It’s a COVID thing. Lockdowns are good for virus control but bad for social connection. As they lift, we seek the company of those within our circle of influence.
This is pretty clear in Microsoft’s annual Work Trends Index, which surveyed more than 31,000 employees across the world and based findings on 112 billion email interactions and 2.3 billion Microsoft Teams interactions. The index shows our “distant” networks, those outside of our immediate team, shrunk because of the pandemic. It also shows 65 per cent of us now crave more in-person contact. And then there’s the increasing risk of proximity bias.
Proximity bias is the tendency to give preferential treatment to those in our immediate vicinity. Take the following example. To whom would you be more likely to loan $100: your next-door neighbour or the neighbour down the street, assuming they have an equal need for the money?
Like most biases, proximity bias usually happens unconsciously. Imagine a workplace scenario where a simple issue, such as not being able to open a file, arises. Who are you most likely to ask for help: a colleague working at the desk opposite yours or a colleague working from home? The quicker of the two options, right? Over time, repeated interactions like this build a bond with those closer to us quicker than with those farther from us.
In-person contact can change the nature of the relationship with superiors. They might start inadvertently favouring those they’ve developed a connection with by virtue of proximity. Longer-term favouritism can break down trust and, unsurprisingly, create feelings of unfairness. In the workplace, employee morale, productivity, commitment, absenteeism and turnover are all impacted.
So, how do we protect ourselves from proximity bias? Education is a good place to start. Raising awareness of unconscious bias, reviewing team connection, and making a plan to connect with all employees are worth considering, too, if you’re in the workplace. Asking others what kind of conversations you have can reveal if you might be giving preferential treatment to some. It may be as simple as realising this is taking place and being mindful of the need to keep an eye on it.
Remembering to offer those farther from you opportunities to contribute or add more value could help. Intentional touch points are incredibly valuable in virtual environments.
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LinkedIn Sales Solutions on Unsplash.
I love meetings! Especially well-run meetings, and a recent article I found has some fantastic advice on how to ensure your meetings are actually productive. Elizabeth Doty writes in strategy+business (read it here) that most meetings fail for participants lacking a clear sense of why the meeting is necessary. The article is short and punchy, and well worth the few minutes it takes to read it, however following is a quick overview of the main points:
Implement these three simple things in your meetings and see the difference.
The Australia -wide 2020 QILT (Quality Indicators of Learning and Teaching) Student Experience Survey (SES) results place Avondale Business School as No. 4 in Australia! Avondale’s BBus is consistently among the top 10 universities and higher education providers that had courses in the ‘Business and management’ study area for ‘quality of teaching’, out of a possible 83 institutions.
This is a remarkable achievement given the size and resources available to the big universities compared to ABS.
The 2020 SES was collected across September and October from students currently enrolled at Avondale, and had a response rate of 54.6%, compared to a National Average response rate of just 39.7%.
The results from the SES show that from an overall undergraduate perspective that 83.1% of Avondale students were satisfied when compared to the national average of 73.5%.
These results highlight the professionalism and talent of the ABS team and reflects their interest, care and support for students. Unlike the big universities, ABS students are known by their name and not as a number and have ready access to staff.
Congratulations to the ABS team and students!
Leaders faced massive challenges adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic during 2020 (and beyond), requiring rapid, dramatic and at times traumatic change and decisions. Uncertainty and disruption became the everyday and many industries were facing scenarios they had never planned for.
A report by PWC asked thousands of CEOs from across the globe and industries to reflect on this and then look forward to what lies ahead. PWC conducted its 24th Annual Global CEO Survey in January and February this year and captures the lingering effects of the previous year.
The most important and encouraging finding is the vast majority of CEOs see improvement on the horizon and are confident that over the next 12 months things will get better, including improved growth.
On the other side, it is interesting but not surprising that the top-20 threats CEOs are facing have changed dramatically. The top two are now pandemics and other health concerns (previously not rated) and cyber threats (previously number four). Other threats previously not listed but that now loom large for businesses are supply chain disruption, readiness to respond to a crisis and declining employee wellbeing. Another threat that is now considered much more serious—moving from 20 to 10—is misinformation and its spread, which highlights the finding of other research that we are experiencing historically low levels of trust.
A number of interesting challenges arise from the attention of CEOs being drawn away from what were previously considered major threats in 2020 to even more pressing issues:
The events and responses to events like 2020 force us to focus on what is really important, both personally and professionally. The challenge for us now is to find a way to keep that focus on the important, embed the learnings and gains and avoid falling back into old habits and ways of leading and managing.
This is a wake-up call for all leaders. Let’s not fall asleep at the wheel again.
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Yanalya from www.freepik.com.
When leaders “very frequently” or “almost always” use the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership, 95.8 per cent of their direct reports are highly engaged. This is the claim (backed by solid evidence) authors James Kouzes and Barry Posner make in the sixth edition of their bestselling book The Leadership Challenge (John Wiley & Sons).
This book is a field guide for your leadership journey, written by authors who are responsible for some of the most read and recommended books on leadership and among the most respected leadership academics. Their qualitative and quantitative research is based on more than 400,000 surveys from across the globe every year.
Each chapter has action points at the end to ensure you know exactly what steps an exemplary leader would be taking. Thus it details the “Practices leaders use to transform values into actions, visions into realities, obstacles into innovations, separateness into solidarity, and risks into rewards.”
Kouzes and Posner ask of leaders at all levels and from across the world, “What did you do when you were at your personal best as a leader?”, to develop the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership. The practices are:
Kouzes and Posner aren’t bestselling authors for nothing. The Leadership Challenge is so simple but packed with so much depth. It’s logical and sequential—you can read from anywhere to get information on any topic or start at the beginning and work your way through.
Just beginning in leadership or want to fine tune your existing skills? This book is for you, with gems like the following flowing out of the pages: “The domain of leaders is the future. The work of leaders is change. The most significant contribution leaders can make is not to today’s bottom line; it is to the long-term development of people and institutions so they can adapt, change, prosper, and grow.”
I’m embarrassed I waited so long to own my own copy.
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Direct Media from StockSnap.
Being an old patriarch that I am, I have seen a few restructuring efforts in my time. A few of them actually achieved what they set out to do – but only very few. Why is this? And why do we keep trying and failing?
Recently we came across an article from UNSW that looks at this specific issue and offers some constructive advice (click here to read). Part of the problem identified in the article is that the people doing the designing are bringing their backgrounds and biases based on the old structure. Too often these flow into the design of the new, which misses the mark.
Outlined in the article are six steps to ensure your organisational redesign has a good chance of actually achieving its goal. The article is a short read but packed with plenty of good tips. Following is a point form summary of the six steps:
While this won’t necessarily guarantee success every time, it does at least offer a process that can improve the chances. Tuck this one away for the next time you are involved in an organisation restructure.
At different times throughout my career as an accountant there have been threats that the accountant of the future is a computer, and there will be no place for people in the finance department. With each new development in technology, these cries rise up again claiming it is “imminent” and I should start retraining now.
While it is true that technology is changing the way finance functions occurs, does it really mean the “death of the accountant”? Finally there has been a common-sense approach to this discussion with the release of the Deloitte report “The finance workforce in a digital world” (click here to read it), which acknowledges that while change is happening, it is :…not as quickly as we once thought”. There is no doubt that the technology that is coming will require new and new ways of working, but it’s still people who shape the outcome.
Looking to the future, the authors note that the key is to get the right team, that is, “align today’s finance talent to the promise of tomorrow’s technologies – while still maintaining a workforce that can fulfill all the company’s basic financial and regulatory requirements.” For the first time, I am seeing a change in the emphasis, and recognition that “… technology without talent can fail, but talent with leadership direction can overcome technology shortfalls", which is quite a shift from the previous thinking that technology would be the panacea for all things, and people would become irrelevant.
Providing some very practical advice for CFOs, the report suggests 8 actions that can blend the people and technology needs for the finance department:
Recognizing that the move to the digital world is happening slower than anticipated, there are five suggestions for CFOs who want to accelerate their readiness to operate in a digital world have a clear path forward:
This is a very important report for any CFO or executive responsible for the direction of the finance function of the organisation. It balances the needs of technology and people with a realistic assessment of where things are at, and the pace of change into the future.
I felt sick and tired of hearing all the bad news last year (remember 2020?). I’d reached saturation point and it was affecting my mental wellbeing. So, when I came across an article on the advantages of sharing good news, I was keen to explore it.
The article highlights how “constant exposure to negative news can have a heavy impact on our mental health” and how negative news stories can “significantly change an individual’s mood and mindset.”
One of the tips in the article is to use the opportunity presented by meetings as a forum for people to “stay connected to others, and good news sharing and discussion,” which can “help offset the stress and anxiety people are experiencing.”
The author of the article conducted an experiment during COVID to test the impact of good and bad news. The experiment proved leaders could boost employee morale and foster employee wellbeing with just minimal interventions. Based on this research, the author suggests leaders:
Leaders and managers who make the effort to implement strategies that encourage positive thinking are going a long way to help their team reduce anxiety and isolation.
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Photo by krakenimages on Unsplash.
Either through habit, impatience or necessity, organisations are calling their workers back into the office. For many whose roles permitted it, the work from home phase of life will soon end. The prospect of returning to the office for a regular working week is not a happy one and many are opting to negotiate a more flexible arrangement or even choosing to find employment elsewhere.
The speed with which organisations sent workers home and workers settled into a rhythm there seemed miraculous. Many people saw this as an opportunity and embraced it but others, who battled for space with children, flatmates or pets, not so much. An interesting study by McKinsey & Co found:
People reported they enjoyed being liberated from long commutes and had much more flexibility and balance in their lives. In the article “Death of the office,” Catherine Nixey notes prior to COVID-19 workers in offices often felt more unhealthy, experienced social inequality, had long wasted travel times, and experienced indifference to their individuality. In another article, Adam Bryant writes that since COVID-19 senior executives report enjoying flexible schedules because they give them time to reconnect with their spouses and children and a healthier lifestyle with more exercise.
But is there still a place for the office? With the introduction of a COVID-19 vaccine the risk of infection will be dramatically reduced and many people may want to return to the office. Nixey notes coming into the office allows us to put on a different persona from that of our life at home, potentially giving us more meaning and fulfillment. The office also provides social capital through the “chemistry of the unexpected” where those unplanned moments of collaboration occur at the water cooler or in the staff kitchen and where relationships with co-workers are developed.
The challenge for organisations is whether to insist everyone returns to the office or to allow flexibility. Both McKinsey and Bryant warn if organisations do not allow some degree of flexibility, they may find employees seeking organisations that do and thereby risk losing experienced and productive workers. Allowing flexibility will greatly increase the potential talent pool by removing the geographic restriction of having to live close enough to travel to the office every day. But organisations will also have to find ways to measure the effectiveness of employees by how much value they add rather than how many hours they work.
To state the obvious, we are now operating in different times and organisations have an opportunity to reset and reconstruct how they view the place of work. There is no one size fits all approach and organisations are going to have to offer some degree of choice to employees if they want to attract and retain top talent. No doubt we will eventually find a new equilibrium, but we can never go back to how it was—the people have tasted freedom and want more.
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Photo by Magnet.me on Unsplash.
Psychological Safety at work: Why you need it and how to foster it
Imagine coming to a work environment where you felt empowered to use your voice and unashamed of your own humanity. Empowered to challenge ideas, to voice your concerns, to ‘have a go’ and take reasonable risks, and to make genuine mistakes, all without fear of punishment or embarrassment for doing so. These are the characteristics of a psychologically safe workplace.
If I was to suggest one single concept as the undervalued secret to organizational success, it would be psychological safety. Not just another employee well-being fad, psychological safety has a real impact on your organization’s bottom line:
The research results are not surprising really. If you think about it, if people feel safe expressing themselves, there is more open dialogue, meaning ideas are honestly explored and improved upon. People will voice ideas they may otherwise have kept to themselves, and are able to try new things without being afraid to fail. Without the ability to try and fail, some potentially creative and useful concepts would never come to life.
Sounds good yes, but how do we get this psychological safety? There are some general concepts that will support the fostering of a psychologically safe environment (This article, along with the Gallup report will provide a more in-depth discussion if you want to read it):
Unfortunately it doesn’t happen overnight, but as leadership remains open and trust is built among individuals and teams on a daily basis, the environment you build will be so worth it.
