futuresrambling

After – Issue 45

It is a positive sign that people are now beginning to think about what happens after the recession. Maybe it’s the result of being sick and tired of feeling depressed about something we have little or no control over, or maybe it’s not a mind game and things really are getting better? Either way it is a nice change to hear words like ‘green shoots’ come into our dialogue. This may sound ungracious, but as thankful as I am of rumors, or real signs of a recovery, I must admit I am looking forward to something a bit more robust than a green shoot to get me excited, perhaps shrubbery?

The GFC is a little like the Olympics, the story doesn’t end with just getting there and doing something spectacular – it is about getting there and back that makes the journey epic. There is no point in doing a quadruple toe loop or a triple salchow that ends you on your arse. Nor does it gain you any points to do a back one–and–a–half somersault pike off the platform that leaves you entering the water with a big splash. Being a winner is not just about doing something phenonomial, it’s about doing it and then recovering with grace, style and your spirit intact.

We shouldn’t be putting smiley faces on our report cards for surviving the GFC if we did so by chewing off our right arm. If you have lost key people, lowered prices, or performed services you normally wouldn’t, just to keep the doors open, have you really survived? Being realistic, when one is in the throws of battle the focus tends to be on getting through the day, not what happens next. I understand that everyone needs to do what they can to sustain themselves; never the less, I worry that many organizations today are making choices without the slightest thought of what happens ‘after’. In the long run, not only will that seem like a foolish lack of strategy and a missed opportunity, but also a big step backward.

Smart people and smart companies will not have waited till the green shoots began to appear to ponder the what’s next question, they would have been all over that way before this mess started. Looking back through history you will see the old saying is true, when the going gets tough – the tough get going. Digital computers were born during the Great Depression, the Ethernet during the 1970’s oil crisis, the personal computer in the early 1980s and the World Wide Web in the early 1990’s.

When the tech industry bombed in early 2000 companies like Apple hedged their bets on the internet and radically changing their business model to enter the music industry, which worked out quite well for them!
What are we going to show for our great GFC? Bank regulation, executives getting paid normal people wages, big companies being honest, those are a few of the unexciting but potential positive outcomes. Sadly, we may also see an abandonment of the things we have been slowly gaining ground on over the past years: environmentalism, work life balance, worker empowerment, mentoring, and training. It is astounding how quickly many of our clients have moved these things to the back burner, in some cases decisions that will impact their business for well after the recession ends.

Everyone seems to be making goofy decisions these days and behaving a little off kilter, for some people the past year has been such a battle that they have very little left in their reserves to keep up the fight, let alone make reasonable decisions. Their jobs have been so tough that now they are showing the telltale signs of ‘change fatigue’. That’s a new term you will see creeping into our lexicon, it refers to the added levels of anxiety, stress and depression many people feel, particularly those who work for organizations that have experienced major upheavals such as changes in ownership, mergers or redundancies.

Redundancies really wreak havoc on us both mentally and physically, findings from a 10 year study at University of Puget Sound, and University of Colorado in the US has found that managers that lay off workers have long term health effects: sleep problems, emotional exhaustion, dizziness, and increased headache and heart problems. It also impacts the way we work, I was looking at the results of an office metrics survey of 80,000 workers world wide that found that workers concerned about layoff are getting to the office earlier, Aussies arrive earliest coming to work at 8:14 (7 minutes earlier than in November) Americans arrive at 8:32, Germans 8:35, UK 9:00 and French 9:22.

Longer work hours and more paranoia don’t sound good to me, isn’t it enough to worry about global warming, the Taliban and tenacious cellulite on your butt? That last point is no joke, not only are we working longer hours, but snacking is on the rise too, 43% of workers surveyed in a Career Builder Survey admitted to having gained weight. One of the reasons there is more snacking is there is an increased number of women in the workplace and we gals like the occasional snack at work. This shift to more women has been particularly prevalent in areas where the construction industry is depressed; the wife is back to work and the tradie is at home with the kids, a six pack of beer and a home decorated with Makita posters.

Changes in an organization affect everyone, but to a leader they can be particularly damaging. Not only are they closer to the flame, but we all look to leaders to set the course for our future and when they are paralised, as is the case when one suffers ‘change fatigue’. The psychologist and executive coach Virginia Mansell warns that the extreme pressure executives have been under in these tough times is often not recognized by company boards. She warns that the highly charged emotional state of executives today can be sever enough to prevent even the most competent managers from doing their jobs well.

Everyone intuitively knows that people don’t make good decisions when they are suffering from anxiety or depression. In fact, research shows that when agitated or anxious whole mechanisms in the brain – called calm intuition – that are critical to decision making shut down. In particular two traits, creativity and intuition, essential for decision making in hard times cannot be accessed. When people are anxious they become irrational, they cannot concentrate and they don’t balance out the information they have. This leads to reactive decision making. Without calm intuition, concentration and balance the decisions leaders make are most likely not their best.

On the other hand there are a whole lot of leaders out there who have kept a cool head, prepared their companies for the worse and took appropriate precautions to weather the storm. One who I heard speak at an executive breakfast forum a few weeks back is David Smith the CEO of HBOS Australia. When asked what he had learned from the tough economic times he indicated that the most important thing an executive could do in tough times was to be transparent. He says people can see through the façades, so it is best to be real and communicate honestly and often about the situation.

Smith went on to say that a positive aspect of this recession has been a greater sense of collegiality and teamwork amongst his people which has allowed them to achieve more than they would have had they worked independently. Getting senior people more involved and dealing with the detail, as well as asking for a greater level of accountability from them also contributed to positive outcomes. Smith made an interesting comment, he says Australians are not used to direct feedback and as a result it is more challenging to correct mistakes.

The financial services sector is going to have a tough go over the next decade, still in survival mode they have not even begun to contemplate how they will move forward, let alone think about what happens ‘after’. They are going to have to ask themselves some tough questions about leadership, given it was the leaders in the industry that led them to the mess they’re in.

Our industry will be doing the same. I am not suggesting that anyone in this business has as much to answer for as the bankers; never the less, I worry that our desire to survive has put us in the position of eroding our market in a way that may be irreversible. The aftermath of what we have just been through is not going to be a restoration of the industry as we knew it and we have done little to reposition ourselves for our new future.

It is a shame, because one of the traits that sets us apart from other industries, creativity and innovation, appears to have been absent in the past months. There is nothing creative about retrenchment, travel bans or undercutting the competition. Other than the architect in Seattle I have read about who is doing residential work from a hawkers stall at a local market, I haven’t heard of anyone doing anything really clever. We have not taken the opportunity of this lull to proactively think about what we want our industry to be like after.

The worst things that could happen to us would be to survive the great GFC only to realise we played a contributing role in creating a reality where our services are not valued and there is an expectation to deliver them for prices well below market value. As an industry we are smarter and a heck of a lot more clever than that, the companies that take the time to think about what happens ‘after’, right now, will be the ones to lead the market in the decade to come.

Sources:

Executive Breakfast Forum – An Interview with Narelle Hooper, editor of AFR BOSS magazine, with David Smith, CEO of HBOS Australia and Virginia Mansell, Managing Director of SMG, August 6, 2009

Becker, Bo, Why Competition May Not Improve Credit Rating Agencies, HBR Working Knowledge, August 31, 2009

Condon, Turi; Construction Job Losses Mount as Funds Dry Up, The Australian, July 16, 2009

Kahler, Alison, High Anxiety , AFR Boss, July 2009

Mansell, Virginia, Staff Under Siege. Business Week, December 15, 2003

Smith, Fiona, Message Wins Workers Hearts, Australian Financial Review, March 3, 2009

Being Gay at Work – Issue 43

There has been no shortage of bad news e mails arriving these days from my old stomping ground the US of A, the topics have been cheery subjects like: illness, divorce, layoffs, salary reductions and work hours being cut back. Between what I read in the newspaper and what I hear from friends, one might conclude Armageddon was most definitely on the doorstep. This is why it was such a pleasant surprise to find an e mail in my in box from a friend in New York with the subject heading – ‘good news’.

This ray of sunshine was the announcement that my friend had gotten engaged, the news spread faster than swine flu panic. This is understandable; after all we have been starved of anything happy to talk about for quite some time so the logical human response is to jump on good news with the fervor of a nerd at a video game launch. And face it, recession or not, getting married is a big deal. What followed was a barrage of e-mails exploring all aspects of the nuptials: who would be in the wedding, who would be the ‘old hag of honor’ and were rainbow bridesmaids gowns so outdated that they might be back in again?

Our friend used to live in Seattle and has only recently relocated to New York. So having time on our side, those of us further west were able to iron out most of the details of the wedding before our soon to be married friend got up in the morning. Never mind that those directly involved were not part of the planning, with such a draught of happiness, why spoil an afternoon of good fun? By the time he read his e – mails the next morning, almost all of the details were resolved, with one exception. Where would the wedding take place? You might think that was simple, but in this case it’s a bit of a challenge, because my friend, who is a man, is marrying another man. One friend hit the nail on the head when she said, dude you can’t get married, you’re gay.

Sadly this is true, there are only four states in the US where gay marriage is legal and New York, while being exciting, diverse and one of the more liberal states is not one of them. My friends won’t get any joy going home to Seattle to get married either, Washington State also prohibits gay marriage. What a shock that one of the states they can get married in is Iowa, yes Midwestern, cornfields, superman Iowa is a state that has legalized gay marriage! This knowledge threatens my long held belief that the United States would be a far better place if you cut the middle out and pushed the two ends together, keep Hawaii and give the great state of Alaska to Sarah and Todd with an enthuastic endorsement to succeed from the nation.

Here in Australia we consider ourselves to be much more progressive, but unfortunately this country also does not allow same-sex couples to marry. In fact, Australia will not even recognize the marriage of gay couples legally married in other countries that do, such as Canada, Spain and South Africa. To our credit you may have seen the new ads in the paper from Centrelink indicating that from 1 July 2009 changes to legislation will mean that customers who are in a same-sex de facto relationship will be recognised as partnered for Centrelink and Family Assistance Office purposes.

The interesting juxtaposition of this activity was that it coincided with celebrating the marriages of two Geyer people, Lianne in Sydney and Tim in Melbourne. I couldn’t help but wonder whether the same celebrations at work would be occurring for my friends in New York. Would they have champagne in the office and pitch in for a gift? The short answer is no, my friend’s partner said “when I came to work last Friday with my ring on, I was curious if people would notice. I saw eyes float to my ring finger, but not a question was asked. It’s a bit awkward…..I feel a bit dishonest keeping it from people, but it’s so politically loaded that I’ve shied away from telling anyone unless asked – and no one has asked.” Not only did his co- workers not ask, he also had to experience the celebration for a straight coworker who got engaged a few days later.
Unlike my friend, who is an architect, his partner works in the financial services industry which is normally thought to be a bastion of good old boy behaviors’ and attitudes. It was surprising to learn that the financial sector has moved out in front of many other professions when it comes to embracing gay workers. In fact many financial organizations are now listed among the top gay employers including Lloyds and Goldman Sachs. It really shouldn’t be such a big AH HA, any organization with a brain is not going to turn away talented people because of their sex, colour, religion or sexual orientation.

Especially if they want to employ the best and brightest, which despite the recession is still a concern for most companies. To date I have not been exposed to any organization we have done briefing work for who cite hiring straight mediocre people as one of their key business drivers. Also when it comes to work, there are real benefits to hiring gay workers. This is a generalization I know, but gay employees are highly educated, career focused and, not all but many, do not have children at home who impact their ability to travel or work longer hours and face it they usually dress well and give a stuff what they look like.

Despite these benefits, we still need laws that prevent employers from discriminating against gay workers and even though they exist, laws and behaviors are two different things. Changing human behaviour and beliefs in the workplace can be great challenge. The result is that for many people in Australia, it’s not so fun to be gay at work. At least that is what Paul Willis has found; he is a contract lecturer in the Bachelor of Social Work program at the University of Tasmania. He has recently submitted his PhD thesis which examines the social and organisational practices through which young queer people (18-26 years) are both included and excluded within Australian workplaces. He also discusses the politics of negotiating queer sexualities in workplace.

Willis’ studies found male participants often felt detached from highly masculinised environments and in some cases were subject to extreme hostility. One poor guy had to deal with a boss who told him he had to sit in a ‘gay chair’ while everyone else sat in ‘straight chairs’. That was mild compared to those that were interrogated about their sexual practices, or called names. It is hard to imagine the pain one would experience having to work with people who call you f – ing faggot under their breath, how would that impact your productivity and motivation?

In preparation for this article I have talked to many gay friends to learn more about their experience with ‘being gay at work’. It was not uncommon for them to keep their personal life to themselves. I wish everyone lived by these rules, I am reminded of a guy I used to work with in Chicago who frequently shared his bedroom antics with us, being a rather plump guy it wasn’t a pretty image and definitely not an appropriate work conversation. Most people, gay and straight, prefer to keep the more personal aspects of their lives to themselves. As one said “it is not like I run around the office in rainbow tights these days, but everyone who knows anything about me knows that I live with my partner.”

On the other hand, there were many stories about gay people being caught off guard, assuming everyone in the office knew they were gay only to be questioned about the wife and kids. Mr. Rainbow tights was asked at the company Christmas party why he didn’t bring his girlfriend with him, the person who asked the question had worked closely with the guy for six years and didn’t know he was gay! I remember having to inform the daughter of another colleague that Mr. Rainbow tights was not worthy of her romantic pursuit a few years prior. I guess he had people fooled.

This is why poor ‘gaydar’ can create problems. When the typical Joe cannot recognize the telltale signs that someone is gay: eloquent, well dressed, flawless hair, never a shirt untucked or fly down, there is bound to be problems as demonstrated by this story. “I was in a client meeting with a lady (still a client by the way) who each week was telling me a little more about her life and one day from under the table I felt her foot rising up the inside of my legs – I didn’t know what to do so spontaneously with two hands grabbed her ankle and quickly stood up, basically almost pulling her off the seat – I said to her (actually it was a desperate please don’t touch me plea) I bat for the other team – we had a great laugh and now would say she’s a great friend.”

Humour aside, almost all of the people I spoke to could recall times in their careers when they felt discriminated against for being gay. From not being included in a business trip to being asked not to attend a meeting for fear they might be perceived differently than a straight employee. One in the legal profession went as far as to wear a wedding band to court, because it was believed that gay attorneys are perceived differently than straight ones by juries.

Some simply have a gut feeling that being gay might be detrimental to their future in less obvious or overt ways. A good example is a friend who is an executive of a multinational company. The challenge came not from the company she works for, but the country she was relocated to. The company can move her and organise her work visa, but they cannot do the same for her same sex partner. Studies done on corporate relocations indicate a major success factor is the employee’s spouse liking the new place.

When I was in the US last August I was at a party attended by many gay couples, quite a few of them had children. I spent time talking with one couple who were selected by the birth mother to be the parents of her child, their daughter is now about 7 years old. As one of her doting fathers twisted her hair around his fingers, he explained that since they have had their daughter they now have to do four loads of washing per week: whites, darks, coloured and pink. They told me about the new house they are building and how they had honeymooned in Australia. They were a normal happy family.

Two weeks after the party one of the guys was walking the dog and was struck by a car and killed in a hit and run accident. Beyond the complete sorrow that I felt from learning that someone in their prime had lost their life, was the added sorrow that came with the recognition that this family will most likely not be entitled to the same benefits any other grieving family would. Insurance payouts, a leave of absence from work, or a break on income tax; in the eyes of the law this family is not a real family.

Things are slowly changing, one person said “In all honesty my sexuality is not part of my job however I do like to build a relationship with clients and I think / believe a big part of that relationship is being honest and transparent – I am fortunate that works for me.” This is true, while we don’t need to know everything about our co- workers knowing a bit helps us to bond as a team and a culture. Companies that support people being themselves, whether that is straight, gay, Muslim or Buddhist, will be the ones who get the most from their people. At times like these when organizations are struggling to get the most out of their resources, this acceptance is even more critical.

This months podcast features an interview with Michael Lamb of Cushman Wakefield in New York

Sources:

Berry, Mary Francis, Gay but Equal? The New York Times, January 6, 2009

Dennett, Harley, Bigotry Still in the Workplace, Sydney Star Observer, Posted: Tuesday, 31 March 2009

Edwards, Cliff with Hempel, Jessi, Coming Out In Corporate America – Gays are making huge strides everywhere, but in the executive suite. Business Week, December 15, 2003

Hammonds, Keith H, Difference Is Power, Fast Company, December 19, 2007

Konrad, Walecia, For Gay Couples, Obstacles to Health Insurance, The New York Times, May 8, 2009

O’Hara, Lisa and McPherson, Bill, Corporate attitudes towards gays and lesbians in the workplace
Academic Exchange Quarterly , Summer, 2002
Presley Noble, Barbara, At Work; The Unfolding of Gay Culture, The New York Times, June 22, 1993
Taylor, Jerome, British Business Seeks Gay Talent – Homosexuals are being courted by employers, even by the domestic intelligence service, Business Week, August 19, 2008

Move Over Boys – Issue 42

I have been home sick for a few days, which has afforded me the opportunity of catching up on listening to my favorite pod casts. One, This Week in Tech or TWIT, focuses on technology news, gadgets and Silicon Valley gossip e.g. how sick is Steve Jobs and is it right for Apple not to let shareholders know the intimate details of his health status? The podcast is hosted by a guy named Leo Laporte who is joined by other guests, generally men; I guess there simply are not many girls out there that like to talk geek. However, on rare occasion such as this, they found one.

The topic discussed was the new CEO of Yahoo, Carol Bartz who took over from co-founder and former CEO Jerry Yang January 20th. The conversation centered on the appropriateness of e-mails Bartz sent out to everyone in Yahoo in her first weeks on the job. Apparently, the e-mails were very personal: describing her experiences, feelings and impressions of her first weeks on the job, including commentary on the food offering in the Yahoo cafeteria. As you might expect, the men on the podcast didn’t think much of all of the ‘girl talk’ and went so far as to proclaim the personal nature of the e-mails completely inappropriate for a CEO. The lone woman in the pack thought the opposite and applauded Bartz for her honesty and human approach.

We girls do like to talk much more than men do. Before we get down to a business conversation there is no better way to get loosened up than to run through a quick wardrobe critique or discussion of who got eliminated on So You Think You Can Dance. Building communities within a group is a basic trait of female survival; it is this ability to form relationships that makes women excellent communicators. So if you’re good at it, why wouldn’t you do it all the time? Face it; women are more relational than men. They also have greater intuition and like to share their feelings, observations and beliefs. So who can blame Carol for being Carol?

These so called feminine traits: holistic thought, creativity, collaboration and playfulness are associated with the ‘right side of the brain’; while the left side of the brain focuses on analytical thought, logic, language and science and math, generally considered to be male traits. There has been a great deal of talk lately about connecting to the right side of our brains because we are moving into a business climate where greater clarity, transparency and trust are desired. As a result, many companies are wondering how to get their people to be more right brained to get with the times.

It’s not just companies; some countries are even recognizing the benefit of feminine traits. As of January 2008 companies in Norway must have 40% of their directors be women or face dissolution. Spain is on the same path and Sweden has also proposed making gender diversity a legal issue. It seems a radical way to break up the ‘good old boys network’. Of course the reason they would do this is not ideological, or an effort to be fair to the ladies, they are doing this because there is data that indicates having women on the boards of companies can lead to better results.

Studies have shown that when women are on company boards they actually show up to the board meetings, you might wonder why people get paid to be on boards if they fail to show up, but apparently many blokes don’t bother. On the other hand women were 30% less likely to have problems with attendance and on the boards that had women involved, data showed a 9% reduction in male attendance problems! Obviously the women nag the male board members to show up for the board meeting. You might believe that this confirms women are nags, but if you sat next to Hoa on timesheet day you would know that a Chinese man can give most of us women a run for their money.

Women directors in companies are also more prone to be involved in committees. They are 7.5% more likely to sit on audit committees, 19% more likely to be on nominating committees that select directors and board members and 7.6% more likely to be on corporate governance committees. It is interesting to note that they are 11.8% less likely to be on compensation committees; perhaps this explains why women are still underpaid compared to men.

In companies where there are more women directors there is also a greater degree of equity based pay compared to fixed cash compensation. This means you get paid to do something right, not just for showing up; it also establishes a stronger alignment with the interests of the shareholders. Speaking of shareholders a study by the performance consultancy Catalyst found that companies with women in senior management earn their companies a higher return.

On the topic of high returns, let’s review the returns that Fred, Tom, Andy, Dennis, Eric, John, Stephen, Antonio and Paul produced for their respective companies. They were the boys that ran those British banks that have lost billions of dollars. Recently they got to go before the British Parliament’s Treasury Select Committee to answer for their acts and guess what? – the committee was a bunch of blokes – go figure. The banking industry is a fine example of why we might want to take this discussion about the difference in female leaders seriously. After all banks are industries long ruled by men and look how well they are doing today?

Some people go as far as to link the global financial crisis to testosterone and the higher degree of risk taking behavior displayed by men. Believe it or not, there is some legitimacy to this idea. In a study with Wall Street traders it was found that traders made the highest profits when they had the highest levels of testosterone in their spit. Elevated levels of testosterone lead to riskier behavior. Of course one can’t help but conclude that if there were more women, or any women, on the boards of some of the failed banks around the world, they would not have been so cocky and irresponsible. One of the top financial sector officials in London said “There are quite a lot of alpha males with testosterone streaming out of their ears”.

It is safe to say women would never do something that had the run on effect of impacting their ability to shop in the future. Women would have been more cautious and this is why countries like Iceland, who are really down the crapper, have turned over key aspects of their finances to women. They now have a woman prime minister and women leading two of their major banks all in a desperate attempt to pull the country out of bankruptcy.

Girl power isn’t limited to companies; it has been found that women are making more decisions at home now too, hence the phenonemia ‘womenonimics’ that you have heard me talk about. What has led to this is the increase in the disposable income of women, in fact it has risen 50%. In 2020, 53% of the millionaires will be women and right now in Australia, Gina Rinehart is the 5th richest Aussie according to the 2008 BRW Rich List. She is expected to top the list soon. Of course smart companies know there are gals out there with high disposable incomes and are falling over one another to get a piece of it.

Tapping into the female mindset is not an exercise in returning to the old feminist doctrine, but a move that is occurring because it makes good business sense. Mark Sinnock, the Chief Strategic Officer at the advertising agency Fallon London says “It’s about simple, clear & intelligent communication that has the ability to cross all segments, male or female”. The result is marketing that is more human / intuitive and cerebral, with a strong dose of humor.

I am not going to weigh in on a male / female – who is the better leader argument. In my career I have run across many arrogant, egotistical cowboys and girls so reject the notion that great leadership has to do with the kinds of chromosomes you carry. At the end of the day, being cocky or irresponsible is not gender specific and regardless of whether it is a man or woman doing the damage, it hurts a business equally either way.

In the debate over whose at fault for the GFC, to me it is clearly the dudes. And in the time honored tradition, it will be the women who come along later to clean up the mess. It kind of stinks really. Being the mother of two teenaged boys, I have spent a considerable amount of time encouraging them to pick up after themselves and have often pondered how you teach them to exercise the appropriate amount of risk taking behaviors? You can’t be a weenie in life, particularly now in these times it will pay have a bit of courage, but this courage must come with smart choices and that generally means engaging others in a debate.

I will leave you with a quote from Ian Davis – McKinsey’s Worldwide Managing Director, he is talking about what he calls ‘The New Normal’. “The business landscape has changed fundamentally; this is not a turn of the business cycle, but a restructuring of the economic order. Tomorrow’s environments will be different, but no less rich in possibilities if we are prepared.” So I hope we prepare well and find the right balance, if that means tapping into our inner Sheila, then we should.

Sources:

Adams, Renee, If Women Ruled Boards, BRW, January 15, 2009

Hoff, Robert D, The Difficulties Bartz Faces at Yahoo, Business Week, January 28, 2009

Hoff, Robert D, Yahoo’s Bartz Shows Who’s Boss, Business Week, February 26, 2009

Horin, Adele, Sometimes Lady Luck Kicks you Where it Hurts, The Sydney Morning Herald, Weekend Edition March 21-22, 2009

Sullivan, Kevin and Jordan, Mary, Men Behaving Badly: Testosterone Had its Role in the Lost Billions, The Sydney Morning Herald, February 12, 2009

Women CEO’s of the Fortune 1000 Business Week, March 13, 2009

This Week in Tech podcast, Episode 177

Conflict

Sometimes even if it is completely justified, it is best not to cross someone, it is simply not worth the conflict it creates. This is the case, when my neighbours the Fuckyas extend their afternoon sport watching parties into the wee hours of the morning. No, Fuckya is not their real name, it’s just a clever way to elude the mail marshal and happens to be what the boys next door shout rather loudly when their team scores. The fun times go on till about 2:30am, long after the sporting event is over and well past the Aznavoorian 9 pm bedtime. As is often the case with sports fans, the Fuckyas practice continual and excessive drinking when they watch sport on television, beginning in the early afternoon and extending into the late afternoon and evening, into night and then on to the morning. It doesn’t end till the last Fuckya passes out.

I have confirmed the grog consumption through spot inspections of the Fuckya yellow recycle bin; however, this kind of investigation is hardly necessary when a rather overt clue, in this case a ‘shrine to grog’, is clearly visible through the front window of the house. It is the shrine, that keeps us from complaining about the noise. Twelve bottles of hard alcohol, artfully arranged on a side table, sitting in front of a pool table, and above that proudly displayed on the wall is the Australian flag. It’s a beautiful thing; really, it brings a lump to my throat and makes me absolutely certain that messing with an Australian with such conviction and overt passion would not be wise. Who wants to get into a neighbour to neighbour dispute about something so visceral?

Most of us prefer to live a life without conflict whether that be with our neighbour, our partner, our family, friends or co-workers. In fact when it comes to our co – workers, after financial considerations, Australians value relationships with co-workers far above other aspects of our work life. It is no wonder, conflict with co- workers is not only unpleasant, it is also stressful, highly unproductive and it takes a toll on workplace effectiveness and productivity.

Unfortunately, the recipe for workplace conflict is a simple one: throw in a group of people, a couple of different ideas and human nature and abracadabra you have conflict. With the added ingredients of spending lots of time together in a confined space, the process gets accelerated.

Workplace conflict can partly be attributed to changes in where we work and the historical evolution of the workplace. This makes sense, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries people worked in fields and didn’t have much say in the classical master servant type relationships. Now with globalization, technological change and higher employee participation, there are different expectations in how we can participate in company decision making.

With the emergence of Gen Y in the workforce, there is not even the old taboo of keeping your mouth shut until you knew what you were talking about. We enjoy the liberty of questioning authority in contemporary culture and unless you happen to be an Australian journalist with a loose jaw visitingThailand, we work encourage people to express their beliefs. The flip side is that when everyone has a say, there’s bound to be differing opinions.

The causes for conflict in the workplace vary, but most believe workplace conflict boils down to two distinct types: the first occurs when ideas or approaches differ and the second results from personality clashes. As designers and architects who have gone through an education process that teaches us to collaborate and vehemently defend our ideas, we know that the first type is not always negative.

Differing opinions often become a catalyst for new ideas or directions that improve work process and outcomes and initiate positive changes. Most industries these days look for this type of interaction and blending of opposing thought to drive greater creativity and innovation. The workplaces we design will often deliberately create spaces where this type of interaction can occur. Unfortunately, when it comes to conflict that is the result of a personality clash, there is rarely anything positive that results.

Differences of opinions can come from a place deep within each of us, the source might be the result of cultural differences, vanity, jealousy, simple misunderstanding, or even childhood preconceptions. It is not a big surprise that we all have different styles when it comes to communicating and thinking and not all of those styles work well together.

Regardless of the source, workplace conflict can lead to moral problems and wasted time; team members will be forced to take sides in a dispute, reducing team effectiveness. The most dangerous part is that a lot of disharmony can sabotage the team’s performance over time and that will impact business results. It is for this reason that many companies spend lots of time and money using tools like the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument to measure their employees thinking styles in an effort to better pair like minded communicators and thinkers.

Others believe personality style is the key and believe it is important to identify the different styles in your workplace to better organise teams. As if there weren’t enough ways to catagorise people: man, woman, gay, straight, Jewish, Cathloic, sporty, nerdy we can now sort ourselves by personality types. You can perform this exercise at your next team or cell meeting for fun. The idea here is to recognise and identify the personality types and behavioural preferences in your team and understand one another’s comfort zones. This will enable us to use different people in different situations, where one style is preferable to another. For example we might choose to use a shark for a project with an impossible deadline. The personality styles are as follows:

> Turtle – Generally avoids conflict, when they recognise one exists they withdraw or suppress and relinquish their personal goals. They believe it is hopeless to try to resolve conflicts
> Sharks – Compete, they try to overpower their opponents and force them to accept their solution to the conflict. They achieve their goals at all cost and have little concern for the needs of others.
> Teddy bears – Accommodate, they want to appease all by putting others needs ahead of their own. For them the relationship is more important than the goal.
> Fox – Compromises, they expect each party to give up something and are willing to sacrifice part of their goals and relationships to find agreement.
> Owl – Cooperates, they search for mutually satisfying outcomes and view conflict as a problem to be solved, they seek solutions that achieve their goals and the goals of the other person.

None of us wakes up in the morning with the intention of coming to work to get into a fight, most of us simply want to get on with it. So what do we do when there is a conflict? First off determine whether the conflict is due to differing opinions or a personality clash. You can do this by asking yourself whether the person you are having a conflict with annoys you all the time or only when there is a work related issue raised? If it happens around work related issues you can ask yourself if your anger is unreasonable or out of proportion, would you feel as mad if someone else in the office had a similar viewpoint? Finally, do you respect the other person in any way?

When the conflict is over ideas, experts advise we stick to the issues and appreciate that others have different opinions. You need to ask yourself if the issue is really that important to you or whether you just don’t like the other person. While it can be a challenge, you should avoid judgement and try hard to listen and understand their viewpoint. When approaching a conflict with the aim of solving the problem rather than trying to win the argument the outcomes will most likely be better for you and the company.

There is always the option to get others to mediate. However, be careful of putting company leaders in the position of becoming a ‘dictator by default’ which can cause other problems. Mainly the leader being disappointed and blaming those in power for their indecisiveness and the others resenting the leader for being a dictator.

Personality clashes are more complicated and those conflicts will most likely continue unless attitudes and behavours change. The suggestions are to accept that people are different and acknowledge the amount of time and energy wasted in not liking someone, consider all of the more productive things you could do. I know the next suggestion will make work no fun for some of you, but they advise we should not gossip or complain about the person you are having a conflict with. Finally try to be reasonable or at least neutral to the other person.

If none of this works you could do what a guy I worked with did, please note that just because I am telling you this story does not mean I condone the behaviour. Naturally, to protect their privacy and make them more Australian, I have changed their names to Davo and Lessa. Davo and Lessa were having a conflict that was so inconsequental that now years later I can’t even recall what it was about. It was a repeating pattern, but this time something happened and Davo reached his breaking point, he went a bit postal – not entirely because he didn’t have a gun. He pulled his phone out of the wall and chucked at Lessa’s head. I must confess that many of us were disappointed that his mark was off and the phone only managed to dent the wall and not shut up Lessa. Everyone agreed she was annoying,with her incessant talk talk talking and complaining, it was as if we were working with one of those homeless bag ladies with a mental disorder.

That being said, he should not have thrown the phone, while being eventful and the fuel for entertaining stories for years to come, this action did little to resolve the conflict. It would come as no surprise that shortly thereafter neither Davo or Lessa had a job. So kids don’t try that at work, keep the phones in the wall. If you have conflict with a co – worker don’t let it fester, have a calm conversation with the person whom you’re clashing with, don’t blame or belittle them and if none of that works get your employer involved or call one of the agencies like WorkCover Advisory Service, the ACTU workers line, or Relationships Australia.

Finally, I want to let you know we have resolved our conflict with the neighbours. This was the result of two events. First, one of the Fuckyas managed to get a girlfriend and women are simply too smart to put up with that kind of behaviour in men older than 22. The second was my husband got annoyed enough to go knock on the door at 2 am, I am not certain if it was his presence or the fact that he was in his underpants that alerted the Fuckyas to the seriousness of the situation. It doesn’t matter, they have learned to simmer down.

Sources:

Coburn, Clare and Jensen, Mike; Conflict in the Workplace: is Mediation an Appropriate Response? white paper

Dowling, Julianne; The Behaviour Behind the Bullying The Sydney Morning Herald, October 18-19 2008

Firsch, Bob and Monnier, Ron: When Teams Fall Out Harvard Business Review, December – January 1909

Gratton, Lynda and Erickson, Tamara; Why some teams just work The Weekend Financial Review January 19 -20, 2008

Grubacevic, Vesna; Putting a stop to workplace conflict Website – My business resource centre, October 25, 2008

Vine, Melissa and Dasey, Daniel; War at the Water Cooler – Learn to Diffuse Office Spats The Sydney Morning Herald, October 25-26 2008

Workplace Conflict – website The Australian Psychological Society