Bringing your whole self to work
One of the Gifts of COVID is pictured below (although it didn’t take COVID to encourage some companies to encourage dogs at work).
Have you noticed that, with WFH the norm, many of us have not just been able to dress down, do the laundry in between Zoom calls, and go out mid-afternoon with our (home-schooled) kids — but we’ve even involved our pets in our work life?
I’d suggest that, compared to pre-COVID times, we’ve seen a subtle but discernible shift away from the pure task focus of work. Despite the digital barriers, I see more emphasis on maintenance functions: both maintenance of social relations between people, and maintenance of people’s individuality.
In other words, people are encouraged to bring their ‘whole selves’ to work, whether that means human + dog, or not. Even in residential aged care, there’s a significant minority that now allows pets. For those of you hard-nosed enough to pooh-pooh the maintenance contribution that pets at work bring, ponder this: “Do people who can be themselves at work give more discretionary effort?”
Question: What are you doing to encourage your people to bring their ‘whole selves’ to work?
Telling truths
I was engaged by a client recently to identify their ‘critical values’. Why? Well, they have recently merged, and are expanding rapidly (20%+ growth per year), and want to cement the merger’s success (Recall that at least 70% of mergers don’t deliver expected outcomes).
And, what are ‘critical values’? We weren’t wanting to discuss what I call ‘hygiene values’: base-level behaviours like respect, or integrity, or collaboration. They already have good processes in place to weed out people who don’t exhibit those.
Rather, we were wanting to identify the smallest number of beliefs that, when shared, and visible as behaviours, will predict their future success (and continued growth).
After deconstructing past successes, doing deep dives with the board and executives, and asking all 1000+ staff, we arrived at just two:
Optimism: A belief in one’s agency that translates to very high personal accountability.
Radical honesty. A belief that any opinion is valid when it expresses the best interests of the customer.
The reason I like optimism + radical honesty as guiding lights are that, together, they cause this workplace’s culture to reject three infections:
a rejection of ordinariness (Just think, have you ever worked with ‘box tickers’ or bland functionaries?)
a rejection of avoidance (Have you ever wanted to contribute an idea, but haven’t spoken up?)
a rejection of dishonesty (Have you ever had colleagues who aren’t liars per se, but won’t challenge sacred cows, won’t express doubts openly, or won’t point out power imbalances?).
Question: What truths should you tell in your organisation? What ‘infections’ need to be rejected?
‘And’ not ‘or’
To govern is to choose. And, organisational strategic life is full of choices.
One type of strategic decision is in response to an ‘or’ question:
“Should we stay state-specific, or go national?”.
“Should we attract more younger people, or focus on everyone equally?”.
“Are we better off expanding those services with the biggest margins, or those with the greatest customer need?”
The other type is the ‘and’ question:
“Should we build hubs in our state, and also nationally?”.
“Should we focus on younger people, and continue to offer services to all?”
“How are we better off investing in profitable services and offering less profitable services in order to meet demand?”
Where I see this play out most often is with organisations that are specialists. An eye hospital wants to know whether they should see only the most specialised cases, or all eye issues (even those resolvable by non-specialists). A research institute wants to know whether to focus only on 3 big themes with greatest translational impact, at the expense of basic science discovery. A disability support agency is grappling with whether to specialise in a specific condition (say, quadriplegia) or work with all people who have had life-altering circumstances that affect physical functioning.
There is no ‘best choice’, but I always advocate working out whether we’re asking an ‘or’ question or an ‘and’ question. You know you should ask an ‘or’ question when the following conditions exist:
Your resources are nowhere near what’s needed for greatest impact.
There are other market participants well placed to meet needs.
Your capabilities are designed to fulfil a narrow value proposition.
By contrast, an ‘and’ question is often appropriate when:
You are well resourced, and/or you are the ‘gorilla in the room’
There are other capable participants, but you are wanting to dominate them, or acquire them
Your capabilities are generalisable (to other geographies, target audiences, or domains) and you have good ‘supply lines’
The point here is this: don’t mistake the two. Treating an ‘and’ situation as an ‘or’ question cuts off vast potential. Treating an ‘or’ situation as an ‘and’ can have you biting off more than you can chew and disappointing both customers and owners / investors.
Question: Are you ever in danger of mistaking an ‘or’ question for an ‘and’ question?
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Until we meet again next Friday, enjoy the company of a dog (or two), ask ‘and’ and ‘or’ questions well, and tell at least one radical truth.
See you next week,
Andrew
Radical honesty would be a challenge! I’d fear it would turn into the terrible social media culture of ‘blurt out your entitled opinion’. Maybe radical honesty delivered respectfully might work better?
And just like that you put my in my place. No more “ands” whilst we are under resourced”. And way more “or”.