I Do Like Mondays

I do like Mondays

A summary of a presentation made to the NHS Employers Conference, November 2008.

Professor Derek Mowbray [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

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We spend a very large amount of time at work, sometimes as much as 210 days a year. Over a 24

hours cycle we allocate our time as illustrated, showing that a third of our time is at work, and the

proportion of time not at work, but at leisure, is very small compared to the time we have

available to us.

Hours at work and at home

work

leisure

preparing for sleep

sleep

preparing for work

Work

Proportion of work and leisure p.a.

Work

Leisure

Home

33%33%

16%

Working time, therefore, is a major part of our lives. In theory, at least, work should provide us

with the ingredients that make us contented and happy. It is doubly important that work should

provide us with positive experiences because we spend so much time at work, and because we

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spend so little seeking the experiences outside of work that should contribute to our general

health and wellbeing.

• It can provide the things that make us contented and

happy:

»Good physical health

»Clear purpose

»Effective relationships

»Challenges

»Motivation

»Confidence

»Self esteem

Why is work so good for us?

These are the reasons why work is so good for us. Work should enable us to maintain good

health because it should provide us with a clear purpose in life, provide us with the opportunity

for making good and effective relationships with others; it should provide us with the challenges

that give us motivation. This, in turn, increases our own confidence to do interesting and exciting

things and cope well with the routine of life, and with this comes our self-esteem – making us feel

good about ourselves. Research tells us these are the characteristics that make us feel contented

and happy.

So often, however, work seems to provide the opposite. There is a sustained high level of

sickness absence and staff turnover due to psychological distress. The triggers for this distress

are many and varied, and for a large number of people work can be a misery – and worse – many

people keep this misery to themselves until such time as they cannot cope any longer, and need

to escape, despite the provision of employee support service of various kinds, such as employee

assistance programmes, and occupational health services. We call this period of misery and

unhappiness the ‘Iceberg Effect’, as it is often kept out of sight and beneath the surface.

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At this point I would like you to complete the Health and Wellbeing at Work questionnaire. I

should explain that this is not a psychometric instrument, and has, therefore, not been tested for

reliability and validity. Completing it is entirely voluntary. I use it as a very quick way of opening a

conversation as it provides immediate ideas of how employees currently think about their work.

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Health and wellbeing at work questionnaire

We want to find out if you are feeling good about your work, and about your working situation. To help us find out we would like you to complete this questionnaire. It focuses on how you feel now and over the recent past (say a couple of weeks). Please try and complete all the questions. Thank you very much for your co-operation. Have you recently: Been unclear about what you are supposed to do at work? Found that others have been taking decisions that prevent you from performing at your peak? Become irritated by the behaviour of your manager? Found yourself idling the time away? Been spoken to by someone you thought was being rude, unhelpful and thoughtless? Found it difficult to get involved in your work? Felt under pressure at work? Spent longer than your normal time at work? Experienced sexual innuendo or verbal abuse at work? Felt you have been unfairly treated? Been feeling energized at work? Taken a decision that has been acknowledged as a major step forward at work?

Not at all no more Rather more Much more than usual than usual than usual












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Thank you. It seems that all of you would like to have a conversation with me!

Recent research has uncovered the costs of the ‘Iceberg Effect’. Taking the total costs of

psychological distress, including the ‘visible’ costs of staff sickness absence and staff turnover,

the costs of the ‘Iceberg Effect’ are a staggering 58% of the total costs, with the ‘visible’ costs

being a small proportion of the whole. The impact on organisation and personal performance is

huge, and in the public sector, is a key area where cost savings are to be found.

Costs of the ‘Iceberg Effect’ as a percentage of total costs of

psychological distress at work

sickness absence

staff turnover

reduced productivity at work

58%‘Iceberg effect’

32%

10%

What is stress? It is the stage beyond pressure and strain, and when left un-treated can become a

serious physical as well as psychological problem for the sufferer. However, there is a widespread

and continuing belief that stress is fairly trivial. It is not!

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What causes psychological distress? There are three main causes with the prime cause being the

behaviour we show towards each other, in particular the behaviour that managers show towards

their staff. The secondary causes of stress are life events we all experience at some stage.

Research shows that these, well recognised, triggers of psychological distress occur to all of us at

some time, and are, therefore, foreseeable. Some are constantly present, such as change, and

yet the attention needed for different people with different personality types is often not

provided. Put simply, a MBTI type J has preferences for an ordered future, planning well in

advance and J’s don’t easily cope with uncertainty, whilst P’s can get on a plane without knowing

where it is going! I exaggerate, of course!

The tertiary causes are categories of events that have been categorised for legal as well as HR

purposes – they are identifiable, and can be dealt with under various regulations and procedures.

The regulations and procedures can, also, add to the psychological distress. These categories of

events tend to emerge from the prime and secondary causes, and they crystallize and possibly

camouflage the underlying causes.

Primarycauses Leaders

ManagersPeople

Secondarycauses

ChangeAdverse life events

MergersAcquisitions

Growth and expansionDownsizing

CollapseUncertainty

Tertiarycauses

HarassmentBullying

Autocratic leadershipIntimidation

InsecurityLack of personal control

Job insecurityFear

Unexpected eventsLoss and bereavement

Poor performanceIsolation

Excess demands

Effects

Increased costsUnder performance

High sickness and absenceHigh staff turnover

Reduced profitsPoor quality

Lower market shareRecruitment difficulties

Negativity

There are five main reasons for being concerned about psychological distress at work. These

include the requirement to comply with the Health and Safety Management Standards, the

possibility of legal action, the interest of insurance companies and the effect of increased

premiums, the haemorrhaging of money as well as the misery of individuals.

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The Health and Safety Executive

The Courts and Tribunals

The Insurance Companies

The Business

The Individual

Management StandardsInspection

Prosecution under several Acts

Increased premiums for company

health insurance schemes

Haemorrhaging moneythrough

sickness, absence andstaff turnover

Misery

So, what can be done to address the effects of psychological distress at work, and to ensure that

we derive the contentment and happiness we should expect from work, leading to improved

performance, less errors, more energy and greater achievement?

The starting point for me is to establish a framework within which we can develop strategies for

addressing the issues. The following framework was developed by me sometime ago to provide a

context in which health strategies could be defined. It translates well to a number of different

issues, and is presented here in relation to psychological distress. There are five strategies – 1) to

prevent and promote 2) to manage stress and reduce its impact 3) the get people back to work

4) to support people with chronic psychological distress and 5) to sustain a psychologically

healthy workplace.

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Strategy for health and wellbeing at work

Promote Psychological

health and wellbeing

Help people

back to work

Supportchronically ill

people back to work

SustainPsychological health

and wellbeing atwork

Reduce the impact

of stress at work

Focusing attention on the first strategy – the promotion of psychological health and wellbeing at

work. I think most organisations find it useful to see what this means. I have constructed the

following characteristics of a psychologically healthy organisation from research into globally

successful organisations.

•a clear, unambiguous purpose, expressed as a simple ‘big idea’, an idea which all the staff relate to closely, and are proud to discuss with friends and colleagues.

•an atmosphere of confidence, where all the staff are interested in each other, supporteach other, and project this confidence towards clients and customers.

•staff who behave respectfully towards each other, value each other’s views and opinions, work in teams which are places of mutual support, where anything is debated without a hint of humiliation, where the critique of individual and team work is welcomed, discussed and where lessons are learnt and implemented.

•staff who ‘go the extra mile’ by providing unsolicited ideas, thoughts, stimulus to each other, and where their interest in their customers offers something more than is expected, beyond courtesy, and beyond service, offering attentiveness and personal interest.

•challenges for their staff, that provide opportunities for personal development through new experiences, and which treat everyone with fairness and understanding.

•staff who are personally driven towards organisation and personal success - intellectually, financially, socially and emotionally.

Psychologically healthy organisations have:

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You may think this is like Motherhood and Apple Pie, but let’s see how many of you work in this

kind of organisation. Once again, completing this questionnaire is entirely voluntary. It is,

however, another very quick way of finding out how employees and managers feel about their

workplace and their relationship to it. It provides a pointer towards the kind of organisational

dynamic that requires attention.

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Organisation aspirations - assessment

Assess your own organisation by marking your answer to each statement on a scale of 1 (we have this aspiration in place) to 5 (we don’t have this aspiration in place anywhere). My organisation is one:

with a clear, unambiguous purpose, expressed as a simple ‘big idea’, an idea which

all the staff relate to closely, and are proud to discuss with friends and colleagues.

that has an atmosphere of confidence,

where all the staff are interested in each other, support each other,

and project this confidence towards clients and customers.

where staff behave respectfully towards each other,

value each other’s views and opinions,

work in teams which are places of mutual support, where anything is debated without a hint of humiliation, where the critique of individual and team work is welcomed, discussed and where lessons are learnt and implemented.

where staff ‘go the extra mile’ by providing unsolicited ideas, thoughts, stimulus to

each other,

where their interest in their customers offers something more than is expected,

beyond courtesy, and beyond service, offering attentiveness and personal interest.

that challenges staff,

provides opportunities for personal development through new experiences,

treats everyone with fairness and understanding.

where staff are personally driven towards organisation and personal success –

intellectually,

financially,

socially,

emotionally.

1 2 3 4 5

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Ahrrrr – none of you! Of course, there will be some of these characteristics in your

organisation, and, hopefully, all of them. Too often, however, organisations do not

measure up completely

I hope the following cartoon, which is now quite old, doesn’t ring bells for you.

The time has come to press on with the actions that can be taken to promote

psychological health and wellbeing at work. I have provided a benchmark against which

your current situation can be measured. We will now move on to see how your

organisation can achieve that benchmark.

In the same way that there are three principal causes of psychological distress, I have

identified from research three principal steps to be taken that achieve the prevention of

psychological distress and the promotion of psychological health and wellbeing.

They are: First, and most significant – the training of managers/leaders in the

organisational characteristics and behaviours that promote commitment, trust and

engagement. Second - the construction of a context within which behaviour takes place

at work – the organisation and its ‘rules’, and how these can be developed to foster a

culture of commitment, trust and engagement. Third, the behaviour characteristics

required to promote commitment, trust and staff engagement.

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Primary

steps

Leaders

Managers

People

Secondary

steps

‘big idea’

Architecture

Training and

development

Recruitment

Pay

Performance

Appraisal

Career opportunity

Job security

Work life balance

Openness

Tertiary steps

Manager –

employee relationships

Manager encouragement

Manager discretion

Employee discretion

Job satisfaction

Employee attitude

Team work

Involvement

Job challenge

Outcomes

Improved productivity

Increased profit

Improved quality

Improved market share

Lower costs

Lower sickness and absence

Improved retention

At this stage I think most people find it difficult to envisage what is meant by the behaviours

needed to promote commitment, trust and employee engagement. Personally I find metaphors

useful, so I have chosen the dance as my metaphor. The dance has a context in terms of type of

dance, those who take a lead, the ‘rules’ of the dance, the culture of the dance in terms of the

music appropriate to the type of dance and the purpose of the dance itself. Finally, the

behaviours of the dancers are critical within the context. Communication is essential, and as the

dancers get to know the dance and each other, trust, commitment and engagement become the

distinguishing features between a fluid and effective demonstration of a dance and a dance

where the fluidity does not exist, but the steps are followed.

Anyone witnessing Strictly Come Dancing will see before their eyes the gradual growth in

commitment, trust and engagement between the contestants over several weeks, until

seemingly ordinary dancers, at the beginning, turn into highly effective dancers of almost any

type of dance, at the end.

Effective communication

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Another metaphor I use is that of the role of conductor of an orchestra or chorus. The conductor

has the ‘rules’ – the score; he has the context (organisation) in terms of the range of instruments

and choral voices, and his job is to obtain the perfect sound by encouraging the different parts to

blend together in an interpretation the conductor creates. The conductor need not know how to

play an instrument, nor be able to sing (although it helps), but he does need the skills to engage

the performers in the way he wishes them to perform (behaviour).

So, what are the skills that leaders and managers require? Research relating to commitment,

trust and engagement shows that the following attributes are central to adopting the behaviours

needed to promote commitment, trust and engagement:

Skills required to create andsustain commitment and trust

Attentiveness

Being able to offerdirection with

committedambition

Being someone who attractspsychological status

Someone who possessesintelligence

withhumour

Someone who addressesindividual needs

Someone who creates stressand deflates it

Assertiveness

The critical attribute is attentiveness. If someone is attentive to you a natural response is for you

to be attentive back. This has to be genuine attentiveness – if there is any doubt then the

strength of the relationship is broken, and takes time to be re-established. The other attributes

are: providing a clear direction with a committed ambition to achieve it; being sufficiently wise

(psychological status) that people will defer to your opinion and decisions even if they don’t

agree with them personally; intelligence with humour is highly seductive and helps to create a

stress free interaction (you cannot feel stressed if you are laughing!); assertiveness that has no

signs of aggression but a clear message of what is required; the ability to create degrees of

pressure and stress combined with the ability to deflate the stress; and the ability to address

individual needs.

Of course, the behaviours that demonstrate the attributes are complex. Just how complex is

shown in the following slide. We all tend to behave according to how we judge a particular

situation and the reaction we anticipate from the behaviour – at least we do this if we are

attentive to each other. We can train people to demonstrate the attributes in ways that provide a

supportive and positive response. We are constantly adapting to different situations. The classic

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demonstration of this is my presentation today. I don’t do this at home, yet I need to

demonstrate the skills and attributes to you as a large audience in order for you to go away

thinking about what I am saying.

I will behave according to my interpretation of this situation and how I expect you to respond

I will also behave according to my interpretation of this situation and how I anticipate you will respond to me

Now, let’s see whether you have some of these attributes. The Quick Leadership Q is quick, and

provides an instant idea of how you judge yourself. Simply place a cross somewhere along each

line, and this will show where you need some training in acquiring the skills and attributes. Of

course, you will score yourself more favourably than others will, so we tend to ask people who

know you to complete the same questionnaire and then compare the results. Again, completing

this is entirely voluntary, but it does start the conversation.

Overallperformance

Trustworthiness

Attentiveness Decision making

skills

Ability toempower others

Leading changethrough others

Intellectualflexibility

Humour Effective atinfluencing

Collaborative

working

Quick LeadershipAssessment Q

© Derek Mowbray 1

1

1

1

11

1

1

1

1

10

10

10

10

10

1010

10

10

10

1 = not good10 = good

Trustand

commitment

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The process of training people in the skills, attributes and behaviours needs to adopt a triple loop

learning process. Simply providing a presentation of ideas hardly ever brings about change. The

ideas need to be reinforced at least twice after the presentation in order to bring about change.

We, therefore, adopt any learning technique to provide the triple loop learning experience.

•Workshops

•Learning sets

•Action research

•Coaching

Turning now to the context within which leaders and managers behave towards their employees,

it is necessary to construct an environment that promotes commitment, trust and staff

engagement. I have developed a simple organisation development framework which helps to

map out the features that need reviewing and developing. The framework focuses on four main

areas – the purpose of the organisation, its architecture (structure), the ‘rules’ by which the

organisation is meant to work, and ‘how to play the game’ – the behaviours that are required to

achieve the organisational purpose, whilst following the ‘rules’.

Organisation purpose

Organisationarchitecture

Organisation‘rules’

Organisation‘how to play the game’

Organisationdevelopment

Organisation Development

Derek Mowbray 1994

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The interplay between the different areas is expressed below:

PurposeArchitectureRules‘Playing thegame’

InteractionbetweenLeaders andfollowers

Trustcommitment

and thepsychologicalcontract

Psychologicalwellbeingat work

The interplay between organisation and psychological wellbeing

I have introduced here the concept of the psychological contract. This is the idiosyncratic

personal sense of fairness that we all experience at work, which is an essential aspect of

engagement. If we feel that we are being treated fairly we tend to be engaged with the

organisation. The strength of the engagement is determined by other factors that I have been

talking about. Once that sense of fairness is broken, we start to dis-engage. Once dis-

engagement starts it is extremely difficult to restore.

Drawing everything together can be achieved by following the diagram below. It includes the

issues of context, the structure, the ‘rules’ and ‘how to play the game’. Research shows that the

items in the diagram are critical in achieving commitment, trust and engagement, and each item

has a particular slant that promotes commitment, some of which I have been describing today,

others requiring another presentation at another time.

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The ‘Big idea’

Purpose

Architecture

Rules of the game

How to playthe game

Structure

JobRecruitmentPayChallenge Secure

Teamwork InvolvementOpennessCommunication

Work life balanceResponsiveness

Training and development

Career opportunity

Management encouragement Leadership abilityPerformance appraisal

Manager – employeerelationshipEmployee attitudeManager discretionEmployee discretionAttentiveness

Factors that influence trust and commitment

CitizenshipBehaviourProceduresPolicies

By undertaking a systematic approach to organisation and management development, adopting

the ideas I have been presenting, organisations will achieve the characteristics of psychological

health and wellbeing at work. Instead of the slide about individual misery we can substitute the

following slide that shows health and wellbeing at work.

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Whilst I have been focusing on psychological health and wellbeing, the picture is broader than

this as there is a direct interplay between physical health and psychological health. Organisations

that adopt a programme that achieves psychological health will also find that the physical health

and wellbeing of employees improves, and the other way round. Whilst good physical health

does have an impact on our ability to cope with psychologically challenging events, it is not the

complete answer. There is an urgent need for all organisations to focus on the psychological

health and wellbeing of everyone at work, to achieve high performance and effectiveness.

Thank you.

I Do Like Mondays

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