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Entries in culture (34)

Wednesday
Aug232023

Innovation delusions/flexible work/new ways in HR/headphone buzz/creative thinking/drawing detox

For HR : new-ish ways of working

For HR people, teams, leaders, practitioners: 

It might be a little agile, a little NWOW, a bit of this and a bit of that - all designed to suit the team, who they are, how they work and what they need to achieve. 

I've worked intensely with several HR teams over the past year, building their awareness, capabilities and behaviours to work in new-ish ways. 

Get in contact if you're an HR professional, part of an HR team or are curious about how New Ways in HR can help. 


Out of the box... but not too far

What organisation doesn't want their people, teams and leaders to be innovative and creative? 

Yet when they do, or try to be, it can become 'too far' out of the box.

The thinking, ideas and suggestions can seem 

  • too radical 
  • too extreme  
  • too costly
  • too time consuming 
  • too big a change or  
  • require too much time and effort. 

 

The 'too much' ... not that far, WOAH, we didn't mean THAT creative or innovative -- is prevalent in many teams and organisations. 

 

It's a kind of 'we want your creativity but keep it in control, please.' 

 

And we may rush to criticise this response, but remember that brilliant creativity IS possible within a box, boundary or constraint. 

It's how many artists and innovators create such clever thinking and ideas; via a restriction or limitation - in time, resources, space, materials, thought or imagination. 

So yes, think out of the box, but it your thinking and ideas ARE a bit too far out there and it's too much for a leader, team or organisation to acknowledge, validate, support or endorse ... it's ok. 

Re-check the brief, the boundaries and the constraints. Superb creativity and ideation is still possible in a slightly more controlled situation. 

The key for leaders is they must specify or explain the boundaries. And if they haven't, ask 'em!

Then you can go WILD creating within that scope. 

Give me some boundaries any day and I'll create with wild fervour! Say there are no boundaries, that anything is possible - or omit to explain the scope - and I may be hesitant in case I push it too far. 

Even if you think you're not that creative, or that the organisation doesn't think far enough out of the box it is in, check the scope and boundaries that exist and then go wild. 

Push to the absolute edges and extremes of the boundaries. 

 

 


 

The delusion of innovation in the office

The debate to return to the office has escalated for some employees - and turned into a mandate or stronger for some. 

A number of reasons to return are presented by businesses, but it’s this one — better collaboration and innovation — that I’d like to explore. 

Because nothing has changed. 

Requiring people to come to a specific geography infers there might be better or greater collaboration and innovation happening there. But nothing has changed. 

Since the pandemic and the forced remote era, have businesses and their leaders set new processes, conditions, constraints, capabilities, situations or environments for making all this magical collaboration and innovation happen?

Yeah? No. 

A call to return to the office because it will ‘be more collaborative and innovative’ has seen employees in quiet offices and meeting rooms in online meetings trying to do all the innovation and stuff. 

But nothing in the environment has changed to boost, invite or foster it. It’s the same old tired grey meh. 

Collaboration and innovation relies on a process or constraint, a purpose or a reason to get it going and make it happen. 

Some teams are great at it, having forged a collaborative, communicative and creative culture of working together like this for some time. No matter the geography and whether they’re together or apart, in person or remote. 

But if nothing has changed about how leaders are setting up the conditions and situations for collaboration and innovation … it won’t … just … happen. 

If nothing much has changed in how a business facilitates, guides or supports collaboration and innovation, arriving into a same-old stale office situation will do nothing to make people magically start collaborating and innovating. 

It will do the reverse and make ideas and energy evaporate. 

Collaborations and innovation seem like great reasons to spend more time in person with colleagues in a workplace. 

But if nothing has changed in how leaders lead collaboration and innovation … it’s just … not … happening.

New ways of working need new ways of leading - not mandates and force.


The latest Workish episodes

Workish #4 with Lynne Cazaly 

This episode features: What's behind the fear toward AI; What might be greater than wellbeing at work; The new fusion of 3 things in the workplace; Solving the challenges of learning; Boosting your diversity, equity and inclusion understanding ... and, some Randomness

 

 

 

Workish #5 with Lynne Cazaly 

Do you have a toxic culture of niceness /How to stop the 'where are you working from today' questions / How to keep in touch with the office buzz ... and one thing that could be killing it / How you could be missing out on coaching, development or feedback / A cool choice for increasing employee retention and flexibility

 


Extracting creativity from reality 

You know those reality shows on cooking, baking and making — you can love ‘em or hate ‘em — but there’s so much to learn from them. 

And it’s not how to make a buttercream something or be a crowd favourite!

Each episode centres on a themed challenge. Plus it’s time-based as well, to help build the pressure, performance and interest. 

Look beyond the characters or the game and you’ll see so many brilliant skills and capabilities at work.  

Skills and techniques like:

🌀Listening - to a story, brief, background or feedback 

🌀Understanding - the situation, challenge or problem to solve 

🌀Ideation - of options, answers and making elements for the task  

🌀Imagination - to find alternate methods or techniques 

🌀Problem solving - when you’re bringing your idea from a conjured mental image to reality 

🌀Slicing - not just the cake but breaking the seemingly insurmountable task into smaller steps 

🌀Emotional regulation - dealing with anticipation, disappointment, nerves, doubt or dashed expectations 

🌀Crisis management - when something unexpected happens, fails or breaks 

🌀Persistence when a task seems impossible within the constraints

🌀Scaling - for quantity or visual impact

🌀Optimism - in the face of wanting to give up or run away.  

 

We may not be certain what a particular skill or capability looks like until we see it demonstrated. These creative programs are packed full of skillful flavour … skills that apply to work and life.

Watch how people think, understand and act in an environment that demands changing and adaptive innovation. 

What skills have you seen people display to solve the challenge and make the thing? 

📺 What to watch? 

Check Netflix and see programs like ‘Is it cake?’ or ‘Bake Squad’. 

 


 

The comfort blanket of headphones 🎧 

Do you use them, you know, really need them — headphones — for silence, concentration and focus?

Or as described here, are they ‘a way of insulating oneself against the hell that is other people’. 

From the bustle and buzz of the pre pandemic workplace to the isolation of remote work: the silence and quiet of just a lone voice or three at home has potentially given us a greater need for the comfort of quiet. 

All the noise cancelling time. 

I wore them walking around a shopping centre the other day to create my own ambience and vibe thank you very much. 

Boarding a plane and we may don the ear blanket asap. Or pre boarding if you really want protection from all the peoples that will be squashed together inside the metal. 

Zoning out from others’ podcasts or streaming choices? Pass me my comforter… I mean my AirPods. 

Debates aplenty here with: 

▫️ear damage and etiquette 

versus 

▫️focus and creativity. 

 

What say you? Hey… you, *waving*, talk to me will you. 

What do you think about headphones at work, in life, in sleep, in a shop, at home? Do you need … you know, really neeeed? 

Read more in this article.

 


 

Drawing is the best digital detox 

Read more about how and why to detox and why drawing, sketching, getting into something a little less bright-light, might be just what you need


Designing for flexible work 

Some brilliant insights in an article on flexibility for workers — not just parents who might want time off during the week, but older workers who might want a chunk of time off to travel. 

And this often overlooked benefit :

“By sharing their knowledge, skills and life experiences, our older team members often become great mentors to their younger teammates.”

With life, industry and trade experience older workers are valuable to the team … and customers. 

Flexible recruitment processes, flexible rostering and a reduction in hours when on the path to retirement, are all smart benefits that demonstrate a broader understanding of what it means to be flexible. 

Read more here from The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age

 

 

Monday
Sep272021

The extroverts will take care of themselves 

How are you engaging, connecting and facilitating interactions among a diverse team? 

Winging it doesn’t work. 
Letting things flow can cause problems later. 
Denying you need to do something deliberate can also be fraught. 

Introverts
Extroverts. 
Ambiverts. 

All belong. 
All have much to bring, give and contribute. 

But if you’re waiting for them, you’re missing the point of leadership. 

You can set up a process, a constraint, an activity or use deliberate techniques that will get the best out of everyone. 

This article on how ambiverts - who have both introvert and extrovert qualities - benefit the workplace is a good one. It reminds us that there are people different to us. 

And as the world of work evolves to the next phase of hybrid, returning to offices and working from anywhere, maintaining connections across difference and diversity is a necessary and powerful leadership capability. 

What are you:
- Introvert?
- Extrovert?
- Ambivert? 

Monday
Sep272021

What would you ‘go in’ to an office for

Beware the big effort for a dull return. 

It’s happening. 

There’s the call that ‘everyone needs to be in the office for this’, or ‘we need all hands’ or ‘it’s worthy of face-to-face’.

And everyone makes the effort but it ends up having a dull, disengaging, “could have been a zoom or teams meeting, could have been an email, could have been a link, could have been a PDF” feeling about it. 

We will need to be more discerning about the ‘moments that matter’. 

When do we truly need to be face to face and why? What will we make, do or happen that will reap the benefit of the effort? 

Beware promising great things with everyone on-site, but reverting to bad meeting cultures, boring presentations and events that could have remained virtual. 

This Fast Company article by Ashley Goldsmith has 5 tips to plan a return to an office. 

One of those tips is ‘Establish moments that matter.’  

Work out when it’s valuable, impactful and necessary for people to be face to face - and then reward them with brilliant experiences when they do. 

Or they’ll be even less likely to take the next call for ‘all in’ seriously. 

What would you ‘go in’ to an office for? 

Thursday
Sep232021

Back-to-back is bad to worse 

If the view is ‘full of colour’ when you look at your diary or schedule, you could be in the back-to-back brigade who don’t get a break. 

The scheduling - and acceptance - of a day of meetings running one into the other, is tiring, inefficient and distracting. 

This Forbes article by Bruce Rogers talks more about how our brains needs a break. 

Our ability to focus lessens as the day goes on and the cognitive load of no, or few, breaks doesn’t serve us either. 

Microsoft recently made changes to their deep down default settings in Outlook for appointment durations and scheduling. You can customize them further for your own preferences and well-being. 

This is in an effort to reduce the rotten fatigue that results from a back-to-back schedule. 

But it also takes individual, leadership and cultural shifts on ‘how we do things around here’ to bring an end to the back-to-back-badge-of-busy. 

Here’s how I roll: 
- Finish early. 
- Schedule breaks
- Block out time. 
- Protect the boundaries. 
- Model better behaviours. 

There are clear ways for us to adopt to get from bad-to-better in the breaks-for-brain game. 

What are you doing to break the back-to-back?

Monday
Sep202021

Leading change ... remotely 

For leaders in these times of remote and hybrid work, change still has to happen. 

Guiding, leading and inspiring change can require some new and different techniques.

There’s still a requirement to have:

⏺ Engagement for change 
and 
⏺ Capability for change. 

This week I’m working with a leadership team to prepare them to better engage their team for change. 

We’ll be focusing on how to have better, more engaging conversations about change ... remotely. Handling tough questions, raising challenging topics, building greater human connection... online. 

Then it’s onto the skills the entire organization needs - to ensure teams have the capabilities to embark on the changes planned. 

This includes being able to work in a hybrid environment - where some people are onsite and some are working remotely. We’ll build problem-solving, sensemaking and decision-making skills. 

Whatever you’re changing, think about 
- engagement... for the leadership team,
and 
- capability... for the wider organisation. 

Tackle both for more successful remote, hybrid change.