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. 

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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. 

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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.

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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

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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’. 

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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.

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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

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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

Hybrid working/Asynchronous audiobook/New ways in schooling/Workplaces for the anti-work trend

3 things needed in hybrid working 

As the world of hybrid work keeps evolving and changing, we’d do well to check on how it’s going and what tweaks and changes are needed. 

Two out of three key requirements for people seem to be lacking. 

Let’s look at them: 

🔸Choice or Autonomy

🔸Mastery or Learning

🔸Connectivity in all its forms. 

From your experience and observations, which one/s are working in hybrid do you think? 

And which is being missed? Read more in this article from Fortune quoting the great work of Lynda Gratton. 

And consider how you and your teams can lead with greater focus on the important parts that are being missed. 

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Sync Async Audiobook is out now !

My most recent book ‘Sync Async: Making progress easier in the changing world of work’ is now available in audiobook. 

What’s it about? 

One of the best ways to respond and adapt to the changing world of work is to consider not just the work itself … but the WAY it gets done. 

Consider:

◻️ Do we really need everyone at the same meeting at the same time? (synchronous work)

◻️ Could some people contribute prior to, or after the meeting or begin working on tasks outside of a meeting? (asynchronous work)

A growing number of teams and businesses are learning and experiencing the value of deliberately working in sync / async ways. 

That is, some work is completed synchronously — at the same time with other people; and other elements of work completed asynchronously — at a time and in a way that suits them. 

In this book you'll hear about:

◻️ how, why and when to work in sync and async ways

◻️ tools for creating your team’s sync async strategy

◻️ ways to identify the type of work you prefer 

◻️ techniques to work in more async ways

◻️ how to make daily progress easier — get started on things that have stopped and accelerate things that have slowed. 

You don’t need to wait for a culture to change or for someone to give you the go ahead on this. You can start working better in both sync and async ways from today. 

There will always be too much to do and not enough time in which to do it. Putting practical sync async techniques to work can make your work easier … and the rest of life better. 

Available via your usual audiobook app or supplier. Use one of your Audible credits to get the book now. 

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New ways in schooling

Evolutions in how we work don’t just happen in corporate offices or businesses. 

New ways in how a school can work are most certainly working for the glorious Hester Hornbrook Academy led by their highly regarded principal, Sally Lasslett. 

In this great piece in The Age, insights abound on how innovation, inclusion and new ways of thinking and working are helping make education happen … for the better. 

Adaptive thinking in education is working on things like: 

▫️meeting students where they are

▫️classes starting at 10 am 

▫️no rows of desks, replaced with flexible seating like groups of desks or beanbags

▫️a focus on who students want to be,

and

▫️no need to leave after a graduation; students can keep coming back!

Funded by Melbourne City Mission (MCM), the independent school is thriving and growing and gaining attention for the right reasons. 

It’s a most beautiful example of how to think beyond the default or mainstream … no matter the kind of work you do or the services your organisation provides. 

Read more here

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A workplace for people who don’t like work 

What would it be like? 

Following on from the above post about Hester Hornbrook Academy in Melbourne, Australia, which has created a school for students who don’t like going to school, let’s think further …

How might we apply this to the workplace, more broadly? 

Some changes in ways of working have been successes for those who need them:

▫️the non linear work day

▫️remote work

▫️asynchronous work

▫️work from anywhere 

▫️the four day work week 

▫️flexible working hours …

And so what else? 

How else are workplaces helping make work better for those who don’t like work? Or don’t much like going to work? 

There are things like:

▫️quiet spaces, booths and soundproofed areas

▫️collaborative cafe-style designs for a less formal feel

▫️softer furnishings to create a more comfortable environment

▫️ambient sounds and effects to create calm yet productive spaces 

▫️creative tools for communication and collaboration 

▫️online apps for contribution and collaboration 

▫️cross functional teams to create greater progress and autonomy 

▫️self-selected teams enabling people to exercise choice

▫️incremental work to help make better progress 

▫️less time wasting activities like boring meetings and more outcome focused work

▫️iterative work to break tasks down in to manageable pieces

▫️a mindset of good enough to reduce the effects of perfectionism, …and plenty more. 

What else?

What do you see that companies, business, leaders and teams are offering to make work that little more workable — particularly if you don’t want to go to work? 

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The meh of work / the anti-work trend 

Any leader leading a team, any worker trying to work, is sure to have felt and seen that malaise … the discomfort and disinterested feeling towards work. 

Where did the motivation go? How long has it been gone? And was it ever really there? 

The stats are showing that many of us are wading through the ‘scrap heap of broken promises’ about a version of a future dream we’ve been quietly conjuring. 

It’s a 50/50 moment. Some of us are happy enough and interested, some of us not so much. 

With job roles important to our identity, if something isn’t quite right then it can feel incredibly wrong, having compounding effects elsewhere in our lives. 

While a magic fix might not be as entirely visible — or as possible — as people would wish it to be, simply understanding that people are pretty ‘meh’ with things is important. 

You know the … ‘I don’t need a solution, just give me some support, empathy and understanding’? Yeah, that. 

As a team leader or HR practitioner, consultant, adviser or manager, be aware of these tones so you read the room and respond accordingly. 

Read more here in Fortune 

What your creativity is trying to tell you

When you’re distracted from a task or chase bright shiny things, do you reprimand yourself and wish you had more discipline? 

At times we do need this focus and attention. 

But how about following the distraction… ok, not right then, but later? 

This distraction could be your creativity trying to alert you to your clever thinking and ideas. 

Here’s what to do: 

Make a ‘side note’ — a note in the moment of the distraction from the main task path you’re on. Jot it in an app or notepad — and return to your original task. 

Then later … allow time, space, a moment to explore, wonder and be curious about your notes about the distractions. Let yourself follow them up, deliberately chase the brightness and see where it takes you. 

You may think ‘I’ll never get anything done’ or ‘I never have time later’. 

But these thought associations we may see as distractions are often examples of curiosity and creativity trying to pop up throughout our day. 

Instead of squashing, hitting or ignoring them — or being angry at yourself because you can’t stay on task — invite the distraction or thought for long enough to capture it in a side note. 

It’s a note you can follow up, chase down or wonder about later. Or not at all. 

Creative and ingenious thought is there; give it somewhere to land when it rises rather than labeling it a distraction or bad. 

It’s actually very good, creative good. 

The truth about feeling bored

I remember as a child I’d call out to my mum, Shirl, and say ‘I’m bored!’ She’d give me a sweet list of things I could do to occupy myself, entertain myself and stimulate my mind.

But here, author Pietro Minto, in his Italian book ‘How to get bored better’ reveals some interesting thoughts, claims and insights about our boredom. 

Apparently we have a warped notion of time and time management ... and the pandemic has exacerbated the warp. 

In this great interview with Minto, we get new perspectives on what we do when we’re bored and how we’re spending a lot of time on things that may not matter so much. 

Oooh that’s a big call isn’t it. 

Aren’t we all so busy? 

This quote: “It’s irrelevant how many stimuli we have – the core of the issue is about how little we are conscious of how we use our time, be it free time or otherwise.”

He says that boredom has carried negative connotations but instead, “it’s a plot of land no one has built on yet.” 

Bookmark this one to read maybe when you’re bored! 🤣

It’s a great prompter of thought about what we do, why we do it and how else we might spend our precious time. 

Why every leader should take an improv class

Have you? If that’s a no, put it on your development list, right near the top. 

And if you have, you know what I’m talking about. 

In this crazy world of change, no one teaches better, trains better or helps us deal like an improv class. 

The performers who make stuff up on TV and theatres the world over, moved things online during the pandemic, and they adapted nicely! 

Here are five reasons why taking improv has got to be on your list for either an in-person class or an online one. Or a bit of both! 

1. You’re constantly thinking on your feet 
2. Communication is essential 
3. Your nerves get tested
4. You fail a lot (I think this one, this one is what makes us more willing to experiment, try and have a go)
5. Growth becomes a mindset. 

Read more in this article in Inc. Magazine by Jason Hennessey 

And then sign up at your local improv troupe, group or club. 

In Melbourne, that’s the wonderful Impro Melbourne and a big shout out to the wonderful people, teachers, performers and players like
Jason Geary
Patti Stiles 
Lliam Amor
Rik Brown 
Katherine Weaver 
Jenny Lovell 

In Perth, check out Glenn Hall !

Improv is where the great lessons, techniques and mantras like ‘yes and’ come from! 

There’s plenty more to be had. As soon as you can, do it. Ready?