Category Archives: Change

A new year and no resolutions

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It’s a new year and I’ve been reading everywhere all about fresh starts and being better, healthier, and happier. I really don’t feel the novelty everyone always talks about after the New Year. Except for a digit in my calendar having changed from a five to a six, I feel the same; I’m struggling with the same challenges and working on the same projects as in December.

No, I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions and I never make any. A friend posted a picture on Facebook that said, “I can’t believe it’s been a year since I didn’t become a better person”, and somehow, although it was supposed to be funny and I did get a good laugh, it really summed it up for me. On many levels.

Fresh starts are good, but for them to actually happen they need to be the result not only of a real need, but also of an epiphany and an understanding that change is absolutely essential. It takes planning and commitment and you have to be systematic. No wonder very few spontaneously made New Year’s resolutions actually make it past January. In my research, I’ve seen that no matter how much people want to do things differently in life, they don’t unless they experience something that provides them with a sense of urgency. And that can and should happen any time during the year, not just on January 1st.

But maybe I’m missing the point. Maybe that’s not what New Year’s resolutions are about. Maybe they’re about dreaming, about imagining a better you, and that even though you’re not actually prepared to do anything to get there, they sort of give you energy, inspiration, and why not hope? Because dreaming is important, where there are no dreams, there is no hope.

Writing this, I’m actually starting to feel a bit like the Grinch of New Years. Maybe the whole point is not to be so sensible all the time. Maybe our musings don’t always have to lead to action, progress, or success. Maybe they can just be for the sake of being.

Having said that, there are a couple of things I would like for 2016:

First, I need to learn how to chill. Although much of what I’ve been doing during the past year has been new and exciting, it has also been pretty exhausting. This is one of the side effects of opting out and in, you find yourself outside your comfort zone, doing many things for the first time without being able to fall back on previous experience. I need to remember to breathe, to trust myself and my abilities, and to give myself a break every now and then. And also literally take a break so I can spend more time with family, my parents in particular. Because that’s what’s important in life: the people you spend it with.

The other thing is to figure out what my next step is going to be. I find myself, at least mentally, with one foot in the academic world and one in the business world. I actually really like it that way, because there is so much in both worlds that really does and doesn’t work and they complement each other in many ways. I’ll save the details for another post, but until then I can say that it is becoming all the more clear to me that my opting out and in journey is exactly that – a journey – and I’m nowhere near the finish line. So during 2016 I will focus on figuring out what that next step is, and on taking it. I have to remember to stay in the driver’s seat though. After all, that was the whole point of opting out to begin with!

Sometimes you need to fail in order to succeed

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A few days ago I found out that I didn’t get a job I applied for. For a while it seemed very promising and I was already mentally preparing to accept this job and considering the practicalities I needed to figure out in order to do that. But then I came second, so alas, no job.

Writing this I realize what a long way I have come. Not too long ago I wouldn’t have breathed a word to anyone that I was applying for a job much less announced globally that I didn’t get it like I’m doing now. I just wouldn’t have broadcasted my failure. Only it wasn’t a failure. It was actually a very good process for me. First of all it made me really think about what I want to do and what I can imagine myself doing. And I realized that I could actually imagine myself going back and working in an organization again. My own opting out and in experience continues to evolve, it is not static, and like so many people I have interviewed I also realize that the choices I made when I opted out weren’t forever. So that was good to really have a chance to think about my situation, my terms, and what I want to do. Also, although I would have been very happy to have gotten the job, I’m actually also very happy to be able to continue living the life I’m living right now the way I do. So what initially felt like a waste of energy since it didn’t really lead anywhere was actually quite meaningful. And besides, as an academic I deal with a lot of rejection all the time so in a way I’m kind of getting used to it. Scary as that may sound.

But this question of success and failure is interesting. I’ve decided to make a point of sharing my failures and rejections, because it’s important that people know that everyone experiences failures, and actually the people who are very successful usually are because they worked very hard and failed over and over until they succeeded. Their secret is they didn’t give up.

We have a very low tolerance for failure in our society, and organizations especially aren’t very forgiving, which is extremely unfortunate. The thing is, it is from our mistakes and failures that we learn and develop and if we’re terrified of making mistakes, and as a result maybe even getting laid off, we won’t ever dare do anything out of the ordinary or take any risks, which is bad both for personal and organizational development and learning. As inventor Regina Dugan says, “We can’t both fear failure and make amazing new things.”

But overcoming the fear of failure isn’t very easy in this day and age. Zygmunt Bauman talks about something he calls the fear of disposability – a fear of being expendable, of becoming redundant – which is a direct result of the constant flux that is our reality in this fast-changing economy. Organizations and individuals alike need to stay lean and flexible in order to survive the ever more competitive global market. Well, it’s a viscous circle if you ask me.

So what do we do about it? Well like so many other things, this too is organizationally driven. If organizations become more forgiving, they will help create a more forgiving culture, where we can be more accepting of failure. And not only that, I’m convinced that these very organizations will be the big winners in the long run, because people – their employees – will dare and have the space to be more creative, and they will make amazing things, as Dugan says. But in the meantime, I think we should just all become more forgiving as individuals, of ourselves and of each other. And we should be more open about sharing both successes and failures, and not just instagrammable versions of ourselves and our lives.

Let’s change working life as we know it!

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I read another article yesterday about new meanings of work and how organizations need to start offering people new or different solutions and ways of working to better meet their preferences and needs. I always do a little victory dance (okay, not literally) when I see articles like this. For one it sort of confirms that I’m on to something, but more importantly, it supports my argument that things are finally happening on that front. We are at a crossroads of sorts and now is the time to redefine work as we know it. And the best thing about this is that we can all be involved in this change together.

One thing struck me, though, when reading this article. Although the arguments were good and valid, they really didn’t offer much in the way of concrete solutions or ideas for how this change is going to happen. Or indeed what these new solutions for work could be. And to be honest, I get that a lot too.

The thing is, these new solutions need to be developed together. In other words I have no quick ready-made solutions that organizations can instantly adopt. After all, we’re breaking new ground here. But the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the changes we need really aren’t that major. When people opt out, it isn’t that they don’t want to work, it’s that they don’t want to work the way that they have been. The biggest problem in the jobs they opted out of was that they lacked a sense of control over their lives and their time.

I’m sometimes approached by career coaches who help people find their true self and calling, wondering if we could perhaps work together somehow. I’m all for coaching, I think that coaches do very valuable work and help a lot of people in many different ways. However, in my research I have found that the biggest problem for people who opt out is not that the job they did wasn’t their true calling. Rather it’s the structures and working cultures that cause a lack of coherence and agency (a feeling that one has very little power and control to affect one’s situation), which in turn has a negative effect on wellbeing. After having opted out and in to a new lifestyle and way of working, they report feeling like they are finally doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing, which could be understood as a true calling. However this sense of authenticity really isn’t about the job they’re doing, it’s actually a result of finally being able to control their time better; that they can be themselves and don’t have to hide certain aspects (like children who are generally expected to be kept invisible in the corporate sphere, especially for women); and of the sense of coherence that they get because they have more control. In fact, most of them loved what they did before, that really wasn’t the main problem.

So the change that I’m calling for isn’t a change in tasks or areas of responsibility, or even workload. It’s rather a change in systems and policies that allow for more autonomy and control over when, where, and how people work. This means different solutions for different people – some want more autonomy and some want less – but that really shouldn’t be impossible; we have the technology. In practice it will mean setting clear and concrete goals and being able to follow up on these so that it doesn’t become a question of whether or not we trust people to actually do their jobs if we can’t see them. Measuring work in hours as we generally do today really isn’t the answer. I mean just because you sit in your office for eight hours doesn’t mean you’re actually working or creating added value for the whole eight hours.

So the good news is that this really isn’t rocket science; it’s all very doable. It’s rather a question of mindset, which of course can be tricky to change.

People who opt out think long and hard about what works for them and what doesn’t, and based on this they develop terms. I also have terms, which I’ve thought about a lot lately, and I’ve found that I need to keep reminding myself what these terms are, because sometimes I forget. The reason is that organizational culture as we know it is so strongly embedded in our consciousness, that we are very much affected by what we think is expected of us. The terms we develop really aren’t that outrageous because we think we will probably have to compromise to hold down a job (which we need to do because we all have to eat, right?). So these terms and ideal solutions for work that we develop are still very much colored by the understanding we have of what is acceptable. However, being cautious and thinking in terms of old rules and regulations do not a revolution make.

So I would like you to join me in dreaming up what your ultimate solution for work really would be if you didn’t have to take into account organizational cultures, rules, regulations, and traditions. If you could work in any way you wanted (and now I want you to really think out of the box and not worry about what is and isn’t possible) how would you work? What is important to you; what is your ideal set up? Would you do things completely differently, or maybe just change a small but strategic detail? Or maybe not change anything at all?

I would love to hear from you. Please comment or send me an email at theoptingoutblog@gmail.com (emails will be treated confidentially).

It’s time for a change. Let’s create that change together!

Go ahead surprise yourself!

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Last week I actually celebrated one year as a blogger! I almost missed it, then I noticed and I thought whatever. But then I reconsidered and decided no this needs to be celebrated! There are many reasons; one being that I have a whole year worth of texts collected which is a pretty great achievement. Although writing is one of the main things I do in my job, producing texts can be hard, sometimes downright painful. But here I’ve managed to produce about 70 pages worth of blog posts somewhat effortlessly. Except for a couple of times this fall when I was completely bogged down with work, I haven’t really had to struggle at all to get my thoughts down for The Opting Out Blog. I’m not sure exactly why. I think it’s because I mostly write when ideas come to me. If possible I stop everything and jot them down on anything handy, like a napkin or a receipt, so I don’t generally sit and stare at my screen thinking I should but I can’t. Also, since this is my blog I can write about anything I want, so whatever comes to me is what gets posted. My blog posts don’t get reviewed and accepted or rejected by anyone, nor do they need to meet any particular standards, and that takes some of the pressure off. But despite that, or maybe because of that, I think some of my posts are among the most clearly communicated texts I’ve produced (and my blog has probably helped me with my academic writing as well). But still, I have to add that it’s not that I don’t feel any pressure at all. I do because I have readers and all of a sudden I’m not doing this just for me, I also don’t want to disappoint you. So there is some pressure, which is actually good because it’s what makes me want to keep writing and posting.

So that’s one reason to celebrate. Another reason is that I’ve kept at it for a year, and I’ve found a medium that I really enjoy. I think I’m generally quite tenacious, which I actually didn’t think about myself before. I used to think I was the kind of person who gets easily bored, but it’s not true. I guess I just hadn’t found my thing. At a certain point this fall, I did sort of wonder if my blog is getting old. In this culture of constant reinvention, do I need to reinvent The Opting Out Blog after only a year, because is a year actually a really long time in this age of short-termism and quick fixes? And what would that be? And then I started getting new readers, especially in South America, which is very exciting as this is a continent where my blog really hasn’t been very widely read. And I realized no, as long as I think this is fun, I’m going to keep doing what I want to. It’s my blog after all.

And that brings me to the thing that I think deserves to be celebrated the most: the fact that I actually am a blogger. It’s something that I have been struggling to make a part of my identity because I just haven’t seen myself as a blogger. I don’t know what I think blogging really is, but apparently I’ve had an idea that it is something different than what I’m doing. But funny as it may sound, I’m slowly coming to terms with the fact that not only do I have a blog, I also am a blogger. The thing is, I never, ever thought that about myself. I never thought I would blog; the thought of being that public scared the hell out of me. I was telling a friend about this the other day and she said, “and yet you started, how did that happen?” And really, looking back it’s beyond me. How did I sit down, create a blog and actually start publishing posts, which I was so completely terrified of doing? I don’t really know, but I did. I think the most important thing was that I got so much support and encouragement from friends, and I just jumped. So that is definitely the biggest reason to celebrate this one-year anniversary: I managed to surprise myself. I’m doing something I honestly never thought I would, much less like, and it turns out I love it and it makes my life so much richer. So in the spirit of dishing out feel good advice (which I try to avoid, but hey I’m celebrating here), go surprise yourselves! You might just find out you’re capable of things you never dreamed of. And besides, you never know, you might even have a passion out there just waiting to be discovered!

The jealous employer

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The other day while I was conducting an interview, I was told what I every so often hear, that in a family both partners can’t pursue a career. It’s either one or the other because a career is so time consuming and someone needs to take care of the kids. I’ve been thinking about this for a few days now, and I guess I reluctantly have to admit that this person had a point, considering the 24/7 commitment we expect of our employees, at least the ones that are headed for the top. It has been argued that prevalent career models aren’t created for only one person but for one and a half: the one with the job and the one that takes care of everything else. How this is supposed to work, especially in a country like Finland where I live, where there is a tradition of both partners working, and where nannies are rare, escapes me. Who takes care of the work that is supposed to be done by that extra half person? Even though Finland is one of the most gender equal countries in the EU (which is not to say that Finland is completely gender equal), it is often women who do most of that half person’s work. So we have women who not only have the all-consuming career, they also take care of most of the care and household chores, and as a result they are often exhausted. If I remember correctly, I think I read somewhere that in Sweden about 80% of the people treated for exhaustion are women. And it wouldn’t surprise me if the numbers were similar elsewhere.

A while back, a good friend of mine – a friend with a high-powered career – talked about this, about how completely exhausted she was. She’s very good at what she does; she simply had too much to do at work. I once heard someone say that if you want something done you should just ask someone who already has too much to do. I guess there’s some truth to that. Either way, it made me think about Sheryl Sandberg and what she says about women needing to draw the line. In her book Lean In, Sandberg explains that companies take what they can get and it’s up to the individual to say when enough is enough. Now I’ve been a bit critical of that because that may feel risky for a person who is well aware that if he or she doesn’t do the job, there are plenty of others who will – we are all replaceable, right? And besides, we have a structural problem on our hands, not an individual one, and trying to create individual solutions doesn’t solve much in the long run, or for anyone else for that matter. But I was thinking, that for someone as senior and appreciated as my friend is, drawing the line and setting some terms of her own is probably possible. We’re so worried what might happen if we say no, but maybe the sky won’t fall if we try. Still, I’m the first to admit, that it is hard to do, even for someone like me who has a pretty clear idea of what my terms are.

I was discussing these thoughts with another good friend of mine, and ironically (because I think I don’t generally generalize) I was accused of generalizing! I was explaining how companies take everything they can and he interrupted me and said no all companies don’t. He apparently actively tells his team members they need to stop and rest and take time off. Which often throws them, ironically; they are so set on working long hours and looking busy because that’s what all important career people do, right? Well, I was impressed and I honestly think he must be a pretty great boss who really cares about his people, despite maybe just seeing wellbeing as a means to efficiency, which in turn is good for the company. But I do wish more bosses were like him because we really need to understand that working people harder isn’t necessarily better. Quantity is not the same as quality.

In Sweden some organizations are experimenting with six-hour days, as opposed to the standard eight, but for the same pay. This has been quite controversial, but the organizations trying this have apparently had very positive results. They say that their employees get the same amount done, if not more, because they don’t get so tired during a six-hour stretch. And then when they finish work they still have half an afternoon and a whole evening left of the day, which means they have time and energy for all the other things they want and need to do. Sounds like these employees have a much more well rounded life than most. Because despite what my friend says about not all companies sucking their employees dry being true, a lot of companies still do.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we have to stop assuming that working more means working better. I don’t know why we think people have to dedicate their whole lives to work. Just because they have other things that are equally important to them in their lives, it is not a threat to how well they do their jobs, so why do we make it so difficult for them? It’s like the employer is a jealous friend who doesn’t want you to have any other friends. Put it like that and it just sounds ridiculous.

Stop assuming!

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When I give talks on opting out, one comment I sometimes get is yes fine but most people don’t have the luxury to dictate their terms or to create their own solutions for work. And that is certainly true. The people I’ve studied, and continue to study, are people who are privileged in many ways. Many have opted out of high-powered careers, which means they can actually afford to pause and breathe for a second and think about what they want to do with their lives (even though most also need to continue making a living). And they might work in areas that allow them the flexibility to create alternative solutions that work for them. Actually, I’m usually very quick to remind people of the danger of generalizing; that there is a whole population out there living different realities that one’s own.

But having said that, this comment still frustrates me a bit. I’m not trying to create an all-encompassing model for contemporary working life, nor am I claiming that my research is representative of the whole population. After all, I am the one always talking about creating different solutions for different people with different needs. But when people say that what I’m talking about is interesting but just not relevant or can’t be done for other people in certain professions, they are kind of making it impossible to even try. When things have been a certain way for as long as we can remember (and honestly, a lot of us have really short memories, so it might not be as long as we think) they become ‘truths’, and because they we think they are ‘truths’ we lose the ability to question them. But all ‘truths’ or practices were, after all, created by someone at some point and just because something has been done in a certain way for a relatively long time, doesn’t mean it’s the only way to do things, nor does it mean that it is the best way to do things. It is just the way we are used to.

This happened a few weeks ago when I was speaking to a group of women at a seminar about juggling work and family and returning to work after maternity leave. We had a fantastic discussion, and then someone commented that yes this is interesting but of course it wouldn’t apply to daycare personnel for example; they can’t create different solutions for work nor can they even dream about working on their own terms because they have to be there at certain times to carry out their work. And yes that is true, they have to be there in addition to sometimes being understaffed and often grossly underpaid. The nature of daycare work is obviously very different from managerial work and we can’t duplicate everything. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t borrow ideas nor does it mean we can’t create working environments where employees – even daycare workers – can feel like they have more control over their lives and their time. So when people say, ‘ah, but that is not possible’, we need to question that. Is it really not possible or do we just assume it isn’t possible? I’m willing to bet that nine times out of ten we’re just assuming, which is unfortunate because it effectively blinds us to any alternative ideas or solutions.

A colleague at the department where I work, Liisa Välikangas, who is an expert on innovation, talks about creative destruction. She argues that most people have a natural, built-in resistance to new solutions as long as the old ones still seem to work well enough, which makes it very hard for organizations to change. Creating something completely new is therefore much easier that changing existing structures. But in order to change we need to do this – that is, dismantle old structures – because otherwise there is no room for the new. So not only do we need to create, we also need to destroy.

And I’m arguing that we need some creative destruction when it comes to our assumptions. We need to say “Really? Why?” even in the most obvious situations. Because it is especially the obvious and the ‘truths’ we have been taught that are the most difficult to question, and the most important. And only if we can do this, can we help organizations and working cultures join the rest of us in the 21st century.

So every time you find yourself knowing or assuming, stop and question. And instead of assuming this is the way it has to be done, try living on the wild side for a second and assume that it doesn’t. And then see if new possibilities suddenly appear.

Bringing organizations into the 21st century, step one

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Last week I wrote a post about how I’ve been surprised and a bit disappointed over how organizational culture largely seems to be at a standstill even though technology and the economy are continuously evolving in a frenzy of development and reinvention. In short, while everything else changes, we continue to expect and look for the same traits and behaviors in our employees.

That same evening after I posted on my blog, my husband mentioned to me how much he like my post, but that just when he was getting excited about the new ideas for how to embrace the future and the diversity among his team members that he thought I was going to write about, I just stopped. I said something needs to change, but I never said what. And I guess I have to admit, that could potentially be frustrating. Well, I’ve been thinking about this, and about what I can offer in ways of new ideas.

I’ve been reading a book by Susan Cain called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. Reading this book, and watching her TED talk which I did before buying the book, has really been an eye-opener for me. About a year ago I saw one of those lists that like to circulate on social media. This one was something along the lines of ‘25 signs that you’re an introvert’, and reading that list was a defining moment for me. I recognized pretty much every single sign on that list. I have always assumed that I am an extrovert, and people have always told me that I am so extroverted. And the reason is I’m talkative and social. In manageable doses that is. But people of course never see the times when I really need time out to recuperate after being social and talkative, because obviously that’s when I go off to be by myself. And this apparently is typical of introverts. The thing is, being an introvert is often mistakenly defined as shy and asocial; words which have quite negative connotations. But that is not what introvert means. According to Cain, introverts and extroverts simply “differ in the levels of outside stimulation that they need to function well.” And they work differently. “Introverts often work more slowly and deliberately. They like to focus on one task at a time and can have mighty powers of concentration.” While introverts may have great social skills, after a while they often need to be on their own to recuperate. They may also prefer deep discussions to small talk. And the point is, not all introverts are the same, you can of course be introverted to different degrees.

For me it was a relief to realize that all these traits in me that have felt a bit weird and worrisome are completely normal. In organizational or team settings I’ve often felt that I’m not really part of the group. Like I’m a bit of an outsider. Even in social settings, especially when I was younger, where, despite loving my friends to pieces, I just didn’t want to spend every waking moment with them in large groups like they seemed to want to. It kind of made me wonder if I was a bad team member or friend. So you can imagine, reading that other people are the same was pretty great.

According to Cain, between 30-50% of people in the US are introverted. And the US, if you don’t mind me saying, is a pretty extroverted society, so the number may possibly even be even higher in other parts of the world. But organizational culture globally very much follows the US norm. Cain so eloquently explains how, from a culture of character, ours has evolved into a culture of personality where we are “urged to develop an extroverted personality for frankly selfish reasons.”

The other day when I was interviewing another man who has opted out, everything seemed to suddenly fall into place. He told me that he always thought he was an extrovert but has come to the conclusion that it turns out he is an introvert. Wow. Or rather, the reason I thought ‘wow’ was that the man I interviewed before him also told me he was an introvert and that he never really felt at home in his career. And come to think of it, the man before that was an introvert too. And I started thinking back to the women I interviewed several years ago, and I’m going to have to be in touch with them again to ask, but I have a feeling many of them are introverts as well. Could there be a connection between being an introvert and opting out?

Think about it. Organizational cultures aren’t developed for introverts. We are expected to be extroverts, to be team players, to be outspoken, and to be great sales people (even if we aren’t in sales). Our working spaces are increasingly becoming open spaces where if you’re an introvert you may find it incredibly tiring and uncomfortable to never be able to escape other people’s gazes (whether or not they are actually looking at you) which makes you feel like you can never be yourself. There is no room for quiet and solitude. Not so much what you say but how you say things is what’s valued and it is often the loudest person who is heard and receives recognition. And no, the loudest idea is not necessarily the best idea at all; it is just the one we tend to go with because it is voiced with such conviction.

So what does this mean in practical terms? One of my main points in last week’s post was that we need to really embrace diversity in organizations to match the increasing diversity we see on global markets. And I don’t just mean focusing on having a culturally diverse work force, for example. I mean really embracing that there are different ways of doing things, of thinking, and of being that may all be equally good, and, perhaps more importantly, that bring out the best in people in different ways. How about actually walking the talk regarding the importance of different roles and personality types in teams and organizations? But also embracing and creating different environments and solutions for work for people with different wants and needs. Maybe not everyone should be in an open space. Maybe meeting routines need to be different so that not only the loud people are heard. Maybe we need to accept that not everyone will want to be nor should even have to be a so-called team player. Some people work better in groups, some people work better alone, some in an office and some at home. Some people work better in the morning, some better at night. Some like to work several hours in a stretch. Some just can’t, but it doesn’t mean they work less. And it should all be ok and we need to develop routines to support this.

Well, this is getting long so I’ll stop here for now. But this is the first in a series of thoughts and ideas of how we can really change the way we think in organizations. To be continued.

Organizations at a standstill in the fast changing economy

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I have been teaching an undergraduate course in organizational behavior this fall and I have quite enjoyed it. Working with and talking to students is fun, although teaching a course for the first time is always a hell of a lot of work. But although the course was new to me, the content wasn’t, since organizational behavior is basically what I worked with my entire business career. For those of you not fluent in business school lingo, organizational behavior is everything that has to do with people in the workplace – anything from motivation to teamwork to individual assessment. In a nutshell it’s how people behave, how well they do, whether or not they like what they’re doing, and how you can inspire them to do even better, which of course is crucial knowledge for any leader. And organizational behavior continues to be relevant for me in my opting out research, as I study what it is that makes people want to opt out of the organizations they work for and what it is that feels meaningful to them. So in other words, this was a good course for me to teach.

Going through the course literature brought back memories of jobs that I’ve had and projects and teams I’ve been involved in. Over the years, I’ve always saved material that is relevant when working with individuals and teams, and as a result I have a toolbox that I can dip into whenever needed. Who knew that it would come in handy for this course? It turned out, for example, that many of the tests referred to in the course literature I have either taken myself or used with my team years ago. It was of course great to have real and not just theoretical experience of what I was teaching, but I was somewhat surprised, to be honest, and a bit concerned that not more has happened on that front over the years.

I take it as a sign that organizational culture, the traits and behavior that we value in people, and how we think of work really isn’t keeping up with all the progress that is happening around us. While technology is taking giant leaps forward, assessment of individuals, of how they work, and of their output really doesn’t seem to have evolved much since the end of the 90’s when I took these very same tests. Not only that; the qualities we value and idealize in organizations are pretty much the same as they were a couple of decades ago, as well as still being very homogenous and one-sided. This is kind of ironic since the economy is becoming ever more globalized and diverse. And there is an ample amount of research that shows that the best way to work is really very relative and individual. One size just doesn’t fit all.

It makes me wonder. Most organizations really don’t seem to be doing much differently when it comes to managing their people. Just like individuals need to do something differently in order to develop or reinvent themselves (because if they do more of the same they are just going to get more of the same), especially in these times of economic uncertainty, shouldn’t organizations be doing so too? So listen up organizational leaders, in order to really reinvent your business and stay competitive, maybe it’s time to rethink not only your offering, but also how you evaluate your people, what you value in your people, and how you expect them to deliver what it is you need.

But back to my toolbox. One of the tests that I was able to share with my students, and that I have also taken myself years ago, was Belbin’s Team Roles. However, looking at my results, I hardly recognized that younger version of myself. I was much more extroverted then than I am now, and even somewhat aggressive. Which is perhaps to be expected. I was relatively new on the job market at the time, and I needed to prove and create a place for myself. I knew what was expected of me and what was valued in the business world and my behavior and my answers in the test certainly reflected that. Now, on the other hand, I’m an academic. The same qualities aren’t expected of me, and are not necessarily even desirable. I am older and more mature, I know myself better, and I don’t want nor feel that I need to act in a certain way to please current or prospective employers. And although test results give an indication of a person’s personality and traits, this just goes to show the danger of uncritically accepting these results when assessing people in organizations, as well as assuming that individual characteristics are permanent. Typologies can be especially harmful to women’s careers, because women are often defined by factors out of their control. For example, if they temporarily have to focus on caring for people who need them, they may be defined as unambitious, which in turn has an effect on their career prospects. But that is a topic that I will save for another blog post.

For the love of working from home

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I was at another conference last week – the Work2015 conference in the beautiful city of Turku – and I have to say it was a really great conference with excellent papers and presentations and some really good conversation. And yes, I may still be dazzled by the fabulous, designer Marimekko bags they handed out as conference bags, but it really was a great conference.

There was one presentation that was particularly intriguing for me as I have set out to change working culture as we know it; and as I ponder the alternative solutions for work I come across in my research, as well as what it is about these solutions that appeal to people and make them say things like “I could never imagine going back to working the way I did”. This particular paper was by a Swiss scholar who had done a quantitative study of the advantages of working from home, examining the correlation between working from home and work effort.

Previous research has argued that there are advantages to working from home, and the list is actually quite long. It includes flexibility, the ability to plan one’s work according to one’s personal rhythm, less distractions, reduced work-related stress, better work-life balance, higher job satisfaction, and more autonomy. However according to this Swiss scholar, there really hasn’t been a lot of empirical evidence, so this is what she set out to do. I’m not going to go into the details of her regression analysis (mostly because I’m a qualitative researcher and it eludes me) but the conclusion she came to was that working from home leads to greater work effort, and not only that, she also found that when you work from home more often, work effort also increases.

Now as a qualitative researcher, I have to point out that things are seldom as simple as we like to portray them, and when analyzing quantitative variables we also need to understand and critically examine what lies behind these variables and the assumptions we are making about them. In this study effort was measured as the hours a person works beyond the hours specified in his or her work contract (i.e. overtime), and we need to be careful when equating overtime with effort or commitment to an organization, which she was also arguing.

For example, those of us who have worked from home a lot know that some colleagues can be quite suspicious of people who don’t come in to the office daily. People gossip and speculate whether or not you’re really working. I’m sure we have all been conscious of things like when we email people so that they can see that we are actually at our computers like we said we would be, as well as a little (or a lot) longer than we are expected to be. Since most organizations still don’t have much of an established offsite working culture, people who work from home may put a lot of energy into managing others’ perceptions of them. In short, what drives a person to put in the extra hours may not simply be related to their commitment to the organization.

And, related to this, there is also research that shows that more hours don’t necessarily make us more productive. On the contrary, energy levels plummet if we do very long days and it has been argued that we may even get more done if we did shorter days and didn’t get so tired. So longer hours is not necessarily something we should automatically strive for.

So one needs to be a bit careful about one’s assumptions, but still this study is an indicator of something that is definitely worth thinking about. We need to question the belief that a working culture that demands working in an office environment during certain designated hours according to a certain script is the best and/or only right way of working.

As someone who truly loves working in my home office and needs to do so as much as possible for my sanity and peace of mind, I got quite excited about a study that examines the advantages of working from home. But most of all I rejoiced at the mere existence of this study because I can use it and show it to the organizations that have policies for working offsite but also admit that they generally don’t allow people to do so because how could they possibly know they were really working. After all, for whatever reason, this study did show that people who work from home tend to work more.

We need to shatter prevalent but dated ideas of what an acceptable way of working is as well as where it is appropriate to work. But we also need to get better at measuring the quality of work achievements and not just the quantity of the hours put it. By focusing on quality and not so much on quantity we don’t have to be so suspicious of and constantly monitor employees and their use of their time. We can allow and perhaps even encourage them to work wherever they feel they want and need to work, and if I’m any indicator, that might just have a huge impact on the quality of their work, their quality of life, and their wellbeing.

Imagining it is the first step towards change

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I was at lunch the other day with two good friends of mine, and over sushi we had a conversation about what is considered an acceptable way to work – acceptable not only by society or according to organizational norms, but what we ourselves consider acceptable. We talked about how this may hold us back from creating a lifestyle that we truly want and can live with.

In organizational culture, there is a relatively narrow view of what a good or successful career path looks like. Mainstream careers are still quite linear and as an employee you are expected to be committed, constantly available, and to want to advance according to a certain pattern and timetable. I, as well as others, have argued that the career models that prevail in organizations today haven’t really kept up and don’t necessarily correspond to how contemporary individuals want to work, nor do they accommodate our needs.

However, talking to my friends made me realize that, not only do prevalent career models and working cultures hold us back, we also do it ourselves. A person may opt out of a certain job or lifestyle that isn’t working for him or her, simply to opt back in to more of the same because we have been taught, and are conditioned to believe that we need to follow certain norms and ways of working. We may feel guilty or pressured by this hectic culture in which we live to follow these norms, instead of investing time, and perhaps money, in creating the lifestyle that we really want. We need to allow ourselves to slow down, even when we are expected to rush off and be busy, in order to create the new lifestyle we want.

In her book Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg, talks about how people are individually responsible for setting a pace at work that they can live with. She says you need to just say no if it’s too much, because your employer won’t. Your employer will always ask for more. I have argued that it can’t only be the employee’s responsibility; the employer must also take responsibility for not working their people into the ground. Not everyone is as senior and established as Sandberg, and saying no may feel like a big risk.

But Sheryl Sandberg also has a point. Maybe it isn’t only the outdated, and for many people inadequate, career models that are holding us back from leading lives that are balanced and that give us energy. Maybe it’s also us. We’re so conditioned to work in a certain way – to have a certain work ethic – that it’s hard to break out of that pattern. However, there is hope.

According to philosopher and social theorist Cornelius Castoriadis (and his work on the social imaginary), people have a capacity to imagine something new that does not already exist in society. And if you can imagine it, you have already enabled the change. So that’s what we need to do. We need to continue imagining what our lives should be like, and then ignore possible inner voices that tell us that it isn’t good enough.