Hello and welcome to Working It.
Two beloved colleagues left the FT this week and it reminded me of the importance of marking those occasions. We celebrated their time here with drinks and warm words.
Ritual is as important at work as it is in the rest of our lives, although we often forget it. After leaving a long-term employer we go into a transition period. It’s a form of grief and it’s OK to acknowledge the loss. Marking the occasion helps to process that — and also helps those left behind (ie people like me, with a history of weeping on these occasions) to embrace change and move forward.
So here’s to Esther, to Renée — and to everyone else embarking on new challenges this summer 🍾.
Read on for why boards and executives need to oversee corporate culture as well as the P&L, and in Office Therapy I advise a worker without children doing a lot of extra cover for the mothers on her team.
Leaders need to embrace the ‘shadow side’ to prevent scandal 👥
While researching this week’s episode of the Working It podcast on the depressingly persistent problem of sexual harassment and assault in workplaces (more on that below), I realised that we hear very little about the role of boards and senior leaders in overseeing corporate culture. Why not? Where are these guys (still mostly guys) when the 💩 hits?
After the scandals at (to name just three) Odey Asset Management, the British employers’ organisation, CBI, and, most recently, McDonald’s, I asked one of my podcast guests, FT business columnist Helen Thomas, whether there’s evidence that boards are demanding to know more about the culture and people in their businesses?
“I think it varies hugely,” she told me. “One of the things with the CBI was that the board didn’t have the head of HR [on it] . . . And that’s something they’ve changed. You’ve got to believe that the way the news flow has been going, that every corporate board in the land has turned around and said, ‘what are we doing on this? What are our policies?’”
Well, you’d think so, and I later talked to Cath Bishop, former Olympic rower and conflict diplomat (yes, really), now a leadership and organisational consultant. She confirmed that the leaders and boards she works with are all over this subject but many are at the start of a long learning process. As Cath points out, people get promoted to senior positions “for doing stuff — there is this world of ‘action’ . . . and culture is utterly different from that, you can’t manage it in the same way.”
So there’s a gulf between the “fix that and we are sorted” work that most leaders and boards are used to, and the amorphous and tricky aspects of measuring humans’ feelings and attitudes, including the vital work of spotting organisational problems — and rogue staff — before things escalate.
There’s also the fact that “most people have never learnt about this,” as Cath puts it — “this” being the messy human stuff that leaders are not trained to notice but which, at the extremes, has the potential to turn into a reputational disaster. Cath memorably describes this type of human-focused oversight as “the shadow side”. Leaders, she says, should also be asking how overwork, targets-obsessed processes and short-term metrics have potentially damaged people.
At this point, you may be saying “oh, but we have an employee engagement survey”. Stop right there ✋🏽. This “is the tip of the iceberg,” Cath says. Better to ditch targets such as increased staff engagement numbers and ask more useful questions instead. Examples might include: “What does it feel like if you make a mistake? Is it easy to challenge the status quo or majority view in a meeting?”
Other ways to start active oversight of the “shadow side” include regular management development conversations and removing the layers that stop staff from speaking the truth to leaders: focus groups can help here.
Cath also mentions the work of Harvard Business School’s Amy Edmondson in creating the concept of “psychological safety”. Amy’s website has very good resources, and Cath suggests that a “psychological safety” measure might be one way to gauge how staff are feeling.
Finally, she cites an old practice — and one too often forgotten in a hybrid/digital governance world. “Board members need to go and see things. Walk through the workplace🚶. You notice body language. Are people talking to each other? Do they look stressed?”
Has your organisation found effective ways to oversee and direct corporate culture? Is there potential for backlash from “anti-woke” campaigners? Let me know at isabel.berwick@ft.com.
This week on the Working It podcast
The FT’s investigation into allegations of serial sexual misconduct by Crispin Odey ran to about 8,000 words — one of the longest articles the paper has ever run. Special investigations editor Madison Marriage was able to tell the stories of 13 women who came forward (more have since done so). This week on the Working It podcast, I talk to her about the Odey investigation, and about wider common patterns that she sees in her work, which focuses on exposing the abuse of power.
What would stop this from happening in the future? And what can you do if you see — or experience — harassment at work? Helping to answer this are my other guests, FT business columnist Helen Thomas, and NYU psychology professor, and workplace conflict specialist, Tessa West.
The FT is about to publish an in-depth video about the Odey investigation tomorrow — keep an eye on FT.com.
Office Therapy
The problem: In our all-female team I’m the only one without children. I never get time off in summer and make up the work that colleagues miss because of kids’ illness, school strikes etc. Are there ways to a) reduce the impact on me, and b) reduce my resentment at being the “default” worker? I like my colleagues and don’t want this to fester.
Isabel’s advice: Harmonious teams often have “fair sharing” deals where each person with kids gets (say) one half-term off per year and longer holidays are divided with scrupulous fairness. If you want or need to go away in July and August, you must raise this openly with colleagues and ask to be “in” on that allocation 🙋🏽.
I sent your dilemma to Jane Johnson, founder of Careering into Motherhood, whose organisation provides training and online coaching. How would she approach this? First, she suggests, call a meeting to plan time off fairly, perhaps with an impartial facilitator. “Each team member should pair up with an ‘annual leave buddy’ — each pair is responsible for ensuring that while one person is on leave, the other acts as the primary point of contact. That person’s name goes on your out-of-office message, your phone diverts to your buddy and you do a full handover before going on leave. Everyone must tell internal stakeholders and external clients when they’ll be away and who to contact in their absence.”
Becoming one person’s “buddy”, should (in theory) save you from having to deputise for the whole team: one hopes the other pairs will support each other in the future. Good luck!
Got a question, problem, or dilemma for Office Therapy? Think you have better advice for our readers? Send it to me: isabel.berwick@ft.com. We anonymise everything. Your boss, colleagues or underlings will never know.
Five top stories from the world of work
-
Just say no if working while female: Pilita Clark tackles how hard it is to say “no” at work — with a particular focus on the vexed issue of office housework or “non-promotable tasks” (NPT). Multiple books promise to help women to say no to more of these burdens, but will things ever change?
-
Female CEOs in the making: The FT’s Emma Jacobs dives into data that shows why businesses need to widen their searches and pipelines if they want more women to make it to CEO level. Most existing leaders come from a finance and operational background. Most senior women are in HR or marketing.
-
Why childhood is getting longer: There are so many contradictions about how old young people have to be in order to vote, drink, marry etc — and Stephen Bush unpicks them here with some thoughts on young people in workplaces — and why we want to cosset our own children, even when it’s not in their best interest.
-
How much is it worth to retain a star CEO? Disney’s Bob Iger has just been handed a massive bonus package, and William Cohan asks why companies offer already very wealthy leaders even more financial incentives just to do their actual jobs.
-
The prospect of the childless city: Urban centres without families will change everything about how we live, work and play — and it’s already starting to happen as unaffordable housing and a pandemic exodus plays out in many communities, as Emma Jacobs reports.
One more thing
The Wham! documentary on Netflix is a romp through 80s culture, but also celebrates friendship. It chronicles, in particular, Andrew Ridgeley’s part in creating the wildly successful Wham! — by co-writing early songs, creating its aesthetic and supporting his shy classmate Georgios Panayiotou to become global superstar George Michael. Everyone should have a best friend like Andrew, and the pair remained close until George’s death in 2016. The FT’s Danny Leigh gives it three stars — I’m a solid five, because this sort of emotional uplift is a rare treat.
And finally: work trend of the week 😎
The deluge of newly minted words to describe things that happen in the workplace — and our conflicted emotions about work itself — has reached such epic proportions that we have decided to highlight some of these gems. I’ve got a team of Gen Zers (OK, my kids) combing TikTok for emerging trends — and do send in your own ideas.
“Delulu”: Adjective meaning delusional but very aware of it. As in, it can be a good thing to be less self-aware. Often used around dating, but it’s now popping up at work. Sometimes, it can be helpful to be a bit “delulu” when you start a job that you are underqualified for. Delusion may, in fact, carry us through.
💁♀️ Next week we will return to the topic of supporting older workers — and do keep sending in your ideas on that, photos of WFH furry co-workers, and anything else you think we should be covering. Email me at isabel.berwick@ft.com or find me on LinkedIn.