Today is Friday 13th! How many of you reading have already had something bad happen to them? How many of you have avoided black cats, not walked under ladders, greeted Magpies or any other such superstitious behaviours? Isn’t it odd, that in today’s society where we generally regard ourselves as scientifically and media savvy, critical and questioning, many of us still have superstitions. After all, many of us have come to accept Darwin’s theory of evolution even though it flew in the face of contemporary Christian belief at the time.
As a psychologist, I find this fascinating, and indeed, psychology and evolutionary psychology can offer us some of the answers as to why people believe irrational things that fly in the face of the scientific evidence that we have.
Let’s start with our evolution. Humans are sentient beings, and along side this comes an enquiring mind, and the wish to be able to explain the unexplainable. It’s these aspects to our make up that have resulted in the success of the human race, our ability to adapt to circumstance, work out the answers to problems and build the society that we value. Where explanations for events are less forthcoming we try to provide our own explanations to fill the “explanation vacuum”. Many of the world’s religions started out like this - we could not explain the weather, nor why the earth existed at all. We had a god for rain, and a god for sunshine and we believed that praying to either of these would help us to influence the weather. This leads us to our first psychological phenomenon - our wish to have influence on the world around us. In psychology we refer to an internal and external locus of control. Internal refers to when we feel we have control over something, and an external locus of control is when we have no control, i.e. the control is from an external source. Taking the weather, for example, we try to influence this by praying to an external locus of control, a weather god, in the hope that he or she will influence the weather for us in a favourable way.
Another theory in psychology that can be used to explain superstitions is that of attribution. Research has shown that if you believe that you have done something positive, you are likely to attribute it to your own skills. If somebody else does, you are likely to attribute it to something outside of their control, for example, the circumstance favoured them. Similarly, with superstitions about when something bad happens, we are unlikely to attribute it to ourselves, but we also wish to provide an answer - remember, we want to fill that “explanation vacuum”. So, we end up blaming it on other circumstances - the black cat that we saw that morning, or the day of the week, for example. So why is any of this relevant? Think about it. We live, at the moment, in very ambiguous times, and I’d venture that as a result of that we are likely to see more people turning to religion as a means of making sense of what is going on and gaining a sense of stability, as well as seeking explanations that could be deemed to be of a superstitious nature. Further, I’d suggest that if anything else happens in the global economy today, many people will put it down to the fact that it’s Friday the 13th.
Returning to work after a holiday can be tough. Most employees have experienced, in some way or another, a sense of uncertainty or apprehension at the thought of stepping back into the demanding, competitive world of work. Indeed, research tells us that the majority of employees feel sluggish in their return to work following holidays. Almost half of us think about looking for new employment during holidays, while even more of us feel unsettled and potentially disengaged from our work.
For some, the New Year brings a chance to explore new opportunities and set new resolutions for the future. For many of us, however, the New Year represents the middle of a long, dark winter. With the economic situation at its worst since the early 1990s and quite possibly the late 1970s, getting more from staff is more important than ever if organisations are to start the year with the momentum that will deliver business success.
Productivity at work is influenced by many psychological factors, including clarity of goals, a sense of satisfaction from doing the job and being rewarded appropriately for our efforts. Given that reward and remuneration are unlikely to be readily available, what can managers and organisations do to help their staff start the year in the most positive and productive way? Here we identify some of the major factors that reduce productivity and steps that managers should take in raising the productivity of their staff.
1. Productivity is often seriously affected by uncertainty and ambiguity. Feelings of uncertainty create a lack of focus and anxiety about the future.
What will raise productivity? Be as clear as you can about what the future holds. Of course it is difficult, at times of significant change, to be clear about what will and will not happen in the future. There are never any guarantees for the future. But that should never stop you having a vision of what your department or business will be like a year or two from now. Let's face it, without a view on how things will be you don't stand a chance of leading others or helping your team to feel more confident about the future.
2. Pessimism and negative thoughts often create a downward spiral in which doubts and concerns become self-fulfilling prophecy. The last few months have thrown many people into an optimism/pessimism dilemma, because nobody really knows how bad things will get.
What will raise productivity? Encourage optimism. Bear in mind that the things that people have most control over are their outlook and mindset. Challenge any exaggerated, catastrophic thinking ('Oh no! This is awful!') and encourage your team to look at all positive ways that problems could be practically managed.
3. Goals that have become unachievable or now feel unrealistic could seriously impact any individual's desire to achieve. Many employees will be half way through the annual performance cycle, where goals were set some time before the economic crisis emerged.
What will raise productivity? Set your team new goals and targets. Given all of the changes over the past six months, it is highly likely that goals and targets have changed considerably. So don't wait until the end of the review year, by which time it's too late to do anything about. Arrange a meeting for this week to refresh goals and set more realistic and relevant targets. At the very least, take a look at how goals might now be achieved, given the current climate.
4. A lack of ownership and accountability will significantly harm productivity. Why should your team demonstrate initiative and drive if you fail to demonstrate trust in their ability?
What will raise productivity? Make sure that each person in your team is genuinely clear about their scope of accountability. Don't abdicate responsibility, but look to challenge and stretch everyone in the team in some way. And try not to delegate to those who you trust. In times of change, many people are motivated to work in different ways, and you may find that some of the people you have written off in the past suddenly demonstrate more drive and ability to take responsibility.
5. One of the biggest psychological factors in under-productivity tends to be routine and boredom.
What will raise productivity? Boost productivity in your team with more creative problem solving. Of all times, now offers the opportunity to put the past away and break out of fixed thinking to find new alternatives. Make meetings more varied by introducing new topics. Ask your team more 'what if?' and 'what else?' questions. Use mind-mapping and analogies to spot different and better ways of working.
6. Productivity tends to be seriously impacted by people worrying, and yet people only tend to worry about future possibilities that are intangible.
What will raise productivity? Confront mental blockers. Recognise when your team are showing signs of worry - often a lot of side conversations or back-handed comments - and find ways to air concerns. From there, look at what can and can't be controlled and what can't be done to resolve concerns.
7. Bear in mind that this year will be considerably tougher than the last, so being more resilient will - for many people - be of critical importance. Productivity will be undermined if every bit of bad news knocks the team backwards and distracts them from priorities.
What will raise productivity? Consciously encourage resilience in your team. Develop a range of simple techniques to boost your team's resilience, such as learning to stand back from problems and reanalyse, learning to reflect, looking for alternative solutions, maintaining objectivity and looking for opportunities.
8. Finally, a huge factor in de-motivating people at difficult times is poor communication. Often slow or stilted communication leads to mistrust and doubt, which in turn encourages negative whispering and 'poisonous' rumours.
What will raise productivity? Improve the communication cycle. Psychological research tells us that, at times of change, people need increased clarity, accuracy and regularity of communication. Look at any area where your communications might be improved. Think about how to improve the communications from weekly meetings. Keep messages simple and try to avoid too many messages at any one time. And try to get any bad news on the table quickly. Don't dress up messages to your team - they will sense that there are still problems and anticipation is often worse than reality.
Overall, the single greatest thing that you as a manager can do is to help your team stay focused. Bear in mind that every action is preceded by a thought, and it is this thought that can be managed - nothing else. Learn to challenge knee jerk thinking. Recognise when your team are making over-generalisations. And avoid judgemental stereotyping - of yourself and your colleagues. At a time when ambiguity and uncertainty abound, stay fixed on what you can do to achieve your goals and help your people to do the same.
There is something special about making New Year's resolutions. For most of us, making a resolution is a combination of reenergising, refocusing and gaining renewed commitment to things that we have generally failed miserably to achieve in the previous year. It's that time of year when we feel the need to clear the slate and start all over again.
On the whole, I would say forget it. Never set yourself rules or targets on the 1st January, particularly not when you've been up late celebrating in whatever fashion you're accustomed to. You're destined to failure. You'll get to February and have forgotten what all the fuss was about. Psychological research tells us that making plans for change should always be done with a level head, a clear perspective and have a meaningful strategy to back them up.
And yet this year things are, let's face it, rather different. In fact, some might argue that the year has been different beyond any possible expectation. Who, at the start of the year, would have predicted the nature of the economic decline that we have recently been embroiled within? If you did, you would have been sectioned or at least alienated by colleagues and friends alike. Strange times call for strange tactics. Setting a few resolutions could actually play a role in helping to refocus and recover from the past few months.
So here's a top ten of New Year's resolutions, perfect for starting afresh. Pick your favourites and stick to them, for at least the first week back. And as you start to fail, console yourself by picking a few others...
1. Get yourself a new vision. Without a view on how things will be, you don't stand a chance of leading others or helping your team to feel more confident about the future. Put yourself two years in the future and then look back. What is different? What are people doing to make the organisation successful? Who has been involved in achieving the success? Where has success come from?
2. Boost your productivity through more creative problem solving. One of the biggest psychological factors in under-productivity tends to be routine and boredom. Of all times, now offers the opportunity to put the past away and break out of fixed thinking to find new alternatives. Make meetings more varied by introducing new topics. Ask yourself and your colleagues more 'what if?' and 'what else?' questions. Use mind-mapping and analogies to spot different and better ways of working.
3. Be more optimistic. The last few months have thrown many people into an optimism/pessimism dilemma, because nobody really knows how bad things will get. But remember, the things that you have most control over are your outlook and mindset. Avoid catastrophic thinking ('Oh no! This is truly awful!') and try to look at ways that problems can be managed. This is often about identifying one practical, manageable step at a time.
4. Monitor your empathy. At times like this, your team and colleagues probably need a little more space and understanding than usual. Ironically, at times like this many businesses report increased levels of bullying and harassment. Why? Because we're all concerned about the future, and that concern drives more extreme behaviour. Watch for signs of becoming more aggressive and less aware of the feelings of others. Aggression may achieve short-term results but it will damage relationships and derail leaders.
5. Recognise your reactions to bad news. We all struggle to maintain focus and energy when bad news arrives and there's a lot of that about at the moment. Set yourself the goal of understanding your reactions and spotting any unhelpful ways of thinking in response to the news. This is typically to exaggerate the scale of problems, to worry about problems without finding a solution, or just to minimise the impact and deny that you will be affected. None of these will help, so look at more helpful ways to think things through.
6. Enhance your motivation and drive. Bear in mind that one of the biggest predictors of leadership potential is having a high level of drive - a desire to make things happen, rather than allow them to happen to you. So what truly motivates you? Are you really feeling at your most motivated in your role? If not, what's getting in the way? What could you change to improve your motivation?
7. Confront your beliefs. Adaptability and openness are also strong predictors of future leadership potential. The year ahead will certainly require a new way of seeing the world and yet it is easy to be held back by fixed views on the right and wrong way to do things. List ten things that you believe to be absolutely true about your role. Then ask a colleague to disprove every one of them. It may surprise you how easily a rigid belief can be undone.
8. Build your resilience. Bear in mind that this year could be tougher than last (I need to work on my optimism) so being resilient will, for many managers and leaders, be of critical importance. Try to develop a range of simple techniques to boost resilience, such as standing back, reflecting, looking for solutions, maintaining objectivity and looking for opportunities.
9. Improve your communication. A huge factor in losing good people at difficult times is poor communication. Psychological research tells us that, at times of change, people need increased clarity, honesty and regularity of communication. Look at any areas where you could improve. Think about how to improve communication from weekly meetings. Or how you deliver tough messages. Keep messages simple and try to avoid too many messages at any one time.
10. Finally, stay focused. Bear in mind that every action is preceded by a thought, and it is this thought that you can control - nothing else. Avoid knee jerk thinking. Avoid over-generalising. And avoid judgemental stereotyping - of yourself and your colleagues. At a time when ambiguity and uncertainty abound, stay fixed on what you can do to achieve your goals and help your people to do the same.
A lot of nonsense has been written about Generation Y – the cohort of young adults who are supposed to be characterised by their demanding expectations and their insistence on balance in their working life. Nonsense I have read recently includes:
“… Take Tanya…with her strong aspirations, her independence, her proactivity, and her need to achieve fulfilment as well as a good salary…she is typical of the Gen Y-ers born after 1980”
Now hang on a minute, since when was it sensible to describe any generation in this clone like way? Imagine this….
“… Take Henry… with his dutiful loyalty, his conformity, his obedience to organisational norms and his willingness to grind out a career…he is typical of the generation born after 1945”
What about Branson, what about Sugar, what about Roddick?
Since when did the generation you were born into have the power to determine the basic parameters of your personality? Yes, I do know some confident, independent, technically savvy, career minded twentysomethings: but I also know some insecure, lazy, daft ones, just like I do thirtysomethings and fortysomethings. In other words, people who have graduated since – say 2002 – are subject to the same variation in Big 5 personality characteristics as the rest of us; or did I miss some post millennial re-engineering of our brain chemistry? I believe that the most you can say about this cohort is that they were educated and sought jobs at a time when the employment environment was very benign and their expectations high.
Stereotyping a whole cohort of individuals in the way that the ‘Generation Y’ label does is, at best, lazy thinking and at worst an example of the kind of cognitive error that Richard Dawkins calls the ‘discontinuous mind’; characterised by a tendency to lump things together inappropriately and draw hard lines between them. I bet that sometime soon you will see an article called ‘How is Gen Y coping with the credit crunch?’ - as if a whole generation is fated – aspirationally of course – to wander in the employment desert for the next couple of years. Alternatively, expect articles and a new stereotype from the pundits*, describing the disappointed angst filled group whose dreams were brought to dust by sub- prime. The articles will be suspect – based on discontinuous thinking rather than much more relevant individual differences –as suspect as any leader article you have ever read that starts “The youth of today….”!
Yes, we can say goodbye to Generation Y, not because the employment environment no longer suits their psychological ‘DNA’ and thus dooms them to extinction, but mostly because they never existed in the first place.
* I’d place a small wager on a reawakening of the old Prodigy album title ‘The Jilted Generation’ – remember you saw it here first! .
Several articles in the press recently have picked up on the number of restaurant and café closures in France. The restaurant trade is now third in the French bankruptcy stakes after house-builders and estate agents, with 3,000 establishments going into liquidation in just three months earlier this year.
As exemplars of work life balance with ‘two-hour lunches and a 35-hour working week’, Europeans seem to be worried that, with the French example gone, the credit crunch will move us all towards being workaholic automatons doomed to shake crumbs out of our keyboards every lunchtime.
Perhaps France is moving away from its cultural roots but does it matter? As many people commented following the articles, the Brits do all right on a cheese and pickle roll at their desks. Don’t they?
French or British, we could be sacrificing more than we think…
As research indicates, workers without a break are operating on a principle of “diminishing returns” regarding their energy and productiveness. By late afternoon you may be putting an awful lot in and not getting much out.
One other important element that the French lunch offers is the opportunity to build meaningful relationships at work. This is a key factor in job satisfaction and retention but also acts as an important buffer against the stresses and strains of work and has positive health benefits too.
It is likely that the French would suffer particularly if this disappeared as socialising after work in France, is rare.
Whilst it may seem a small change therefore, French businesses should beware: happiness at work and all of its associated benefits (creativity, network building, support for others) is greatly influenced by the ‘small things’ – the little uplifts rather than major changes in working conditions. Lunch then, may be more important than that pay rise.
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