Organizations that matters

Can we please abolish management levels?

Career system have evolved in a "Rat Race" that generates frustration, office politics and useless effort: how much time direct managers, functional leaders, human resources and many others spend trying to manage a puzzle that is not adding value to the final product for consumers?

I am not saying career progression models are wrong per se, just that organizations designed in layers do not work anymore:

1) Hello, it's XXI century:
In the past experience and knowledge were making the difference and vertical ladders made sense: the more experience you had and the more confident you were, the more and better you will produce. But welcome to the XXI century... we need different skills and knowledge in different parts of the processes, BigData are replacing the need to have people knowing little of everything, intuition is the weapon and flexibility the new killing-skill. Strategies change every six months in business... Are you sure have the same leader in place for years (knowing that s/he will be focusing 30% of time on climbing the ladder makes sense?).

2) Career has become a change brake
Continuous change is the new paradigma, but changeability decreases usually with time (and status): the more people have to loose, the less they are attracted by change and risk.

3) Motivation is a "just a little more complex":
Vertical progression in career, like in military ranks, was fitting perfectly the needs of a completely different generation: Baby Boomers. They made their STATUS a life goal, a purpose in itself. Does it work nowadays? Well, it depends: in corporate environments imprinting is still very strong and contagion clearly touched GenX as well, but every day more you see Talents jumping out of the ship because they think it's just crazy. This will not survive to GenY...

4) Aging will kill all career models
The most of career paths were created when expectation of life was shorter and people could aspire to have one successful vertical career in life up to the top. Today... with all of us having to work 40 years and more before retiring (if ever), one career is simply not an option anymore. Net, or we slow down careers (but GenY will not appreciate) or we reinvent them. And in the second case, layers are not really helping...

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Do we need vertical careers? Are you sure?
What if we design organizations without it

Jungle gym career model

Increasing longevity and longer time to pension are putting the existing career models in danger: most of them are already obsolete vs the reality and the needs of talents in the working environment. New models and new expressions are spreading, much less engineered than the current ones: such, for example, jungle gym...

Jungle gym career is a way to define a career progression which is not linear. It has become popular in the past years as definition for careers that are difficult to describe and forecast as a predictable paths in which people move ahead or horizontally in order to reach a destination job or position.

Definition could come from Pattie Sellers, Editor-at-Large of Fortune Magazine, “The most successful people I know don’t think of their career as a ladder, but rather a jungle gym.” An interesting example of it is Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook COO) “I could never have connected the dots from where I started to where I am today” (*): she worked as a management consultant for McKinsey than joined US Government as Chief of Staff of US Secretary of the Treasury and finally joined Google.

What are the implications of a jungle gym career model?

[**] the next move is not necessary upwards, infact, it could even be downward (and than upward again or not);

[**] flexibility is a must, both ways, from individual and employer;

[**] there is not just one career, there are multiple careers in a life time, on multiple subjects;

[**] work-life balance is different in different stages and times of life, it changes;

[**] learning and network are more important than earning and promotions;

[**] passion leads more than status;

Why it’s important?

Having to imagine 35-40 years long careers, usually in dual-career situations, the old models do not apply anymore to the vast majority of people: most of career models corporations, firms or institutions can offer do not fit this situation (think about P&G promise of the 90s to grow talents to Director position in 12 years… with current retirement timings, people would need three careers at least to have a sustainable work experience in lifetime)

Are we ready? It depends: many talents already are, GenY and women in particular. Corporations, firms and institutions? Governments? Mmmhh.

Message in a bottle

In these days the Italian politics is a bad show, just great for comedians: three parties with similar amount of votes and none of them in a position to form a new Government. With the eyes of internatiknal and financial community looking closely, situation is getting heavy. Still, in this catastrophic scenario, there are some great lessons in that I find valuable for any organization.

Some days ago, for example, the President of the Nation - one of the last and few highly respected institutions of the country, led by a man who is recognized by the vast majority of the population to be wise - took a decision; in the Italian Constitution he is the person who assigns somebody the task to form a Government... This candidate will have later to go in front of Parliament with a proposal of what he wants to do and a team of people (the ministers) who will make it happen. Technically it's called getting the Trust: the person needs to get 50% + 1 votes in Parliament to start leading the Government.

Just that - as said - noone can get the Trust currently.

To move away from the situation, mr Napolitano decided to make a move: he appointed 10 Wise Men (i can abandon politically correct expressions: they are all men) to make proposals on the most urgent issues of the country both on economic and politic situation.

Let's see what happened:
- the ten men where rethorically introduces as "wise"... But when public opinion went through the list, it was clear that, while some of them have a background and a cv that could fit with such a definition, some others clearly not and they are there because of a "game of thrones". does it sound familiar? Did you attend any of these announcement in which somebody is promoted/assigned and despite of great words spent on him/her, most of the people think or know it's just a game of thrones? And what's the outcome (apart from having the wrong person in place) in terms of trust of the organization for those announcing...?
Lesson: people you appoint or promote speak on your behalf. The organization will judge you because of them, not viceversa. And there's no rethoric speech or words that can save you from this.

- few days after the announcement, one of the wise men said - in a private conversation that was not private, infact it was broadcasted via radio - that the entire 10 wise men initiative was just a tentative to waste time while planning "behind the curtains" for the election of the new President of the Nation. When dialogue was broadcasted, the reputation of the same Napolitano was put on danger, with big risks for the entire Country.
Lesson: in current world, with overwhealming power of media and social media, keeping a secret is a Mission Impossible. Making games with the trust of people by selling them something while reality may be different is a managerial suicide. Shen it comes to the why we do things, data and truths are crucial. Why you are promoting the person, why he/she has undisputed plus for the position? And if he/she doesn't have but deserves it anyhow for other reasons, can you tell them openly? If not... Rethink your action. It's not only a matter of leadership... It' s your own credibility.

- time has passed and the 10 wise men are near to end of their assignment... What they will issue will be considered a responsibility of Mr Napolitano himself, no matter what he says on being satisfied or not (and we all hope he will be satisfied). Does it happen in organizations? Do people recognize responsibility for actions and proposals of people they promote/assign? Do they admit errors and mistakes?
lesson: don't take risks in promoting and assigning people that you don't believe capable for the job, as people will judge you through their results.

Every promotion you announce, every assignment you assign, is a message in a bottle that tells about you and your credibility. by definition, the bottle is transparent...

70:20:10 model at the time of social media

The 70:20:10 model [Michael M. Lombardo and Robert W. Eichinger] has helped to definitively abandon the idea of "learning happens in classrooms": according to the research, 70% of learning comes from experience, 20% from people (feedback, coaching, dialogue, confrontation) and only 10% from traditional and structured learning (training, lessons, books...).

But the theory is from the Nineties and there could be questions on how does it work in the Social Media era, when connecting with people who have the proper information and knowledge is million times easier than before. Does it change the idea of "experience"? Could it make the "people" part bigger or, even, finally merge the two and make them imnpossible to separate?

What's more effective: let a learner making experience on an issue and than provide him/her feedback or assign a challenge together with a network of people who have knowledge/infos/ideas to corroborate that experience with other experiences in real time?

I think the time could come to slightly change the paradigma and consider a 90:10 model in which experience and network come together to accellerate and square the potential learning. 

The patch for life balance strikes back

In a recent article at HRM Asia it comes back the topic of life-balance with a "revolutionary" (but lately not so revolutionary) idea: we don't need it. 

I say not-so-revolutionary 'cause the basic idea of "we don't really want life balance", is not new and many authors have loved to be controversial on this. In this case, starting point is that life balance is just a tool to reach what we really want: we want to be happy. Interestingly, the Author compares life balance with diet: 

you don’t want to be on a diet; you want to lose weight. We don’t want balance; we want to be happy and have better relationships. 

As a result, Author proposes an approach done of Transition Management, Rest and, more or less, meditation. In a word, a do-it-yourself kit.  We have been there already: thousand times we have been said that 

* reality is reality and will not change;

* time is a scarce resource and you can't manage it;

* complaining towards too much work and too less time will not make it less...

Just to make it simple: the message is "help yourself 'cause nobody else is going to do". Which is horribly true and - to my humble opinion - horribly wrong at the same time...

... infact, while we are teaching and coaching people to be adaptive, more and more, and to go around their issues in dealing with too much work, in having too little time for their relationships or in having no chance to rest, we are abandoning all routes that do not solve the problem. 

That's a patch, not a solution.

Yes, we need to help people to be adaptive and have a great self-defensive mechanism, with huge Emotional Intelligence to be able to swallow what they can't change, but this is not a good excuse to give up on working solutions which - ultimately - means eliminating complexity and those who generate it. 

Thinking back to the idea of the diet, well... you can't loose weight if you don't make a diet. Even if you can adapt buying larger dresses, you can't do it forever... sooner or later you will be on diet.  Because that's the way to get to the right weight... and there's no alternative. 

Similarly on life balance. If you want happiness and you are working too much... in the long term or you make your job a big part of your happiness or you find a way to work less. You can be resilient, adaptive and smart... but up to a point, if it's too much, working on yourself will not solve it.

We can help people to be more adaptive to challenges of time but we need to ensure that the fight to complexity, non-sense tasks and ridiculous working times continues! 

The risk of forgetting this point is to crack the organization: infact, when adaptiveness will become a ritual and people will understand that only reaction to the question "isn't it too much" is a yoga session, most of the individuals will silently check out (physically or mentally), absenteism will raise and engagement will get out of the window. 

All these theories and approaches based on individuals seem to forget the basic point that enhancing capability of individuals to deal with challenges is not a way to give up responsibilities (of top management, of people managers, of bosses, corporations...) in making work meaningful (and, as such, doable). 

Illusion of control

I was captured this morning by the tweet of @emotionallife asking to followers 

"When was the last time you turned off your computer for an entire day?"

 I thought about that and I guess the answer is the usual HR one: "It depends". 

If the argument is about work and life balance, I am pretty good in switching off for entire days and forget. It was not like that all times, because I needed time and effort to achieve the maturity and confidence I personally needed to do that without consequences, but I can do now. Of course, I have a great team with me and I can trust them in all we do... next job I will land on, may be without a team (or simply, "my team") that could change, I know.

Now, if the discussion is about "can I live without a digital experience?" (internet, writing, reading gaming...) for an entire day, answer is... "I can avoid to have lunch for a day or two, which does not mean I like it". 

Most people would consider this a symptom of an issue, and it could be. But I think we live in a times dominated by the "illusion of control": from nations to church, to family, to companies... we hope that the most of things are under control, are working rationally or - even if not - in a predictable way. We hope that people who behave against norms and rules are minorities, we trust that our job and our salary will be there tomorrow morning (and in most of the cases even if we are sick or can't go, it will stay), we count on other people doing what they are supposed to do (go to school come to work, drive keeping the right - unless british - and teaching proper things to our kids).

Are these rational expectations? I am sorry if it disturbs you, but no: they are not. In most of the world, all of these are luxury: your job can disappear in a sec, your salary could never get in bank (if it exists at all), police could be worse can criminals and - finally - your job could hunting to feed your family but there's no assurance you will succeed. In many parts of the world employees do not at all follow indications of the company they work for, neither of the church and the government (if any government at all exists).

For those of you who need to be persuaded that reality is not the one we strongly desire to be, I suggest looking back to Matrix (first one) and think about the message. 

What's the connection with pc/tablets? Well, I think that pc and tablets give us a weapon in the daily battle to maintain illusion of control: the microcosm of your emails, your to-do list and the one of your co-workers [did you try TEAMBOX HD for iPad???? It's MARVELLOUS, I need to make  a post on it], your books in kindle, your friends on facebook and many other things can be controlled, checked and re-organized in a click. 

Do you need it? Of course you do, it's a way to maintain brain stable and avoid to think that world is just a mess and we live too short to put some little order in that. And even if you dream to live on an island beach without worries and duties, still, once you will get accustomed to check where "your things are", you will rarely let it go. 

That's probably why we are so shocked by natural events destroying our world (but we do just a little to avoid them) or we are paralzyed by criminal acts: they go beyond our control and they put back the word "illusion" on the spot. On the other side, when imagining the future, we often think about super-AI, mega-pc or cyborgs or super-men with extra powers to... control the world! Are we dreaming to have a pc installed in our brain? yes we do (Gibson can give lessons on that).

Am I sure about that? No: infact, I do not know any religion in which "heaven" comes with iPad (not even jedi one)... it could mean that next step for humanity is not advancing on the road of controlling the world, but caring less of controlling at all.    

Employees happiness, the new engagement

Lately a big debate is animating US biz reviews and corporate world: how can we ensure we grow happy employees? Happy employees are more productive, imply lower maintenance and (hugely important in times of crisis) their retention is higher even with lower salaries and benefits. As a result, a huge mass of articles and books is flourishing trying to explain the secret recipe for an happy employee: "The single greatest advantage in the modern economy is a happy and engaged workforce." (Shawn Achor - CEO of Good Think Inc, see the article of CNN). Sometimes, this roots into more broad researches around happiness and its meaning (there are well written and deep essays, take as example the "History of Happiness" by HBR) but usually, this comes out in simple a-la-IKEA do-it-yourself kits: assemble your happy employee.

happiness raises nearly every business and educational outcome: raising sales by 37%, productivity by 31%, and accuracy on tasks by 19%, as well as a myriad of health and quality-of-life improvements (Shawn Achor - CEO of Good Think Inc, goodthinkinc.com  Author of "The Happiness Advantage")

Similarly to all other trends and fashions of US Corporate microcosm, this one is going to hit Europe in a while, with a big difference versus the past: while other trends (such as engagement or "have a friend at work" stuff) were innovative for employment standards of Europe, where such debates are less frequent, this time there will be a clash. European, Asian and Middle East philosophers have been debating happiness for ages and they never stopped; more, many of them - for example Alain De Botton recently - proposed models and solutions basically requiring to step out from standardization of social rules and norms... the lesson of De Botton held at TED is a jewel of the topic. And what's more "standard" than Corporate culture with its esplicit and tacit norms?

Think about debates in European society (especially coming from feminist or anti-catholic experiences): being happy requires to forget "social status" norms such as being rich, being successful, being married, as all these things promise to make us happy but rarely they really do, if you ever reach them.

More, because of cultural roots, well deep in ages of philosophical thinking (ataraxia of Greeks thinkers) and catholic religion (after life reward comes many times from deprivation in life, especially before Saint Francesco) in many European cultures (French and Italian for example) the idea of being happy at work is simply unacceptable... because of superstition of Ancient Romans, for example, celebrating too much work success is not the right thing as it could generate jealousy in gods (the deus irae, which usually was leading directly to horrible death).

This could be the reason why even the greates liberal entrepreneur of entire Europe, Adriano Olivetti, who was so highly innovative in the search of employee satisfaction and engagement, was not thinking to generate happiness. This is less true in German culture, for example, but still, also there, I personally found hard for German friends to declare they were "happy".

How much does this approach to happiness match with Anglosaxon Corporate Culture? Zero: Corporations are organisms based on reapplicable standard models: "serializing" successful leaders. The role model can change (Henry Ford is different from Steve Jobs), but still people will have (or will try) to comply with the model hoping to reach the same success. And since happiness will be the trending keyword, Anglosaxon companies will start to measure it and try to reapply th role-models game to serialize it.

Could it work? Who knows... but in my mind is clear it cannot: situation reminds me the show business where every fan wants to be like his/her idol... but are the idols happy? And does cloning them can make a fan happy? We know it does not, especially when self-awareness is high: even when you clone your model success, there's no ensurance this will make you happy. Making it simple: in Corporations many want to be an Executive, but very few get there and rarely you see these people happy just because of that. Even if Obama seems an happy person (not all times), does trying to be like him and reach his level of success ensures you will be happy?

Will it be possible to apply US based processes and role-models to European cultures trying to rise employees happiness? Hard to tell: some basic principles could work (have a meaningful work, sleep enough, be healthy, have a rich social life...) but in general the risk of rejection when trying to implement corporate happyness programs will be huge.

Can we use Alain de Botton to explain it to Corporate America friends?

[my 5cents suggested reading: "The happiness project"]