Next month will see the annual 'take your daughter to work day'.Historically this was launched to encourage girls to consider careers inradically different directions from those traditionally thoughtappropriate for women.
The principle seems sound enough: expose people to a positive experienceand show them something of which they know little or nothing and thiswill help build a positive attitude to work and to career developmentand success.
In work we do little to engage young people in what we do and why we doit. We are keen to engage them as consumers: we want the revenue thattheir custom brings but we are less enthusiastic to expose them to thereality of work and even less so to listen to and take on board theircriticisms of our world.
In fact, on reflection, this might even be a fair criticism of the waywe engage their parents: happy for their opinions and ideas on productsto generate more of their custom; less so with their views on ourethics, working practices and remuneration policies for seniorexecutives. If we, as employers, want to be seen as positivecontributors to society then we need to think differently about how weengage our stakeholders.
As a firm believer in the benefits of employment and in the positivecontribution that the vast majority of us bring to society as employers,I want us to take an active decision to improve levels of engagementinside and outside our organisations. It has long been my contentionthat the principle of better engagement and understanding behind the'take your daughter to work day' needs extending to those of us alreadyin employment. So this column is the beginning of a new nationalcampaign for a 'take yourself to work day.' I am not addressingtraditional absenteeism in this initiative. I want us to address what isoften absent from work: our humanity itself.
In my experience, what goes wrong in organisations starts withinteractions that failed. Whether this is between individuals orindividuals and the group, it is the failure of one party to communicateeffectively, to empathise, to reflect espoused values, to accept realityor reasonable criticism. The reactions are inevitable: from individualbruised egos, hurt feelings and disengagement through to collectivedisagreement and dispute.
At the heart of this is my observation that some of the people we employseem to leave their own personality and its associated values andcapabilities at the entrance of their workplace and mutate into theirorganisational equivalent of the Borg - the emotionless enemy of CaptainPicard in Star Trek, The Next Generation. They make decisions thatignore common sense and put regulation and process ahead of sensitivityand responsiveness. This can appear at any level -which suggests it canbe addressed through leadership. As leaders we want people to makedecisions and interact with others in ways that support a positive viewof the organisation we lead. We want people to think well of us; andeven if we fail to please, we want them to say that we handled it well.The only way we are going to do this is if the majority of people in ourorganisations understand that common sense and empathy for other peopleare the capabilities we most value.
HR can help them: it should set out some clear decision rules in ourorganisations that get people to think through consequences; it shouldrecognise and celebrate those whose application of these capabilitiesinternally or externally have made a difference and, most importantly,should ensure staff check up on each other from time to time. Fromsaying 'thank you' to challenging the inappropriate, we can have asignificant impact on who comes through our door: the person we employedor the automaton who seems to have taken over their job.
Chris Bones is principal at Henley Management College,chris.bones@haymarket.com.
