Does democracy work?

Brexit. Jeremy Corbyn. Donald Trump. Boaty McBoatface

All delivered by transparent and equitable democratic process. Yet, whatever your ideological stripe, almost everyone thinks at least one of these signals the collapse of intelligent civilisation.

All were ballot box democracy. All yes/no, tickbox responses. You can only express a single view; there are no shades of grey. Given a chance to expand, I imagine many supporters would say:

• Yes, I want to take back control, but, of course, to retain favourable trading with our biggest market
• Yes, I respect Corbyn’s principles, but I’d also like the pragmatism and charisma to sell it to middle-England
• Yes, I love the zeal and certainty of Trump, but maybe with some policies that aren’t so bonkers

But there isn’t a “Yes, but…” option. There’s no “Tell us why you gave this answer”.

That’s often what I do. I sit down with current or potential employees and ask them what they want or what they’d like to see. Often I am first met with awkward silences and exceptionally closed body language. Sometimes it’s been apparent that literacy is not strong. I’ve spoken to people who have never really been asked their opinion.

With the chance to speak, the creation of the right environment and some probing and encouragement, they open up. And they always, always give measured, considered, practical responses. It’s a constant reminder to never underestimate anyone, that everyone has opinions that should count.

But the true meaning of those opinions are only apparent in a dialogue. If you try to fix the questions, predict the response, or not allow people to fully express themselves then you can end up with unexpected results. That’s a problem for referenda, and many employee surveys.

Certainly, you end up with inexplicable results. Either in the sense that the decision may appear to defy reason, or in that you do not really understand what they mean by their answers. There isn’t the scope to expand.

So what to do? Well perhaps it’s time for the end of representative democracy and a chance for anarcho-syndicalism. Perhaps not…

For now, I think it’s about trusting employees to have the right answer and to give them the conditions in which to express it.

Swimming - and real beliefs

Swimming is pretty important to me. It's a great way to unwind. If I don't answer your call at lunchtime, that's where I am.

And so, when people don't play by the rules, I get cross. Cross enough to come up with a snarky flowchart.

But there's a thing about rules. And it's been highlighted by this year's headteacher-sends-home-kids-for-minor-infractions-of-uniform-rules headlines.

You can set out the rules as clearly as you like. But - as in my last post - it's hard to set rules, people are always trying to bend them, and most importantly, they ignore what contradicts their beliefs.

That's vital for company culture. You can state, promote and model the culture that you desire as much as you like, but if that conflicts with the fundamental beliefs of others, it won't change.

So in the pool, the belief might be: "It's not important how busy the pool is, others will have to move round me". Not a disaster, just some annoyance. At worst, a mild concussion.

But at work it could be: "The customer can wait, it's my break", or "That decision's above my pay grade", or "The most important thing is to hit my targets, everything else is secondary", or "Someone else can clear that up, that's not my job". None of which may have any great consequence. But they might. Especially if these are widely held beliefs, or if this is the real culture, rather than the prescribed one.

So before you can embark on changing or tweaking your culture, or encouraging new behaviours, you first need to understand what the reality is now. What do your people really believe?

People Can't Follow Instructions

“Acacia Avenue? Yeah, mate. You wanna take the first right, go about 100 yards then …”

Save your breath. They’re nodding. They’re saying “yeah”. They’re mirroring all your hand gestures. But they’re not listening anymore.

People are terrible at following instructions. I regularly design and run focus groups, with many different exercises. No matter how carefully, slowly and repeatedly I direct people, and however much they nod and say “yeah”, there’s always, always at least one person that does something entirely different. Often quite surprisingly different. So what’s the problem?

Of course, sometimes the instructions are not quite precise enough:

There’s the you-had-one-jobbers:

 


And some people are just nature’s wet-paint-touchers:

But there are a couple of other factors at play too:

• We don’t listen to everything

In the research summarised here “the team of psychologists from the universities of Illinois and Florida have concluded that, while we now live and work in an environment filled with information, we filter out most of what we see and hear. People, they argued, tend to avoid information that contradicts what they already think or believe” So there’s confirmation bias, but also a tendency to decide what is being asked, possibly before you’ve heard all of it.

• We’re not actually all that good at giving instructions.

In this piece of research from the University of Freiburg. “They asked dozens of participants to plan, describe and walk routes through Freiburg. All those involved were highly familiar with the city. Asked to describe the shortest possible route between two city locations, and then asked to walk the shortest possible route between those same two points, not a single participant followed the path they’d actually described”

This has a big implication for internal communications. Far too many times organisations tell people once, and assume that everyone has heard them. It’s going to take repetition and different channels and executions to ensure that people have really heard you. And even before that, you need to very closely consider if you are accurately describing what you’d like really like people to do.

Communication is increasingly quick, but in lots of ways it’s getting harder. Consider your communications carefully.

In Defence of Buzz Words

Regularly, one reads articles, blogs, surveys etc that castigate the business buzz word, the lingo, the jargon, like this or this Well I’m here to stand up for it. Because it works.

If you want to share an idea, you might offer to run it up the flagpole, you might want to socialise it, you might want to throw it at the wall and see what sticks.

And the person that you’re talking to, will appreciate exactly what you’re trying to achieve.

If you want someone to think big, really big, and outside of the normal parameters, you could ask them for some blue-sky thinking, or to think out of the box, or to push the envelope. You might now even ask for some disruption.

And do you know what? They’ll understand exactly what you mean. They may even do it.

Sometimes we all need shortcuts, and if that shortcut is the clearest way to be understood, you should use it. Certain phrases and idioms gain currency in certain industries and organisations. And rather than devise a new description every time, we use the shortcut.

But – and you knew there was going to be a but – you need to think carefully. Specifically you need to think:

• Does EVERYONE in the room understand this? Do I risk excluding some people, perhaps those more junior (and therefore those least likely to question it). Two examples:

1. Police forces love TLAs (three-letter acronyms). If something comes out with a two or four word title, they make it three, and then use the acronym. So it’s baffling to the outsider.
2. In the public sector, I’ve lost count of the times that someone has described their area as the Cinderella service. Never known what it means; I just nod sagely.

• Will I (serious consideration) sound like a tool? Is this our effective, understood shortcut, or this is a hackneyed cliché that’s going to win someone a game of buzz word bingo?
• Do I want to be the person that talks differently? Not just to substitute a different cliché, but to get people to look again at what they are being asked, and to perhaps not to hear a short-cut and short cut their own thinking.

Imagine dreading who is coming to help you

Imagine feeling that you need to hide away the pictures of people dearest to you before some visited you. Imagine being told that you needed to pretend your wife was your sister. Imagine fearing who might come through your own door.

Stonewall have already conducted a lot of research into experiences of older LGBT people, and with a focus of their experiences or expectations of being cared for. And they – and others - found examples of all of the above experiences.

Putting all the research together, there is a clear picture. LGBT people are more likely to be:

• Single
• Childless
• Have less contact with family
• Live alone
• Have alcohol or substance problems
• Have mental health problems

So LGBT people are in a greater need of support. But they are less likely to get that from family or through “formal” channels. They worry that they will experience ignorance, lack of understanding or even intolerance from the people charged with caring for them. And too often they do.

I’ve been commissioned to build a little on this research by looking specifically at how LGBT people feel they would be treated by someone caring, supporting or assisting them in their own home. And I’m sharing a summary of the findings with all that take part. Eventually, it might lead to greater confidence in carers from LGBT people; it might lead to better informed and engaged carers.

So please take the survey, like this post or share the survey with people in your network: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/9ZCPH3Y

Thank you.

LGComms - Tips for Communicators

Last week I attended an LGComms Engagement event. They put on a great range of Internal Comms Speakers, from a range of different industries. And some of them had some real challenges – fancy being the internal comms bod at Mid Staffs Hospital or Tata Steel in Port Talbot?

I took a lot away from the event, and there was a lot of very specific and very useful tactical advice – especially for the public sector communicator who has no (literally, no) budget. But here’s some of the other stuff I took away:

Know What You’re Responsible For…

Comms help your people understand your organisation better. That means that you can build trust and they can better represent you to the public/customers. What you say determines what the public see.

…So Build it Around a Strong Narrative…

Things will get a bit messy and confused at times. Accept that, but a defined narrative gives you something to bring it all back to. It keeps you focussed. It can help re-instil commitment.

…Making Sure You Know What Impact You’re Making…

Of course you need to be able to measure your effect, but don’t just set objectives that you can measure. Work out what you’re really trying to achieve – and then get the BEST measure for that.

… And That Means Listening as Much as Talking…

Your employees will tell you what they need to know, what they don’t get, what’s working for them, what’s missing the mark. Listening and discussion targets, improves and builds on comms.

… So You Can Keep Trying Channels…

If you’re confident on measurement and you’ve got input form employees, then you have freedom to try stuff.  If it works, stick with it. If it doesn’t work move on. Try your next idea. 

… And Push Yourself…

That new idea can be scary. Being uncomfortable is good. Be prepared to fail. If you’ve got the trust of the decision makers, use it to try things that’ll really create impact, that’ll really stick.

…Without Worrying About Perfection….

There’s never the perfect time to launch. Someone, somewhere always has one last build or amend. Someone will hate it. But if it gets to most people in the right way, go for it. And get the rest later.

…And Aim For Your Employees to Be Your Communicators

The best examples and effects of engagement, commitment, knowledge sharing and idea generation came when employees were given tools, guidance (and maybe some moderation) and then allowed to get on with having their own conversations.

So, as a communicator you have a big responsibility. But your biggest one is to share that with all your employees.

The event was Informative, Fun, Free and Not In London. I really look forward to the next one.

Flexible Working

I work with many employers, in all sectors. When I talk externally to their target audiences, they want to know: “What do people want from us as an employer?” and “What puts them off working here?”

I see that Flexible Working/Work-life Balance answers both. Employees increasingly expect it, and would be deterred if they don’t think they’ll get the right balance. You can see the need from recent reports like this one or slightly older ones.

This has quickly developed and become more sophisticated. It used to be structured working patterns (typically to fit round family life) and taking the odd afternoon at home for a delivery. Now it’s a greater breadth of need, more ad-hoc, and with far lower levels of permission. 

But there’s another aspect that comes up in research like this: people with high flex are more satisfied, but perhaps work harder. Is that because they are more engaged, or because flexing like this is new and they lack the skill/experience/role-models to have control?

In my last blog I talked about a connection between tech and flexible working. We can let tech dominate our lives. (And if we don’t take control, then we are in danger of not having moments of reflection, even boredom. And that can mean we don’t think and innovate.)

I think the secret to flexible working is to take control. Often I conduct an internal focus group and hear: “My boss won’t allow that” or “We can’t do that in my team”. Sometimes that’s about not having tech, or having a customer-facing need. But more often I think it’s about perception. It’s not my place in a focus group to say: “Are you sure?”, let alone “That’s not true, is it?” But I don’t think that the controlling manager that they fear really exists much anymore. A lot of managers have got a long way to go, but I don’t think they count the hours people are at desks. I don’t think they have time.

And that’s part of the problem. If they haven’t got time, perhaps they themselves are visibly doing long hours. That becomes the culture. Maybe too they haven’t got the time to spell out what they expect, and their attitude to flexibility. I haven’t heard many managers say “That can’t work here” – and not because they believe it but can’t say it. They want the results and outcomes – but from where or when, I don’t think they couldn’t give all that much of a hoot. So, I think employees need to demonstrate what they can do, in the way that best suits them and their work (which may be Mon-Fri 9-5).

But the question remains, can employees take control? Or do they lack that – very new - skill, and end up taking on more?