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The Power of Belief

Futures Rambling # 76

The debate over immigration continues to rage: on this side of the globe Abbot is turning back boats and on the other Obama is encouraging cooperation, hoping The House of Representatives will pass immigration reform this year – good luck! Being an immigrant myself, I feel deep empathy for those who board leaky boats in hope of a better life. My family boarded a United Airlines 767, perhaps equally dismal, and we were immigrating for the salubrious reason of a new job; never the less it was still a stressful ordeal many are not prepared to embrace.

The topic of immigration surfaced at an Australia Day barbeque with friends. My pal Bob is considering a move to Ecuador and the rest of us felt compelled to debate his logic and the likelihood of his success in a new country. He concocted the idea to move following a meeting with his financial planner who informed him he had saved more than enough for a comfortable retirement, but when Bob said he planned to live to 120, the planner revised his thumbs up status to thumbs down and recommended a ‘retirement haven’. Bob’s uncle is 100 and his father is 99, so it’s not the outlandish stretch you might imagine.

What was interesting was how opinions divided neatly amongst friends: some felt it was a great idea and had great confidence Bob would adapt beautifully, while others were negative, wary of the enormous risk and possible pitfalls. While it was hardly an astounding epiphany, the afternoon clearly demonstrated some people have what researchers call a ‘fixed (or entity) theory’ and others have a ‘malleable (or incremental) theory’ that allows them to be more open to learning, willing to confront changes and difficult tasks and bounce back from failures.

As influential as whether our theories are fixed or malleable is a person’s beliefs. Beliefs reflect how we feel about important issues, impact our goals, dictate how we construe experiences and influence the habitual patterns and responses we apply to our experiences. They not only define us, but are the foundations of our personalities.

Understanding how beliefs influence decision making is by no means a simple science. However an amusing interpretation can be found in the (Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) MMORPG, Haven & Hearth. The game aims “to provide players an interactive, affectable and mutable game world, which can be permanently and fundamentally changed and affected through actions undertaken by the player.” Six dualisms: tradition and change, martial and peaceful, nature and industry, barbarism and civilization, night and day, and life and death are dealt with throughout the game, but players can affect the outcome by changing their attitude.

Sadly, real life is not like an on line game; don’t tell this to my son and his flatmates who play MMORPG frequently in their lounge room they have labelled ‘the nerdatorium’. In real life changing attitudes, beliefs, or personality, is far more complex – just look at the struggle of politicians who try to reinvent themselves. Hard as he tried K.Rudd couldn’t help being K.Rudd. The good news is that research suggests our personality is flexible and dynamic, and while is not easy to alter our beliefs, understanding them gives us an idea of where to begin.

Stanford University has studied beliefs; of particular interest to Bob and organisations that struggle with integrating new people into a team, some from different cultures, and ensure they function effectively, is the research done into acceptance. They learned belief plays a critical role in whether or not people believe they are accepted and suggest it is a better judge in how we function than the attributes we typically use to define personality e.g. our temperament, the consistent patterns we follow and how we perceive ourselves, others and our environment.

Beliefs, they maintain, are a better gauge of our ability to function well, grow, learn and achieve in school and careers. Going back to Bob, whether he successfully resettles in Ecuador will be more a factor of his belief in his ability, than his history of moving, or whether he has an outgoing temperament.

This leads to the question, if believing is so critical to success, what can we do to make people believe? Don’t yawn, or laugh when you hear this, but some research suggest it all has to do with innovation. There’s that word again, it’s the Holy Grail and it also makes julienne fries! Joking aside, it makes sense; companies or individuals that are more innovative are open to new ideas, processes and people. They’re malleable and that leads to better performance in the face of challenges such as moving to Ecuador.

At Stanford University there has been some interesting investigation into the link between people’s beliefs, and the levels of innovation present in the companies they work for. They use the term ‘innovation self-efficacy’ in reference to motivation borne of beliefs in one’s ability. If we don’t believe, we will not act; if we don’t try, we don’t innovate. The two are mutually reinforcing, if we act and receive positive feedback, it builds our belief, leading to more innovation and acceptance.

The psychologist Albert Bandura proposes innovation self – efficacy develops in three ways: Social persuasion – we are told we can, Vicarious learning – watching others and Mastery experiences – doing it. Designers from Stanford’s d school and Northwestern’s Segal Design Institute have identified ways our environments foster innovation self –efficacy. These do not address the physical environment, that never the less offer food for thought.

Structure learning for small wins and small failures to take advantage of sustained effort, rather than focusing only on the end goal.
Reframe failed attempts as learning opportunities.
Reframe uncertainty as curiosity, rather than not knowing.
Scope projects for ongoing authentic feedback rather than evaluation.
Broadcast success immediately.
Articulate a routine process for innovation.

Companies that train employees to apply knowledge to solve problems that have known answers foster a fear of complexity and failure, because reward and praise comes from getting things right. Rather than building self-esteem, the result is challenge avoidance and vulnerability, the situations produce what is referred to as ‘Innovation Distrust’ or a disbelief in our ability to create innovative solutions. Innovation distrust’ and routine actions are mutually reinforcing.

So if we follow the same pattern day in and day out and always follow the rules, we build an aversion to innovation. Taking this a step further, one could argue we become less malleable by following the status quo, which is no doubt where the phrases ‘being set in one’s way’ or ‘can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ come from.

Adding to the complexity is the concept of relationship beliefs. Fifty years ago researchers used the ‘strange situation’ paradigm to test relationships between infants and their mothers. In these studies mothers and infants were separated and later reunited. This tested whether the infant used the mother as a secure base in times of stress. Infants were labelled securely or insecurely attached. This test can be done with architects and bottles of scotch as well – just messing with you.

Securely or insecurely attached infants have different expectations about whether their caretaker will respond to their needs. The way this theory applies to adults, is that people who expect a negative response (insecurely attached) have fragile relationships and see rejection in ordinary behaviour, they also respond to conflict in ways that undermine relationships.

Again there is good news. Even though researchers learned expectations predict how people will function, they learned they are also malleable and changing people’s expectation of acceptance is key to their ability to succeed in a new environment. None of this is necessary in Bob’s case, he believes he can easily move to Ecuador, make friends and learn Spanish and therefore he will.

Just think if every employee in every Australian company had such belief in their abilities and the companies they worked for nurtured and supported their actions. It might not stop the endless debate on immigration, but it could put an end to the drivel about productivity and innovation in Australian workplaces.

Sources:

Bleby, Michael; We Came by Boat: How Refugees Changed Australian Business; BRW, August 29, 2013

Gerber, Liz; Innovation Self-Efficacy: Fostering Beliefs in Our Ability Through and By Design; core jr post, October 24, 2011

Dweck, Carol S; Can Personality Be Changed? The Role of Beliefs in Personality and Change; Association for Psychological Science, Stanford University

Dweck, Carol; Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

Healthandhearth.wikia.com

Bad Posture

Futures Rambling # 75

By Laurie Aznavoorian

I am sitting at my desk in the ‘turtle’ posture. As many of you know, I’m a big fan of yoga, so enamoured with the practice that I forwarded an e mail to everyone at work from The Healthy Living Lounge featuring the best office chair yoga exercises. The, ‘turtle posture’ was not one of those suggested; it is not a yoga asana.

Many of us who practice yoga, as well as those who wouldn’t know a Bhujangasana from a corned beef sandwich practice the turtle posture daily. We do it while standing or sitting, crunched over our keyboards, telephones or another technology we cannot separate ourselves from. Professor Alan Hedge from Cornell University provided an excellent introduction to the turtle at a presentation he gave last month in the Schiavello showroom.

The picture Hedge paints for those of us who practice turtle is not pretty. This posture can cause serious issues later in life. For that matter, doing yoga in five caster swivel chairs is also potentially hazardous, and is probably not what the Living Lounge had in mind when they issued the e mail. This could be the inspiration for yet another rendition of the ‘Dumb ways to Die’ video put out by Metro Trains.

The data Professor Hedge referenced in his presentation on the dangers of hunching over, watching television and sitting for over 55 minutes at one time was sobering. Did you know that for every hour you watch television, your life expectancy reduces by 20 minutes? Every cigarette smoked reduces your life by 11 minutes. Imagine if you sit, smoke and watch television!

Unfortunately, the average office worker easily sits for over 55 minutes a day without moving. Studies have proven this kind of sedentary work style increases the chance of getting cardio vascular disease, diabetes, circulatory problems like DVT, and some forms of cancer. Add that to the host of possible muscle skeletal conditions, particularly those to the shoulder and neck that workers may develop due to poor postures, and we can anticipate a very bright future for physio therapists and heart surgeons.

Luckily, the furniture manufactures are on to this. Steelcase recently conducted an 11 country survey observing postures and discovered nine new ones they have coined: the draw, the multi-device, the text, the cacoon, the swipe, the smart lean, the trance, the take it in and the strunch, which looks a lot like Professor Hedge’s turtle. These new work postures are driven by how the human body interacts with the technologies we work with and how our body moves as we shift from device to device.

Not surprisingly, most of these are not good for your body. The industry has responded with new range of super flexible chairs that react to changing postures. For example, Steelcase’s Gesture recently launched in Australia is designed to support our body as it interacts with technology. Other products like Axia Smart Chair take a punitive approach to poor posture by installing sensors that vibrate when we slump, reminding us to sit straight.

As workplace designers who advise and create contemporary workplaces for major organisations, it is important that each of us considers the implications of these research findings. What is the duty of care for designers or the companies that commission them?

We believe we are doing the right thing by designing workspaces that support variety and encourage movement, but Professor Hedge would argue there is more to it than that. He promotes ‘everywhere ergonomics’ suggesting anywhere we sit in a workplace should have proper ergonomics, including the trendy loose furniture pieces we use. He is an ergonomist so we would expect this advice. He also maintains it’s critical to educate employees about posture and ergonomics, to help them understand how not to injure themselves.

To further complicate the topic and move beyond the physical to the behavioural, posture also impacts behaviour. Charles Darwin started this idea in 1872 when he wrote The Expressions of the Emotions in Man and Animals. The essay suggests the way we express ourselves on the outside, our gestures and posture, can intensify the emotions we have on the inside.

Studies conducted at MIT have taken this idea one step further and to some degree proven there is an impact on our emotions when we assume particular stances or postures. The MIT researchers were interested in stances associated with power, and concluded posture is shaped by environment. If we sit or stand a particular way we will behave differently.

In one of the experiments study participants were asked to take a quiz, their answers were carbon copied. Afterward they were instructed to arrange a series of articles on work surfaces: staplers, pens and pencils and pads of paper. Not all participants were given the same size desk and this caused some of the desk tops to be cluttered, while others swam in space.

The hypothesis was that those with larger work surface, who had to reach and stretch for an item, would be forced by the environment to assume a posture of power. They had no choice but to be expansive. The participants with smaller work settings adopted more contracted weaker postures as a physical manifestation of their environment.

The researchers then handed out the answers to the quiz participants had taken earlier. Surprisingly, they found participants sitting in the larger desks, the ones forced to assume power postures, were more likely to go back change their answers if they got them wrong. They cheated!

A similar experiment was conducted with car simulators. Researchers found participants seated in more spacious simulators were more likely to ‘hit and run’, even though the study rules stipulated they should stop after a crash. Participants in larger car simulators were also more likely to double park. The research team concluded environment influences our behaviour, and should therefore inform ergonomic design.

They did not conclude, as I would, that people who drive big cars are jerks. It does bring to the surface interesting observations on the audacity of people in power. Would any of you actually even try to hand in an expense report for a hooker or an overseas trip to a friend’s wedding as our Aussie politicians have?

The researchers suggest we proceed with caution as we interpret these findings. There isn’t enough known about how postures change our psychology, it’s too early to rush off and make desks or car seats smaller to prohibit people from behaving like bozos. But the studies confirm what we have intuitively known for a long time, space does influence human behaviours.

With new found knowledge opportunities arise, combining what we have learned from the MIT and other ergonomic studies, we have more than enough to think about. Remember the first reports on the links between cigarette smoking and cancer emerged in the 1950s, and it wasn’t until the late 1990s that plaintiffs began to have success suing tobacco companies. There’s plenty of time, never say never, we don’t want to be the next Philip Morris.

Sources:

Hedge, Professor Alan – Cornell University, presentation at Schiavello

Jaffe, Eric; How Everyday Ergonomics Shape Your Behavior; Fast Company Co.Design; October 21, 2013

Jaffe, Eric; Is Google Maps Changing Our Behavior? The Atlantic Cities; March 29 2013

NOLO website; Tobacco Litigation: History & Recent Developments

Steelcase; Steelcase Global Study Uncovers New Postures Driven By Mobile Technology; March 12, 2013

Breaking Habits

Futures Rambling # 74

By Laurie Aznavoorian

Recently I had dinner with a group of colleagues who all travel frequently for work. Perhaps it was due to my overnight bag parked adjacent to our table that our conversation drifted to amusing tips and tricks each of us had to make being a road warrior a bit more manageable. Most of these fell into the George Clooney ‘Flying High’ category ranging from knowing which shoes set off the X ray machines, outfits that require no ironing, to the times and airlines that are best to fly on.

The banter highlighted a number of odd habits we had each formed, such as wearing glasses in the shower. I do this after having a rather unfortunate experience of washing my hair with body lotion because I can’t see the print on the tiny bottles hotels provide and I never wear contact lenses to bed. Another frequent traveler brings her own pillow case; she also always puts her suit case on the bed, unpacks and hangs up her clothing in the closet on every trip, she repeats the process when she arrives home.

This is a bad habit – why? Once, and only once, she decided to stay at a cheaper hotel, put her bag on the bed as she always does and Kiwi bedbugs from the Auckland hotel hitched a ride to her home in Sydney. By the time she got done tossing out her bed linen, washing and fumigating the house, it cost her thousands of dollars to be rid of her new friends. DON’T PUT YOUR LUGGAGE ON ANY HOTEL BEDS, it is suggested you put it in the shower, seriously.

Offering advice on how you should just stop doing something that is a habit reminds me of former US President Regan’s wife Nancy. When she was the first lady her response to drug addiction was to “just say no”, as if breaking an addiction was as easy as choosing red or white wine. Most people, particularly addicts, paid no attention to her because she wore a twin set and string of pearls that went with her bouffant hairdo.

It is a bit of an oxymoron to say habits are very hard to break, we have all suffered through the pain of attempting to stop something that has become routine: drinking coffee, grog, smoking, watching too many episodes of The League in one sitting. One of the reasons it is so hard for us to break a habit has to do with how our brains work.

Before we get snarky with our grey matter, it should be noted that if our brains didn’t behave in the way they do, we would be incapable of functioning. Every minute of the day we reflect, ponder and choose, it’s what makes us human, but with much information to process and decisions to make, we would be incapacitated if we had to think about them all.

Lucky for us our brains assist by allowing us to go on auto pilot; we perform more mundane activities in life like putting toothpaste on the toothbrush, or for boys putting the Y in your undies in front, with little or no consciousness. This unshackles us to think about other more pressing issues such as why Senator Ted Cruz, a republican from Texas (go figure) spent 21 hours talking about Dr. Seuss and Duck Dynasty. His goal was to persuade members of Congress to vote for defunding Obama’s Affordable Care Act. What a travesty of ‘Green Eggs and Ham”, didn’t he realise the book is about trying new things.

The interesting and very challenging aspect of habits and brains is the part of the brain that accounts for habit formation, the basal ganglia, is buried smack dab in the middle of your head. It is so deep inside that you could get hit over the head with a shovel and damage an exterior section of your brain causing you to forget who and where you are, but you would continue to chew your finger nails.

There are different types of habits we form, we cannot attribute all to the structure of our brain. Repetition forces us into habits and engrains them in our brains like grooves in old vinyl records. This type of habit is hard to change because it is so well worn in our minds; we need to practice to allow new grooves to form in our brains. Other habits involve dependence and require a different tactic for change, in these instances we must replace one activity with another that is equally rewarding. A third type of habit begins by obeying social norms, like wearing your seat belt.

There is another type of habitual behaviour that involves cognitive activity, this is the trickiest because it involves our interpretations of a situation according to what it means to us and fits into stories we tell ourselves. These behaviours become habitual because people develop a chronic way of interpreting the world that is repeated. Only through learning new stories can we shift their mindset.

This one is the one we must take note of as work place designers, because we mess with people’s interpretations of their notions of work and themselves. Our environments require occupants to change deeply engrained habits and behaviors they have built up over decades on the job. I for one am guilty of pulling a Nancy Regan and with a glib self-righteousness suggest workers get rid of their stupid little desk chachkies , their snack drawer and their cat photos, and join the ranks of evolved contemporary workers.

So where does this leave our poor clients, and indeed all of us who wrestle with annoying habits? In the book “The Power Of Habit – Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business” author Charles Duhigg is very optimistic. He maintains once we understand our habits we can change them. To do this we must understand the nature of habits that will not only help us unload our own personal bad habits, but can also influence group behavour. This is critical for turning around companies that do dumb things just because they always have.

Duhigg cites multiple studies that have shown the only way to break a habit is to replace it with another activity that will respond to the same environmental cues that instigate the ‘habit loop’ and provide the same reward at the end. In other words, your brain will allow you to change the middle part of the loop, but not the beginning and end.

Additional good news on breaking habits can be found in a new study from MIT where neuroscientists have found that a small region of the brain’s prefrontal cortex, the infralimbic (IL) cortex, is responsible for moment by moment control. The IL cortex therefore has the ability to determine which habits are switched on at any given time.

What is very cool about this research is the MIT crowd discovered they can force the brain to break the signal from the IL cortex using light. The technique, known as optogenetics, could pave the way to help us stop smoking, drinking, over eating and in my case acting like a jerk. The only problem is that today optogenetics is only available to you if you are a lab rat.

Sources:

Duhigg, Charles; The Power Of Habit – Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, Random House

Kearney Christine; The Brain Controls Our Ability To Stop Habits; Medical News Today; November 1, 2012

Trafton, Anne; How the Brain Controls our Habits; MIT News Office; October 29, 2012

VanSonnenberg, Emily; This is Your Brain on Habits; Positive Psychology News Daily; February 1, 2011

Changing of the Guard

Futures Ramblings # 73

By Laurie Aznavoorian

It is an interesting time for Australians, following the election this weekend we have a new Prime Minister. The result will be a different middle aged white man plodding around Kirribilli House and The Lodge in Canberra in their bathrobe and Ugg boots. For most of us, a new political party at the helm signals little real, or rapid change; however, for the poor folks who service the Prime Minister it could be another story all together.

Consider the coffee guy at Kirribilli house. You’ve finally perfected KRudds double strength, no fat, soy latte and suddenly you are responsible for producing decaffeinated soy cappuccinos with low fat chocolate sprinkles on top. It could be hair splittingly tense with great potential for disappointment. There is significant possibility it might end in tears, as is so often the case when leadership changes.

The website ‘AskMen’ targeted to the ‘better man’ with the by-line Power & Money, offers tips for people like the coffee guy who not only need to ensure they are on the ball when times change, but also have a plan for making first impressions on a new boss. The suggestions are:

Don’t choose sides.
Wait till the storm has cleared.
Resist brown nosing.
Volunteer for small tasks, because it takes time to build trust.
Don’t be a know it all.
Use the opportunity to rebuild your professional image.

As designers it is not unusual to be in this same unpleasant predicament. Not because leadership in our company has changed, but in our client’s. The experience can be quite traumatic, for example take Arthur Andersen. Although it’s not technically a changing of the guard, more a spontaneous combustion, the mere mention of those words in our office still has the ability to ashen faces. At the end of the day the result was the same; an amazing design up in smoke along with Enron and Andersen – sati style.

The last time I dealt with a client’s leadership transition the impact was amazingly painless. It occurred on the Telecom New Zealand project when Theresa Gattung announced her departure and handed over the reins to Dr Paul Reynolds from BT. The shift could have spelled disaster for us, but the work we did in building our accommodation and property strategy on business principles and clearly articulating our recommendations and the reasons for them, gave the strategy sticking power that lasted well after Theresa left.

We are not always so lucky. Take the saga of the CEO with strong opinions who was very involved in defining every element of the space we were designing from its look and feel down to the policies for behaviours in the new environment. When he left his successor sent us back to the drawing board. Compounding the pain of the redesign was a sneaky gut feeling the changes would result in dissolution of policies and a half measure implementation because the agreed solutions didn’t necessarily resonate with the new leader.

But let’s not focus on sad stories, there are plenty of positive anecdotes where the relationship we have with our client has helped soften the pain of the changing of the guard. One of these is Westpac; we have been working with the organisation since the mid nineties and undergone three leadership changes. I asked Peter McCamley, who has worked with them for nearly two decades what it was that held the integrity of our designs together through leadership change.

The catalyst of our success he says, comes from doing what we do; not only in a design capacity, but in our insatiable quest to dig deep and gain real understanding of the client’s business. In doing this we become the custodian of their business knowledge. For some clients, we may be their only link to history when their own people move on. We become a key part of the succession plan, the transferrers of knowledge, and the only ones who know the story of why the workplace is the way it is.

Our success also comes from a willingness to accept there will be change with a new leader, not to mention the natural and logical evolution as the organisation responds to the times. As designers we must have a preparedness to evolve our thinking to align with a new leader’s intentions and ideas.

With Westpac we have not only weathered multiple leadership changes, but have also stood by them through the acquisition of new companies. When this occurs the organisation evolves by virtue of the influence each entity has on the other, which can also impact the work we do and the relations we have with them.

Organisations like Westpac recognise the role designers play and have accepted our offers to induct their new leaders. We communicated project time lines, explained why things are the way they are, and apprised them of the drivers for their accommodation solutions. They gained a greater understanding of the property portfolio and could then avoid making subjective judgements. Their credibility was reinforced due to a stronger connection to company history.

Often of greater impact to us is a change in the property team, particularly when we wear the organisation’s badge and play the role of chief historian. Property people have a tendency to move on when projects complete, frequently leaving us to communicate the project rationale to their successor. On the upside, together we collectively develop process, policy, standards and an approach to the effective execution of a project and that is highly transferable.

The most challenging situations can result from an intermediary shift; this is often more difficult because they are anxious to prove their own value and sometimes demonstrate that by putting us to the test, or returning the job to the market. The strength of our relationship with the client is often stronger, never the less; intermediaries are often in a position to make judgement calls on the value we bring. Since their measurements deal with cost, as opposed to adding value through effectiveness and efficiency, we frequently find our status in jeopardy.

So what advice do we have for keeping our client relationships alive and strong enough to endure a changing of the guards? First, develop multi layered relationships within the business that extend beyond the top leaders. Hopefully some people will remain through a transition and think highly enough of us to step forward to sing our praises to the new boss. Having an insider attest to our passion, determination and value carries much more weight than self-pontificating.

We must also remember relationships are not about projects, but clients. We live and breathe them, and through our relationships, establish a very deep understanding of what makes them tick. You could say, ‘nobody’s going to love you the way we do’. On the flip side it is critical to continually demonstrate freshness by exposing our long standing clients to new ideas that might be important to them and to other projects we are working on.

It’s very dangerous to assume a client knows everything about us. I am repeatedly flabbergasted when I chat with clients we have worked with for a long time who say “I didn’t know Geyer did strategy, or worked in tertiary education or had the capacity to do change management. Worse is when they learn this after they have given a project to someone else because they didn’t know we could help them.

Real risks to our relationships come from doing more of the same, assuming our clients are comfortable with the status quo. There is always the danger of projects gaining such momentum that we focus on the technical aspects of doing a job, rather than adding value. To remedy this we need to establish dialogues outside of the project to create a vehicle for the flow of information about what is happening in world of design and in their industry.

Similarly, we need to spice up life for our own people by considering succession. Designers get bored when they’re forced to repeat the same exercise over and over, it causes them to drink heavily and spend too much time shopping on line for shoes and skin care products that fight the advanced signs of ageing.

Try as we might, there is often little we can do once a decision has been made to throw out the baby with the bathwater. This is why we can’t wait to establish the right perceptions with a new leader. Going back to Kirribilli House, the new Prime Minister doesn’t know the coffee guy from a bar of soap. He is unaware of his ability to make a mean mocha or chai latte and may have prejudged him as a pedestrian latte flogger.

It is therefore up to Mr. Coffee to demonstrate his capability. In addition, every now and again, for good measure, he should pull out whatever the sexy lingerie equivalent is to coffee service, and surprise the PM with something new: a slice of banana bread, a chocolate raspberry muffin. Otherwise he may get passed over with the PM believing his only claim to fame is decaf latte.

Sources:

Hui, Samuel; Dealing With a New Boss; au.askmen.com

McCamley Peter, an enlightening conversation about the history of Geyer and Westpac.

Montague, Ty; If Your Leader Departs, Preserve the Company’s Story First; HBR Blog; August 7, 2013

Taylor, Bill; Are You Learning as Fast as the World Is Changing?; HBR Blog; January 26, 2012

Ageism in Design

Futures Rambling # 71

By Laurie Aznavoorian

We have changed Prime Ministers outside of an election – again. It makes Australian’s appear indecisive at the very least, and by comparison makes the partisan bickering of the US congress look like model lawmaking. In the media coverage of the events that led to, and followed the change, it was astounding to see many aspects of the Gilliard’s government record ignored, and her gender the focus of post mortems.

You might find it surprising that despite our pastime of having a go at Julia Gillard for her hair and outfit choices, gender does not top the list of our favourite form of discrimination in this country. It’s not race either, as many would suspect, but age! One would need to be dumb, deaf and blind to not know Australians are no strangers to discrimination. We can compete with the best of the world’s judgement passers at cutting people off at the knees for what they are or aren’t.

This is precisely why Susan Ryan, the Australian age discrimination commissioner, says we need to ‘crackdown’ on ageism because it is the biggest obstacle facing seniors who want to work in the country. If we succeed we could inject $33 billion into the Australian economy by adding 750,000 more people to workforce. This would address skills shortages and other problems we have with the national economy.

Australia is not alone, in McKinsey’s discussion paper Help wanted: The future of work in advanced economies the authors note 40 million workers across advanced economies are unemployed, but many of those countries claim to be unable to find the workers they need. Most could fill their skill gap by employing the high percentage of workers who are 55 to 64 years of age.

It is a large pool to draw from. In 1990, about 10% of the global workforce was over 55; by 2010 that share had risen to 14% and has reached 18% in some advanced economies. By 2030, the proportion of older workers in the global labour force is expected to reach 22%. In places like Japan the percentage of older workers is as high as 70%.

The paper identified five trends influencing employment levels and shaping how work is done. One is the growing pool of untapped talent, to be specific older workers. Another source of labour not tapped is females; while the participation rate has grown and in most advanced economies is equal, female participation still lags that of males in some countries. They propose this is symptomatic of structural changes in the nature of work, a shift many institutions and policies have not kept up with.

We’re quite familiar with the struggles organisations have in understanding the impact of such changes on office design, but how much attention do we pay to the impact of this on the sustainability of our own profession? Unlike the practice of architecture, where many of the ‘greats’ didn’t even land their first real commissions till they were in their 50’s (Louis Kahn) and often practice well in to old age (Oscar Niemeyer just died at the age of 104 and designed the Oscar Niemeyer Museum in 2002 when he was 94, he designed the Serpentine Gallery at age 96). We tend to focus on youth.

To be fair, in both architecture and interiors, like many professional industries, our ability to make money is rooted in a model based on many Indians and few chiefs. Still our industry has exacerbated issues around ageism by responding to a challenging economy by sacking older workers and replacing them with juniors who cost less. This is not a new trick and it hasn’t served organisations that employ it any better now than it has in the past.

Not only are they failing to benefit from the experience and insight of older workers, some have tarnished their reputations from continually undercutting fees. Often the result is little or no time on projects for employees with experience to grace the design or documentation process and when it comes to design that can be disastrous.

Two additional realities plague our industry and make age discrimination particularly challenging, the typical employee in a design firm is not only female, but young to boot. The careers of most women, and some men, tend to not follow the typical lineal career and life path. Woman start and stop their career and go through stages at different times, they may only just be hitting their stride by the time they hit 50.

When design companies discard older designers they don’t just die and go away; they still need to earn a living to keep them in wrinkle cream and black outfits, and being older many career choices are now unsuitable: ice skater, pole dancer! With their skill base and sound relationships, many find employment by crossing the line to work with the clients they once served. The reversal of roles provides a unique perspective on the state of the design industry.

I know several who have done this and while they may be a bit jaded, only remembering the good part of the ‘good old days’ and forgetting the rest, it is interesting how many comment on what they perceive as a downturn in quality across the industry. They say this is manifested in superficial design solutions that lack substance and connection to their needs, unbuildable details and shocking documentation packages.

Their hypothesis, which may be self-serving, is that this is due to a lack of experience on project. By example, one knew the project director knew his stuff and hired him because he was highly skilled and more than capable of executing the project. When it came to delivery, he lacked a skilled back up team and was personally unable to allocate the time required to do what he knew needed to be done, the project suffered. More than one person has confided they had no choice but to return drawings back to the designer to be redone.

You could argue design oversight is still being done, just undertaken by experienced practitioners on the ‘client side’ of the project equation. In other cases external consultants like my friend Craig play this role. He is engaged in half hour intervals at a very high fee to review details for constructability and represents several different organisations in difficult meetings that require a person with greater experience representing them.

Some say throw young talented designers in the deep end to sink or swim, cut loose the old farts who piddle about, checking work, clipping wings and cramping style. They argue that is the way they learned. My memories were different, I recall arriving to work in the morning to find a role of trace over what I was working on the night before. The boss would leave sketches and notes, generally illegible, from midnight strolls he took through the studio. With everything in a computer today, this is no longer possible; the flaw with this logic is that it is a different time.

We have access to abundant data which had led to the tendency to subjectively draw immediate connections between words, images and ideas. This is particularly prevalent with younger designers who apply a social media process of observing and interpreting information quickly: liking, retweeting, sharing or pining to the design process. It leaves no room for the process of design which is one that solves problems and requires contemplation.

No doubt our industry could benefit from a few adjustments to the design and documentation process, to better align it to changing economic conditions, while maintaining the guts of what is good about our trade. It is true, there are plenty of superfluous steps that we could abandon or improve with new technologies available to us; thinking isn’t one of them.

This issue isn’t limited to design, most industries suffer from the same compression of time and budget, but not all industries compound it with an underlying attitude about age, or as impacted by gender. For instance technology is similarly bedazzled by youth too, but dominated by men who do not bear children so perhaps are in a better place. They too have learned from their mistakes during the tech boom and bust cycles and are not as cavalier as they once were.

Reviewing the success stories from entrepreneurs and investors that made it big in that industry, there are a few lessons they learned that now, later in life, they wished they had known earlier. Perhaps we can learn from them?

Tim Westergren, the founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Pandora, said if he could offer his younger self one piece of advice, it would be to realise from an early age that it’s far more haunting to live with the regret of having not followed your instincts–even when those instincts required a diversion from the beaten path–than to have followed your gut and failed.
Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia– –said the advice he would share with the younger generation is to be strategic and thoughtful with expenses at an early age so that you can afford to pursue your passions.
Bill Ready, the CEO of Braintree–the mobile payments platform for online and mobile commerce says to surround yourself with great people and be fearless in pursuit of game-changing ideas.
Alexander Ljung, the cofounder and CEO of SoundCloud–the popular audio platform shared the importance of learning the power of simplicity in today’s complex world. He references a T. S. Eliot quote as a guide. “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter”

Sources:

22 Perspektive 2025—Fachkräfte für Deutschland (Perspective 2025—Skilled Workers for Germany), Federal Labor Agency, Nuremberg, 2010.

APP; Urgent Action Needed on Ageism: Ryan; The Australian, May 17, 2013

Cutcher, Leanne; Women are Still Being Held Back at Work by Ageism and Sexism; The Australian; March 23, 2013

Heick, Terry; How 21^st Century Thinking Is Just Different; www.opencolleges.edu.au; May 10, 2012

Nasri, Grace; Successful Entrepreneurs Give Their Younger Selves Lessons They Wish They’d Known Then; www.fastcompany.com; May 9, 2013

National Seniors Australia Productive Ageing Centre; The Elephant in the Room, age Discrimination in Employment; April 2011

Why ask why?

Futures Rambling # 70

By Laurie Aznavoorian

A guy goes to his doctor and says “Doc, I’m quite unhappy with the service I have gotten from you.”

Alarmed and somewhat taken aback, the doctor replies, “good gosh whatever for?”

The man replies “I came to you, told you I needed antibiotics, you give me these pills, I took them and I haven’t gotten any better!”

Scratching his head the doctor ponders for a moment or two, then a look of understanding envelopes his face. “Sir, you clearly have a virus; antibiotics won’t do anything for that. In fact you’ll just pass them into our water system through your urine, adding to the ever increasing and alarming drug resistant bacteria we’re currently battling.”

“Then why may I ask, did you give them to me?” asked the man.

“Well, I would have advised differently if I’d known you wanted to get well, but you said you wanted antibiotics, so that is what I gave you. “

Consider the difference between that scenario and this one: a client walks into a design practice, the designer is hopefully enlightened enough to avoid beginning his briefing session with a foolish question like, tell me what you want and instead asks what do you need to succeed?

The client replies “We want to collaborate! It is absolutely critical to our future success” the designer nods, writes down this directive and proceeds to design the space.

In these rather simplistic scenarios, both doctor and designer should be fired. Why? Because they didn’t ask why, and they should have! Assuming a user knows how to define their problem is a mistake many professionals make, but a malady particularly endemic with designers. The oversight presents itself in professional practice daily, and I can attest after spending a day as a guest critic at one of our local university’s design schools, is rampant in academia as well.

At the university I was exposed to many great projects featuring beautiful graphics and 3D renderings, but far too many were built on shallow or non-existent foundations. Many of the students hadn’t articulated what they were really hoping to achieve with their work. As a result they defined one problem and solved another. Being students they can be spared; unfortunately, they’re not the only ones who do this, many professional designs lack clarity, or strength they could have had, if someone had spent more time at the onset of the project articulating the problem.

Einstein once said if he had one hour to save the world he would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem and only five minutes finding the solution. Design solutions often fall short, not because we have done a bad design, but because we were too lazy, too stupid or too egotistically complacent to ask the right questions that will lead to a proper outline of the opportunities. And when we do ask questions, we often shy away from challenging the bone head answers we sometimes get.

Somewhere in the altruistic journey we have taken as designers to be less full of ourselves, more ‘client focused’ and ‘highly responsive’; we’ve completely lost our guts and integrity. The pendulum has swung and we’re now at a point where the process of proper exploration and briefing is mistaken as being closed minded or obstinate. Today when a designer asks the critical question, why, they are labelled as being confronting and not very good with clients. We operate under the false belief that a good designer does what their client wants without questioning.

Unfortunately, most clients aren’t sufficiently rigorous in defining the problems they’re attempting to solve nor are they very good at articulating why those issues are important to solve in the first place. Sometimes the issues aren’t ‘the issue’ but only a manifestation or mask for the real problems they should be seeking solutions for. Without rigor we miss opportunities, waste resources, and pursue initiatives that don’t work in our best interest. We design the wrong thing right.

There is a sizeable gap we fall into that Sudhakar Lahade from Steelcase calls the ‘knowing gap’. This is the void that exists between thinking and acting and is the place where important drivers such as: knowing the real problem, knowing whether it is worth solving, knowing how you might solve it and knowing you’ve uncovered latent needs, behaviours, and desires your clients didn’t even know they had, falls.

I can hear the rebuttals already, “but the client won’t let us engage”, “but the project manager is controlling our interaction”, “but that’s what they said they wanted.” All of these obstacles are real, as are sentiments such as the one I heard last weekend from a good friend who posed the question “shouldn’t the user get to define what they want, isn’t the user’s desire paramount?” NO I shouted. Of course the answer was overly blunt to prove my point that a user shouldn’t get what they want if it’s unsafe, stupid, butt ugly or hasn’t been considered.

What designer would allow this to happen? Well we all do, of course in our pluckier moments we mutter under our breath, “If they just wanted us to not think, to simply draw up their half baked idea, why did they hire us in the first place?” But more often now days, we’re happy to endure insults to our craft and talent because we are so happy to have work. It is yet another horrifying manifestation of these troubling economic times. We smile and never let the user know their clothes are invisible.

I couldn’t help but channel IDEO’s process for design thinking at the university the other day. IDEO describes this as a system of overlapping spaces rather than a sequence of orderly steps, they take pains to reinforce design is not simply about the final solution but three phases: inspiration, ideation, and implementation. Inspiration is the problem or opportunity that motivates the search for solutions, Ideation is the process of generating, developing, and testing ideas and Implementation is the path that leads from the project stage into people’s lives.

That last phase, implementation, is why simply saying NO as I did to my friend is as unacceptable and as much a cop out as skipping the inspiration phase! My advice to the students: good design is as much about listening and critical thinking as it is about doing. And perhaps what is most important is communicating the value of the design process and outcomes in a narrative the client can understand and that relates to their life.

Sources:

IDEO.com – about IDEO’s design thinking process

Lahade, Sudhakar; Sharing thoughts in a highly evocative presentation at Steelcase in Grand Rapids, Michigan USA.

Spradlin, Dwayne; Are You Solving the Right Problems? Harvard Business Review, September 2012

Spradlin, Dwayne; The Power of Defining the Problem. HBR Blog, September 25, 2012

Big Data

By Laurie Aznavoorian

In preparation for your next cocktail party I advise you bone up on ‘Big Data’, it is definitely the topic of the day. If you have not formulated an opinion as to whether it is good or bad, or worse have no idea what Big Data is, you had better educate yourself quick smart. Otherwise you will be the loser at the party left out in the cold, unable to communicate and labelled a Luddite. You’ll be sipping your beer in solitude, wondering whether you should have skipped the bean burrito at lunch. It will be pathetic.

Around you others will be deeply embroiled in conversations that follow what is now a well-travelled trajectory. It begins with an account of the marvels of technology followed by comparisons of smart phone applications. In time the conversation takes a turn toward the melancholy as party goers broach the inevitable topic of the loss of privacy that goes hand in hand with Big Data and then face the sickening realisation they have already given more information to the internet than they are comfortable with.

Over the past few months I have attended a number of workplace conferences in various countries and cities and not a single event excluded the topic of ‘Big Data’. Organisations like Johnson Controls, Unwired, IBM, Ripple Effect and Teecom are all offering advice, clever strategies and services to tap into the bottomless well of data organisations have at their fingertips, or are providing new tracking devices to collect a specific genre of data specific to the workplace e.g. information on our movement and use of the environment. The obvious intention there is improvements in workplace efficiency.

Beginning with Worktech 13 in Melbourne, the obligatory presentation from Phillip Ross at Unwired highlighted the new technologies that will change the way we work. In particular he noted advancements in near field communications, RFID tracking and BNS ‘building nervous systems’ that track real time performance of both the buildings we occupy and the people in them. These are all poised to make significant impacts to workplace effectiveness using Big Data.

Andrew Marshal of Johnson Controls has been on the conference circuit too, presenting their concept of ‘predictive analytics’. Marshal suggests that by using heat maps, studying workstyles and capturing data through meeting room, desk and personal sensors we will not only have the knowledge to dispel common workplace myths such as: spaces are used all the time, we are working in new ways – not just in different styles and that workplace design is a gimmick, but that we will also be able to derive real benefits by capturing a snapshot in time. Once this data is linked back to the buildings we occupy our workplaces will be more proactive and responsive to us as users.

Similarly David Marks from Teecom began his presentation at KA Connect 2013 in San Francisco by outlining five trends to take note of.

Everything is connected
Pervasive social media
Big data is key
New user interfaces
Location or context

Marks was not the only one referring to ‘context’ at KA Connect, clearly this is a hot ticket item for the future. Incorporating context is touted to be a key feature in the next generation of the web evolution, providing greater meaning to the data we search for. He pointed out 70% of mobile phone use occurs indoors and if we capture that data it will allow us to create ‘social buildings’ that have the ability to deliver personalised information based on user context. Teecom’s product ‘Guide Dog’ is a start, by using existing tools such as e mail space users can find, reserve and navigate the workspace. Guide Dog will also collect data on how the space gets used in real time.

At yet another conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (not one I attended), principal research scientist Andrew McAfee at the M.I.T. Centre for Digital Business, said Big Data was “the next big chapter of our business history” and that it will “relace ideas, paradigms, organisations and ways of thinking about the world.” This is a big claim, because we know that data on its own is not inherently meaningful, it takes clever people to derive meaning.

One of the problems with mining Big Data results from a type of modelling that originates in the sciences; it can lead to over simplification. We look for predictable behaviours in hopes they will repeat themselves according to the laws of physics, but many Big Data applications attempt to attach mathematical modelling to human behaviour, interests and preferences and one thing we know about humans is they are far from predictable.

This problem was highlighted recently in the US when all of the Web-browsing trails, sensor signals, GPS tracking and social networking messages, predictive algorithms, artificial intelligence software and data troves couldn’t keep the stock market from going into a tail spin when a hoax tweet claimed the white house was attacked and Obama injured. The computers made trades based on key words and phrases instigating a sell off.

On the other hand it was through similar Big Data mining that the Boston Marathon bombing suspects were caught. Using pictures from cell phones, portable video recorders, TV and surveillance cameras in public places investigators observed the crowd and identified the key suspects. Unfortunately the social news and entertainment website Reddit at the same time was using registered users content in the form of links or text to wrongly identified innocent people as potential suspects.

This highlights the limits and short comings of Big Data, it is not always right and not always used appropriately. While some like Craig Mundie, senior adviser at Microsoft and co-author of a position paper for The World Economic Forum believes “There’s no bad data, only bad uses of data” others like David Vladeck the former director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission doesn’t buy the argument that data is innocuous until it is used improperly.

To demonstrate his point, a person may spend time searching online for deep fat fryers; they may be looking for a gift or researching a report for cooking school. But to a data miner tracking every click stream in the hunt could be read as an indication of an unhealthy eating habit. Using a data-based prediction this information could be later used to reject the person for health insurance or influence a potential employer.

Another challenge is models do not just predict, they create what scientist call a behavioural loop. We feed data in, it is collected by an algorithm that presents us with choices and those choices steer our behaviour.

With knowledge comes power and with power comes responsibility. How we use the data we collect will be an interesting topic for all of us in the future. For those of us in the workplace game consider the question posed by Gervais Tompkin at KA Connect 2013. Studies have shown that sitting all day is as unhealthy for us as smoking; therefore, what are we as workplace designers going to do about it. What is our moral responsibility?

Put that one in your pipe and smoke it.

Sources.

KA Connect 2013 Conference, San Francisco – Presentations by David Marks Teecom and Gervais Tompkin Gensler.

Worktech 2013 Melbourne presentations by Andrew Marshall Johnson Controls

Big Op-Ed: Shifting Opinions On Surveillance Cameras. National Public Radio, Talk of the Nation – April 22, 2013

Lohr, Steve; Sure, Big Data Is Great. But So Is Intuition. The New York Times, December 29, 2012

Lohr, Steve; Big Data Is Opening Doors, but Maybe Too Many; The New York Times, March 23, 2013

The Yahoo About Working From Home April 8, 2013

Futures Rambling # 68

by Laurie Aznavoorian

It was quite refreshing at last week’s Corenet summit in Shanghai to eavesdrop on conversations about something other than ABW; unfortunately, the topic that captured people’s interest and undeserved media coverage was nearly as yawn generating and misguided as the whole foolish ABW debate. What was the topic that has jaws wagging? The edict passed by Yahoo’s new CEO Marissa Mayer that Yahoo employees could no longer work from home.

In the event you were in a coma, Mayer has insisted all Yahoo employees go to work! Good Lord, what a shock. It has proven to be so controversial in the US that a national debate has ignited over workplace flexibility, family and women’s rights. The debate came dangerously close to eclipsing more entertaining stories such as Dennis Rodman playing basketball with Kim Jong Un or the ‘budget sequestration’. That’s the new name for the abyss entered when you go over a fiscal cliff.

There is great speculation as to why Mayer made this decision and what she intended by insisting all 5000+ employees of Yahoo physically go the Sunnyvale office in the San Francisco Bay Area. Some have suggested the real catalyst was correcting abuses; it seems 200 employees work full time from home. Some of them have proven to be expert multi-taskers, not only do they pick up a yahoo pay check, but run their own companies on the side. Others say the move was designed to build moral and improve employee motivation, as well as place a focus on innovation and collaboration. Most likely all of these contributed to the CEO’s decision.

The indisputable facts are the company missed two of the biggest trends on the internet: social and mobile, its home page and email are losers, Facebook and Google have trounced them when it comes to selling advertising and the stock price is in the crapper. It is understandable that morale is low and that the company’s culture could use a reboot. Apparently it is so bad that employees won’t even admit working for Yahoo when they go to Friday night beers at the Silicon Valley geek bars.

What is disappointing is many of the sentiments that have emerged in this debate are unreasonable, one is the link between a proactive decisions made by a CEO to reverse a downward trajectory and an attempt to right the wrongs plaguing the business, with an all encompassing value judgment on flexible working and women’s equality. These two are not related; allowing the company to fail would be far more alarming than asking 200 people to come to work and one could argue company insolvency would have a far more devastating impact on 5000 employees and their families.

It is only mildly ironic, and doesn’t bode well for Mayer, that she a nursery built next to her office in the Sunnyvale headquarters. This affords her the luxury of having her infant son by her side, releasing her from the angst many working mothers experience. Not many employees would have the latitude to impact facilities in this way, not to mention the funds. She did pay for it herself; she has accumulated a sizable nest egg from her past job as a Google executive. Is it too much of a stretch to compare this to extravagances of other CEO’s whose club memberships and golf games go unquestioned?

A host of arguments both for and against working from home surrounds this debate. According to a Stanford University study performance improved by 13% for one business who allowed employees to work at home, few can deny the convenience of wandering downstairs to work in your undies, or beat the commute times. Some managers claim having employees working at home is better because it forces them to set clear goals and review progress more frequently eliminating both employee and manager from becoming delusional over work quality and what has actually been accomplished.

Additional benefits include retaining talent that may not have the ability to physically go into the office every day, or who choose to live in remote locations. Most arguments against home work stem from an inability to compartmentalize and create appropriate separations between home and work and a not unfounded fear that ‘good work’ is tough to accomplish when employees are watching reruns of Green Acres, putting in a load of laundry or changing nappies.

The downfalls of working at home can often be overcome with the right technology, personal habits and the right company mindset. Often overlooked in the debate about working at home is the need for everyone in the team to communicate online, even if only one team member is remote. This ensures the locus of control and decision making is outside the office. Otherwise the remote worker will be left out, have minimal input on decisions and feel disconnected and the company will run the risk of becoming politically unbalanced.

Most of us crave the social interaction going to work brings and make the decision to work at home only on occasion: to complete a task requiring special focus, care for a sick child or meet the cable guy. There are few managers (including managers at Yahoo) who prohibit some degree of personal choice and mobility if it helps an employee balance personal and work needs; however, there still are many managers who will not allow their employees these freedoms.

Sadly, the uproar over Mayer’s decision steers us away from the real issues of integrating work and family life and addressing the impact that it has to economic, social and political outcomes. Working from home plays a role in retaining employees in a shrinking talent pool and solves other productivity problems. There is no question that increasing the range of possibilities and choice for workers and weeding out managers who are too lazy, or selfish, to allow their employees some degree of choice will help society, the economy, our families and communities.

A friend and ex employee of a multinational financial institution chimed in on the debate stating “Why do they think telecommuting was a humanistic vision in the first place! It was an economic decision to reduce real estate costs. Now the corporations all have excess real estate (at inflated rents that make buying out leases less than great for the balance sheet) – so they can call all the sheep back to the pen without great expense and cull the herd after appropriate observations.”

That view, while being admittedly cynical, is not entirely wrong and serves to remind us of the context in which Mayer’s decision should be considered. What we should be asking is as the CEO of a faltering company in need of cultural transformation, was it an appropriate choice to make? Many I’ve talked to in the past weeks say yes, they covertly whisper that it is better to keep people together and on the same page, especially in quickly changing times, they are too scared to say this out loud for fear of being tarred with the same brush as Mayer.

Today organisational trust in a company is built from the bottom of the company up; it has evolved from the dictatorship models of the past to one of leadership. We look up to our company and its leaders and formulate trust bonds based on their reaction to external forces, such as the GFC, an oil spill or simply negative PR. We trust our leaders if we agree with their reactions and actions, consider them fair and in alignment with what we believe are the company values and of course our own personal values.

If Mayer demonstrated a failure in leadership, it had less to do with her decision which most think will help the company out of its dire straits and more to do with communicating its context to both employees and the media. Had this been done, it is possible a whole lot of worry and boring debate may have been avoided; we could focus on the issues of work / life balance and affordable child care and have gone to Corenet and talked about other more salient topics like the Kardasians.

Sources:

Chaey, Christina; “Marissa Mayer, Yahoo, And The Pros and Cons of Working From Home” Fast Company Online; March 7, 2013

Wakeman Cy; “Is Yahoo Right to Ban Working From Home?” Forbes On line, March 7, 2013

Essig, Todd; “Bodies Matter: The Inconvenient Truth In Marissa Mayer Banning Telecommuting At Yahoo”

Friedman, Stew; “We Are All Part of the Work_Life Revolution” HBR Online; March 15, 2013

Fullerton, David; “Seven Great Reasons To Encourage Working Remotely” Fast Company; March 1, 2013

Greenfield, Rebecca; “Marissa Mayer’s Work-from-Home Ban Is Working for Yahoo, and That’s That”; Atlantic Wire; March 6, 2013

Larson Leslie, Peterson Hayley and Reuters Reporters; “Yahoo! Boss Marissa Mayer Under Fire for Building Personal Nursery Next to Her Office – Before Telling Employees They Can NOT Work From Home; Mail On-line February 27, 2013

The Power of Words

Futures Ramblings # 67

THE POWER OF WORDS

Lance Armstrong told Oprah: “I looked up the definition of cheating and the definition is ‘to gain an advantage on a rival or foe’. I did not view it that way. I viewed it as a level playing field.” Well that is one creative interpretation of the word! Perhaps during Lance’s exploratory foray into the dictionary he should have continued on further to the letter D to investigate the meaning of delusional, or backtracked to B’s to peruse the definition of bully.

Back home in Australia the former NSW Resources Minister Ian Macdonald was called a crook at a corruption hearing investigating his granting coal exploration licenses to Labor Party mates. In exchange Macdonald luxuriated at their ski resort in Perisher. Words were exchanged at the hearing with Macdonald’s political career hanging on the description of “very confidential” versus “not entirely confidential”. The argument enraged the hearing commissioner so much he was forced to tell Macdonald to stop his shilly shally.

This all pales in comparison to the confusing answer US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton provided Senator Ron Johnson when he and others gave her a grilling regarding the death of four American diplomats in Bengazi. People thought she said:

“With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest, or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d they go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make?”

What she really said was “get off my back you ignorant republican ninny.” You would have known that if you heard her tone of voice and could speak American like me, one never forget their native language. That being said, it has been nearly a decade since I lived in the US and my ability to translate may be a bit rusty. The word ninny is quite easy to confuse with the slang word for male genitalia.

Words are powerful, inspiring and easily misinterpreted. One obvious reason is misuse, we often use the wrong words and sometimes people make up words like shilly shally or argie bargie, particularly if they’re in politics. Exacerbating the challenge is the evolution in the meaning of words over time. Compare the description of the phrase far out or sick with someone over 50 to that of a 19 year old.

The words we use in business have evolved as well; new buzzwords enter and depart the business lexicon reflecting the social trends and sentiments of the times. Recently two articles came across my inbox highlighting this evolution. In the first the author suggests words to avoid, particularly when describing ourselves. They rightly point out word choice is critical and makes a first impression; therefore, to avoid being seen as a complete tosser they recommend removing the following words, listed with the author’s rational, from our vocabularies:

Innovative – if you are innovative don’t say it prove it.

World Class – who defines world class, if it is just you don’t use it.

Authority – if you have to say you are, then you aren’t.

Global Provider – only to be used by those selling goods and services worldwide.

Motivated – never take credit for things you are supposed to be, or supposed to do.

Creative – everyone uses this word to describe themselves, it has lost its impact.

Dynamic – it means vigorously active and forceful is that what you really are?

Guru – self proclamation means you are trying too hard to impress others.

Curator – libraries have them, tweeting things to people does not make you a curator.

Passionate – too over the top, use focus, concentration or specialisation instead.

Unique – you are unique, but your business probably isn’t.

Incredibly – if you must use over the top adjectives spare further modification

Serial entrepreneur – be proud if your just an entrepreneur

Strategist – most strategists are coaches, specialists or consultants. Do you make something new?

Collaborative – okay to use as long as you’re not really forcing others to do something they don’t want

Last week I went to a pitch along with several of my esteemed colleagues and we used most, if not all, of these words with the exception of serial entrepreneur and curator. We may have even used some twice. Perhaps it was a fluke that we were able to convince the potential client we were a world class organisation with global reach, comprised of motivated people who in their own right are gurus, clear authorities known for their creativity, innovation and unique dynamic passion.

The language we use and words we choose influences how we think, feel, act. This is the thesis of the second article “Why Tweaking Your Career Vocabulary Can Radically Improve Your Life”. In this missive we are told to eliminate the word YES and only use it when it reflects our true desire. Use the word WORK to describe our individual contribution rather than what we do from 9 to 5. Additional new meanings are defined for: boredom, anxiety, conflict, failure, success and procrastination.

Call me a cynic, but I have difficulty in seeing how redefining a conflict as an opportunity for vulnerability or success as a way of being, living, feeling and achieving that is defined by you could radically improve my life. That does not mean to imply choice of words isn’t important and potentially detrimental to one’s wellbeing. For instance using the word bomb at luggage screening in the airport, or saying just about anything about the Prophet Muhammad could be quite damaging.

There are several words that really annoy me bantered around in the design world that I wish we could get rid of for once and all.

The first is guess. Not a bad word on its own but when used in the context of explaining a design or process to a client it is woefully inappropriate. The definition is to form an opinion of from little or no evidence. Telling your client you “guess” or “suppose” your solution is appropriate does little to instil confidence in our abilities to advise them. If the pilot on your next Qantas flight said “I guess we are going to Perth”, you would run not walk to Virgin.

The second word that aggravates me is aspiration. It’s meaning a strong desire to achieve something high or great in itself isn’t offensive, it is in fact quite uplifting. However, in the context of describing a workplace an individual’s desire, hopes and dreams regarding the workplace are too shallow and in the land of rainbows and unicorns for me. A workplace needs to be described in a business context, what it needs to survive not what its occupants aspire to. Once a foundation is set other more ethereal ideas, which are also important, can be incorporated. They are not a starting point.

Finally can we all stop saying actually, this adverb means in act or in fact. When we use the word it is generally in the right context, it is simply tragically overused. Many designers use the word actually with the same frequency in a sentence as a bogan using expletives. “The design is actually a reflection of the actual way we actually work today. We actually spend very little time at our desk and actually practice highly mobile working styles.” Seriously, we actually do that?

When I hear designers talk that way, I actually tune out and find myself actually making ticks on my notepad to actually keep count of how many l times the designer says actually. I guess that sound mean and I suppose it is actually highly unproductive, but I guess you could say I was doing research. I suppose my aspiration was to one day write a Futures Rambling on the topic.

Sources:

Haden, Jeff; Stop Using These 16 Terms to Describe Yourself; LinkedIn, January 17, 2013

Parker, Kathleen; Hillary Clinton and the Ghosts of Benghazi; Washington Post, February 08, 2012

Rae, Amber; Why Tweaking Your Career Vocabulary Can Radically Improve Your Life; Fast Company; January 30, 2013

Salusinszky, Imre and Shanahan, Leo; Gloves Come Off at ICAC: Macdonald, You’re a Crook; The Australian; February 13, 2013

Happiness January 25, 2013

Happiness January 25, 2013.