Geese getting fat, pennies in hats etc...
December
Hiya – how are you? I’m getting fully into Christmas mode. Have already watched Elf on the stage and the Christmas “Goes Wrong Show” which is my favourite Christmas watching tradition. This week, Die Hard. Other than that, I’ve looked over the Christmas ads. I won’t bore you with what I think suffice to say that they’re fine. With these sorts of things, I often defer to what my kids think is good as they don’t come at it with the jaded eyes of having seen cynical adlands attempts to pluck hearstrings year after trudging year, employing family-based emotion and nostalgia on top of a slowed down acapella version of an 80s classic. And with that in mind, the one with the carrot wins out. So onto the things I’ve been thinking and some associated links:
Things what I have been thinking
1. Twitter things
It can’t have escaped anyone’s attention that things have gone a bit bleak at Twitter. Unless you fully subscribe to a “hardcore” way of working of course. I do find it really interesting from the perspective of employer brand though.
“Elon is deciding what kind of culture he wants and he’s creating it,” said Logan Mallory, vice president of marketing at Motivosity, an employee engagement platform in Lehi, Utah. The firings “will push lots of people away and it will draw other types of talent to him and to Twitter. It’s harder to rehire, it’s harder to retain the talent that’s still there, you’ll lose customers,” he said.
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-11-16/elon-musk-is-laying-down-the-law-at-twitter
For one, it’s an example of a real culture shock and an explicit one at that. Like it or not (to be clear, I think it’s a terrible way to treat people) it is as overt a statement of a culture and the expectations that you are likely to see.
The reason I find it fascinating is that it turns on its head much of how we work. With most of our tasks designed to tease out an understanding of culture from many different inputs and experiences and articulate that to the business through its people. With some emails and tweets, this has now been thrown out of the window.
I find myself wondering what you would do with that employer brand. The fact that this is one person’s view and that opinion is imposed on a whole business is a completely different kettle of fish. Meaning that the employer brand now ultimately reads “whatever Elon says it is”. Granted this makes it easy for people to select in or out but probably would make it really difficult to recruit from a wide talent pool. I guess, we’ll see though as they’re hiring again. Which led to the next thought of A. how long would it take for us to see some employer related content. B. whether there would be any point and C. if that would end up feeling like a hostage video.
2. Hybrid working as a new cultural divide
All this Twitter debacle and the subsequent fallout allowed the media to follow up with some interesting thoughts around worker power and the ongoing debates around hybrid working. My wife’s dad saves the Telegraph business pages for me as I like to see what else is going on in the world away from my Guardian-reading, tofu eating, wokerati thought bubble.
Unbeknownst to me there seems to be a sort of hierarchical backlash against people working from home with the arrangements in government sitting firmly in the crosshairs, closely followed by tech workers and a general feeling that employees have had it too good for too long.
But whatever the newspapers think about hybrid working, this is a decent study that gives some good backing to it.
3. What changes in a hybrid workforce?
From the idea of Elon forcing people back and the general cheering from the sidelines from some areas of the media, it led me to question what I thought. I’ll keep it brief but ultimately I think that work has changed for the better from more hybrid working – for me, but also for large areas of the population for whom coming into the office wasn’t easy, pleasant or affordable. However, it does throw up some interesting challenges around culture and how that is disseminated, as well as how you actually impart some of the knowledge that normally would have been naturally picked up by osmosis. It would seem that being very mindful about both would be a good start. With that in mind, I thought this study on the transmission of tacit knowledge helped me understand what it is and the best ways to pass it on - essentially a good summary of teaching to make sure people are repeating a desired behaviour, and when and where interventions get the best results.
Things to click on
4. Work and DEI
Listened to this – which I found fascinating – about using behavioural science to find out what makes people more or less inclusive and how that can be used to help shape future workplaces. The chat veers off this subject in places and gets into decision making and culture but really worth a listen. Also I recommend subscribing as there are more of this ilk peppered through the episodes.
5. American opportunity index
This survey is a bit of an eye-opener. It’s really in-depth and will give you best opportunities based on loads of different criteria including best places to start a career, grow a career and have career stability. What stood out for me was the criteria that was specific to advancing without a degree. Think this may be a big topic in the future.
And now for stuff that isn’t as long and won’t require so much of you, you poor tired people.
6. Personalisation – is it worth it?
An essay by Jeremy Bullmore about why personalisation shouldn’t always be the answer. It’s worth listening to Mark Ritson’s argument about segmentation vs mass media for some other good thinking on the subject.
7. How to change minds
Listened to this which gives you an insight into what it takes to change minds (focusing on a very famous conspiracy theorist) and some great follow up questions on techniques like deep canvassing…really worth a listen and subscribing.
8. City rebuilding in Ukraine
Interesting as an example of getting more people to do what you want them to do. Cities need rebuilding in Ukraine and turning them into raves means more people want to turn up and take part.
And finally stuff that’s timewastery
9. Bubbles
Goodbye afternoon
10. A bot that tweets Starfleet jobs
Courtesy of Dan Hon (also worth subscribing)
11. Spreadsheet escape room
Sounds better than the title AND you could win $2000!
Thanks for reading to the end. Hopefully see you all in the New Year (unless I get round to doing another one of these before then).
Byeeeeeeee