Welcome to my blog. I have questions about the way we work and I put my thoughts here. I hope you have a nice stay!
All in Culture
The effect of the coronavirus has added to the economic challenges the Australian economy will need to respond to in 2020. The devastating bushfire season followed by floods have added to Australia’s usual economic pressures. While we have seen the best of the Australian community’s response to the immediate crisis, it is the long tail of this disaster that will impact most on community resilience.
In a variety of ways exasperated and distressed academics express concern to each other that only a modest portion of the intellectual and practical effort undertaken by them ever captures the imagination of practicing managers. Or maybe, the subterranean concern is that it does not get read at all. This sentiment from academics is often followed by quietly envious statements about the grip consultants seem to have over managers and is accompanied by passive disdain for the dubious research these organisations conduct.
“Business units and small teams have a culture that can be at odds with the institutional culture. Culture forms around accepted behaviours and ways of working that are developed over time. New members of the team are then brought that way of working as the acceptable norm. To measure culture, we need to get underneath the obvious and easily observed at the local level.”
“Nudge is not new; but the tools and techniques have been popularised, so the understanding is now more widespread. My concern though is with the way that nudge is talked about, and change applied in the APS. If we think about behavioural change as akin to art, then nudge is a useful brush that we’re fond of using. Unfortunately, we have become so fascinated by the brush that we have forgotten how to paint and the reason we’re painting in the first place.”
Workforce behaviour is sensitive to workplace context. It is important to understand that culture is not governance; rather the meaning and priority that employees attach to those systems.
This is a shift in the way we have all been led to think about automation. Here, the effect of automation and digitisation is not defined by the nature of task but rather by talent of the individual performing it.
Automation allows talented employees to distribute their talent further to have a greater effect on performance. We also know that talented employees working together have a positive influence on the productivity of the employees they work with. The workforce effects are both dramatic and subtle.
“Culture is not about exquisitely crafted values and purpose statements, it is about how you behave. How we lead and manage change, the way we design work, and how we treat people has by far a greater impact on culture as it is experienced in the workplace, by customers, and the community.”
“It’s not a conversation where those working differently make excuses for working in different ways. It’s not a strategy for retaining talent, and it is never a conversation where a colleague says ‘enjoy your day off’ as you finish work for the week at 2:30pm on a Wednesday. There is no need to refer to it as flexible work because it is just work.”
There is a Greek proverb that says, ‘a society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit’. While generational differences are often over-emphasised, the conditions in which Gen Z have been raised are different; consequently, the preceding generations will need to listen closely to their views. Gen Z may be better placed to show the preceding generations what trees to plant and where to plant them.
