Latest posting I’m intrigued by the idea of organising a conference that deliberately sets out to be boring. Apparently when James Ward staged his Boring 2011 conference in London recently, it was a sell-out. There were sessions on bar codes, electric hand dryers, the first ten years of Which? magazine and Budgens - Crouch End. However, according to the reports I have read, the conference was a failure because it wasn’t boring! However hard the speakers tried, the audience paid rapt attention to their every word and even laughed at their jokes.

Perhaps blatantly advertising in advance that something is going to be boring, is the way to ensure that it isn’t. If I had gone to James Ward’s conference, I’d be stubbornly determined not to be bored and, the harder someone tried to bore me, the more resistant I’d become. There must be a lesson here for every conference organiser; promise it’s going to be boring and it won’t be!

I wonder whether anything is inherently boring? When you feel bored does it mean that the subject or person (or both) is actually boring? Haven’t you noticed that things you don’t find interesting always, without exception, have devotees? For example, I’m not at all interested in German Lieder but Wigmore Hall is regularly packed with people who happily pay to listen to it and applaud each rendition with genuine enthusiasm (I know because my wife loves it).

I have been to plenty of meetings and conferences where I have succumbed to feelings of boredom (on occasions I have even fallen asleep!), but I have always assumed I brought this upon myself by lowering my guard and failing to be purposeful. When I attend a conference determined to learn something new and/or to identify a couple of useful actions, my resolve keeps any feelings of boredom at bay.

One of my grandchildren often says he’s bored, the implication being that I am to blame. What he is really saying is; ‘you are boring me’. This, of course, is regrettable; I would much prefer that he was fascinated by reminiscences about my schooldays in the 1950s, in the days of chalk and blackboards, where we learnt our times tables by heart and were caned if we were caught not wearing our school caps in town. Absolutely riveting stuff - as I’m sure you agree. Anyway, when my grandson tells me he is bored, I remind myself (not him, that would be too much!) that he has to learn to take responsibility for his feelings and that if he is bored it doesn’t follow that I am boring. So, I simply say, ‘Oh dear. What are you going to do about it?’. This, by the way, is such an infuriating thing to be asked, especially by the person you are convinced is boring you, that any feelings of boredom instantly evaporate. Works like a charm.

My conclusion is this; you might feel bored, but nothing is boring. Not even this blog! Fancy joining me to watch some paint dry?
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I have been reflecting on the impossibility of people in senior positions really knowing what is going on in their organisations. Apparently James Murdoch didn’t know the extent of phone hacking in News International and Teresa May didn’t know the extent to which immigration checks had been relaxed by the UK Border Agency. Clearly, there are people who doubt their claims that they weren’t told and, at the time of writing, it remains to be seen whether they are being economical with the truth – but I don’t find it in the least surprising.

Senior people are always vulnerable because they have to depend on other people to keep them in the picture. It is inevitable that the information they receive will be laundered and selective. This is even a hazard in small companies where it should be easier for the boss to know what is going on from first hand observation. I was once astonished when a member of my team handed in their notice claiming that the atmosphere in the office had become intolerable. I have two excuses for being blissfully unaware of any interpersonal problems. Firstly, I worked in a separate office and, secondly, whenever I mingled, everything was sweetness and light. Even the disgruntled employee put on an act. I realise my admission to have been taken by surprise by the sudden resignation leaves me open to accusations that I was distant, insensitive and easily hoodwinked. But that is the whole point. If I, the manager of an SME, could so easily be misled, how much more likely is it that the boss of a large enterprise will be out of touch with what is really going on?

I once knew a CEO of a large bank – let’s call him Alex – who, in common with many senior managers of his age and background, harboured a deep-seated dread of losing control. Of course, the bank was too big for Alex to be everywhere, keeping an eye on everything personally, so he invented ‘Skip Level Meetings’. Each week, Alex would visit a different part of the bank and hold an informal hour-long session with a group of staff a couple of levels below him in the hierarchy. The immediate managers of the selected group were excluded from the meeting to maximise uninhibited participation by their staff. There was no agenda – just an ‘anything goes’, off the record, question and answer session.

Alex was convinced these gatherings would, at least partially, solve the problem of how to keep in touch. However, once the staff had recovered from the initial shock of finding themselves face to face with the CEO, they soon cottoned on to the sort of things he wanted to hear; some relatively harmless examples about lack of attention to detail, some vague complaints about inadequate communications, some grumbling about poor response times from the IT department, and some mild criticisms of pay and conditions.

Alex, however, was very pleased with the process. As far as he was concerned, Skip Level Meetings were keeping him in touch and successfully circumventing the filters put in place by two or more levels of management. After each meeting, Alex summoned the relevant management team to feedback his findings and leave them in no doubt that things had to improve.

Predictably, managers in the bank below Alex (in other words, all the managers!) were very wary of Skip Level Meetings. They resented being excluded and dreaded the reprimands that inevitably followed in the wake of each meeting. Soon managers began to rehearse their staff, where questions and answers (particularly answers) were practised over and over until the manager was satisfied that the right ‘everything-is-under-control’ impression was being conveyed. Unbeknown to Alex, hours were spent in rehearsals – hours that could otherwise have been productive.

Alex, however, just like me, was convinced he was in touch!

Comments [1] I have been reading extracts from Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. Jobs, generally credited with being a genius, sounds as if he was the boss from hell. Apparently he had unpredictable mood swings, a propensity for pinching other people’s ideas and claiming them as his own, and an unrelenting drive for perfectionism. I never met him (a narrow escape!) so I have to assume that what Apple employees told Isaacson is a fair reflection of what it was actually like to work with him on a daily basis. At the very least, Jobs was certainly an eccentric and I confess to having a soft spot for managers who are out of the ordinary (see my blog of 1 July 2008, ‘Where have all the eccentrics gone?’

And today I read Sir Jimmy Savile’s obituary; another eccentric bites the dust. Years ago, in his early days as a disc jockey with Radio Luxembourg, I interviewed him for a university magazine. Even then, in 1959, before Top of the Pops and long before Jim’ll Fix It, it was obvious that I was in the presence of an extraordinary man. Even though we had not met before, he treated me like a long lost friend, offered me a cigar, gave flippant answers to absolutely everything, sussed out that my name spelt ‘phoney’, was impossibly hyper-active and, when the interview was over, insisted on dropping me off at my hall of residence in his Rolls Royce.

I have encountered many eccentrics over the years:
• The senior manager who, when frustrated, would feed countless pencils, one after the other, into the jaws of a battery-driven pencil sharpener.
• The HR director who had - just had - to win every argument, however trivial and unnecessary, regardless of the consequences. He once got into an argument about the inventor of the trapless china water closet. He insisted it was Thomas Crapper when in fact it turned out to be Thomas Twyford in 1885 (I just thought you’d like to know, in case it ever comes up in a pub quiz).
• The entrepreneur who used to ban the use of words like ‘strategy’ and ‘vision’ when people couldn’t agree their precise meaning (which was surprisingly often).
• The general manager of a manufacturing plant who roamed the plant at night (he had an unhappy marriage) leaving post-it notes on everything that wasn’t to his liking (most things).

I remember them all rather fondly. Of course, they drove their colleagues mad but to me, an outside consultant who could come and go (especially go), they were a delight. But, bearing in mind these are senior people, often with handsome remuneration packages, and with considerable power to influence things for better or worse, should we turn a blind eye to their eccentricities? On balance, do you think eccentric bosses are harmful or harmless?
Comments [1] I read a fascinating article recently by Mark Griffiths, professor of gambling studies at Nottingham Trent University, about workaholics (Workaholism: a 21st-century addiction), Professor Griffiths describes six characteristics that he believes to be typical of workaholics:

• Work is the single most important activity in the workaholics’s life
• Working gives workaholics positive emotions (for example, a ‘buzz’, escape from problems)
• Workaholics need to ‘up the dose’ by increasing the hours they work each day
• When unable to work, workaholics experience withdrawal symptoms (for example, irritability)
• Working long hours brings workaholics into conflict with others (for example, colleagues, partners, friends)
• ‘Reformed’ workaholics easily slip back into their old behaviour patterns.

These characteristics, you’ll have noticed, are typical of addicts. It is just that in this case working is the addiction, not tobacco, alcohol or drugs (though, of course, a workaholic might also be addicted to those). Excessive working, for example up to 14 hours a day, does not necessarily mean that the person is addicted to work. What matters is the extent to which excessive working is, ultimately, self-destructive and has negative consequences on other areas of the person’s life.

The big question for me is the old chestnut of whether workaholics are born or made. Griffiths is careful to point out that any addiction always results from a mixture of factors, some to do with the individual’s predispositions and personality, and others to do with circumstances, including the intrinsic attractiveness of work itself.

Over the years I have encountered many workaholics (my wife even accused me of being one when, she caught me writing on holiday), obsessed with work, compulsively checking their emails, assuming that everyone is happy to work the same hours they do, making work-related phone calls unacceptably early in the morning or late at night, quick to condemn non-workaholics as wimps..... and all the rest of it.

Clearly, individuals, not whole organisations, become workaholics, but what is it about the culture of an organisation that triggers and reinforces this sort of addiction? Learnt behaviours only flourish when they are rewarded. Since people tend to abandon, albeit slowly and reluctantly, behaviours that don’t result in some sort of payoff, it follows that workaholics must be getting plenty of positive outcomes as a result of their excessive working.

Have you got people who work excessively in your organisation and how many of them do you suspect are true workaholics – in other words, actually addicted to working? What is it that your organisation is doing, wittingly or unwittingly, to aid and abet excessive working? Should you care?Comments [3]
I have just returned from two weeks in Egypt where we were actively encouraged to use an anti-bacterial hand gel after we had touched, well, virtually anything. The label on the bottle assured us that 99.9 per cent of germs would be killed within 15 seconds.

Egypt, famous for pyramids and traveller’s tummy, is full of hazards not least numerous impromptu thank you ceremonies where our Egyptian helpers would line up to receive a well earned tip and an appreciative handshake. There were also many encounters with street traders and small children who, keen to earn small change, would rush to take our hands and guide us as we balanced precariously on unstable gangplanks and/or struggled in and out of 4X4s in a bid to examine yet more hieroglyphics and/or 5,000 year old graffiti (more politely known as rock art).

Fortunately, the frequent hand gel routine seemed to do the trick; no upset tummies – not even from the 0.1 per cent of germs the hand gel apparently could not reach. But I must admit that every time I clasped a grateful, outstretched hand, I remembered that the Queen, a professional hand-shaker, always wears gloves.

And now I see that a leading scientist, Nathan Wolfe, a virologist at Stanford University, has written a book, ‘The Viral Storm’, in which she explains how contact between hands is responsible for transmitting microbes at high speed and spreading diseases. This is serious stuff, aiding and abetting not only the spread of influenza but, far more dangerous, pandemics that can wipe out millions of people worldwide.

It occurs to me that HR is a profession where lots of hand shaking is implicit in the job description. All those hopeful job applicants to meet and greet; all that well wishing of people taking early retirement; all that comforting of people being made redundant; all those meetings with trade union reps... the list is endless. But what is the alternative to all that hand shaking? High fives clearly won’t do since hands still come into contact – albeit fleetingly. Touching noses is unlikely to catch on. The answer, according to Nathan Wolfe, is to switch to ‘safe shaking’ where elbows, instead of hands, briefly touch.

Perhaps HR should take the lead in promoting elbow touching? Surely a heaven sent opportunity to be seen to do our bit to save the human race? Either that or you need to put in a large order for bottles of hygienic hand gel.
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I read with great interest that a recent study by Unicef has concluded that parents and their children are locked into a ‘compulsive consumption cycle’. It found that British families often co-exist under the same roof, rather than sharing time and space together, and that children have ‘media bedsits’ with their own TV, internet and games consoles.

The contrast with my own childhood is staggering – but of course it would be, with my childhood happening such a long time ago! Quite understandably, my grandchildren have no real comprehension of what it was like to be a teenager in the 1950s. Lots of things that are taken for granted today simply did not exist. For example, there were no:

• Mobile phones, Ipads, Blackberries, CDs, DVDs
• Computers, emails, the world wide web, search engines, computer games
• Ball point pens (we used pens you dipped into ink wells)
• Jeans, trainers, denim clothing
• Plastic toys
• Obese people
• Dishwashers, microwave ovens (and very few washing machines/fridges)
• Gyms, health clubs, exercise bikes (and very few swimming pools)
• Supermarkets, plastic bags, teabags, bottled water and packaging
• Fast food outlets
• Sunday opening of anything - except churches
• Motorways, traffic jams, sat navs, speed cameras, parking problems
• Major concerns about drug abuse (except for tobacco and alcohol)
• F words (bloody was the worst swear word)
• Men doing housework or childcare
• Single parents, cohabitation (there must have been – but it wasn’t obvious)
• Vandalism and graffiti.

There were also very few televisions. We didn’t have a TV at all throughout my teens and when we did acquire one it was self-conscious, masquerading as a cabinet with doors that opened to reveal the small screen that showed flickering pictures in black and white. Neither did we have central heating which, certainly in the winter, meant that the family was forced to spend time together in the only room that had any heating; a coal fire. Spending time alone in a cold, spartan bedroom was unthinkable. As a teenager I had lots of freedom with endless, unsupervised hours out in the open. I built dens, rode my bicycle everywhere, swam in rivers (I learnt to swim the Thames) and the sea.

So, my life as a teenager has few parallels with that of my grandchildren. But are things worse for kids today, or just utterly different?

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I was amused to read that some ministers propose to offer themselves as mentors to workless families. I don’t doubt the usefulness of mentoring, but I find it hard to imagine well-heeled ministers establishing a working rapport with dysfunctional families.

Some years ago, I participated in a conference about reaching ‘hard to reach’ learners. The focus was on youngsters who, alienated by their formal education, had no qualifications and no job, indulged in petty crime, got into trouble with the law and so on.

At the conference there were a number of keynote speakers with impressive track records working in deprived areas with ‘unreachables’. Nearly all of them started their session by announcing that they had come from a working class background and were brought up on a rough urban estate. They had been bored at school, got expelled, joined violent street gangs, got into drugs and prostitution and went to jail.

Eventually they had seen the error of their ways, started to study, got some GCSEs, progressed to A levels, went on to university and got a degree. They were now ‘giving something back’ by working with disadvantaged kids, helping them to improve their self-esteem.

As I listened to the descriptions of work these dedicated people were doing with alienated, angry young people, I found myself wondering if coming from a disadvantaged background was an essential qualification. Could someone like me ever be capable of really reaching out in the ‘been there, done that’ ways the speakers espoused?

I was born into a white, middle class family. My parents were supportive, I never played truant and I progressed though my education in relatively easy stages. I have never been out of work, or on benefits, and I do not have a criminal record. In other words, just like most ministers (even the ones who boast that they come from working-class backgrounds) I’ve had it easy.

No, I think the best I can do is acknowledge my inability to actively help the so-called ‘hard to reach’. The best I can do is be supportive from the side-lines and I recommend ministers do the same.

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Are comparisons odious or helpful? I was interested to read reports (since glossed over) that Sir Hugh Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, had resented the suggestion that they could learn from the experience of former US police commissioner Bill Bratton, who is particularly well known for implementing zero tolerance policing. However, zero tolerance is only part of the story.

Even more important is Bill Bratton’s insistence that the police must break out of a ‘blue cocoon’ (where they only ever mix with their own kind) and the emphasis he places on information as the key to crime reduction. In other words, Bill Bratton is a keen advocate of learning. He might not describe himself as a champion of learning, but I do.

Even if Bill Bratton’s approach to policing wasn’t all it is cracked up to be, there would presumably be much to learn by comparing the methods used by police in England with those used by police in America. The worst that could happen from an honest comparison is that we emerge convinced that we are already doing the right things and have nothing further to learn. It is far more likely that a comparison of methods would be helpful to both parties.

I have first-hand experience of people resisting an invitation to learn from ‘outsiders’. A while ago, when my publishing company was stuck in the doldrums with virtually the same turnover for a number of years, I had the idea of inviting a colleague to come and conduct a ‘fresh pair of eyes’ review.

The colleague in question had a good track record at helping small businesses to grow, but knew nothing about our publishing or our niche market. I saw this as a plus. He knew about growing small businesses and we knew our products inside out and the way we promoted them. Put all this knowledge together and it could lead to a breakthrough, or, more probably, to some significant tweaks to our practices.

I floated the idea of inviting in a fresh pair of eyes at a team meeting and met with staunch resistance: ‘He knows nothing about publishing, what could we learn from him?’; ‘He doesn’t understand our target audience’; ‘The businesses he has helped aren’t the same as ours’; ‘We’ve been doing this for years, what can he suggest that we haven’t already tried?’. Eventually I sold them the exercise on the basis of suck it and see. I argued that if we drew a blank it would only have cost us a few days worth of fees, and some time, and they could enjoy saying ‘I told you so’.
 
As it happens, the consultant came up with a couple of helpful ideas that we successfully adapted and implemented. But even if he hadn’t, I still think the opportunity to compare our practices with those of the other businesses he had worked with was worthwhile. But then, I’m a learning junkie so I would say that wouldn’t I?

Do you seize opportunities to learn from comparisons? Do you benchmark your practices? Or do you believe that comparisons are odious?

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I’m a psychologist and people expect me to have something sensible to say about the recent bout of rioting and looting. In particular, they want me to explain why people chose to behave in such a vicious, lawless fashion and, preferably, to come up with a neat solution with which they agree. Not surprisingly, they are underwhelmed when I say things like:

1. There will be multiple causes, not one single factor, calling for multiple remedies. There are no quick fixes. As a matter of interest, I decided to note all the "causes" cited by the panel in the specially convened Question Time, chaired by David Dimbleby. I ended up with a list of 18 (and I may have missed some).

2. This is not a new phenomenon. For example, in London during the Blitz there were thousands of incidents of opportunist looting on businesses and homes already damaged by fire. Much of the looting was carried out by young kids armed with knives and guns.

3. When people are caught up in crowds, they do things they would not normally do. Crowd behaviour is infectious, irrational and motiveless. So, for example, crowds thrive on the high of immediate gratification and don’t concern themselves with consequences.

4. External situations have a massive impact on human behaviour. Any of us, caught up in a lawless situation where anything goes, is capable of appalling acts of selfishness.

5. Punishing people by sending them to prison will not solve anything. Prison makes most people worse as reconviction rates testify (for people serving 12 months or less, the reconviction rate is 59 per cent). Restorative justice offers the most hope.

The other day, a friend told me she thought the solution was to "bring back national service". When I said, despite benefiting hugely from national service myself, that it would be a very expensive exercise, an unwelcome distraction for our overstretched forces, and that inflicting institutional bullying on youngsters, already alienated by their experience of compulsory education, would probably make matters worse, she obviously wrote me off as a hopeless wet.

So now you know – if you didn’t before – why psychologists don’t run the country.


Further info

Peter Honey is a trustee of the Prisoners' Education Trust, a small charity that offers over 2,000 prisoners a year the chance to do a distance learning course while they are locked up. Education is a big factor in reducing reoffending, meaning fewer victims of crime and big savings for taxpayers (it costs approximately £40,000 a year to keep someone in prison). 

You can support the charity by buying one of Peter Honey's watercolours - 100 per cent of the cost goes to the Prisoners' Education Trust.




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Getting to the roots of the riots, PM blog

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I assume Ed Miliband wanted to be photographed carrying a pile of books that he intends to read while on holiday in Devon. There are messages here: paper-based books are not dead; holidays – especially in Devon where it is likely to rain – provide splendid reading opportunities; reading books is a good thing, but I’m so busy doing other stuff that the only time I can catch up is while on holiday; and my holiday reading is so important that I can’t trust anyone else to pack my books.

I also assume that by carrying most of the books with the titles clearly visible, Ed Miliband wanted us to know the subject matter – in this case, leadership, economics, sustainable development, election campaigns, and the like. More messages: I like weighty tomes, my reading list is more impressive than David Cameron’s, and there is much to be learnt by reading serious books.

Ed Miliband has gone up in my estimation. As the author of a number of management books, I have always been appalled by the way the great and the good, for example, captains of industry, are disparaging about reading books on, say, leadership.

When asked whether they read management books, the answer, invariably, is a dismissive 'No'. When I was busy promoting my latest management book, I sent copies to various people I knew. For example, I sent a copy to Digby Jones (now Lord Jones of Birmingham) when he was director-general of the CBI. Soon after, in a column in The Times, I was appalled to read that he claimed not to read management books. I wrote to him suggesting that he should have seized the moment and said: ‘I don’t often read management books, but at present I’m reading the latest book by Peter Honey and finding it very enjoyable and useful. So much so, that I’m going to recommend it to all our members.’ Not surprisingly, there was no reply!

I also sent a copy to Sir John Bond, then chairman of HSBC. He wrote back a polite letter – but it was the very next day, so I knew he couldn’t have read the book (unless, of course, he is an accomplished speed-reader). His letter said, ‘Thank you for your book; I wish you had written it earlier in my career! I hope your book will be a great success.’ I thanked him, suggesting that, since he was going to become the next chairman of Vodafone, I had probably sent it to him in the nick of time. No reply!

I also sent a copy to Justin King, group chief executive at Sainsbury’s, since the last story in my book is about a bad-tempered Sainsbury's manager. Impertinently, I suggested my book should be essential reading for all the Sainsbury managers. He wrote back saying, ‘Thanks for your letter and the book. I have to confess I am not a diligent reader of books!’ Wrong reply!

So, well done, Ed Miliband. I might even suggest he takes my book with him when next he has a holiday.

Do senior executives in your organisation read books? Is there any evidence that they benefit?

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