Month: June 2012

A regular part of organizational life are those events called 'off-sites', 'retreats', 'teambuilding' or sometimes 'jollies'. I've been on my fair share of them ranging from outdoor experiential stuff in Dorset where we had to build rafts, scale walls, wade through water and so on to indoor hotel conference rooms, in places close to airports, with no daylight where we indulged in co-counselling and revealing our innermost thoughts to team members while sitting in a circle.

The Dorset thing was fairly early on in my career. I was a novice at that stage and when the trainer asked what activity we would least like to do given a choice of things like potholing, rock climbing, and white water rafting I naively said 'potholing' thinking we would be allocated to something we would like to do. Not the case. I spent a long terrifying day crawling underground in the darkness through wet mud. The trainer thought it would help me face my fears. I've never been near a pothole again.

One of the sitting in circle ones I remember, also early in my career, was where the trainer chain smoked throughout the day. (You can tell how long ago that was). As the room filled with smoke I asked him if he would stop smoking or smoke outside. He lashed out at me for stepping on his 'rights' and said if I didn't like him smoking I could leave the course. So much for a 'safe environment'.

What I learned from these early career experiences was to treat teambuilding events with a certain skepticism. I don't think that was the intention of them. But I was never quite clear what the intention of them was.

This is one of the difficulties with teambuilding events. Getting to some reliable assessment of their value or any return on investment is extremely difficult. This may be because the objectives and intended outcomes are not spelled out in a way that then facilitates effective measurement. This problem came to mind a couple of weeks ago when I was a participant in a two day off-site with my colleagues. This was an event designed to promote … what?

Well there were laudable words 'enhancing rapport and relationships between team members', 'building trust', 'developing joint problem solving capability', 'knowledge sharing', ' improving team communication' and 'increasing collaboration', and Day Two which was working with a non-profit on a particular issue they were trying to address seemed designed to achieve the intent of the words. But still a doubt remains in my mind. How will we know that the two days was a good return on investment? Day One, in case you're wondering was spent in one of the office conference rooms – with windows – discussing meeting protocols, marketing collateral and other operational stuff.

The direct costs of the two days included flights for some team members, hotel accommodation, and a couple of team dinners. I don't know what the exact dollar amount for this was. Then there were the indirect costs of the whole team being unbillable for two days (or maybe more if flying/travel time is factored in).

Of course, having asked the question – how will we know if the return on the two days was worth the investment I got the task of finding out how we would find out! But I can't say this was an unexpected assignment and two team members are joining me in the adventure of finding a response that few academics and/or practitioners have been able to answer satisfactorily.

There is very little research or guidance that really tackles return on these types of teambuilding events in terms of improved business performance. There are some frameworks that point a direction. Kirkpatrick's well used model of training evaluation – that some have dismissed as 'magical thinking' – describes four levels of outcomes:

1. Reaction: trainees' perceptions of the quality and value of training
2. Learning: whether trainees have learned the skills, knowledge, or attitudes that were intended
3. Behavior: whether the acquired skills, knowledge, or attitudes, affected behavior on the job
4. Results: the impact of the training on business results, for example productivity, quality, or customer satisfaction

Charles Jennings, in a thought provoking blog around the standard models of training evaluation makes the point that a lot of planned learning activity is "sub-optimal to the extent that it provides little value to participants and their organizations" and suggests five barriers to effective learning.

But both Kirkpatrick and Jennings make reference to the point that training and development activity – including teambuilding events – need to have a positive and measurable impact on business performance. However, there is just no really satisfactory way to make the cause-effect link although some experiments have shown that there is some relationship between behavior changes and business results: for example, Level 3 behavior change like better leadership, higher team cohesiveness, better interpersonal communication, better problem solving and higher levels of trust (though it is not mentioned how these are measured) leads to Level 4 results – lower employee turnover, lower absenteeism, higher productivity, higher quality, better overall job performance

Having briefly discussed methods of evaluation we have decided to pick up more or less at the Level 4 and take a different tack. My colleagues and I are considering using a balanced business scorecard approach as our framework for measuring the benefits of the teambuilding event we participated in last week. We think we could usefully measure in the four quadrants of

Customers, Business Processes, Financials and Learning. (The standard four), but it will probably behoove us to real the primer by Paul Niven Balanced Scorecard Step-by-Step: Maximizing Performance and Maintaining Results before launching into an evaluation process. However, this will be a bit of a retrofit as the subject of evaluation came up after the event and so wasn't a front of mind consideration in the original design. (Should it have been? Would the evaluation outcome be more or less valuable if we had thought of evaluation as part of the design?)

Anyway, here are my first suggestions on the measures we could consider:

• Customers: The non-profit we worked with implement some of our suggestions and measure their own business performance improvement as a result of this implementation.
• Business process: We action our talk on the marketing process and collateral, send it to potential customers, win business as a direct response to this marketing and measure the value of the win
• Learning: We use what we have learned about each other to develop a new service offering that draws on our collectivity of skill sets. We successfully sell this to one or more clients in the coming year (and it measurably improves their business performance as well as ours).
• Financials: We tot up the direct and indirect financial costs of the two days. Knowing these and also knowing the financial benefit of winning business and improving the performance.

Any further thoughts on how to measure the business value and ROI of teambuilding events would be most welcome. Do you use the Kirkpatrick model, business scorecard, or some other method?

Each week brings a whole host of new stuff that I can incorporate into my work. Hardly any of it comes from a formal learning environment like a course, or webinar, most of it comes from chatting with people who then say 'have you read this?', or 'you might be interested in this', or 'give this a go'. So my Amazon wish list (for books) gets longer each week, my toolbox of things to use on client assignments gets bigger, my list of movies (films) to watch grows, and the You Tube things people suggest make me realize if I did no work whatsoever and simply worked through what people suggested I still wouldn't be able to cope with the flood of new info. This week was no exception, so here's what I've added.

Books:
Problem seeking: an architectural programming primer, by William Pena with Steven Parshall and Kevin Kelly. Someone lent me the third edition (1987) but I see it is now in a fifth edition. I got this recommendation when I was sitting with a bunch of architects and asked why every meeting I went to with them they seized 23 x 14 cm cards with a grid on one side and plain on the other. They don't seem able to have a meeting without these cards. But I learned that they originate from a problem seeking methodology (outlined in the book). They are kind of a pre-post note method of putting ideas down and then being able to re-arrange them. I haven't started to use the cards yet as I'm still reading the 'how to', but maybe when and if I do I will be fully oriented to working with architects and designers. This is one I am now three-quarters of the way through and have ordered version 5 to have a copy myself

Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power, Steve Coll. This was recommended by a friend who is a social impact assessor and we were discussing the social and political impacts of organizations on people and the environment. It followed an exercise I'd participated in during the week on helping a non-profit think through how they would extend the scope and scale of a breast-milk bank they had started in Africa and the relationship they (don't) have with Nestle. This is on my Amazon wish list.

Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School, John Medina. This was given to me by someone who I was talking with about neuro marketing and the way people think and learn. We'd been discussing organization development and the various ways people approach change and learning. He had learned a lot from the book and thought it was worth my reading. This is on my Amazon wish list.

Who Really Matters: The Core Group Theory of Power, Privilege, and Success , Art Kleiner. This came up when a group of us were talking about organizational network mapping and reflecting on the fact that an organization chart gives away very little if anything on the way work gets done in an organization. Standard organization design texts rarely tackle the tacit, unspoken, difficult to get at elements of an organization, focusing for the most parts on things that are explicit and relatively accessible in design terms. Yet it's the other stuff which makes or breaks the design. This is on my Amazon wish list.

Toolbox:
Three very useful tool sets were handed to me during the week. The first is one that draws on behavioral economics. Brains, Behavior & Design Toolkit features five tools to help designers apply findings from the field of behavioral economics to their practice in order to provide a head start on framing research as well as developing new strategies for solving user problems. This tool kit includes:

• Reference Cards: behavioral economics research findings organized and described
• Concept Ecosystem Poster: the relationships between concepts
• Irrational Situations Guides: when people act irrationally, what to look for and how to design for these situations
• Strategy Cards: ways to design for the irrational mind
• Loss/Gain Worksheet: understanding and designing for trade-offs

The loss/gain worksheets are particularly good fun focusing the mind on not only what's being lost in a change – which is the more usual tendency – but what is being gained in a change. Also great are the 'irrational situations guides'. Once I saw them I realized I could use them almost every waking hour – I'm sure mine isn't the only life that seems to lurch from one irrational situation to the next. However, it's the loss/gain worksheets I've printed off to use in a workshop next week.

The second is the Sustainable Facilities Tool – also available as an app. It's incredibly thorough in its treatment of sustainability providing guidance on building and workplace design to support sustainable practices and evaluate options for implementing them in the workplace. Search with the word 'people' on the site search bar and you get things ranging from flexibility, light, and asthma, to ergonomics.

This tool is being updated all the time and is well worth playing around with to see the wealth of data and useful tips that would add to any organization design work that is looking at the impact of space design on people's motivation and productivity. I have some information from here ready to share in the workshop I'm facilitating next week.

The third is the 3P lean tool which I hadn't seen in operation. There are a lot of books written about it but a handy one-pager that gives an overview is available here. Most of the writing about the tool relates to its use in a manufacturing situation but we were using it in a service delivery project. Being part of the lean suite of stuff you can do all kinds of certifications and development activity to become a master but I think (masters correct me if I'm wrong) that it is usable by an organization design/development person who grasps the basics of it. I'm holding it in reserve till I've talked with the expert and got more info.

Then there are the movies (films) people recommended during the week. This is a more eclectic collection that tended to crop up between the cracks of the earnest work discussions, but they all came up in the work context so must have some relevance (maybe?). So on my Netflix list I now have:

• Showboat: I can't remember who gave this to me or why this appeared and the brief description of it "The daughter of a riverboat captain falls in love with a charming gambler, but their fairytale romance is threatened when his luck turns sour ". only served to perplex me further.
• The Gravy Train Goes East: Which is about a "Newly-elected President of Slaka, romantic novelist Katya Pricip,who is determined to see her country in the EC, enjoying the fruits of the free market". I see the connection though with my work as I'm doing a small project with the EC.
• Buckaroo: described as "Jerome, a troubled gang member, is sent to work on a farm. Within the journey, he discovers there is more to him, and realizes the direction he must point his life to." I do know who gave me this title but again don't remember why. But it's the same person who also recommended
• Beginners: which is about "A young man [who] is rocked by two announcements from his elderly father: that he has terminal cancer, and that he has a young male lover". This may have a bearing as I have an elderly mother who has cancer [but not terminal] but as far as I am aware she does not have a young male lover – perhaps she wishes she does.

With all the above to do something with at some stage I was very relieved to get only two You Tube recommendations. The first – because I fly United Airlines a lot – is the United Airlines guitar song. It's only 4.5 minutes so I seized the moment and listened to it.

Then to combat my rampant optimism a colleague recommended that I listen to Alain de Botton talking about Pessimism. I listened and found it absolutely worth the 38 minutes. Having just finished reading Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder, about a Burundian who survived the genocide I think de Botton presents a great argument, even so I hope I remain a pragmatic optimist.

Between May 27 and June 10 (today) I've been in various cities: New York, Oxford, Brussels, Paris, Los Angeles, and today Chicago. I've been in Union Station (Washington DC), Penn Station (NY), Newark Airport, London Airport, Brussels Airport, a coach to Paris, the Dover-Calais ferry, Eurostar, Gare du Nord, St Pancras Station, and Oxford Station, LA Airport, Chicago Airport. I've been in several different hotel lobbies and public areas and countless cafes and restaurants.

I'm not writing this list to illustrate my current insane nomadic life but to ask a question. Why in all these places I am forced to listen to one or all of piped music, television broadcasts, and public service announcements? This noise is competing with people talking to each other (conversational pitch), on their cell phones (extra loud 'phone voices'), EMS and police sirens, traffic noise, additional noise from repair or construction work sites, and street buskers.

I have a particular fury with piped music which seems to be everywhere except the quiet coach of the Amtrak, the Eurostar, and an aircraft once it has taken off. The effect of having to shout my coffee order to a barista because she cannot hear above the music has now led me to write my regular order on a card and hand it to my server.

So it was serendipity that during this particularly noisy week or so in my life I was alert to several items about noise. Questions about noise are one of the most frequently asked by people who are going to move from private office space to shared open space. The article someone sent me from the NY Times From Cubicles, Cry for Quiet Pierces Office Buzz makes the point that

"The walls have come tumbling down in offices everywhere, but the cubicle dwellers keep putting up new ones. They barricade themselves behind file cabinets. They fortify their partitions with towers of books and papers. Or they follow an "evolving law of technology etiquette," as articulated by Raj Udeshi at the open office he shares with fellow software entrepreneurs in downtown Manhattan. "Headphones are the new wall," he said, pointing to the covered ears of his neighbors. "

I sent the article to a former co-worker who used headphones. Here's his approach to their use:

I use the headphones mostly early in the day – it's my most productive time of the day, and having music in the background allows me to stay focused on what I am working on. Type of music depends on the day – more hard driving if I am tired, more laid back if I just want background noise. I don't notice an issue with lyrics – but I tend to gloss over those even when listening normally. I can't use noise cancelling – JUST white noise, I find, is more distracting than a mix.

As the day goes on, it typically gets more collaborative – meetings, impromptu discussions, etc, so I'll typically take the earphones out. But then if I need to jump back into a heads down mode, I can pop them back in. I am lucky in that I think I can concentrate in almost all types of environments

The 181 people who commented on the NY Times article almost without exception comment on, or imply, the loss of concentration and productivity experienced by noise pollution. The question is whether headphones are a good enough solution to enable heads down work as my colleague feels they are, or whether working in a location away from noise is a better solution – but where? As I've said, I haven't been in any public space that doesn't have loud levels of ambient noise.

A piece of noise research I came across during the week appeared in Science Daily helps on this. The researchers found that:

"a moderate-level of ambient noise (about 70 decibels, equivalent to a passenger car traveling on a highway) enhances performance on creative tasks and increases the likelihood of consumers purchasing innovative products. Similarly, the researchers also studied how a high level of noise (85 decibels, equivalent to traffic noise on a major road) hurts creativity by reducing information processing."

This is useful information if you happen to have a decibel counter on you because the researchers also note that

"Our findings imply that instead of burying oneself in a quiet room trying to figure out a solution, walking outside of one's comfort zone and getting into a relatively noisy environment like a cafe may actually trigger the brain to think abstractly, and thus generate creative ideas. [But only if the decibel level is about 70]."

I think this is may be material to the design of workspaces and collaborative spaces. Co-workers who talk loudly, or ambient noise that is above 70 decibels interferes with productivity and creativity. A very useful GSA booklet Sound Matters, explores these concepts further and explodes some myths around noise pollution. The authors make the point that:

as organizations transition to greater density and less private enclosure for economic and organizational reasons, acoustic performance will need to transition from a "side issue" to a "core issue."

Individuals have very different tolerances for and attitudes to noise. Personally I never voluntarily listen to music of any description, I don't have a television, and I rarely switch on my radio. I do have an i-pod which I listen to podcasts on. So imagine my delight this week when I found that the latest in the 'On Being' series that I listen to was an interview with 'acoustic ecologist' Gordon Hempton. He says that

Silence is an endangered species. He defines real quiet as presence -— not an absence of sound, but an absence of noise. The Earth, as he knows it, is a "solar-powered jukebox." Quiet is a "think tank of the soul."

Following this learning about acoustic ecology I listened to Dan Pink's podcast Office Hours Tom Peters – author of "In Search of Excellence" was the guest for the hour. He talked at some length about a book – now on my Amazon wish list – called Choosing Civility by P.M. Forni.

This seemed connected to my musings on noise pollution (piped music), acoustics, headphone use and the general link between office design, acoustics and productivity. Encouraging people to choose civility in their deployment of noise could be helpful. Civility would mean keeping piped music at a certain decibel level in public spaces, and not having piped music when people can't move away from it but where they could opt to listen to their own choice of noise through personal headphones, e.g. in a coach from Oxford to Paris, or in an open space office.

Choosing civility seems relevant to office life. I was a little surprised in an office (open plan) I was in during my week's travels to have to listen to an intense and angry call by one of the employees. My inclination would have been to make the call in a private phone room – but that could be an organizational design issue. I don't know whether the caller needed to be looking at his (desktop) computer as he talked, and whether there were any private phone rooms available. To have private phone conversations means mobile devices on which to view information you are talking about and designated rooms for having the conversations in.

Similarly another office I went to during the same week a person was sitting at her desk participating in a conference call via her laptop computer. She did not have headphones so people in her immediate vicinity (including me) by default listened in to the conference call and her participation in it. I asked her why she didn't use headphones and she said they weren't provided by the company. I asked her why she didn't buy her own and she tartly responded with 'Why should I?'

Perhaps choosing civility particularly in relation to noise is a necessary organizational capability that needs to be developed to make for effective and productive office and public environments. Your comments on this would be welcome.

Meanwhile an interesting read – and one that was also recommended this week to me is Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain. I dipped into it while I was in Chicago Public Library looking at the design of the space (no music playing there).

Last week I was facilitating an organization development program. We started off discussing three definitions of organization development, and what their similarities and differences were. The three we considered were.

• Organization Development is a dynamic values-based approach to systems change in organizations and communities; it strives to build the capacity to achieve and sustain a new desired state that benefits the organization or community and the world around them. Organization Development Network
• It is the systematic application of behavioral science principles and practices to understand how people and organizations function and how to get them to function better within a clear value base. It is shamelessly humanistic and has strong value drivers. Linda Holbeche, Organization Development – What's in a name?
• OD is the activities engaged in by stakeholders in order to build and maintain the health of an organization as a total system. It is characterized by a focus on behavioral processes and humanistic values. It seeks to develop problem solving ability and explore opportunities for growth. Roffey Park

People homed in on the values of OD. Look at the definitions and you'll see the phrases "OD is a dynamic values-based approach", it is about functioning with "a clear value base. It is shamelessly humanistic and has strong value drivers." "It is characterized by a focus on … humanistic values."

Participants were interested in three things:

1. What exactly are these "humanistic values"?
2. How do you operate "humanistic values" if these are at odds with the organizational values or you are having to implement something in line with the business strategy e.g. a 10% downsize in a participatory "humanistic values" based way?
3. How does a group of OD consultants in one organization develop a set of shared values?

These were excellent questions that I felt deserved more attention than we had time to give them in the course of the day. So here is a continuation of the discussion: Comments welcome

What exactly are these 'humanistic values'?
There are many thoughts on what constitute 'humanistic values' but the UK Humanist Society suggests the following twelve that, regardless of a consultant's religious beliefs, seem to be exactly what organization development consultants should role model.

1. The encouragement of free-thinking and the spirit of enquiry that seeks to describe the nature of the universe and of the diversity of life on earth.
2. An openness to new knowledge and the acceptance of uncertainty.
3. Self-reliance and independence of thought within the recognition of the ultimate interdependence of humanity.
4. Concern for the well-being of the whole of humankind. Compassion and concern for all humans who, in varying degrees, are deprived of the opportunity for self-fulfillment.
5. Respect for all humans, for other species, and for the environment. The promotion and preservation of an ecological balance.
6. An approach which seeks to understand the beliefs and values of others.
7. A co-operative and problem- solving approach to conflicts of interest. Reasoned argument as opposed to dogmatic assertion
8. An approach to morals and ethics which takes account of the complexities of modern living and has as its starting point that moral and ethical behaviour is that which, except in self-defense, does no harm to the well-being of others. In situations of moral dilemma, the choosing of solutions which do least harm to the participants.
9. The concept of the democratic ideal. Impartiality towards, and equal treatment of, individuals and groups whatever their … beliefs.
10. Social attitudes which militate against the exploitation, or physical or psychological abuse, of humans by humans. A society which educates its members in tolerant, co-operative living.
11. A humane approach to all actions affecting members of the non-human living world.
12. The creative and artistic potential of human nature. The capacity of the arts, literature, and recreational activities for expanding perceptions, for increasing the awareness of self, and for illuminating the human condition. All those circumstances that enable humans to be free to experience the physical and mental joys of living.

How do you operate "humanistic values" if these are at odds with the organizational values or you are having to implement something in line with the business strategy e.g. a 10% downsize in a participatory "humanistic values" based way?

This is a particularly difficult question that I don't have a ready answer to. There are schools of thought that hold that organizational development is manipulative and that organization development consultants 'engage in self-deception'. There is an excellent article by Marie McKendall on this topic The Tyranny of Change: Organization Development Revisited. This article, which I came across several years ago gave me pause for thought. In one consulting organization where I was employed being rebuked by a young consultant for agreeing to do consulting work for a tobacco company. He said he would never do that. The interesting thing was that he found out about my tobacco company work because I asked him to compile a briefing book on the company – which he compiled.

We had a good discussion on this including his reasons for compiling the briefing book despite his misgivings. This discussion seeded us running a whole office lunch and learn when all levels of consultants – including partners – joined a debate on the morals and ethics of working for particular clients. People described specific instances of moral dilemmas, their personal values, and the kind of judgments they made individually and organizationally.

I don't smoke and never have, and am in theory entirely opposed to companies making money from promoting a product that provokes terminal lung cancer amongst other life shortening illnesses. In practice I was willing to do the piece of work and justified this by saying I would find out how such a company operates and be able to speak about it with knowledge rather than assumption, was this self-deception? Should I have refused to do it? I am still not sure.

On the down-sizing topic – having been laid off myself (more than once) I've experienced better and worse ways of this being handled. I prefer the ways that mirror the values listed rather than the brutal 'pack up your stuff and leave now' approach. In my experience people understand the reality of organizational life and prefer the human values approach that treats people with respect in this difficult situation.

How does a group of OD consultants in one organization develop a set of shared values?

On this one I feel on stronger ground. Some form of action learning would go a long way towards generating the shared values. It could comprise, for example:

• Regular discussions on articles that present a point of view e.g. Marie McKendall's or the thirteen values presented above
• Case assessment e.g. how would you deal with a project offered by a tobacco company
• Peer to peer coaching and review on specific organizational issues
• Tracking of the path towards a shared value set and gradual 'codification' (if appropriate)

The question is whether this can work cross culturally or in a culture which is not intrinsically leaning towards "humanistic values'. Scratching my head on this I came across The Humanistic Management Network and a book edited by their key people Humanism in Business, Perspectives on Responsible Business in Society, published in 2009 by Cambridge University Press and then found the Journal of Human Values, which dipping into the reviews, contents pages, and so on seems to tackle some of this.
The burble for the journal says that it "provides an understanding of how in order for individuals, organizations and societies to endure and function effectively, it is essential that an individual's positive exalting forces be rediscovered and revitalized. [It] addresses the impact of human values along a variety of dimensions: the relevance of human values in today's world; human values at the organizational level; and the culture-specificity of human values."

Certainly I found enough articles in its archives to point out to me that as with anything I decide to investigate there a treasure trove of avenues for learning. Having been asked the questions was a good prod to me to do more than demonstrate (I hope) my own intrinsic humanistic value set be more prepared to point people in the direction of the many ways they can learn more on the topic.