Back to Full-time in the Office

September 19, 2024

The announcement by Amazon this week requiring employees to return to work in the office five days a week is perhaps an indication that there truly are more benefits to working in person rather than remotely. Though some may disagree, it seems it depends on the type of work being done rather than just the organization.  

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy’s memo to employees stated the reason for this change is to “further strengthen our culture and teams.” Jassy has been with the company for the past 27 years.

“. . . . the biggest reason I’m still here is our culture,” Jassy wrote. “Being so customer focused is an inspiring part of it, but it’s also the people we work with, the way we collaborate and invent when we’re at our best, our long-term perspective, the ownership I’ve always felt at every level I’ve worked, the speed with which we make decisions and move, and the lack of bureaucracy and politics.”

Jassy wrote that they need to have the right organizational structure to drive the level of ownership and speed, and they want to be “set up to invent, collaborate, and be connected enough to each other (and our culture)” to deliver best for customers and the business.

“. . . we’ve observed that it’s easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture; collaborating, brainstorming, and inventing are simpler and more effective; teaching and learning from one another are more seamless; and, teams tend to be better connected to one another.”

Many companies with in-office mandates claim benefits such as better collaboration and communication, a strengthening of their culture, and other elements that are difficult to measure.

I’ve long advocated in my work as a leadership coach for in-person communication and collaboration because it is simply harder to do remotely.  I believe there is no better way to build trust and rapport than by being in the same room together, and this obviously impacts overall productivity.

On the other hand, a new study found that a hybrid schedule of working from home two days a week does not damage performance. Resignations fell by 33% with workers who moved from working full-time in the office to a hybrid model. According to the study, women, individual contributors, and employees with longer commutes were the least likely to quit their jobs when they worked a hybrid model.

“Hybrid work is a win-win-win for employee productivity, performance, and retention,” said Stanford University professor Nicholas Bloom, who was one of the researchers on the study.

So perhaps fulltime versus hybrid really depends on a variety of factors and a one-size fits all approach may not be desirable or effective. For example, individual contributors who don’t participate in collaborating, brainstorming and inventing may not be more effective in the office fulltime. In fact, for some, it may lower their productivity.

This reminds me of a young man I know who interned at a high-tech company that required him to move to another city and come into the office each day. After two months of doing so, he explained that it felt ridiculous as he spent most of his time working alone, and when he did interact with others and received mentoring, it was via Zoom because his co-workers were working remotely.

Ultimately, every organization needs to determine the best way forward on remote work. It’s certainly worth keeping in mind that many individuals may be more effective and less likely to resign if they are given further freedom to work remotely at least part of the time.

Remote Work and Leadership

June 25, 2024

The debate over remote work continues because for some it is a net positive while for others it is not. Many employees reportedly love the flexibility and freedom while managers dislike the lack of control and oversight. But how does remote work impact overall leadership?

According to a U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics finding in February 2024, seventy-seven percent of people do not telework at all. Twelve percent of people teleworked some hours and only 11 percent worked from home every day.

A lot of the research on remote work has been done on sales positions, call center representatives and software engineers because it can be easier to measure their productivity. Yet this can be much more difficult to quantify in other occupations.

Measuring overall productivity requires looking beyond those of individual contributors because so much of workplace success is about collaboration, influence, relationship building, and other aspects involved in leadership. And, although those who sell remote working tools and technologies would love to argue that these things are possible, the data has yet to bear this out.

As outlined in a recent Wall Street Journal article, remote workers are missing out on mentorship and promotions. While this is not necessarily the case for those working a hybrid model, fully remote workers are at a clear disadvantage when it comes to career advancement opportunities.  This especially impacts women, who choose to work remotely at higher rates than men.

It may come down to the individual’s age as those who are earlier in their careers can benefit most from more time in the workplace while those who are more established won’t benefit as much. Unfortunately, it is young people who most desire to work remotely.

There is a great deal of teaching and learning that occurs more frequently when we are together in the same physical place. People early in their careers need to be in the workplace to receive this mentorship and those who are more established in their careers may need to be there to deliver it.

And in-person interactions make a difference when it comes to professional relationships that can help or hinder advancement opportunities. This is because so much of working together well has to do with respect, trust, and other “soft skills” that are far more difficult to demonstrate in a virtual environment.

“One of the things that’s pretty interesting is that we find that even when you’re in a building with colleagues who are not on your team, we still find a bump in the mentorship and the feedback that one gets,” according to Natalia Emanuel, a labor economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. “And it’s not from your teammates, then, of course. It’s from the non-teammates. But there still is an element of enhanced mentorship, feedback, collaboration simply by being around people.”

Ultimately, as a leader you need to mentor and grow your direct reports so they can become leaders themselves. As an employee early in your career, you need to seek out mentorship and learning opportunities from more senior colleagues. And doing this in person is much easier than remotely.

While remote work and the hybrid model are likely to remain, it’s important for leaders as well as aspiring leaders to recognize the challenges of being fully remote. To mentor others or to learn from others in a remote environment requires much more intention on both sides and, whenever possible, find ways to come together in person and make the most of these interactions.

Really Knowing Others at Work

February 27, 2024

The ability to deeply see other people is important to develop and sustain relationships. This is beneficial in your personal life in order to live a long and happy one, but it is also important in the workplace if you want to successfully collaborate and lead others.

A vast amount of research has determined that the secret to a long, healthy, and happy life has to do with the quality of our relationships. This has been found to be more important than diet, exercise, genetics, wealth, education, and other factors.

Perhaps most famously, the Grant Study—a longitudinal study begun in 1938 that followed 268 Harvard sophomores—found that close relationships and social connections are crucial for our well-being as we age. That’s because supportive relationships help us cope with stress and protects our overall health. This finding proved true across the board not only among men in the Harvard study, but also participants studied from the inner-city.

In the workplace we may diminish the importance of how we relate to each other. Some may think it should only be about the work and that if we simply focus on the task at hand, the messiness of people won’t complicate matters. The problem with this perspective is that we are all emotional human beings and cannot simply show up as logic-minded, “Spock-like” characters in the workplace.

David Brooks, author of How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen, says this ability to really know another person is all too rare.

“There is one skill that lies at the heart of any healthy person, family, school, community organization, or society,” writes Brooks. “The ability to see someone else deeply and make them feel seen—to accurately know another person, to let them feel valued, heard, and understood.”

Brooks goes on to describe some people as Diminishers, who make others feel small and unseen; things to be used, not as persons to be befriended. Diminishers use stereotypes and ignore other people because they are so involved with themselves. Qualities of these Diminishers include egotism, anxiety, objectivism, and a static mindset.

On the other hand, Brooks highlights Illuminators as those with a persistent curiosity about others, knowing what to look for and how to ask the right questions at the right time. “They shine the brightness of their care on people and make them feel bigger, deeper, respected, lit up.” The qualities of Illuminators include tenderness, receptivity, active curiosity, affection, and generosity.

Do you recognize Diminishers or Illuminators in your workplace? If you’re fortunate, you work for an Illuminator who really sees you and supports your growth. They are the ones you should strive to work for and follow.

Diminishers are those who may be holding you back from being your best self at work. They are more interested in themselves than those around them. These people may be in leadership positions, but they are not true leaders. You should shun Diminishers whenever possible.

What about you? Do you show up in work relationships in a curious, attentive, and empathetic manner or do you show up in a manner that is more transactional, competitive, and self-focused?

True collaboration and teamwork require more of the Illuminator qualities. And leaders who embrace these qualities are more likely to build solid teams and organizations that are based on psychological safety, trust, rapport, and productivity.

Until artificial intelligence replaces us in the workplace, we will need to get along by recognizing our own emotions and those of the people we interact with. This requires elements of emotional intelligence to really know others in a way that helps them feel seen and to help others to really see ourselves. Seek to be an Illuminator in all your relationships so that you live a long and happy life, and you are more effective in the workplace.

United We Stand . . . And Kneel

September 29, 2017

There is a lot dividing us these days. Whether it’s on the national political stage or in our own local workplace, we should be wary of the wedge that seeks to separate us.

On the national level are huge issues such as health care and race relations that require thoughtful and deliberate attention with respectful communication and solution-seeking collaboration. One side will not convince the other that they are wrong. But if people on both sides—our representatives in government as well as concerned citizens—are open-minded and listen respectfully to each other, there is room for us to unite around where we agree. And that is the beginning of the compromise necessary to find sustainable solutions.

President Trump says his opposition to NFL players taking a knee has “nothing to do with race” but has to do with “respect for our country and respect for our flag.” San Francisco 49ers Eric Reid writes that the protests he and Colin Kaepernick began by taking a knee have nothing to do with the flag and that it was meant to be a respectful gesture to protest police brutality against people of color. Can we be respectful of both perspectives?

Is it possible to raise awareness with regard to racial injustice without disrespecting the flag? Is it possible to take a knee during the national anthem without having it perceived as disrespecting the flag? This requires thoughtful discussion rather than dismissiveness.

We live at a time when politicians, pundits and Russian hackers via social media bots are deliberately trying to drive a wedge between Americans to keep us from having meaningful and productive discussions. Although this has been effective in the short-term at dividing us, this is counter-productive and needs to cease in order for us to move forward.

In the workplace, far too many organizations have encouraged or ineffectively discouraged the silo mentality that so often pits one person or workgroup against another. The lack of an “organization-wide team” mentality means the competitive spirit that is so important in beating external competitors is spent internally on pitting employees against each other.

We see this in hiring and promoting practices where the policy looks equitable on the surface, yet employees know many examples of people who are hired or promoted into senior positions without necessarily playing by the rules or demonstrating integrity. We also see it when one leader is rewarded for getting results despite the negative impact he or she has had on other leaders and their teams.

To suggest we need to always find consensus and conduct business in a way that doesn’t end in disagreements and disappointments is unrealistic. Business has winners and losers. What’s important is that we find respectful ways to really hear each other in service of the best solutions—not only those from the most dominant voices.

If NFL players can spend 60 minutes hitting and tackling each other, and then at the conclusion of the game give each other a handshake or hug, I think we can learn something from them. This is called good sportsmanship. It’s something we teach our children to demonstrate at soccer games, so why don’t we as adults abide by this in the workplace?

This means attacking the problem and not the people. When there is disagreement on the best approach for solving a problem, don’t look to criticize those people with alternative plans. Instead, seek to fully understand and evaluate their position before presenting your own.

Seek first to understand and then to be understood, wrote Stephen R. Covey in his classic best-selling book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. This is not meant only for senior executives, but for personal leadership at every level in the organization. Only when you are able to fully understand another’s perspective can you hope to engage in an effective conversation.

So much misunderstanding stems from our making false assumptions and being defensive or intolerant. These prevent us from being able to actively listen to each other in order to fully understand the other’s perspective.

“The purist form of listening is to listen without memory or desire,” wrote psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion. When you listen with memory, you have an old agenda. And when you listen with desire, you have a new agenda that you’re going to plug into the other person. Neither is effective to fully understand and appreciate the speaker’s perspective.

In order for us to be more united whether on a national level or in the workplace, will require us to truly engaging with each other in a respectful manner. This means seeking to understand before being understood. It requires the empathy to truly place yourself in the other person’s shoes before rejecting their perspective. It means monitoring your assumptions, defensiveness and intolerance.

United we will stand, divided we will fall.

One Boomer’s Advice to Millennials

April 7, 2017

With the Millennial Generation now representing nearly 45% of the U.S. workforce, it’s clear we are experiencing a huge cultural shift. And while these younger workers may report to other Millennials, Generation Xers or Baby Boomers, there are certain protocols they should consider as they navigate their careers.

The Baby Boomer generation was largely responsible for launching the technological age we now take for granted. This required that Boomers continually adapted to change in order to stay relevant as the workplace became more technologically mechanized.

Millennials, on the other hand, don’t know life without computers and the Internet. But that doesn’t mean they don’t also need to continually adapt to change. In fact, it may be that their generation has experienced and will continue to experience more and more rapid change than those who preceded them.

Adapting to change should ultimately be seen as a way of being. This is not only true with regard to technological skills, but also business processes and the skills of interpersonal relationships, leadership development, and other soft skills. Lifelong learning requires maintaining curiosity and a beginner’s mind.

With that, I offer a few thoughts on what may be helpful to Millennials as they navigate the workplace not only with outgoing Baby Boomers, but also Generation Xers and their fellow Millennials.

Communication

Communicating effectively requires choosing the appropriate medium and using the correct message. Don’t assume that an emoji-ridden text message will be appropriate when in fact a face-to-face conversation is necessary. And a true conversation requires listening as well as speaking. It demands your full attention to be most effective. While everyone lists “excellent communication skills” on the resume, very few people are truly excellent at it. Make it a practice to continually hone your ability to write, speak and listen effectively.

Collaboration

Unlike previous generations, Millennials have been taught from early on to work and learn in groups. Collaboration is especially valuable in today’s workplace because most of the work is completed by groups of people. These groups are also more diverse and your ability to get along with your coworkers will determine how effective the group is at accomplishing its goals. This will require shared respect, trust, and effective communication. Make it a practice to continually learn how to navigate these relationships effectively.

Accountability

The modern workplace requires more self-reliance and therefore it’s important for you to take responsibility for your career. Accept that no one is going to determine your success or failure more than you are. While you will likely always have a boss, it is up to you to determine the level of direction and support you need in order to succeed at what you do. You need to take responsibility for continually communicating this to your boss. And understand that though you may be used to and feel you require constant feedback for how you’re doing, that may not be a priority or general practice of your boss. Be accountable for what you need to do your job and to advance your career.

Finally, as I’ve learned in my nearly 40 years of work, it is vitally important to stay authentic and live your values. There may be a time when you will need to make a change because where you work or what you do comes in conflict with who you are. Life is short and therefore you should do whatever you need to do to align who you are with what you do. And remember: Love people and use things. Because the opposite never works.

Collaborator in Chief

November 11, 2016

The result of the recent presidential election means Donald Trump will become leader of the United States of America. However, I don’t recall him ever previously referred to as a business leader or any kind of leader for that matter.

While he is reportedly a successful businessman, he has absolutely no governing experience. Ironically, this was seen as an enormous strength rather than a weakness in this election. But business acumen doesn’t naturally translate into effective governing.

“Businesses tend to be dictatorships, where the edict of the CEO is carried out by an army of minions,” said Program Director A. G. Block of the University of California Center Sacramento. “Governance is a messy process where coalition-building is required and governors need to be good listeners willing to compromise. Goals also have social implications that business executives often do not consider when making business decisions. And their constituents in the business world—their stockholders—tend to be, for the most part, a homogenous group with one common goal: profits. As governor, the constituency is a varied mishmash with a variety of goals.”

The leader of the United States of America obviously cannot conduct himself like the CEO of a company. It is a unique leadership position that requires working collaboratively with others to protect and serve the citizens of the country. And our Founding Fathers ensured that the three branches of government provided the necessary checks and balances to keep a tyrant or dictator from taking over our democracy.

In a previous blog post I pointed out that Trump has demonstrated leadership qualities such as confidence, tenacity and negotiating skills. However, effective leaders also need to demonstrate integrity, humility, and the ability to inspire and motivate people. His performance in the presidential campaign provided few examples of integrity and humility.

His ability to inspire and motivate people certainly contributed to his success in bringing to the polls the disenfranchised voters who felt largely ignored by both parties. Yet it was his divisiveness that also brought out the worst in them rather than the best.

Though Trump can accomplish certain things without the help of Congress through Executive Actions, these can be easily overturned by his successor. This is exactly what he intends to do with many of President Obama’s Executive Actions. And this is no sustainable way to govern.

Important legislation can only be enacted with the help of Congress. And this requires collaboration. Though President Trump will have an easier time with an all-Republican Congress, he will no doubt face a great deal of opposition with many of the proposals he campaigned on from both Democrats and Republicans.

To be a successful President, he will need to collaborate with others rather than try to command and control them. He will need to learn the ability to compromise: to give a little in order to gain a little. Now that we are politically more divided as a country than ever before, this requires even greater collaboration skills.

It comes down to taking into account the importance of the tasks equally with the relationships. No one person in Washington will be able to accomplish big things without strong alliances with willing participants. And this requires the ability to collaborate successfully.

In their book Collaborative Leadership: How to succeed in an interconnected world, David Archer and Alex Cameron identified 10 key lessons for a successful collaborative leader.

1. Find the personal motive for collaborating
2. Find ways of simplifying complex situations for your people
3. Prepare for how you are going to handle conflict well in advance
4. Recognize that there are some people or organizations you just can’t partner with
5. Have the courage to act for the long term
6. Actively manage the tension between focusing on delivery and on building relationships
7. Invest in strong personal relationships at all levels
8. Inject energy, passion and drive into your leadership style
9. Have the confidence to share the credit generously
10. Continually develop your interpersonal skills, in particular: empathy, patience, tenacity, holding difficult conversations, and coalition building.

These lessons are just as important in running a country as they are in running a business. Reading over this list, I can’t help but think that many of these lessons do not necessarily come to mind with regard to Trump’s reputation as a businessman. If Donald Trump hopes to make progress on his campaign promises, he will need to find a way to collaborate effectively with the House and Senate.

Finally, leadership is not something one can be appointed to or elected to as it is something to be earned. True leaders are those who gain respect through their overall effectiveness combined with the way they lead their people. It is certainly about getting results, but it is also about the relationships that are inherently necessary in reaching those results. And those relationships require effective collaboration.

Telecommuting: When Does it Make Sense?

March 15, 2013

Yahoo’s chief executive Marissa Mayer recently declared that her company’s employees may no longer work from home and this has created quite a stir—both inside and outside of the company.

Telecommuting offers many benefits as it removes wasted time travelling back and forth to the job; it provides employees the flexibility to balance work and family around the individual’s schedule; and because there may be fewer interruptions than in the workplace, it allows for more focused attention that can lead to increased productivity.

Telecommuting also raises employee engagement. The more flexibility workers have, the higher their job satisfaction and the less likely they are to leave the company.

Research has found that they also work harder. A 2010 Brigham Young University study found that office employees work only 38 hours a week before they feel as if they’re neglecting their home lives. People who work from home put in up to 57 hours before they feel stretched too thin.

Nearly 15,000 Yahoos currently enjoy the freedom to do their jobs from home. And according to the independent employment research firm Telework Research Network, 20 million to 30 million Americans currently work from home at least once a week.

So what do we know about these telecommuters? According to the above study updated in 2011, the typical telecommuter is 49 years old, college educated, a salaried non-union employee in a management or professional role, earns $58,000 a year, and works for a company with more than 100 employees.

If all the potential telecommuters worked from home just half the time, the national savings would total over $700 billion a year including:

  • The typical business would save $11,000 per person per year
  • Telecommuters would save between $2,000 and $7,000 a year
  • The oil savings would equate to over 37% of our Persian Gulf imports
  • Greenhouse gas reduction would be the equivalent of taking the entire New York State workforce permanently off the road

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the entire five-year cost of implementing telework throughout government ($30 million) would be less than a third of the cost of lost productivity from a single day shutdown of federal offices in Washington DC due to snow ($100 million).

So why can’t telecommuting continue at Yahoo? The answer could be manifold and surely includes Mayer’s need to reboot the company culture, cut deadwood and discipline the slackers who have taken advantage of the work at home policy.

Mayer was one of Google’s first 20 employees where data is used to measure just about everything, including people analytics. Now that Mayer is running Yahoo, she may be trying to instill this data-driven methodology to increase productivity, even if it means upsetting the company culture to do so.

While Google generates a whopping $931,657 in revenue per worker, Yahoo generates just $344,758. And Google actually encourages their employees to work in the office because, among other things, they say it generates a more collaborative atmosphere.

High technology companies have long been on the leading edge not only in products and services, but also in flexible work hours and employee benefits. Instilling the Results Only Work Ethic or ROWE model, for example, makes it easy to justify employees working whenever and from wherever they choose.

But there is something to be said for people working in the same physical space where serendipitous interactions can help stir creativity and innovation like nothing else. Bell Labs long ago designed their campuses around the management philosophy that innovation happens when you force smart people to collaborate in person where they can constantly bounce creative ideas off each other.

So how do you enable the benefits of telecommuting while retaining those of working in the office?

A Rational Telecommuting Policy would include:

  • Identify which jobs lend themselves to telecommuting. Those who work in the fast food industry certainly can’t telecommute. However, those who work in certain types of sales and customer service who need only a computer with a telephone certainly could.
  • Determine how to track and measure performance. Like any job, we should measure employee effectiveness in ways beyond how often they sit in an office cubicle and stare at a computer screen. Data can’t measure everything, but it can certainly contribute to overall accountability. This should be monitored regularly to avoid problems.
  • Hold telecommuters responsible. Anyone who regularly works away from the office like outside sales people need to check in frequently to make themselves visible. Telecommuters need to do this as well and keep up with virtual communication so they remain top of mind to coworkers and supervisors.
  • Demand that telecommuters be in the office on a regular basis. This is important because of the necessity of building rapport and fostering trust that is so vital to effective team building as well as increase the opportunities for collaboration and serendipitous creativity to spur innovation. Maybe it’s two days a week or maybe one day every two weeks, but consistency is key so others can plan around it.

Telecommuting offers many benefits to individuals, their families, the organization, and the environment. It’s not going to go away and I suspect Yahoo’s Mayer will find a way to bring it back to certain employees.

In the end I believe companies need to give employees the flexibility to work away from the office, yet measure and hold them accountable for the work they need to do. At the same time, they should demand that these employees work in the office at least part of the time, because this strengthens teamwork and encourages collaboration. And that’s good for the organization.

Three Rules of Thumb for Connecting in the Virtual Workplace

April 27, 2012

[Guest Columnist: Today’s post is written by Kyle Lagunas, an HR analyst at Software Advice.]

The modern organization has changed—it is decentralized and increasingly virtual. For decades, “The HP Way,” which advocates “managing by walking around,” was a prime example of how to run an organization. But as the workforce continues to become more mobile, the constraints of a structured nine-to-five schedule are becoming a thing of the past.

Your employee handbook says you have an open door policy, but in an increasingly virtual workplace, employees are not seeking to enter a physical office. As such, most open door policies are more metaphorical.

Employees want to reach you via chat, email, and collaboration platforms. There are several ways even the busiest leaders can chat, check in, and connect with their workforce, though you may not be familiar or entirely comfortable with them. With the right tools and the right attitude, though, you can breathe new life into your open door policy—and strengthen your employee relations.

Talking to employees face-to-face is one thing, but when you’re connecting with them online, the rules are a bit different. “Team spirit and a sense of shared mission are easily lost,” warns David Freedman, technology columnist for the New York Times’ You’re the Boss blog. Rather than jumping in head first, there a few rules of thumb to consider when connecting online:

1. Relax Informal check-ins are more comfortable for employees. A casual hello-how-are-you can offer an excellent opportunity for leaders to coach employees and get valuable feedback from them. When communications from leadership are limited to formal, unidirectional messaging, there’s not going to be a whole lot of meaningful dialogue occurring.

Chat clients are a simple solution for quick communications with your team. Some of us are familiar with this media, but others might struggle with the conversational tone, lowercase letters and lack of punctuation. Keep things short and respond quickly. The point here is that you’re making yourself available and approachable.

 2. You don’t have to be a tech guru If you’re not super savvy when it comes to technology, don’t sweat it. Your organization may already have tools in place and you shouldn’t be afraid to try your hand at them. In fact, your leading by example can encourage employees to dig deeper into the technology your organization makes available to them.

“Whatever your style is as a leader, find the tool that you are most comfortable with, and then go with it,” says Lori Knowlton SVP of HR at HomeAway. The important thing is to find the tool that suits you and suits your company.

3. Onboard your team Rally your team to a common communications and collaboration platform, and make sure they use it. The more people you have using the same tool to communicate, the easier it is to connect with them. Over time, the value of everyone working together on one system will make it a critical part of their routine.

HomeAway finds social collaboration tools like Yammer to be incredibly useful for fostering personable communication and dynamic collaboration across the organization. “We’ve seen a tremendous adoption across the organization,” says Knowlton. The vibrant company culture at HomeAway is a major contributor to their steady growth and success, and the value of this degree of buy-in is self-evident.

Interacting Critical, Tools Helpful
Interaction with a good boss is critical to realizing your full potential as an employee. With the right tools, keeping tabs on your people and your organization can become a part of your regular workflow. Go forth and dabble in a few different products until you find the right one, keeping in mind that many tools are free at their most basic level.

Kyle Lagunas is an HR analyst at Software Advice who reports on trends and best practices in learning and talent management systems.

Educating to be Creative in the Workplace

April 18, 2012

Though my young children are years away from entering the workforce, I can’t help but be concerned with whether they will actually have the skills necessary to compete for jobs when they enter it.

These kids currently attend good public schools and are getting fine grades. But the knowledge they acquire there and in college may no longer be sufficient alone.

In a previous post, I described the challenges of thriving in the knowledge economy. Tony Wagner, education expert and author of “The Global Achievement Gap,” says there are three basic skills students need if they want to thrive in a knowledge economy: the ability to communicate effectively; the ability to collaborate; and the ability to do critical thinking and problem-solving.

Sir Ken Robinson, author of the book “Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative,” says that in addition to communication and collaboration, creativity is also greatly missing in education. I would offer that critical thinking and problem solving actually require a great deal of creativity.

While better communication skills and the ability to work together effectively are vitally important and also the primary focus of my consulting work, I believe this lack of creativity is what may be holding back not only our workers, but perhaps our entire country from fully competing in this new economy.

The U.S. education system—and those of most other countries—focus primarily on language (reading and writing), mathematics, and science. This begins in elementary school and continues well into college. But how well are educational institutions addressing the need for improved communication, collaboration and creativity?

The answer seems to be not very well. Organizations are continually trying to find qualified job candidates who can effectively communicate, work well with others, and innovate to meet competitive pressures.

Being able to communicate well involves not only being a competent speaker, listener, reader and writer, but also the ability to read nuances found in body language, eye contact, tone of voice, and other nonverbal signals. These are things not taught in schools, but they can be learned by most of us as we interact with others.

My elementary school children are regularly learning to collaborate in ways I never imagined back when I was a student. They no longer sit at individual desks, but instead sit at tables with three or more and work together in most of their subject areas. This early collaboration should serve them well when they enter the workforce.

With regard to creativity, however, this may be another matter altogether. The fact is our country provides very little funding to educate students in art, music, drama and dance, and we continually stifle children’s ability to express their own creativity in other ways. This can include how they express themselves in writing, how they determine the best approach to solving a math problem, and thinking of a new hypothesis for science.

Creativity ultimately requires a willingness to make mistakes and be wrong, which are the very things schools often discourage most. When the goal is primarily if not entirely to get each student to answer a test question correctly, this avenue to creativity is no longer of value.

Every year companies spend millions of dollars training employees to be more creative, but this has so far had little success. These very same employees were originally hired because they achieved academic success from institutions where this creativity was stifled.

Learning to be and remain creative requires a great deal of humility and willpower. One must have a thick skin in order to regularly make mistakes, look foolish, and still persevere. This is necessary in order to innovate and find creative solutions that will enable us to compete in the world economy.

Hiring managers would be wise to look beyond candidates with high academic achievements and relevant experience to ask them where they took a big risk and what they learned from the outcome. They should also try to tease out whether candidates are able to think outside the box and come up with novel solutions to problems.

And if the company wants workers to develop curiosity and imagination, then that company must accept that there will be missteps, mistakes, and bad decisions along the way. This is a part of learning and an essential part of being creative. Only then, through this trial and error process, can workers and companies embrace the benefits of creativity for problem solving and innovation.

Social Networks Bottom-line Benefits Require Employee Focus

January 12, 2011

Companies embracing social networks both internally and externally appear to be achieving bottom-line benefits, but this requires more than technology. It also means empowering employees at every level to make decisions and provide them with more flexibility in how to solve problems.

According to recent findings by McKinsey & Company, a new class of company is emerging that uses collaborative Web 2.0 technologies (wikis, blogs, social networks, mash-ups, etc.) intensively to connect the internal efforts of employees and extend an organization’s reach to customers, partners and suppliers.

The McKinsey worldwide survey of 3,249 executives across a range of regions, industries and functional areas found that two-thirds of respondents use Web 2.0 technologies in their organizations and the results are paying off. The survey asked respondents about their patterns of Web 2.0 use, the measurable business benefits they derived from it and the organizational impact of Web technologies.

More than two-thirds (69%) reported that their companies have gained measurable business benefits, including more innovative products and services, more effective marketing, better access to knowledge, lower cost of doing business, and higher revenues.

This is great news for businesses and their shareholders as well as the economy as a whole. The widespread use of Twitter and Facebook is beginning to look like more than a passing fad, but as a valid way to leverage business opportunities. Blogging can now be used to reach customers more directly and establish stronger relationships.

This is also good for a company’s ability to increase productivity, innovate more and increase employee engagement. According to the survey, the internal organizational impact included increased information sharing, less hierarchical information flows and collaboration across organizational silos.

Those businesses who embrace Web 2.0 technologies both internally and externally deploy talent more flexibly to deal with problems and allow employees lower in the corporate hierarchy to make decisions.

Implementing any new technology in an organization requires employee training to use it, but in the case of Web 2.0, there is also a need to alter corporate culture behaviorally. Just because there is a wiki, doesn’t mean people will contribute to it. Blogging without guidelines, support and incentives won’t necessarily lead to greater usage.

Social networking requires truly embracing the social to be successful and this may very well change the way employees interact inside the organization. Information won’t flow more freely because of technology alone. It also requires a cultural shift in the way employees interact with each other that is based upon mutual respect and trust.

Perhaps this is what separates the 3% of companies included in the McKinsey survey who are considered fully networked—those that have embraced Web 2.0 technologies both internally and externally. They are realizing the most benefits because they have focused their efforts on the cultural aspects as well as the technology.

To realize the bottom-line benefits of Web 2.0, organizations need to focus on the behavior accompanying it. This means empowering employees and giving them greater flexibility to do their jobs.

How is Web 2.0 technology being adopted in your company? Is it just the latest business strategy or is it fully embraced and supported with a focus on shifting the corporate culture so that it can be successful?

Thriving in the Knowledge Economy

November 30, 2010

The American K-12 public education system is failing to keep up with our counterparts around the world. There is much blame to pass around and despite governmental programs like “No Child Left Behind,” many challenges have yet to be addressed.

Recent documentary films such as “Waiting for Superman” and “Race to Nowhere” are helping to bring this concern front and center, but it may take no short of a revolution to change how we currently educate our children.

And if American-educated students fail to meet the grade, this likely means they will not have the knowledge and skills to compete for twenty-first-century jobs. This is a huge concern.

Tony Wagner, a Harvard-based education expert and author of “The Global Achievement Gap,” explains it this way. There are three basic skills students need if they want to thrive in a knowledge economy: the ability to do critical thinking and problem-solving; the ability to communicate effectively; and the ability to collaborate.

Wagner’s thesis revolves around “Seven Survival skills”—the core competencies he sees as necessary for success both in college and in the twenty-first-century workforce. These seven survival skills are:

  1. problem solving and critical thinking
  2. collaboration across networks
  3. adaptability
  4. initiative
  5. effective oral and written communication
  6. analyzing information
  7. developing curiosity and imagination

In this knowledge economy it should also be clear that organizations need to prepare existing workers to meet today’s challenges. Many have focused on recruiting workers with critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and these are the things many colleges and universities focus on in their curriculum.

But what about the other skills not easily measured with academic tests? These include such straight-forward things as the ability to collaborate and effectively communicate as well as the more esoteric “developing curiosity and imagination.” If these are also essential skills that will enable workers to succeed in the new economy, how can they be developed with current employees?

Many in today’s workforce not only need assistance in learning these skills, but the organizations they work for must also encourage their use. If a company truly wants their employees to collaborate more, they must encourage teams to work together more cooperatively rather than compete with each other for projects and promotions.

Excellent written and oral communication skills are so often requested by employers and documented on resumes by prospective employees that there should be no problem. But, of course, there is. Improving written communication skills beyond text messaging and cryptic tweeting will only continue to be of concern.

Organizations who truly want their workers to take initiative must back it up with incentives (financial and otherwise) to reward this behavior. How often is the phrase “it’s better to beg for forgiveness, than ask for permission” heard around your office?

And if the company wants a worker to develop his or her curiosity and imagination, then the company must accept that there will be missteps, mistakes, and bad decisions along the way. Individual and organizational learning is the likely output and encouraging it can lead to the innovative thinking necessary to compete.

To thrive in the knowledge economy, organizations must have workers capable of critical thinking and problem-solving. They must have employees who effectively communicate, collaborate across networks, analyze information and are adaptable. They also need each employee to take individual initiative and develop their curiosity and imagination.

As with any employee improvement strategy, this requires management to back up their words with deeds. This means providing the training, support, learning, and incentives that truly promote the development of all these essential skills.

How well do employees in your organization problem-solve, effectively communicate and collaborate? If not very well, are there programs in place to address them?