearer that our contemporary workplaces are demanding productivity outcomes to match. But they are using antiquated managerial structures. Workplace processes – such as poorly constructed performance management, a lack of diversity in succession planning and limited understanding of inclusion initiatives beyond box ticking exercises – fuel the very behaviour and thought patterns that these workplace structures aim to manage out.</p>
<p>Addressing these toxic work cultures and organisational structures could create a less fertile ground for the impostor phenomenon. Healthier workplaces and more satisfied people are likely to deliver more positive and productive outcomes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103892/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Research suggests that 70% of people will experience an illogical sense of being a phoney at work at some point in their careers.Amina Aitsi-Selmi, Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer, Epidemiology and Public Health Department, University College London, UCLTheresa Simpkin, Visiting Fellow, Anglia Ruskin University, Anglia Ruskin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1021502018-09-05T11:17:58Z2018-09-05T11:17:58ZWorking long and hard? It may do more harm than good<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234993/original/file-20180905-45151-1s5ndu7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nearly half of people in the EU work in their free time to meet work demands, and a third often or always work at high speed, according to <a href="https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/publications/report/2016/working-conditions/sixth-european-working-conditions-survey-overview-report">recent estimates</a>. If you are one of them, have you ever wondered whether all the effort is really worth it?</p>
<p>Employees who invest more effort in their work report higher levels of stress and fatigue, along with lower job satisfaction. But they also report receiving less recognition and fewer growth opportunities. And they experience less job security. So increased work effort not only predicts reduced well-being, it even predicts inferior career-related outcomes.</p>
<p>These are some of the results of our <a href="http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/20071/1/avgoustaki_frankort_ILRR.pdf">recent study</a> forthcoming in the <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/home/ilr">Industrial and Labor Relations Review</a>. We examined data on almost 52,000 employees representing the European workforce in 2010 and 2015, with the objective of comparing the well-being and career-related implications of their work effort. The data set is not perfect (the ideal data may not exist), but it facilitated a systematic approach to a question far too urgent to postpone.</p>
<p>The finding that excessive work effort predicts unfavourable well-being and career-related outcomes held true after accounting for a wide range of differences across employees, including their gender, age, occupation, education, and level of authority. It even held true in employees with discretion over when and how to perform their work. In other words, excessive work effort broadly predicts unfavourable outcomes.</p>
<h2>Why does more effort not pay?</h2>
<p>If you were aware that overtime is <a href="https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/sites/default/files/ef_publication/field_ef_document/ef1634en.pdf">more common among higher-income occupations</a>, then our results might surprise you. However, just because overtime is more common among high-income occupations, does not automatically mean that there are career benefits to expending more effort than your peers. And because your boss will compare you to your peers, we honed in on exactly this, comparing people within rather than between occupations.</p>
<p>So why does more effort not pay? Overtime reduces day-to-day recovery, while work intensity (the amount of effort you put in during the time you spend at work) reduces opportunities for recovery during the working day. This lack of recovery accumulates and ultimately decreases your ability to perform at adequate levels and deliver quality work.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234991/original/file-20180905-45143-1579zwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234991/original/file-20180905-45143-1579zwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234991/original/file-20180905-45143-1579zwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234991/original/file-20180905-45143-1579zwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234991/original/file-20180905-45143-1579zwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234991/original/file-20180905-45143-1579zwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234991/original/file-20180905-45143-1579zwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Working long and hard takes its toll on your physical and mental health.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/home">Shutterstock</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Examples abound linking excessive effort with bad outcomes. Investment bankers and similar professionals, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/joris-luyendijk-banking-blog/2013/may/02/former-banker-hug-woman-global-bank">notorious for working long hours under intense pressure</a>, are often believed to suffer disproportionally from <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/f812d7ec-781c-11e5-a95a-27d368e1ddf7">symptoms of stress and depression</a>.</p>
<p>Of course, these might be extremes. The point is that sustained excessive effort rapidly reduces employee well-being. By implication, it also reduces the ability to function adequately.</p>
<h2>Work intensity is worse</h2>
<p>We found that overtime and work intensity do not relate to poor outcomes in equal measure. Increased work intensity is a much stronger predictor both of reduced well-being and of inferior career-related outcomes. Work intensity typically comes from a persistent exposure to tight deadlines, which is often accompanied by constant work at high speed.</p>
<p>To us, this finding stands out. Employers and policymakers are commonly aware of the limits of overtime and long hours. For example, the Boston Consulting Group, a top consultancy firm, experimented with ensuring staff <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19839447">had planned, uninterrupted time off</a>. In the US, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education <a href="https://www.acgme.org/Portals/0/PFAssets/PublicationsPapers/dh_dutyhoursummary2003-04.pdf">mandated a reduction in resident work hours</a>. And France offered its citizens a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38479439">legal right to disconnect</a> from work.</p>
<p>In sharp contrast, concerns over work intensity seldom seem to make the news. We believe that they should.</p>
<h2>Costs vs benefits</h2>
<p>People can benefit from greater awareness of the potential harm from excessive work effort, and particularly work intensity. On average, it is just not clear that the benefits offset the well-being costs of excessive effort. Even in environments where hard work is the norm and people constantly brag about it – <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/liquidated">Wall Street</a> comes to mind – our research suggests that pushing yourself to work harder than the norm is not wise.</p>
<p>Our results also show that employers can offer discretion over how and when work should be done. This wouldn’t fully resolve the harm done by excessive effort. But it can sometimes attenuate such effects, which might be particularly beneficial in jobs with unpredictable tasks or schedules, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283695246_Work_Uncertainty_and_Extensive_Work_Effort_The_Mediating_Role_of_Human_Resource_Practices">in which overtime is more common</a>.</p>
<p>Plus, employers and governments also can benefit from greater awareness, which is important in order to stimulate productive and sustainable effort in the workforce. Beyond the existing initiatives to limit the duration of work, we emphasise that strategies to reduce the harms of intensive work merit greater consideration.</p>
<p>In 2017, Uber <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/why-silicon-valley-glorifies-culture-of-overwork-2017-6?r=US&IR=T">reportedly changed its internal mantra</a> from “work smarter, harder, and longer” to “work smarter” and “harder”. Could such a mantra perhaps productively evolve into something as crisp as just “work smarter”?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102150/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Argyro Avgoustaki receives funding from the Spanish Ministry of Economics and Competitiveness (research grant ECO2012-33308) and ESCP Europe Business School.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hans TW Frankort does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Increased work effort not only predicts poor well-being, it may be bad for your career.Argyro Avgoustaki, Assistant Professor of Management, ESCP Business SchoolHans TW Frankort, Senior Lecturer in Strategy, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1012122018-08-08T15:34:05Z2018-08-08T15:34:05ZHigh turnover of staff spells trouble – just ask Donald Trump and Theresa May<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231083/original/file-20180808-191044-a1fijb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Turnover seems pervasive. It’s most visible in Donald Trump’s White House where <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/03/07/591372397/white-house-staff-turnover-was-already-record-setting-then-more-advisers-left">staff departures</a> rose to a record 43% by March 2018. In comparison, the turnover rate for the same period of Barack Obama’s tenure was just 24%. </p>
<p>Yes, a new administration must put its own stamp on things, but governments need qualified experts with situational knowledge to manage effectively. Familiar with havoc, Trump <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-44823349">recognises in Theresa May’s turbulent</a> cabinet “a hotspot with lots of resignations”. The Brexit turmoil has included <a href="https://theconversation.com/theresa-may-has-survived-chequers-but-what-comes-next-could-be-worse-99771">many an exit</a> of British politicians from the front bench, which undermines the smooth order of government stability.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"971006379375972354"}"></div></p>
<p>While companies should not seek zero change, this level of turnover disrupts the important continuity of business as usual. It’s an issue that many businesses are increasingly facing. Insurance company Willis Towers Watson, in a <a href="https://www.towerswatson.com/en/Insights/Newsletters/Americas/insider/2015/06/seven-things-to-know-about-employee-retention-risks">global workforce study</a> of 32,000 employees, found that 70% of top performers, across industry sectors, felt compelled to quit for career advance. Talent seeks challenging opportunities and skilled workers have greater confidence they’ll find another position.</p>
<h2>Easy come, easy go</h2>
<p>Staff turnover is natural. Employees leave for family reasons, poor health or new opportunities. By contrast, many staff prefer to stay with a known employer; the longer people have worked with one company, the more likely they are to stay. In short, length of service is a common predictor of intention to remain. But lethargic or frustrated employees are of low value to an organisation. So zero turnover is not a pragmatic goal, as new blood can invigorate an organisation.</p>
<p>When experts resign, a company can lose firm-specific knowledge, suffer damage to productivity and workforce morale. Curiously, few employers attempt to limit the rate at which people leave the organisation. More than half of UK employers, 56% <a href="https://www.cipd.co.uk/Images/resourcing-talent-planning_2017_tcm18-23747.pdf">surveyed</a> by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, don’t even measure the cost of labour turnover. </p>
<p>Perhaps, “good riddance” is an employer’s first reaction or an instinct the leaver wasn’t right for the job. Both <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/09/the-guardian-view-on-boris-johnsons-resignation-good-riddance-to-a-national-embarrassment">these sentiments echoed</a> around the resignations of Brexit secretary, David Davis, and the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, who quit the UK Cabinet in the same week.</p>
<h2>Paying the price</h2>
<p>But high turnover has repercussions. The messy drain of talent can affect team morale as skill gaps surface with shaky transitions in knowledge. The cost of replacing a uniquely skilled worker is roughly one and a half <a href="http://www.hrreview.co.uk/hr-news/recruitment/it-costs-over-30k-to-replace-a-staff-member">to two times the employee’s annual salary</a>. A turnover myth is that specialists only leave to earn more money elsewhere. Many cases show that poor management, adverse work conditions or restricted career opportunities inform decisions to quit. </p>
<p>And certain staff can be hard to replace. Low-cost airline Ryanair, for example, had <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/over-700-pilots-left-ryanair-in-last-financial-year-ialpa-claims-1.3225145">700 pilots leave in one financial year</a>, according to the Irish Air Line Pilots’ Association (Ialpa). A qualified pilot is <a href="https://theconversation.com/ryanair-crisis-aviation-industry-expert-warns-600-000-new-pilots-needed-in-next-20-years-84852">hard to replace</a>, as training is costly and requires a large amount of flying experience.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231082/original/file-20180808-7141-7090hj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231082/original/file-20180808-7141-7090hj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231082/original/file-20180808-7141-7090hj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231082/original/file-20180808-7141-7090hj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231082/original/file-20180808-7141-7090hj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231082/original/file-20180808-7141-7090hj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231082/original/file-20180808-7141-7090hj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Grounded.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/michalo/19602638108">flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Keeping key people</h2>
<p>Lady Bracknell, Oscar Wilde’s character, <a href="http://www.importanceofbeingearnest.co.uk/lady-bracknell-quotes/">would perhaps declare</a>: to lose one executive may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose several seems like carelessness. A growth in unwanted turnover suggests poor leadership and obtuse management. Still, there are ways to effectively manage staff turnover and retain key people, which I outline in my book <a href="https://bookboon.com/en/talent-retention-ebook">Talent Retention: Strategies to Keep the Best People</a>. </p>
<p>Skilled workers stay with a stimulating job, a supportive boss and a conducive working environment. Research shows that a measure of job satisfaction, rather than reward, helps to predict the likelihood of employee intentions to stay. Retention bonuses, for example, generally postpone, rather than remove, an individual’s decision to leave. And bonuses paid to retain key staff can distort existing agreements on fair pay. A lack of equity in a reward system then increases disgruntlement and turnover as a result.</p>
<p>A company is like a ship that needs a qualified captain and crew to steer it into the future. Specialists enjoy autonomy and are motivated by intrinsic qualities of work such as mastery, shared purpose and growth. Some employers talk of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13678868.2016.1166710">hiring buccaneers to lead innovation</a>, yet, in practice, research shows that managers want recruits with business know-how to navigate the basic rules of an organisation. </p>
<p>To retain key staff, it is important to improve existing managers’ people skills to support, coach and develop talent. Keeping the best employees who share the company’s values and vision can avoid trouble at sea and prevent a skilled crew from jumping ship.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101212/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Margaret Mackay does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>High turnover can damage stability which is why keeping talent is so important to organisations.Margaret Mackay, Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/995322018-07-24T14:48:25Z2018-07-24T14:48:25ZDebate: In support of ‘organic’ management, more living than digital<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228248/original/file-20180718-142438-1eww5ky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C91%2C6765%2C4415&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rawpixel/Unsplash</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the main features of continuing digitalisation and the development of artificial intelligence – currently claimed to be the only and inevitable means of “progress” in the future – is the desire to conquer and “ideologically” transform managers and organisations that are portrayed as “ill-adapted”, or even obsolete.</p>
<p>The transformation is presented as a non-choice, as digital determinism and big-data fatalism. Binary logic takes the lead: either adopt the principles of digitalised processes, information systems and practices, or die and disappear.</p>
<h2>No more work, no more management?</h2>
<p>The threat that <a href="https://bit.ly/2HcUDLF">work will almost entirely disappear</a> in the near future should be considered as neither a groundless utopia nor an inescapable truth forcing us to <a href="http://www.seuil.com/ouvrage/les-nouvelles-frontieres-du-travail-a-l-ere-numerique-patrice-flichy/9782021368482">accept the unacceptable</a>.</p>
<p>This globalised movement tends to show that most organisations are incapable of innovating when it comes to developing new business management and transformation practices. And so, gradually, the idea has taken hold that we should eliminate the very notion of management, now judged “outdated”.</p>
<p>Conversely, if we turn this logic around, it has never been more necessary and worthwhile to sharpen managerial thinking and to make the sense of community more concrete, lively and dynamic, since these two dimensions are closely linked today.</p>
<h2>Questioning the notion of agility</h2>
<p>There is an urgent need to rethink our conception of the notion of agility, which is too often linked solely to an organisation’s ability to generate results. This agility, presented as a “divine” source of future growth, becomes a dogma, thereby losing its potency.</p>
<p>This almost “priestly” power, overly confined to the idea of flexibility and responsiveness, is essential in the face of entrepreneurial realities, which may lack inspiration. It becomes the answer, the only adaptive skill with which to develop organisational innovation.</p>
<p>Reducing companies’ future strategic successes to the simple idea of an ever-faster reaction time overlooks the abilities, resources and skills that organisations are able to deploy. Companies have the ability to draw on human intelligence, the organic capital involved in shaping their future.</p>
<p>Collective intelligence should serve the common good by resisting the pressing restrictions placed on us all by digital technologies and algorithms. This form of mobilisation must be able to overthrow the obsession with overall digitised performance, so difficult to reproduce in real life. This voluntary enslavement to big data and the instrumentation of “social” networks should also warn us of the risk of social disillusionment.</p>
<h2>Reintroducing a human aspect into the digital world</h2>
<p>Let’s be ambitious and bold in our turn. Be “disruptive” by proposing moderate use and a clear vision of the provision and consumption of these interconnected tools, respecting human values.</p>
<p>The key idea of this disruption, or destruction to adopt the language of Schumpeter, should not absolve us from asking the price of this intelligence revolution.</p>
<p>If the fundamental objectives of the digital society promised to us should result in a “cyberworld” (see Daniel Cohen, <a href="https://bit.ly/2HuNkzW"><em>The Prosperity of Vice</em></a>, 2008) that lacks solidarity because it is unable to understand the role of human interactions, we would undoubtedly become mere tools devoid of critical thought.</p>
<p>We are in the process of changing from “people” into “adjustment variables”, solely serving an algorithmic culture. This social trend, fuelled by numerical codes, moves us almost inexorably away from a tangible vision of social relationships.</p>
<p>To attempt to reintroduce a human aspect into the digital world, to face up to the disarray of big numbers that may well lead us straight to a devastated, tormented and bewildered vision of humanity and possible social chaos, we must re-appropriate the purpose and the design of the role played by data and by statistical information. It is vital to better understand the issues and challenges imposed on us by algorithms while maintaining control, rather than the opposite.</p>
<h2>Maintaining control</h2>
<p>“Aim high to hit the mark” argues historian <a href="http://www.telerama.fr/livres/un-ete-avec-machiavel,157707.php">Patrick Boucheron, echoing Machiavel</a>. (In fact, it seems that we turn to Machiavelli every time a storm brews in history.) The relationship with power and with ethics is at the heart of these battles of wits. Our ability to reinvent ourselves will always remain our greatest ally for confronting this 4.0 resurgence of Taylorism, Fordism and Toyotism. Does the “one best way” obsession now demand a <em>Matrix</em>-style (1999) diaphanous world, with dematerialised bodies and objects? Is big data a new form of scientific work organisation?</p>
<p>Today, it is important to develop strategies and cognitive and organisational frameworks that simultaneously redefine sense-making and the place and role of actors. The living dynamic of human groups and the ways in which talents and contributions are valued are at the very heart of regaining trust.</p>
<p>This first involves collectively understanding the different realities of each organisation. To achieve this, it is necessary to create a genuine profusion of ideas, without barriers and without hierarchy of thought. Sharing experiences and applying this mind-set should help each company to understand the challenges it faces in order to define its role, its culture, its habits and its cohesiveness.</p>
<p>The mind-set of the future is not vertical. It does not conform to the silo mentality.</p>
<p>Developing new organisational forms, resources and skills and new combinations of organic interactions becomes a highly creative act in itself. We now need to understand why and how can we “identify” our new challenges, remain focused on the real needs of our organisation, of our development and of the people who bring it to life.</p>
<h2>Constructing identities</h2>
<p>Management science and strategic management research consider the construction processes of organisational identities and social capital to be productive resources.</p>
<p>Deploying these identities will help to initiate the rehabilitation, or even the transformation, of the psychosocial dimension of work.</p>
<p>The threat that <a href="https://bit.ly/2HcUDLF">work will almost entirely disappear</a> in the very near future should be considered neither a groundless utopia nor a new total and inescapable truth enabling us to <a href="http://www.seuil.com/ouvrage/les-nouvelles-frontieres-du-travail-a-l-ere-numerique-patrice-flichy/9782021368482">accept the unacceptable</a>. It is up to the actors of today to define the vital choices of a tangible economy and of a humanly viable society, wherever they are found.</p>
<p>In short, the quality of organic management lies in its ability to disrupt the ambitions of this “digital and artificial substance” so as to encourage the emergence and “implementation” of genuine human resilience in the present, conscious of both its limitations and its strengths.</p>
<p>Living management exists to reflect, share, listen, restore and move with its entourage and its environment. The objective is therefore to woo back real management, the creative experience that participates in an organisational culture based on each living contribution and on each idea that is designed and shaped, rather than to destroy this tangible vitality of life for the benefit of a new form of Taylorism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99532/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marie-Josée Bernard ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Reducing companies’ future strategic successes to the simple idea of an ever-faster reaction time overlooks human intelligence, the organic capital involved in shaping their future.Marie-Josée Bernard, Professeure en Management – Leadership -- Développement humain, EM Lyon Business SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/961662018-06-20T10:44:39Z2018-06-20T10:44:39ZShut down business schools? Two professors debate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224011/original/file-20180620-137714-dcq61e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>After 20 years of working in UK business schools, Martin Parker, professor of organisation studies at Bristol University, calls for them to be shut down in a new book. His views have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/27/bulldoze-the-business-school">caused some lively debate</a> and here, he makes his case. Ken Starkey, professor of management at Nottingham University, disagrees. He offers an alternative.</em></p>
<h2><em>Martin Parker:</em></h2>
<p>One of the features of today’s universities is just how much money they now spend on marketing. Websites are slick and use contemporary typefaces, billboards show laughing diverse customers, and strap lines promise success. “Achieve your dreams!” “Find the real you!” “The knowledge to succeed!” Apart from the word “university”, it’s hard to tell whether they are selling mobile phones, a yoga retreat, or a degree. </p>
<p>Nowhere is this more evident than in the publicity for business schools – perhaps the most marketised part of the contemporary university and now teaching <a href="https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/what-study">one in seven</a> higher education students in the UK. The prospective customer is addressed as someone who is wide-eyed and grasping for the stars, is sold high salaries, brand name employers and images of people walking with determination. </p>
<p>As any marketing professional would tell you, you want to get the punters imagining who they will be if they have your product. It’s a lifestyle thing.</p>
<p>The problem is that the lifestyle being sold by most universities, much of the time, is a fiction. There are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/03/the-guardian-view-on-graduates-and-employment-degrees-but-not-destinations">too many graduates</a> chasing too few graduate jobs, and plenty of <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/student/career-planning/thousands-of-graduates-working-in-jobs-that-dont-require-any-qualifications-a7114056.html">Deliveroo cyclists with master’s degrees</a>. But then universities don’t want to advertise graduates stuck in damp flats paying off debt, always imagining that they could have been somebody. Realism isn’t what we are after here because that won’t pay the university’s bills.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220319/original/file-20180524-51115-4v8kqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220319/original/file-20180524-51115-4v8kqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220319/original/file-20180524-51115-4v8kqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220319/original/file-20180524-51115-4v8kqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220319/original/file-20180524-51115-4v8kqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220319/original/file-20180524-51115-4v8kqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220319/original/file-20180524-51115-4v8kqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The kind of picture you’d get in a business school brochure.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/group-business-people-talking-each-other-414478405?src=YdtdiV7snnAWIiclPFTL-g-1-0">shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As if these promises weren’t bad enough, the marketing of the business school has some even more damaging consequences. It sells thrilling careers in high finance, global logistics and marketing. Lots of jumping on planes and making customers happy, computer screens showing shares on the rise and smiling people sitting in front of laptops. </p>
<p>See anything wrong with this picture? There is virtually no consideration of the damage that business is doing to us and the planet.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong><em>‘The hidden curriculum of the business school remains any form of business that isn’t the capitalist corporation’</em></strong></p>
<hr>
<p>In the 1960s, sociologists of education used to talk about the idea of the <a href="https://www.edglossary.org/hidden-curriculum/">“hidden curriculum”</a>. Because schools didn’t teach about women, people of colour, working class experience, they effectively sent the message that it was only white middle-class men’s knowledge that really mattered. What they didn’t teach was a lesson too. That’s changed now, but the hidden curriculum of the business school remains any form of business that isn’t the capitalist corporation.</p>
<p>That’s why, in my new book <a href="https://www.plutobooks.com/9781786802408/shut-down-the-business-school/">Shut Down the Business School</a> I suggest that business schools are teaching politics without admitting it. They rarely engage with the challenges of a low-carbon economy, of the shorter supply chains that we need to encourage localisation, and the need to address social justice and inclusion. </p>
<p>Business schools don’t teach about co-operatives, mutuals, local money, community shares or social enterprise. They don’t mention transition towns, intentional communities, recuperated factories, works councils or the social economy. Ideas about degrowth, the beauty of small, worker decision making and the circular economy are absent. It’s as if there is no alternative. And because of all this, we should recognise that their time has come.</p>
<h2><em>Ken Starkey:</em></h2>
<p>Let’s imagine a world without business schools. What would we do without the hundreds of thousands of MBAs who have graduated from business schools and gone to work on Wall Street, in the City, in management consulting, in business and in the public sector? Where would we be without the managerial knowledge they have absorbed based on cutting edge faculty research? Where would the world be without the two US presidents educated in the world’s leading business schools, George W Bush (Harvard) and Donald J Trump (Wharton)? </p>
<p>The Chartered Association of Business Schools would argue that business schools have had made significant contributions <a href="https://charteredabs.org/publications/business-schools-delivering-value-local-regional-economies/">to local and national economies</a>. Business schools produced many interesting impact case studies for the last <a href="https://theconversation.com/qanda-what-is-the-ref-and-how-is-the-quality-of-university-research-measured-35529">REF review of university research</a>, which support this point and <a href="https://charteredabs.org/publications/impact-business-school-research-economic-social-benefits/">many focused on policy issues</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p><strong><em>‘Business and finance are crucial to a healthy economy and society’</em></strong></p>
<hr>
<p>Business schools also work <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.365.3739&rep=rep1&type=pdf">at a local level to good effect</a>. Their researchers work on the big social issues – environmental, social justice, social enterprise, eradicating slavery in supply chains, developing work opportunities for refugees – not as many as Martin and I would like perhaps, but more than he is making out.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/table-9">Around 25%</a> of postgraduates in UK universities are studying business and management. Where would be without all these budding entrepreneurs energised to create the companies of the future? Where would all those sociologists and geographers and refugees from other disciplines employed in business schools to teach business and management students find work? </p>
<p>Rather than recommending the demise of the business school we need to accept that business and finance are crucial <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2714607-the-ascent-of-money">to a healthy economy and society</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223616/original/file-20180618-85825-9ic9qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223616/original/file-20180618-85825-9ic9qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223616/original/file-20180618-85825-9ic9qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223616/original/file-20180618-85825-9ic9qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223616/original/file-20180618-85825-9ic9qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223616/original/file-20180618-85825-9ic9qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223616/original/file-20180618-85825-9ic9qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ken Starkey: Business schools help foster a healthy economy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<p>I agree with Martin that there is a pressing need to consider alternatives to the current dominant business philosophy, a hangover from looking to the US as the fount of management knowledge and the power of US corporations. We desperately need new models of business, society and business schools. </p>
<p>The major barrier to change, though, in the UK at least, is the disingenuous (some would say cynical) use made of business schools by universities over the last 20 years. In response to the financial pressures on the system many universities have developed the knee-jerk reaction of <a href="http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/65111/frontmatter/9780521865111_frontmatter.pdf">turning to the business school for income</a>. Too many business schools are little more than cash cows, with international students desperately recruited to fill funding gaps. </p>
<p>The problem with this strategy is that it is unlikely to be sustainable. In many business schools international students number more than 80% (even 90% in some cases) <a href="https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/table-9">of postgraduate entry</a>, with students from China making up the large majority of this number in a growing number of institutions.</p>
<p>While I agree with some of Martin’s criticisms, the answer is not to close business schools but for business school deans and university management to engage in a real dialogue about the kind of business schools the world needs. This requires an overhaul of both business school curricula and university recruitment policies.</p>
<h2><em>Martin Parker:</em></h2>
<p>I assume that Ken’s argument is, in part, ironic. The fact that business school graduates go to work in high finance, management consulting and become dubious US presidents is hardly grounds for celebration. Neither is that lots of students study business degrees, or that armies of staff are employed to teach them. The bloated nature of global business school education is no grounds for its continuation.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong><em>‘Business schools need to begin again, which justifies talk of bulldozers’</em></strong></p>
<hr>
<p>I have no problem with the assertion that business and finance matter, the question is just how they should be organised. Ken mentions the importance of “alternatives”, and I assume this means that he would also be keen on the development of teaching and research that addresses carbon emissions through localisation and <a href="https://degrowth.org/">degrowth</a>, which addresses inequalities of income and wealth, and encourages democratic workplaces that treat employees with dignity.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223612/original/file-20180618-85822-ahsccs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223612/original/file-20180618-85822-ahsccs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223612/original/file-20180618-85822-ahsccs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223612/original/file-20180618-85822-ahsccs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223612/original/file-20180618-85822-ahsccs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223612/original/file-20180618-85822-ahsccs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223612/original/file-20180618-85822-ahsccs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Martin Parker: talk of bulldozers is justified.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<p>Now, in order for this to happen, business schools need to stop teaching most of the standard curriculum. This isn’t minor tinkering, it’s a radical change in the way that they imagine themselves. It won’t be enough to introduce a business ethics course, or sign up for the UN <a href="http://www.unprme.org/">Principles for Responsible Management Education</a>. Business schools need to begin again, which seems to me to justify talk of bulldozers.</p>
<h2><em>Ken Starkey:</em></h2>
<p>While I accept that we need to radically reform the curriculum, I remain convinced that the business school has a key role to play in today’s university. Business schools are too often dismissed, except in financial terms, as little more than mass production teaching factories. </p>
<hr>
<p><strong><em>‘Business schools have a key role to play in today’s university’</em></strong></p>
<hr>
<p>The problem is that universities have used and abused business schools as an easy source of income, while collectively failing to articulate a convincing narrative of higher education for the 21st century. The rising pressure bearing down on universities is only likely to be exacerbated when for-profits, with the support of <a href="http://evonomics.com/what-happens-when-you-believe-in-ayn-rand-and-modern-economic-theory/">Ayn Rand admirers</a>, enter the sector and target the lucrative business school “market”, competing on value-for-money with strong financial and possibly corporate backing. </p>
<p>University leaders need to articulate a more convincing narrative of what universities, including business schools, can offer. This must be based on <a href="http://cdbu.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Wolf_CDBU_lecture_26Jan2017.pdf">more than a simplistic economic argument</a>. It needs to reaffirm the core purpose and competence of a university: deep scholarship that allows us to understand better the complex social and economic challenges we face and to educate our students more effectively to resolve them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96166/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ken Starkey defends the importance of business schools, while Martin Parker says ‘bring in the bulldozers’.Martin Parker, Professor of Organisation Studies, University of BristolKen Starkey, Professor of Management and Organisational Learning, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/981162018-06-12T10:12:58Z2018-06-12T10:12:58ZWhy every company should embrace the World Cup<p>Whether you like it or not, football is set to invade your workplace. With the 2018 FIFA World Cup starting on June 14, expect coffee breaks, lunches and hallway chats to be dominated by talk of the beautiful game. Not to mention the people who will keep up with the latest scores during working hours – ten games in the group stages will take place during European working hours. </p>
<p>But don’t fear: this does not have to be a big waste of time and resources. Yes, the time spent fussing about football may not be spent on finalising a report, advancing a project, or analysing industry trends. (Indeed, estimates suggest that employees watching the 2010 World Cup during working hours could have costed <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/world-cups-bad-influence-73653">as much as US$10.4 billion in lost production time</a>.) But there are multiple ways to make up for this by embracing the tournament. </p>
<p>According to Gallup’s 2017 global survey, the <a href="http://news.gallup.com/reports/220313/state-global-workplace-2017.aspx">State of the Global Workplace</a>, only 15% of full-time workers are truly engaged at work. Almost a quarter of employees <a href="https://www.adeccousa.com/employers/resources/us-workforce-attraction-and-retention-report/">surveyed by recruitment agency Adecco</a> said they don’t think their employer tries to improve their happiness. And <a href="https://hbr.org/2017/01/what-matters-more-to-your-workforce-than-money">don’t expect paychecks to do the job</a>: the best predictor of workplace satisfaction, according to the Glassdoor research group, is the culture and values of the organisation, while compensation and benefits were consistently rated among the least important factors.</p>
<p>The true bane of an organisation’s existence is lack of engagement and job satisfaction among its employees. The World Cup is a timely opportunity to engage workers. With an estimated audience of 3.5 billion worldwide, it is <a href="http://whatculture.com/sport/10-most-watched-sporting-events-in-tv-history?page=2">the most-watched sporting event in TV history</a>. Beyond the excitement of the tournament, it brings people together and allows them to bond with colleagues outside their normal work tasks.</p>
<h2>Boosting the bottom line</h2>
<p>It can also help a company’s bottom line in the long run. Employees will be more productive because they return to their desks energised. Emotions are likely to run high during games, resulting in a more informal and relaxed environment. These environments are known to enhance employees’ intrinsic motivation – they simply want to come to work. </p>
<p>Committed employees perform better and are less likely to switch jobs: Gallup estimated that business units in the top quartile in terms of engagement are 17% more productive and 21% more profitable than those in the bottom quartile. There are also many <a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/research/satisfied-employees-drive-business-results/">studies</a> showing that satisfied employees drive business results. Management consultants Bain & Company <a href="https://hbr.org/2015/12/engaging-your-employees-is-good-but-dont-stop-there">found</a> that inspired employees are almost three times more productive than dissatisfied employees.</p>
<p>Companies may benefit from enhanced innovation since relaxed, friendly, and fun environments spur creative thinking and good ideas. This is why <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/why-people-get-their-best-ideas-in-the-shower-2016-1?r=US&IR=T">72% of people report getting creative ideas in the shower</a>.</p>
<p>You may see an improvement in the execution of <a href="https://executiveeducation.wharton.upenn.edu/thought-leadership/wharton-at-work/2011/02/change-initiatives">change initiatives</a> as a result of bringing different elements of the organisation together. A fun and pleasant work environment encourages employees <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/288964506_A_spoonful_of_sugar_Some_thoughts_on_'fun_at_work'">to form connections</a> beyond the people they mostly associate with, such as their specific team or age group. Football is a powerful icebreaker, allowing employees to transcend job titles and bridge silos. Alongside discussing semi-final results, employees can learn more about each other’s job functions and will, in turn, be better able to support each other, saving time and helping implement good ideas more effectively.</p>
<h2>Three ways to get involved</h2>
<p>We suggest three levels of boosting employee engagement through World Cup mania. The first is to encourage conversations about the event. Don’t monitor or try to stop watching games during business hours – this will just make your staff resent you. Instead, engage with what’s going on.</p>
<p>Second, you could organise a TV screen in the office. To see the culture benefits for your organisation, keep it in-house and don’t allow external factors to interfere with the experience.</p>
<p>Third, get competitive and sponsor a sweepstake on the outcome of the tournament. A real competition within the organisation will get people involved at a deeper level. Not only is making predictions <a href="https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/00197850410532131">fun and highly engaging</a>, friendly competition can take place among staff, but also across departments. </p>
<p>Putting proceeds from the competition to charity can also <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w22316">increase employee engagement and sense of purpose</a> and you might have an attractive prize to increase participation for those who are not football fanatics by default.</p>
<p>While encouraging football mania can be a better time investment than you thought, stay alert and remain inclusive toward those who are not natural football fans. While this article is written by two football fans who happen to be female, you may still encounter concerns that such an event is not catered towards women at the workplace. In our experience, as long as the fuss is happening everywhere and involving everyone in the fun, you are safe. </p>
<p>So, get cracking on those World Cup screens and create your in-house engagement. It’s a great way to effectively engage and inspire your organisation – and have fun along the way.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>More evidence-based articles about football and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/world-cup-2018-11490?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=WorldCup2018">World Cup</a>:</em></p>
<ul>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-football-teams-who-sing-their-national-anthem-with-passion-are-more-likely-to-win-96765?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=WorldCup2018">Why football teams who sing their national anthem with passion are more likely to win</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/conifa-how-the-other-world-cup-is-helping-unrecognised-nations-through-football-98104?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=WorldCup2018">CONIFA: how the ‘other World Cup’ is helping unrecognised nations through football</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/does-spending-big-in-the-football-transfer-window-get-results-two-experts-crunch-the-data-89184?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=WorldCup2018">Does spending big in the football transfer window get results? Two experts crunch the data</a></em></p></li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98116/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The true bane of an organisation is a lack of engagement and job satisfaction among its employees. World Cup mania could actually help.Ina Toegel, Professor of Leadership and Organisational Change, International Institute for Management Development (IMD)Maude Lavanchy, Research Associate, International Institute for Management Development (IMD)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/970362018-06-01T09:40:48Z2018-06-01T09:40:48ZHappiness at work doesn’t just depend on your employer<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221178/original/file-20180531-69481-6b8yyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/businessman-holding-cardboard-smiley-face-emoticon-180628760">shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Google promoted a software engineer named Chade-Meng Tan to the role of “Jolly Good Fellow”, his career – and the entire culture of Silicon Valley – took a sharp turn.</p>
<p>Meng, a cheerful employee valued for his motivational qualities, went from developing mobile search tools to spreading happiness across the organisation. Happiness became his job.</p>
<p>Google wasn’t the first to hire someone with the sole remit of enforcing employee contentment. In 1999, when Google was still a start-up, French fashion brand Kiabi hired Christine Jutard as its <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinejutard/">chief happiness officer</a>. She was one of the first to perform the role.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221175/original/file-20180531-69490-jouor1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221175/original/file-20180531-69490-jouor1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221175/original/file-20180531-69490-jouor1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221175/original/file-20180531-69490-jouor1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221175/original/file-20180531-69490-jouor1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221175/original/file-20180531-69490-jouor1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221175/original/file-20180531-69490-jouor1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chade-Meng Tan’s old business card.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.mengstupiditis.com/2015/10/officially-retired-from-google.html">Chade-Meng Tan</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But once Google did it, employee happiness became a key metric and other organisations quickly adopted their approach. Three years after Meng’s appointment, fast food giant McDonald’s even promoted Ronald McDonald <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43011-2005Jan27.html">from brand mascot to CHO</a>.</p>
<p>The role remains popular today. There are more than 1,000 chief happiness officers listed on jobs website LinkedIn. But a closer look at what really makes employees happy shows that lots of companies are going about it the wrong way.</p>
<h2>The right kind of investment</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/happy-people-work-harder-especially-if-they-get-chocolate-24646">theory goes</a> that happy employees are productive employees and productive employees generate more profit.</p>
<p>The secondary benefit is that happy employees don’t look to jump ship. This cuts recruitment costs, further increasing profits. So most organisations investing heavily in fostering a happiness culture think they see a good return on investment.</p>
<p>Expedia, for example, an office full of perks and <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/inside-the-happiest-workplace-in-the-uk-where-staff-can-get-a-14000-travel-allowance-2016-3/%23from-the-outside-expedias-office-building-looks-a-little-dreary-like-many-others-in-london-1">provides up to US$14,000</a> per year, per person, in travel perks, to keep people happy. Other firms offer unlimited vacations, free food, even office toys to keep the happiness levels high.</p>
<p>But the answer to employee happiness is not in the form of <a href="https://www.kiwimovers.co.uk/news/hammocks-and-ping-pong-tables-going-into-storage-is-this-end-of-the-fun-startup-office/">bean bags and ping-pong tables</a>. As the Expedia example shows, it is the company’s “culture” and “career opportunities” that have made it one of the UK’s most popular places to work – <a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-why-cool-offices-dont-always-make-for-a-happier-workforce-77361">not the physical surroundings</a>.</p>
<h2>Fostering well-being</h2>
<p>There is a real difference between happiness gimmicks and working in a well-being culture – one that values people, manages them by praise and reward rather than fault-finding, and that enables them to work flexibly and provides them with work-life balance. <a href="https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/trends-and-forecasting/research-and-surveys/Documents/2016-Employee-Job-Satisfaction-and-Engagement-Report-Executive-Summary.pdf">Research shows</a> that these are the real keys to happiness. </p>
<p>A 2017 <a href="https://content.accesscommercialfinance.com/blog/commercial-finance-study-how-startups-save-money">study of start-up businesses</a> found that 57% had at least one member who worked remotely, either from home or wherever they happened to want to work. Companies surveyed said this was a logistical choice. The best person for the job might not have been local to begin with and offices only have so much space. </p>
<p>But there’s an added benefit here: the implied trust and autonomy of allowing staff to work remotely may contribute more to their happiness than dragging them into an office stocked with free coffee and fruit.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221171/original/file-20180531-69481-136xq5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221171/original/file-20180531-69481-136xq5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221171/original/file-20180531-69481-136xq5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221171/original/file-20180531-69481-136xq5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221171/original/file-20180531-69481-136xq5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221171/original/file-20180531-69481-136xq5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221171/original/file-20180531-69481-136xq5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Expedia’s fun office design is not the source of employee happiness.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Expedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As John Ruskin, the British reformer, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/173919-in-order-that-people-may-be-happy-in-their-work">said in 1851</a> “in order that people may be happy at work, these three things are needed: they must be fit for it, they must not do too much of it, and they must have a sense of success in it”.</p>
<h2>Personality types</h2>
<p>Research shows that employee happiness is also determined by their personalities. In a large study of 3,200 employees from a variety of organisations and sectors, carried out by Robertson Cooper Ltd, a workplace well-being consultancy that we set up, we found that certain personality types experienced <a href="https://www.robertsoncooper.com/download/latest-research/could-your-personality-be-affecting-how-many-good-days-at-work-you-have">more “good days at work” than other types</a>.</p>
<p>We discovered that employees who scored highly on positive emotions and enthusiasm, lower on depressive tendencies like sadness, hopelessness and loneliness and those who “begin tasks and carry them through” have the highest number of good days at work.</p>
<p>If you combine these three personality characteristics, those who had all three had 79% of “good days at work”, whereas those who had low scores on these only had 57% of good days. This, in turn, translates into higher job satisfaction, better health and higher productivity.</p>
<p>The implications here is that employers should try and recruit people with these characteristics but, of course, some people who lack some of these characteristics may have key skills that are even more important. And, even if you do recruit with happiness traits in mind, being content at work will to a larger extent depend on the workplace culture that truly values staff, trusts them, manages them humanely and compassionately and provides them with greater balance in their lives.</p>
<p>In our recent book <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781349321032">Wellbeing: Productivity and Happiness at Work</a>, case studies of major employers – including Rolls Royce, BT, John Lewis Partnership, Network Rail and the UK Civil Service – shows how this kind of well-being culture boosts the bottom line.</p>
<p>Happiness and contentment at work is not about sushi for lunch and massages at your desk, it is about how bosses treat those that work for them. As Mark Twain once wrote: “Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can somehow become great.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97036/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cary Cooper is a director of Robertson Cooper Ltd, a spinoff company from the University of Manchester that provides well-being services to organisations.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ivan Robertson is a director of Robertson Cooper Ltd, a spinoff company from the University of Manchester that provides well-being services to organisations.</span></em></p>There are more than a thousand chief happiness officers on LinkedIn but their roles differ wildly.Cary Cooper, 50th Anniversary Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health, University of ManchesterIvan Robertson, Emeritus Professor of Work & Organizational Psychology, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/945282018-04-09T15:04:12Z2018-04-09T15:04:12ZNew styles of strikes and protest are emerging in the UK<p>The image of strikers picketing outside factory gates is usually seen as something from the archives. <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/timeseries/bbfw/lms">Official statistics</a> show an almost perennial decline in formal strikes. In the month of January 2018 there were 9,000 recorded working days lost due to strikes – a tiny fraction of the 3m recorded in January 1979. </p>
<p>Yet there has been a noticeable <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/uklabourmarket/march2018">increase</a> in private sector working days lost from strike action. In January 2018, the figure stood at 231,000 working days lost. That is 146,000 more days than in January 2017 and 166,000 more than than January 2016.</p>
<p>And it’s not just those on the left who are striking. Workers are also agitated in modern and union-free enterprises. For example, Ryanair was forced <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-ryanairs-recognition-of-unions-means-for-the-future-of-the-airline-89326">to bargain with trade unions</a> after pilots across Europe threatened industrial action, despite its flamboyant CEO, Michael O’Leary, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/18/ryanair-recognised-hell-frozen-unions-airline">once proclaiming that</a> “hell would freeze over” before his company recognised a union. <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-striking-mcdonalds-workers-are-taking-on-the-fast-food-giant-83260">McDonald’s workers</a> in Cambridge and London also went on strike over pay and zero-hours contracts late last year, with talk of <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/mcdonalds-strikes-latest-workers-ballot-zerohours-contracts-pay-conditions-union-a8295736.html">more action to come</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213821/original/file-20180409-114112-11a4lb5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213821/original/file-20180409-114112-11a4lb5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213821/original/file-20180409-114112-11a4lb5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213821/original/file-20180409-114112-11a4lb5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213821/original/file-20180409-114112-11a4lb5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213821/original/file-20180409-114112-11a4lb5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213821/original/file-20180409-114112-11a4lb5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213821/original/file-20180409-114112-11a4lb5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Working days lost in the UK (cumulative 12-month totals, not seasonally adjusted).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/uklabourmarket/march2018">Labour Disputes Inquiry, Office for National Statistics</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The beginning of 2018 witnessed some high profile strikes in key sectors: at a number of railways <a href="http://www.cityam.com/278216/you-need-know-next-weeks-mass-rail-strikes-across-south">over safety</a>; at water company <a href="https://www.employeebenefits.co.uk/issues/march-2018/united-utilities-strike-pensions/">United Utilities</a> over pay and working conditions; at IT giant Fujitsu over <a href="http://www.unitetheunion.org/news/fujitsu-workers-start-fourth-day-of-strikes-in-jobs-and-pensions-battle/">job losses</a>; and thousands of lecturers across more than 60 universities <a href="https://theconversation.com/university-lecturer-explains-why-academics-are-striking-over-pension-cuts-93039">have been striking over pensions</a>. </p>
<h2>What’s all the fuss about?</h2>
<p>People are worried about their pay, working conditions, future earnings and security at a time when the world of work is changing.</p>
<p>University lecturers are angered not only at the reduced pension deal being offered by their employers’ group, Universities UK. Views are mixed but many are also <a href="https://medium.com/@drleejones/ucus-rush-to-e-ballot-reflects-the-weakness-of-union-democracy-c892e316ebf">aggrieved at their own union</a>, the University and College Union, for recommending an offer that some <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/apr/04/university-staff-vote-on-pensions-offer-without-a-deal-in-sight">local activists</a> and members view as falling short on their demands. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213813/original/file-20180409-114092-13ezcwz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213813/original/file-20180409-114092-13ezcwz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213813/original/file-20180409-114092-13ezcwz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213813/original/file-20180409-114092-13ezcwz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213813/original/file-20180409-114092-13ezcwz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213813/original/file-20180409-114092-13ezcwz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213813/original/file-20180409-114092-13ezcwz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lecturers on strike.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisbertram/40033784424/in/photolist-23ZDBmu-h8QUYx-aPCMoi-GAsoEM-9YjgDE-251CejQ-9YkJ8a-9YkYS9-FqiXwP-24xTZK4-GZ3UTY-25jAArV-9t36kS-aNsA3Z-9YzaVd-GAm2X7-9t32hm-aPCBoT-9YwgAK-aNW45K-aNsAta-aPCB9Z-aNtbGV-aPCAGV-GAm2xQ-aNW4rx-23Hju74-aPAThn-aPATtP-GAkeE7-HsXywL-HnoGpG-Hnm5P7-GqFHRG-GtNyrh-24BxXUM-F1kAyg-25xVmhM-25zekmY-24ynXuM-223wucN-22wQH9f-23CCheF-24ERos3-F7viLx-F7uSqH-HsWQ1o-GWDxxQ-aNW5ic-22eJUjW">Chris Bertram/flickr</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Evidently conflict has not been eradicated from modern workplaces. Employees in multiple sectors also protest in other ways <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/sicknote-strike-southern-rail-conductors-call-in-ill-1000-times-in-a-month-a3256451.html">such as absenteeism</a>, minor <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/12/nicola-thorp-high-heel-petition-receives-100000-plus-signatures">acts of defiance</a>, mischief or <a href="https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/police-hunting-disgruntled-worker-who-10520027">sabotage</a>. The Centre of Economic and Business consultancy reports year-on-year <a href="https://www.personneltoday.com/pr/2017/03/cost-of-absence-to-uk-economy-rises-to-18-billion/">increases in absenteeism</a> since 2011. Short disputes and other types of protest are excluded from official strike statistics – hence, many go unnoticed. </p>
<p>Newer patterns of resistance include <a href="http://www.betterthanzero.scot/">social media campaigns</a> over precarious zero-hour contracts, “lunchtime protests” such as those at <a href="https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/business/2018/01/25/hmrc-public-sector-workers-in-telford-to-protest-over-pay-restraint/">HM Revenue & Customs</a> and Bentley cars, government lobbying by <a href="https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/business/2018/02/28/gkn-workers-lobby-parliament-to-stop-debt-fuelled-takeover-bid/">workers at engineering firm GKN</a> over a takeover, or worker sit-ins as staged by hundreds of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-43320280">Hinckley Point power station workers</a> over pay. Meanwhile <a href="https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/university-surrey-strikes-students-occupy-14410433">students have occupied university premises</a> in <a href="https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/students-sit-office-bristol-university-1300748">solidarity</a> with striking lecturers. </p>
<h2>The shadow of Brexit</h2>
<p>Predicting cause and effect for social phenomena is difficult. Protests are often attributed to employment and economic cycles, combined with changing social values of younger people. </p>
<p>The emergent wave of dissent may indicate we are approaching what some economists call a long-wave “<a href="https://cdn.weissinc.com/reports/TEI/inc/img/charts/20-60-cycles-chart.jpg">Kondratieff cycle</a>” – named after the Russian economist Nikolai Kondratieff. Here economic cycles can stretch over longer periods – say ten, 20 or 40 years. </p>
<p>If the mid-1990s was an “upswing”, slumping with the 2008 financial crisis, growing dissent may signal another <a href="https://knowledge.insead.edu/strategy/the-next-cycle-of-capitalism-5226">long-wave turning point</a>, fuelled by fears of the UK’s fragile future. For instance, in July 2017 the UK’s fiscal watchdog warned that Britain’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/13/uk-public-finances-brexit-downturn-obr-recession">public finances</a> were worse than on the eve of the financial crash. Coupled with the Conservatives losing their majority in government, it may be that the real <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/e3b29230-db5f-11e7-a039-c64b1c09b482">effect of Brexit</a> is only now materialising and compounding the <a href="https://theconversation.com/forget-brexit-austerity-is-far-worse-for-the-uk-economy-60346">ill effects of austerity</a>.</p>
<p>Another reason may be because <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/dec/29/uk-to-sink-to-the-bottom-of-oecd-wage-growth-index-in-2018">real wages</a> have plummeted, while unemployment is at its lowest since the peak of strike activity in the mid-1970s (<a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/uklabourmarket/march2018">now 4.3%</a>), thereby giving workers a greater degree of confidence in pressing their demands.</p>
<h2>Changing social values</h2>
<p>Another possible explanation is that people now expect more and want immediate change. This is exemplified in shock votes for Donald Trump in the US, Brexit or even Jeremy Corbyn’s popularity. </p>
<p>A new moral consciousness may even have replaced a former industrial working-class ideology. Younger and female labour market participation rates have burgeoned but so too has the <a href="http://blog.policy.manchester.ac.uk/posts/2018/02/why-closing-the-gender-pay-gap-requires-a-new-debate-on-fair-pay/">gender pay gap</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/global-inequality-is-on-the-rise-but-at-vastly-different-rates-across-the-world-88976">inequality</a>. Multiculturalism, social inclusion, global employment issues are all catalysts for pioneering <a href="https://www.mbs.ac.uk/news/the-business-and-human-rights-catalyst/">human rights values for businesses</a>.</p>
<p>People are not satisfied with this status quo and are calling for change. So, as well as the more traditional style of organised action, some workers are expressing this new potential moral consciousness with subtle active protest such as the lunchtime protests, worker sit-ins and social media campaigns.</p>
<p>Analysis also points to “conflict benefits”: for example striking lecturers report <a href="https://braveneweurope.com/ed-rooksby-notes-on-the-ucu-strike">lower stress levels</a>, renewed energy and an enjoyment of the solidarity that comes from protest. Research also shows that conflict can support creativity and open disagreement <a href="https://knowledge.insead.edu/leadership-organisations/conflict-is-good-for-creativity-4105">can incite productive outcomes</a>. </p>
<p>Whether we are entering a Kondratieff upswing or witnessing a new active moral consciousness is unclear. Nevertheless, it may be that protest can produce positive outcomes not only for workers, but also help companies to better engage with their workforce.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94528/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>High profile strikes in key sectors – from railways to utility companies and universities – have taken place so far this year.Emma Sara Hughes, PhD Candidate in Employment Relations, Bangor UniversityTony Dundon, Professor of HRM & Employment Relations, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/872292017-11-10T13:05:52Z2017-11-10T13:05:52ZHow James Bond was a model employee<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194173/original/file-20171110-29358-vumkpi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/florida_photo_guy/8265732308/in/photolist-dAq3f1-bmRrRR-nm1xEr-s8YN8P-9XvY6H-7FNjvs-pa1zSH-4gbHiU-4ptGag-poqYB8-AtipgR-4kg958-ejx5f6-8odx7t-58wXaU-j2q5eZ-jePXB8-qAMW8q-RLCAZ7-eBTUqR-fjf47j-8ogEaQ-VeqhqR-dsKvx3-3gNRzB">ClaraDon</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cartoons, pop songs and film all tend to show <a href="https://theconversation.com/lego-movie-ceo-is-evil-because-bad-bosses-sell-cinema-tickets-23629">management as evil</a>, organisations as places which crush the soul, and work as something to be escaped from. Even in shows which present work that we are supposed to admire – doctors, firefighters, the police – there is corruption and conspiracy, which mean that the bosses can rarely be trusted. </p>
<p>You might think that the stories about the most famous secret agent in the world would conform to this pattern. <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1056492616689305?journalCode=jmia">But they don’t</a>.</p>
<p>It is easy to forget that the James Bond novels (and films) are about work. They contain realistic signed and dated memos and appendices and they often begin with corridors and offices. We learn that Bond is paid £1,500 a year, “the salary of a Principal Officer in the Civil Service”, as well as an extra £1,000 tax free. A modest salary in today’s money. He goes on missions two or three times a year and has office hours between ten and six.</p>
<p>But Bond is different from many of the spies and detectives who follow him from the late 1960s onwards. In the novels he very rarely makes any criticism of his employers, and the threats he deals with are all external to his organisation – the fictional Soviet counterintelligence agency SMERSH and sinister crime group SPECTRE. Though Bond does begin to change as the films go on, in the novels and short stories published between 1953 and 1966 he is a model employee.</p>
<p>His boss, M, is the unquestioned object of Bond’s admiration, a shrewd father figure with a background in the navy who continually plays with his pipe. M is hard to please – and refuses sentimentality. But Bond is always waiting for his call to escape from the soft life. He obeys, sometimes cursing and resentful, but always does what he is asked. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There was a creak from M’s chair and Bond looked across the table at the man who held a great deal of his affection and all his loyalty and obedience. The grey eyes looked back at him thoughtfully. M took the pipe out of his mouth. – <a href="http://www.ianfleming.com/products/diamonds-are-forever/profile/">Diamonds Are Forever</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Later in the same novel, Bond suggests that he couldn’t marry a woman because he is already married to a man: “Name begins with M. I’d have to divorce him before I tried marrying a woman.” Bond and his boss are both loyal organisation men. Learning difficult skills, following rules, being an obedient white-collar worker are all part of a noble vocation. </p>
<h2>Bond’s evolution</h2>
<p>If we compare the novels to the later films we can see that Bond gradually becomes an employee who is critical of the means and ends of the organisation that he works for, even to the extent of going rogue to fulfil his mission. This tells us something about the ways in which work and organisations were understood in the 1950s, and how they changed from the late 1960s onwards. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194174/original/file-20171110-29364-x7fuxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194174/original/file-20171110-29364-x7fuxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194174/original/file-20171110-29364-x7fuxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194174/original/file-20171110-29364-x7fuxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194174/original/file-20171110-29364-x7fuxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194174/original/file-20171110-29364-x7fuxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194174/original/file-20171110-29364-x7fuxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The early Bond was a company man.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/konabish/8058603997">Greg Bishop / flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Bond books occupy an unusual period, one in which the activities of businesses seem to have been regarded as <a href="http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0745629253.html">relatively benign</a>. Fleming was writing during a moment in which the organisation was a backdrop for romance in films, or the source of wealth and expertise. Work might be boring and there might be stupid bosses and irritating colleagues, but the legitimacy of the organisation itself was never in doubt. The system worked, and the armies and factories of the allies defeated the fiendish schemes of the enemy. </p>
<p>Bond’s loyalty to M’s clear blue eyes really does begin to look anachronistic compared to the world that we live in now, a world in which managers and corporations are understood to be the <a href="http://skyhorsepublishing.com/titles/12696-9781510711266-corporate-conspiracies">generators of conspiracy</a>, not the solution to them. This is better reflected in the 007 we know today, who has become an action anti-hero. </p>
<p>But the paperback Bond reminds us of a time when workplaces and organisations were imagined as places for authenticity and salvation. They show us that places like the Secret Service will save us from the evil schemers of SPECTRE, and that men behind desks can also be men of action.</p>
<p>What we catch here is a glimpse into a moment in British understandings of the organisation man and the redemptive possibilities of work. The relationship between Bond and M, between loyal employee and gruff but kindly father figure, is simply no longer believable – a sad comment on the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/13/dystopian-hellhole-british-office-austerity">contemporary world of work</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87229/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Parker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It is easy to forget that the James Bond franchise is firmly set in the world of work. Bond’s evolution reflects changing attitudes to the workplace.Martin Parker, Professor of Organisation and Culture, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/739342017-03-14T11:52:07Z2017-03-14T11:52:07ZPhishing scams are becoming ever more sophisticated – and firms are struggling to keep up<p>Companies are bombarded with phishing scams every day. In a recent survey of more than 500 cyber security professionals across the world, 76% <a href="https://info.wombatsecurity.com/hubfs/State%20of%20the%20Phish%202017/Wombat%20State%20of%20the%20Phish%202017.pdf">reported</a> that their organisation fell victim to a phishing attack in 2016. </p>
<p>These scams take the form of emails that try to persuade staff to download malicious attachments, click on dodgy links, or provide personal details or other sensitive data. A targeted “spear” phishing email campaign was blamed for instigating the recent cyber attack that caused a <a href="https://arstechnica.co.uk/security/2017/01/the-new-normal-yet-another-hacker-caused-power-outage-hits-ukraine/">major power outage in Ukraine</a>. </p>
<p>Even more worryingly, phishing attacks are now the most popular way of delivering ransomware onto an organisation’s network. This is a type of software that typically encrypts files or locks computer screens until a ransom is paid. The amounts demanded are <a href="https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/guidance/protecting-your-organisation-ransomware">generally quite small</a>, meaning that many organisations will simply pay the ransom without, of course, any guarantee that their systems will be unlocked. In the face of these phishing attacks, employees have become the <a href="https://crestresearch.ac.uk/comment/employees-front-line-cyber-security/">frontline of cyber security</a>. Reducing their vulnerability to phishing emails has therefore become a critical challenge for companies.</p>
<h2>Disciplinary problems</h2>
<p>As organisations struggle to contain the threat, one idea that is gaining traction is the potential use of <a href="http://www.techworld.com/news/security/employee-clicked-on-phishing-link-should-they-be-punished-3499799/">disciplinary procedures</a> against staff who click on phishing emails. This ranges from the completion of further training to formal disciplinary action, especially for so-called “repeat clickers” (people who respond to phishing emails more than once). They represent a <a href="https://securityintelligence.com/news/employee-training-lowers-susceptibility-to-phishing-emails-report-finds/">particular weak point</a> in cyber security. </p>
<p>This is not necessary – nor, indeed, is it a good idea. For a start, we still don’t understand what causes people to respond to phishing emails in the first place. Research is only just scratching the surface of why people may respond to them. <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcc4.12126/abstract">Email habits</a>, workplace <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167404816000067">culture and norms</a>, the degree of knowledge that an individual has, whether an employee is distracted or under a high degree of pressure – there is <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0093650215627483">varied understanding of online risks</a>, all of which may influence whether people are able to identify a phishing email at a particular point in time.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this means that there are still more questions than answers. Are some job roles more vulnerable due to the types of task that they engage in? Is training effective in educating staff about the risks of phishing attacks? Are employees able to prioritise security over other workplace demands when necessary? Among these unknowns, focusing on a disciplinary approach seems premature and risks sidelining other efforts that may be more effective. </p>
<p>Targeted phishing attacks are also becoming increasingly sophisticated and difficult to spot, even for technical users. Recent attacks (on <a href="https://www.proofpoint.com/us/threat-insight/post/hook-line-sinker-sophisticated-phishing-kit">PayPal</a> and <a href="http://thehackernews.com/2017/01/gmail-phishing-page.html">Google</a>, for example) demonstrate this. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159791/original/image-20170307-14939-zd07kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159791/original/image-20170307-14939-zd07kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159791/original/image-20170307-14939-zd07kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159791/original/image-20170307-14939-zd07kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159791/original/image-20170307-14939-zd07kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159791/original/image-20170307-14939-zd07kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159791/original/image-20170307-14939-zd07kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An uncannily accurate fake Google sign-in page.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://thehackernews.com/2017/01/gmail-phishing-page.html">Emma Williams</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is now incredibly easy to craft a fraudulent email that looks very similar, if not almost identical, to a legitimate one. Spoofed email addresses, the incorporation of accurate logos, correct layouts and email signatures, can all make it difficult to distinguish a phishing email from a genuine one. </p>
<h2>Keep calm and carry on</h2>
<p>Phishers are also very good at <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.20779/abstract">creating scenarios</a> that maximise the likelihood that people will respond. They instil a sense of panic and urgency by things like mimicking authority figures within an organisation to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-07/friday-afternoon-scam-cost-hedge-fund-1-2-million-and-cfo-s-job">create a sense of crisis</a>. Or they focus on the potential negative impact <a href="http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2011/3/105315-understanding-scam-victims-seven-principles-for-systems-security/abstract">of failing to respond</a>. When we acknowledge the increased sophistication shown in the phisher’s arsenal, it becomes more difficult to justify penalising employees for falling victim to their trickery. </p>
<p>Simulated phishing attacks are often used as a way of increasing awareness among employees. While there have been suggestions of improved click rates <a href="https://info.wombatsecurity.com/hubfs/State%20of%20the%20Phish%202017/Wombat%20State%20of%20the%20Phish%202017.pdf">following such programmes</a>, a comprehensive evaluation of the range of potential impacts on employees is lacking. And <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/309652/14-835-cyber-security-behavioural-insights.pdf">some research</a> points out the potential that employees merely give up trying to deal with the threat as it seems like a losing battle.</p>
<p>A culture of blame and victimisation may also make employees less willing to admit to their mistakes. Either of these outcomes is likely to damage the relationship between an organisation’s security personnel and its other employees. In turn this will have a negative impact on the organisation’s security culture. It suggests a return to an authoritarian role for security, which <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2622862">research shows</a> is a step backwards if we are to fully engage employees in security initiatives. </p>
<p>Mitigating an organisation’s exposure to phishing attacks represents a complex and evolving challenge. The recent #AskOutLoud <a href="https://www.staysmartonline.gov.au/sid-2017">campaign by the Australian government</a> to encourage people to ask for a second opinion when they receive a suspicious email provides a good example of how this challenge can begin to be addressed. It encourages conversation and shared experiences. Using this approach can ensure employees feel empowered and encouraged to report suspicions, a vital element in maintaining cyber security. </p>
<p>Research is <a href="http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7478475/">clear</a> that cyber security depends on open dialogue, participation from employees when it comes to developing solutions and trust between an organisation’s security personnel and other staff. As the old cliché goes: you’re only as strong as your weakest link. It’s therefore imperative that all employees are supported in order to be an effective front line in their organisation’s defence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73934/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Debi Ashenden receives funding from the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (ESRC award ES/N009614/1).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>You know it’s a serious problem when even Google and Paypal have been targeted.Emma Williams, Research Fellow, University of BathDebi Ashenden, Professor of Cyber Security, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/720302017-02-27T11:53:07Z2017-02-27T11:53:07ZSay yes to mess – why companies should embrace disorder<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158282/original/image-20170224-32722-1vyse02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Organisation is big business. Whether our lives – all those inboxes and calendars – or how companies are structured, a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/22/why-time-management-is-ruining-our-lives">multi-billion dollar industry</a> helps to meet this need. </p>
<p>We have more strategies for time management, project management, self-organisation than at any other time in human history. We are told that we ought to organise our company, our home life, our week, our day and even our sleep all as a means to becoming more productive. Every week, countless seminars and workshops take place around the world to tell a paying public that they ought to structure their lives in order to be more productive.</p>
<p>This rhetoric has also crept into the thinking of business leaders and entrepreneurs, much to the delight of self-proclaimed perfectionists with the need to get everything right. The number of business schools and graduates has massively <a href="http://www.franklin.edu/blog/what-jobs-will-a-business-degree-prepare-you-for/">increased</a> over the past 50 years, essentially teaching people how to organise well.</p>
<p>Ironically, however, the number of businesses that fail has also steadily <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/03/07/fast-growth-companies-fail/">increased</a>. Work-related stress <a href="http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/causdis/stress/">has increased</a>. A large proportion of workers from all demographics claim to be <a href="http://smallbusiness.chron.com/key-reasons-job-dissatisfaction-poor-employee-performance-25846.html">dissatisfied</a> with the way their work is structured and the way they are managed. </p>
<p>This begs the question: what has gone wrong? Why is it that on paper the drive for organisation seems a sure shot for increasing productivity, but in reality falls well short of what is expected?</p>
<h2>New solutions to old problems</h2>
<p>This has been a problem for a while now. Frederick Taylor was one of the forefathers of <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=3jXZpwWopf4C&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=principles+of+scientific+management+1911&ots=SB_ddbe4CE&sig=FqPE8IionYZpc2gkJhAcmbkZD6c#v=onepage&q=principles%20of%20scientific%20management%201911&f=false">scientific management</a>. Writing in the first half of the 20th century, he designed a number of principles to improve the efficiency of the work process, which have since become widespread in modern companies. But even though the issues have been around for a while, new research suggests that this obsession with efficiency <a href="http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/24668/">is misguided</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158284/original/image-20170224-21964-q4o9zq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158284/original/image-20170224-21964-q4o9zq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158284/original/image-20170224-21964-q4o9zq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158284/original/image-20170224-21964-q4o9zq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158284/original/image-20170224-21964-q4o9zq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158284/original/image-20170224-21964-q4o9zq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158284/original/image-20170224-21964-q4o9zq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tidy desk, tidy mind?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The problem is not necessarily the management theories or strategies we use to organise our work; it’s the fundamental assumptions we hold in approaching how we work. Here it’s the assumption that order is a necessary condition for productivity. This assumption has also fostered the idea that disorder must be detrimental to organisational productivity. The result is that businesses (and people) spend time and money organising themselves for the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/item/8931e3f1-de21-4d1e-b64f-357927469baa">sake of organising</a>, rather than actually looking at the end goal and usefulness of such an effort. </p>
<p>What’s more, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=8nbqpvixpVYC&oi=fnd&pg=PT6&dq=eric+abrahamson+mess&ots=hVUmBrys3F&sig=cK--HtMdTjDtX6xH5Ix5g2IhFJg#v=onepage&q=eric%20abrahamson%20mess&f=false">recent studies</a> show that order actually has diminishing returns. Order does increase productivity to a certain extent, but eventually the usefulness of the process of organisation and benefit it yields reduces until at one point any more increase in order reduces productivity. <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191308502240058">Some argue</a> that in a business if the cost of ordering something outweighs the benefit of ordering it, then that thing ought not to be ordered. Instead, the resources involved can be better used elsewhere. </p>
<p>In fact, <a href="http://www.mariansalzman.com/PDFs/NYT_06-1221.pdf">research</a> shows that, when innovating, the best approach is to create an environment void of structure and hierarchy and enable everyone involved to engage as one organic group. These environments can <a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-18153-0_4">lead to new solutions</a> that, under conventionally structured environments (filled with bottlenecks in terms of information flow, power structures, rules, and routines), would never be achieved. </p>
<h2>Who’s on board?</h2>
<p>In recent times companies have slowly <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/40f9/6a8deddd30315b40d4dce9fd01ba0ba170c1.pdf">started to embrace</a> this disorganisation. Many of these organisations embrace it in terms of perception (embracing the idea of disorder, as opposed to fearing it) and in terms of process (putting mechanisms in place to reduce structure). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158286/original/image-20170224-32726-1h3qy91.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158286/original/image-20170224-32726-1h3qy91.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158286/original/image-20170224-32726-1h3qy91.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158286/original/image-20170224-32726-1h3qy91.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158286/original/image-20170224-32726-1h3qy91.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158286/original/image-20170224-32726-1h3qy91.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158286/original/image-20170224-32726-1h3qy91.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Google has embraced a more disorderly approach.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A large Danish manufacturer of hearing aids, Oticon, for example, used what it called a “<a href="http://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/orsc.14.3.331.15166">spaghetti</a>” structure in order to reduce the organisation’s rigid hierarchies. This involved scrapping formal job titles and giving staff huge amounts of ownership over their own time and projects. This approach proved to be highly successful initially with clear improvements in worker productivity in all facets of the business. </p>
<p>In similar fashion, the former chairman of General Electric embraced disorganisation, putting forward the idea of the “<a href="https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=13424380509&searchurl=tn%3Dmanagement%2B9th%2Bedition%26sortby%3D17%26an%3Dstephen%2Bp%2Brobbins">boundaryless</a>” organisation. Again, it involves breaking down the barriers between different parts of a company and encouraging virtual collaboration and flexible working. Google and a number of other tech companies <a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-24921-6_9">have embraced</a> (at least in part) these kinds of flexible structures, facilitated by technology and strong company values to glue people together. </p>
<p>A word of warning to others thinking of jumping on this bandwagon: the <a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-18153-0_4">evidence</a> so far suggests disorder, much like order, also seems to have diminishing utility, and can also have detrimental effects on performance if overused. Like order, disorder should be embraced only so far as it is useful. But we should not fear it – nor venerate one over the other. This research also shows that we should continually question whether or not our existing assumptions work.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72030/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Dinuka B Herath does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Whether it’s our inboxes and calendars or how companies are structured, we’re obsessed with making things orderly. But research suggests it’s time to break free.Dr Dinuka B Herath, Lecturer in Organization Studies, University of HuddersfieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/637802016-08-10T17:40:35Z2016-08-10T17:40:35ZWhat England’s new manager can teach business about leadership<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/jul/30/sam-allardyce-england-homegrown-talent">New England manager</a> Sam Allardyce will take his players to Slovakia next month as they start qualification for the 2018 World Cup in Russia and seek to wipe away the memories of a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/jun/27/england-iceland-euro-2016-match-report">woeful performance at Euro 2016</a>. It will be a huge challenge that calls upon all the weapons Allardyce has amassed in his career. Managers outside of football would do well to consider how his approach could work for them.</p>
<p>When the business world seeks inspiration from football, Allardyce is perhaps not the first name on the list. <a href="http://www.businesswings.co.uk/articles/Management-Styles-Ars%C3%A8ne-Wenger">Arsene Wenger’s</a> steady calculation, <a href="http://www.skysports.com/football/news/15115/10292081/is-jose-mourinho-really-a-defensive-coach-who-doesnt-trust-youth">Jose Mourinho’s</a> brutish pragmatism or <a href="https://www.redbulletin.com/uk/en/sports/pep-guardiola-the-best-football-manager-in-the-world">Pep Guardiola’s</a> collaborative panache probably grab more attention. </p>
<p>But there is gold there. I worked with Allardyce during his managerial years at Bolton Wanderers, and studied how he sought profound change without coercion. We can use some of these to build an idea of what an Allardyce Business School might look like.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133670/original/image-20160810-11006-15u6g5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133670/original/image-20160810-11006-15u6g5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133670/original/image-20160810-11006-15u6g5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133670/original/image-20160810-11006-15u6g5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133670/original/image-20160810-11006-15u6g5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133670/original/image-20160810-11006-15u6g5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133670/original/image-20160810-11006-15u6g5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133670/original/image-20160810-11006-15u6g5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A results game.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">hxdbzxy/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>1. Build for the long-term</h2>
<p>Football is dominated by the immediate: the next result or the next sacking. But Allardyce focused on establishing departments and systems that would last beyond his tenure. He spoke at length about leaving a legacy at Bolton that was not simply focused on achieving European football – as the club did under his leadership. </p>
<p>To this end, he strengthened the youth academy and several players secured a regular place in his first team. Although he never achieved his dream of having a first team composed completely of players nurtured by this system, he invested time and resources in the foundations. </p>
<h2>2. Love your budget</h2>
<p>If you have no money and you have had to sell your best players in order for the club to stay afloat, how will you secure and sustain high performance? Smart managers work with what they’ve got. For Allardyce, a central solution to this knotty problem was to exploit sports science.</p>
<p>He was an early proponent of “marginal gains”, an approach that helped him to sign <a href="http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11672/2306267/bolton-seal-hierro-deal">world-class players</a> who perhaps wouldn’t otherwise have looked at Bolton as an option. This combination of physiotherapy, sports psychology, nutrition, and data analytics allowed players to play more regularly – especially in the crucial last third of the season – because of their injury prevention strategy. It also prolonged the life of significant players like Youri Djorkaeff, Ivan Campo and Gary Speed.</p>
<p>Data analytics also gave his team an edge by spotting where advantage might be gained, developing responses to set pieces, or identifying areas of the pitch where the opposition struggled.</p>
<h2>3. Have a plan, and another plan</h2>
<p>Allardyce understood that things can get thrown off track. Making a team effective means you have to plan across various time-frames: for each game, for each segment of the season, and across the season. You have to secure stability and guard against the emotional drama caused by results, good and bad. And you also have to spot when it’s time to mix it up and play cards before a big game instead of watching a series of pre-match videos. </p>
<p>In other words, build against chaos but then introduce it to good effect. Stability can instigate boredom and regimented attitudes rather than provoking creativity. </p>
<h2>4. Value people</h2>
<p>After one frustrating loss against Manchester City Allardyce asked where I was and discovered I had been at a family wedding in Edinburgh. In a fit of pique he argued that I was part of the Bolton family and as such should’ve been at the game. It sounds ridiculous, but that motif of the Bolton family and of respect for each other ran through the club. Wins were shared with all who contributed. </p>
<p>It’s not always easy to belong to a family; it can be suffocating. But being included and valued for your efforts remains with you forever.</p>
<h2>5. Listening</h2>
<p>In these days of leader/manager pronouncement, the art of listening is dying fast. Many managers seem pressured into rhetoric while many of us become deaf to it. But what happens when you spend more time listening? Especially if you listen well and accurately, as Allardyce does. During his time at Bolton, he hated doing “the motivational speech” before the game and rarely did. To everyone’s relief, I think. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133672/original/image-20160810-11853-2yf99i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133672/original/image-20160810-11853-2yf99i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133672/original/image-20160810-11853-2yf99i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133672/original/image-20160810-11853-2yf99i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133672/original/image-20160810-11853-2yf99i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133672/original/image-20160810-11853-2yf99i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133672/original/image-20160810-11853-2yf99i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133672/original/image-20160810-11853-2yf99i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">I’m all ears.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/tambako/5736872116/in/photolist-9JWYdd-86dVij-6KggQk-5oahCQ-mD3wb-6m1D8Q-eJ3Xuk-62BhHv-57Ssft-9o68uf-7gQymK-53Sjb4-bnyCqg-HeQK3N-utPnbv-8QWQy8-8cPKMy-6enDGc-21FgBC-au7bdq-7FMBNC-6XT7Zk-8BpbcC-8buDdJ-5zP1Ph-8ck9GR-5YNjNK-ebQyaS-exWB9-7bmMm3-3tSf8s-8dYAsj-eqrHL-8RSVfD-58eUdu-5jC6DC-5xE8yb-aCKEKN-gTAY7k-3GYSM-212c9L-6Nwy6t-ubpZg-dcgPYR-5zJJ3X-dXPsV8-ks1hfw-32Fer2-6VLatx-9nwqmq">Tambako The Jaguar</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>6. Be vulnerable</h2>
<p>Finally, it is important to be so secure in yourself that you can be honest about who you are and what you value and why – whether (as in Allardyce’s case) it’s the NHS, education, family, or the friends you have outside the game. Take what you do very seriously, but take yourself less so. </p>
<p>Allardyce remains famous for being able to take on players whose psychometric profile might have put others off. <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/why-el-hadji-diouf-was-hated-by-all-at-liverpool-10504437.html">El Hadji Diouf</a> was the most obviou examples.</p>
<p>Allardyce sought to understand them and ensured that key staff like Mike Forde, the team’s performance manager, did so too. I would argue that this is secured through feel and intuition for the player and key to this is vulnerability, a sense of being wholehearted and worthy of emotional connection. </p>
<p>And so what do we learn at the “Allardyce Business School”, from a manager who has now reached what some would call the apex of his profession? For a start, it is a very different kind of business school and offers a critique of contemporary business management. Allardyce never shied way from fundamentals like planning and securing performance – they are the foundations of success. But his lectures and seminars would also reject the short-term perspectives of current business schools, emphasising instead plans for the longer-term which leave powerful, positive legacies for the communities they are in. </p>
<p>In a market with substantial competition – Bolton Wanderers is in an area rich with exceptional football teams of higher pedigree – you can’t simply secure competitive advantage through something like sports science. It is achieved through becoming an organisation that people value, love and want to be a part of: fans, employees, players, and academics alike. The Allardyce Business School would teach you to acknowledge your organisation’s history and its connection with its community. A legacy isn’t based on results alone but on how you play the game.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63780/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Gilmore does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sam Allardyce may not have the immediate appeal of Ferguson, Mourinho or Guardiola, but his approach has serious value for execs.Sarah Gilmore, Principal Lecturer in Organisation Studies, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/549652016-03-01T04:28:37Z2016-03-01T04:28:37ZHow innovation can help companies in a turbulent global economy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113192/original/image-20160229-4074-1g5p5jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sometimes the greatest innovations emerge from times of crisis.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In their book <a href="http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/book">Business Model Generation</a>, authors Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur explore the power of asking “what if” questions. This is illustrated by the example of furniture giant IKEA. In 1960 it asked:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What if customers bought furniture in components in a box and assembled it themselves?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The idea was unheard of at the time. Today it’s common practice in the furniture industry.</p>
<p>Another “what if” example given by the authors is telecommunications app Skype. It provides free voice calls worldwide and is believed to have earned <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-02-19/microsoft-s-skype-unit-approaching-2-billion-in-annual-revenue">US$2 billion</a> in 2013. Not bad for a “free” service. </p>
<p>But the company asked an important question when it was setting up – what if while most of its services were free, it also made room for monthly subscriptions and Skype credit which could be used to make calls and send text messages to non-Skype members? It did, and this is where Skype is making its money.</p>
<p>Many businesses are taking strain in a tumultuous global economy. Adopting a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285299110_The_phenomenon_of_being-in-management_in_executive_education_programmes">genuinely innovative mindset</a> to business can help in this unstable economic landscape. Such a model helps to promote innovative thinking and creative approaches to sticky problems – a new capability that businesses need in abundance.</p>
<h2>Why innovation matters</h2>
<p>The essence of this model involves rethinking the ingrained style of an organisation’s practices, its mechanisms for creating value and how value is produced. It also involves creating new styles that can be adopted when the time is right – not simply evaluating options and avoiding the worst of these. </p>
<p>Importantly, all of the options are carefully tested before being applied, usually in low-cost experiments and while proven models are still in place. Organisations that do this well are often referred to as design-thinking or ambidextrous. They essentially balance the resource allocation and organisational focus on both exploring new models and reliably executing current working models. </p>
<p>With all of this in mind, here are three key lessons that truly innovative businesses have already learned.</p>
<h2>Listen to your stakeholders</h2>
<p>Companies should embrace any opportunity to listen to their customers, staff and others connected to making the organisation work. </p>
<p>Listening to others can help reframe challenges and create new ways of looking at old problems, leading to new choices. This can be one of the most fundamentally powerful techniques any executive can learn. </p>
<p>Research confirms that <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/solving-problems-with-design-thinking/9780231163569">consultation</a> is a key factor in successful innovation. Or, to put it another way, impatience is often the biggest obstacle to innovation: too many people want to rush towards solutions instead of taking the time to properly examine and understand the situation.</p>
<p>Genuinely thinking about a system – a university or a business – allows those involved to make sense of the mess and bring its inter-connectedness to the fore by engaging the stakeholders. This typically leads to more authentic participation and creative action.</p>
<h2>Capitalise on crises</h2>
<p>A crisis creates disharmony or anomaly, and this is a key raw material for innovation. </p>
<p>For this material to be productively used, though, people must have a degree of mastery in design thinking, integrative thinking and systems thinking. And they need to learn to be comfortable in the chaos – or at least have the courage to sit with the discomfort of chaos to see what emerges.</p>
<p>But it can be very challenging to overcome fear in the business world. In times of crisis, organisations do not want to take risks. They want to stay safe and comfortable. </p>
<p>The rewards for those who do take the plunge are considerable, as proved by well-known companies like Naspers. Once the mouthpiece of apartheid and a publisher of traditional newspapers it has, over the years, <a href="http://qz.com/161792/naspers-africas-most-fascinating-company/">transformed itself</a> into a cutting-edge, tech-savvy multinational. How? Through innovation and risk even in times of uncertainty.</p>
<h2>Create an innovation culture</h2>
<p>In their book <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/solving-problems-with-design-thinking/9780231163569">Solving Problems with Design Thinking</a>, Jeanne Liedtka, Andrew King and Kevin Bennett suggest that the highest payoff in most organisations doesn’t lie in innovating a solution. Instead, it lies with innovating how people work together to implement the new possibility they see amid organisational inertia, bureaucracy and risk aversion. </p>
<p>Business model innovation is a powerful and practical mechanism for establishing a culture of change in a company. By combining theory and practical application, individuals are guided towards coming up with solutions for their business environment. Techniques like generative reasoning, causal modelling, assertive enquiry, design thinking and integrated thinking are combined to get the best results.</p>
<p>These techniques drive people to really question the fundamental assumptions ingrained in an institution’s processes with an eye on how to improve these. They provide a robust framework within which people can think about change. </p>
<h2>The sky is the limit</h2>
<p>The enduring value of business-model innovation lies in its ability to change mindsets and behaviours. It shifts an organisation’s thinking from problem-solving to solution-finding mode. These may sound like ostensibly the same thing, but they are fundamentally and powerfully different.</p>
<p>One is focused on the problem and the other is about opening up the mind to explore new possibilities. </p>
<p>And, as any innovation business knows, once you open up to possibility then the sky is the limit in terms of what can be achieved.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54965/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kosheek Sewchurran does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Adopting a genuinely innovative mindset to business can help companies to navigate a tough global economy. It’ll involve risks, but can deliver great rewards.Kosheek Sewchurran, Associate Professor, Department of Information Systems, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/493952015-12-15T09:47:18Z2015-12-15T09:47:18ZFive ways to fix the UK’s productivity puzzle from the inside out<p>We all know by now that Britain has <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/productivity">a productivity problem</a>. The average British worker simply doesn’t make as much stuff as those <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33347300">from other major countries</a> and for all the agreement that something must be done, there is little consensus. Debates about solutions tend to focus on big ticket national infrastructure policy designed to grandly sweep away obstacles and enable improvement. But the risk is that we obscure practical steps needed at the very heart of the problem.</p>
<p>The UK’s economy rebounded following the global financial crisis, but by 2014 (the latest figures available) our workers were <a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_416704.pdf">around 30% less productive</a> than those in the US, Germany and France – and their productivity levels were improving faster over time than ours. The Office for Budget Responsibility has warned that low productivity <a href="http://cdn.budgetresponsibility.independent.gov.uk/EFO_November__2015.pdf">threatens the UK’s economic recovery</a>; whatever you think about the idea of a “global race”, it’s best not to be stuck in the slow lane.
One of the major problems is that these discussions are imbalanced, focusing almost exclusively on nationwide issues such as improving education and training, transport, high-speed broadband connectivity and banking and financial support. </p>
<h2>Step by step</h2>
<p>You see, productivity is a multi-level and systemic issue. Take the decision to devolve substantial budgets to <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-devo-manc-a-good-model-for-english-devolution-almost-41643">local government in Manchester</a> to improve provision of joined-up health and social care <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/summer-budget-2015/summer-budget-2015">in the north-west of England</a>. This has the potential for massive impacts on public sector productivity, as well as on the productivity of large numbers of private sector suppliers. </p>
<p>And so, crucially, we need to improve productivity from within both the public and private organisations. Without this we will continue to languish near the bottom of the G8 league tables. What follows are five proposals which can help.
</p>
<h2>1. Make managers more responsible</h2>
<p>Senior managers should be collectively responsible for improving productivity. This should be reflected in performance indicators and rewards. Productivity is not really about getting staff to work harder or longer, it is much more about designing working practices, processes and tools that help them work smarter and more effectively. </p>
<p>Improving productivity needs to be an explicit goal, measured and recorded using simple data which are made publicly available in annual reports for shareholders, the government and the general public.
</p>
<h2>2. Empower employees</h2>
<p>Employees should be empowered and teams developed to take responsibility for improving productivity. </p>
<p>Take the example of a manufacturing plant. Under the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2007/dec/16/2">“command and control”</a> way of thinking, machine operators are largely unskilled or semi-skilled but there are legions of supervisors, inspectors and maintenance engineers. Direct labour costs are low, but the indirect costs of staffing architecture are prohibitive.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103888/original/image-20151201-21714-vq17q2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103888/original/image-20151201-21714-vq17q2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103888/original/image-20151201-21714-vq17q2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103888/original/image-20151201-21714-vq17q2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103888/original/image-20151201-21714-vq17q2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103888/original/image-20151201-21714-vq17q2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103888/original/image-20151201-21714-vq17q2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103888/original/image-20151201-21714-vq17q2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cheesed off? Workers should be given responsibility.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nh567/2774100797/in/photolist-5e8Zw6-88jsRF-9NFu2f-9NvNDw-9b18Aq-94bZQR-6MPEUd-8SRXrE-8Mac4h-9obQEN-dAMBGh-7s32oZ-9ey3GE-8vQwLd-2F7Y4e-8vMvtH-73DPyf-7wcv88-2Fcd7u-aViSN8-eUZMuA-aRbmaF-2FcdJE-9NDy6B-9NsCbe-9NGstd-9NGHn1-7cQ7vk-9ocin7-apHaSb-9NJbtw-6KhGCa-9nbNH1-qtKzjY-E4R6a-9o8Mkx-ag5SVb-9ey3q5-ag68af-8CBxsD-bFeCSQ-73zPXB-66a1FS-82U2ui-9NC2JV-9NBP6p-ed4RYh-67rn5o-E4QRu-dk1uZo">NH567</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1464-0597.00083/full">When staff are empowered</a>, the operators working in teams are able up to undertake most (if not all) of these roles. Overall costs are lower and the system operates with higher quality, lower waste, shorter lead times and higher throughput. </p>
<p>This is already happening in many organisations but the deal with staff needs to allow them to directly benefit from productivity improvements through reward and recognition.
</p>
<h2>3. Educate and train</h2>
<p>If you are going to give staff more responsibility, then they need to be well educated, trained and developed. This is a responsibility shared by the government, through national initiatives, and each organisation. Most <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1464-0597.00083/full">employees rise to the challenge</a>, especially when they realise their organisation and senior managers are serious and that it makes them more employable.
</p>
<h2>4. Value processes over technology</h2>
<p>Senior managers should focus on well-designed processes and working practices, rather than expecting new technology to solve human problems. It’s tempting to think a shiny new toy will make a factory work more efficiently or make trains leave a platform on time, but it’s the total system that must work effectively.</p>
<p>The idea is that you create a virtuous circle whereby empowered staff become more knowledgeable, motivated, competent and productive. Simply introducing new pieces of technology is not the answer. As <a href="http://www.profjimnorton.com/">Jim Norton</a>, board member of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7vZf61ZAO48C&pg=PA514&lpg=PA514&dq=jim+norton+There+is+no+such+thing+as+a+technology+project&source=bl&ots=jHKRrj0ihO&sig=08CBi5uRRBQvM9sYPkl_-XiYinE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiCiKL8y7rJAhXB7w4KHc_SAa0Q6AEIJTAB#v=onepage&q=jim%20norton%20There%20is%20no%20such%20thing%20as%20a%20technology%20project&f=false">said in 2006</a>: “There is no such thing as an IT project.” </p>
<p>Instead, there should only be “improvement projects” to boost productivity which change systems of working and which are likely, of course, to include a technology component.</p>
<h2>5. Encourage innovation</h2>
<p>Companies should be structured to encourage interaction, creativity and innovation among staff and with customers. It doesn’t just sound nice; it makes a difference. Consider a company that sells aeroplane engines worldwide and is changing its business model to <a href="http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/power-by-the-hour-can-paying-only-for-performance-redefine-how-products-are-sold-and-serviced/">“power-by-the-hour”</a>. The company used to sell the engine and then sell separate maintenance contracts. Now, from the outset of a project, it signs deals to supply power over a lengthy operational period and it must predict maintenance costs for the lifecycle of the engine.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104858/original/image-20151208-32398-c5k7jm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104858/original/image-20151208-32398-c5k7jm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104858/original/image-20151208-32398-c5k7jm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104858/original/image-20151208-32398-c5k7jm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104858/original/image-20151208-32398-c5k7jm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104858/original/image-20151208-32398-c5k7jm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104858/original/image-20151208-32398-c5k7jm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104858/original/image-20151208-32398-c5k7jm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Building better engines of growth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/flissphil/4062342859/in/photolist-7bYz18-sKKgZm-6A7ozx-4Zc8D8-t11v15-i2Mx9-sKLwbA-9VDrTL-gwV4k-9T7fcD-t3nCLM-BgCwwa-qua9F-6iakbq-t11BDW-s6wrC8-7b46Ae-by11wK-kSnKrk-bMXBH8-8fqcx9-6hQMfa-9UTaki-5MDpaN-5Mzawx-9CjUom-sEf1z-9A9e3y">Phillip Capper</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The knowledge held by maintenance engineers and customers around the globe is essential to predict and reduce lifecycle costs. The designers need to develop and share social networks with maintenance staff, and with customers. That way, you get interaction, creativity, innovation and ultimately, increased productivity.</p>
<h2>Tuning up</h2>
<p>It boils down to ending the command and control culture and giving frontline staff the opportunity and motivation to deliver high quality products and services on timescales that delight customers. These proposals aren’t a quick fix, but there is <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/211382721_The_impact_of_human_resource_and_operational_management_practices_on_company_productivity_A_longitudinal_study">hard evidence that they work</a>. These changes will also contribute to the apparent, current political consensus that we need to work towards a high-skill, high wage economy.</p>
<p>Above all, perhaps, the UK needs an understanding of the systemic problems of productivity. That will bring an acknowledgement that to boost productivity, we have to make multiple, coordinated interventions at multiple levels. No single policy, individual, group or profession will capture or understand all the elements and interactions in complex systems like this. And that means government and business having the patience and bravery to bring people from all levels into the project to make it work.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49395/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Clegg has in the past received research funding from the public sector (e.g., Technology Strategy Board, research council grants) and from private sector organisations working in the high value manufacturing engineering sector. None of these organisations are expected to benefit from this article.</span></em></p>Efforts to fix the UK’s failure to make more stuff and be more profitable focus too far up the chain.Chris Clegg, Professor of Organizational Psychology, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/479692015-09-24T16:22:28Z2015-09-24T16:22:28ZLessons from VW: courage, climate change and the C-suite<p>Martin Winterkorn <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34340997">has resigned</a> after finding himself in a real-life CEO nightmare. A relentless (and talented) NGO finds out an <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-volkswagen-got-caught-cheating-emissions-tests-by-a-clean-air-ngo-47951">inconvenient truth</a> – putting into question Volkswagen’s legal and moral obligations – authorities confirm corporate misconduct, the story goes viral, criminal charges are pending and the share price drops dramatically. Added to the mix is the fact that the planet is experiencing its <a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201506">hottest year on record</a>, undoubtedly a situation that is not helped by what appears to be emissions-fraud. </p>
<p>It is an amazingly fast fall from grace: less than ten days previously, VW was named by the <a href="http://www.sustainability-indices.com/images/Industry_Group_Leader_Report_DJSI2015_Volkswagen-AG.pdf">Dow Jones Sustainability Index</a> as the industry group leader for sustainability in Automotive and Components. In the evaluation report, DJSI said: “Sustainability is the foundation of the Group’s corporate policy, and focuses on integrating the company’s anticipated risks and opportunities.” It’s a statement that now rings more than a little hollow.</p>
<p>As one would expect, VW was proud to be recognised for its best in class performance. Winterkorn <a href="http://www.volkswagenag.com/content/vwcorp/info_center/en/news/2015/09/sustain.html">responded to the accolade</a>: “This distinction is a great success for the entire team. It confirms that the Volkswagen Group is well on the way to establishing itself long-term as the world’s most sustainable automaker.”</p>
<h2>Courage required</h2>
<p>How wrong can a chief executive (and rating system) be? VW’s admission that they used a “defeat device” to game the emissions testing system lends itself to charges of greenwashing: purposefully not walking its sustainability talk. If only the company had had the courage of its convictions.</p>
<p>The fact is, Volkswagen has long touted itself as a paragon of sustainability virtue. But the company would not find itself in this situation if it had listened to its own advertising messages. For instance, in 2011 the company launched an endearing ad in North America entitled: “<a href="http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/volkswagen-crowd-sources-golf-ad/1074906">Drive Until You Find the Courage”</a>. </p>
<p>Courage, in this setting, meant watching a 30-something year old man drive around in his VW until he found the courage to propose to his girlfriend. The beauty of the ad is that we’ve all been there – feeling fearful in the face of the most important priorities in our life, and gaining courage when we spend some time alone with our conscience. It’s a timeless story of how man digs deep, faces fear, becomes hero – and hopefully gets the girl.</p>
<p>Fast forward to the VW boardroom. We definitely don’t have the same storyline here. It’s a safe bet to say that the VW boardroom – like most boards – probably had many discussions about greenhouse gas emissions and the implications of climate change on the VW product line. And Winterkorn is <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/motor-shows/paris-motor-show/11135113/VW-Group-CEO-rails-against-tougher-emissions-regulations.html">on record</a> as saying: “Every gram of CO<sub>2</sub> reduction costs the VW Group €100m per year, and we don’t know when they will pay off … Companies can only invest in environmental protections if we can afford it.” </p>
<p>CEO statements on climate change set the tone for the whole organisation, so if the tone is on affordability, this value will permeate decision-making perhaps in surprising ways. </p>
<p>Few of us, except those most closely involved, know exactly how much discussion (if any) the C-suite of top executives had about the software designed to falsify emissions-testing on diesel cars. We don’t know if the VW board and executive team knew that there was widespread cheating going on to avoid compliance with tough environmental standards. In his resignation, Winterkorn <a href="http://www.volkswagenag.com/content/vwcorp/info_center/en/news/2015/09/VW_ad_hoc_Erklaerung.html">accepted responsibility</a> for the irregularities that were found in VW diesel engines, but maintains he was unaware of any wrongdoing on his part.</p>
<h2>Gaming culture</h2>
<p>The fact that people cheat is not new. But understanding the cultural contexts where “cheating” is perceived to be an accceptable form of behaviour can help us unpack instances of corporate misconduct. <a href="http://amp.aom.org/content/28/2/164.abstract">Research shows</a> that organisational culture and leadership practices can influence the alignment of business ethics throughout the company. At the same time, the trust-worthiness of companies (and individual actors) often depends upon the context – and <a href="http://amr.aom.org/content/24/1/99.abstract">research shows</a> there needs to be consistency in managerial behaviour over time in avoiding opportunism.</p>
<p><a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/index.php?q=authors/mia-consalvo">Behavioural insights</a> from other gaming contexts provocatively shows that individual actors will regularly use things like cheat-codes, particularly if they perceive that this behaviour helps to level the playing field, keep the game or task in play, and if they don’t like or are bored with the rules of the game. </p>
<p>Even the words “defeat devices” emphasise the win-lose paradigm related to revenue at play. The implication is that emissions standards, which cost the company money, are the enemy.</p>
<p>Employees did not have the necessary skills to deal with their fears and face the reality that tough emission standards put significant pressure on business-as-usual. And that’s why business-as-usual needs to stop.</p>
<p>Cutting corners may be endemic in many companies, and VW is not the first company to have been found out for using underhand tactics in pursuit of profit – even if it was not ordained from the top. <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/5-of-the-biggest-corporate-penalties-ever-2013-09-27">Companies in many industries</a> have faced steep fines and reputational damage in the past.</p>
<h2>Lessons for business</h2>
<p>The outstanding question is: what can we learn about business culture from VW’s fall from grace?</p>
<p>The obvious answer is the need for improved governance – both inside and outside the company. A less obvious answer is the need for more C-suite courage on climate action.</p>
<p>A sustainability industry leader is not simply an organisation that builds a good policy or set of processes on emissions – although these things help, as Siemens CEO, Joe Kaeser has shown with the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/opinion/industry-can-lead-on-climate-change.html?_r=1">initiatives he is taking</a>. Rather, sustainability leadership rests upon how well the C-suite builds a culture of courage in the face of the tremendous challenges of emission reductions.</p>
<p>Employees at all levels need to have the courage to think big, to speak up, to go the extra mile. They also need the courage to accept when current performance is simply not good enough. And then find a better way to do the impossible. That’s the stuff that everyday corporate heroes are made of.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47969/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gail Whiteman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Why the culture of a company is so important for combatting climate change and how this needs courageous leadership from the top.Gail Whiteman, Professor, Rubin Chair in Sustainability in Business, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/407092015-04-24T10:02:09Z2015-04-24T10:02:09ZTo run the NHS better, we must remember the people at its heart<p>The National Health Service continues to be the <a href="https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3554/NHS-continues-to-be-top-issue-for-British-voters.aspx">top issue for voters</a> in the build up to the UK general election. With a <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/76570808-d7b9-11e4-849b-00144feab7de.html#axzz3Y3Jlia6j">black hole in its funding to fill</a>, debate over privatisation, centralisation of power, and how it should be run, the NHS is also becoming the key battle ground for politicians hoping to be elected. </p>
<p>In the debate over which party will be responsible for the UK’s public services, and especially the NHS, there seems to be a growing stranglehold of two unhelpful business ideas: “financialisation” and “managerialism”. Both of these approaches dehumanise and objectify staff. It’s a worrying and unhelpful way to talk about the people in the UK’s largest work organisation.</p>
<h2>Management speak</h2>
<p>The term <a href="http://wes.sagepub.com/content/25/4/611.abstract">“financialisation”</a> was developed recently to describe the increasing dominance of capital-based assessments of what we do and value – at work and outside it. Meanwhile, the religion of <a href="http://www.polity.co.uk/book.asp?ref=9780745629254">“managerialism”</a>, financialisation’s longer-established cousin, points to the main means of making it happen. We occupy a world of detailed performance management systems, hierarchical attempts to control work activity and the measurement of outcomes in terms of cost or cost-based efficiency – all usually resulting in reports and spreadsheets. </p>
<p>Many management textbooks tell historically detailed and colourful stories of how modern managerialism developed – the <a href="http://www.mbsportal.bl.uk/taster/subjareas/busmanhist/mgmtthinkers/taylor.aspx">exotic example of a Pennsylvania steel mill</a> or a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/jun/19/michel-crozier">French tobacco factory</a> (ignoring its other roots, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1467-6486.2003.00405.x/abstract">in the practices of North American slave owners</a>). </p>
<p>The focus on efficiency and performance can be understood as the rational desire of businessmen to make the most of their financial investment and get the most out of the people they employ. Crude managerial actions such as monitoring bathroom breaks and counting key-strokes are <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/3014988/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-iphone-factory-worker">widely known and often derided</a>. But less obtrusive and superficially more defensible approaches are more benignly labelled as “talent management” or “career development” and reproduce and strengthen the same logic of efficiency and control. </p>
<p>Increasingly, management research now also acknowledges the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8551.12088/abstract">effects of taking finance as the main way</a> of assessing an organisation’s performance. When finance is the focus, the concern is not for people, but to satisfy the mythical market that demands more intensive work with reduced resources, for better returns to shareholders or owners. </p>
<h2>A spectacular achievement</h2>
<p>The NHS is so big that it’s impossible to say <a href="http://www.nhsconfed.org/resources/key-statistics-on-the-nhs">exactly how many people work for it on any given day</a>. The best guess for early 2015 is 720,000 doctors, nurses, allied healthcare professions, and managers in England. The proportions are roughly: 21% doctors, 52% qualified nursing staff, 22% qualified scientific, therapeutic or technical staff, and – perhaps surprisingly given the amount of politically motivated abuse they are subject to as useless bureaucrats – <a href="https://theconversation.com/davids-futile-fight-against-the-goliath-of-bureaucracy-40126">only 5% managers</a>. It is, unsurprisingly, unclear how many others work in the NHS emptying bins, cleaning floors, serving meals, and taking phone calls. </p>
<p>The basic achievement in making an organisation like the NHS come into existence every day is impressive. It is <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17429786">often said</a> that only a very small number of other organisations even come close in scale, such as Indian Railways, the Chinese army, the PLA, and WalMart. The complexity is impossible to render through the usual metaphors or diagrams we use to describe or represent organisations. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, in order to make the NHS function everyday, the most important thing that happens is that those hundreds of thousands of people go to work, and do what they are paid to do best they can.</p>
<h2>Prizing the most important ‘asset’</h2>
<p>When businesses or economies are struggling, employees are often spoken of in comparable fashion to other “assets” like buildings or machines. This practice is a bastard combination of managerialism (reducing people to a means to an end, even while claiming to see them as important) and financialisation (reducing people to a line on an accounting report, either literally or symbolically). </p>
<p>So when we talk about the NHS, as a point of political disagreement or as an organisation that provides services we need to account for in some way, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/nhs-staff-do-a-fantastic-job-its-time-we-gave-them-more-credit-20804">people at its heart</a> should never be forgotten – as people. There is an increasing number of reports about <a href="http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/press/press-releases/growing-concern-about-staff-morale-nhs-performance-slips">toxic workplace practices</a> in the NHS, as its people report routinely high levels of <a href="https://theconversation.com/nhs-guardians-wont-help-whistleblowers-unless-theyre-protected-from-bullying-too-37543">stress, burnout, low morale</a>, and high turnover. And this is often driven by <a href="https://theconversation.com/nhs-future-looks-grim-yet-politicians-still-make-election-promises-they-cant-keep-40401">impossible financial or performance targets</a>. </p>
<p>The dominance of financialisation and managerialism not only reduces people to objects within organisations, but also encourages this way of thinking for customers, consumers or patients. It is far too easy to forget that every single one of those numbers that make up the staggering total of employees in the NHS is a person, just like us. And just like us, they would like to hear from politicians about the possibility of a good working environment, good jobs that are reasonably paid, freedom from unreasonable political interference, and a degree of trust to manage themselves and their organisation. </p>
<p>The NHS is not ours, or any political party’s – more than anything, it belongs to those who walk through its doors every day of the year to do the work that makes it. If we want to have a better run NHS and protect its future, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/20/how-to-save-nhs-election-labour-conservative-billions">we should start by listening to them</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40709/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott Taylor received funding from the ESRC Centre for Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance, <a href="http://www.skope.ox.ac.uk">http://www.skope.ox.ac.uk</a>, to conduct research on the NHS University initiative, but the views expressed here reflect his opinion, not those of the research councils.</span></em></p>Management and financial performance measures are only a small part of the story of how we maintain the NHS.Scott Taylor, Reader in Leadership & Organization Studies, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/387942015-03-13T11:06:19Z2015-03-13T11:06:19ZIgnorance in HSBC top brass shows if banks are too big to fail, they’re too big to manage<p>Without going over the depressing details again, a series of past and present managers and board members at HSBC have claimed that <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/feb/23/hsbc-chief-paid-7m-pounds-last-year-profits-slide-tax-avoidance-apology">they don’t know what all their employees actually do</a>. Given the salaries of those crying crocodile tears, and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/hsbcs-swiss-tax-scandal-is-part-of-a-global-pattern-of-avoidance-37437">huge level of tax avoidance</a> their organisation has encouraged, it’s not surprising that they have faced incredulous hostility. </p>
<p>Margaret Hodge, chair of the Public Accounts Committee, has been <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/mar/09/hsbc-stuart-gulliver-rona-fairhead-margaret-hodge">groaning and raising her eyebrows</a>. </p>
<p>But what if they actually don’t know?</p>
<p>HSBC has around 6,600 offices in 80 countries and around quarter of a million employees. Just think about that for a minute. Imagine that everyone in Stoke-on-Trent was employed by the same company. Then imagine all those people dispersed around the world, working in different languages, legal systems, employment practices and cultures. Is it really practical to imagine that anyone at the top could know what all these people are doing?</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74784/original/image-20150313-7075-1xf4kv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74784/original/image-20150313-7075-1xf4kv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74784/original/image-20150313-7075-1xf4kv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74784/original/image-20150313-7075-1xf4kv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74784/original/image-20150313-7075-1xf4kv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74784/original/image-20150313-7075-1xf4kv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74784/original/image-20150313-7075-1xf4kv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Raised eyebrows: Margaret Hodge.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">PA/PA Wire</span></span>
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<h2>Small is beautiful</h2>
<p>It seems to me that one of the issues that lurks behind the carnival of banking scandals is scale. When chief executives express their insistence on changing the culture of their organisation, and blame some bad apples for what they perceive has gone wrong, we should really be asking some different questions. If banks were smaller, would they be easier to manage? Would they be easier for us to manage?</p>
<p>In 1973, Ernst Schumacher published his iconic collection of essays: <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/nov/10/small-is-beautiful-economic-idea">Small is Beautiful</a>. His key argument is that “giganticism” – of whatever form – is a problem, and that we need to organise economies on a human scale. </p>
<p>The argument obviously applies to organisations too. We are confronted now by businesses which are colossal – the size of small countries – and which operate globally. Walmart employs 2.1m people. Foxconn, which makes Apple products, employs 1.2m. Tesco employs nearly 600,000 staff.</p>
<h2>Responsibility</h2>
<p>Large organisations like to talk about corporate social responsibility, but what does responsibility mean at that sort of scale? When we tiny humans talk about responsibility, we might refer to our families, to friends and neighbours, to people whose faces we know and whose trust we hold. For people, responsibility is a small thing, something felt in the body as we worry about letting people down, or smile when we remember someone’s thank you for something that we did.</p>
<p>But how can a corporation of a quarter of a million feel responsibilities – and if it operates in 80 countries, then who is it responsible to? At the Public Accounts Committee, the CEO of HSBC, Stuart Gulliver, the former CEO of global private banking, Chris Meares, and Rona Fairhead, an independent non-executive director, all claimed that they didn’t know – much to Hodge’s disdain. </p>
<p>But it’s hardly surprising really, given the scale of the responsibilities that they are being paid to take on. And the “heads must roll” incantation simply offers more well-compensated sacrifices to the behemoth and does nothing to actually address the underlying problem. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zNdu-ueG78o?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">HSBC bosses deny knowing everything that went on under their watch.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>A radical suggestion</h2>
<p>This isn’t to suggest that Hodge is wrong – and that she should let evidence of corruption and stupidity pass unremarked. But I would also like to see discussion of some much more radical suggestions for dealing with banks – and all big organisations. </p>
<p>For a start, there seems to me to be no good reason not to break up organisations into manageable chunks, and probably to insist that these parts should only operate within one tax jurisdiction. This would go along with another simple step, which would be to say that no company can hold shares in another company. That way, size will become a pathology; an evasion of responsibility, rather than an excuse to build a bigger skyscraper.</p>
<p>This might sound terribly radical – and no doubt the apologists for huge corporations will explain why efficiencies of scope and scale are achieved through size. But we can list on the other side of the scale all the problems of giganticism – including tax avoidance, a race to the bottom for wages and worker’s rights, sickening salaries for chief executives, and so on. </p>
<p>After all, if HSBC’s top dogs – Gulliver, Meares, Fairhead et al – don’t know what’s going on, then how the hell can the rest of us? Too big to fail clearly also means too big to manage.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38794/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Parker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With more than 250,000 employees, spread over 80 countries, how can HSBC’s bosses know everything going on?Martin Parker, Professor of Organisation and Culture, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/48672012-02-06T19:44:14Z2012-02-06T19:44:14ZDo we have the power to overcome our ‘learned helplessness’?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/6779/original/6w83m2pv-1324520438.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People all around the world feel powerless. This has left our institutions ineffective.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">diegodiazphotography</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>To what extent are we encouraged to think of ourselves as free and self-determining individuals, whilst in reality being restricted both overtly and insidiously by our institutional frameworks? </p>
<p>If this is our state in contemporary society, are we losing our capability for true freedom of thought and action? Do we defer to institutions for leadership and direction to guide our personal thinking and acting? </p>
<p>What if institutions provide direction to suit their own interests rather than ours, or society’s generally? What if, in the face of extreme conditions, they are incapable of responding effectively?</p>
<p>Will human beings’ expression of individual freedom of thought and action, particularly in relation to extreme or “big” issues, be manifest in thinking that institutions will respond for them? </p>
<p>At the same time, will institutions themselves succumb to indecision and paralysis as individual members within them follow the same train of thought? </p>
<p>If all of these seem reasonable propositions – noting that they are not posited as “the truth” or “reality” – do we face the prospect of human societies more and more paralysed by “learned helplessness”?</p>
<p>Learned helplessness is a term that originates in animal biology, referring to eventual loss of mental capability to respond to some discomforting stimulus when the physical ability to respond is removed through repeated cycles of constraint. In human psychology, it describes the loss of the individual’s ability to respond to _any _situation, “with the eventual result that people give up without even trying”.</p>
<p>Examples of human failure to respond to extreme circumstances abound, where individuals fail to leave burning buildings or sinking ships, seemingly paralysed by fear. </p>
<p>However, it can also be argued that humans have abandoned their ability to act independently in relation to a wide range of matters, even where they consider themselves to be free agents. Do we exercise individual choice as consumers when we buy a car, a television, or the latest iPhone? Or, are we merely selecting between different institutional offerings that we accept that we must choose from? We _must _consume because it is expected of us and we comply.</p>
<p>You may think at this point that events of the past year show these ideas to be nonsense. We have, after all, followed the “Arab Spring” on our news bulletins throughout 2011. We have seen individuals and societies challenge and topple their institutions. Contemporary Western culture encourages us to think of ourselves as individuals – free spirits who can make our own choices through self-determination. New youth cultures in emerging and developing economies pick up on this individualist tendency, even within some of the strictest regimes.</p>
<p>Yet, as individualism has developed as an espoused aspirational value, the institutional frameworks within which we must function – even in the most liberal of liberal democracies – appear more and more restrictive. </p>
<p>Our lives are monitored from birth to death by governmental institutions. Our day-to-day life is dependent upon, influenced and, some would say, controlled by commercial institutions. While applauding the Arab Spring, how have most in the non-Arab world thought of the Occupy movement? Has the “99%” been motivated to challenge the institutions of Western democracy? </p>
<p>At the extreme, our institutions demand uncompromising adherence. George W Bush and Tony Blair epitomised such thinking in the lead up to invasion of Iraq. Those that were not with them fully were de facto against them – the “enemy” within as well as without. </p>
<p>Everyday party politics in modern democratic states appear to many to be grounded in ideological conflict. Electorates are forced to choose between different “right” positions, with little compromise on their different value propositions. Yet, it is also argued that there is little to choose between parties.</p>
<p>Constraints on individual thought and action range from formal, governmental and legislative frameworks to informal, peer pressures. </p>
<p>Most if not all of us would no doubt agree that murder should be proscribed and punished severely. Opinion on issues like cannabis use is divided within Australian society, whilst both legal rules and societal norms on matters of freedom of speech and dress vary widely across nations. But, I would argue that the thinking and acting of the majority of individuals on all these matters is moulded by some set of institutional norms more than by individual freedom and choice.</p>
<p>To what purpose do I offer this discourse? There are major challenges facing contemporary societies. These include global issues of climate change, resource depletion, accelerating socio-economic disparity, environmental degradation and over-population. </p>
<p>They also include seemingly intractable local problems such as how to “correct” the Northern Territory intervention, what is the key to the Murray-Darling basin’s sustainability, and how can the Wild Rivers of North Queensland be managed for the greater good?</p>
<p>I suggest that, at present, there is little real prospect of most if not all of these issues being resolved because we are in the throes of a global “learned helplessness” pandemic, in which individuals see themselves as powerless and unable to act, and key institutions are paralysed by indecision and inaction. What appears to be action and change in the short term turns out to be a chimera.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/4867/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>George Cairns does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>To what extent are we encouraged to think of ourselves as free and self-determining individuals, whilst in reality being restricted both overtly and insidiously by our institutional frameworks? If this…George Cairns, Professor of Management, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.