For all the memes about developing staff, for most businesses, development and training budgets are finite. Joking aside, once an investment in learning has been made it's tough to see the recipient walk out of the door.

People will always leave jobs and a degree of employee turnover is healthy. But how can you stop people walking away unnecessarily or for the wrong reasons?

​For more information, see here, call us on 01223 655667 or email us for further details - enquiries@managingchange.org.uk.

​It is often said that people don't leave jobs or organisations, they leave their managers. But is that true?
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As we have come to expect in this range of articles, and unsurprisingly, it's not quite that straightforward. The evidence would suggest that bad bosses do influence whether people leave jobs and that good bosses can encourage people to stay who might otherwise leave, but there is more to it.

Here are some of the main reasons that influence people to leave their employer:

1. Feeling that matters at work are being dealt with unfairly
2. Perceiving that the employer has failed to deliver on promises made
3. Experiencing a negative and unsupportive atmosphere from colleagues/team
 
The first two centre on trust, or the lack of it. Experiencing a breach of trust usually has negative results, including a decrease in motivation and engagement. In fact when the employee's perception is that the organisation has behaved unfairly whilst also perceiving that their manager is supportive, this can lead to an unhealthy and unproductive silo mentality or a 'them and us' situation. In these circumstances there is a high risk that when the manager leaves, many of the team members will follow rapidly afterwards.
 
The nature of the job is also important in retaining employees. Where people are unclear about their role or the expectations of them they are more likely to leave. Similarly  if they perceive that the job is boring and monotonous, unimportant/pointless, or that they have little control over it and limited decision making ability, they are more likely to leave. Many of these characteristics are also related to greater stress so these are likely to be associated.

Most of these features can be controlled and improved. For example, managers can

• give feedback
• enable more decision making
• listen more
• communicate clearly
• set clear goals and expectations
• honour their commitments
• reshape jobs/processes

 
Raising this awareness and developing these skills in managers and managers-to-be is a straightforward and accessible activity, and one that might be included in training, coaching and performance appraisal practices.
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To see more information on the study see here.

The researchers found that employees actively employing their signature strengths at work build their own positive attitude and engagement with work. They have found that personality type does affect the impact of using personal strengths. For example, those who measure high in Extraversion and low in Neuroticism experience greater benefit from daily strengths use. 
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What about those people who are high in Neuroticism? Their findings suggest that people who are impulsive and more prone to stress (and who may experience feelings of anxiety, anger, frustration, and depression more regularly) derive little benefit from strengths use without additional support. Given that the use of strengths does have beneficial impact, the authors suggest that these people may require additional personal and/or environmental support to facilitate their use. 

This study provides further confirmation that the use of strengths is an important predictor of positive affect which is particularly important in working environments that require learning and creativity.

The authors conclude that "organisations and managers should facilitate employee strengths use, because when employees employ these strengths they are more dedicated and energised at work".

I am delighted to be hosting the ISCP's next Cambridge Research Hub event when I'll be speaking with Dr Alanna O'Broin about her research and expertise on the coaching relationship.

If you'd like to join us please email me to register your interest. This event has attracted much interest so places are now limited. I'll be sending out access details on Monday 28th January.

There will be a Q&A session toward the end of the hour and I will invite questions then. If you already have a question you'd like to submit beforehand please email them to me by Thursday 31st January.

I do hope you can join us - further details can be found here. 

One of the things I find most dismaying in leadership development and executive coaching is the endless and changing stream of what's currently "on trend". Right now, diversity and inclusion are big, previously it was staff engagement, agile leadership, visionary leadership, and on and on. Which is not to say that they are not worthy topics, just that they seem to come along on a bandwagon and people feel the urge to unthinkingly hop on. We all do it, for fear of being left behind or left out. "Empathy" is one such topic - it's out there as an unquestionably desirable thing - few think about it and it has become a standard part of the coach/consultant/manager's standard lexicon. Having it is good, and the more you have, the better.

Having empathy is certainly desirable and is associated with improved relationships and better leadership impact, but are we overplaying its importance or misunderstanding it?

Empathy is considered to be a feature of emotional intelligence (EQ) and is assessed by EQ assessment tools. In using a number of these tools over the last few years we have noticed situations where clients score "well" on empathy (i.e. they are assessed positively to show empathy as a strength) when it's actually presenting a problem for them and their colleagues. This has happened fairly consistently. So why would an assessment interpret an empathy score above a certain level as being positive or a strength? The more you look into this the more it becomes clear that there is both a meaning and a measurement problem.

Cognitive psychologist Paul Bloom has highlighted the difference between:

• cognitive empathy - "I recognise your pain", and
• emotional empathy - "I feel your pain"

Whilst many people think of empathy as seeing things from another person's perspective (cognitive empathy), emotional empathy is more than that. It describes a situation where someone is literally experiencing the sensations you're experiencing. And it seems to be getting more common.

EQ assessments do not make this distinction in their assessments - they are usually not sufficiently granular or sophisticated to be able to do so (another reason to use them in tandem with a Big Five personality assessment that also assesses factors associated with emotional reactivity and agreeableness - this is likely to provide a better measure).

Why is this important?

Paul Bloom and others caution that high levels of emotional empathy can lead to faulty and irrational decision making. In our practice at Managing Change we have seen examples of this particularly where it has prevented a leader taking a detached and measured stance on a very troubling or complex situation. More frequently seen though is the deep, personal cost to those doing the empathising (and often their colleagues). 

In these situations leaders are described as being "empathetic" and score positively on EQ assessments for empathy*. The reality though is in them being overly emotionally drawn into the struggles and difficulties of others such that they:

1. become ineffective in helping the person(s) in difficulty or in resolving the situation
2. create emotionally charged and highly stressed environments for teams and colleagues
3. burn themselves out as their energy and focus is consumed by anxiety over the situation

​In short, emotional empathy like this leaves everyone worse off, and invariably means that an already poor situation is worsened. This has a significant negative impact on workplaces which we encounter on an increasingly frequent basis.

So, as coaches, consultants and leaders, what should we be developing instead?

#2 - develop self-awareness

It is important to recognise that when we indulge ourselves into feeling the pain of someone else we are not helping them and are probably simply being self-serving (albeit in a costly way). Reflecting on the underlying needs we are hoping to fill is a good start. Feeling strong emotions (even negative ones) through the safety of another person's feelings can be satisfying to those living fairly "numb" lives.  

#3 - boost critical thinking skills

In these times of social media echo chambers this is increasingly important (and particularly so for children and the iGen generation, neither of whom have experienced a pre-internet world). This should include learning about CBT-type tools and approaches that teach detachment, rational thought and experimental thinking.

#4 - focus on developing compassion instead

Compassion is not a soft and cuddly approach. It is based upon the notion of "detached caring". Professor Paul Gilbert from the Compassionate Mind Foundation describes the effective practice of compassion as requiring the courage to care, the wisdom to know what to do, and the ability to take action to address the situation. This approach provides effective assistance to those who need it but crucially, avoids creating a costly emotional burden on the carer.

​The Centre's website provides resources and information on courses to help develop your own and others' compassion.

Millennials (those people born between 1981 and 1996) have had a rough press in the last few years. Pictured as being entitled, narcissistic and self-centred it would be easy to think that they would be a dismal prospect to have as colleagues or employees. Given that these people will now be in the 22-37 year old age range, they're already making up a fair chunk of the workforce.

Aside from being potentially deeply patronising, is there any truth in this or is yet another example of self-appointed experts creating an issue they can earn a few bob in consultancy fees from?

A recent PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) report describes clear differences with Millennials, including

• Only 18 percent of those surveyed expected to stay with their current employer for the long term, with over a quarter expecting to have six employers or more in their work life.
• 38 percent felt older senior management do not relate to younger workers, and 34 percent said their personal drive was intimidating to other generations.
• Career progression is a top priority for millennials, who expect to rise rapidly through the organisation. Competitive salaries came second place.

It doesn't take much thought or imagination to conclude that these aspirations apply to any group of people in the 20-30s age range. There is nothing unique here about this specific generation. However these kind of conclusions and headlines are now commonplace.

All generations such as Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964), Generation X (1965 to 1980) and Millennials tend to view the previous generation in a similar way. In the early part of our working lives most of us are at our most ambitious, creative and idealistic - this applies to all people, in all cultures, across time. 

In 2012, a wide-ranging meta analysis (1) (i.e. analysing the results from multiple, different studies) looked at generational work differences in three key areas: 

• commitment to the organisation
• job satisfaction
• intention to leave

The researchers found no significant attitudinal differences which could be explained by generation. They found some differences that could be explained by age however - for example, older workers were slightly less likely to leave their jobs. This was found to be most likely due to older workers having more autonomy and expertise in their roles, and therefore greater job satisfaction.

Making a special case of a specific generation is misleading and unhelpful and creates yet another opportunity to foster difference, and pitch "us" against "them". It promotes a false need for organisations to provide more training and development to fix this "problem". The key message for employers is that you should not shape your management and recruitment strategies around different generational values. At least, not until there is real evidence that those differences exist.

So forget the "problem with Millennials". The iGen (Generation Z) generation however, could well be another matter... See our forthcoming article on Stress and Anxiety for further details .

​For years mums returning to work have endured the banter about having 'baby brain' - being emotional, forgetful and muddled-headed. Is there any truth in this? 
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In 2016 neuroscientists reported that pregnancy does change a woman's brain and that these changes last for up to two years. These changes are evident in brain scans to the extent that scientists can tell simply by looking at these scans if a woman has been pregnant.

The differences concerned a pruning in the number of connections in the brain which served to help the mother focus more closely on her baby [see here for the details]. However the researchers found no evidence of “baby-brain” in the women they examined. They scored about the same on tests of memory and vocabulary both before and after giving birth. So now you know!

As our name indicates, our business is in helping people, teams and organisations manage change. In that time we have often heard it said that 70% of change initiatives in organisations fail. In fact if you Google that phrase there are 115,000,000 entries on it. It is repeated by very credible authorities, authors and researchers (including Harvard Business Review and Gallup). So it must be true, right?

In 2011 a study by researcher Mark Hughes looked into this. Following a thorough review of all published material, he found no empirical evidence to support this at all. In fact he didn't even find evidence that half of them fail. 

In 1993, a book called Re-engineering the Corporation (written by Michael Hammer and James Champy) included this sentence "our unscientific estimate is that as many as 50% to 70% of the organisations that undergo a re-engineering effort do not achieve the dramatic effects they intended". When this began to be misreported the co-author (Hammer) sought to emphasise that their earlier observation had been misrepresented. Despite those efforts, that statistic has been widely repeated in prestigious journals, books and articles ever since. Not only is it misreported, it doesn't even represent what they said; saying that 70% don't achieve the dramatic efforts intended is not the same as saying they failed!

To date there don't appear to be any authoritative or consistent studies that examine the success or failure rate of change programmes. A 2009 McKinsey study suggests that only around 10% of change programmes are considered to be complete failures. Given that change programme outcomes is unlikely ever to be a binary matter of success or failure, the McKinsey work suggests that the remainder probably fall around 30-40% completely or largely successful, 30%  to be somewhat successful and the rest more unsuccessful than successful. 

This illustrates the need to apply critical thinking to the information we are being fed. If the issue seems important and we are going to take some form of action in relation to it, we should always first check where those numbers come from!