Oct 4, 2022
How much control is needed and appropriate?
Dealing with modern work(place) scenarios
Control by managers always contains a risk of conflict.
On the one hand, employees want to be given the greatest possible freedom, at least this is often claimed by organisations and their management personnel. On the other hand, there is the desire to be involved as early as possible in emerging problems to prevent unnecessary escalation. Unfortunately, the result is usually an unsatisfactory situation for both sides.
How can this be solved better?
Recent events
The topic recently gained renewed attention as an incident went viral on social media. A person from IT leaked a picture. This leak included the announcement that the company, without the knowledge of the employees, runs software in the background on every computer for monitoring. Every ten seconds, a screenshot of the screen is taken and saved. In addition, mouse clicks and keyboard strokes are counted. What these indicators are supposed to tell us about productivity remains the organisation’s secret.
In the comments of that posting, however, there were numerous examples from organisations around the world where the control is carried out in a more subtle but by no means less negatively conspicuous way. Random calls in the morning and afternoon in the Work From Home (WFH) or Work From Anywhere (WFA) scenario, meetings in the morning and late afternoon or evening, forced entries in chats in the morning, evening, before and after breaks — a colourful bouquet of encroachments. All methods have one message in common: we do not trust employees.
Learning opportunities
However, managers do not bear the blame alone, at least not as long as they are not at the highest level of the organisation. There is one question we all have to ask: what has the organisation offered to train, educate and develop leaders in a timely and ongoing manner? If such offers are missing, then increased or high turnover is still to be expected. Nevertheless, there is a difference between whether an untrained mid-level team leader or an executive board member makes a mistake in how they act.
Learning opportunities are important and always require three crucial criteria: voluntariness, (personal) benefit, and transferability of knowledge.
You can therefore also put to rest the myth that compulsory training in fire safety, money laundering or data protection is a learning opportunity. Similarly, training that imparts basic knowledge that must be mastered to do anything at work is not a learning opportunity either.
A learning opportunity begins when people can participate but are not obligated to do so. The knowledge offered must show a high level of (personal) benefit for anyone participating. In the best case, it can even be used privately and is thus deepened even more. The transferability of the knowledge shows that you trust people. You train people even though you know those employees could work with this knowledge in other organisations. This aspect shows trust and strengthens a positive relationship between leaders, employees and the organisation. Therefore, always refrain from submitting a compulsory agreement to stay in the organisation for period X after receiving training Y. By only offering training in return for a signed contract, you do not only destroy a trusting relationship within the organisation. You will even be breaking the law in many countries.
Implementation
To put this into practice, starting with a so-called team relaunch is best. This step was scientifically founded by Richard Hackman (Harvard University), the author of numerous excellent team-building books. We all entered the new working world more or less spontaneously. The pandemic came, and implementations were ad hoc, often without structure. These steps were typical in times of emergency and must by no means be condemned. But now it is time to bring a systematic approach to the team. Take a few days, create an adequate framework, and discuss for which organisational and leadership culture you are aiming. By doing so, you can jointly design well-thought-out framework conditions for future cooperation that are accepted by all through participation. New Work means participation. Do not just talk about it. Live it in your organisation.
More on how best to deal with control
in this week’s podcast: Apple Podcast / Spotify.
Do you care about excellent leadership?
Let’s talk: NB@NB-Networks.com.
