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Using the Right and Left Brain at Work

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Most organisations are designed to maximise the contribution of employees left brains to the pursuit of success. Targets are set, plans are laid, logic is deployed, progress is measured and accountability is maintained. Such ‘left brain’ activities fit nicely the milieu of meetings, time pressures, deadlines and procedures that form the social system of most organisations.

However most of us choose an employer based on ‘right brain’ criteria in pursuit of ‘right brain’ goals.

  • Will the work be fulfilling?
  • Will I part of a great team?
  • Will my efforts help to make the world a better place?
  • Will the job give me a lifestyle that works for me?

It is the ‘right brain’ that is the seat of creativity, imagination, innovation and passion. Unless we build a social system that feeds, stimulates and enables right brain contributions we should continue to expect as many as 1 in 4 of our employees to be looking to leave in the next 12 months, while 2 of the remaining three will be in survival (‘count the years, months and days until I retire’) mode.

Take a quick audit of your social system (meetings, processes and procedures) at work. How many opportunities in the average week are there for meaningful ‘right brain’ conversations that are likely to lead to the successful pursuit of right brain goals?

Of course it is easy for our left brains to rationalise away this paucity of ‘right brain’ opportunity in the name of efficiency and the pursuit of effectiveness. To overcome this tendency just remind your left brain of the critical importance of enabling good people to do great work, and of the need for frequent and regular innovation and renewal, if your organisation is to survive never mind thrive in the next few years.

You may find that it gives your right brain just enough time and space to do some big picture thinking.

Building the Social System for High Performance

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Whenever you see an organisation doing something consistently well, you can be sure that there is an effective social system behind it. The social system is made up of both a hard and a soft landscape. The hard landscape is that of meetings, information flows and decision making processes. The soft landscape is to do with behaviours, attitudes, values, respect and commitment.

Effective managers recognise their role in developing both the hard and soft landscapes of the social system – but recognise that it is the soft landscape – the way people and teams work together that really drives culture and performance.

When trying to initiate change, less effective managers work on the hard landscape. They change the organisational structure, replace key people or alter what is measured and rewarded. While such changes maybe necessary, they are NEVER sufficient.

It is the interactions between people that need to be changed, the information flows and the decision making processes. If people are not having the right discussions or behaving in ways that drive values and performance then the managers’ job is to influence them to adopt different ‘value creating’ behaviours.

In most cases this can be done using feedback. In other cases it may require more concerted efforts at coaching for the desired behaviours.

Recognising and shaping the behaviours that drive values and performance is the hallmark of an outstanding manager.

The social system changes and enables the organisation to perform consistently well because managers use mechanisms that ensure that the right conversations happen consistently and frequently. These conversations improve the quality of decision making and encourage behaviours in people’s every day work to accomplish the elusive goal of culture change.

Get rid of managers and we’ll all be happier

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This is the title of a provocative post over at Management Issues.

Rather than adding value to their organisations, two thirds of British managers actually create negative working climates that leave employees feeling resentful and frustrated.

Research by Hay Consultancy has shown that a fifth of UK workers are frustrated in their jobs, with rigid bureaucracy and poor management structures and systems hampering innovation and productivity.

Half of workers believed they did not have the authority to make decisions crucial to their jobs, with the same proportion complaining of being discouraged from participating in decisions that directly affected their work.

Managers were failing to design jobs in such a way as to capitalise on the talents of their workers, Hay also argued.

More than a third of the workers polled believed their job did not make best use of their skills and abilities.

The study of more than 3,100 leaders across 12 industries found that close to half of the managers were creating demotivating climates for employees, while a further 15 per cent generated only a neutral environment.

Good managers who really add value (in the eyes of their employers and their team members) are few and far between.  Just a quarter of managers were able to create a high-performance climate, according to employees, and only an additional fifth managed to generate a ‘moderately energising’ working atmosphere.

But while the findings do not surprise me the headline (Get rid of managers and we’ll all be happier) does.

Getting rid of managers is not the answer.  Managing their failure to perform is.  In my experience if we manage managers well – tackle management under performance – and make sure that they manage effectively using feedback, coaching and delegation it is possible to quickly build a management culture that promotes high performance.

The Motivation Problem

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One of my favourite films is Office Space. In this clip the job evaluation consultants ask ‘our hero’ Peter Gibbons to talk them through a normal day – and he does…

Enjoy!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-n0d54Nx5c]

If you haven’t seen the film you might like to ponder what the results of Peter’s honesty were!

Watch out for tomorrow’s post!

And if anyone asks you why you are watching videos on the company’s time tell them it is management development.

20 Fail Proof Ways to Expose a Lazy Employee

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20 Fail Proof Ways to Expose a Lazy Employee is an interesting blog post that contains some useful ideas and resources – but to my mind exemplifies much that is wrong with management today. The assumption is that the employees is ‘bad’ and has to be exposed, ‘put right’ or fired.

In the majority of such cases, in my experience, managers get the employees that they deserve. The behaviour of the employee is a direct reflection of the way that they are being managed. I would advise the manager to reflect on their own role in creating this problem employee.

‘Lazy’ is a label and labels rarely help. Managers must learn to notice the behaviours that they see that lead them to think that someone is lazy.

They should then give feedback about the behaviours (arriving late, leaving early, personal e-mails, staring out the window for hours) and the impact that the behaviours have. ie ‘When you arrive late, leave early, stare out the window and spend hours on your personal e-mails I get frustrated because I can’t help thinking that you could get more done. I worry that you might get a reputation for laziness and that you won’t do as well as you could in your work here. Is there anything you can differently to avoid these concerns?

Managers who know that they have a ‘disengaged’ employee must think about their own role in the employees lack of engagement. After all they are paid as a manager to ensure that people are productive! It is their problem – not the employees!

  • Have they got the employee in a role where they can use their strengths?
  • Have they clearly expressed the performance standards associated with the position in a way that the employee understands?
  • Have they given feedback about the behaviours that cause concern?
  • Have they offered to coach the employee in order to improve their performance?
  • Does the employee get appreciation and recognition when they do things well?
  • Only once all of these options have been explored should they consider the option of firing them.