Workplace culture

Every so often, when I meet friends for dinner, we inevitably end up talking about work and workplaces in general. Nearly every person I know who is around my age has a story or two to tell about unpleasant occurrences that they've experienced in their respective workplaces. That includes me too. We don't focus on just them--most of us also have good memories of our work projects/results as researchers, but the less than pleasant occurrences are used to illustrate some of the more negative aspects of Norwegian workplace culture, which I am not a huge fan of in general.

Academic research settings in the public sector, where most of my colleagues/friends and I have worked for the past thirty or more years, are strange work environments in which to find oneself, for Norwegians and non-Norwegians alike. I've always assumed that my Norwegian friends understood 'the rules' better than I did; I'm finding out that this is not the case, and that they were not necessarily treated any better (or worse) than I was when I was working. As always, how one was treated came down to politics--who you knew was more important than what you knew--at least if you wanted to get ahead. The Norwegians talk a good game about all employees being treated equally (the same) and that the same opportunities exist for all, but it's not true. Most academic research settings at present are quite hierarchical with many levels of leadership; this was not the case during the 1990s when I started working at my university hospital. At that time the organizational structure was flatter, with fewer levels of leadership. The disadvantages of a flat structure are that there are fewer possibilities to rise in the system (fewer management positions) and that the managers have a more intense workload compared to hierarchical organizations. The advantages of a flat structure (in my opinion) are that each employee has more autonomy and more freedom to be creative, to speak out, and to be heard. Nowadays there is too much micromanagement, too much administration, too much reporting to managers, too much detail-oriented nonsense. It's smothering, claustrophobic and ultimately fatal for innovation and creativity. There were more of the latter during the 1990s in my humble opinion. No matter. Organizational structures became very hierarchical during the early 2000s; in some departments at present, it is not unusual to be confronted with five or more levels of leadership. Dealing with your own leader/manager is one thing, but then he or she must deal with his or her manager who must deal with his or her manager above them in the system, and so forth. Suffice it to say that it is a cumbersome organizational structure with which to deal. I don't like it and didn't like it when I was working. Middle managers have little or no power to decide how something should go, and many of them become frustrated with such a system. Thus, the focus for many of them becomes micromanagement of their employees, many of whom are trying their best to do their best in a system that is not designed to reward them. Because even though one can 'aspire' to a higher position in a hierarchical organization, in practice there is little to no chance of being promoted or being considered for promotion based on your expertise, because it mostly comes down to 'who you know, not what you know'. Neither flat nor hierarchical organizational structures really reward their employees, at least not in huge public sector workplaces. It's stifling to work in them and to work for managers who can do little to help the departments they lead because they must always 'check' with the managers above them before they do anything. Who would want those positions? Apparently, there are those who do want them, because they are well-paid jobs. But what then happens is that a lot of money that could have been appropriated for solving the real problems that exist goes to pay the salaries of (in my opinion again) useless managers. Thus, the system is loaded with powerless managers with bloated salaries. 

If employees don't like this type of work environment, and most of my colleagues/friends and I do (did) not, employees have a real problem. Because their attempts at independent thinking, innovative thinking, critical thinking, creativity, and not wanting to work in team settings will be met with resistance from managers who expect compliance. Employees should not 'buck the system', should not butt heads (however respectfully) with managers, should not criticize, should not attempt to 'go rogue (be a loner)'. The strange thing is that some people do manage to navigate this system that is designed to keep employees down; some probably get ahead because they are well-liked even though they are resistant to the system. Others are given a helping hand by friends in high places (politics). Neither of these occurrences happens to most employees. Most employees who are competent and have a lot of expertise end up having to comply and to swallow rules they don't agree with in order to have a tolerable work environment within which to work. Those who are not compliant suffer the consequences, which boil down to being frozen out, ignored, overlooked for interesting projects, or criticized. Since employees can rarely be fired from a public sector workplace, managers hope that by creating an unpleasant work environment for resistant employees, that it will force them to seek work other places. For smart and competent employees who love their work but not the organizational system, this creates anxiety and problems with self-confidence. Which in turn leads to poorer production and lack of motivation/enthusiasm. This has happened to more people I know than I care to count, both non-Norwegian and Norwegian. 

Who benefits from such a system? Those at the top who enjoy perks and salaries that are largely unjustifiable, and those who have always been lazy, who have always not wanted to expend any more energy at work than they have to. The latter are true drains on the system. And unfortunately, many have learned to manipulate the system, especially when it comes to the aspect of not being able to fire them. These employees invest little energy in their jobs (and in many cases don't show up to work), and if they are criticized by their managers for not doing a good job or for not doing the job they were hired to do, they are allowed by the system to accuse those managers of harassment. The stigma of being unfairly accused of harassment sticks to a manager. Work environments are small enough so that word gets around that this or that person has been accused of harassing an employee. Unpleasant. What then follows is that the 'harassed' employee generally gets a new manager to report to, who has heard the story of what happened to the previous manager and decides that he or she will not make the same mistake as the previous manager. He or she leaves the 'harassed' employee alone to do what he or she wants; in that way, such an employee, often quite lazy and incompetent, remains on the payroll doing little to nothing in the way of work, because no one dares to cross such an employee. If you could fire such an employee from a public sector workplace, it would be a good thing. But it will never happen here. And from what I've seen of the system that does exist, such employees have a lot of power, whereas those who are truly harassed by their managers don't choose that route--to claim being harassed--because they would rather do their jobs well and not be a bother. Competent and hard-working employees often end up doing more than their share of work to compensate for the lack of work done by the lazy and incompetent employees. Unfortunately, a good number of managers leave the incompetent employees alone and instead focus on making life miserable for the competent and hard-working employees. Go figure. 

So again, I ask. What is there to miss about such workplaces? Just during the past two weeks, I've listened to colleagues/friends tell me about their experiences in their workplaces. Overall, they are leaving their jobs with their heads held high; they know they've done good jobs and are satisfied, even if they rarely hear that from their managers. They know they've done the best they could do and have invested a lot of time and energy in their jobs. They may have been treated poorly at times, but they've let those experiences go. Probably best for all concerned. But nonetheless, they do talk about the unpleasant times when we are together because they were hurt by them, as I was. They were blindsided by them. It's understandable. No one expects to be treated poorly when one does a good or excellent job, invests a lot of time and energy in interesting projects, shares ideas and demonstrates independent thinking. But that's exactly what happened to some of them, while they watched the lazy incompetent employees be treated fairly, and in some cases 'promoted'. It makes no sense. But in some way, perhaps it does. Lazy, incompetent employees are no real threat to management. They don't challenge their authority, they are compliant, they do what they are told. But they don't do the work required of them, and management can't do a thing about it, at least in public sector workplaces. Private sector workplaces are another story. Such employees eventually drain the life out of a department. The rest of the staff pick up the slack and will never be rewarded for it. That's how workplaces function here, at least in my experience during the last twenty years. When good employees reach the point where they understand that they could have invested half the amount of time and energy compared to what they actually invested for the same (or no) result, that's when they understand that it's time to leave their workplaces and a workplace culture that is mostly illogical. 

Failure to respond to emails in the workplace--a growing problem

I read this article in today's New York Times:  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/15/opinion/sunday/email-etiquette.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

and it got me to thinking about my own experiences with sending and receiving emails in the workplace. I find myself getting increasingly irritated by the number of people who do not respond to the emails I send them. And I am not a person who sends unnecessary emails. But I am a person who tries to respect the five levels of hierarchical leadership in my workplace, and the multiple managers that I must relate to and communicate with about one issue. I formally report to two leaders, but if I need to send an email to the leaders under them in the hierarchy (four people, all middle-level managers), then I must also cc: the two top leaders. If I send an email to the leaders under the four middle-level managers, then I must cc: the four middle-level managers and the two top leaders, and so on, ad nauseam. Of course this means that the two top leaders get an immense amount of emails that they may not always need to get or respond to. And if there was trust in the workplace, if leaders trusted the managers under them, then they wouldn't need to be copied onto all emails at all times. But the standard m.o. is 'cover your ass'. Employees know this, and also that they will be called onto the carpet if they do anything that their managers are not informed about. And they do get called onto the carpet for daring to do something that a leader or manager has not approved. And so on.

Leaders and managers have no business complaining about the volume of email they receive, especially if they are responsible for and support a system as outlined in the first paragraph. Their jobs require them to respond to emails from their employees, most of whom end up completely stymied and unable to do their jobs properly if they don't get the necessary responses from their managers and leaders.

Failure to respond to emails is rude. Plain rude. I don't mean by this that you as a leader/manager need to respond immediately to an email. But when two weeks go by without a response, that is unacceptable for employees working on a project who require a response from above in order for them to progress with the project. They are stymied, the project is stymied, and the people who depend upon their progress down the line are stymied. This leads to inefficiency and inertia in the workplace.

I also think that failure to respond to emails can be a deliberate tactic to stymie employees who are creative and who have good solutions to problems. It is a way of telling them that their ideas don't matter. I see that very often in my workplace; my co-workers complain about this often. They end up feeling disrespected and unappreciated.

So, as a manager or leader, don't complain that your workplace is inefficient and that your employees are not motivated, when you have not responded properly to their emails that are required by you in order to get approval or permission to do their jobs. No one wants to hear how busy you are, because we are all busy. Stop complaining, stop wasting your time going to endless and useless meetings, and make it a priority to answer your employees' emails. Chances are that if you treat your employees with respect, they will respond in kind. Answer those emails. And maybe, just maybe, efficiency in the workplace will make a comeback.

Another post about leadership and new challenges

I have taken on a new role at work, one that's moved me out of my comfort zone into a more fast-paced daily existence. The fact that it happened at all is due to a new department leader who wanted to shake things up a bit, and she's done just that. She's given chances to new (untested) people like me rather than just settling for the old guard. I'm glad she's done that, because I was ready to step up to the plate, and I have. This past year has been a bit of a whirlwind in terms of contributing to all of the activities that are a part of my new job. I really enjoy contributing to building something new and to changing how things have been done. The tasks seem daunting at times, and sometimes I wonder what co-workers think when they're presented with the new ways of doing things. Are they skeptical or will they embrace change? I see that many of them are glad for the changes--they embrace them. Giving presentations on short notice, writing grant applications on short notice, leading meetings, and speaking up more--new challenges. I'm happy that I've learned to open my mouth more and express my opinions. The role requires meeting and talking to people, those I know and those I don't. It means meeting people where they are--I travel to meet them because I know that talking to them is valuable--for me and for my organization. It requires taking the reins and starting conversations, asking people for advice and giving it when asked. It requires problem solving, and I've realized that I genuinely enjoy problem solving; I finally understand that about myself--that I'm good at it. I like the puzzle aspect of it--how to fit the pieces together so that we get the results we want without alienating employees. Because no one wins when employees feel alienated. There is discussion and more discussion, but there is also taking the risk of making a decision that will affect employees' work lives. But that's ok, because when I look at my department leader, I realize that she is doing just that, taking the risk of making a decision without knowing for sure that it is the best decision to make. But it may be the right one--she and we cannot always know the outcome. Those are the leaders I will follow, because they do not require unquestioning loyalty, nor do they disrespect their employees. They can agree to disagree if necessary. But they do require their employees to move out of their comfort zone and to take responsibility. That's a leadership language I can speak and understand.

A good article: Ten jobs with the best work-life balance

Back in 2011, I wrote a post about the work-life balance in Norway  (https://paulamdeangelis.blogspot.no/2011/06/work-life-balance-in-norway.html). I made the point that the work-life balance in Norway, and in Scandinavia generally, is better than in the States, for so many reasons, and that is documented in numerous research articles that have studied the topic in depth. I grew up thinking that hard work got you to your goal, and I still think it does. But hard work is not the same as working overtime or working yourself to death. I see that I did not make that point completely clear in my original post. Hard work is not the same as being available to your employer at all hours, on weekends, and on holidays. My point is that it is possible to give what you need to give to your employer and still have a life outside of work. It is possible to work in a focused way for the seven to eight hours you work each day, and then to go home and close the door behind work. It should not make you feel important when your employer contacts you routinely late in the evening with questions and requests for meetings and such things. There may be periods in life when you need to work overtime or on weekends, but this should not be the norm, nor should employers expect this of their employees. Why Americans continue to believe that giving their all to employers is an admirable thing is confounding. Because when the time comes for companies to get rid of employees due to budget cuts, they don't discriminate nor do they waste time, and will do what they need to do regardless of how loyal employees have been or how much time employees have given to their employers. We've seen it time and again.

In that context, I found the following article quite interesting, and wanted to share it with you. It is a list of the ten jobs (US employers) with the best work-life balance. For young people looking to have a balance between work and life outside of work, I urge you to check it out.

https://www.clicktime.com/blog/10-jobs-with-the-best-work-life-balance/

Check out the book What Employees Want

I am promoting this new book--What Employees Want and Why Employers Should Make Sure They Get It--because I believe strongly in its message. My hope for modern workplaces is that they begin to foster a culture of respect for all employees, and that workplaces will no longer be tainted by harassment, bullying, disrespect and lack of concern for employees. There is an expression that I like a lot--'Happy wife, happy life'. Well, the same can apply to the workplace--'Happy employee, happy workplace', or 'Respected employee, productive workplace'. Any way you slice it, it comes down to this--if you have people working for you and you want them to be productive and successful, you've got to treat them well and with the respect they deserve. It's a no-brainer in my book, but you wouldn't believe the stubbornness and stupidity that abounds in modern workplaces concerning this issue. Many employers still think that the domineering hard-handed approach works well when trying to motivate employees. In 2017, if you think that, you are part of the problem, not part of the solution, and time will pass you by.

http://tinyurl.com/yd6erksr

Questions I have for those who appoint leaders

• Why is it that so many current leaders seem to have risen to the level of their incompetence?
• Why are cowardice, silence in the face of tangible problems, and lack of honesty rewarded with appointments to key leadership positions?
• Why are employees who tell the truth, give feedback, and inform about potential problems often pushed to the side, ignored or frozen out of the leadership pack?
• Why is it necessary to resort to embarrassing lazy incompetent leaders in front of others in order to get them to do their jobs and to take responsibility?
• Why is it necessary in 2017 to have to explain to leadership that infrastructure is important? That without a well-functioning IT infrastructure, you may as well work at home where the IT infrastructure is optimal (of course it is—you cannot keep up in society without updating your computers, software, phones, TVs). That without an annual stipend from one’s workplace to purchase consumables, little will get done because there is no money to buy necessary items.
• Why is it necessary in 2017 to have to explain to research leadership that technical positions (research assistants) are alpha and omega in terms of getting things done in the lab? Why isn’t this a given, that a research group has automatic access to a full-time permanently-employed technician? Does leadership really think that senior research personnel are going to do all the lab work themselves, do all the procedures required for research projects, summarize all the data, perform statistical analyses, write articles, write grants, review others’ articles for journals (for free), review grants for national and international funding agencies (often for free or for a nominal payment), attend a plethora of (mostly pointless) meetings, act as mentors for PhD and Masters students, teach junior personnel, hold lectures, travel to conferences, etc.? Excuse me for saying so, but if they think this, they are just plain stupid. I have a colleague (over fifty years old) who told me that some of her worst work weeks have involved attending eighteen hours’ worth of meetings (that works out to almost 2.5 days a week devoted to meetings). It stands to reason that she will not have any time whatsoever to do routine work or lab work. 
• Why is it considered ok for leadership to not inform employees about important matters, but not ok if employees ignore the regulations stating that they must file periodic progress reports and account for every penny they spend?
• How did it get to the point where a research career can end literally overnight when funding dries up, and more to the point, who thinks this is a good system or a good approach? Many of those careers belong to highly-competent and efficient scientists who just don’t happen to be doing trendy research. 
• How can one honestly encourage young people to stay in academic research when the prospect of them attaining a permanent research job/steady funding/tenure is slim to none? Is it ok to essentially lie to them, to tell them that it will work out for them (it won’t in most cases)? 
• And finally: why do we older scientists even entertain the possibility that we have a snowball's chance in hell of getting research funding? Of writing a fundable grant? If I have learned anything these past five years, it’s that even though I managed to write good grant applications that got me external funding to work as a post-doc and junior scientist during a ten-year period from 1999-2008, that’s not good enough anymore. And it will never be good enough. The past does not count. Realism is what counts. Luckily I have a permanent staff scientist position so I cannot be fired because I am older, but there is no funding for consumables. It's a strange situation to be in. But I now focus on other things that give me satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. None of them have to do with my career. 

More important than ever---what employees really want

Workplace bullying

You might think that workplace bullying is on the decrease, but it’s not. I witness it, if not daily, at least weekly, in one form or another, as do others I know. Wikipedia’s presentation of workplace bullying (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workplace_bullying) lists categories of specific behaviors that describe this phenomenon quite well:

• Threat to professional status – including belittling opinions, public professional humiliation, accusations regarding lack of effort, intimidating use of discipline or competence procedures
• Threat to personal standing – including undermining personal integrity, destructive innuendo and sarcasm, making inappropriate jokes about target, persistent teasing, name calling, insults, intimidation
• Isolation – including preventing access to opportunities, physical or social isolation, withholding necessary information, keeping the target out of the loop, ignoring or excluding
• Overwork – including undue pressure, impossible deadlines, unnecessary disruptions
• Destabilisation – including failure to acknowledge good work, allocation of meaningless tasks, removal of responsibility, repeated reminders of blunders, setting target up to fail, shifting goal posts without telling the target  

The behaviors I have been witness to mostly fall under the categories—Threat to personal standing and Isolation. I’m interested in discussing Threat to personal standing in this post today. The bullies use humor, sarcasm, and inappropriate jokes to belittle employees, mostly during meetings where other professionals are present. The intent is to diminish the personal and professional standing of the target in the eyes of those who are present at the meeting; there is absolutely no doubt about that. They may do this in a way that gets the people who are present at the meeting to laugh at the expense of the target, but it leaves a bad taste in their mouths afterward. Why is that? Because those who were present and who witnessed this bad behavior know that they have been privy to a power play—bully denigrating target. The target, usually an employee who works for the bully, is often clueless and cannot defend himself or herself. And even if the target is not clueless, he or she is reluctant to fight back in a meeting setting, mostly because these types of people are often civilized and professional, in contrast to the bully. But fighting back and causing a scene would probably be the best thing for all involved. In this way the bully would be exposed for the creep he or she really is, and the target at least is able to verbalize that he or she has been abused. The target risks of course being told that he or she is ‘too sensitive, takes things too personally, to get over it, suck it up’ and so on. But that is when he or she must stand strong and not buckle under the pressure applied by the bully to admit that the bully may be right. Because the bully is not right. The bully must not be allowed to create confusion in the minds of the target or the others present at a meeting.

What the targets have to understand is that they are true threats to the bully. The bullies envy them. They have something that the bully does not have and will never have—a professional approach to their work and a decency and civilized comportment that is sorely lacking in the bullies. Most bullies are stupid and crude people; I mean that quite seriously. Their crudeness may not be overtly manifest, but it’s there. They don’t like most people either because they are certain that they are better than most other people. They have ridden on the coattails of their (often smarter) employees for years, basking in the success that belongs (or should belong) to these other more competent individuals. They are often unhappy people in their personal lives; and we all know the old saying—that misery loves company. But these bullies take it one step further; they want to destroy the mental well-being of the people they envy. Their behavior should be blocked in a workplace setting; unfortunately that is often not the case. They are free to proceed with their belittling behavior because they sit in positions of power, or simply because they are obnoxious and difficult people who dominate the environments they find themselves in, where their peers (those of equal status and equal power level) merely smile in a bemused way at their behavior. In this way, they are free to continue to behave badly as long as no one stands up to them and says ‘stop’. More people should overcome their civilized natures and stand up to bullies. It won’t lead to politically correct meetings, nor should it. That’s the point. We need to abolish political correctness where it protects the bullies at the expense of their targets.  

Saying goodbye to loyalty in the workplace

A colleague and friend retired this past week after a long work life (forty years). As is often the case with employees who retire from my workplace, she will come in to work from time to time as a consultant to help with specific projects that require her expertise. At her retirement party, there were several speakers who commented on her expertise and her dedication to her work. But one speaker in particular commented on her loyalty to her workplace, her willingness to speak up when there were problems, and her desire to help make it a better workplace by speaking up, even if it put her in an unpopular position with management. He commented on the fact that the workplace doesn’t need and won’t function at all with only yes-men and yes-women, but rather with employees who are willing to speak up and to say no when necessary. In other words, such employees are willing to stick out their necks, to rise above the radar, to create discussion and debate when warranted and to take responsibility for their choices. They are willing to risk disagreements with management and to risk unpopularity with fellow colleagues who would rather they kept their mouths shut rather than create discord. You would think the workplace would encourage these sorts of behavior and would want to hire such people—people who open their mouths, tell the truth, and are honest, trustworthy and loyal. These are the people who are the backbone of an organization, who know it in and out, who know the history of a workplace (for better and for worse), and who can tell you how the system and infrastructure function. In other words, these types of employees are worth their weight in gold, in my opinion.

The opposite is true these days, that workplaces seem to only want yes-employees around them. It’s fairly simple to figure out--it makes life easier for everyone, especially management. But it may not be a smart management philosophy in the long run. There are several reasons for that, which the speaker above touched upon. He meant that it was necessary for employees to speak up in order to prevent a workplace from disintegrating, to prevent it from self-destruction. When I think about it what he said, it makes perfect sense. Unfortunately, there is too much of the opposite—employees who simply agree with the boss when asked their opinions about a specific issue. If you are asked your opinion, and the only thing that preoccupies you is figuring out what management’s stance would be so that you can parrot management’s ideas back to your boss, who will be pleased that you are in agreement with them, then you are a good employee, at least these days. To voice the dissenting opinion, to talk against a specific management philosophy or dictate, to relate the problems associated with the aforementioned, are death knells for your career advancement. If you are direct, honest, willing to debate and discuss, have a sense of an organization’s history, bring up problems, or otherwise ‘bother’ management, you are not valued, or not valued as highly as those who nod and agree with the boss. And of course from a boss’s perspective, the path of least resistance is to promote the employee who agrees with you and your business philosophies and strategies. I get it. I just don’t agree with it. And I cannot see how this makes for a healthy workplace. But I’m of the old school, and grew up during a time when honesty, directness and loyalty were valued.

Some types of managers will tell you the following when you bring up a problem that exists in a workplace: that you are too focused on how things were done in the past (when you bring up historical references for how that problem may have been dealt with previously), that you need to forget the past and focus on the here-and-now, or that you are too direct, or that what you bring up is really not a problem (even though it really is), to name a few responses. They like to talk a blue streak about conflict resolution and the rampant belief that all problems can be resolved; my answer to this is that not all problems can be resolved, just as not all people can truly get along, and in fact to believe so is remarkably naïve and possibly dangerous. Of course, if all employees simply nod their heads and ‘agree’ to a particular resolution, regardless of whether they agree with it or not, then ‘conflict resolution’ has been achieved. But it’s not honest resolution. In the long-run, this type of agreement is not healthy for an organization. Because the result is that dissension rather grows in the corridors. Employees talk about and against management’s philosophies and strategies instead of talking directly to management. There are a lot of rumors and gossip. Management for its part thinks that all employees are happy with the status quo, and so on, and are free to proceed with their plans. But there is a reason for why employees play the yes-men role: they are afraid for their jobs. If you are not in a protected position (where you cannot get fired, e.g. civil service jobs), you can find yourself without a job when the first round of budget cuts comes along. Because the name of the game now is to save as much money as possible—that is the current management strategy—and you put yourself first on the cut list if you are a ‘dissenter’.

It seems to me that loyalty is a dying virtue in the workplace in any case. There is no objectively good reason to be loyal to a workplace anymore, because that workplace will not be loyal to you in return, not in the age of budget cuts and streamlined efficiency. There is no contract between an employee and his or her workplace anymore, the way there seemed to be in my parents’ generation. The workplace has changed enormously during the past thirty years. It would be unrealistic to assume that it would not. The changes may be for the good in some ways; I am in a wait and see mode. There are certainly long-term employees who have abused their positions, just as there are companies that have abused their long-term employees. But at present, there does not seem to be much point in sticking around in one workplace for years anymore; in fact, it may be a liability to do so, unless you find a workplace that values loyalty. Younger people coming into the workplace at present know that their prospects of landing a permanent job (cannot be fired) in an organization are few to none. Companies will not offer such positions now; young people know this and know that they will be out of a job after four or five years, after they have fulfilled training courses or reached the limit in terms of how far they can progress in one position. There is thus no real point in getting too attached, too involved, too dedicated or too interested in what goes on in your workplace; you won’t be there for more than four or five years. You know you will be moving on. The workplaces of the future seem to be places where mutual utilization of each other will define how things are done. Loyalty will be reserved for the personal arena—loyalty to family and to friends. Perhaps this is the way it should be. But a part of me still feels that it should not be necessary to comment on an employee’s loyalty at the end of a long work life—that this type of loyalty should be more the rule than the exception. My guess is that the workplaces of the future will be defined by short-term employees working on short-term projects that are led by short-term managers; employees and bosses will be project-dedicated but not necessarily workplace-dedicated or workplace-loyal. They know they are dispensable, that they can be fired, replaced at will, or rehired, but also that they can move easily from one workplace to another, without the feeling of attachment that long-term workers often feel after many years in their workplaces. The white collar workplaces of the future will be more like factories—producing what they produce without much attention paid to those who are doing the producing. But in return, the employees will receive training and a good income, but no more. Expectations of career advancement within one company will taper off, especially if an employee reaches an income level that is non-sustainable for the company. It will be cheaper to hire younger workers without much experience. In this way, loyalty will be discouraged and eventually obliterated. A glum scenario, perhaps, or perhaps not. Time will tell.  

Finding balance

It seems to me that the lines between our personal and work lives are becoming more and more blurred. They may not even exist for some people. I think much of it has to do with the prevalence of technology and social media and how easy these make connecting to others at all hours; we can be connected 24/7 to family and friends, so why not to colleagues and bosses as well? I know employees who can never let go of work, or vice versa--their bosses and workplaces can never let go of them. These employees leave their workplaces, go home, eat dinner, and work some more, sometimes right up until they go to sleep. Or they accept phone calls and answer text messages from bosses, colleagues and/or clients the entire evening. They never shut their phones off; they check their work emails constantly. They are on when they should be off; they are available to their workplaces when they should be doing other things. Those other things include having a personal life, a family life, a social life, a hobby or two, or doing volunteer work, or maybe just time out for meditation, relaxation, reading a good book or watching a film. The odd thing is that these people travel to an actual workplace each day; they do not work at home. Somehow they have a harder time physically and mentally separating themselves from their workplace than many of those I know who work at home or who work several days a week at home. I am not sure why that is; it would certainly be worth studying. It seems as though working at home forces those who do it to make rules for when they are available and when they are not, and they have learned to enforce those rules.

If a workplace expects the majority of its employees to be available at all hours or to finish work at home, I call that tyranny. Possible exceptions include high-level leaders in times of crisis. If employees cannot let go of their workplaces and must be connected to them and their work at all times, I call that idolatry, especially if there is a certain amount of arrogance attached to the worship of work. These are the people who could choose not to idolize their jobs, but they choose otherwise. Not being able to let go of work can also be a form of addiction. The latter can sneak up on employees after several months of taking work home because they are interested in finishing up an interesting project or because they want the answer to the question now. And taking work home every now and then, by choice, is much different than being forced to do so by your workplace. But over time, the results can be the same. Employees become slaves to their work and to their workplaces. They cannot put their work aside; it preoccupies them to the point of nervousness and anxiety, which is not healthy in the long run. This happened to me a number of times during the past twenty years, I would take work home and stay up to all hours in order to complete it. But what happened was that one project would get finished, and then two more would take its place, and so on. My point is that we will never be finished with our work. It will always be there waiting for us the next day. It is absolutely fine, totally ok, to pick up the next day where we left off the day before, after an evening of rest, relaxation and a good night’s sleep. It is important to have balance in our lives. More to the point, it is important to maintain balance in our lives, because it is so easily lost to or disturbed by workplace tyranny, idolatry, or addiction. And that means shutting off the phone, not looking at work emails, not 'checking in', and not being available; no matter how much it plagues us (or tyrannical workplaces) in the beginning. It means cutting the cord and not worshipping on the altar of work. The rewards are that we find ourselves again in the process of deprogramming ourselves, and we find balance in our lives. It does not mean that we no longer enjoy our work, rather that we enjoy it within the context of a balanced life. 

Living on crumbs

It occurred to me this past week that perhaps abusive workplaces damage employees in more ways than we care to admit. After several recent conversations with colleagues and friends, I can only conclude that this seems to be the case. The type of abusive workplace I am talking about has little to do with physical abuse, although I know that occurs in some workplaces. The most common type of abuse is psychological and emotional, and I firmly believe that years of this type of abuse will damage the recipients, much as a psychologically abusive personal relationship does. And the damage may not be reversible. That is the frightening part. We don’t like to talk about this, but just because we don’t talk about it doesn’t mean the problem doesn’t exist. The recipients of the abuse may carry their feelings of fear, shame, guilt and loss of self-esteem home with them, and take it out on the people with whom they live. Or if they live alone, they may take it out on themselves by living in unhealthy ways. Whatever the situation, the abuse leaves deep scars, and the employees who have experienced this type of abuse may not be able to leave their work situations, in the same way as an abused spouse may be unable to leave his or her situation. There may be no energy left to do so, or to fight back, or to deal with the situation.

What type of abuse am I talking about? Bullying, derision, grandstanding always at the expense of others, total disregard for the feelings of others, lack of emotional intelligence, verbal aggression, cursing, domination of meetings or conversations by the same people who flatten anyone who tries to get a word in, freezing out specific employees, being negative to what specific employees suggest no matter what the situation, deriding ideas during brainstorming meetings, making employees feel like crap, embarrassing or harassing them publicly (telling employees, ‘if you don’t like it, leave’ or telling employees that they’re lazy or mediocre in a public meeting). The list is endless. Have I seen such behavior in workplaces? Yes I have. What does an abusive workplace do to its employees? What are the scars it leaves on them? I would suggest that it creates a pattern of hope and disappointment that becomes cyclical. In the hope cycle, employees experience a feeling of being uplifted, perhaps because a boss has acknowledged their work for once. I call the experience being ‘grateful for crumbs’. In this case, the crumbs can be, for example, a very infrequent acknowledgment of employees’ work (or existence) in an environment that otherwise criticizes or ignores its employees. In the disappointment cycle, employees feel that their situation is hopeless and that there is little possibility of change. And then comes the hope cycle that brings with it that feeling that change is possible. This is very similar to an abusive relationship—between spouses, or between children and parents, between siblings, and so on.

You can imagine how children would develop in a home environment where parents were critical of and negative about most things they did, and only occasionally ‘threw a dog a bone’. That’s living on crumbs. Or parents who ignore their children, except to ‘show them off’ to others when it’s time to be politically correct. Children are highly sensitive to parental behavior, and they will work overtime to try to ‘read’ their parents. The appreciation of ‘crumbs’ becomes learned behavior after a while, but the recipients of abusive behavior are so focused on trying to ‘please’, that growth in other areas becomes stifled or stunted. They never completely learn self confidence, they become afraid of authority, or they became afraid to voice their opinions or ideas for fear of being derided, yelled at, or embarrassed publicly. The scars persist well into adulthood. The mistake we make as a society is to think that adults can tackle everything that is thrown at them, just because they are adults. The assumption is automatically that they have to tackle everything. What happens when or if they cannot? I’ve seen one example of that recently—someone who hit the wall big-time. There are bullies in the workplace, just as there were on the school playground. When the bullies get control of the workplace, the employees who get beaten up are often the ones who may not have had a lot of self confidence to begin with. Or they may be the ones who are living on crumbs in personal situations as well. Or they may have self confidence, but were raised to not question authority, to not stick their heads up. So if they are unfairly treated, there is no real recourse for them. They are not the ones likely to go over the boss’ head to complain to the higher-ups.

I have been told sometimes that I bring up problems but that I don’t discuss the solutions for them. That may be the case at times, but it may be the case simply because I don’t know what the solutions are. What do you do if you are an older man, for example, whose workplace bullies him, whose wife is sick, whose children depend on him, who knows that his chances of finding another job are next to null at his age? What then? What do you tell that person? Go find another job? Think positive and it will all work out? Blame him for his situation? And even if he is partly to blame, because he has let himself be satisfied with crumbs for many years, how does it help him if society blames him for his entire situation? We like to think that this is not a common situation; the fact is, in my father’s generation, this was a quite common scenario, at least where I grew up. It’s so easy to judge others, and in the end, ourselves. We are often as hard on ourselves as we are on others. The key word is hard. Maybe things would change if more people practiced being softer. Kindness is so underrated. We need more of it in society, in workplaces and in homes. Perhaps the next time a boss is abusive, we need to remind him or her of the value of being kind. That’s at least one solution I can suggest; I have no idea if it will work.  

Changing the way we work

So many people I know or have met recently no longer work the traditional 9am to 5pm workday schedule in a formal workplace. And they seem perfectly happy about this. It struck me more on this trip to New York; that this trend seems to have become a major societal change during the past few years--one for the better, if you ask me. A good number of people I know in both the USA and Europe are working for private companies, but are doing so from the comfort of their own homes. Many of them have home offices. Others work from home one or two days a week. All of them arrange their workday according to what is suitable. Some of them work in the mornings, take the afternoons free, and then work late into the evenings. Whatever the arrangement, I like the flexibility involved, as well as the trust factor. Companies must trust that their employees are going to deliver the goods—that employees will be effective and productive workers when they are working at home. It can be difficult—to get structured enough so that you use your home time productively. When I was starting out in the work world, I liked the more rigid structure and discipline of a formal workplace; now I welcome the flexibility of my home office days. I don’t need a formal workplace to make me a productive employee. I can do what I need to do as a scientist (working in the public sector) from home for the most part (except for the occasional lab experiments that require bench time)—read and write articles, review grants, write grants, and design experiments. I have changed, and I am glad for the change. I feel more creative when I work from home; I am not as distracted by what is going on around me as I often am when I go to my workplace. It’s easy to get lost in idle conversation with co-workers, and as enjoyable as that social contact can be, you suddenly realize that a large chunk of time has been lost from the workday. That doesn’t happen at home; even though I am in close contact with my co-workers should they need me. They only contact me, or I them, when it’s absolutely necessary, and then it’s usually to ask or answer a specific question. Sometimes we can do this via email; other times we need to talk. However it transpires, it works, and it works well. Some of my more productive years during the past decade have been years when I worked a lot from home. I think it has to do with a ‘pared-down’ existence—no gossip, no office politics, no superfluous meetings, less time wasting. It amazes me how much time can be wasted in a workplace.  In any case, I’m glad to see that private companies have recognized the need for flexibility in the way their employees work. By allowing for home offices or home office days, they are changing the face of work and the definition of the workplace, and they are welcome changes. The future of the work world is being created through these changes.

How NOT to win friends and influence people

My apologies to Dale Carnegie who wrote the book How to Win Friends and Influence People, a motivational book that was published in 1936 and which is still immensely popular all these years later. I simply had to comment on some of the leader behaviors that I have been witness to this past month in my workplace, which never cease to amaze me (or others I discuss them with). I’m not the target of these particular behaviors; other colleagues are the unlucky ones for the time being.

How would you like to be at this kind of meeting, one that I recently attended as an observer, where a manager spent most of the time negatively comparing his employees to a new stellar employee? And when these employees attempted to object, as some of them did, they were told that they are mediocre (in Norwegian—‘middelmådige) workers at best, and that mostly what they do is sit on their butts and keep their jobs warm (in Norwegian—‘å ruge på sin stilling’, much like a bird would do sitting on its nest to keep the eggs warm). It’s an interesting development, and it amazes me yet again that leaders in any workplace, in 2012, have not yet understood that insults, sarcasm and passive-aggression don’t win them friends, nor do they motivate the employees who are the targets of this behavior. The targets seem to have decided to mount a counter-offense, which has led to conflict between them and the leader(s) in question. And who knows where it will all end? I am a spectator at present and will likely remain so, unless I get forcibly dragged into the fray. Perhaps all of this is a test to separate the wheat from the chaff, or to get the perceived 'lazy' employees to quit. A management strategy to get rid of dead weight. Who can really know?

I find this type of behavior so unprofessional and childish. I will allow for the following: that leaders can think what they want to think about their employees, for example, that they are lazy and unproductive, but that they should NEVER voice such opinions publicly in a meeting format, in front of these employees’ colleagues, as was the case here. I was witness to what occurred, as were several of my colleagues. None of us liked this behavior. We ended up at a loss for words--blindsided--in other words, taken aback by it, so that it is difficult to mount a response. These are the types of discussions that are best conducted behind closed doors, between the employees in question and their bosses. But this doesn’t happen in my workplace. Rather, everyone should know what the leaders think about the employees in question—a modern form for putting folks in the public stocks and letting them stand on display for all to mock. I really do believe that some leaders think this type of behavior will light fires under the butts of the employees they think are lazy and unmotivated. That treating them negatively will create a positive result. I know that it will not. How do I know this? Because I have had the privilege and responsibility of mentoring a good number of PhD and Master’s students during the past ten years, and motivating them to do a good job NEVER involved insulting them or degrading them publicly. I am happy to report that I have not treated any of them badly. Ever. The result being that they voice their satisfaction with my mentoring, guidance, help and advice. I can attest to the fact that being nice and caring about their development and progress yield results. It also creates self-confidence where there might not have been much at the start point. Helping people to believe in themselves—their talents and gifts—is a gift in and of itself, a gift that creates personal and spiritual growth in the persons who practice this. I think this is common sense, but I'm wondering if perhaps some of these leaders need to find Dale Carnegie's book on their desks come Christmas time. 

The new and improved, spontaneous and creative modern-day workplace

Ran into a former colleague yesterday; he left academia a few years ago and moved into industry. Not necessarily because he wanted to; more because there were no further possibilities for him to get more funding at that time, so when his contract ran out, he had no job. That’s how it works in academia. The nature of academic jobs is transient; if you don’t like this aspect of academia, it is not for you. Most non-tenured academics work contractually for three to four years at a time. But my former colleague was telling me how tough it has become to work and keep your job in the private sector as well. Not easy there either. You must like constant change, and you must adjust quickly. If not, you’ll be left in the dust and possibly without a job if you don’t keep up. There is a lot of instability there too, and you can no longer rely on finding a ‘permanent’ job. The public and private sectors seem to have discovered that the offer of a permanent job to an employee may make that employee complacent and thus non-productive over time. Of course that can happen. But does it always happen? No. What they haven’t factored into the equation is that without some sort of stability, there can be no productivity because there is no time to relax and to produce. If you are always worried about whether your job is to be eliminated or if you will lose your job because your performance is constantly being measured, you cannot produce well. That is my contention at least. My former colleague talked about quarterly performance evaluations. That must be extremely stressful. I think annual performance evaluations are enough.

I’ve talked to many different people who work in the public and private sectors, both here in Norway and in the USA. They all say the same thing—the work world has gotten much harder and tougher. Modern-day workplaces are now new and improved. If you don’t measure up, you’re gone. If you don’t produce, you’re gone. If you’re not creative, you’re gone. If you don’t like constant change, brainstorming, open office landscapes, and teamwork, you’re gone. If you’re a loner type, a non-conforming type, a quiet type, there’s not much room for you these days. You’re expected to conform, to avoid conflict but to be creative, to network, to connect, to work together in a team but to be creative, to be constantly on but to be creative and so on. I don’t know how all of this is possible. I find it difficult to draw a direct connecting line between creativity and productivity. A creative idea needs time to take root, to blossom, to grow. It cannot be pulled out by its roots before its time. It cannot be harvested before its time. This means that there is a time lag between the birth of an idea and the birth of the product that may come from that idea. What if it takes a year or two? What if it takes five years? Is that allowed these days? All I know is that scientific research cannot and does not work like this. It’s hard to measure our productivity as scientists except to look at our publication records. And even those can be misleading. You may have one good article published during the past three years in a very good journal, and that article took several years to create. Or you may have several average-quality articles published in average-quality journals that took the same amount of years to create. If management only looks at the latter, then a scientist will be considered productive. But is this the correct picture? Is it the whole picture? I think not.  

Personally, it would be pure torture for me to have to perform on cue every single time I had a meeting with other team members—to come up with creative ideas on cue, to know just the right thing to say, to have a quip ready, to have advice in spades. I don’t work that way. I don’t tick that way. Heck, there are some meetings where I can sit quietly and just listen to others talk. I leave those meetings and reflect on what’s been said and accomplished. I respect others who can and who do perform on cue; who can ad lib and brainstorm at will. I am not one of them. I never was, even as a child. I am not very spontaneous. I respectfully request that others respect that all people are not the same, and that it will be impossible to create a society of workers who all think alike.

Lean Mean Fighting Machine

Christine Koht, a Norwegian media personality and program leader, is also a columnist for A-magazine, Aftenposten’s weekend magazine. Her column this past Friday was about the Lean management philosophy, how it has invaded Norwegian workplaces, and the effect it has had on many employees, whom as she described, are just so tired of being told how to be better. She lectures and entertains at many different workplaces around the country, and described how many of the employees she meets in her travels are feeling these days about their workplaces (translated from Norwegian):

‘I travel quite a lot around this country, entertaining at different workplaces, and everywhere I go I encounter the same ideal—continuous improvement. Counting and measurements and endless documenting are presumably what it takes to find out how everything can always be better. But everyone is so tired of it. Doctors and plumbers, engineers and teachers--all of them are finding that their workdays and their job enthusiasm are being drained dry by the perpetual need to document everything they do’.  

I have to admit that this was the first time I had ever heard about this management philosophy. First it was New Public Management (NPM), now it's Lean. So I decided that it’s time to read up on these business philosophies that have taken over the workplace. I’ve already written a post on New Public Management. Actually, we're knee-deep in NPM in the public sector and rather stuck there, so how did Lean get a foothold? I am interested in these philosophies because I see what they are doing to workplaces. The first thing that came to mind when I saw the word Lean was the old expression ‘lean mean fighting machine’. And it seems that this management philosophy is all about reducing waste and continuous improvement, so that your company ends up ‘fit for fight’—a lean mean fighting machine in a competitive global economy. It seems to have started as a management philosophy for manufacturing—how to improve efficiency of production by focusing on waste reduction. For the life of me, I cannot imagine how this philosophy can be applied to public sector organizations. For one thing, it is the exact opposite of NPM as far as I can see. Correct me if I’m wrong, but NPM has only led to massive increases in layers of administration and administrative positions—too many chiefs and not enough Indians, in other words. So if Lean is now the management philosophy of choice—what possibilities exist to eliminate waste? Should the Lean business consultants, strategists and gurus start by ‘removing’ the very layers of administration that NPM set in place? Because anyone with an ounce of common sense can see that it is the exponential growth of administration that is clogging the system, reducing efficiency and causing waste. The administrators need to administrate and to control the employees who are doing the actual work. The numbers of actual workers are decreasing relative to the number of administrators set in place to administrate them.

I also see what these different trends in management philosophies have done to workplace leaders, how desperate some of them are to effect change, any change, in a panicked attempt to leave a legacy behind them when they go. They also have to be able to say to a new employer—‘I managed to implement this or that change in my former workplace, and it’s working very well. I can do miracles with your workplace if you only give me a chance’. Or I can at least imagine that this is what they are desperate to achieve, otherwise why do so many of them—men and women alike--look so harried and haggard? When you meet with them, they come up with yet another idea for how you can be better, how you can improve your workday, how you can best serve your workplace and those ideas are completely different than the ones they were so adamant about your accepting just a year ago. And when you remind them of what they insisted upon a year ago, they get irritated and don’t want to hear about the past. The past for them is the past—gone, non-existent (as though it never existed), passé, and a taboo topic of conversation. It’s all about relativeness (changing with circumstances) these days. When you remind them that you personally might want to learn from past mistakes, they don’t want to hear that either. They also don’t want to hear that you want to take your time now in making a decision that will affect how you perform your work duties for the next few years. They just want you to accept what they want you to accept—NOW. It doesn’t matter if they change their minds again in six months. 

When will workplace leaders realize that efficiency is the last thing that results from incessant poking and prodding and change? Employees work best and most efficiently in an environment that lets them do the job they are paid to do, in other words, in a stable and supportive environment. They work best in an environment where the infrastructure in place supports them in their quest to do a good job, rather than hindering them, as is often the case in overly-bureaucratic and overly-administrated environments. There is no stability in an atmosphere of constant change, in an environment that incessantly pokes and prods its employees at every turn in an effort to get them to produce more and to be more efficient. There are many employees who have done a terrific job, who have produced for their companies, and who are tired. Just plain tired—of being told they haven’t done enough, that they aren’t good enough, that they need to change, that they are resistant to change, that they are too set in their ways, or that they need to just ‘adapt’ to yet another way of looking at their job. What if the new management philosophy could be one with a laissez-faire focus, one that led to appreciation of employees and to company management which understood that employee competence and expertise are the reasons that employees were hired in the first place, which understood that ‘more and better’ all the time doesn’t lead to efficiency and that if employees are appreciated that they will produce in ways that a company could only dream of? What if companies understood that enough is enough and that better is often the enemy of good, and that more means never enough? Management should back off and let employees be. But that would mean treating employees like adults and not children. Are company managements up to that? Only time will tell.

I’m not arguing against all forms of self-improvement; I’m actually a proponent of self-improvement in the personal arena. By that I mean—striving to be the best person you can be in the situations in which you find yourself. We can always learn new ways of looking at things, always have new and different responses if we’ve learned from our mistakes. My problem is when self-improvement/job improvement is forced upon you by people who have little to no idea of what they’re doing and who have no idea of who you really are or of what you need in a workplace setting. So let’s see if I can get this right. If I need advice on how to be a better scientist, I will consult a highly-successful scientist, not an administrator. Likewise, if I need advice on how to be a better friend or spouse, I’ll consult people who have good track records in both departments or who work in the psychology and social work fields, but not an administrator. By documenting all that we do, administrators conclude that they know us and that they are competent enough to tell us how to do the jobs we were hired to do. But they are not. However, if I need help with balancing a budget sheet or with filling out a complicated form, I’ll consult an administrator. But that is very seldom. So perhaps these management philosophies are more about finding valid work for the administrators to do. The employees they are administrating know for the most part what they are doing and why, and how to reach their professional goals without administrative interference. The more time we spend on administrative tasks, the less time we have to work at our real jobs, and then productivity and efficiency fly out the window. 

A lesson in employee satisfaction

”People are the most important resource we have at SKAGEN and it is therefore very gratifying that they are also very happy in their jobs. The workplace is demanding, but unique, and expertise and knowledge are important in all aspects of the organization”.

Mette Helgevold Årstad, SKAGEN Human Resources manager

Why you wonder, am I quoting a human resources manager and her views about the company she works for? It is because the company she works for is not just any company, it is a mutual funds company founded in 1993, and it was recently voted one of the top ten places to work in Norway by the Great Place to Work Institute. They surveyed 12,000 employees from 136 companies and SKAGEN FUNDS came in as #9 out of 68 companies with 50-250 employees. Impressive, if you ask me, but I’ve heard this before about the company. And it makes me wonder how they do it. How do they achieve employee satisfaction? Could it be the bonuses that they hand out at Christmas time to all employees, from high-level managers to secretaries? What is their secret? Whatever it is, I want to bottle it and share it with my (public sector) workplace, because at present it’s on the opposite end of the scale in terms of employee satisfaction, unfortunately. And I know a lot of the skeptics will tell me that SKAGEN is a private company and that things are done differently there. So what? Why can’t the public sector adopt other things from the private sector besides the goal of making money? Why can’t they learn from the private sector how to treat employees well?

Many people in this country have bought shares in mutual funds offered by SKAGEN; the company thus has a huge amount of money at its disposal for its national and global investments, and has done very well since its founding in 1993. They not only treat their employees well, they also treat their clients well. We recently attended the play ENRON courtesy of SKAGEN; they had a few hundred tickets that were made available on a first-come/first-served basis to attentive (answering an email ad) clients, and I just happened to be one of the lucky ones who got tickets when I saw the email advertising this. I like this idea of treating clients to a night out. The skeptics and the cynics I know were quick to add that the company can afford it and so on—that it’s just a drop in the financial bucket for them. I know this is true. But I ask--how many other companies are actually doing this for their clients? I appreciate the gesture. It’s not just the rich they’re courting; it’s the common man and woman. And I’m not naive; of course I know that they are looking for new clients. Again I say, so what—it’s their job and they do it well. They also offer seminars and courses, for example, on pensions and pension reform, saving for retirement, and so forth. I recently attended an evening seminar for women only which was very interesting, particularly the lecture about pensions, retirement, and early retirement. The seminar was free and during the break, the company provided tapas, dessert, fruit and wine. So again I say, if this is how they can treat their clients—by sharing a little of the wealth, then it’s not surprising that they also ‘share the wealth’ with their employees. Not too difficult to achieve employee satisfaction that way—by rewarding your employees for their hard work. But not only that, it seems to be an interesting place to work, even though it’s a high-pressure environment. SKAGEN seems to function well as a company and other companies could learn from them how to treat their employees. I’m not just talking about handing out bonuses at Christmas time; I’m talking about creating a work environment that appreciates and cares about its employees, at least from my vantage point. I’m talking about leadership that listens to and ‘sees’ its employees and likes them. There’s a lot right with this picture.