Why some companies buzz with energy – Answers
Answers to the listening exercise, the first set in isolation, the second set in context, according to what you prefer and find more useful.
| 1 only | 11 ensure |
|---|---|
| 2 meaningful | 12 focus |
| 3 extraordinary | 13 about is |
| 4 staffed by | 14 mindset |
| 5 about | 15 co-operative |
| 6 each one of us | 16 reward |
| 7 procedures | 17 flourishes |
| 8 carefully | 18 coached |
| 9 crucial | 19 value |
| 10 arise | 20 each other |
| 21 colleagues | 31 practices |
| 22 enormous | 32 really gets done |
| 23 impact | 33 boundaries |
| 24 anybody who’s | 34 60 |
| 25 for | 35 continuously |
| 26 being | 36 over and over again |
| 27 ridiculous | 37 about |
| 28 of working | 38 guess |
| 29 screening out | 39 spark |
| 30 successful | 40 with |
In context
You only 1 have to go into an organisation to realise how far and how quickly they have changed over the last ten years. There’s a huge challenge around different generations. Generation X, for example, 25-year olds want something different, meaningful 2, interesting. They want to work in a more relaxed way. Many of us will be working until we are over 75 at work and so there are a whole set of interesting challenges around demography. At the same time, the way that we run organisations is completely changed. Think for a moment about Linux, an extraordinary 3 platform that many of us use in our organisations. Remember that Linux is entirely staffed by 4 volunteers, something we wouldn’t have even dreamt about 5 ten years ago.
And where people used to have full-time jobs that they did all the time, more and more of us are working in projects where we come into organisations and go out. What does this mean for each one of us 6? Well, what I’ve seen in my 20 years looking at organisations is that we’re moving increasingly from a command-and-control way of running organisations, where rules are important, where procedures 7 are important, to one much more based on coaching, on relationships, on networks, on conversations, on innovations.
That’s very fascinating to me and over the last four years I’ve really looked carefully 8 at how we can think about our new organisations. What is the new organisational reality and how can organisations respond?
One of the things that I noticed when I started researching on organisations is that sometimes when you go into a company it feels almost like The Big Freeze. You know, people aren’t happy, they’re not talking to each other, they’re not being innovative, their ideas aren’t being communicated. And other times, as soon as you go into a company you can feel a hotspot. People are energised, they’re excited, they’re working on meaningful things, they’re loving working with each other, they feel great. Those hotspots are absolutely crucial 9 and over the last couple of years I’ve looked really carefully at what a hotspot is, why they arise 10 and what each one of us can do to ensure 11 that we create more hotspots in our organisations.
So, what I want to talk about now is to really focus 12 on teams and energy. I want you to think about a time when you’ve been in a hotspot. Think about a time when you’ve felt very excited, when you’ve worked with people on something that you really loved doing; think about how that felt for you, think about what emotions were associated with it. The question I want to ask you to think about is 13, wouldn’t it be great if more of your work was spent in hotspots and less time was spent in The Big Freeze, when you felt uninterested, when you felt as if nothing meaningful was happening in your work?
Now, our research shows that it is actually possible to increase the times when you’re in a hotspot and it’s possible also for organisations to build hotspots. And what I would like to talk about now is how you do that.
One of the first things we found about organisations where hotspots seem to thrive is that they were often places where people had what I’d like to call a co-operative mindset 14, where people felt as if it was okay to co-operate with each other, they felt good about that. They felt as if working with others in a co-operative 15 way was something that was important to them.
Now, the challenge there is many of our companies have become very competitive. They’re built with tournaments, reward 16 systems pit people against each other and it gets very difficult, therefore, to really be co-operative. And these companies that are competitive, tournament-based, really create The Big Freeze. And the question really, I think, for me, and indeed for you, is how do you create an organisation where people feel co-operative? And what we found is there are many things that an organisation can do to create a place where co-operation flourishes 17. For example, you can think about the way that you coach and train people. In fact, our research has shown that the most important human resource practice associated with a co-operative culture is the extent to which people are coached 18 and mentored. So really think about (Ms Gratton makes a mistake here which I’ve corrected) whether you have coaching and mentoring practices in your organisation, do you have means by which people show they value 19 each other 20?
The second thing we found around a co-operative mindset is the way that senior executives behave seems to be absolutely crucial. People watch really carefully what they see senior executives doing and if senior executives behave in a highly uncooperative way, if they’re badmouthing their colleagues 21, if they find it difficult to work co-operatively with others then that rôle model has an enormous 22 impact23 on the rest of the organisation.
So to build a co-operative mindset the first thing you need to do is to think about coaching. The second thing you need to do is to think about the way your senior executives are working with each other and help them and you understand that your behaviour sends out really important rôle models to the rest of the organisation.
There’s one more thing you might want to think about when you’re thinking about building a co-operative mindset, and we saw that at Goldman Sachs. One of the really fascinating things about Goldman Sachs is its recruitment process and anybody 24 who’s been through that recruitment process knows very well what it’s like. Basically, if you apply for 25 a job at Goldman Sachs you can anticipate being 26 interviewed about 40 times. Now, that seems sort of ridiculous 27 on the face of it, but the truth is that what they’re doing at Goldman Sachs, what the executives are doing at Goldman Sachs is that they’re screening out people who are not capable of working 28 with other people and they’re screening out 29 people who are uncooperative. Because Goldman Sachs realise that one of the reasons that they’re as successful 30 as they are is it’s not a company of individuals, it’s a company of relationships and teams. And they begin to find out whether you’re relationship-orientated at the very point in which they’re recruiting you.
So the first thing to develop hotspots is strive to create a co-operative mindset. Think about the culture, think about your practices 31 – particularly coaching – think about the way your senior executives behave, and think about the way that you’re recruiting and training people to be co-operative. And that’s absolutely crucial for a hotspot but it certainly isn’t enough. I mean, you know and can think about times when you’ve been in an organisation which is very co-operative but which, frankly, feels more like a country club – everybody likes each other, they’re all having a lot of fun – but nothing really gets done 32 .
So the second thing that’s really important in a hotspot is that you have to encourage people to work across boundaries 33. Now, why is that so important? Well, our research has shown that when you work with people you know very well, about 60% 34 of what you talk about you’ve already talked about. In a sense you continuously 35 recycle old knowledge. Now actually, that is a good thing if you are people who are real experts and who want to talk about the same thing over and over again 36. But if you want to be innovative then that’s not such a good thing. So to create a hotspot one of the things we found, and you may want to think back to the hotspot that you were thinking about 37, my guess 38 is that often that hotspot came because you met somebody you’d never met before. You need to bring strangers together to spark 39 hotspots. Often the people that you know the most and spend the most time with 40 are not the places and times when hotspots arise.
(One of the things that you need to think about is….)