realisedevelopment.net

Just another WordPress site

Anger and Decision Making

by

Imagine that there are two people. You have to choose one of them to make an important decision. The first is cool, calm and analytical. The second is red-faced, with a vein throbbing on the side of their neck, angry.

Who do you choose to make the decision? Of course its a no brainer. Cool calm and analytical right?

WRONG!

According to recent research

“angry subjects were better able to discriminate between strong and weak arguments than the ones who were not angry—suggesting that anger can transform even those people who are, by disposition, not very analytical into more careful thinkers”

Despite its reputation as a trigger for rash behaviour, anger seems to help people make better choices—even aiding those who are usually very poor at thinking rationally. This could be because angry people base their decisions on the cues that “really matter” rather than things that can be called irrelevant or a distraction.

So armed with this knowledge what is a good manager to do?

Well firstly I do not recommend that you go around making sure that everyone is good and mad before they decide whether to have tuna or cheese with their salad. No, save this knowledge for when a big decision has to be made.

Translate ‘anger’ into a ‘sense of urgency’. Make sure that people know that their decision will have consequences that matter – to them. Get the adrenaline flowing – this matters. Anger evolved as a physiological state designed to make us make things happen. And this is what good managers are all about. Making things happen – albeit through other people. Developing a culture that is characterised by a sense of urgency will help people to take more and better decisions.

But be careful. Although the researchers do not report on it, I am sure that while too much anger might not be an issue to a Neanderthal backed into a cave by a sabre toothed tiger – it would be an issue for a manager being asked about a slipped deadline by their boss. My guess is that you just need to ‘feel the edge’ to gain the benefit in your decision making at work.

So anger matters – and (at the right levels) it helps. It is a great motivator that can fuel good decision making and action. Anger and passion are just flip sides of the same coin. Just how much passion can your culture stand?

The Importance of Brand

by

2012logo.jpg

I was taught that your ‘brand’ is what your customers, employees and other stakeholders think of you. And if you are wise your ‘brand investments’ ensure that their ‘experiences of you’ mean that your brand (as it exists in their collective heads) is a strong one. Whatever a brand is, it is not a logo on a piece of corporate paper.

Over time, the experiences that we have of the 2012 Olympics will get to be associated with this logo. And when we see the logo those experiences will be re-kindled. Will the experiences be positive – excellence, community, potential, sportsmanship and passion; or negative – expensive, corporate, drugs cheats, marketing, spin, consumerism and so on.

When we see a new, expensive and very public brand like this it is easy to mock. But what kind of experiences can the 2012 organisers build around the logo that will really become the brand?

What experiences for stakeholders do you create around your brand?

Nadaday

by

Pascal Wyse has a column called Wyse Words in The Guardian Weekend Magazine. His word this week-end was ‘Nadaday‘.

“This appears to be a really dynamic working day – full of progress and Post-Its and high fives. But mysteriously, despite the blizzard of productivity, when you add it up, the net result is that you have achieved absolutely nothing. Had you stayed in the toilet all day, you would be in a better position.”

So how do you avoid having too many Nadadays?

If you are having too many – what should you do about it?

What if you simply have a Nadajob?

Nadadays happen when people work for ‘compensation’. When they sell their time and effort for a salary.

When people are working to create value, and make a difference to the world then Nadadays are rare. Unless we manage them poorly – fail to acknowledge and respect their motivation and treat them as just another of our wage slaves.

Unfortunately this happens a lot in even the most purpose led organisations – when we manage the system, the process and the outputs – forgetting that it is ALL ABOUT PEOPLE!

When I work with ‘purpose led’ organisations whether in the first, second or third sectors the biggest opportunity I see for performance improvement is for managers to talk more often with staff about why this work matters – to them. What is the difference that they are trying to make – and how can the organisation help them.

Once this type of conversation becomes routine, frequent and genuine then amazing things happen to culture and performance.

Mind the Gap

by

Mind The Gap

Had a great conversation this week with a good friend of mine, Andy Bagley from TEAL Consulting. Andy is quite a rare bird in that although his ‘bag’ is quality and excellence, balanced scorecard, lean thinking and all that stuff – HE REALLY GETS THE PEOPLE ISSUES! So many of those ‘quality’ people are just into the ‘system’ and miss the people and process issues entirely. That might be one reason why so many organisations with quality badges struggle to get much beyond mediocre!

Andy and I were talking about the danger of the gap between the rhetoric and the reality. We both consult in the social housing sector and were looking at how many housing organisations claim to be ‘customer focused’ but are actually focussed on getting 2/3 stars from the audit commission – quickly.

Now often times this can lead to them doing all sorts of the right things – but for the wrong reasons. They ‘do’ tenant involvement because that is what the audit commission want to see. And that is just not a good enough reason.

They take short-cuts to quality – making sure that systems and processes are in place before the next inspection.

But they avoid the real work of management and leadership which is about winning the hearts and minds of employees and customers.

About managing stakeholder expectations.

About tackling under performing staff, recruiting and retaining talent and letting go of those that still do not get the new world of social housing and communities.

There is no short cut to excellence. It will not come along conveniently to fit in with audit commission inspections.

It is a long but wonderful journey that takes passion, courage, commitment and above all believe that you are doing something that is worthwhile with your life. Doing the right things for the wrong reasons creates an integrity gap that just kills an organisation. Or at least turns it into ‘The Living Dead’.

Making Values Live

by

I helped to manage the production of a conference in Hull called Making Values Live – featuring the work of Mathew Smerdon and Geraldine Blake from Community Links. At the conference they provided an introduction to their report – Living Values: A report encouraging boldness in the third sector

The value-driven ethos of third-sector organisations is often cited as their distinguishing feature. But is this really the case?

The third sector has no monopoly on ‘values’. But are certain values more prevalent in the third sector than either the public or private sector? I have worked in all three sectors and from this personal experience – I doubt it.

Excellent organisations exist in all sectors. And excellent organisations always have strong values – a consistent set of values that runs through all of their work and helps to recruit, retain, and inspire talented people. The challenge is how to build an excellent passion and vision led organisation – regardless of its legal structure or the sectoral label it attracts.

The conference raised some further interesting questions – perhaps the main one for me being:

Is working explicitly with values worthwhile – or does it lead to hours of navel gazing with little real performance gain?

Can you work directly with something as abstract and ‘slippery’ as values?

How can you make the concepts involved more concrete and action oriented?

The best managers focus on working with behaviours, actions and results. Things that they can directly observe rather than infer. They then give affirmative feedback when these reinforce and express organisational values – or give adjusting feedback when they undermine them. This keeps the process of working with values very practical and action oriented.

In my experience though few managers give regular and rigorous feedback and many of those that do feel uncomfortable referring explicitly to values.