You don't fix culture with process.

— David J Bland (@davidjbland) April 9, 2015

One reason why brainstorming meetings are a waste of time: social loafing http://t.co/Y3509np4IU pic.twitter.com/FLfdkOHRA3

— Harvard Biz Review (@HarvardBiz) March 27, 2015

@HarvardBiz Not a waste of time if you use a brainstorming framework & formal methodology! Generalizations like this are dangerous.

I am rather impressed as I'm working away in an open office environment, when I hear colleagues cite our company principles. And I should add they are cited sincerely, are being used to think about behaviour -- not being used  ironically.

I was reminded though of perhaps the most candid and abrupt corporate principle ever -- Cut the Crap.

In 2002 the BBC CEO made a speech and a soccer style card:

I would also ask that people in every team in the BBC – be it at Watchdog, Radio Leicester or outside broadcasts – discuss how we make this place better, how we make it exciting, how do we ensure that the cynics and moaners in the organisation – and they're there in all big organisations – are marginalized. In short how do we cut the crap and make it happen?

To help me I've had a yellow card printed which says on it "cut the crap and make it happen" which I plan to bring out at every meeting when someone is trying to stop a good idea rather than make it happen. We'll send one to anyone who wants one.

The BBC is a pretty extraordinary and innovative media organisation. I guess it worked. 

Read more: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/speeches/stories/dyke_makingithappen.shtml

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2002/feb/08/broadcasting.bbc

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2002/feb/07/broadcasting.bbc

image from https://newsmutt.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/cut-the-crap/

Is there a downside to everyone being happy at work? Is conflict good or bad? Does hiring for cultural fit produce group think? A great summary over at HBR of what to consider if your goal is to foster a critically engaged team.

"... task conflicts produce better decisions and stronger financial outcomes. ... Healthy debate encourages group members to think more deeply, scrutinize alternatives, and avoid premature consensus. While many of us view conflict as unpleasant, the experience of open deliberation can actually energizes employees by providing them with better strategies for doing their job."

Read the rest and the top 5 tips at https://hbr.org/2015/03/5-myths-of-great-workplaces

I am incredibly fortunate to work in an amazingly well planned and thought out open office and hot desk environment. But even with full focus zones it can be difficult at times to concentrate because of distracting background conversations. If this happens to you and you are like me and unable to work along to music (I find lyrics way too distracting), you might be interested in trying https://coffitivity.com/. It plays ambient sounds ... think library, or cafe (thankfully not whale sounds) to help you block out other noise and focus. I use this app all the time, its a lifesaver.

"The average full-time worker is doing six hours of unpaid overtime each week worth an estimated $9471 a year..."

Advice shared from the buzzing tech valley:

"Google did a great talk about the method they use to keep focused. It’s called “Objectives, Key Results”. Essentially you can have three objectives a quarter; they need to be broad but measurable. Don’t say how you will get there, that’s for the person actioning it to worry about. By limiting ourselves to three objectives I feel freed."

Some nice advice from this SMH article: 

Tip 1: start by getting information out, not taking information in:

''One big tip I recommend is to start the day with output instead of input ... instead of taking in information - emails sent to you, favourite coffee, chats with co-workers - try getting work out. Otherwise the problem is you waste time, and by mid-morning you don't feel like doing any more." 

"Set up your email system to start up in ''calendar'' rather than ''inbox''. This will draw your attention to what you're committed to doing rather than just absorbing new (and often unimportant) information." 

Hiring right, perks versus how people work now, making sure staff are invested in the company to be invested in their work, transparent salaries are among the tips from 9 entrepreneurs about building a great culture. ~ http://www.businessinsider.com.au/how-to-create-a-great-culture-2013-8#newscred-ceo-shafqat-islam-says-to-get-culture-right-you-have-to-hire-right-1

I love this list of 22 typical change management mistakes to avoid. There are several in this list which I think can be addressed with a human centred design approach such as:

Mistake #13 – Not involving the employees

Leaders must actively involve the people most affected by the change in its implementation. This will help ensure employees at all levels of the organization embrace the proposed changes.

Involving staff can mean so much more than communicating the changes ahead. It can mean involving them in identifying problems and creating and testing solutions.  

A must read: http://www.torbenrick.eu/blog/change-management/top-20-change-management-mistakes-to-avoid/?goback=%2Egde_1855378_member_236279636

Researchers like David E. Meyer, Director of the Brain, Cognition, and Action Laboratory at the University of Michigan, have been warning us for years that multitasking slows us down and makes us prone to errors. 
~ http://lifehacker.com/more-productivity-myths-debunked-by-science-and-commo-514253858

Don't feel bad about taking a break to reset and recharge. It's been proven that breaks will actually make you more productive.

This 2011 synthesis paper (full text, PDF) by the International Labour Organization reviewed available research into the relationship between productivity and hours worked. The core conclusion: Longer hours do not make you more productive, and can in fact have the opposite effect: You'll get less done, and what you do get done is never your best work (or has to be revisited or corrected later). The ILO paper isn't the only one on the topic. A similar paper by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (full text, PDF) pointed out that among the 16 of the EU nations, people who worked more flexible hours or jobs that would be normally considered part-time were overall more engaged with and productive at work and happier in their off-time than people who worked more hours.

~ http://lifehacker.com/more-productivity-myths-debunked-by-science-and-commo-514253858

I certainly struggle with attempts to go paperless. I am getting better. Slowly. But there is a case for paper. 

One study published in the Computer User academic journal found people are 30 per cent more likely to remember information when it’s printed or written down.

If you find yourself unable to think in your open plan office you may be interested in reading this New York Times article The Rise of the New Group Think that argues the case for private space to be productive and creative. 

Our offices should encourage casual, cafe-style interactions, but allow people to disappear into personalized, private spaces when they want to be alone. 

Research backs it up:

Studies show that open-plan offices make workers hostile, insecure and distracted. They’re also more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, stress, the flu and exhaustion. And people whose work is interrupted make 50 percent more mistakes and take twice as long to finish it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/opinion/sunday/the-rise-of-the-new-groupthink.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all&

So did that last brainstorming session you were in that was meant to generate a hundred ideas deliver? If not, here's why:

The reasons brainstorming fails are instructive for other forms of group work, too. People in groups tend to sit back and let others do the work; they instinctively mimic others’ opinions and lose sight of their own; and, often succumb to peer pressure. The Emory University neuroscientist Gregory Berns found that when we take a stance different from the group’s, we activate the amygdala, a small organ in the brain associated with the fear of rejection. Professor Berns calls this “the pain of independence.” 

“Being sedentary for nine hours a day at the office is bad for your health whether you go home and watch television afterwards or hit the gym. It is bad whether you are morbidly obese or marathon-runner thin. It appears that what is critical and maybe even more important than going to the gym, is breaking up that sitting time.” 

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/sitting-is-the-new-smoking-20130529-2nca0.html

By first ensuring that your large priorities are tackled, scheduled, and done for the day, you can then let the smaller but less important things in until you have somehow allowed time in your day for everything you needed to do, while still relaxing and having fun.

Sylvia Pennington reports on the characteristics of the perfect boss. How does your boss stack up? Or if you're the boss how do you stack up? The cheat sheet list is:

1. Provides purpose
2. Demonstrates vision
3. Collaborates
4. Sets clear expectations
5. Provides a positive work environment
6. Is even tempered and resilient
7. Treats everyone fairly
8. Provides recognition
9. Are always learning
10. Helps and mentors others

Read the full detail of the top 10 traits of the perfect boss here: http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/management/top-10-traits-of-the-perfect-boss-20120815-248md.html

Clem Bastow writes a lot about women's issues. In this piece from August 2012 she reflects on the name calling attributing to woman that perhaps is not bestowed on men displaying the same attributes. Food for thought. 

You might have seen Leigh Sales take Tony Abbott to task on 7:30 last week. For her troubles, she’s been called “shrill” and “aggressive” (despite her work on7:30 being neither), and then, yesterday, Liberal Party strategist Grahame Morris unleashed this corker: "Well Leigh can be a real cow sometimes when she's doing her interviews."

Read the whole piece over at http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/shrill-aggressive-and-other-names-we-call-smart-women-20120828-24y6p.htm

It's people that learn. Not organizations that learn, and not systems that learn.

— SemanticWill™ (@semanticwill) March 20, 2013

Is your workplace kitchette perpetually untidy? Are there serial offenders who just won't comply with the signs stuck up on the wall, on the bench, on the dishwasher? It seems to happen everywhere, and a colleague and I were laughing yesterday as we saw a bunch of dishes on a bench just beneath the instructions telling people: 

"DO NOT leave your dirty dishes in the kitchette, don't be lazy. Take them to the main kitchen."

I kid you not, the first two words are bold + all caps + underlined. It reminded me of a research study that found that pictures of eyes changed people's littering behaviour, making them tidier.

A group of scientists at Newcastle University, headed by Melissa Bateson and Daniel Nettle of the Center for Behavior and Evolution, conducted a field experiment demonstrating that merely hanging up posters of staring human eyes is enough to significantly change people’s behavior. Over the course of 32 days, the scientists spent many hours recording customer’s “littering behavior” in their university’s main cafeteria, counting the number of people that cleaned up after themselves after they had finished their meals. In their study, the researchers determined the effect of the eyes on individual behavior by controlling for several conditions (e.g. posters with a corresponding verbal text, without any text, male versus female faces, posters of something unrelated like flowers, etc). The posters were hung at eye-level and every day the location of each poster was randomly determined. The researchers found that during periods when the posters of eyes, instead of flowers, overlooked the diners, twice as many people cleaned up after themselves.

So perphaps try adding pictures of eyes to your kitchette signs. To read more about the mechanics of "Neural architecture" and "Gaze detection" and to read about how the studies were designed and conducted go to http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-the-illusion-of-being-observed-can-make-you-better-person

This study is also quoted in Quick and Dirty Tips which has a few more suggestions for office tidiness. Not sure if I agree with all of them (do grown ups need candy rewards?) but sometimes you just gotta try something.

"When you start developing a product or a company you never know if it’s going to work or what’s going to work. But you do know what you want to do and how you want to do it. So do that. And when (not if) that doesn’t work, do something different and try again. Repeat until something good happens. Then, and only then, should you look back and consider what you did that worked and find ways to reinforce that behavior."

Read on over at Inc for the full opinion piece: http://www.inc.com/steve-tobak/why-perks-arent-company-culture.html or go to TechCrunch for the article that inspired it: http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/17/programming-your-culture/