Norms and Practices

Getting the best from norms and practices requires a different focus to most daily work. Norms and practices are embedded in the two key attributes of an organisation, its technical content and its organisational context.

Organisations have a technical content, which is about the knowledge, skills, resources, systems and actions they use to produce their products and services. The technical content of a construction firm lies in engineering, project management, tender submissions, safety and contract management. For a restaurant the technical content would include hygiene, customer service, safety, food handling, hospitality and many other skills. All organisations have corporate technical content, dealing with human resources, finance, communication, legal, marketing and governance. The technical content is part of what makes an organisation unique, locates it in a sector and creates its products and services.

The organisational context is how the organisation, specifically the people in it, thinks, feels, processes, learns, engages issues and opportunities or avoids them. No matter how high the quality is of its technical content, the organisational context will enhance or diminish the performance of the organisation.

It is tempting to just focus on the technical content. It is very important, obvious, usually measurable and at arms length. The organisational context involves our feelings, relationships, egos, rivalries, corporate politics, status and reputations. Engaging these can be personally confronting. It requires maturity, respect, open mindedness, tolerance and a willingness to learn and relinquish existing convictions and comfortable assumptions.

The link between wellbeing and productivity is important if an organisation is to rise to its potential. It is not a simple line, as an unnuanced approach to either wellbeing or productivity can generate adverse results. There are a couple of factors to consider.

Proximity to customers

It seems that the closer a group is to directly serving customers the more straightforward is the link between wellbeing and productivity. While the causes for this need further research, it may be as simple as their frame of mind and presence has a direct impact on customers and vice versa. This then influences the customer's experience and the team's drive to perform. This in turn influences how productive the business unit can be, in terms of time spent managing customers, their satisfaction, ongoing customer behaviour and the reputation of the product or service.

Alternatively, the further a group is from direct customer service the more complex the issues are around the link between wellbeing and productivity. In some instances wellbeing increases productivity and in others it doesn't. Again more research is needed. It may be that the absence of a customer directly asserting the need to create value makes this group more reliant on other drivers to promote value focussed activity. Without this driver it may end up creating a comfortable but underperforming workspace, which appears like wellbeing in the short term but in the long term puts the group and organisation at risk. Lower performance creates the risk of financial problems, downsizing, divestment or even closure of a business.


Translating known wellbeing drivers into the workplace

Fortunately, there has been a lot of research, both through data analysis and laboratory experiments, that identify contributing factors for promoting wellbeing. What is needed is a straightforward way to apply these findings to workplaces and organisations in a programmatic way.

The Positive Teams framework was developed through us to meet this need. It takes the research and addresses how it can function in an organisational setting. This enables organisations to promote wellbeing and productivity through a whole of organisational program or as a particular intervention to boost a particular team.

Supervisors are the engine room of leadership in organisations. They translate strategies and plans into work programs. They are the face of leadership to people. Their proximity people enables targeted, complex and responsive conversations about their work. Without effective supervisors executives could achieve nothing.

Unfortunately supervisors are not always effective. To highlight this, some of the evidence coming out of factories that are now using robotic supervisors indicates that, in some cases, staff prefer the robot to the human supervisor. The robot doesn't have grudges, favourites and personality flaws. If the algorithms are well written, the robot is impartial, fair, focused on learning and a problem solver.

Most workplaces are not ready or suited to robotic supervisors so, for now, human supervisors will continue to be very important.

It is important to explore what happens throughout the organisation. This includes the different roles people have, the levels of responsibility and the opportunities that exist for enhancing performance.

The Performance Panel is a framework for exploring the different functions of a organisation, team or role. It looks at how they enrich the organisation, its investors and customers. It focuses on how they engage key stakeholders and demonstrate results. And it helps them to set their direction and mobilise to be productive.

These responsibilities vary with roles and levels. The way an executive engages customers is very different to how the front counter shop assistant does. But how well they engage is important in both roles. When looking at the norms and practices in an organisation and how they contribute to its success, it is important to do this at all levels, recognising the different issues that go with each role.

Organisations fall into habits. Some are healthy, some not. Some that started out as useful have become unhelpful as circumstances change. They no longer match what is needed.

People tend to fall into culutral practices through different pathways. Some key ones are:

1. Imprinted patterns - A way of doing things is imprinted into our minds. Some core patterns were imprinted during our infancy. It is a pattern of thinking, feeling and behaviours that has become fully automatic. In workplaces, a common point of imprinting comes from our first adult job and the way our peers and boss behaved. That experience can set up patterns that follow us for life. In an organisation with a long history, these imprints can be handed down through generations of employees.
   
   
2. Reflex compliance and conformity - Another way culture is adopted is the drive within us to conform to what is normal. As we enter an organisation we spot cues and seek information that tell us how to behave. Not fitting in is generally an uncomfortable experience so people tend to become quite skilled at picking up the cues and adapting their behaviours automatically.
   
   
3. Decision and training - A conscious way of adopting cultural practices is to make a decision to adopt a way of thinking or acting and then to train ourselves to do it. An obvious time this is done is when going to deal with a customer who comes from a different national culture, for example, an age care provider with an new resident. They learn some key practices and adopt them when dealing with the person. For organisations, a common example is the choice to adopt a particular customer service strategy, a health and safety system, or a quality assurance process. Decisions and training can be useful in a whole range of other organisational performance areas as well.