Four Groups Blog

People like good working relationships and actively seek them out! This idea has clear implications for team building and team effectiveness. By combining this with 4G and the ability to predict relationships, I think there are some interesting new ideas for those who are concerned with productivity and team performance.

Ken Thompson drew my attention to a piece of research published by the Harvard Business Review. ‘Competent Jerks, Lovable Fools and the formation of social networks‘ talks about 4 archetypes within business and people’s preference for working with each one of them. This paper has also been picked up by the Monster Blog, Friends at Work and Fair and Biased, Co-workers: Lovable fools or Competent Jerks? The four types are;

Lovable Star – Competent and Likeable!
Lovable Fool – Likeable but competency issues
Competent Jerk – Competent but likeability question
Incompetent Jerk – Neither Competent nor Likeable!

From the article, it was found that

If someone is strongly disliked, it’s almost irrelevant whether or not she is competent; people won’t want to work with her anyway. By contrast, if someone is liked, his colleagues will seek out every little bit of competence he has to offer.

This point raises two questions in my mind. Firstly, given people’s preference to work with those they enjoy, I firmly believe that the ability to empower individuals and teams with this information and to have them and the organisation work on them leads to significant improvements across the board. The following diagram from 4G provides a good case in point.

The team above highlights those who are likeable and those who are not. For example, encouraging Paulo and Susannah or Jim and Kate to foster a closer working relationship is to the benefit of themselves and the team. In the same vein, being able to predict the quality of these relationships then gives HR or management a clear basis for decision making and ensuring that people, where possible, work with those who they like. From a 4G standpoint, predicting relationships within teams is possible via the use of Social Relationships.

The second point is how do people react to those team members or employees who are both incompetent and likeable?

Apologies for the lack of new posts recently, I’ve just returned from a trip to Spain. I’m slightly burnt but have a smile on my face

I’ve recently been introduced to Derek Jones’ blog, Hero’s Code. Derek talks about his experiences as a coach and introduces us to some of his own perspectives and opinions on a very broad and diverse field. In a post entitled ‘Be a Childlike Coach‘, Derek talks about living in the present, as opposed to the past or the future! Here’s a excerpt that sums this up very well;

The great thing about watching young children play is that they care not at all for the past or the future. Their whole attention is just on the present time and these guys were fully “in the moment” all right. They are for the most part wild and carefree when at play, and not at all burdened by the responsibilities that adults tend to use as an excuse for their miserable demeanor.

When you really think about it, adults are generally not too good at this “living in the present moment” stuff. Even though the only time we can truly experience feelings, whether good or bad, is in the present moment, it is rare that these feelings seem to be linked to present events.

Personally, I believe that living in the present moment is the only way to go. Other bloggers are also picking up on this theme. Adam Eason writes about Engaging in the Moment, Louis talks about Heart @ Work and Spirit Rambler has a post on Looking for Self.

Following on from our own post on levels of happiness within HR, Personnel Today have also picked up on the same survey in their article entitled ‘Tears on my pillow: why is HR so unhappy?’.

As I’ve said before, I think the issue is one of perceptions within an organisation and the apparently schizophrenic (or Shadow-like) response that specific parts of an organisation can have. Extracts from the article follow;

“I’ve been in HR for 27 years and the profession has always been unhappy. There is too much naval-gazing and most of the problems are of HR’s own making,” Paul Kearns [said]. [However,] Angela O’Connor, vice president of SOCPO and HR director at the Crown Prosecution Service, refuted claims that HR is suffering a communal melancholy. So, the experts’ opinion is split and it seems the profession has something of a schizophrenic mindset, with HR either ecstatic or chronically depressed, depending on who you believe.

It is interesting that this piece links in rather well with others online. Ian McKenzie, Regina Miller, Lori Dorn, Diane M. Pfadenhauer, Jim Ware and Critic have all written a similar piece in response to Liz Ryan’s article, “Why HR Gets No Respect”. Slightly tangental, but I believe that happiness and respect share a strong relationship. Links to their pieces are below;

The Rodney Dangerfield of the corporate world?
HR as a Scapegoat
Was it something we said
Respect for HR
Administrivia
Scapegoating HR

From my own perspective, I believe that a move towards an integrated model of HR, an idea which is hinted at in an article called ‘An Integrated Model for Strategic HR‘, is perhaps the best contribution I believe I can make at the moment. However, if you don’t want to read it, the story in a nutshell is that HR would benefit from a model that created a series of direct links across the employee life cycle. In other words, just as all aspects of a company’s finances are run through one or a combination of the balance sheet, P&L or cashflow statements, so HR would benefit from a similarly simple management structure. If a simple structure was able to touch all aspects of the employee life cycle and it attracted explicit decision making, at least in part, HR would be in a far better position…

Simon Hamm has very kindly asked me to give a talk on ‘Career Success and Succession Planning‘ to the London Chapter of the ACPI. The date is the 28th June at the new IoD (123). I’m hoping to talk a little about some of our ideas and thoughts around what makes for good careers guidance and hopefully have some time to talk about how 4G fits into this picture. The following quotes really sum up our thinking and stance on the issue;

“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with objects it loves.” Carl G. Jung

“The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.” George Bernard Shaw

“Work and Play are words used to describe the same thing under different circumstances.” Mark Twain

The event is open to ACPI members and non-members, so if you’re in the area, it would be good to meet you. If you want to see what other people are thinking about career’s guidance, have a look at Curt Rosengren’s excellent Occupational Adventure and his post on Intuition as a career guidance tool. Another site to have a look at is the Being Bold Blog which is written by Ian Christie. Have a look at Ian’s post on the Weekly Workout Log which looks like a good idea. Finally, we can’t forget our own post on Stuart Lindenfield’s up and coming book, Confident Networking for Career Success and Satisfaction.

Building on from the previous post and the idea that there are 14 Social Relationships, I thought it would be worth introducing and examining some of these relationships one by one. I won’t go through all 14, but hopefully this post will give you a flavour.

The first that is worth mentioning is Relationships of Action. In essence, this is all about creating energy, new ideas, brainstorming and motivation between two people. These ideas are well reflected in a post entitled ‘Energisers‘. You could think of this relationship like a set of spinning gyroscopes, constantly firing off one another and creating lots of noise and activity in the process. Now, while this relationship is ideal for motivation, there is a slight danger that the partners burn each other out or they run out of energy.

The second relationship is a Relationship of Reflection. This acts rather like a mirror and just as a mirror highlights imperfections and is used to guide delicate work (e.g. make-up or shaving), so Relationships of Reflection are a source of critical insight and are ideal for correcting problems or oversights.

Both of these relationships are Green and can be seen as being very positive and for the benefit of both people. What is also interesting is that while these relationships require ‘no effort’, they also represent differences in thinking styles and approaches adopted by the various people involved. In particular, there is no cloning taking place here!