Author: Formium

  • Is this the one secret to a successful hybrid team?

    Is this the one secret to a successful hybrid team?

    ​Recent research from Gallup on hybrid working suggests that one of the most important factors for a high performing hybrid team is…

    Trust.

    That’s not surprising – when managing beyond the line of sight, you are relying on your people to do the work you are paying them for, to the best of their ability – and without the means to track exactly what they are doing all day.

    Some companies have approached this problem with activity-monitoring surveillance software or bureaucratic work tracking systems. While this may be appropriate for certain industries and roles, such an approach will compound the lack of trust.

    So maybe we could instead look at how to build trust?

    Now, trust is a complex emotional dynamic, and so much will depend on the circumstances of you, your team, and your work.

    But we can use a tool to help us as managers work out how we can be more trustworthy ourselves, and how to build trust in others.

    It’s the Trust Equation, developed by Maister, Green and Galford:

    Trustworthiness is the sum of three factors:

    • Credibility: What you say – your knowledge, experience, and judgment.
    • Reliability: What you do – your consistency, your ability to keep promises and be dependable.
    • Intimacy: How safe others feel in sharing with you – your ability to be empathetic and respect confidentiality.


    However, these three factors are divided by the fourth:

    • Self-Orientation: Where your focus lies – on yourself or others.

    Using the equation to build trust in a hybrid team

    The aim is to consider the factors and focus on what you can do to enhance how others feel about you. It is also about setting up the opportunities for your team members to act in such a way that you and other team members trust them more.

    Credibility

    You: Be transparent with decision-making in hybrid settings. Share the logic and analysis behind the choices you make.

    Enable others: Give staff opportunities to showcase their expertise – to you and others. Create forums (e.g. team meetings, internal newsletters, project showcases) where staff can present ideas, lead discussions, or share insights. Encourage team members to share their strengths and recognise them publicly. Use appreciative language to reinforce their contributions and build confidence.

    Reliability

    You: Set clear expectations, and standards – for deadlines and availability – and keep to them. Act consistently when assessing contribution and making decisions,

    Enable others: Establish workflows and check-in processes that prompt others to be proactive in their information-sharing, that makes progress visible and enables workload problems to be uncovered before they become problematic. Celebrate consistent follow-through and express gratitude for dependability. Link tasks to a shared purpose to motivate reliable behaviour.

    Intimacy

    You: Create space for personal connection – schedule regular 1:1s, ask about well-being, and encourage informal chats. These are much harder when you see each other less consistently, so pay particular attention here. Share of yourself to the extent that you are comfortable, your openness can encourage openness in others which builds connection.

    Enable others: Create space for team members to connect. Create projects or tasks for pairs or small groups. Build social time into your team meetings to maximise the value of your shared time. Foster a culture of appreciation and empathy. Use positive communication to acknowledge personal efforts and create deeper connections.

    Self-Orientation

    You: Share your intentions, explain why you are asking for something or the purpose behind your decisions. Celebrate others’ wins publicly. Support your people to grow and develop. Be accountable for your mistakes..

    Enable others: Ensure team members understand the bigger picture – their role within the organisation and the overall purpose and aims. Set team goals and objectives, and help them see how their individual strengths are aligned. Delegate tasks and meaningful responsibilities. Express gratitude for collaborative efforts and selfless contributions.

  • What future is on the cards? A new way to help you take action now

    What future is on the cards? A new way to help you take action now

    We are famously poor at predicting the future.

    In the 1950s, the view of the 2020s was all about jet packs, hover boards, moonbases, humanoid robots and flying cars. And while there’s progress on these technologies, we’ve not caught up with the promises of science-fiction.

    And we are not just poor at predicting future technology. We’ve proven to be poor judges of social change, as we are influenced by our self-reference and hopes:

    “The coming of the wireless [radio] era will make war impossible, because it will make war ridiculous.”
    Guglielmo Marconi, 1912

    … and also our assumptions and biases:

    “Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop – because women like to get out of the house, like to handle the merchandise, like to be able to change their minds.”
    Time Magazine, 1966

    All this means that when it comes to preparing ourselves for the future of our work and our careers, our imagination is often limited. We tend to either focus on a future which is largely a projection of current trends, or we are fixated by the future that we want to happen. And when we get one idea, it is hard to put it out of our mind and think of an alternative.

    You can see this tendency in the Futures Cone, developed by Joseph Voros. The future is like shining a torchlight onto a wall. The further away the wall, the less light hits it – and as you move away from the centre of the beam, the clarity falls off. But Voros argues that we don’t spend enough time thinking about the outer edges, where the future is possible or even preposterous – and that’s where really disruptive change sits.

    Let’s think about an example we all know – mobile phones… the first phones were huge with short batteries, limited functionality and restricted to the business world.

    • It was reasonable to assume that in the future they would be smaller and more useful [projection].
    • If they became smaller and cheaper, they would probably become more widespread, so there could be less need for traditional phone boxes [plausible].
    • But if you were a manufacturer of compact cameras you would not have thought that in the near future mobile phones would add functionality that totally destroys your market [preposterous].

    So when I had the opportunity to deliver a masterclass to high-potential, early-career civil servants recently, I split them into groups and dealt them some cards to help them see the future.

    No, not tarot cards, but cards from my Futures Cards deck. I handed each group three cards about future change in technology, economics and either politics or the environment. And a chance card to make things even more interesting.

    I asked them several Inquiry Questions:

    • What would society look like in this future?
    • What would people do for money?
    • What would they eat?
    • Where would they live?
    • Who would have power?

    Deep discussions followed, with different interpretations, ideas and considerations emerging rapidly.

    I then swapped two of their cards for new ones, and asked them how society would be different with these factors changed.

    In this way they developed futures that were richer and more varied than if they had imagined them unaided, or explored each idea singly. They were engaging with the possible and the preposterous, not the preferred and the projected. But that’s not the endpoint of this activity.

    Then I asked the crucial Action Question:

    What skills, knowledge or experience would you need to be successful in your career, that would apply to more than one of these different futures?

    This is the value of exploring different futures – to identify actions that you can take now that will be helpful in whatever version of the future comes along.

    On this occasion I also asked participants to imagine a range of potential futures just 3 years away – the end of their graduate development programme – and to decide on some steps they could proactively take now which will serve them and their careers, no matter which version of the future happens.

    What future is on your cards?

    This is an exercise I’ve used in universities, with leadership groups, managers and now civil servants, for strategy development, operational forecasting, and for career planning. In each case, they’ve identified common steps they can take now to prepare for multiple potential futures.

    I add bespoke cards – both themes and content – to the deck to ensure they are relevant for the audience, but part of the value of the activity is being confronted with issues and ideas from outside your area of immediate concern.

    I also tailor the Inquiry Questions and the Action Questions to ensure they help the group achieve the focus they want, and create a meaningful action plan.

    If you want to know more about using the Futures Cards deck to examine how you and your team can prime yourselves for the future, click on the button below to get in touch.

  • Use this marketing mantra that’s a surprisingly powerful management tool

    Use this marketing mantra that’s a surprisingly powerful management tool

    It was one of those moments where I could see an idea click straight away.

    I was facilitating a development session for a client. I wanted to explore a point further, so I went on a short digression to introduce a model. Immediately I could see it was the right call, as the group members took it on. It wasn’t a new model for all of them, but it was a moment where they all considered using it in a new way.

    From marketing to management

    The model I introduced is deceptively simple, and it comes from the world of marketing and communication, but I’ve found it useful in all sorts of leadership and management situations, from giving feedback to developing strategies, designing training courses and planning for change.

    It’s… Think, Feel, Do.

    Or if you prefer alliteration and imagery: Head, Heart and Hands.

    By using the think, feel and do model, you are encouraged to think about the outcomes you want.

    From a change perspective, the aim is that you explore individual and group motivations, insights, desires and needs – and uncover the pain points, barriers and potential objections.

    When it comes to giving feedback, use Think, Feel, Do to plan your comments. Think about what you want them to do as a result of the feedback and then shape everything so that they understand that both logically and emotionally. For example, your tone of voice, non-verbal communication and even the room setting needs to align with the words you are saying. And you need to edit those words so your message is clear and action-focused, not open to misinterpretation or diversion.

    Think, Feel, Do is one of the most effective tools – for critical thinking, for communication, feedback and change – because it is so easy to apply. Obviously it is only the starting point, and it links into other ideas like Cialdini’s six principles of influence.

    So, in the spirit of think, feel, do, I’m hoping that:

    • You know what the Think, Feel, Do model is, how it works, and are convinced about how useful it could be.
    • You feel supported and helped, and motivated to use the model.
    • You will file this idea away, and use it the next time you are planning change, drafting communication or providing feedback.
  • One core strategy that can help you and your team to flourish and thrive

    One core strategy that can help you and your team to flourish and thrive

    There’s a cactus near my desk that is doing okay. It’s alive, it’s green, it’s growing – but very, very, slowly. And this year there were only a few pink flowers on one globe, when in previous years there was a full ring of blooms on all of the globes.

    In short, it’s surviving. I’ve given it enough light and water to keep going. And the flowers I got were very pretty.

    But I’m not helping the cactus to thrive.

    Maybe it wants some fertiliser, or better positioning, or I need to really pay attention to the watering requirements – instead of just letting it carry on.

    And much of leadership and management thinking is similarly focused on sufficiency – on the tasks and activities to ensure performance meets targets, on making sure people have what they need to perform.

    But instead, we should be looking at how we, as leaders and managers, can add the extra so that we thrive and flourish – and help our teams to grow and develop as well.

    Instead of the ordinary, we should be aiming for the extraordinary.

    And that’s why I focus on the ideas of positive management, such as Martin Seligman’s PERMA model. Seligman is sometimes referred to as the godfather of ‘positive psychology’ owing to his ground-breaking focus on what helps people be emotionally and mentally healthy. It’s a testament to his thinking that many of his ideas have permeated mainstream management practices.

    Researchers have found clear correlations between adopting these positive management practices, and increased team productivity, morale and performance.

    So have a look at the model and then we’ll explore how you could apply these principles to help your team members achieve greater satisfaction and success.

    Positive Emotion

    • Say ‘thank you’. Express your gratitude for your team members’ actions. It’s a little thing, but it really helps to build a respectful team spirit.
    • Celebrate small wins. In team meetings and one-to-ones, acknowledge individual and team successes. They don’t have to be important, just an indication of progress.
    • Praise effort. Make sure you also highlight those occasions where a team member has invested a lot of effort and expertise, even if the end result isn’t a conventional success.

    Engagement

    • Identify and harness strengths. The idea of ‘flow’ is closely associated with using strengths – those activities which you are good at, which you enjoy, and which energise you. Use an online strengths assessment such as VIA and then try to allocate work that aligns with people’s strengths.
    • Use healthy competition. Challenges and informal contests can help people focus and engage.

    Relationships

    • Create social contact time. Build in opportunities for informal conversation. For example, schedule a break in your meetings and don’t let people go back to work or dive into their phones. Include a non-work activity in your team meeting. Hold a team lunch.
    • Assign buddies or mentors. Link your people together to support each other or to share their knowledge.
    • Solve problems together. Wherever possible, role model the behaviour of collaborating with team members to solve problems together, rather than operating individually.

    Meaning

    • Map your purpose. Work with the individuals and the team as a whole to identify their own sense of purpose, to consider how their tasks and responsibilities contribute to the bigger picture, and support the organisation’s ultimate goals.
    • Tell a story. Ask team members to share impactful work experiences or moments that inspired them.

    Achievement

    • Set objectives that are achievable and meaningful. It’s not enough to set and monitor goals, you need to make sure they are relevant and important.
    • Appreciate progress. Sometimes, the effort doesn’t produce the intended results. But it’s important that you acknowledge the input, otherwise you encourage people to always play it safe.
    • Offer pathways to growth. Help people to achieve by providing a range of development interventions – training, mentoring, and private study time.
  • Leadership insights from the Panama Canal

    Leadership insights from the Panama Canal

    Decision-making is a key skill for leadership, but one that many of us find difficult, as we are often side-tracked by emotions, or fail to analyse the data sufficiently deeply, or take mental shortcuts. I recently heard a great example of how two different attempts to solve the same problem were impacted by their approach to decision-making. It was in Tim Harford’s excellent podcast series Cautionary Tales, in which he explored the two very different attempts to construct the Panama Canal.

    Ferdinand de Lesseps, the man behind the creation of the Suez Canal in 1869, headed the first attempt to dig a canal, which ran out of money and ended in failure in 1889. 15 years later, US President Theodore Roosevelt picked up the baton and more considered political and technical leadership saw the canal through to completion in 1914.  

    So I thought I’d share my insights about what this story tells us about decision-making and leadership.

    Understand the reason for your past success.

    In my workshops I often use a NASA quote which emphasises the importance of conducting neutral ‘pause and learn’ reviews regularly throughout a project – rather than having a single end-of-project ‘post-mortem’ review of failings – in order to find out why they really succeeded.

    And Tim Harford suggests this issue is at the heart of de Lesseps’ obstinacy that set the project up for failure. He’d been told that building Suez was impossible, but innovative solutions had been developed and seemingly insurmountable obstacles were overcome. So when people told him his plans for Panama were impossible, he dismissed them. He didn’t think that people might have been overly cautious about Suez but correct in their concern about Panama.

    He (and others) just assumed that he was the driving force behind the success of Suez, and he would do the same for Panama. Harford uses this to explore the heuristic of Fundamental Attribution Error – how we incorrectly tend to attribute results to ‘dispositional’ factors (the person) rather than ‘situational’ factors (the nature of the challenge, the resources, etc).

    Be willing to change your decisions.

    At the heart of de Lesseps’ failure was his obstinate insistence on digging a lock-free sea-level canal – the same design he’d successfully built at Suez. He’d made this decision without having visited Panama, or really understanding the geography – he saw a route that was less than half the length of Suez, but neglected to consider the mountains, the huge amount of rain, the mudslides and the raging rivers. He actively resisted any attempts by professional engineers to suggest alternative routes or methods, using locks and dams. And one thing I hadn’t appreciated – de Lesseps wasn’t an engineer himself, so his conviction wasn’t even based on his own technical knowledge, however mistaken.

    When the Americans took over, they assumed they would keep to the same lock-free plan, but progress was slow, and after a year the officials on the Canal Commission were still divided about the design. So, a few months after appointing John Stevens as the second Chief Engineer, Roosevelt recalled him to Washington and asked his opinion. Having experienced the problems of digging in the rainy season, Stevens argued the case for a lock and dam design, and Roosevelt accepted this change of plan.

    Respect the opinion of experts.

    And this decision about locks was just one area where Roosevelt sought out and listened to expert advice. Yellow fever and malaria had decimated the French attempt – contributing to an estimated 20-25,000 deaths. The Americans had appointed Dr Gorgas who, armed with the latest medical knowledge, proposed to drain the swamps to tackle mosquitoes – but the Canal Commission wanted him to stick to the traditional methods of combatting disease by attacking filth and smells instead. Roosevelt’s approach was to ask the opinion of a doctor he knew who was versed in the scientific literature. On his advice, Roosevelt gave a green light to Dr Gorgas.

    Be rigorous.

    De Lesseps seemed to drive the project on confidence and charisma – but without the foundation of evidence and analysis. He chose to visit Panama only in the short dry season, so didn’t understand the challenges of tropical conditions. When his chief engineer calculated that because of rain and mudslides they needed to double the planned soil extraction, de Lesseps refused to alter the estimated cost or timescales. He had also ensured that the consequences of his decisions were not subjected to external scrutiny, by bribing the French newspapers.

    In comparison, to establish his own evidence Roosevelt made the first overseas visit by a sitting US president. He deliberately visited in the rainy season. He ducked out of official dinners to experience the workers’ food, made impromptu visits to the hospital and often stopped workers to ask them about their experience of conditions. His approach was described as being obsessed that people were trying to hide things from him.

    Think before you act.

    After a year of the American effort, John Stevens was appointed as the new Chief Engineer. The first year had been characterised by red tape, disorganisation, poor supply chains, yellow fever, and limited progress – but Stevens didn’t act immediately. Instead, he visited, observed, and assessed the problems. His biographer describes this as an early form of Management By Wandering Around – and it had a fundamental result:

    Define the problem correctly.

    Stevens realised that the project wasn’t about digging – it was about transportation. Removing the huge amounts of heavy clay soil had been a massive problem for both French and Americans, exacerbated by rain, mudslides and multiple railway gauges. Many times the diggers had to stop because there were no trains available to remove the waste. Stevens approached this as a systems problem and made a series of decisions and innovations to increase the speed and volume of soil transported.

    And while those innovations were being developed, he re-allocated the workers onto infrastructure projects to improve conditions for the workforce and to tackle the other issue that Stevens identified as a central problem: health.

    Disease was the greatest enemy of a stable and effective workforce. In the absence of any scientific understanding, the French had blamed moral turpitude for the astonishingly high mortality rate. Since then, the role of the mosquito in yellow fever and malaria had been discovered. Even though the Canal Commission had appointed Dr Gorgas, who had helped eradicate yellow fever in Havana by tackling mosquitoes, they were not all convinced. But once Roosevelt had backed Gorgas, Stevens could give him the workforce he needed to drain swamps, dig ditches and deprive the mosquitoes of their breeding grounds.

    Have your own personal goals

    Stevens surprised Roosevelt by unexpectedly resigning after only 18 months in charge. But he’d met his own target – that the success of the canal would be either guaranteed or proved to be impossible.

    He’d invested a huge amount of energy in establishing the systems that would lead to the project success – but had no desire to remain for the 8 years he correctly estimated it would take to complete the canal. There were other opportunities out there.

    Applying the insights

    I hope you found this as fascinating as I did. It really is incredible to think of how these massive projects were completed without the computers and technology that we rely on today. But even so, you can see that the key issue that remains the same, from one century to the next, is the quality of leadership and decision-making.

    Picture credit: Bernal Saborio on Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0

  • How to overcome the 4 obstacles to giving quality feedback to your hybrid team

    How to overcome the 4 obstacles to giving quality feedback to your hybrid team

    Providing motivational and developmental feedback to enhance performance is one of the most important leadership and management skills.

    But for managers who lead hybrid teams – flexible in their working hours or location – there are four new challenges that you need to overcome, which are generated by one big difference:

    The key difference for a hybrid team is less consistent contact

    Where teams use a hybrid working model, or a form of flexible hours working such as compressed hours, the in-person contact between a manager and their team members is less frequent and less regular.

    I’ll explain how this impacts on the ability to give effective feedback, and suggest ways you can overcome this.

    1. Managers have less direct observation of people’s performance

    The traditional co-located team, working 9-5(ish), 5 days a week, gave managers a lot of chances to see and hear their team in action. Managers could gain knowledge passively, almost by osmosis – picking up on when team members were doing things right, or spotting where performance could be improved.

    However, hybrid working reduces these opportunities for happenstance observations – so managers will need to be more purposeful and tactical in how they identify issues requiring feedback, and how they deliver that feedback, using the methods below:

    • Observed practice. When I am training people to be coaches, one of the most impactful methods is observing them deliver a coaching session. The coach can easily record their session (with the client’s consent), so I gain huge amounts of information about their skills in practice and can provide rich motivational and developmental feedback. Recent AI developments make this even easier for managers – transcribing the audio, or even summarising the main points. Choose the right interaction to observe and see how your team members use their people skills.
    • Self-observation and upward reporting. Modern ways of working require greater autonomy, which you can foster by encouraging your team members to be reflective, to identify aspects of their practice they were proud of or unsure about, and to bring these issues to you so you can discuss, analyse, motivate and help them to develop.
    • Third-party observations. Without creating an atmosphere of spying, approach other managers – or team members if appropriate – to pass on their observations to you so you can craft appropriate feedback. It’s not a formal 360-degree assessment, just an opportunity for some different perspectives.
    • Embed reflection and feedback into the working practice. Make ‘lessons learned’ part of every project review, and analyse successes as well as problems. Following training, encourage people to identify what they learned and to commit to what they will do differently. Agree team ground rules and encourage everyone to give each other open and honest motivational and developmental feedback.
    • Feedforward, not feedback. I always champion Kluger and Nin’s Feedforward Interview approach – where managers spend time with their team members before undertaking a demanding task. They clarify expectations and – most importantly – tap into the team member’s past successes and experiences, which they can leverage to enhance their performance this time round. You can sum up the approach as “prepare, not repair”. It doesn’t stop you from providing quality feedback after the event – it just makes it more likely that you’ll be delivering a positive message.

    2. Managers find it harder to deliver feedback in a timely manner

    The best feedback is given shortly after the event – while everyone still remembers what happened. And traditionally, feedback was something that was given in person, face-to-face. But hybrid and flexible working means a lower chance of being able to do this.

    One way round this is to prioritise speed – using digital communication methods such as email, messaging and video conferencing to get the initial points over – and then follow up with a more considered feedback session at a later date, recording the details for future reference.

    Obviously, there is a danger if you are providing developmental feedback that a gap between raising it and resolving it fully might cause distress or confusion, so make sure you get the balance right.

    3. It is harder for managers to appreciate the context

    When working together more consistently, managers are more attuned to how their team are getting on – their levels of work pressure, non-work problems, etc. So if they see potentially problematic performance, they can take account of the immediate context and build that into their feedback.

    Without this knowledge, when managers and leaders provide developmental feedback they need to make space for a two-way conversation. Invite your team member to provide their perspective and context, ask them reflective questions to uncover their perceptions, and once you have established the context you can provide your considered feedback.

    4. Managers find it more difficult to support the team member afterwards

    Less consistent contact means it is harder for managers to monitor their team member’s progress on enacting developmental feedback.

    Again, the solution is to be more purposeful where you can no longer rely on happenstance:

    • Set up opportunities for the team member to practice their revised behaviour, with you or someone else observing.
    • Arrange creative learning interventions such as task-based shadowing.
    • Use Kluger and Nin’s Feedforward technique to help your team member prepare in advance.

  • 4 approaches to prepare for the challenges of a multigenerational workforce

    4 approaches to prepare for the challenges of a multigenerational workforce

    One of the big challenges of the future workplace will be the widening age range of the workforce.

    Either from desire (supported by longer life expectancy and better health), necessity (the increasing retirement age), or demand (the skills shortage) people will be working longer. In a reversal of recent trends, increasing university costs may lead to some young people exploring alternatives such as apprenticeships or entering the labour force earlier.

    This multigenerational trend has been developing over recent years, and is set to continue into the future.

    By 2031, a quarter of the workforce in the G7 states will be aged 55 or older

    And that 25% figure is up nearly 10 percentage points from 2011 (1).

    This brings a range of challenges that most leaders are unprepared for:

    Only 6% of respondents strongly agree their leaders are equipped to lead a multi-generational workforce effectively. (2)
    Only around 10% of companies include multigenerational workforce challenges in their leadership development. (3)

    So what are the challenges for a leader?

    The key issues break into two categories:

    • Friction. Exacerbated by perceptions and stereotypes between people of different ages,
    • Responsiveness. Does the leader and the organisation provide the opportunities and support that people need.
    1. Friction in how we work

    Much has been written about the differences between the four generations (Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, Gen-Z) – the majority of which is stereotypical and not backed up by research.

    But there are likely to be some broad age-based differences, based on the technology, work practices and life events that people will have experienced, and the probable pressures of their stage of life and career. And these generate the potential for friction.

    For example, the tendency of older workers to prefer to converse by speaking, whereas younger people are more likely to opt for text-based communication. There may be a contrast between younger people’s desire to innovate and change as opposed to older workers’ preference for status quo.

    While the ‘snowflake vs. boomer’ stereotypes are questionable from an academic perspective, they are important: because people may perceive them to be true, this influences them to interpret any differences as rooted in generation or age, and not a result of individual, personal characteristics.

    2. Different priorities according to stage of life and career

    Attitudes to work will be shaped by external life events and factors such as childcare, caring for relatives, personal health – and by internal factors such as ambition and desire for advancement.

    These issues complicate resource planning by impacting on staff retention, on levels of discretionary effort, and satisfaction with the Employee Value Proposition.

    It is reasonable to assume that there will be age-based difference in how people respond to financial incentives, and what they value from an organisation in terms of bonuses, rewards, pensions, leave arrangements. This will require a more thoughtful and dynamic offering, otherwise you may not get the performance or retention results that you think you are incentivising.

    3. Friction in social relations

    As a general rule, younger people tend to be more radical in their politics and social attitudes. This has led to today’s stereotype of ‘woke social justice warriors’ at odds with older colleagues fearful of using the wrong terminology or not keeping up with current expectations.

    And at the same time, workforces are becoming more atomised – teams that include hybrid working or are spread throughout different offices have reduced opportunities for social bonding. A recent news story about the death of the ‘after work pint’ identifies this atomisation, coupled with the trend of lower alcohol use among younger people.

    Within a team with lower social bonds, it is more likely that people will form in-groups, and age is often a significant feature in how these are formed.

    4. Friction in promotion and development

    There are two common perceptions that can arise:

    • Older workers prevent younger workers from taking on more advanced roles.
    • Development opportunities are geared towards younger people.

    The rise of the older workforce does pose challenges for Learning and Development teams:

    A 2020 global survey found that fewer than 4% of organisations had integrated older workers into their talent systems. (4)

    In both perceptions – of ‘blocking promotion’ and ‘not upskilling older staff’ – there are common problematic outcomes: individual frustration, unfulfilled potential (both personal and corporate) and reduced staff retention.

    5. risk of discrimination

    As age is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act, leaders and managers need to be conscious of how they are considering the age of their team members, and ensuring they do not inadvertently discriminate.

    Approaches for leading a multigenerational workforce


    Many – but not all – of these challenges can be addressed through good management practices:

    1. Think of people as individuals

    We are more than just our age – influences on our behaviour and attitudes are many and varied, including our socio-economic background, our personal values and beliefs, our specific life events and work history.

    The important step is to avoid assumptions and explore people’s preferences through empathetic questions.

    It may also help to consider that the language that was stereotypically used to describe the Millennial generation (entitled, poor communicators, difficult to work with) was also used to describe Generation Xers and Baby Boomers when they entered the work force (5) – indeed it has also been used to describe Gen Z.

    2. Flexible working for all

    Flexibility around hours worked, where possible, ensures that whatever their age, your people are able to work in a way that suits them – whether they are caring for a child, partner or parent, have healthcare needs, are studying part-time or have side projects and outside interests.

    3. Focus on similarities

    Rather than differences, bear in mind the similarities that cut across age profiles:

    • We all want to be respected.
    • We want leaders who are credible and trustworthy
    • We all find change can be challenging. (6)

    Adopting a person-centred, adaptive leadership approach is key to meeting these universal needs.

    4. Make this part of your future planning

    A multigenerational workforce is going to become ever more prevalent in the future, and leaders can take action now by adding this into their planning for the future.

    Numerous pressure groups have identified specific attitudes and structures that need to be challenged for organisations to support their older workers – these reports can inform your planning. Try start with these questions:

    • Imagine a scenario where 25% of your team are over 50. What will you need to do to ensure performance, productivity and professionalism across your team?
    • What will you do to make sure that no workers are left behind by the future?

    Make sure you are ready for the future workplace

    It’s not just the multigenerational workforce that is coming. Leaders will have to face the challenges of new technology, disruptive change, and new ways of working.

    Don’t get left behind by the future – explore our guide to take action now

    Get the guide

    References

    Photo: Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels
    (1) Bain and company (undated) Better with age
    (2) Deloitte (2020) Global Human Capital Trends
    (3) Lowe, Joshua & Barry, Erin & Grunberg, Neil. (2020). Improving Leader Effectiveness Across Multi-Generational Workforces. Journal of Leadership Studies.
    (3) Deal, J. J., Altman, D. G., & Rogelberg, S. G. (2010). Millennials at work: What we know and what we need to do (if anything). Journal of Business and Psychology,
    (4) World Economic Forum (2023) 3 ways organizations can empower older workers amid an ageing global workforce
    (5) Deal, J. J., Altman, D. G., & Rogelberg, S. G. (2010). Millennials at work: What we know and what we need to do (if anything). Journal of Business and Psychology.
    (6) Deal, J. J. (2007). Generational differences. Leadership Excellence

  • Embed generative AI in your organisation: 7 helpful tips

    Embed generative AI in your organisation: 7 helpful tips

    I recently attended the fascinating CIPD Festival of Work, and I’d like to share with you my summary and insights of the “AI is transforming work – how do we support people and enhance work?” panel event. I’ll be synthesising the ideas and experience of: Andy Headworth of HMRC (the UK’s tax body), DN Prashad from Govtech Singapore, and Jenny Kalenderidis from Microsoft.

    AI means a new way of working. You can’t fight it, you need to get onboard with it and make it work for you.

    Here are seven practical approaches to introducing generative AI into your team or organisation.

    1. Create space and structure for your people to play

    You can tackle initial hesitance to use generative AI by demystifying it, making it fun and empowering people to try it. Andy Headworth provided the example of a weekly lunchhour drop-in to try out the tools – with fun competitions to get people used to writing prompts creatively. You can move from light-hearted picture challenges (of increasing complexity) through to more serious work-related scenarios and formal ‘promptathons’.

    The skill to prompt is a key skill, but years of using search engines need to be undone, and replaced with the natural speech of AI. After all, the computer now speaks our language, we don’t need to code or use search parameters in the same way. Getting people to experiment in a safe space is the best way to do this.

    2. Promote sharing of ideas and prompts

    Create opportunities for people to share their experiences using generative AI. Some organisations set up WhatsApp groups to share prompts, or establish a prompt hub for people to post their ideas and problems. Crowdsourcing ideas and feedback in this way helps people learn and improve, but it also enables people to spot good ideas and adopt or adapt them for their own specific use.

    3. Look for opportunities for AI to perform more complex tasks

    Many people are using generative AI for lower-level work such as summarising meetings and proposing minutes or creating document outlines.

    But there is real value in looking for a deeper use. Andy Headworth explained their process of working together to analyse the recruitment process, then break it into constituent tasks and examine if AI could help them create efficiency.

    4. Make sure you have guardrails in place

    For experimentation to be safe, there needs to be clear guidance from the top of the organisation. Focus on your organisation’s principles and values, and ensure the AI policy reflects these. AI has the potential to change all ways of working, so you need to build in safety and standards.

    Interestingly, it was suggested that organisations who need an AI policy might want to start by looking at their social media policy, which will contain the core ideas of ethics and organisational acceptability.

    5. Tackle bias head on

    Yes, AI is subject to bias, influenced by its dataset. But you can take specific steps to try and rule out bias. Whether it is writing prompts or training it to take account of bias in the dataset, it is possible to actively manage this bias.

    And it is important to remember that we already have numerous steps and activities that we have designed to try and overcome human bias – both overt and unconscious. Think about steps like anonymising recruitment applications so that there is no reference to gender or age, or putting together a diverse selection panel so differing views are heard and bias can be challenged.

    6. Focus on the people

    Reactions to AI often involve fear of potential job losses, or discomfort using a new tool effectively.
    Employers have a role in bringing all their people along, openly challenging myths and ensuring that – like any other workplace tool – people only use AI when they are sufficiently skilled and confident.

    One of the key insights from Jenny Kalenderidis was the need for HR to be in the room from the start. This isn’t a standard IT project where the people issue is just a question of training. AI has the potential to completely disrupt our ways of working, and so there needs to be HR professionals in the room, exploring what this means for the workforce, how to manage the change, the fear an the opportunity.

    7. “Think big, start small, act fast”

    Neatly summarising the panel was DN Prashad, who articulated the importance of small-scale tests, pilots and experimentation – in order to find out use case scenarios that actually help the organisation, to generate experience and ideas that can be shared and developed. The focus is on pushing this experimentation down to the people who do the work, not the senior managers or external consultants, as they can see where true advantage can be developed.

    Picture credit: Mart production on Pexels

  • How does an ant kill a buffalo? Leadership lessons on the future of work

    How does an ant kill a buffalo? Leadership lessons on the future of work


    Forward-thinking leaders and managers are looking for ways to prepare themselves and their organisations for the future of work. One of the biggest challenges I see for them is how to address a change that is generated by a chain reaction of interacting factors.

    In case you’re wondering about the ant and the buffalo, here’s what’s happening:

    1. An invasion of big-headed ants drives out acacia ants from their residence in whistling-thorn trees.
    2. While they had been resident there, the acacia ants’ sharp jaws had deterred elephants from damaging the trees.
    3. Having lost the acacia ants’ protection, the trees are destroyed by the elephants.
    4. The trees had been used by lions as a hiding place from which they can attack fast-moving zebras.
    5. Without the cover of the trees, the lions switch to hunting more of the slower-moving buffalo.

    So, what does this have to do with future changes in the ecosystem of work?

    We can look ahead and anticipate some big changes coming, such as increasing digitisation, the growth of AI or an increasingly diverse and global workforce.

    But it’s harder to spot the big changes that occur because trends coincide, or when disparate factors reinforce each other.

    Think about the Covid pandemic – while scientists had predicted a pandemic was due for many years, did anyone expect an end result of it might be struggling dry cleaners or city centre sandwich bars? These impacts were the result of chain reactions caused by the coincidence of the pandemic with:

    • Technological change. Innovations such as video conferencing and highspeed broadband meant there was an increased ability for office workers to work from home.
    • Social change. Over time, and partly due to the internet, people’s interconnections and relationships had become less dependent on attending the workplace.
    • Infrastructure change. For many people commuting had become ever more time-consuming and expensive.

    This fuelled an enduring desire to work at home, even once the pandemic was over. Since then we’ve seen lower footfall in town centres, fewer people buying lunch and people no longer wearing as much office clothing that requires regular dry cleaning.

    And these chain reactions aren’t just about levels of business – the increase in working from home and adoption of hybrid working also means that managers need to learn new approaches to communication, performance management and team dynamics.

    So, like the ant and the buffalo, one change within the work ecosystem can have far-reaching and unforeseen consequences. As Professor Todd Palmer states in the article about the ants: “it’s the interactions which are the glue that holds the entire system together.”

    For leaders looking ahead to the future of work, there is one key lesson.

    It’s impossible for leaders to imagine every feedback loop and plan for every possible chain reaction that might take place in the future world of work – but it is possible to build up capacity and capability.

    You could:

    • generate a learning culture so your team members are change-ready
    • develop your interpersonal skills so you can manage and support your people through the pressures and opportunities of change
    • build an empowered team who are forward-looking and able to take initiative.

    All leaders and managers can take a range of steps now so that if unexpected change occurs, you’re in a better place to adapt.

    Just like the lion.

    Image credit: Keyur Nandaniya on Unsplash

  • Are you ready for the workforce of the future?

    Are you ready for the workforce of the future?

    The future of work isn’t just about technology – it means a different workforce too.

    So often, articles about the future of work focus on the technology. That’s not surprising bearing in mind the transformative role that generative AI will have. But there’s an equally important transformation that will occur in the next few years – the end of the ‘single dimensional’ workforce.

    At the CIPD’s Festival of Work, I heard a great panel discussing the future workforce, so I’d like to share some of the key ideas raised by the participants: Dr Sarosh Khan of HSM Advisory, Simon Reichwald of Bright Futures Resourcing, Mel Forbes from APSCO, and Roger Clements from Matrix.

    Roger Clements presented his 3 key factors for the future of work:

    Fundamental demographic and social shifts in the workforce.A change in the model of work – the end of the ‘single dimensional workforce’ where people complete their education in their early twenties, work for 40 years and retire in their mid-60s.The rapid growth of AI and intelligent automation.

    The panel suggested the following tips for addressing the first two points:

    1. Think about the challenges of an older workforce

    With longer lives, it is accepted that we will need to work longer – into our 70s or even 80s.

    With such a long time in the workforce, it is highly unlikely that someone will remain I the same sector or type of role for their entire working life. We have already seen an erosion in the traditional model of long service for an organisation – this will no doubt continue to decline.

    Thus we will need to provide opportunities for people to reskill and to return to learning, in order to take on new roles and tasks.
    There also needs to be better accommodation of the needs for older workers. Very few employers are thinking about the needs and desires of a 60plus worker – such as their external interests and roles.

    2. Personalisation is king

    The idea of a personalised job role is essential for younger people as well. Indeed, we have seen the end of the old model of the employer as the custodian of the worker’s career and the rise of the autonomous worker, crafting their own jobs and careers. Using flexibility to maintain their interests and side projects. vs autonomy, flexibility.

    Interestingly, one panel member suggested we should be talking of ‘work-life balance’ anymore. Instead we need to consider ‘work-life integration‘.

    3. Adapt your workforce models for flexibility and efficiency

    Organisations can harness these changes in workforce desires and technology change to create a more efficient operating model. Companies in the pharmaceuticals and technology sectors are moving ahead with contingent workforces – bringing in people as you need them for specific tasks or project phases.

    4. Promote belonging and connection

    One of the side-effects of workers exercising their autonomy and flexibility may well be a loss of the belonging and connection that many people gain from their work. Indeed, we saw in the pandemic how important work was in terms of the social role, in providing purpose and identity.

    Can organisations respond by making sure that people who work for them – no matter how long – feel at home and part of the bigger picture?

    5. Make the most of your multigenerational workforce

    A multigenerational workforce can add value and create benefits – but it is often portrayed more as a challenge.

    Individual conversations are vital in understanding specific needs and desires, rather than making assumptions based on large-scale surveys.

    Have programmes focused on skills development, available to all, not just a graduate development programme.

    Use reverse mentoring or reciprocal mentoring to bridge the generational divide and ensure skills, knowledge, understanding and experience are shared.

    Photo credit: Olly on Pexels

  • A new approach for future-planning: look out for aggressive polar bears

    A new approach for future-planning: look out for aggressive polar bears

    Forecasters and future-planners have used the analogies of black swans and grey rhinos for some years now. I suggest we need to introduce the ‘aggressive polar bear’ to reflect the complexity of upcoming change.


    The start of the year sees a multitude of posts and papers which set out “2024’s expected workplace trends”. And after the upheavals of recent years, there’s plenty of interesting ideas about making the best use of Artificial Intelligence, the continued tensions over remote and hybrid working, the potential for political change and fears for international relations.

    But what if you want to prepare yourself for the medium and longer-term future?

    One of the key ideas in forecasting and future-planning is the Black Swan. Introduced by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, these are highly rare and unpredictable events – but which have massive impacts. Most people won’t have prepared adequately for these uncommon catastrophic events – such as financial crises, pandemics, or paradigm-shifting innovations.

    Shortly after this, Michele Wucker introduced the idea of Gray Rhinos. These are not rare, and can be seen from afar. We roughly know their shape, size and how they might act. But because of this familiarity we don’t pay them enough attention – until they are charging towards us.

    But if recent years have taught us anything, it is that the trickiest situations are those generated by multiple interacting factors or chain reactions.

    So we’d like to introduce the Aggressive Polar Bear.

    Why polar bears you may ask, and specifically, why an ‘aggressive’ one?

    In recent years scientists have been reporting a rise of polar bears being aggressive towards humans.

    One of the reasons is that increased tourism means that polar bears are less scared of humans than before – so less likely to avoid settlements or be deterred by noise.

    And then there’s climate change, which impacts in two ways.

    Warmer oceans means fewer fish – affecting the entire food chain and meaning the apex predator – the polar bear – goes hungry.

    Shrinking ice floes mean polar bears have to spend more time on land.

    These interacting and cumulative factors lead to increased numbers of polar bears coming into contact with humans, with hunger-driven aggression.

    What lessons can we take from this when it comes to future planning?

    An aggressive polar bear event is one caused by the interaction of a number of factors, so they are difficult to identify. We recommend a number of structured questioning approaches:

    • Think about scenarios, not predictions. We’re looking at what might happen, and how you could react to it. By working with multiple scenarios, you can identify which actions have cross-cutting value.
    • Use Five What Ifs? You’ll probably be familiar with drilling down into root causes using Five Whys – so widen your thinking instead by asking Five What Ifs.
    • Think big picture. What are the global and regional trends, and how could they impact on your business model? For instance, wide-ranging economic, social and ecological factors could affect your customers, your suppliers and your stakeholders in ways that creates a chain reaction that affects you.

     

  • Hybrid working: three gurus tell us how to thrive.

    Hybrid working: three gurus tell us how to thrive.

    The shift to hybrid working raises a wide variety of challenges and opportunities. Read on for some great ideas from business leaders that you can apply, and some questions for you to reflect on.

    “Working from home makes it much harder to delineate work time from personal time. I encourage all of our employees to have a disciplined schedule for when you will work, and when you will not, and to stick to that schedule.”

    Dan Springer, CEO of DocuSign to Fast Company, 2021.

    The discipline required for working from home is a new skill for many of us:

    • Would schedules help you combat the always-on culture?
    • What can you do to role model this best practice?
    • What else can you do to maintain this work / homelife balance?

    “The most important keys to remote work at a startup have been weekly stand-ups. At Hive, we all get on Zoom once a week to chat and give shoutouts to the team.”

    John Furneaux, CEO of Hive, in the Hive.com blog, 2022.

    Communication has been a key area of challenge for leaders:

    • How can you structure your stand-ups so that they are productive? The key is in the name ‘stand-up’ – keep it quick!
    • Would a weekly meeting suit your team, or do you need it more frequently? Many places have really short daily check-ins.

    “Success in a hybrid work environment requires employers to move beyond viewing remote or hybrid environments as a temporary or short-term strategy and to treat it as an opportunity.”

    George Penn, VP at Gartner, in HRExecutive.com, 2020.

    So many organisations are enduring hybrid working, hoping it will go back to how it was – or they are relying on the short-term fixes that got them through to now:

    • What’s your attitude to hybrid working – do you see it as an opportunity, a short-lived innovation or the long-term future? What impact does your thinking have for you and your team?
    • What about your team and your managers – what is their position?
    • Are there any opportunities that you are not yet realising?
    • What temporary fixes are you still relying on, that you could replace with better long-term solutions?
    Photo credit: Thirdman on Pexels