Employment, Careers, and Talent in the 21st Century

The world of work is changing in a way that easily rivals that of the Industrial Revolution. Business—and how people organize in general—is increasingly global, aided by information transfer via the Internet and ever-increasing computing power. The search for sustainable competitive advantage remains paramount, of course, but that quest is taking new forms, with implications for business, society, and people’s careers.

Here, I’ll try to summarize some of my thoughts on how changes in the business environment are influencing a more independent workforce and businesses seeking new sources of talent. My thinking has been influenced by my own research and study of work within the organizational sciences during the past several years. While what I discuss here is likely over-simplified, the implications are hard to dispute.

As depicted in the figure below, changes in the business environment—for example, globalization, advances in information technology, and increasing competition—are driving a number of changes. First of all, these changes are driving businesses to make their workforces more flexible.

Flexible employment contracts refers to the reality that organizations are increasingly turning to part-time, temporary, and contract arrangements with employees. This is a drastic departure from long-held beliefs and expectations surrounding employment, such as lifelong work with a single employer and relatively stable job security. As such, college graduates today will have much more varied, self-managed careers than those of their parents and grandparents.

The independently managed career is becoming and will be a norm, particularly among professional “knowledge” workers. People will continually need to be on the lookout for new opportunities while demonstrating their worth to their current employers.

One the employee side, this means that people will need to manage their own personal brand and sell their services. Career success will depend upon people being able to showcase their talents and accomplishments, via the Web, and use their online social networks to find new opportunities.

On the business side, independently managed careers will likely influence businesses to seek new ways to access talent. They, like individual employees, will depend upon the Web and social networks to find talent. Furthermore, firms will likely be look outside of their own organizational boundaries for solutions as a way to maintain a fresh approach toward innovation.

Finally, as depicted in the figure, the arrows between “changes in the business environment” and both “personal branding and selling” and “businesses seeking new talent sources” are double-headed. That’s because those latter changes are likely to influence new changes in the business environment, creating a cycle of sorts.

Directly related to these changes, we see the Whinot platform as filling a niche, as depicted in the figure below.

By providing independent workers with a way to brand and sell their services, Whinot will be an individual source of competitive advantage for workers as they manage their careers. And by connecting businesses seeking new talent sources with those workers, Whinot will foster and even more productive collaborative community—one that we see as a win-win for both businesses and employees.

This post also appears at The Whinot Blog.
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The Case for Collaboration: Productive Practices within Organizations

As discussed in the introduction to this series on the business case for collaboration, we can think about collaboration in two ways: within organizations and among organizations. In a sense, the two go hand-in-hand. Why? It’s because both have to do with people working together. For organizations to successfully work together, the people representing each organization must work together effectively on a personal level.

So that’s how looking at what makes collaboration successful within organizations can potentially shed light on what makes collaboration successful among organizations. After a rather extensive review of the research on collaboration within organizations, I’ve identified a number of factors that explain why people may or may not be likely to collaborate. These factors include:

Characteristics of the collaborative group. It turns out that a variety of individual factors—such as demographics, group size, and personality and ability differences—matter when it comes to how well people work together. Research on these differences and their influence on group effectiveness is rather messy, but a few general implications include that it’s important that group members have high levels of ability while having sufficient diversity in terms of expertise and background to promote creativity.

Resources. People are likely to work together when they perceive that other parties have valuable resources that may benefit them.

Goals. Goals that reward cooperation within groups may facilitate higher levels of collective performance than other more individualistic or competitive goal structures. Individual goals, therefore, should be integrated into group goals and vice versa.

Technology. The tools that workers use often have a dramatic impact upon how they collaborate. Specifically, workers are increasingly turning to various information technologies as ways to collaborate across distances. Although advanced technology certainly has its advantages, managers must ensure widespread familiarity with such technology while minimizing potential information loss among collaborators.

Organizational culture. Organizations develop deep norms that reflect and drive “how things get done around here.” If that culture rewards and supports solely independent work, then collaboration is unlikely. Building a culture that promotes collaboration, however, will encourage employees to bridge departmental boundaries and work together.

Interpersonal trust and fairness. Collaboration is about sharing, and sharing requires trust. People need to believe that the people they’re collaborating with will hold up their end of the bargain. When people perceive that they’re being treated unfairly in a collaborative relationship, things are likely to break down quickly.

Leadership. Good leaders foster collaborative relationships by clearly defining roles, setting cooperative goals, and rewarding productive collaborative behavior.

While the factors influencing collaboration within organizations are numerous and multifaceted, those listed above cover many of the reasons why people choose to collaborate. And although these factors are specifically related to collaboration within organizations, they’re also important points to keep in mind when maintaining productive relationships among representatives from different organizations.

This post also appears at The Whinot Blog.
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The Case for Collaboration: Introduction

In a global economy that’s riddled with uncertainty, a few constants remain. In addition to death and taxes, business leaders can be sure to expect continued expansion into global markets, rapid advancement of how people work and do business using technology, and increasingly tough competition. So what are some potential responses to these forces by strategically minded executives?

Some businesses try to deal with uncertainty by copying what works for others. This can happen explicitly—for example, a CEO deliberately decides to offer a similar service as a competitor—or implicitly. An example of the latter might be the shared knowledge that spreads across organizations in the same industry by consultants, who may offer similar advice to different firms.

One problem with these tactics has to do with imitability, or how easy something is to copy. If a firm copies a resource and turns it into a capability, then it’s clear that another firm could potentially copy the resource and use it to its advantage. And there goes the firm’s competitive edge.

Another way in which business leaders are trying to make their firms more competitive has to do with collaboration. Academics have defined collaboration as something beyond coordination (negotiating interrelated tasks) and cooperation (parties coming together and forming relationships). Specifically, some scholars defined collaboration as a “relationship that is negotiated in an ongoing communicative process and that relies on neither market nor hierarchical mechanisms of control” (Lawrence et al., 2002, p. 282).

What on earth does that mean? It means that collaboration has to do with developing mutually beneficial relationships. These relationships can be formal or informal, and they can occur within organizations (intraorganizational) or among organizations (interorganizational). Strategically, collaborative relationships are quite handy for business leaders and achieving business success. That’s because they depend upon complex relationships among people, and that’s something that’s really tough to copy.

In a series of future posts, I’ll discuss a little bit more about the business case for collaboration. I’ll start by exploring intraorganizational collaboration, and then I’ll unpack interorganizational collaboration. My goal is simply to introduce some of the research surrounding these topics, in a way that—I hope—is relevant and clear, maybe even sparking some thoughts about using collaboration as a way to achieve business success.

Reference: Lawrence, T., Hardy, C., & Phillips, N. 2002. Institutional effects of interorganizational collaboration: The emergence of proto-institutions. Academy of Management Journal, 45: 281-290.

This post also appears at The Whinot Blog.
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Time to Ditch SPSS? A Free, Robust Alternative

Software programs are like blue jeans. You look for something that fits, maybe try on a few different options, and finally settle on a choice. Over time, they get more and more comfortable to use. But one day you find yourself suspecting that it might be time to move on to an option that is updated, fits better, or will serve a broader range of purposes.

That’s the sneaking suspicion I’m starting to have about SPSS. My primary complaint is that it can’t do some of the statistical analyses that I currently use or may want to use in the near future. Specifically, I’m thinking about structural equation modeling and hierarchical linear modeling. Currently, I need two additional software programs to run those analyses.

Of course, one logical alternative is SAS. But given my limited experience using SAS, I want to explore my options prior before I learn another programming language. In a recent conversation I had with a quantitative methods expert, he mentioned another data analysis and statistical computing program, known simply as “R.”

Among other circles—for example, computer science and statistics—R is probably well known. But being in the social sciences and business, I’m just hearing about R for the first time. After some preliminary research, it seems like R might be a very attractive option. Here’s why:

• It’s free. You simply download it and get started.
• It’s flexible, with the capability to do all sorts of statistical analyses, including those I mentioned above.
• It’s open source, meaning that code-writing geniuses around the world are continually making it better and providing updates.
• It appears to have a community of avid supporters, who produce user manuals, publish a journal, and host conferences. Its Web site refers to the software as "The R Project for Statistical Computing," which has a neat grassroots, cutting-edge kind of feel to it.

R seems like a promising alternative to the limited, get-a-new-version-every-year scenario offered by SPSS. I’m curious to know, however, about others’ experiences in learning R and using it for applications in business and social-science research. Metaphorically speaking, I suppose, I’m still in the window-shopping phase. But I’m starting to think that my current “blue jeans” aren’t really cutting it anymore, and R might be a nice alternative that I’d like to try on in the near future.

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Generational Differences at Work: Enough Already!

In the popular business press, it seems that talk about differences across the various generations of workers—be they “Baby Boomers,” “Generation Xers,” or “Millennials”—is everywhere. And don’t even get me started on the blogs. At the extremes, many of these sources make it sound like managing young workers is akin to managing a different species, some sort of spoiled-yet-independent, narcissistic-yet-altruistic global citizen. The bottom-line assumption of most of these arguments is that the “millennial generation” approaches work in a fundamentally different way than previous generations.

I don’t buy it. And I think that organizations that are even sitting down to answer the question, “How do we manage this newest generation of workers?” are heading down the completely wrong path. Here’s why.

1. The vast majority of research on generational differences among people at work is cross-sectional, meaning that it analyzed data collected at one point in time. That makes it exceedingly difficult—virtually impossible—to disentangle “generational” effects from variations due to age, experience, skills, tenure, you name it. So we don’t actually have strong evidence of these “differences” yet, necessitating further research.
   
   
2. Even if differences actually do exist across generations of workers, they are likely to not matter at all to managers. That’s because when it comes to psychological variables, which matter greatly at work, there is always more variation within a group than between groups. Take the highly controversial topic of intelligence testing, for example. Studies show that, on average, Asians score about one standard deviation above whites, and that white people, on average, score about one standard deviation above black people. Even given these well-researched findings, it is plain bad logic and practice to reduce these findings to the individual level and claim that one Asian person is likely to score higher a white person. That’s because Asians vary greatly in their scores from other Asians, as do whites from other whites, as do blacks from other blacks. So even if group differences actually exist between generations, treating someone different just because he or she is a member of a specific generation is silly, wrong, and possibly illegal. Regardless, it’s always incumbent upon the manger to get to know his or her people and support them accordingly.
   
   
3. Related to the previous point, labeling specific generations with specific attributes is stereotyping, plain and simple. This current fad is a gross generalization about an enormously important group of workers, within which we’re likely to find wide differences regarding attitudes toward work.

Here’s the discussion organizations should be having: “How do we train our managers to lead many different types of people?” It all comes down to bringing an attitude of inclusion to the everyday practice of management and learning to lead people of all types—be they male or female, white or black, gay or straight, Christian or Muslim, young or old. So, regarding all of the talk about generational differences—enough already.

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And the Gloves Come Off: Redbox has Competition Groveling for Business

There’s a refrigerator-sized vending machine that has both traditional movie-rental chains and movie studios seeing red—both literally and figuratively. I’m referring, of course, to Redbox. And it’s Redbox, with its 15,000-plus machines (yes, they’re red) and $1 movie rentals, that’s posing the biggest threat to the traditional movie-rental chains like Hollywood Video and Blockbuster since the online rental giant Netflix hit the scene.

Here’s how it works. You simply pick out a movie using the machine’s touch-screen monitor, swipe your credit card, and take your movie from the contraption’s dispensing slot. All you pay is $1 plus tax, and if you keep it for an extra day, you simply pay an extra dollar per day. An even quicker option is to pick out your movie online and then pick it up at a pre-selected location. You can return your DVD at any Redbox location.

So it’s an easy, cheap substitute to other movie-rental options. But that’s not what’s really interesting. What’s particularly intriguing will be to see how chains like Hollywood Video will compete with Redbox’s extreme low-cost leadership strategy.

Should chains like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video fight to regain competitive advantage or just roll over and die? Have they outlived their purpose?

Regarding Hollywood Video’s strategy, at least, it’s clear that the corporation has directed its store managers to emphasize customer service and give personalized incentives. For example, the chain’s card-holding members get birthday phone calls inviting them to enjoy a free rental. This isn’t a new offer.

What’s new is that Hollywood Video’s employees, at least those I’ve encountered, have turned into small-talk-making, movie-recommending chatterboxes. And just today, one of those friendly local film buffs called just to invite me to stop by for a free movie rental.

Talk about desperate.

The fact of the matter is that Redbox exploited a unique opportunity in the market. Apparently, millions of people are just like me—people who don’t already subscribe to Netflix or a similar online rental service and are loath to shell out $4 for the latest new release from Tinseltown. For us, Redbox hits the spot. It comes down to a product that matches its customers, and a strategy that considers their priorities and desire for relatively commitment-free service.

Speaking of Tinseltown, the big studios are also upset with the Redbox’s low prices. Apparently, 20th Century Fox, Universal, and Warner Brothers are withholding their new releases from Redbox until the new movies have been in stores for one month (see this New York Times story). Redbox is suing the three studios on antitrust grounds.

Regarding business strategy, my bet is that executives at chains like Blockbuster are taking Redbox very seriously and kicking themselves for not thinking of the Redbox concept first. According to this Chicago Tribune story, Blockbuster is reacting in a completely predictable manner—by copying Redbox and rolling out its own legions of cheap-movie renting kiosks.

But what will influence customers to shop at Blockbuster kiosks over Redbox? Will Blockbuster adopt a personalized, people-centered approach like Hollywood Video? How will top management communicate the new strategy and ensure it's implemented? Who knows.

If Blockbuster wants to stay viable, though, it’ll need to differentiate itself, find some way to achieve a competitive edge. Otherwise, we’ll all be seeing red—Redbox kiosks, that is—whenever it’s a stay-at-home movie night.
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Coping with Animal Euthanasia: Strategies for Shelter Workers

It’s the “American dream:” a nice house, white picket fence, two-car garage—and, of course—the family dog. Pets are an almost ubiquitous aspect of American culture. But pet overpopulation in the United States makes the euthanasia of more than 3 million dogs and cats every year a tragic necessity. And conducting animal euthanasia takes its toll on those charged with this gruesome responsibility.

In a special report published July 1 in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, my coauthors and I tackled one part of the animal euthanasia issue. Specifically, we analyzed ways in which experienced animal-shelter workers advocate coping with the stress related to the euthanasia task. We focused on 242 workers’ responses to the following question, which we included in a survey of 62 animal shelters across the country: “What recommendations would you give to someone who is just starting out in this career field? That is, what would you tell them to do, or not to do, to deal with the euthanasia-related aspects of this job?”

Through systematic, rigorous qualitative data analysis procedures, we found that these experienced workers suggested eight general types of coping strategies, as listed below.

• Competence or skills strategies. These types of strategies included gaining appropriate education and training and practicing proper techniques when conducting euthanasia.


• Euthanasia behavioral strategies. This category of advice centered on specific practices to follow when conducting euthanasia, such as allowing enough time for the procedure, having someone else euthanize special pets, and keeping the euthanasia room neat.


• Cognitive or self-talk strategies. These pieces of advice were primarily ways in which workers could manage stress through their own patterns of thinking. For examples, workers should realize that euthanasia is sometimes the best option for certain animals, avoid blaming themselves, learn about the reality of sheltered animals and overpopulation, and focus on successful aspects of animal welfare.


• Emotional regulation strategies. These types of strategies involved ways in which workers should deal with the emotional aspects of their work. For example, acknowledging their feelings and venting when appropriate. Another strategy within this category involved workers altering their levels of emotional attachment to animals, striving to maintain a healthy balance between becoming completely detached from the animals and becoming too dependent upon them for their emotional well-being.


• Separation strategies. Respondents suggested that sometimes it’s helpful to find ways to distance themselves from their work. For example, they advocated keeping work separate from non-work activities and seeking diversions through hobbies and reflection.


• Get-help strategies. This category of advice focused on ways to cope with euthanasia-related strain that involve assistance from others, including communicating with management about concerns and seeking counseling from professionals.


• Seek long-term solution strategies. These types of advice involved those aimed toward focusing on ways to reduce the frequency of euthanasia overall. For example, respondents advocated that workers should learn about and promote responsible pet ownership. One way in which this could take place is through participating in various types of community outreach programs.


• Withdrawal strategies. According to respondents, euthanasia is such a tough part of their jobs that sometimes workers should know that the job is not for everyone and, as a last resort, seek a different type of job.

The full report includes more information, including examples of survey respondents’ actual comments in each category of coping strategies. Overall, this study provides valuable insight that could help animal shelter workers, especially newcomers to the job, to deal with the strain caused by having to conduct euthanasia.

With increased public outreach and education—in areas such as spay and neuter programs, animal adoption, and responsible pet ownership—euthanasia should become less necessary as an over-population control measure in the United States. But in the meantime, shelter workers and their managers may find the strategies advocated by respondents in our study to be helpful ways to maintain their psychological well-being despite the threats posed by animal euthanasia.

Reference: Baran, B. E., Allen, J. A., Rogelberg, S. G., Spitzmüller, C., DiGiacomo, N. A., Webb, J. B., et al. (2009). Euthanasia-related strain and coping strategies in animal shelter employees. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 235, 83-88.

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Surviving “The Next Catastrophe” by Reducing Vulnerabilities

If the renowned organizational sociologist Charles Perrow had a classic-rock theme song, it just might be “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet,” the 1974 hit song by Bachman Turner Overdrive. Let me explain.

In his classic book, Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies, Perrow discussed the numerous high-risk technologies that pervade modern life and the dangers they pose for society. First published in 1984 with an updated version released in 1999, Normal Accidents presents an argument for the inevitability of large-scale disasters such as nuclear meltdowns, petrochemical-plant explosions, maritime accidents, and so forth. These accidents are inevitable, or “normal,” because they stem from systems that have specific structural characteristics. Namely, these systems are interactively complex, meaning that different parts of the system are likely to work together in ways that produce unanticipated consequences. Secondly, these systems exhibit tight coupling, meaning that a single change in one part of the system will directly lead to changes in other parts of the system.

This means that over time disasters will become increasingly likely. In other words, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

In his 2007 book The Next Catastrophe: Reducing our Vulnerabilities to Natural, Industrial, and Terrorist Disasters, Perrow builds upon the themes presented in Normal Accidents while suggesting a few approaches toward limiting the havoc that such normal accidents will inevitably wreak upon society. In so doing, he also points out three more sources of vulnerability beyond interactive complexity and tight coupling. These three sources are all in the form of high concentrations of the following:

1. Energy. In numerous locations around the United States, industrial storage facilities house vast quantities of explosive, toxic, and flammable substances. Because these storage facilities are concentrated in specific locations, an accident in any one of them would be much more disastrous than if storage occurred in smaller quantities at a greater number of separate sites.


2. People. High population densities in risky areas make disasters in those locales catastrophic. For example, New Orleans is a vulnerable city—due to its geography and its proximity to high-risk industry. The fact that it is also high in population density makes it particularly vulnerable.


3. Economic and political power. Perrow has a knack for drawing our attention to the role of power in organizations, and he argues here that mega-corporations and the political entities with which they interact wield so much power over very real aspects of our daily lives that any failure within them could pose serious risk. One example he cites is the pervasive nature of the Microsoft Windows operating system. If Windows failed—due to a massive computer virus, for example—catastrophic damage to business, government, and personal livelihood would likely result. Another example, although not addressed directly in the book, is the danger posed by financial institutions deemed “too big to fail” that we have witnessed in recent years.

To address these issues, Perrow argues that (a) government should implement wise regulations that limit these concentrations and (b) that leaders should focus on these concentrations as real threats instead of being distracted by other less-likely sources of disaster. In essence, he suggests that the focus should be on “shrinking the targets.” For example, Perrow argues that political interests have overestimated the terrorism threat in the United States while underestimating the threats posed by industrial forces, such as the nuclear power industry.

Overall, Perrow presents a number of examples that suggest the three areas of concentration listed above are indeed sources of vulnerability. His approach toward shrinking those targets, however, appears to focus mostly on policy decisions rather than aspects of human behavior within organizations.

As such, The Next Catastrophe provides an interesting view of disaster and vulnerability at a macro level. Much like “watchdog” groups that illuminate concerns within government agencies and programs, Perrow has been shining a light on the dark side of organizations, business, and government for decades. And his suggestions, when coupled with other viewpoints at the micro level, may provide a way for us to avoid the ominous theme of “you ain’t seen nothin’ yet” that underscores his theories.

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Discovering the “Big Picture” and Gaining Self-Awareness: Reflections on the Graduate-School Experience

Because of its heavy demands on one’s time and intellect, graduate school is often an intense experience for students. But it’s also a time when students can gain invaluable insights both about the larger context of their field and about their own worldviews, strengths, and weaknesses. Those are just a few of the reflections offered by Eric Peterson in a recent conversation with Foster Excellence.

Peterson, who earned his master’s degree in organization development from American University/NTL, currently serves as the manager of diversity of inclusion at the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

“SHRM's diversity vision is to be a leader provider of tools, resources, and thought leadership for diversity and inclusion practitioners in four years’ time,” said Peterson. “We also seek to advance the diversity and inclusion profession by bringing the best new thinking into practice in members’ organizations, and to bring a new level of professionalism, rigor, and standards to the profession.”

More information about SHRM’s diversity initiatives is online, and for frequent updates about a wide range of workplace issues, follow Peterson on Twitter.

The following is a summary of Peterson’s responses to a series of specific questions about graduate school and career-related issues.

What did you learn in graduate school that has been MOST helpful in your career?

Organization development (OD) is essentially the science and art of creating sustainable change in organizations. Diversity management, at its core, is all about shifting the culture of organizations. When I entered the American University/NTL program, I had already been a diversity practitioner for a number of years, but graduate school allowed me to see the work in a larger context, to approach it more strategically, and to really understand the theoretical underpinnings of the work. It's difficult to choose a single theory that has been most useful, but the ability to see the “big picture” (and to see how “big” the work really is) has been invaluable.

Also, approaching the work as “culture change” enabled me to step away from the good guy/bad guy mindset that plagues many diversity and inclusion practitioners. I now have an appreciation for how deeply ingrained culture can be, and it's much easier to approach those who resist the change in a non-judgmental way.

Looking back, what, if anything, would you have changed about your graduate-school experience?

I would have done it sooner. Before entering the program, I had no idea how I could possibly make it work, both in terms of finances and my own sanity. Looking back, I still don't know how I managed to do it. But when I was in it, I didn't have the luxury of letting it get to me; I just had to make it happen—and I did. In many ways, I entered the program at a perfect time, when I was really ready to do it. And yet, it’s sometimes difficult not to look at the years hesitating as wasted, somehow.

Once you graduated, what was it like to adjust to working fulltime outside of the academic setting?

Well, I was working full-time while I was going to school full-time. So, after I took my comprehensive exam, the idea of just working a full-time job with no other major obligations felt like a huge relief. I don't remember much about the six months immediately following graduation, except that I watched a whole lot of bad television and ate really terrible foods. But I have no regrets.

While working full-time during school, I had the ability to put much of what I was learning into immediate practice at work, and to apply the lessons I was learning on the job into my academic experience. Rather than either suffering, both were enriched; it was a very symbiotic dynamic!

Knowing what you know now, what advice do you have for current graduate students in your discipline?

Don't hesitate to throw your whole self into the experience. The best OD practitioners have a very clear sense of self, and the best OD programs provide experiences that will provide more self-awareness than you ever thought possible. Some of the revelations are painful, or at the very least extremely uncomfortable. But the growth and wisdom that results from doing that kind of work is incredibly valuable, both professionally and personally.

Do you have any other lessons learned or pieces of advice that you think would be helpful to current graduate students?

I would tell people to lean on their strengths. Studying OD requires equal parts from your brain, your heart, and your gut—and I've yet to meet someone who is equally comfortable in all three areas. But if you're pursuing your degree for the right reasons, there will be much in your program that you'll be really excited about, so focus on that while you encounter portions of the curriculum that are overwhelming, scary, or confusing. You'll benefit from both the positive and less-than-positive experiences, but keeping your focus on what you're naturally good at will keep you sane during the process.

Note: This article is part of Foster Excellence’s “Early-Career Practitioner Conversations” series, which provides advice from successful practitioners who earned a graduate degree in industrial/organizational psychology, human resource management, or a related field within the past five years. For more information and to participate, click here.
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