Sirona Says

'Fishy to the backbone' or social communicator?

It is amazing what you pick up from centuries past, isn't it? The title of the blog post refers to types of leaders - modern day management styles, if you like - and , of course they could still be applicable today, 200+ years on.

I am reading an excellent book called In the Heart of the Sea, the true story that inspired Moby Dick. Very simply, it is the story of Whaling ship from Nantucket, USA, that got attacked and sunk by a huge sperm whale, leaving the crew to survive in the Pacific in their rowing boats. It is the story of attrition, survival and the men stuck on these very small craft for three months.

On one of these whalers, there were three men in charge (with twenty further crew), with the captain being the leader, and the Mate being his deputy.

What is interesting is that back in the 1700's and 1800's they knew what made a good Captain and a good Mate  and they were able to articulate it accordingly.

The greatest compliment they could pay someone from Nantucket was to call them 'Fishy to the Backbone". this meant that the person was authoritarian, lacked the tendency to self-doubt and self-examination that could get in the way of making a decision.

(It is a shame that a good few people managers I know, are not 'fishy to the backbone' - they are more like indecisive blobs of jelly!!)

What is interesting is the management style of the No 2 in these whalers - the Mate. They were chosen for their 'social' skills!
Of course they needed an element of being 'fishy to the backbone', but more importantly they had to temper this with a more personal, outgoing approach. They were there to instill a sense of cooperation amongst the men. This required them to remain sensitive to the crew's changeable moods and keep the lines of communication open. (Bear in mind that a whaler typically went away for 2 years at a time)

So even all those years ago, and in seemingly brutal times, the Owners of the whaling ships, knew how to effectively manage their crews - they would balance the contrasting personalities of a Captain and a Mate, to get the best from their crew.
They had a saying at that time which said, "it is a pity to spoil a good mate by making him a master".
Not all the Mates had the edge to become a Captain, and there were future Captains who didn't have the patience to be successful Mates.

Makes you think doesn't it? Hundreds of years ago, but the fundamentals of people management are somewhat similar aren't they? 

I bet you can identify some 'Captains' and 'Mates' within your own companies, who just maybe are in the wrong job? I have certainly known a few in my time!

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Have you ever used one of these excuses to justify upsetting people at work?

Wow!! You can be rude to a colleague and co-worker ........well, sort of, as long as you can justify it to yourself!
I am sure I don't need to be the one to tell you, it is fairly easy to p*** off your fellow work colleagues or co-workers - whether it be not making the coffee on your round, relying on others to produce your documents for you or just by being an arrogant, self-opinionated prat!

I was reading a post on the blog Workengagement.com, where they discussed three self justifying rationales for being rude at work. It got me a little intrigued, I have to say. Working in the recruitment sector, you could say I have worked with 'more than a few' people, who seem to have gone out of their way to p*** off everyone around them......just to get to their next placement (ring any bells with you?).
Have you knowingly gone out of your way to upset someone at work? I know I have - I know you won't believe that of me, the shy unassuming person that I am, fearful of giving an opinion .....not!

So, let's assume for a minute you have upset someone at work, and caused a bad working environment, did you justify it to yourself with one of these three excuses?

1. “Sorry for the way I behaved; I was just so stressed.”
   You shout or insult someone because you are under great pressure (real or just perceived) at work. Due to tight deadlines or grueling schedules, people become anxious,irritable and very short-tempered. (Don't look at me - well,ok, occasionally!)
   These types of statements express one person’s tension. They also dump some of that tension onto others. After acting in this way, people tend to acknowledge that they were not on their best behavior. They may even apologise for saying rude things to others, saying, “Sorry for the way I behaved; I was just so stressed.” The implication and the hope is that this was uncharacteristic behavior that won’t happen again, but we know different, don't we, recruiters!
   
2. "Don't you know what you are doing? Am I the only one that can do this job?"
   You choose the pushy and aggressive route, rather than just being assertive. You believe that as a leader you have to drive people hard, to get a good day's work out if them, and believe (arrogantly) that you are doing them a favour - they are learning from you after all!
   The boundary between assertive and pushy is thin. Looking after yourself and your task in hand - project deadline or client presentation maybe -  can result in stepping on everyone else. Assertiveness is a powerful tool that can slide into aggression when charged with extra emotion.
   In leadership positions, it can be tempting to take a tough approach: focus on results and take no prisoners. But in doing so, there is an ever-present danger of showing disrespect to others. What employees perceive as disrespect, you perceive as mentoring. Recruiters call it tough love.
   
3. "Sorry, I was only joking.......I was ...honestly"
   This is probably going to have the majority of you nodding your head as you read this. You believe others are being too sensitive and don't take too kindly to the "joke" or comment you made at their expense. So you justify it by saying that they  take offense too easily and that they lack a sense of humor. You actually then take the thinking a stage further by saying that they are too 'soft and delicate' to be working in your team.
   This attitude provides the comfort of entirely denying one’s bad behavior. You put any fault would be with the person taking offense who lacks humor or a feel for the group’s "lively and straightforward culture."

Sorry to say, I have been guilty of all of these in my time and I bet you have as well at some stage. But the hardest part is to actually recognise it and learn from it next time. I did.

Are there other good self justifying reasons, for any specific actions that have happened in your workplace? 

Go on, share them with me, you know you want to. Just change the names of the individuals!

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Should work-life balance be replaced with a new word - 'Weisure'?

Over the last week there has been much talk in the recruitment blogging community of work life balance, and what the reality actually is.

Ever one to have an idea, Bill Boorman, started the whole thing off with a video he posted on You Tube, aptly titled 'The work life balance'. in which he believes there are four areas of balance that are needed in todays busy and hectic lives; Work; Life; Life/Work; Me time. When you listen to it, he will confuse you by inverting work and life, but he has raised an interesting point around a hugely important subject.

If you spoke to my wife (feel free to do so on Twitter -@saraheadworth - by the way!), then she would tell you that my work - life balance is firmly entrenched on the work side! My Blackberry is always at my side, and while I do try to manage my time, it has become part of everyday life.
This means that my 'work brain' is very rarely turned off (much to the disgust of Sara!), and that I am continually considering something to do with work, both consciously and subconsciously. (Yes I know this isn't overly healthy!)
Now you may call this a little sad, especially if you are in a 9-5 job (do they actually exist anymore?) and go home at night, completely detached from work. But, the difference is that I run my own business - my business, by default, then becomes my life. If you then factor in the fact that I really enjoy what I do, then it really doesn't bode well for a solid demarcation line between work and play, does it?

The crux for me is that I enjoy what I do, and for me the social aspect of the web that has 'exploded' over the last couple of years has really added to this. Just in case you think I am a complete addict, I do know where the 'OFF' button is on my Blackberry - I just don't use it often enough!!

I was recently sent some information regarding a forum of 10 HR experts entitled Raging Debates in HR, and some key HR conversations they discussed between them. While reading through it, the subject of 'weisure' was covered by these HR guru's. It makes interesting reading, so I thought I would share some of the responses with you. The question they were asked was:

Is "weisure" good for business or do we need to maintain boundaries between work and leisure?

Peter Capelli: I think the idea that we have a new generation of workers that doesn’t care about boundaries between work and life outside of work is wrong.  It is probably true that many younger workers are willing to have most of their life absorbed by interesting career opportunities, especially when they are living in a new location and have no other ties there. That’s not particularly new.  Once people grow a little older, acquire families and other non-work interests and responsibilities, the intrusion of work into those spaces is an annoyance at best.
David Creelman: Too late.  Weisure is here. Personally I interweave business and pleasure—was that trip to Paris really just to maximize my net present value? But each individual has to find their own way of being.
Kris Dunn (Founder of Fistful of Talent): Unless you are an hourly worker in America, boundaries between work and leisure are dead. Work bleeds into life, and life bleeds into work. People have the smart phone, aka the "digital leash". Work will never be the same. It's already gone.
Richard Hadden: I don’t know if “weisure” is necessarily good for business or not, but I am reasonably convinced that it’s a part of life as we know it in the first decade of the 21st century. If a “weisure” lifestyle is here to stay, there should be limits within which both the employee and the employer should work. It takes organization, skill, discipline, and a measure of assertion, but I believe that the purposes of work and of leisure can be met simultaneously.
Lance Haun: I've fortunately never heard of this term but I don't think it is bad for business. Now it might be bad for the employee but a good employer should recognize the boundary issues and seek to define it for people that have trouble with the concept.
Sharlyn Lauby (President of ITM Group): I’m cool with the idea of weisure. Hate the name…maybe we can call it something else? Reminds me of the band Weezer. Businesses need to deal with work time, productivity and results in the high tech world.


And the last word goes to the lady of Punk Rock HR blog fame……


Laurie Ruettimann: Weisure is an offensive term. Boundaries are healthy and important to maintain. I'm more than just an extension of the company's brand. So are you. Take the day off.

So what do you think? Do you have set rules in place? Do you let you iPhone or Blackberry govern your social activities?

Ultimately Laurie is quite right when she tells us to 'take the day off', and it is a sentiment that my wife would definately echo, but come-on, it doesn't happen anymore does it?

The 10 ways to manage your workforce in a recession, courtesy of a CIPD & ACAS JV

Thanks to a CIPD and ACAS joint venture on the subject of helping companies during the recession, they have produced their official guidelines to managing your workforce during a recession. It is an excellent checklist for helping your business through the recession and out the outher side in the best possible way for the stability of your company.

1. Think long term

• Think creatively about how to reduce employment costs, such as new ways of working and work reorganisation.
•  See CIPD Research Insight Smart Working: The impact of work organisation and job design
• Remember that making people redundant and recruiting again later when the market picks up is expensive. 
• Protect and make the most of the training budget – focus resources on key areas such as improving line management capability and customer service. 
• Bear in mind your long-term reputation and responsibility to act as a fair employer.

2.  Maintain employee engagement

• Redouble your efforts to boost or maintain employee engagement.
• See CIPD Research Insight Employee Engagement in Context
• Manage expectations and set a clear sense of direction.
• Keep employees in the picture even when there is little concrete news. 
• See Acas guide Employee Communications and Consultation 
• Use all available media to beat the rumour mill.
• Think about creative, non-financial ways of motivating employees such as recognition schemes, team-building days and employee awards.

3.  Strengthen line management capability

• Support your managers so they are better able to operate in periods of traumatic change.
• Brief line managers in full on developments so they can talk to their teams – face-to-face communications are best.
• Recognise the vital role that line managers play in every aspect of the employment relationship – make sure they are properly trained in day-to-day people management skills.
• See CIPD guide Line Management Behaviour and Stress at Work 
• Line managers also need support and leadership from senior management and from HR to equip them to manage difficult situations and avoid burning out.

4. Support employees’ health and well-being

• Recognise the psychological burden and impact that can arise in a recession – make sure workplace support and occupational health provision are in place to prevent high levels of work-related stress.
• See Acas guide Health, Work and Wellbeing 
• See CIPD Research Insight What’s Happening with Well-being at Work? 
• Where possible provide opportunities for flexible working to help employees balance their work and home lives.
• See Acas guide Flexible Working and Work–life Balance    
• Ensure you have mechanisms in place to deal with workplace stress and potential conflict at an early stage.
•  Acas guide Stress at Work 
•  See CIPD/Acas guide Mediation: An employers’ guide
• Recognise the potential negative impact of ‘survivor syndrome’ if your organisation has made redundancies – employees that remain in organisations where there have been job cuts often suffer from guilt while coping with increased workloads.

What would you do with a career break?

Don't you just love it when a company does something different and innovative? Well, while spending last week in Dublin with a client, I came across this piece of innovation from an Irish Bank.

Permanent TSB has come up with the innovative (and brave) move of offering paid career breaks to their staff. Now, there may well have been other companies doing this, but have they done it in a recession? No, the likelihood is that they would have simply gone for redundancies instead.
Obviously the intention of Permanent TSB is to cut spending while keeping skilled workers on standby, rather than lose all that well gained experience. And career breaks are more cost effective than redundancy:
Employees will be given half their salary up to 20,000euros to take a two year break, or 35,000euros to take a three year break. And it is open to staff of all ages and levels!

There will obviously be certain conditions imposed, and of course it won't suit everyone, but to have a career break with a guarantee of a job at the end of it is a step forward for those that are in need of a break.

Then the question comes......what would YOU do if you had a career break?

Mine is a simple one (once the children are self succient) - I would fly to Canada with my wife, buy a motorhome, and spend the time working my way down through many of the US states until we run out of land (ie the Keys)!

What would you do with a career break? (Please share your idea in the comments.)

10 ways to help you manage and motivate your remote workers.

Over the last couple of years, there has been a huge change of where employees are able to work. The advent of technology has meant that nowadays you can work from nearly anywhere.
But for a company offering this option to its employees, it could potentially be a major headache – after all, with seamless technology such as WiFi, Blackberrys, iPhones and mobile connectivity on laptops, how do you actually know where your employees are!!
(Of course you could argue it doesn’t matter where you are)

So, how do you actually motivate  people that work remotely for you? How do you stop your staff feeling disenfranchised and mentally isolated when they are working from home (or the beach or the pub)?

So if you have staff working remotely, or you are considering giving them this option, then here are 10 tips that will help you in managing them.

1. (Obvious to say but) Recruit the right people. This goes beyond the skills on their CV, it’s about their personality, how they work and what motivates them. Make sure that people can work on their own, that they will enjoy it and they have the communication skills to work in that way.
2. Have a clear vision. As remote teams are not together every day a clear vision ensures that all team members are in tune with what the business is trying to achieve.
3. Remove office politics. Senior management needs to ensure that there are no rivalries or bad feelings among the team. A team member who is trying to score points against a colleague can destroy a successful remote working culture in an instant.
4. Trust your team to deliver on tight deadlines or important projects remotely. By employing the right people and trusting them, they are more likely to repay that trust by rising to the challenge and producing excellent work.
5. Measure output, not hours. Remote managers should be encouraged to measure an employee's output rather than hours spent at their desk. Remote workers tend to have higher productivity levels than their office based counterparts, so we find that if they are motivated they are tremendously hard working.
6. Communicate with your reports regularly. Make an effort to speak to the people who report to you every day, or every other day at the very least. There doesn’t need to be a reason for the call – just call for a chat. You will end up discussing all sorts of things. This is similar to a ‘water cooler’ chat.
7. Don’t allow email arguments. Arguments conducted over email show a lack of communication. Encourage team members to pick up the phone and speak to each other. These ‘arguments’ then get resolved very quickly – as most are down to misunderstanding
8. Get together to socialise.The time when you are together is too valuable to waste on meetings. You should use it socialise. Do something fun and get to bond with your team.
9. Never make a decision in a meeting. During conference calls discuss and debate and leave final decisions till after the call.
10. Finally make it fun. Let your team revel in the fact that they work remotely. Give them the opportunity to still have some fun via conference calls and emails. They need to be able to engage still with the rest of the team, even though they are not physically there!

Do you work remotely? If you do, are there any things that keep you motivated, that your company does for you? If there is please share them in the comments.