Marie-Hélène Budworth

Next week I will be running focus groups on the experience of Generation Y women in the workplace.  In particular, we are interested in hearing from young women today about their perspectives on executive work, the glass  ceiling, and career success.  I will share some of the ideas that are initiated by those discussions once they develop.

I am interested in generational issues in general.  Actually, it is not the generations that I am interested exactly.  I am really curious about how the varying skill sets, often defined by age, impact a person’s life experience.  For instance, the folks who are in their early 20s right now grew up with the internet. That means that at every point in their education, they had unprecedented access to information.  What does this mean for their attitudes towards development?  How do they view their careers?  There are a number of folks who are starting to write about these issues, but the area of research is not yet well developed.  I plan on exploring these ideas a bit more in the coming months.

I spent the last two days delivering workshops to exceptional women in Toronto and Montreal.  The title of the sessions was ‘The Art of Relationship Management.’  I directed the talks around social networking and negotiations.  I was very pleased with the level of engagement and interest these topics attracted.  I am certain that each will independently become the topic of a Blog in the coming weeks. However, today I want to explore my observations during these workshops. 

A day later, I am left reflecting on the process of facilitating workshops on these topics with two very different groups of women.  In Montreal, we had a very small and relatively young group of people.  They were all advancing quickly in their careers and most were very self-assured.  In Toronto, there was a much larger group and a blend of ages and career stages.

In Montreal, our discussion about social networking was all about media.  In fact, in that group, it would not have been possible to have a discussion of social networking without a focus on the media that we use to create networks today.  We discussed Linkedin and Facebook extensively.  This group viewed their network as being defined by the software that was used to organize it.  Linkedin was used to organize their professional networking and Facebook was used to organize their personal networking.  In Toronto, no one mentioned media until about an hour into the discussion and once it was mentioned, it was not picked up by the group as an important feature of networking.  The explanation could be generational – Montreal was somewhat younger; it could be size of the group – Montreal was smaller and so their lifestyles had more opportunity to converge and be similar to one another.  I doubt that either of these observations alone is enough to explain the enormous difference in direction between these two discussions.  It is something I will have to continue to consider.

I want to offer a thanks to all of the woman who participated in these sessions over the past two days.  It is so very motivating to spend time with such confident, interesting, and intelligent woman.

Today was the first day on campus at York University.  Each year I am reminded of how long ago I first began my undergraduate studies.  When I first starting teaching, I used to be mistaken for a student; now there is no question among my students.  I am no longer one of them.  I do not have the same vocabulary, values, abilities, or interests.  

One of the most striking shifts that has occurred on university campuses over the last decade is the prevalence of the use of technology for communication and social connection.  I am amazed at how much our students share information using technology.  The connection with one another and access to the internet, of course, has given our students unprecedented access.  I know this is not news to anyone, but I think it has important implications for learning and development that we are yet to explore.  I am particularly interested in how individuals who are so proficient at independent research will function under traditional models of learning and development within organizations.  I am curious about what types of developmental opportunities will be interesting to them and which ones they will value.  How do we develop employees that are about to rushed into the workforce en masse?

I just returned from a week of holidays with my young family.  I brought my laptop, smartphone, and oodles of work related reading with me.  I made it through almost none of it.  My kids are at pretty demanding ages; they needed my attention so I gave it to them.  The result – I slept well, I was calm, focussed, and happy.  We returned home yesterday to a pile of mail and dozens of voice messages.  Last night I slept in my bed for the first time in 7 nights.  I tossed and turned until about 2 am.

My colleague Souha Ezzedeen does work on the psychological preoccupation with work while in other domains.  Work life balance is not simply about disconnecting physically from one’s work commitments.  It is also about disconnecting mentally.  Being in the moment with family, friends, or other passions in life.  In my case, my children are a beautiful and welcome distraction.  They need me so completely that there is often not room for distraction.  When I am at home I find that I often check email or outline a paper in my head while playing with my little ones.  But on vacation, with a limited internet connection, I found that I was able to completely disengage with work and focus on them.

There is a growing debate in practical and scholarly press about the role of technology in work life balance.  The access of the individual worker through email, cell phones, and text messages extends the reach of the employer from the 9-5 hours into personal time.  I used to argue that my smartphone allowed me to take care of small issues before they become significant problems, but my week in the country has made me reconsider.  I would be interested in exploring how people who live a large portion of their lives through technology (e.g., people entering the workplace today) feel about the connection/disconnection from work.

The media has been all over the decision made by Statistics Canada to eliminate the long form census.  There are ample political considerations that can be debated elsewhere, but there are some basic statistical concerns with the decision.  

1. Making a survey voluntary

As much as possible, individuals from whom data is collected should be selected at random from within a population.  If they are selected in any other way, there is danger that the individuals completing the survey will have more to do with each other than they do with the population at large.  Individuals who volunteer to complete the survey will likely have a few things in common.  For example, they may have the time to complete the survey – a luxury not afforded to all.  They also might also be more likely to have higher levels of education and understand the value of the survey, or hold certain beliefs about the authority of government and therefore feel compelled to complete the survey.  In terms of the data, it means that people with similar values, ideas, impressions will complete the survey and therefore the data will represent the ideas of a few rather than the whole population.  In the media, the focus has been on response rate.  This is short sighted.  Even if a large volume of people respond, they might not be representative of you or me.

2. Longitudinal data

The long from census has been used in similar forms repeatedly.  If questions are altered significantly or the way in which the data is collected changes significantly, the data can no longer be compared to data that was collected previously.  At present, we can ask questions such as ‘how has the population in the Waterloo region changed in the last 15 years – demographically, economically etc.?’  Once we change our methods, important comparisons are no longer possible.  

In statistical terms, the decision to scarp the long from census is problematic.  If we care about the information that it provided and found it useful in developing programs, advertising, services communities, and planning for schools, the new data will no longer allow us to do that with the same certainly or accuracy.

I am heading to Montreal for the Academy of Management conference.  I will be away until late next week.  I will fill you in on all of the interesting things that I see and learn when I get back.

Most of us find the Apple business model intriguing.  There are few organizations that have managed to come up with such revolutionary developments at such a fast and consistent pace.  I spent some time in an Apple store today.  The iPhone 4G had just been released.  I was struck not by the pace of innovation or the appeal of the modern, well designed store, but by the people in the blue shirts.  The happy, excited people who seemed just as exuberant to sell the iPhone 4G to the 100th customer of the day as the customer felt to open the box and break open the new toy.  What is it about Apple that makes retail sales so ‘chic’ and appealing?  How do they motivate their staff to push through some of the toughest sales situations on record?

At the core, it appears as though the retail salespeople truly believe that the Apple products are the best on the market.  They seem just as impressed, if not more so, by the new gadgets and applications.  The organization has done an excellent job of recruiting individuals who love this stuff and then managed to keep them excited about the new products.  This is a perfect example of matching Human Resource Practices to the strategic imperatives of the business. When they hire salespeople, Apple might ask if you can sell products, but they are just as likely to ask ‘do you love innovative stuff?’

A second key factor is the culture that has been created at Apple.  While Steve Jobs has sometimes been portrayed as a demanding boss, he has always managed the company with a clear message – ‘we make innovative technology that real people can use – and look good doing it‘  Every employee in the organization knows how to do their job.  They have a direct message from the big boss telling them what they need to achieve – ‘make innovative technology that real people can use.‘  To the designer that means ‘make a sleek, attractive product using cutting edge technology.‘ To the retail store clerk, it means ‘show people that using this stuff is intuitive.‘  And indeed, it is.  The stars are aligned for Apple at the moment.  They have great products, excellent service, and a loyal market.  This stuff sells itself.  If I was one of the folks in the blue shirts I would be laughing all the way to my employee discount.

I have been focussed on performance evaluation today.  In practice they are important for administrative reasons (documenting performance, assigning merit increases etc.) and employee development.  One of the main factors that interferes with the effectiveness of the appraisal is justice.  Does the employee believe that the procedures used to evaluate and the outcome of the evaluation are fair and unbiased?  Unfortunately, the answer to this question is often ‘no.’  Research has found that perceptions of justice affect how an individual interprets the information they receive within their evaluation, often making the feedback ineffective.  While research has been focussed on identifying the source of the problem (e.g., rating inaccuracy, problems with the scales, rater bias), less effort has been made in identifying methods for enhancing performance.  Any solution is going to have to address the main drawbacks of feedback – the potential damage that negative feedback can have on performance and the potential of feedback to demotivate, rather than motivate, employees.  

Avi Kluger has pioneered work on a technique called feedforward.  This technique encourages managers to focus on future performance rather than past mistakes.  It moves away from a remedial model of performance management to a developmental model; a focus on strengths rather than weaknesses.  In part, it is based on the premise that people do not know what to do with negative feedback.  Even in cases when they are given some direction for improvement, it can be difficult to internalize the direction.  Similar to when you receive negative information from a physician, it becomes difficult to focus on treatment when the news itself is difficult to hear.  Feedforward works around these types of issues. The basic procedure follows.  

In phase 1, the introduction, the interviewee is asked to think only of past positive experiences. In the second phase, the interviewee is asked to tell a story of a particular time at work when he or she felt full of life and energized.  The individual is then asked to identify the “peak” of the story.  In the fourth phase, the interviewer asks the individual to describe the conditions that surrounded this success.  Finally, the feedforward question is asked: “Recall the conditions that allowed you to feel alive at work. Consider these conditions as road signs or a beacon that shows you how to flourish at work. To what extent are your current behaviors at work or your plans for the immediate future taking you closer to, or further away from, the conditions that allowed you to feel full of life at work?”

I am in the process of drafting a manuscript on this topic.  I will post it hear once I have a working paper.