​For months now, talk about the “new normal” of life under lockdown and, more recently, semi-lockdown, has become commonplace. Whereas back in the spring and early summer attention was focused on employee well-being and the need to build resilience for those working from home, now the focus has switched to “getting back to the office”. While this is reasonable and desirable, in the process many companies now assume that with the “new normal” everyone has settled down and adjusted to this new way of working. This is no doubt fostered by the apparent reluctance of many people to get back to the office. Based upon our experiences with clients, this assumption is wrong and may lead to problems.

​In coaching sessions with clients at all seniority levels, we see a picture of people working with greatly increased workloads (managing projects and people remotely involves more work) in sub-optimal conditions. While many of us have enjoyed the advantages of a nice home office, not having to travel, as well as nice weather, many have not. 

​These conditions may not apply to you but they may be the reality for your colleagues: Take a moment to think of those who don’t have a spare room they can convert to an office or those working at home with a partner who also needs workspace. Throw in children who have been home schooled (or if younger, needed to be cared for and occupied while you work). Think of the broadband challenges presented with a family all trying to use the internet at the same time. Think of these challenges day in and day out. For five months.

​Sharing home space with partners who are also working from home has put a number of relationships under pressure – throwing in childcare challenges, has simply exacerbated them. A rise in family breakdown and domestic violence is real.  The summer is behind us, we’re told there may be a second lockdown, and many people face the real prospect of job losses. People are now at a really low ebb. This is not normal.  

​So, what can we do to help ourselves and our teams? Firstly, as team managers or HR professionals, we should recognise that many who may be struggling in this way will not share this information or ask for help. (At the same time we should recognise that many people won’t need help). So, ensuring a response that can be targeted to those who may be in need of support or at risk, enables more agile and cost-effective action. Depending upon the structures and culture in your organisation, support needs might be identified via surveys (see the Health and Safety Executive surveys or get in touch  with us for examples) or through team managers in their one-to-one meetings with team members. It is important to be aware of overreach or intrusiveness, so keeping this in mind it can be helpful to  guide managers to seek to understand the employee’s specific situation. Where the manager has concerns, asking specific, concrete questions is most effective, for example “what are you most concerned/stressed about with work at the moment?” or “how are you coping with project x/working from home/returning to work?”. Support should be offered but not insisted upon. 

​Providing targeted support with resilience programmes is a proven, effective response. For maximum impact, programmes which have a practical approach and refer to each person’s personal experiences at work are known to be most effective. Compared with all kinds of resilience training programmes, coached programmes, which allow time to deepen and embed new learning, are found to be around 3x more effective than standard training programmes at building lasting resilience.  

Finally, building and maintaining our own resilience is important too. Whilst it is not healthy or desirable to become self-obsessed it is important that we don’t ignore our own well-being. The PERMA model, a key component of positive psychology, provides a nice framework for building optimism and resilience:
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P – positive emotions (fostering positive emotions such as cheerfulness)
E – engagement (spending time in activities in which we ‘lose’ ourselves – a state of flow)
R – relationships (connecting with other people)
M – meaning (connecting to a purpose greater than yourself)
A – achievement (mastering a skill, accomplishing things)

What could you do to enhance or develop one or more of these PERMA items in your life? 

​The psychometric industry in the UK is worth many millions of pounds and it continues to grow. It is big business. The majority of FTSE 250 companies and over 80% of the public sector regularly use personality assessments for recruitment, selection and development purposes.

Personality assessments typically fall into two sorts - Type  and Trait measures. Type measures consider that personality can be grouped into discrete categories (e.g. extrovert or introvert). These include MBTI, Insights Discovery and DISC. Trait measures consider that these characteristics can be placed on a continuum (e.g. in a middling position on the introvert/extrovert continuum). These include 'Big Five' tools such as NEO PI, Hogan and OPQ. Type measures allow for a limited number of personality characteristic combinations. In contrast, Trait measures allow for a potentially infinite number of trait variations on the continuum basis.  They are fundamentally different.

​Tools which categorise personality into types are considered the least valid way of measuring personality and produce inaccurate and misleading assessments. As a consequence they are not very effective in achieving the two primary purposes of using them:
​1.  Raising self-awareness (for development purposes)
2. Predicting future behaviour (for recruitment and selection purposes)​

​Trait measures on the other hand have a considerable weight of evidence to support them. There is plenty of evidence that personality is structured around traits and not types. For a particular trait we may 'sit' somewhere on a continuum between very low and very high but we would all score somewhere on that trait. Person A might be a bit more extrovert than Person B but that doesn't mean they have a different personality type, or that they might not flex that extroversion up or down a little in different situations or moods. Type labels essentially box people into a tight space which allows little room for that flexing.​

Why does this matter?

Because tools which are invalid and inaccurate will not only to fail to achieve their purpose but in the process will mislead, waste money and may cause harm. Surely, that's unethical?

Yet while Trait-based assessments are gaining significant ground in the psychometric market, Type-based assessments are still prominent and widely used.

We think there are many reasons for this, not least because accreditation training is expensive and knowledge about different tools is patchy. These are also some of the common reasons psychologists, academics and evidenced-based coaches put forward to explain this. But we think there is also another reason and this view is based on our anecdotal experience. It concerns the reports.

People love their Insights Discovery (and similar) reports. They are energised by the findings, will proactively send us (as coaches) their prior reports, and report finding them very useful. With high face validity, these reports also look great, they are simple and quick to understand and they lend themselves to immediate action. In contrast many of the trait-based assessment reports do few of these things. They're accurate and comprehensive but also lengthy and complicated at first sight and there is more reading to do.

Most people we work with have no idea of the relative merits of these tools but will take them on trust and at face value. In a busy schedule who wouldn't prefer the report which looks right and is easy to use? So, our message to the developers of those preferred Trait assessments, please look again at your reports - further enhancement would make our work promoting accurate information much easier!

We'd love to know your views and experiences on personality assessment, Please do share any comments below. If you'd like to discuss the use of psychometrics in your team or organisation do get in touch. ​

Whilst it is clear that workplace ​coaching is effective, the features that make it so have proved incredibly difficult to assess.

Studies tend to involve very few people, tend not to have meaningful control groups (i.e. a replica group of people subject to the same conditions who don't get coaching, for comparison purposes), don't account for differences in coach style, approach and quality, or find companies willing to fund it. Added to this, coaching is still a relatively new area so there is limited solid information on effectiveness available (although many coach training programmes suggest otherwise by reporting on coaching studies most of which are not robust or authoritative).

​​So, it was good  to see a new analysis of 117 studies carried out in 2018 (by Bozer and Jones*) to identify those aspects that make a difference to coaching effectiveness. They found that coachee characteristics count enormously. Effective outcomes were linked to coachees:

• being interested in learning and improving (i.e. they did not have a fixed mindset and were not over-confident)
• having good levels of self-efficacy (i.e. had confidence in their ability to develop)
• being well motivated to take part
• trusting the coach and being comfortable to speak openly

​This supports the findings from other studies. In our one-to-one coaching programmes, coachees are invited to take a self-assessment to check their readiness for coaching. Our coaches all undertake a 'willingness and readiness for coaching' assessment as part of the initial engagement.

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.
​
To see more information on the study see here.

​A recent radio programme fascinatingly described the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA by Watson and Crick in Cambridge and their London 'colleagues' Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin. It is now a notorious story that the first recorded image of the double helix by Rosalind Franklin led to Watson and Crick's famous discovery. Watson and Crick won the Nobel prize for their discovery after Franklin had died - she was never made aware of her role in this groundbreaking achievement.

The programme described the troublesome working relationship between Franklin and Wilkins (apparently they didn't like each other, didn't communicate well, and were mutually unclear about the other's role and responsibilities). This impeded their research, Franklin's career, and, more widely, affected the already poor communication and competitive atmosphere between the Cambridge and London labs. (Competition in scientific research is well-known but, given the expectation of collaboration required with the source of the research funding, this seems to have been completely unchecked at the time.)

The story struck me very firmly how, despite the awe-inspiring nature of the work and the intelligence of the scientists, as always the same basic problems in self-awareness, communication and team working emerged to such powerful effect. Very often we learn about under-developed or even dysfunctional behaviour in senior/esteemed/super-smart people but who are not expected, supported or held accountable to change because of this status. How much more could be achieved - not least in their own personal fulfilment - by expecting even the elite to be accountable for their further development? This requires that those in less elevated positions (including in HR) are less in awe of them.

In the current climate of abuses in the charity sector and the ongoing stories of bullying and harassment at work, the frequent acceptance of poor behaviour in the workplace takes on a different hue. There are big differences in scale in these examples but the principle is the same - it is time that the same standards of behaviour are expected of all people and that one's status does not mitigate the need to develop. 

​Giving feedback on someone's performance and behaviour at work - both positive and negative - is probably the most simple and cost effective means of improving performance. Yet UK employees say they do not receive enough of it.

For the feedback to be optimally useful it should not be saved until the annual performance appraisal meeting. In high performance companies, giving and receiving feedback constructively is a normal part of the working day. So what is your experience of giving and receiving feedback? 

When we talk about feedback, people often focus on giving rather than receiving feedback. Yet it is often the case that those who are the most effective feedback providers have already mastered the practice of receiving it well first. This is a valuable professional skill and will help you to hone your own capabilities and competences as well as preparing you to manage others more effectively and confidently.

Unfortunately feedback is often not carried out well. If you have experienced poorly given feedback in the past you are probably less inclined to ask for more of it and are also less likely to be comfortable giving feedback to others. The negative impact of poorly provided feedback tends to further undermine the value and benefit of feedback that is delivered well. In short, if you have had a negative feedback experience you are more likely to avoid asking for it, and when you provide it, more likely to give it poorly.

So, what steps should you take to prepare yourself to receive feedback well? Follow the link below to my 6 tips for receiving feedback effectively and to take my short assessment to help you identify your areas of strength and weakness.

In the second of our series of short articles examining law careers, we look at performance and in particular how lawyers may best be enabled to do their best work.

In our report we asked 336 UK lawyers what they most wanted from their careers. In common with most professional knowledge workers they consistently indicated that they wanted:

• to be fairly paid
• to be valued and recognised for their contribution and value
• to have interesting, meaningful and challenging work to do
• a degree of autonomy and control over what they do and how they do it
• development opportunities

Where these indicators were perceived to be lacking, the reported intention to stay was correspondingly reduced (e.g. 50% of lawyers describing their work as "not challenging" intended to leave their firm within one year). It is to be expected that work performance was also impacted. Most people simply do not want to turn in sub-optimal performance. Enabling performance requires action from both line managers and each individual. 

For line managers (and these may be team leaders, partners, etc) much of this focuses on clarity of thought and effective communication:

• Role and goal clarity. How clear is each team member on their specific accountabilities, role boundaries, expectations, delivery targets? In our experience it is not uncommon that team members are not clear about these things to a sufficient degree - and sometimes their line managers aren't either.
• Alignment with team plans and overall firm strategy. Each team member's efforts must be directed to the wider strategy if it is to be commercially successful and personally satisfying. This is self-evident but it doesn't always happen: there need to be team plans, goals and strategies in existence to begin with, and they should be clear, comprehensible and well communicated. In our survey just 36% of non-partners reported that they understood their firm's strategic direction very well (and within that group one-quarter considered that they didn't understand the firm's strategic direction "very well" or "at all"). How well-directed and purposeful could their efforts be?
• The psychological mindset to perform well. In other words to feel sufficiently skilled, confident, valued and supported. In our experience many companies do not look to assess these features and yet if we prefix "un-" to each of those attributes we would all readily accept that this would be problematic. As before, much of this centres on the line manager's focus, intent and communication. Many line managers in our experience are not engaging with these areas at all and are not having these conversations with their teams. We can all understand a situation where our time, effort and contribution goes unnoticed, is taken for granted and is under valued, and how that would make us feel. Very few people would continue to perform highly in such circumstances. In our survey, 22% of men and 50% of female lawyers considered that they felt "poorly" valued by their firm. 

For team members there is a clear need for them to be accountable and responsible for their own performance. This requires a level of development, maturity and "rounded-ness". 

The potential to be able to develop these attributes should be assessed during the initial selection and recruitment  process. In our experience, robust methods to assess these attributes (including through the use of psychometric assessment and assessment centres) is often not consistently applied, if at all.

Line managers need more support from HR than they are often given to facilitate this process, so that they are not left to deal with the management problems which arise from poor selection processes. ​
​
For both managers and team members to perform optimally they must be suitably developed and supported. For line managers this requires having:

• the appropriate skills (e.g. in managing people, communication, goal setting, giving feedback, etc)
• the aptitude to do it (many senior managers and partners firmly resist line management responsibility preferring to focus instead on their legal work)
  

and finally, and importantly

• the capacity - the time - to carry this out. A consistent theme in our development programmes in law firms of all sizes is the simple lack of time that well skilled, engaged and committed line managers have available to carry out their people management responsibilities. For many we speak to, this is a constant cause of frustration and dissatisfaction.

We provide organisational consultancy and development expertise to help our clients make effective selection decisions, and develop their people at all seniority levels to perform at their best. If you'd like to discuss how we can help you, do get in touch. e: sarah.jaggers@managingchange.org.uk t: 01223 655667