Is Gossip Killing your Business Potential?

posted by Anna Fleet on October 15th, 2010

Yes, it’s true that many of us spend the majority of our waking lives at work. And it’s just human nature to stroke the embers of gossip.

Workplace gossip is a fierce beast. We’re all guilty of it, but I’m not pointing fingers…at you Carrie, at the water cooler talking about the latest office romance…I’m simply trying to point out how damaging office gossip can be when the amount of energy that goes into people undermining other people at work, for the same company, with hopes of success— you see what I’m getting at.

That’s why my eyes perked up (that’s impressive for a Friday folks) when today’s Harvard Business Review ran an article on how office gossip kills productivity and possibility, by author Dan Pallotta. Gossip kills the business by taking our attention away from the greater success of the company, or as Pallotta says, “or [the businesses] real potential, which is essentially the same thing. We end up working harder to undermine our fellow workers than we work to make the business work out in the market place. Competitors couldn’t possibly thwart the possibility of our success to the degree we thwart it ourselves. When we gossip about the leader of our enterprise, we create an organization more committed to her failure than her success…Honesty is the essence of leadership.”

Pallotta further points out that he’s not introducing rocket science here. We’re all aware how destructive gossip can be. And he shares this advice: “Make ruthlessly honest communication, at all levels, priority number one.” Because otherwise, and we’ve all seen this happen, things that have been kept silent can grow to immeasurable atrocities in the eyes of the so-called victim—especially when they come to the surface.

Honest communication is powerful stuff, and you can embed healthy communication in your organization in these ways:

1. You can’t simply outlaw gossip unilaterally—you have to get the whole organization to see it as a negative thing by nurturing a culture where gossip is unwelcome.

2. Help people see the unconstructive costs of gossip—on a personal and enterprise level—gossip can cost an organization happiness, harmony, success, fulfillment, teamwork and money.

3. Put serious time and resources into healthy communication—hire experts to help develop a culture of healthy communication and allocate time for training on an ongoing basis.

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Human-Centered Design Improves Healthcare

posted by Anna Fleet on August 25th, 2010

The Harvard Business Review recently featured an interview with Kaiser Permanente, of Kaiser Pemanente Innovation Consultancy. In the interview he discusses how the design thinking process is used to turn front line staff (nurses) into co-designers in our hospitals.

Permanente says, “We do this by finding the few folks early on who want to share their dreams, their desires, their pain points with us. Then we observe them through a shadowing process in their expertise areas … and take them through the ideation phase where front line staff are inspired to release all of the great ideas inside of them.” To Permanente seeing those low fidelity prototypes (ideas) put into action in a hospital within few weeks is truly powerful stuff.

And thanks to this engagement with frontline staff and patients, human-centered design has created solutions that solve universal problems in health care— medication administration error, nurse shift handoff and pain management—and improve the quality of health care.

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Do Ego-less Contributors Exist?

posted by Brenton on August 20th, 2010

I came across an interesting job posting recently—one that listed “must be an ego-less contributor, always ready to listen, always eager to learn, but also able to objectively assert oneself based on experience and best practices” as a requirement to do the job effectively.

Imagine an organization where all individuals showed up with this mindset? Why, this organization could accomplish almost anything they set out to do.

If you walked into an organization that was fueled by people like this, you’d see a highly collaborative, agile, creative, optimistic group of people doing big things in the world—even changing the world. I personally think that every organization could learn from these characteristics. They are, after all, identified as essential in creating cultures of innovation from big thinkers like the Harvard Business Review.

Take it from Steve Jobs who said that getting fired from Apple was the most humbling, yet life and career shifting experience that ultimately resulted in a healthier ego and greater openness to collaborate. In a speech he delivered to Stanford a few years back, Jobs said that he was certain that his recent successes with Pixar, iPod, iTunes, etc., wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been fired from Apple (and recognized the importance of collaboration).

It might be semantics, but I don’t think that the employer who posted the job wants an “ego-less” contributor. Who can truly be ego-less? And is that even a useful goal? Taking a deeper look at the description, I’d say the employer is looking someone who can balance humility (always ready to listen, always eager to learn) with a healthy ego (objectively assert oneself).

I read a book recently called Egonomics that describes this balance as “ego equilibrium”. Another useful concept that I pulled from the book is the notion of ideas vs. identity. The concept focuses on keeping ideas—or keeping what you think and believe—separate from your identity—or who you are. When you link the two it can lead to defensiveness, which kills openness and collaboration. Don’t kid yourself. Separating ideas from identity isn’t an easy feat. It takes a great deal of self-awareness and deliberate work not to take feedback personally.

But give it a try the next time your company has a brainstorming session or group meeting. Look at the ideas contributed simply as ideas and don’t attach them to the people who contributed them. You can probably already see how this would keep minds open, and creativity and innovation flowing.

So tell me, what do you think about this idea? I promise I won’t take your input personally.

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Failure Sucks—but Instructs

posted by Anna Fleet on August 19th, 2010

An excellent point made by the Harvard Business Review today states that “there is no learning without failure.”

Robert I. Sutton, author of the article and co-author of five books on managerial audiences (including The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Firms Turn Knowledge Into Action), says that failure is prevalent in the face of innovation. Meaning, “the reality is that the typical successful innovator experiences the agony of defeat far more often than the thrill of victory,” says Sutton.

It’s true that failure will occur, and often. But the key is, instead of giving up, we should learn from our failures and put those lessons toward our future successes. Sutton goes on to say that, “The ability to capitalize on hard-won experience is a hallmark of the greatest organizations—the ones that are most adept at turning knowledge into action…and the ones that are the most successful when it comes to developing and implementing creative ideas.

Read the full article to find out why the most successful creators tend to be those with the most failures.

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Creating Cultures of Innovation

posted by Anna Fleet on August 18th, 2010

A recent IBM poll shed some interesting statistics on business when they talked to 1,500 CEOs across 60 countries. Here’s what they found:

  • CEOs rated creativity as the most important leadership skill
  • 80% said that business literally demands new ways of thinking
  • However, less than 50% believe their organizations are equipped to deal with complex business environments

To deal with the shifting business landscape, the Harvard Business Review shared six secrets to creating a culture of innovation that they believe businesses must make in order to survive.

1. Meet needs

Examine what your employees need to perform at their very best. Look at how well their physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs are being met in the workplace. It’s no secret that the more staff is preoccupied by unsatisfied needs; the less energy they bring to work. Hint: Let employees design their days as they see fit. As long as they are achieving their goals, the nitty-gritty details shouldn’t matter.

2. Teach a systematic approach to creativity

Betty Edward’s book Drawing on the Artist Within describes the five stages of creative thinking: first insight, saturation, incubation, illumination, and verification. These provide a rough roadmap for enlisting the whole brain in the thinking process—both the analytic left side of the brain and the big-picture right side of the brain—to solve problems effectively.

3. Nurture passion

We see this with children. When people are assigned tasks that don’t engage their imagination it kills creativity. Those encouraged to follow their passion have better discipline, knowledge, and more resilience to setbacks. Find ways to allow employees to express their unique skills and passions and they will be more engaged and productive at work.

4. Defining purpose

Money pays the bills, but it doesn’t satisfy meaning. Human beings strive to make positive contributions to the world—even on a small level—by doing something that matters. As business leaders, you need to find and communicate a compelling mission as a source of fuel for your employees to move forward.

5. Provide time

Time is scarce in our “more, bigger, faster” society. Ironically creative thinking requires uninterrupted, pressure-free time on a regular basis.

6. Recovery period

Human beings are not machines. To run effectively, the average human can expend energy for short periods of time (approximately 90 minutes), but then we need adequate time to recover. That’s why we all need to step away from problems to let our unconscious work. Many of us take a walk, go for a drive, go to the gym, listen to music or even meditate to spur creative breakthroughs.

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