Author Archives: Larry Janis

How the pandemic has created a new breed of tech worker

 

 

BY LEAH SOLIVAN

 

 

18 months in, COVID-19 has forced Silicon Valley to end its obsession with optimization.

Here we are, entering the 18th month of a pandemic that has brought constant upheaval to virtually every aspect of our lives. We’re adjusting to increased risks from a more potent variant, the omnipresent strain of a new set of restrictions, and the slow pace of vaccinations. The hope that things will return to normal has, somewhere along the way, been quietly replaced with the hope that we’ll find a new normal.

For those of us who spent most of our pre-COVID-19 hours in endless pursuit of ways to further optimize our daily hustle on behalf of technology startups, things have changed. We’ve changed. We’re not the same people we were in February 2020. We’ve each weathered the past year and a half in different ways, but many of us have come to the exact same conclusion: The old way of working won’t work anymore.

When I started TaskRabbit on the heels of the Great Recession, I quickly learned that many workers were ready to swap out their 9-to-5 jobs for a more agile, independent working life. We learned that control and flexibility were the primary drivers of people searching for a new way to work. Post-pandemic tech workers want that same control and flexibility, yes, but they’re also unapologetically in pursuit of purpose and passion.

(more…)

End your meeting with clear decisions and shared commitment

by Elizabeth Doty

By cuing the close more effectively, you can move your team from conversation to action.

Years ago, I found myself sitting at a conference table, observing a client team that had just had an aha moment. About halfway through an hour-long discussion, they figured out the root cause of a customer service issue that was plaguing the business. But then they got caught up in the excitement of their discovery and lost track of the meeting agenda. As a result, when the leader prepared to ask the group for solutions, he noticed everyone sneaking glances at their laptops and phones. Time was up, and the team members began to make their apologies and trickle out of the room without making any decisions about how to solve the issue.

In my last few posts, I have argued that leaders need to set the tone in the first five minutes of their meetings and then actively design the middle to keep people energized and productive. These steps are critical, but they are not the whole story. Leaders also need to be thoughtful and deliberate about how they end meetings to ensure the team walks away with clear decisions and shared commitment to implementing the next steps.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen. In many cases, participants do the difficult, creative work of diagnosing issues, analyzing problems, and brainstorming new ideas but don’t reap the fruits of their labor because they fail to translate insights into action. Or, with the end of the meeting looming—and team members needing to get to their next meeting, pick up kids from school, catch a train, and so on—leaders rush to devise a plan. They press people into commitments they have not had time to think through—and then can’t (or won’t) keep to. (more…)

When Authenticity Means Conflict: Towards a Truly Inclusive Organization

by Natalia Karelaia

Rightfully celebrated, authenticity in the workplace may have some limitations.

Authentic behaviour, or behaving in a way that aligns with personal values and understanding, enhances employees’ happiness at work as they act in accordance with their values and principles. Unfortunately, organisations are rarely seen as allowing individuals to be fully authentic. A 2021 Gartner survey, for example, shows that 82 percent of employees believe it’s important for their organisation to view them as a whole person, but only 45 percent believe their employer views them as more than an employee. Why is it difficult to be ourselves at work?

Perhaps part of the answer is how authentic behaviour can lead to interpersonal conflict. In a recent article in Human Relations, Laura Guillén, Hannes Leroy and I found the consequences of behaving authentically depend on how closely individuals identify with the social environment they are in. When an employee feels socially similar to their colleagues, that person can be themselves freely. If, on the other hand, an employee doesn’t feel as socially connected to their fellow workers, authentic behaviour may lead to conflict.

Our reasoning was that authentic behaviour allows other group members to clearly understand the employee’s values, attitudes and goals. Consequently, it reveals either alignment (when values match) or misalignment (when values mismatch) with the social context. In the face of misalignment, authentic behaviour may be considered conflictual. In a team where punctuality is considered the norm, the employee who consistently arrives late will annoy the others, regardless of performance. (more…)

Having More Power at the Bargaining Table Helps Women — But Also Sparks Backlash

| by Deborah Lynn Blumberg

A large-scale study of job negotiations finds that women with stronger options were penalized for being too assertive.

In July, a 16-year-old lifeguard penned a note to the Washington Postopen in new window detailing how she and another girl were being paid less than the teenage boys they worked with. Two weeks earlier, the University of Oregon paid $450,000 to settle a lawsuitopen in new window filed by a psychology professor who’d found out she was being paid several thousand dollars less than her male counterparts.

Disparities between women and men working in similar positions remain a stubborn feature of many workplaces. The pay gap has held steady for more than a decade in the U.S., with women earning 84 cents for every dollaropen in new window earned by men. Similarly, for every 85 women who advance to management positions, 100 men are promoted, according to a recent studyopen in new window by McKinsey.

Laws like the Equal Pay Act and corporate programs to address gender inequality have helped combat some of the more egregious discrepancies. But subtler biases and patterns of disadvantage persist. Past research has found that women often underperform relative to men in negotiations over salary, promotions, and benefits. One theory for this gender gap is that women aren’t assertive enough when they negotiate. Another hypothesis is that when women assert themselves, they experience backlash from their negotiation partners. (more…)

How the “Butterfly Effect” Can Harm Firm Performance

by Ithai Stern, INSEAD Associate Professor of Strategy and Guoli Chen, INSEAD Professor of Strategy

Firms need to develop appropriate HR risk management strategies to lessen the impact of unanticipated employee departures.

Strategic human capital is a firm’s most valuable resource. Established research leans towards the theory that strategic human capital (employees with valuable, non-substitutable knowledge, skills and abilities) can provide firms with a sustainable competitive advantage. As a result, firms are led to believe that, to achieve a competitive advantage, they need to attract and hold onto strategic human capital (valuable employees).

Consequently, much research has gone into discovering what factors govern employee departure decisions and how their departures impact firm performance. However, the question remains: Does employee departure lead to poor firm performance, or does poor firm performance lead to employee departure?

Our research provides clear evidence that employee departures do negatively impact firm performance, and, more importantly, this impact is amplified by the strength of the employee-firm relationship. In addition, our results revealed a third contributing factor to employee departure decisions: the “butterfly effect” of uncontrollable, external events (accidents and disasters).

We examined the after-effects of the Fukushima nuclear accident (caused by the tsunami that followed the earthquake on 11 March 2011 in Japan). We sampled 9,564 data points throughout the US over the course of six years. Our sample period covered the three years preceding the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and the three following years. Our treatment group consisted of 797 firms located within 80 km of a US operating nuclear plant. Our control group consisted of 797 equal firms located 160-240 km away from a US operating nuclear plant. (more…)