Collaboration Requires Proximity – But It Doesn’t Have to Be Physical

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by Manuel Sosa, INSEAD, and Massimo Maoret, IESE Business School

 

 

Even when colleagues are not in the same office, strong social ties can bridge the gap.

The future of work is undoubtedly hybrid. Major corporations from Apple to Zoom now require employees to be in the office two or three days a week, citing the benefits of face-to-face collaboration and culture building. Indeed, traditional thinking suggests that being physically close leads to better communication and collaboration.

Our recent research reinforces this idea, but also shows that social closeness (strong direct and indirect connections) can offset a lack of physical proximity. Namely, we found that when people are physically close, the need for strong social bonds is less crucial; conversely, strong social connections can compensate for physical distance. In other words, physical proximity and social closeness can substitute for each other.

Putting proximity to the test

In our study, we took advantage of the relocation of a global pharmaceutical company’s regional offices to conduct a quasi-natural experiment. The offices, located in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, were moved to new sites in the same cities. The new offices had an open-floor layout and hot desk policy where employees did not have assigned workspaces. 

We asked employees to identify their contacts at work, the nature of their relationships with those contacts and their work styles. We also collected data on the location of each employee’s desk before and after the relocation.

We examined whether changes in physical distance and social networks before and after the move were associated with changes in collaboration effectiveness. Our findings revealed that both physical and social proximity were positively correlated with collaboration effectiveness. 

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How CEOs Can Master The Labor Jigsaw Puzzle

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by Anne Lackey

 

When I think about our tight labor market, I return to the puzzles I love to solve on our kitchen table. It takes such attention to snap it all together, but I love the challenge.

Today’s CEOs face a grand, complex labor jigsaw, and the pieces keep changing shape. Just when we think we’ve figured it out, we see gaps we can’t fill. And this puzzle is bearish.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects major demographic shifts already impacting the job market. Baby Boomers, the generation that has been the backbone of our workforce for decades, are retiring en masse. Gen Z is entering the workforce, but they don’t have the numbers to fill the void left by the exiting Boomers. The labor force participation rate, which measures the percentage of the working-age population that is either employed or actively seeking employment, has been on a downward trend for years. In 2000, it was at 67.3 percent, but by 2022, it had dropped to 62.2 percent. And it’s expected to keep dropping, with projections suggesting it could fall to 60.4 percent by 2032. We’re talking about millions of workers just vanishing from the job market.

But it’s not just a numbers game. There’s a qualitative shift happening, too. As more of the population ages, we’ll see a huge demand for healthcare workers. The surge in demand for healthcare services will pull even more people out of other industries. It’s like trying to complete a puzzle when the pieces keep disappearing right before your eyes. Continue reading →

The big power of small goals

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When Michael Phelps was 8 years old, he wrote down a set of goals. The long-term goal was to compete in the Olympics someday, and he included short-term goals for his upcoming races. The goal-setting habit stuck—for practices, meets, and aspects of his training—and when Phelps retired from swimming in 2016, he was the most decorated Olympic athlete of all time, with 28 medals, including 23 gold (more than many countries have ever won).

Setting small goals can lead to big outcomes in business as well. Goals clarify objectives and have a positive psychological effect, giving people a series of small wins on their way to achieving bigger aspirations. Indeed, our research shows that when employees set small goals regularly (daily or even hourly), not only are they more likely than other employees to hit company performance targets, but they report higher morale as well.

We studied more than 1.5 million goals as reported by 12,000 employees at companies in various industries. The data was self-reported; employees set goals and broader key performance indicator (KPI) targets, and then reported whether they achieved their goals. For example, a goal for a sales rep could have been to generate six potential leads that week. A goal for someone on a customer support team could have been to respond to 15 customer complaints that day. For a graphic designer, it could have been to develop three versions of an ad as part of a new campaign that week. Separately, the employees received periodic online flash polls to gauge their mood in real time.

We tracked the aggregate goal-setting data for more than a year and found that people who set at least four daily goals per week—and hence were thinking actively about what they wanted to achieve—were 34% more likely to hit their KPI targets than those who didn’t. Continue reading →

How to create a formula for owning the inclusive leadership journey

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by Simone E. Morris

 

 

 

Many are still searching for practical solutions to excel as inclusive leaders. Approaching the solution from a formulaic perspective can be empowering. So, what exactly would a pragmatic formula for excelling in inclusive leadership include? This article will explore and provide insights into crafting a personalized formula to support growth as an inclusive leader.

What Is the Inclusive Leadership Formula?
Finding solutions to the workplace community’s ever-changing needs requires tools at our disposal to navigate and improve the workplace culture. Creating an inclusive leadership formula provides a proactive way for inclusive leaders to cultivate inclusion effectively. As such, think through the components of a repetitive formula for impactful results. Remember that this formula will ebb and flow to become more robust with additional awareness, offering a hopeful path for continuous growth. Here an example of a formula: A+T+E+C = IL (attitude + transparency + education + commitment)

Why Is Attitude Important For Inclusive Leaders?
Being open about inclusive leadership can be insightful in many ways. In other words, seek to allow space for the discovery of an ever-changing path. Openness is also an opportunity to demonstrate appreciation for ambiguity when navigating spaces where one can’t simply know all the answers about fostering inclusivity in the workplace. This writer only professes to have some of the answers regarding inclusive leadership but remains open for answers to unfold on an exploratory journey of helping oneself and others be better at inclusivity. A great place to start is by taking or revisiting the research-infused Myer’s Briggs test, which unpacks insights around preferences and more. Doing so will provide an opportunity to up the ante with insights on impactful ways to be more inclusive. For example, imagine getting data and ideas to action suspension of judgment to improve leadership capabilities when managing teams.

Why Do Inclusive Leaders Need To Embrace Transparency?
Many inclusion hiccups occur because of a need for more visibility into decision-making, psychological safety to build genuine connections and foster trust for win/win relationships, and more. Therefore, leaders who aspire to excel at inclusive leadership must explore the effectiveness of handling transparency in the workplace. Consider the many decisions around in-person or remote teaming at the height of the pandemic. These decisions had an impact on the effectiveness of inclusion. If a leader didn’t consider how decisions impacted workers at a deep level, then turbulence occurred and potentially unknowingly purported exclusion in the workplace. In my previous Forbes article, Inclusive Teams: What They Are And Why They Matter, I talked about how leaders can gain insights from active listening to foster team inclusion. Managers who listen to team member feedback will gain transparency and impactful insights to generate a roadmap for leading an inclusive team. The leader’s role in fostering transparency is crucial for creating an inclusive workplace.

Why Is Ongoing Education Critical For Inclusive Leaders?
Lifelong learning is essential to navigating and thriving in an inclusive workplace. As such, inclusive leaders who want to succeed must commit to regular awareness-building activities. For example, empathy and emotional intelligence education are good knowledge foundations to support professional growth as an inclusive leader. Daniel Goleman’s book Emotional Intelligence states, “The fine art of relationships requires the ripeness of two other emotional skills, self-management and empathy.” There are many more skills to explore for skill-building as an inclusive leader. These are a few suggestions to explore.

Why Do Inclusive Leaders Need to Stay Committed To An Inclusive Workplace?
Ongoing cultural shifts and occurrences create turbulence that affects workplace goals and inclusion progress. As such, inclusive leaders must evaluate and proactively prepare commitments with supporting accountability, focusing on embedding inclusion deeply into the workplace’s fabric.

 

Source: forbes.com

Marshall Goldsmith: Powering Up Positivity

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by Kelly Goldsmith and Marshall Goldsmith

 

Looking for a quick way to give your team a productivity boost? Start by eliminating negativity.

One of the greatest challenges faced by all the leaders we meet is overcommitment. Many of us feel buried with a flood of requests that never stop. We never seem to have enough time.

We are now going to give you, as a CEO, a tool to save time and simultaneously build a more positive organizational culture. This is an idea that you can share with leaders at all levels of management. Although the theory is easy to understand, as our surveys clearly show, the practice is usually far from optimal.

We have asked more than 1,000 leaders from around the world to answer this question:

What percent of all interpersonal time is spent on people talking about how smart, special or wonderful they are or listening to someone else do that, or people talking about how stupid, inept or bad someone else is or listening to someone else do that?

For some reason, we’re always surprised at the consistency of the average answer from respondents. The average score reported by participants from around the world is about 65 percent. We have never visited a country where the score was below 50 percent.

Productive Engagement

How much do we learn when we talk about how great we are or listen to others do that? Nothing.

How much do we learn when we talk about how terrible someone is or listen to others do that? Nothing.

What percent of all interpersonal communication is wasted on this unproductive communication? The answer, even if our results are vaguely representative, is way too much.

We have a very simple suggestion. Reduce this number!

Teach your leaders a basic process. Before speaking, ask yourself four questions:

• Will this comment help our company?

• Will this comment help our customers?

• Will this comment help the people that I am talking about?

• Will this comment help the people that I am talking to?

While we both have Ph.D.s, you don’t really need a Ph.D. to know what to do. If all four answers are no, don’t say it!

One of our great heroes is Alan Mulally, the former CEO of Ford and a Chief Executive CEO of the Year. When Alan went to Ford, he immediately embarked on building a more collaborative and positive culture. One of his great beliefs is, “Have fun—not at other people’s expense.”

A common belief is that changing a large corporate culture is an incredibly time-consuming process. Since the company was going bankrupt, Alan didn’t have an incredible amount of time.

He very quickly established a zero tolerance policy for destructive or inappropriate behavior. Part of this policy included the elimination of destructive comments.

It worked!

Model the Makeover

As a leader, start with yourself. Before speaking, ask yourself the four questions listed above. Lead by example. After starting with yourself, start carefully listening to and observing the behavior of people on your executive team. If you want your company to have a positive culture, assume that all of your employees are watching the executive team. Make sure that your team is leading by example. After that, start spreading the word, leader by leader, throughout the organization.

Peter Drucker taught us, “We spend a lot of time teaching leaders what to do. We do not spend enough time teaching leaders what to stop.”

We, with great help from Peter Drucker and Alan Mulally, have just given you a great place to get started in teaching leaders what to stop.

 

Source: Chief Executive