control – The Consulting Artist

Social Media – The Proper Stuff?

After I posted my blog from a train this morning, Tim Kitchin got in touch and said:

Look forward to seeing the flow of the day…some very interesting developments ahead in workforce 2.0. I hope the conference gets into some of the ‘proper’ stuff…

I asked him – what do you mean by ‘proper stuff’? If and when I hear back from Tim I will update this post with his response. In the meantime – here are a handful of early observations I’m sensing about themes, feelings etc.

Co-creation and Involvement Matter

Yay – and…? How? That’s still not clear enough for me. I think there are lots of simple ways to push further on this front, most of them conversational.

Complete Control is a Total Illusion

I’ve bastardised this feeling so that a) I get a Clash reference in and b) it reminds me of my 2013 tour t shirt. And seriously – there is a rising awareness that this social stuff is going on regardless of your policy.

Total Illusion eh?

I’m enjoying following the Twitter feed of Grumpy Lecturer, who has pushed back on the control issue with this:

Is the interest in social media in workplace akin to Bentham’s Panopticon as employers paranoia increases?

I googled Panopticon and I suggest you do the same – I think we need to be mindful not to rebuild work in this scary shape.

Leadership

This has to mean more than where we sit on an org chart. There are leaders everywhere – acknowledge them regardless of their hierarchical position.

Reward

I think how people are rewarded is a vital part of how an organisation functions or dysfunctions. Mot people are not paid to collaborate – indeed many are paid to compete with colleagues instead. For me – this is currently missing from the conversation.

How About You

What do you think is missing – are we yet talking about the ‘Proper Stuff”?

Kung Fu Panda – The Illusion of Control

The Beeb showed Kung Fu Panda yesterday evening. I’d seen it before and loved it, Carole and Keira hadn’t so we sat down and enjoyed it. The animation is beautiful and the story line is funny and powerful.

This morning I spotted a tweet from Ann Tran quoting from the film. The quote was “Anything is possible when you have inner peace”, and it reminded me of a great passage from the movie about the illusion of control.

Having previously written about the illusion of control, this passage struck a chord with me and I’d like to share it with you here:

Oogway: My friend, the panda will never fulfill his destiny, nor you yours until you let go of the illusion of control.
Shifu: Illusion?
Oogway: Yes.
[points at peach tree]
Oogway: Look at this tree, Shifu: I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time.
Shifu: But there are things we *can* control: I can control when the fruit will fall, I can control where to plant the seed: that is no illusion, Master!
Oogway: Ah, yes. But no matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Shifu: But a peach cannot defeat Tai Lung!
Oogway: Maybe it can, if you are willing to guide, to nurture it, to believe in it.
Shifu: But how? How? I need your help, master.
Oogway: No, you just need to believe. Promise me, Shifu, promise me you will believe.

Wouldn’t it be cool to have Oogway as your HRD – just imagine the possibilities.

What’s the point?

So you’re too busy eh? Let me rephrase that. So you’re too productive eh? You’ve hit the limit of what you can achieve and you need some help. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

You think carefully about what you can afford and balance that with what you need. You go and find the right person or people and in time, you have it. Your team. You can be confident of their abilities, you chose them. So why do you insist on checking everything they do? Every. Little. Thing. Let’s think about some of the feelings that behaviour produces inside the head of your colleague, sorry I mean victim:

Lack of trust
Undermined
Disengaged
What’s the point?

One of the simplest things great managers do is to get the right people around them and then critically, get out of the way and let them get on with it. Show your colleagues you trust them, support them, and engage them. Give them a purpose – show them what the point is. Get out of the way, please.