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”Ha! She can’t even speak properly…”

No, we do NOT think that about small children!

We cheer when they learn new skills: to talk, walk, sit still in class etc etc.

The brain’s millions of neural connections are developed at rocket speed when we are small, and the development does not stop just because we grow up. The brain transforms itself, develops new cells and both creates and shreds connections, as we learn new skills or make new experiences.

It IS possible to teach an old horse new tricks; we have the ability to change throughout life. But the conditions – including a strong motivation and a reasonably stress-free environment – has to be in place.

For the small child, the motivation to learn how to speak is evident and directly connected to survival. The goal is not to develop a large vocabulary and an error-free pronunciation. But babble and repeated sounds creates instant contact, over time a language evolves.

When we aim for personal development, regardless of whether we want to learn an actual skill or have a more personal wish for changes in behavior, it is crucial that we are motivated like the child: aiming for things we can do here and now – choices we can make, actions we can try.

But most importantly: we must believe change is possible! Problems with wellbeing, uncertainty in career choices, poor relationships, conflicts, lack of energy – with a focused effort things can be changed.

In our work life we are typically motivated by very high-level goals with no guidance in terms of actions to support their achievement. We can have goals for things such as revenue, a score in employee satisfaction surveys, conversion rates etc. For myself, I used to work in strategic sales: megadeals with big bets where a team could work a full year on a single sale. Our goals were the type: “Win profitable deals worth $200m each year”.  

Even if goals like these are easy to understand and measure, they are not helpful in personal development but frequently sneak in anyway, eg “Run a marathon”, “Lose 10 kg”, “Get promoted”.

What would be more helpful: ”Run 3 times a week”, “Choose a healthy lunch”, “Seek feedback regularly”.

Personal development and growth, including changes in habits and lifestyle, require us to acknowledge that our development never ends. That our intelligence and ability are not cast in stone, but something we can improve upon our entire life, evaluate and improve again.

Initial thoughts on where you want “to go” with your development, become very important – more important than the finishing line. It is one thing to want a promotion, but what does it take! Where are the actual areas that need to improve, and how to begin?

For me personally the transition from strategic sales to the work as business psychologist involved a massive change in mindset: from financial, win-or-lose goals to: identifying good focus areas and positions of strength, nudging things in a good direction.

With babysteps, loads and loads of trial actions and continuously renewed neural connections.

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Step into conflict

The sum total of all contentious topics, that SHOULD be brought to light but we steer around, could be called the conflict debt.

Overall, there will be more conflict – and less conflict debt – in teams with a high level of psychological safety. Psychological safety is the cultural foundation for saying what’s necessary without fear of retaliations from other members in the team.

Debt can come from “simple” conflicts, eg feedback to the colleague always speaking too loudly on the phone. Or more complicated problems: a meeting culture where the minds are elsewhere (next meeting, the mobile phone, the email needing an answer, …) Or, a tendency to talk about the problems with the wrong people, not the people they actually concern; we may not steer clear of the topic, but we avoid the opposition.

The opposition in a conflict is what feels like unpleasant friction. Friction occurs between people, not topics/areas/departments. Practice in stepping into conflict consists of habituation to the unpleasantness, very similar to the training you’ll be going through to overcome other avoidances or fear: exposure, exposure, exposure.

Constructive conflict habituation happens in a way where others are not harmed (of course!), and where the conflict is justified. The goal is to reduce conflict debt, NOT to turn the workplace into a battlefield.

As individuals, we can make an effort to improve culture in this important aspect. It’s good for the community, productivity and innovation, and our personal skills are strengthened.

Previously, I have suggested to question the foundation for statements presented as facts.

Here’s another exercise: explore an underexplored aspect.

Regardless of discussion topic, tunnel vision can develop, ie the tendency to see things from only one (typically, own) point of view. Suggest another angle, and try the discussion from there. Take your departure point in whatever you agree upon, but stretch agreement a little bit, eg: “Good plan. How do we also solve [….]”

Example: You agree to let job applicants know within two weeks, if they are invited to an interview. You say eg: ” That’s a good goal. How do we solve the situations where the time limit cannot be met?”

Or: Until now, your internal newsletter has been produced by each department taking turns, a practice you agree to change so marketing is the permanent writer. You say, eg: ”That simplifies the process a whole lot. How do we help marketing with information, so the newsletter remains interesting and relevant?”

Or: You agree, that the summer party should be planned by new hires. You say, eg: ” That’s a great way to get to know a lot of people. How do we handle the years where we have no new hires?”

As you internalize the structure – and keep focusing on the goal, which is to improve ideas, not kill them – it will be easier to step into, and remain in, conflict.

This exercise requires you to have a view of the missing perspective, and therefore it’s slightly more difficult than the previous one.

Structuring your training always drives the best result: you can practice in even-numbered weeks, or the first week of every month. Make a note of it!

Enjoy training 😊

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Post-its!

The tiny piece of paper with glue on one edge has been a part of the consulting toolbox for quite some time. Early on as an (overrated) gimmick, almost as if the use of postits in itself demonstrated meeting facilitation that was dynamic, engaging and creating results. A small colourful confirmation of the saying about consultants: hot air in a nice-looking wrapping.

Now, when I hand out piles of post-its to groups joining a workshop, I see the rolling of eyes with a few participants: “*sigh*, again?” But, after more than 30 years in the tech industry and with thousands (!) of meetings and workshops behind me, I STILL have not found a tool that beats the post-it note.

Group work is the favourite discipline of noone. Herarchies and asymmetrical power relations cannot be put aside, and in addition to those you can add personal tendencies to talk/listen too much/little. If everyone in the group shall contribute, then the framework and the tools must support it – it does not happen by itself.

I find it useful to divide group work into individual and common phases, and below I bring an example from a workshop on psychological safety. The task at hand is to improve psychological safety in the team’s weekly meeting.

After a brief plenary introduction to the topic itself and the group work process, the first phase is individual work – in silence and within a clearly defined timeframe. Individual work is great for generating statements for later common prioritization and discussion, and the format gives time and peace to think each for him/herself. The mission for this phase is to find factors that inhibit psychological safety in the weekly meeting, in practice: write one statement per post-it note illustrating inhibiting factors. As many postits as practically possible.

Then follows a short phase of common work: individual contributions are sorted and a vote is held: which are the most important to solve. The result after this phase is a number of statements, developed and selected by the entire group, not just the particularly well-spoken or senior in rank.

Then, back to individual work! This phase takes more time and generate a LOT of ideas on how to help remove the most important inhibiting factors. Each participant writes his/her own list, and the list should be TOO long, to a point where the ideas in reality become silly or meaningless – because it’s funny and you get to the actual end of your creativity. The phase is concluded with a few minutes where each participant selects the best ideas from own list – and write them on post-its.

Group work has now been going on for half an hour, and most of the time it’s been quiet.…….

The last phase is common work and involves a vote – the best ideas are selected – and then: discussion and further detailing. Group work as we know it! But on a more democratic foundation, and with documentation for the entire work process at hand.

Lots of postits have been used, and it is good for every participant to see the discarded – a bunch of ideas that were good, but just not good enough and the pile itself evidence of the group’s hard work – as well as the selected ones, with loads of voting dots!

Could other tools than post-its be used for this kind of work? For sure! I am aware that there are also digital platforms offering excellent post-it-like functionality. But the colourful scraps are wonderfully reliable; a low-tech tool that effectively builds abridge between individual reflection and joint solution development.

Read more about the workshop on psychological safety here.

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The most important colleague

There is no colleague we have greater expectations for – for better or worse – than our nearest leader. Measurements show that our relationship with our leader has four times the impact on our job satisfaction than the relationship with other colleagues. Leading human beings is a big responsibility, regardless of organizational level.

Changes in the leader’s role is much discussed and described: increased complexity and speed of change, hybrid work forms, generational differences, stress, expectations for involvement, etc. It makes sense to take an interest in leadership, and to develop the areas that need to be: employees with a low job satisfaction is twice as likely to change jobs, and has an average of 12 days more sick leave per annum.

But how to get started? And which areas to select for development?

GAIS is a tool to measure wellbeing and job satisfaction. The tool includes and option for in-depth measurements of employee’s experience of the most important aspects of leadership:

  • Involvement and freedom
  • Recognition and feedback
  • Meaning and direction
  • The leader as a role model

You can use the tool yourselves, and/or choose to get help from someone like me, also to decide how to move on when the results are in.

As inspiration, and introduction to the universe of research and technology in GAIS, you can download the report “Når Ledelse Skaber Arbejdslyst” (in Danish).

This post is not an advertisement, I am not affiliated with GAIS/Krifa and I paid for my own certification.

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Workshop planning

A workshop to have a leadership team of approx. 60 people identify the most important challenge to employees’ job satisfaction (and agree how to deal with it in practice!), requires a strictly timed process and a LOT of post-it notes 😊, all suitably unwrapped by yours truly to free up participant’s time. Looking forward to an afternoon filled with energy!

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Summer reading

Vacation is just around the corner, and the feed will now be flooded with pictures of planned summer readings. Piles of eminent management books, in English or American to get to the contents quickly.

No thanks. For me, vacation is part of my self-defense. I’m letting go of all feelings of guilt and obligation, not wanting to contribute to the self-destruction so applauded in our culture. A few weeks of unplugging and blissful relaxation is just what I need. My summer reading is just one book, and I’ve already read it many times. Still looking forward to hours in the proverbial hammock with this one, it’s almost like spending time with an old friend.

For years and years, my favorite novel was Gabriel García Márquez’ “A Hundred Years of Solitude”. I’ve read it countless times, its magical and exotic universe coupled with a complicated family legend – deservedly awarded the Nobel Prize. Since 2012 however, I’m having a new favourite: Kim Leine’s “The Prophets of Eternal Fjord”. I’m reading it in Danish to really indulge in every nuance of the story, but it’s available in many languages. The story is about Greenland’s movement to liberate from Danish colonialism, told from the viewpoint of a Danish priest and set in the late parts of the 1700’s. It is every bit as magical and amazing as the Márquez novel, a quiet, gripping story of Nordics and the Arctics.

Enjoy summer.

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Rewarding courage, not only compliance

Loads of research – prominently, the work of Amy Edmonson and her team – is bearing evidence to the importance of psychological safety. This important feature of a workplace is a prerequisite for innovation, team collaboration, quality work and a healthy workplace. It signifies a working environment where it is possible to state your opinion and talk about relevant ideas, where people feel free – or even compelled – to be open and honest.

The term “psychological safety” is becoming a term used almost as synonymous with trust, or with feeling personally confident to speak up. However, trust and confidence exist inside an individual person – psychological safety exists at the group or workplace level, and leadership’s efficiency in sustaining the conditions for psychological safety is crucial.

One example: encourage learning to avoid preventable mistakes, those that are due to lack of care and attention.  To “encourage” means to REWARD, not just refrain from shaming. People making preventable mistakes should not be praised for their inattention (obviously) but for their willingness to come forward and admitting the mistake, enabling a process improvement to make sure this does not happen again.

Another example: Intelligent mistakes, exploring new ground, fueled by a willingness to take risks and to experiment, should be straight-up rewarded, even if the desired results are not materializing. (And yes, results should be rewarded as well, that’s not the point).

Encouraging these behaviors will take a little bit of imagination but is totally doable. Modelling learning, asking for help as a leader, setting high standards and continuously talking about how to reach them, builds and sustains psychological safety where it belongs.

Psychological safety is not about being friendly all the time; it has nothing to do with being introvert or insecure, and it’s not about lowering the performance expectations. It is about removing the breaks that are holding people back.

Turning psychological safety into a matter of individual assertiveness bears resemblance to the way some companies deal with mental health and stress (“it’s personal”). But it’s not personal; sustaining psychological safety is a key requirement on contemporary leadership.