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Truly Radical!

Change is everywhere and whether from incoming governments or new management teams, one of the most ubiquitous refrains is:

‘We must be radical’

But what does radical really mean?

Let’s get to the root of this (ahem)

RadishesGetting to the root of a meaning in English, often takes us back to Latin.  This is no exception, and what we unearth is the Latin word ‘radix’.  Radix gives us ‘radical’ and also ‘radish’ the common, peppery and delicious root vegetable.  Radix means ‘root’.

Picture credit: La Grande Farmers’ Market

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A radical solution is one that takes us to the root of the problem, or back to basics, you might say.  So truly radical solutions should not involve an over-throw of what has gone before; they should build on the best of what already exists.

Appreciative Inquiry

Appreciative Inquiry, or AI as it is sometimes called, is formal methodology for discovering the best of what already exists, and using it as a basis for designing effective change.  It has powerful links with Positive Psychology and Positive Organisational Psychology, and and rejects the language of ‘problems’ in favour of ‘possibilities’ to be explored.

The AI process has four Steps.

Discovery

A systematic effort to discover the memories, stories and knowledge that captures the best of what an organisation has done and is doing.

DreamArticulate how an organisation could be at its very best, using pictures, narratives, quotes and statements.
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DesignWork together to figure out how to create your dream, by designing processes, collaborations and a culture that will bring it to life.

Destiny

Make things happen.  Invite others to follow, inspiring them with the dream and empowering them with the design.

While we wait

… for the Appreciative Inquiry Pocketbook, The Appreciative Inquiry Commons is the principal resource for information, ideas and tools for this extremely powerful change management technology.

Some Management Pocketbooks you might Enjoy

The Managing Change Pocketbook

The Strategy Pocketbook

The Diversity Pocketbook

The Improving Efficiency Pocketbook

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Theory X is dead: Long live Theory X

We don’t yet have a whole alphabet of management theories, but we are on our way.  It all started with Douglas McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y.  Then, towards the end of his life, McGregor added a Theory Z, which was revived some years later by William Ouchi, describing the adoption of Japanese ideas of management in the United States.

Here are simple caricatures of the three theories.

Theory X assumes …

‘I hate my work, I only do it for the money, i don’t want to think for myself, indeed, I’d rather just do as little as I can.’

So my boss will favour carrot and stick incentives, presuming I need to be compelled to do the job I’m paid for.

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Theory Y assumes …

‘I like to work, it’s part of my life, i want to do well, and I will work hard if given the responsibility and recognition I deserve.’

So my boss will give me the responsibility I earn and reward me with the recognition I deserve.

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Theory Z assumes …

‘I want a long term career, I want to believe in what I do, I need to be led with a clear sense of purpose.’

So my boss will work hard to convince me of the benefits of my endeavours and enrol me as a committed employee.

Ever since McGregor

Having got to the end of the alphabet, new theories have turned backwards.  There is a Theory W – in fact several versions.  There are also a Theory U and  Theory T (there is a rather nice paper on these ideas around Utopian and Tragic overlays to McGregor’s original work here.)

The point is that, ever since McGregor, once strong assumption has prevailed.  In our modern world, Theory X is dead.  Nobody wants to be managed by being told what to do.

This blog is not about Politics

I had the whole story clear in my mind, and then, as I started writing, I came to realise that some might recognise Theory X in present UK Government attitudes to welfare.  Let’s put that debate to one side.

This blog is about Management

Is there a role for Theory X in the modern workplace?  Of the hundreds of people I have discussed this with in seminars and training sessions, I have encountered nobody who professes to prefer Theory X management.  But my sample is biased.  I train leaders and managers, and mostly in white collar industries and services.

So how do people – perhaps literally ‘at the coal-face’ prefer to be managed?  The truthful answer is ’I don’t know.’ But what I do know is that all leadership theory is predicated on the simple assertion that leaders need followers.

The concept of ‘Situational Leadership’ presupposes that different people like to be led in different ways – at different times.  So how plausible is it that nobody prefers to be told what to do sometimes, and that we can never need a little bit of a push or pull to get us to really perform.

Theory X and Time Management

Time management is a favourite topic of mine.  I am fascinated by the different ways we can get things done.  When you have an important but un-pleasant and complex task, how do you ‘make yourself’ do it?  For many of us, the answer draws upon classic time management guidance:

  • set a deadline
  • promise yourself rewards
  • break the task into simple chunks
  • discipline yourself to do one at  time

Theory X, anyone?

So here’s the deal

Theory X is as useful a model of motivation as all of the others.  The secret is to apply it respectfully, and only when it suits the situation.

Management Pocketbooks you might enjoy

The Motivation PocketbookThe Motivation Pocketbook

The Time Management Pocketbook

The Influencing Pocketbook

The Working Relationships Pocketbook

The Workplace Politics Pocketbook

The Leadership Pocketbook

The People Manager’s Pocketbook

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Einstein, Model building and Simplification

It’s time to come clean: I started my career as a Theoretical Physicist.  And, for all the changes of direction in my life (I’m on the third at the moment), I always will consider that as the core of my identity.

So, not surprisingly, my hero is Albert Einstein.  A bit of a cliché, I know, but he did overthrow our entire perception of the universe and, in just one year, solved three of the biggest puzzles facing science at the start of the twentieth century. Incidentally, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for arguably the least well-known, most narrow of these (Brownian Motion) – the other two (Quantum Mechanics and Relativity) being seen as too radical.

Anyway, one of my favourite bloggers (Glen Alleman – Herding Cats – a serious and heavy project management blog) cited this quote of Einstein’s:

‘It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.’

Synchronicity or Coincidence?

This came a couple of days after a reader of this blog, Resli Costabell, suggested:

‘I’d love a blog about how to come up with models.  I have all sorts of beliefs and insights and techniques, but I’m not great at translating those into nice simple models that people can mentally grab onto.’

A Blog about how to come up with models …  No

My problem is how to fit such a big topic into one blog – especially as I wittered on for three paragraphs about Einstein.  So this will be the first of a series of blogs, with other topics in between, so it doesn’t get too geeky.

Classification of Models

To help us in discovering how to create a model, I think it’s helpful to start by classifying models – a model of models, if you like.  There are many ways we can do this and, as you’d expect, a model or two might be called for!

So this first model is a model of the different purposes for which models are created and used.  There are three principal* purposes for a model.

  1. Explanation
    Models of ‘what is’ address our need for understanding
  2. Prediction
    Models of ‘what will happen’ address our need for certainty
  3. Process
    Models of ‘how to’ address our need for control

ModelTypesVennWe can illustrate these with a Venn Diagram – overlapping circles.  This makes our model less rigid, by accepting that a model can simultaneously fulfil two – or even all three – of these purposes.

We could plot each model that we have into one of the three circles and, if it fulfils two or more criteria, it will sit in an overlap.

What Mathematicians Know

What mathematicians know is that a model that does not fulfil any of these purposes will sit in the area outside of all the circles.

* Remember the emphasis on the word principal above.  Is it conceivable that a model could fulfil a different purpose?  Yes, of course it is.  I can’t think of anything significant, so I have kept my model as simple as I can.  If you build a model too complex, it hard to apply.  If you build one that is too simple, it is useless.

The Art of model Building

… is to walk that fine line.  So I will give the last word to Albert Einstein again.  The quote at the top of this blog is often itself simplified to:

‘Everything should be made as simple as possible,
but no simpler.’

Ten Recent Pocketblogs about Models

  1. The CECA Loop
  2. Management and Leadership
  3. Spiral Dynamics
  4. Mehrabian and the Feedback Sandwich
  5. Equity Theory
  6. Social Networks
  7. Six Category Intervention Analysis
  8. Mediation
  9. Logical Levels of Change
  10. Thomas Kilmann Conflict Modes

Management Pocketbooks you might enjoy

As a lover of models, here are some of my favourite Management Pocketbooks:

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The World belongs to Unreasonable People

Kurt_Lewin‘There is nothing so practical as
a good theory’

So said psychologist Kurt Lewin, whose model of change is one of the most valuable resources that managers have [mental note – great blog topic].

But it is foolish to ‘swallow a model whole’, as Peter Honey points out in his foreword to the Management Models Pocketbook.

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Instead, Dr Honey gives the following prescription:

Take a model

Distil it into techniques you can use

Test the techniques in practice

Review and refine

Keep practicing until you become skilled

That’s a pretty good model (a free extra in a book with an advertised ten models!).  Peter, by the way, has a new website and blog, and his thoughts are always worth reading.

The CECA Loop

The third and fourth steps of what I will now call the The Honey Model-users Model are about validating a model.  This is the purpose of a rather fine tool, developed by defence scientist, David Bryant: the CECA Loop.

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The CECA Loop starts with two models:

  • A conceptual model of how you want the world to be
  • A situational model of how the world really is

Critique

First, evaluate the extent to which the two models are consistent with one another.  They do not have to be the same – one is clearly the world as you would like it to be.

Explore

Seek out information that will allow you to evaluate your models.

Compare

Now assess the extent to which the two models are the same or different.  When you understand the gaps, you can …

Adapt

Finally you can change your world or change your behaviours or change the way you perceive your world, to move one of your models towards the other.

‘The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.‘
George Bernard Shaw
Irish dramatist & socialist (1856 – 1950)

So here’s the deal

Changing the world: how much more practical can a good theory get?

Some Management Pocketbooks you might Enjoy

The CECA Loop is Bryant’s modernisation of the OODA, which he believes is out-dated.  I believe that the two models can work well together, but let’s remember that both Bryant, and John Boyd, the developer of the OODA Loop, were both interested in the military context.

Their work has wider applications and, like Peter Honey, I believe that, as long as we properly attribute their ideas, we are free to adapt them to our own needs.

The Management Models Pocketbook has a chapter on Boyd’s OODA Loop.

You might also enjoy:

The Managing Change Pocketbook

The Creative Manager’s Pocketbook

The Learner’s Pocketbook

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National Stress Awareness Day

Today’s post comes to you from
Mary Richards, author of the Stress Pocketbook

12th Annual National Stress Awareness Day

National Stress Awareness DayTomorrow, Wednesday 3 November, is the 12th Annual National Stress Awareness Day. Organised by the Institute of Stress Management (ISMA) their website (www.isma.org.uk) contains a balance of practical approaches and chilling statistics. It’s worth taking a look at. There are some good tips and they give some sound advice.

Relax

But just to make sure that I don’t add to your stress levels today, I would prefer to leave the nitty gritty to the ISMA and choose instead to tell you a story. So relax for a moment, step down a gear; read, absorb and enjoy…

When I was about 7 years old, my grandfather took me for a walk. There was nothing unusual in this, we often went for walks. Sometimes we talked. Sometimes we walked in perfect silence, listening to the birds, feeling the winds, watching the clouds, sensing the life around us.

As we came to the edge of the village pond my grandfather stooped down and picked up a stone. ‘Here’ he said as he passed me the stone, ‘throw this into the water.’ Laughing, I threw the stone high in the air and watched as it dropped, squealed with delight as it hit the water and splashed us. I quickly bent to pick up another stone, but felt my grandfather’s hand on my shoulder.

‘Look’, he said, ‘see what the stone has done to the water. You felt the splashes, now see the ripples. Wait and watch. See how long they last. See how far and wide they spread.’

And so we stood and watched. And as we did, I heard him say ‘As you grow, remember that you are like a stone dropping into the pond of life. You will create a lot of splashes in your life, it is inevitable. But just as you are responsible for your own splashes, so you are responsible for the ripples that come from them and touch the lives of others. The splash that comes from anger will send anger out to others. The splash that comes from kindness will send kindness out to them. You always have a choice. The responsibility is yours. Remember this.’

And although in my early years, I often forgot, I find that I am increasingly reminded by some quiet inner voice, that whatever comes my way in life, I have a choice. I have a choice of how I see it, and how I respond to it. My choice can make life more difficult for myself and others, or my choice can make it easier. My choice is my responsibility.

Have a smooth day, and a stress-free week.

Management Pocketbooks you might enjoy

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Employees first: Customers second

Vineet Nayar has been on the radio a lot recently. He is the CEO of HCL Technologies and has, on the face of it, an odd philosophy for how he does business: Employees First: Customer Second.

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New Wisdom

This flies in the face of the conventional ‘customers first’ wisdom.  But it is not quite as counter-intuitive as it may seem.  You just need to follow the logic of the process.  Who looks after your customers?

Vineet Nayar’s Four Fundamental Questions

  1. Q: What is the core business we are in?
    A:  Creating value for our customers
  2. Q: Where is that value created?
    A:  At the interface between our employees and our customers
  3. Q: Who creates value?
    A:  Our employees
  4. Q: What is the business of managers and management?
    A:  Enthusing, encouraging and enabling employees to create value

When you invest the time and resources to ensure that your staff are committed and happy in their work, they will be naturally motivated to make your business succeed.  When you select the right people to put into the front-line and deal directly with your customers, then inevitably, they will take care of them.

The Secret of Customer Care

After all, there is no great secret to customer care: it simply requires that you care about your customer.  When you care about someone, you instinctively take care of them.

Corporate Kinetics

About twelve years ago, I participated in some research that ultimately led to what its authors hoped would be a ground breaking book: ‘The Power of Corporate Kinetics: Self-adapting, Self-renewing, Instant-action Enterprise’.  The thesis was simple; that the agility that companies would need to adapt and thrive in the third millennium could best be achieved when the people doing the work were given the authority to change how they do their work, to optimise efficiency, effectiveness and customer service.  It was illustrated with case studies drawn from the clients of my employer, Deloitte.

I don’t think it changed the world, nor even the way that many organisations go about improving themselves.  It should have, but I think two apparently contradictory things got in the way:

  1. first was a sense of ‘so what?’ The ideas did not seem surprising: they were perhaps, a little obvious.  Of course the people who do the work have the clearest view of what needs to change.
  2. second was a sense of ‘oh but…’ Giving real authority to the bottom of an organisational tree appears to rob everyone above of a big part of their role and, subconsciously, of their self esteem.

Empowerment is a hard discipline.  But it is certainly what Vineet Nayar is talking about.  And it also gives us another reason (see last week’s Pocketblog) why management is hard:  because, if you start to accept the logic of some of these ideas, you need to find a new model of management.

So here’s the Deal: A New Model of Management

In this new model, managers would act much more like facilitators than traditional instigators.  They would lend their commitment and authority to anyone coming forward with a good idea.  They would need to be able to encourage people to do so and to suppress a portion of their ‘I know best’ reflex so that they could balance a proper critical evaluation and a fair assessment of the opportunities.

Some Management Pocketbooks you might enjoy

Post Script

Coincidentally, a few days before this blog was scheduled to be posted, Strategy & Business, the magazine published an interview with Vineet Nayar, here.

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Why Modern Management is so Hard

Modern managers have it hard.  In ‘the good old days’ managers could expect to simply dictate targets, set tasks and instruct their staff.  What a wonderful world that must have been for managers!

Leadership and Politics

The New Machiavelli, by Jonathan Powell Jonathan Powell has recently added the fourth corner of pyramid of books about Tony Blair’s administration, following those of Blair himself, Mandelson and Campbell.  It received less coverage than the others but what struck me was that he has used Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’ as his framework.  So that’s the one I’ll be hoping for come the overflowing half-price offers at Christmas.  I’ve been fascinated by the Florentine since seeing him in a walk-on part in Marlowe’s ‘The Jew of Malta’ at the RSC.  (John Carlisle played him and Alun Armstrong the Jew, Barabus.  What a fabulous year that was at the RSC!)

The Prince

ThePrince It sent me scurrying to my well-thumbed Penguin edition which, even when I bought it over ten years ago was three times as expensive at a charity shop than the cover price; which appears to make scrappy paperbacks a good investment. (Scrappy now: not when it was published, I have to add, as Pearson are also publishing two of my books later this year!)

Three passages caught my attention.  Firstly, it seems that written leadership theory goes back not to Machiavelli at all, as I would have said yesterday, but to the Bible and Moses, which Signor M cites in discussing the role of fortune.

Second – and make of it what your political leanings will – Machiavelli takes sides on the current economic debate in the UK, saying that the Prince should inflict all injuries in one go, and confer benefits steadily. So, at last we see where George Osborne’s playbook comes from.

Okay Mike, stop digressing

Third, and most relevant, Machiavelli draws clear distinctions between leaders and managers that resonate through the modern leadership thinkers who influence business training and management schools today.

I don’t have the space to recount my favourite leadership models, but suffice to say; most of them emphasise that the role of a leader is not to manage: it is to lead.

Leaders Lead: Managers Manage

A smart leader lets their managers get on with the day-to-day running of the business, and that creates an easy division which is often represented in tables like this:

Managers_vs_Leaders

I am sure many trainers reading this blog have facilitated sessions that have ended up with very similar flip charts!  This comparison between leaders and managers was first made by Warren Bennis, in response to an HBR article by Abraham Zaleznik in 1977.

So why do Managers have it so hard?

If a smart leader lets their managers manage, then they only have one job to do: leadership.  But modern managers are constantly – and rightly – being reminded that our society demands leadership at every level.

Blame Douglas McGregor if you will.  His same Theory Y encouraged both managers to stop their easy command and control behaviours (of which Machiavelli would heartily have approved) and encouraged leadership thinkers like Bert Nanus and Warren Bennis to articulate a truly modern theory of leadership.

Leadership at every level and bringing the best out of every employee goes beyond indulging uppity managers in calling themselves leaders; it demands that all managers are leaders.

So here’s the deal

So there we have it:  Leaders lead but managers manage and lead.  No wonder so many people would rather be a leader than a manager – it’s any easier job!

Management Pocketbooks you might enjoy

If you are just a leader, you’ll want:

The Leadership PocketbookThe Leadership Pocketbook

The Motivation Pocketbook

The Empowerment Pocketbook

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If you are a manger, you may also want:

The Manager's PocketbookThe Manager’s Pocketbook

The People Manager’s Pocketbook

The Management Models Pocketbook
(which contains two of the very best models of leadership)

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Maslow on Steroids

Maslow

One of the best known, most widely used, and least researched models that managers are introduced to is ‘Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs’.

Maslow argued that our motivations and values change as our needs change.  Once a need is fulfilled, we turn our focus onto the next one, in a hierarchy from physiological needs for survival and shelter, up to higher needs that, arguably, drive those of us who have everything we ‘need’.

You can read all about Maslow’s Hierarchy in The Motivation Pocketbook.

Clare W Graves

Clare Graves was a student and near contemporary of Maslow, who wanted to produce a better model.  In doing so, he focused on different views of self actualisation and categorised a whole hierarchy of value systems.

His model, now formalised as ‘Spiral Dynamics’ sets out a series of value sets that mark out increasingly mature world views.  It takes Maslow’s model to a higher level of complexity.

Spiral Dynamics

These world views can be interpreted as personal value sets, or as group cultures.  They represent the different ways different people think about issues.  As we as individuals, organisations and societies progress up the spiral, we are coming to grips with more complex and sophisticated ways of seeing the world.

The Levels of Spiral Dynamics

In simple terms, the levels of the spiral are:

  • Beige: Need for personal survival – focus on the present
  • Purple: Need for group and family security
  • Red: Need for personal power and control
  • Blue: Need for stability, order and conformity
  • Orange: Need for autonomy and success – a capitalist paradigm
  • Green: Need for harmony, community and social cohesion
  • Yellow: Need for independence and personal responsibility
  • Turquoise: Need for global community and global survival

Spiral

The usual thing

Whilst Graves originated the thinking behind the model, it was formalised and given the name ‘Spiral Dynamics’ in the 1996 book Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership and Change by Don Beck and Chris Cowan.  As is often the way (for example, with Situational Leadership), the authors have developed the model in slightly different ways.  You can read about their interpretations at:

http://www.spiraldynamics.org/
… the website of Chris Cowan’s NVC Consulting, and

http://www.spiraldynamics.net/
… the website of Don Beck’s Spiral Dynamics Integral

So here’s the deal

Models are useful if they explain or predict aspects of the world.  Spiral Dynamics – in either interpretation – offers a way to understand people’s responses to situations and also the cultures of organisations and societies.  Culture clashes emerge when sub-groups are forced together, that have value sets at different levels in the spiral.

Management Pocketbooks you may enjoy

The Emotional Intelligence Pocketbook

The Working Relationships Pocketbook

The Workplace Politics Pocketbook

The Cross-cultural Business Pocketbook

The Diversity Pocketbook

The Managing Change Pocketbook

The Management Models Pocketbook

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Sandwich Anyone?

There are one or two topics that get trainers hot under the collar.  My own pet peeve has always been the abuse by so many trainers of Albert Mehrabian’s work.  If you don’t know it, it’s the 55% – 38% – 7% ratios for facial, tonal and verbal communication.

Mehrabian

Mehrabian_CreativityWorks3I wrote about this for Training Journal in July 2007 but frankly, the best way to learn what Mehrabian really means is to watch the wonderful three and a half minute video by Creativity Works on YouTube.

So with Mehrabian comprehensively dealt with …

The Myth of the Feedback Sandwich

The story goes like this:

If you want to give someone great feedback, first tell them the things they do well, then tell them what they need to do better, and then, to avoid them losing too much confidence; remind them of their successes.  Voila: the feedback sandwich’

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Picture By SweetOnVeg

The feedback sandwich was a popular staple of management training courses when I was on the receiving end, in the early 1990s.  It probably still is.

Round 2: The Feedback Sandwich is rubbish

Most trainers now, rightly, eschew the feedback sandwich.  The argument goes like this:

All it is, is sugaring the pill.  When you re-iterate the good stuff, they will forget the filling in the middle.  It’s easier to focus on the good stuff and, anyway, we always remember the start of something and the end – that’s what I say in my Presentation Skills training.

And that is all very credible – if a little bluntly expressed.  I think I remember hearing myself say that once upon a time.

Round 3: Rehabilitating the Sandwich

Let’s think about the psychology of good communication.  After all, that is a pre-requisite for good feedback.

Before you can get any complex message across, you have to build a measure of rapport.  When you tell me what I have done well, I will probably recognise some of it, feel pleased that you have too, and start to trust you a little bit.  I am listening now.

So, when you have told me all the good news, I am listening hard.  And, because I trust that you have observed my performance carefully, I will listen to what else you have to say.  Don’t squander that: give me an evidence-based assessment of what I need to do differently to raise my performance to a higher level.

That can be quite a draining process, when done well.  So I may need some help processing it.  So that I don’t feel knocked back and alone, end our conversation by reminding me that, no matter how critical you have had to be about some aspects of my performance, you will continue to support me.

There’s the sandwich.  But now, the last component is not sugaring the pill, but forming a base to go forward.  The top is a nice tasty bun with seeds.  The middle is filling and nutritious.  The base is firm and supports the rest.  It’s a burger; a feedback burger! *

4239047183_11c5ba5ceb_m[1] Picture By SweetOnVeg

So here’s the deal

  1. Don’t cite the 55-38-7 rule without reading my article, watching the video or researching Mehrabian’s work properly and
  2. When you give feedback, pay attention to the stages of your communication process, and the needs of the person you are supporting.

Management Pocketbooks you might enjoy

9781906610128 The Feedback Pocketbook

The Communicator’s Pocketbook

The Developing People Pocketbook

The People Manager’s Pocketbook

9781903776285The Performance Management Pocketbook

The Appraisals Pocketbook

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* Thank you to my friend, Leigh Grainger, for introducing me to the phrase ‘Feedback Burger’.

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The Prime Minister’s Salary and a Force for Change

If you are living in the UK and pay attention to the news, you won’t help but be aware of just how many public servants are paid more than the Prime Minister – 170 according to the Guardian and Telegraph.

Why does it matter?

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Photo credit: World Economic Forum

It isn’t what we get paid that matters

It clearly matters that public servants’ pay is set properly.  But why does the comparison with one post matter?  The answer seems to be that most of us are less concerned with how much we get paid, than we are with how our pay compares to that of the people around us.

If you work in an organisation, you and your colleagues are probably curious about what everyone earns.  And whilst you may be happy with your salary now; how would you feel if the colleague at the next work station doing the same job at the same level earns 5% more than you?

Enter John Stacy Adams

It was John Stacy Adams who first articulated a management theory of fairness.  He was an industrial psychologist at the General Electric Company when he published ‘Inequity in Social Exchange’.  This puts our feelings into a mathematical framework:

What matters are the comparisons between the outcomes we get (through reward such as pay) and the work we contribute.  For me, that ratio is: O/W.

The Comparison

What I will unconsciously do is compare my ratio (O/W) with your ratio, as I believe it to be, (O’/W’).  If I find that they are equal, I will be content.  If, however, your ratio is bigger than my ratio, I will be unhappy – I will perceive an ‘inequity’.

So do why we worry that 170 senior Civil Servants are overpaid?  It must be because there is an instinctive belief that they cannot possibly do that much more work than the Prime Minister.  Is this true?  My answer to that is: ‘I don’t know’.

Equity works both ways

It is also the case that if I perceive I am over-rewarded, then I will probably feel a sense of guilt.  Our innate need for fairness is what drives Adams’ ‘Equity Theory’.  He argued that where we feel a sense of inequity, we respond in a way that will, in our minds, remove the inequities.

An example, please, Mike…

Sam is a sales rep; her boss, Chris, is head of sales.  Chris regularly sniffs out the best sales leads from her team and then ‘poaches’ the client, to try to make the sale herself.  She also re-allocates her less promising leads to other sales reps, like Sam.  Sam is angry and wants to do something about this.  She is confident in her ability to close a sale and knows she is every bit as good as Chris – if not better.

So what’s going on with Sam and Chris?

Chris believes she is better than her team members.  She has the experience and the seniority.  Having worked hard to achieve it, she unconsciously (maybe consciously) thinks she deserves to get the best leads and pocket the big commissions.

Sam has worked hard to generate the leads.  She feels Chris is unfairly cherry-picking the best leads from Sam and her colleagues, getting the rewards of their work, for little input.

A Force for Change

When Sam and her colleagues feeel the  inequity is ‘too great’, they will be motivated to do something about it.  Whatever it is – maybe challenging Chris, or under-reporting their progress – Equity Theory predicts change.

Look out quangos!

Management Pocketbooks you might like

Adams’ Equity Theory is one of many theories and models of motivation in the Motivation Pocketbook, by Max Eggert.

9781870471602

You will also find a detailed analysis of two other powerful models of motivation in the Management Models Pocketbook,

… and a wealth of guidance on how to manage your staff, Chris, in the People Manager’s Pocketbook,

… and ideas for how to handle your boss, Sam, in the Managing Upwards Pocketbook,

… and tips on how to have that tough conversation, Chris and Sam, in the Tackling Difficult Conversations Pocketbook.

PS:

Yes, Max and I have spelt Stacy correctly – it’s Wikipedia and another famous business amd management website that have it wrong!

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