Is Solo Creativity Really Dead?

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Lynn Patra

Consider yourself lucky you're not my wife. Every morning she is forced to endure a rant from me about something I've read in that day's Washington Post. Sundays provide multiple opportunities for fist-shaking, but one editorial this past Sunday hit a nerve: the topic was creativity.

The headline said it all: "The end of lone-wolf capitalism." For years now digital utopians have first insisted that we all believe in a myth that creativity and innovation comes from solitary thinkers; then they knock down their straw man by pointing to the power of collaboration.

Being bored (and zoning out) at work can make us more creative?

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Lynn Patra

English: A bored person (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Having written about the problem of boredom at work (where an individual’s skill level surpasses the challenge of the tasks), lets turn now to one of the possible benefits of boredom… creativity! The following article was very interesting indeed: Being bored at work can make us more creative. Some excerpts follow:

Most of us think of being bored at work as a negative experience, but a new study suggests it can have positive results including an increase in creativity because it gives us time to daydream.

I do find that daydreaming fuels my creativity, although I can imagine this generally being a tough sell to employers. Also, it turns out that zoning out can also help boost creative problem-solving (see More Than Just ‘Zoning Out’: Exploring the Cognitive Processes Behind Mind Wandering). Even better huh? Continuing on with the article:

…more passive boring activities, like reading or perhaps attending meetings, can lead to more creativity — whereas writing, by reducing the scope for daydreaming, reduces the creativity-enhancing effects of boredom.

This account of differences between activities that require less focus with those that require more for inducing boredom sounds right on target. Few things can be more boring than meeting overkill I say!

Dr Mann says: “Boredom at work has always been seen as something to be eliminated, but perhaps we should be embracing it in order to enhance our creativity. What we want to do next is to see what the practical implications of this finding are. Do people who are bored at work become more creative in other areas of their work — or do they go home and write novels?”

The question of whether or not bored workers generally become creative in such a way that benefits their employer is a good question. I believe there’s plenty of evidence that resultant creativity can also be expressed in a counterproductive manner (such as pretending to work perhaps?), and this is an issue that needs to be considered. For more details on this problem, see When the Bored Behave Badly: An Interest Enhancement Model of Counterproductive Work Behavior (Skoronski, 2008).

Finally, here is a video by Thriveworks which contrasts short-term boredom with long-term boredom (a significant distinction that needs to be made as the latter is the problem – consider Workplace Boredom: The Silent Killer of Employee Morale). The video also sums up the upside of boredom quite nicely:

So what do you say? Have you experienced a bout of creativity that you can attribute to a preceding period of boredom or zoning out? Please share!

Bored = Creative (dawnrobinsonwalsh.wordpress.com)
The Key to Creativity: Zoning Out
Why We Zone Out

Coming soon: News about the upcoming Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013 video conference on enhancing collaboration of virtual teams!

These educational video conference series are geared towards organizational leaders wishing to learn more about improving collaboration and productivity through the use of online tools. Visit the Better Collaboration website or the Better Collaboration meetup page for more information! On LinkedIn? Join us at the Better Collaboration LinkedIn group, a group is for innovative managers, HR professionals, collaboration consultants and solution providers who are interested in sharing and learning about best practices and technologies that help dispersed teams collaborate better!

Interviewing, Selecting, and the Lying Game

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Lynn Patra

I know all there is to know about the lying game. I’ve had my share of the lying game!

That was cheesy, I know. Seriously though, from pretending to work, to pretending to like your job, to pretending to be interested in the job you’re interviewing for, appearances matter a lot within our current system. Like they say, appearances can be deceiving. As someone who’s been on both sides of the interviewing and selection process, I’ll share my thoughts on this issue and touch upon technological advances that may change the process of interviewing and candidate selection in the future.

Faking enthusiasm and interest in a job is an issue that spurs healthy debate. On the one hand people have learned that, with the job market being the way it is right now, you can’t be too picky. Many out there would agree that it’s important to “pull out all the stops” to get a job, any job, in order to put food on the table and keep a roof over your head. A friend told me that the “fake it until you make it” strategy sometimes works. He explained that an applicant might start off faking enthusiasm and interest when first interviewing for the job but then develop genuine enthusiasm and interest later down the road. “Alright,” I conceded, “However, what if you have two candidates: one is genuinely interested and the other is only acting interested. Wouldn’t you want a way to tell the the one who is genuine from the pretender?” His response was interesting. He stated that the one faking it is still attractive because people who are willing to bend and shape themselves in whatever manner to earn your approval are more easily molded.

Truth lies (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you’re anything like me however, you tend to resist social pressure to be untrue to yourself. Moreover, your wish to maintain your identity overrides your desire to flex your acting skills in interview situations. This is challenging in the face of loved ones trying to coerce you into saying the prescribed, correct lines in order to land that interview for the job that you don’t really want and live a life of normalcy. Somehow I just can’t bring myself to fake, “I believe in the mission and values of your organization!” with enthusiasm. The pressure to do so and the hoops you must jump in order to make a living often reminds me of this classic Star Trek scene:

My friend has a point. Longtime friends and loved ones as well as certain members of the Unification Church (who tried to recruit me during my college days) would attest to the fact that I’ve been anything but malleable. Despite my general unwillingness to bend and “put on a good show” however, there are times when I’ve wondered if someone who had more of a passion for the job I had taken would’ve been selected if I had not applied. All else being equal (e.g., knowledge, abilities, and skill-set), I can’t help but wish that the candidate who has more passion for the work is selected.

At this time, the process of interviewing and selecting the right person for the job remains largely subjective as Wendell Williams, founder and managing director of Scientific Selection, notes (in The Science of Hiring):

Although many managers who conduct numerous interviews say they are apt judges of character and abilities, “the truth is that many of them are the weak links in the hiring chain because they do not know how to conduct the kind of interviews that reveal a candidate’s suitability for a specific job,” Williams said.

Too many hiring managers rely on gut instincts to determine if a candidate is right for the job, a practice that has no place in effective recruiting and hiring,” added Williams.

There is a push to develop more scientific means of selection however. Advances in technology are promising more objective, scientifically valid selection tools. Synthetic Validity is being developed for this very purpose. Job simulations are another example. Moreover, just think about the possible applications of the following technologies:

As mentioned in this previous post, we’ll see the emergence of technologies that can track fluctuating changes in brains and bodies with respect to emotional reactions.
Face-reading software being developed promise to outperform people (Face-reading software to judge the mood of the masses)

Technology is a double-edged sword of course. As a strong privacy advocate, the potential for abuse of technologies that can read internal reactions is quite apparent to me. As we march forward into the future, we will have to establish the manner in which they should be used. For example, under what conditions does use of such technologies violate our notions of good discretion and responsibility? These are issues that we need to be discussing today.

P.S. This is for those who are unfamiliar with the song referenced at the beginning of this post.

Also, stay tuned for news about the upcoming Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013 video conference on enhancing collaboration of virtual teams!

Virtual Teams and the Challenge of Cross-Cultural Differences

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Lynn Patra

Cover of The Handbook of Culture and Psychology

From David Matsumoto’s The Handbook of Culture and Psychology:

The next two decades promise to be even more exciting for research on culture and emotion. Interesting programs have sprung up all around the world and in all disciplines of psychology. New technologies for mapping culture as a psychological construct on the individual level are being developed, as well as ways to measure precisely moment-to-moment changes in our brains and bodies when we feel or judge emotion. Collectively, these endeavors will tell us more in the future about the relationship between culture and the physiology of emotion, the representation of display and decoding rules, emotion perception, and culture itself in the brain (p. 161)

Having written a couple of posts (here and here) on the difficulties of cross-cultural communication and misunderstanding, the quote above provides hope that advancing technology and emphasis on cross-cultural research may help promote improved cross-cultural understanding in the future. Indeed, at the time that The Handbook of Culture and Psychology was published (in 2001), academics acknowledged that, even though contact and communication via computer-mediated technologies across different cultures around the world would increase dramatically (especially for work-related reasons), we are a step behind as far as cross-cultural communication research in this realm goes. Up through this point in time, cross-cultural researchers had focused on cross-cultural face-to-face communication and had largely neglected cross-cultural communication via technology. Just as we don’t want to assume that our understanding of people from the standpoint of Western psychology applies to everyone around the world, it’s also vital that we don’t assume that communicating via technology is identical to communicating face-to-face.

However, what can organizational leaders and managers do at this point in time to assure that their virtual team members around the world collaborate effectively? As I mentioned in this post, expecting to become an expert on another person by picking up and reading a book about that person’s culture isn’t reasonable. It’s unlikely that a summary of a culture will describe all the components of that given culture. Additionally, people in any specific region will differ from each other culturally due to many other factors – e.g., socioeconomic status, education level, life experiences, gender, age, etc. Comparisons of culture on a large-scale can tell you something about group-level differences, but knowing these averages will not help when dealing with individuals from a given culture as they can fall anywhere along the group distribution representing the whole group’s characteristics.

When cross-cultural miscommunication occurs however, it would be helpful to understand the way in which the other person views the situation. To this end, some steps that organizational leaders and managers can take include employing the services of culturally knowledgeable mediators or arbitrators and using behaviorally-based culture learning programs (Matsumoto, D., p. 427). The latter includes the following programs:

Information giving
Cultural sensitization
Simulations
Critical incident techniques
Culture assimilators
Experiential learning

Finally, in this video, Geert Hofstede compares and contrasts the acquisition of culture within societies and organizations, explains the introduction and impact of people’s native (i.e., acquired within society) culture on relational dynamics within organizations, and much more!

Want to learn about other aspects of innovating and improving collaboration of dispersed teams?

Don’t miss Better Collaboration’s upcoming videoconference! These events are specifically geared towards organizational leaders and this next one, on April 24th 1:00-2:30PM EST (10:00-11:30AM PST), will feature Matt Boyd, Co-Founder at Sqwiggle. Sqwiggle is an always on online workplace for your remote team to work together throughout the day. Their slogan: Remote Working, Made Awesome.

Register at the Better Collaboration Meetup site and check out services offered through Better Collaboration.

The Psychology of Culture (robertjrgraham.com)
“Metropolitan populations are significantly more likely than rural ones to suffer from mental…” (exp.lore.com)
Understanding the Impact of Cross-Cultural Differences (modernmanagers.wordpress.com)
Hofstede’s National Cultural Dimensions (businesscultures.wordpress.com)

This one is for those who think that work environment doesn’t matter

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Lynn Patra

As a strong proponent of giving people more control over where they work, it was only a short matter of time before I ran up against those who erroneously insist that work environment doesn’t matter. Their claim is that the only thing that matters is that you’re doing what you’re good at and that it doesn’t matter where you are doing this at. They don’t get it. If work environment really doesn’t matter, then the following clip from the popular film Office Space would not register as anything significant. What’s the difference anyway if Milton works on the same floor as everyone else or in the basement if work environment doesn’t matter?

The truth is that, for ages, we’ve relied on environmental cues for information that signal situations in which we should be stressed, anxious, fearful, etc. It is common knowledge that a room in which the predominant color is red whets the appetite moreso than another color would. Why do various colors stir up different reactions? What about acoustic distractions? Odors?

We ARE affected by our work environment though, yes, there are elements of subjectivity and relativity. This reflects our natural individual differences. Some of us perform work in dangerous environments, however people who are able to do so tend to already be naturally predisposed to react to threats with more calm (the trait “neuroticism” on the Big 5 – a measure of emotional stability and tolerance for stress or aversive stimulation). Others may even be pumped up by threatening environments and experience more of a thrill. I have, in fact, performed some work that required workers to have fairly low susceptibility to fear and would happily entertain opportunities to work as an animal field researcher in some less comfortable, outdoor settings (though perhaps not everywhere). At least it’s not boring!

When it comes to work that requires very heavy reading, writing, analyzing, and researching however, nothing beats the home office for me. A number of us, though not all of us, would agree that we are more productive working in our home environment than in a boring, stale office environment. It wouldn’t be a huge leap to say that going from working at home to working at the office is a “step down” much like Milton’s move to the basement. So instead of smacking the whole issue down with a knee-jerk reaction and waving off the importance of work environment across the board, it’s time to take the educated approach. Let’s open up discussion and debate about the ways and extent to which it does and doesn’t. To what extent do boring (or stimulating) environments impact our brains for example?

And for those who still believe that work environment doesn’t matter or, more specifically, that you should be able to do whatever it is you’re good at doing no matter what the work environment…

Uh, we’re gonna need to move your desk downstairs into Storage B… Uh, we have some new people coming in and we need all the space we can get. And if you could go ahead and get a can of pesticide and take care of the roach problem we’ve been having that would be great. (Office Space, 1999)

Finally, more videoconferencing dates have been added for “Innovating the way dispersed teams collaborate!”

Register at the Better Collaboration Meetup page and email contact@BetterCollaboration.org if you have any questions. Better Collaboration is about helping organizations improve collaboration of dispersed teams.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Wednesday, June 5, 2013

1:00 PM to 2:30 PM Eastern time (EST)/10:00 AM to 11:30 AM Pacific time (PST)

See details on the Events page.

Why is my cubicle so noisy? (nzkaizen.wordpress.com)
Stable Surroundings: Why a Good Workplace Environment Matters (workzone.com)
Working Environment: Shapeshifter, Shadow and Mirror (startmeupwish.com)

Lessons from the Whooping Crane: What a Healthy Competitive Working Style Looks Like

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Lynn Patra

Whooping cranes in flight (Photo credit: USFWS Mountain Prairie)

From the Winter 2012-2013 issue of Bird Conservation, Joseph Duff, C.E.O. of Operation Migration, writes:

The lead bird does most of the work, but not from any sense of duty. Instead, he is out front because he is the strongest and most aggressive and has pushed his way to the lead. The bird behind can feel the lift created by the vortices his wingtips generate, and instinctively learns to take advantage of that assistance by flying just off to one side. Each bird in the row adds to that wake, creating more lift for the one behind until the last bird in the row adds to that wake, creating more lift for the one behind until the last bird is gaining the most benefit. Each individual pushes its way forward according to endurance. That aggressive behavior and their instinct to find the easiest way to fly gives the flock a common endurance so the weaker birds can keep up with the strongest. Throughout the line, birds will challenge the one ahead of them much like a competitive cyclist will tuck in behind the leader, waiting for an opportunity to steal the lead when he shows signs of fatigue. Without that ability, the flock could not stay together.

People are generally capable of working in a cooperative or competitive fashion. Nevertheless, some learn that they are more driven to do their best work one way more than the other. I’ve never heard anyone criticize anyone for being too cooperative or discuss the downsides of cooperating “too much,” however the same is not true when we are considering competitiveness. Whenever someone questions why certain traits should exist at all and muses that the world would be a better place if these traits didn’t exist, I’ve always responded with, “Mother Nature doesn’t put all her eggs in one basket.”

As the whooping crane example beautifully illustrates, there are conditions under which competition is healthy and beneficial to all. Upon sharing this example with others, people immediately pick up on the fact that the lead birds aren’t bashing into their fellow competitors to block them from trying to take the lead. This is what good sportsmanship looks like. Also, notice that the result of competition benefits the others. This is how you can tell healthy competitiveness and unhealthy competitiveness apart. Ask yourself what kind of impact it has. Is it positive or negative?

So, if you happen to have what’s called a dominant or enterprising personality, the good news is that there is room for you in the world of work. Trying to find your niche? Whatever your personality type, check out the following for some pointers:

Finally, a word of warning about unhealthy competitiveness from Melanie Greenberg, Ph.D. at Psychology Today:

All work environments involve some degree of competition. Healthy competition that is balanced with a sense of mutual respect and commitment to common goals can spur people to do their best work. However, if the competition involves nasty, sneaky, or otherwise ruthless behavior on an ongoing basis, this can undermine the health and performance of employees or group members. Research with animals suggests that those at the top of the hierarchy have better health if their leadership position is stable, but worse health if it unstable. Constantly having to protect your position and territory against competitors can take a toll on the body and mind of humans as well.

Check out Dr. Greenberg’s entry in its entirety for tips on how to handle those who engage in unhealthy, competitive behavior!

Finally, a note to readers:

I’ve now included an Events page where educational events pertaining to work innovations are listed. As a new team member at Better Collaboration, I’m pleased to announce an upcoming videoconference on telework productivity happening Monday, April 8th from 1:00pm-2:30pm Eastern time (EST). There is still time to register! Check the Events page or click here to access more information about this. Or, alternatively, visit http://bettercollaboration.org/events and email contact@BetterCollaboration.org if you have any questions. Check out the services offered and, if you’re a member of Meetup.com, join the Can Telework be Productive? meetup group!

Thoughts on the “This or That? Work-Life Preferences” Survey

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Lynn Patra

Work-Life Balance (Photo credit: Tanja FÖHR)

If you haven’t yet participated in the “This or That? Work-Life Preferences” survey, then you may do so by clicking here! This survey is ongoing. Although just a handful of people have given voice to their preferences so far, these early results have taken me by surprise. I anticipated that there would be a diversity of preferences reflecting the diversity of participants themselves though. Some of the participants explained their choices to me through private messaging conversations which confirmed what I anticipated. The following are just some of the factors that impact people’s preferences.

Familiarity - Some people enjoy familiarity and, in this case, what’s familiar would be the practice of regularly traveling to a centralized office and working face-to-face with a group of people. Hence it is even conceivable for some to choose 40 hours of traditional employment over 40 hours of working when and where they want.
Time devoted to work and work-related activities - Some indicated that they weighed hours spent commuting against the extra hours of work. Thus, if the extra hours of work is less than or equal to the hours spent commuting, they chose to work the extra hours where and when they wanted. However once the extra hours of work surpassed the hours spent commuting, they selected the traditional employment option.
Autonomy (i.e., being able to exercise as much control over the work as possible) - Many of us don’t mind working more hours but have a greater desire to decide when and where we perform the work. This explains why some people have chosen the option of working 80 hours per week over traditional employment.
Distaste for the 9-to-5 office lifestyle – This may or may not be related to autonomy needs. Some of us just hate various aspects of office culture so much that we would choose up to 80 hours of work per week if it meant being able to get as far away as possible from the 9-to-5 office culture.

Finally, I did not spell out whether the condition under which people worked extra hours but had control over when and where they work was equated with regular employment or self-employment. However, one survey taker commented on how favoring control over the hours of work is so much more important to her. As someone who is self-employed, she pointed out that no matter how many hours of work she was receiving, she could bill them and contract out some of the work to others.

Thanks to all those who took the survey so far. I’m looking forward to seeing what others will choose and to any feedback you have! Sharing this survey with others is also appreciated.

Is “Work-Life Balance” Doomed? (ferndalecareercenter.wordpress.com)
“We encourage work-life balance.”…Really? (viccareers.wordpress.com)
Making Work-Life Balance Work (abhishekmittal.com)

Not a team player

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Lynn Patra

Reblogged from Off the Wall:

OK, I confess: I am not a team player – at least, not in the sense that the expression is usually used around an office.

This admission is so burdened with nasty connotations that finding the courage to make it has taken most of my adult life. Nobody ever says so in as many words, but the implication is that something is wrong with you if you are not a team player.

The Productive Workplace has Psychadelic Carpet

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Lynn Patra

Reblogged from Strategic Workforce Planning:

Does Las Vegas have anything to teach Employers about employee engagement?

I've recently been reading about "flow", a state of extreme focus and productivity - and the lengths that Las Vegas casinos will go to in encouraging it. This got me thinking about how Flow could be applied to the workplace, and whether Las Vegas has anything to teach employers about it.

Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix it

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Lynn Patra

Conventional wisdom posits that the needs of employees and their employer are at odds with each other, however this assumption is not necessarily true. A mutually symbiotic relationship granting employees freedom and flexibility while increasing engagement and, hence, productivity is achievable! Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix it: A Results-Only Guide to Taking Control of Work, Not People will force you to examine how you think about work as well as how we unknowingly support the current, conventional view of work through the establishment and use of flexible work arrangements. Conventional flexible work arrangements, by the way, can’t achieve what a results-only work environment (ROWE) can.

In this book, authors Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson make a solid case for prioritizing and measuring results, creating a culture of transparency, trust, and accountability in the process. This means tossing out the misinformed notion that employees’ productivity is somehow correlated with the hours they put in. How is this misinformed? Just think about all the possible ways to stretch out work assignments or subtly fill in some of that time at the office with non-work related activities. Wonder no more about how workers in an entire nation can come to be known for pulling long hours and yet not be all that productive!

Indeed, Ressler and Thompson recount how naturally competition on the basis of being physically present for long hours emerges when managers don’t make results their one and only measure of productivity. The message: Treat employees like the adults that they are and allow them to own the work as well as the process through which they perform it. It doesn’t matter when, where, or how the work is performed as long as the agreed upon outcome is achieved on time.

Ressler and Thompson walk you through real case studies, providing a clear understanding of how their trainers facilitate the necessary culture change within the organization. For example, they explain why it is critical to:

Rethink and reestablish how everyone in the organization perceives and talks about when and where employees work (i.e, disregard whether an employee is putting in long hours or not, is physically present or absent, and early or late).
Leave it up to employees to decide when they take time off, which means allowing unlimited vacation and sick days (as formal vacation and sick day policies must be managed and having a ROWE means that only the work is managed, not the employees).
Ensure meetings are absolutely necessary as unproductive meetings are one of the biggest time wasters (practical guidelines are provided in the book), and make all meetings optional.

Finally, Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix it shows how a ROWE is compatible with all kinds of jobs that’re commonly cited as being incompatible with a ROWE. This is my absolute favorite part of the book. For instance, they describe how a ROWE can be established for non-exempt employees (while staying in compliance of regulations that have been considered obstacles). Ressler and Thompson also describe how their trainers facilitated transition to a ROWE for an organization in the field of education as well as a public sector organization.

In a previous post, I’ve acknowledged individuals who stated their preference for the conventional, Industrial Age system of work and accepted their own self-assessment about their abilities and desire not to work under a new system. However, it is my hope that even some of the most reluctant among us will, at some point, choose to take the plunge and find out that the water is just fine! Ressler and Thompson’s thoughts on the human need for self-determination as well as their optimistic view that so many of us can come to enjoy working under a ROWE inspires this hope. Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix it is a refreshing, practical guide that will show you how all of this is possible.

Work-Life Strategies & Solutions

On the Evolution of Work Systems in the Digital Economy

Category Archives: Employee Engagement

Interviewing, Selecting, and the Lying Game

This one is for those who think that work environment doesn’t matter

Lessons from the Whooping Crane: What a Healthy Competitive Working Style Looks Like

Thoughts on the “This or That? Work-Life Preferences” Survey

The Productive Workplace has Psychadelic Carpet

Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix it

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