Spot the Psycho!

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Do you have a psychopath in your midst? Forget dressing up in old lady’s clothing and hanging around shower cubicles - the office psychopath is not necessarily a danger to your life or limb. However, the selfish, manipulative, intimidating and calculating behaviour demonstrated by those who exhibit antisocial personality disorder can be severely injurious to staff morale, mental well-being and productivity.

And it is more common than you might think. Studies suggest that between 1% and 3% of the population have this disorder. That means at least some of you will either have one in your team at the moment, or will have at some point in the future.

The office ‘psycho’ will be driven entirely by self-interest with an inability to be

moved by the negative implications of their actions for others. Specifically they might display a lack of conscience, little empathy, questionable loyalty, whilst breezing about in an enviably guilt free environment. Worse, their dissembling and charm can make it difficult to spot them until they are well established. Short of investing in a padded cell, a straitjacket and a variety of sedative narcotics (try getting those budget items past the trustees!) what can you do?

How to spot the ‘psycho’ in your team and what to do about it

Frankly, short of going back to school to retrain as a psychiatrist and buying a

white coat, your options are limited - but working on the basis that forearmed is forewarned - we’d suggest the following…

First, learn to recognise psychopathic behaviour. What does it look like? Well,

people who lose their temper inexplicably, lie and manipulate, nip to the gym and claim to have been at an important meeting or take credit for others’ work may be in the one percent! Of course they may just be jerks - but that’s another subject for another day!

Psychopaths fall into four types:

A. ANGRY SHOUTY MAN, Typically male, this personality type is likely to fly into frequent rages with little or no provocation.

B. CHARM SCHOOL GRADUATE, This type is likely to employ great charm and persuasiveness as they manipulate and lie.

C. COLD FISH, Distant and cold, don’t feel genuine emotions, unresponsive to punishment. If their antisocial behaviour is checked, it is by self interest rather than concern for the consequences to others.

D. ROLLER COASTER RIDER, Stress addicts who can demonstrate high levels of anxiety. Compulsive risk takers who can’t resist big risks.

Key behaviours

Look out for the following behaviour sets - it might mean that you are dealing with a psychopath.

v They are ‘know it alls’, never wrong, seeming expert on whatever is being

discussed.

v They are often superficial, charming, glib and amusing.

v They may paint themselves as heroes of tall tales and anecdotes.

v They may be arrogant, superior, domineering braggarts.

v There is one rule for them and another for everyone else.

v They lie often and are unconcerned when a lie is detected

v They don’t care about the consequences of their actions for other people, but are very concerned for any negative impacts on themselves.

v They are cold, detached, untouched by the problems of others.

We should stress that you should look out for multiple and repeated instances of the above behaviours before you even begin to suspect that you are dealing with one of ‘the three percent’.

What should you do - tactics for survival:

It is hard to deal with people such as those described above, but here are a few tips.

1. Always take up references, and if in doubt, probe the referee to get to the truth.

2. Don’t attempt to reason with your suspected psycho - they are not reasonable.

3. Establish a power base, and use it. Build alliances with other powerful people in the organisation.

4. Do not say ‘you are a psycho - I’ve read all about people like you’. This will cut no ice with them if they are a psychopath - and leave you open to disciplinary action if they are not!

5. Do establish clear rules to govern their behaviour and put in place an

appropriate, gradually escalating series of negative consequences. Be consistent and strong.

6. Seek support from others. Why should this be just your problem?

P.S. It could be you! Remember to include yourself in the ‘how to spot a psycho’ audit. If so, I’m not going to try to reason with you - but I would suggest that your undoubted intelligence should tell you that your self-interest would be best served in the long term by being nice to other people!

Managing Inadequate Performance

As a supervisor it is your job to improve performance – but sometimes the message doesn’t seem to get through. When an employee is repeatedly late, or delivers work of a sub standard nature – try the following programme:

Define and communicate what acceptable performance is

You have more experience than the person you are supervising. Spell out to them
what your expectations are. Give concrete examples and avoid general exhortations to ‘do better’ or ‘improve performance’.

Switch on your 'below par' radar
Manage by walking around. Ask people about their work.
When you spot something that is not good enough, bring it up as soon as
possible.

It is difficult to confront inadequate performance. 

So try this sequence:
1) Confront the worker privately – not in front of others. A defensive response is
much less likely.

2) Manage your own emotions. Don’t choose a time when you are annoyed or angry.
Wait until you feel calmer.
3) Take ‘you are wrong’ out of the equation. Discussion need not be a dressing down
or an argument. It should be a problem solving session where two rationale
individuals try to improve the situation. Approach the session with this firmly in
mind.
4) Do not get involved in small talk. Get to the point quickly. This is a time to be
businesslike.
5) Do not apologise. You shouldn’t say things like ‘I’m sorry to have to mention this
but’. Just say that you have noticed something and you need to find a way for this
to change.
6) Look for underlying factors. There may be a very good reason why the employee
is under performing. Don’t make assumptions.
7) Try to offer the resources the employee needs. Is the underperformance caused
by a lack of proper tools to get the job done, not enough time, physical ailments,
stress, family problems, or simply a talented employee in an under demanding role.

Set improvement goals
Explicitly state the level of performance required. Make them SMART.

Establish an action plan
People may not change unless you keep the pressure on. So produce an action plan which considers:
 

*    Closer supervision
*    Job reassignment
*    Additional training
*    Mentoring
*    More stimulating work
*    Lower performance standards until an ‘upskilling’ has taken place
*    Whatever else seems appropriate

Assertiveness At Work

There are several models that describe assertiveness and how to develop it, but
amongst the best thinking comes from Ken and Kate Back, who've specialised in this
area of human behaviour for over 20 years. In their book "Assertiveness at Work - a
practical guide to handling awkward situations", they describe what assertiveness is, and
how to develop it. Their concepts are simple and make sense, and have helped many
people to become more effective in their dealings with others.

DEFINING ASSERTIVENESS
Assertiveness lies in the middle of a continuum of behaviour towards others, that
the Backs defined in terms of how we recognise the rights of the two parties involved.

Aggressive: You exert your right to have ideas and opinions at the expense of the
other person's rights. In fact you behave as if the other person's rights
don't matter.

Assertive: You exert your rights freely and clearly, but at the same recognise the
other person's rights to be heard, to have pride in what they do, etc.

Non-Assertive:  You take too much account of the other person's rights, to the extent
that you forego some or all of your rights to express ideas or influence events.

To illustrate the three types of behaviour, they quote a simple example of a
manager spotting some minor errors in the written work of a subordinate. The manager
goes to the individual and says:

Aggressive
"I don't know how you've got the nerve to give me this sort of stuff
for signing. It's full of mistakes."
Assertive
"Jane, I'd like you to re-do this document as there are several mistakes
in it."
Non-Assertive
"I know it's, er .... probably my fault in .... not writing very clearly, but
is there, um .... any chance at all you could find a spare minute to um
.... just change one of two small things on this letter for me?"

Or you find an excuse not to take the document back at all…

Clearly the desired behaviour is to be assertive, and the book goes on to describe
in detail how you can develop assertiveness in a range of situations. To frame that
development, they put forward the idea of Inner Dialogues: those conversations we have
with ourselves before we interact with someone else. Sometimes these Inner Dialogues
are subconscious, but if you become more aware of them, you can manage them and
become more effective in your dealings with others.
To go back to the example above, the inner dialogues might be:

Aggressive
"If people produce rubbish, I have every right to tell them so"
"She obviously doesn't care. That's typical of young people today."
"This reflects badly on me, and I won't stand for it."
Assertive
"This may be uncomfortable for us both, but we can handle it."
"She has the right to make mistakes, but also the responsibility to
correct them."
"I want her to know the effect her errors have on other people."
Non-Assertive
"I don't want to make a scene or upset our working relationship."
"I'm sure these are unintentional errors - I'll let it go this time."
"I know she's very busy, so I expect that's why these mistakes
happened."

By having your Inner Dialogue before you deal with the other person, you can
adjust your behaviour to be Assertive. You achieve this by turning your Faulty Inner
Dialogue (aggressive or non-assertive) into a Sound Inner Dialogue (assertive).
There's something for all of us in this model - it isn't just for tyrannical bosses or shrinking
wall-flowers! Effective assertive behaviour is an important building block for creating a
empowered, involving, learning organisation culture. You would do well to develop your
assertiveness before embarking on grander culture changes.
Many training organisations incorporate this thinking into their training courses on
Assertiveness or Personal Effectiveness, but if you want to understand Assertiveness
properly, Ken and Kate Back's original book is a great place to start.

Three cornerstones of creative thinking

Dr. Teresa Amabile, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School describes the “Three Components of Creativity‟. Writing in the Harvard Business Review, she considers how, expertise, creative thinking skills and motivation are all required if creativity is to take place within structured organisations.

Component 1: Expertise

Expertise, in her model, is not just that connected to a person’s current post or

job. It also refers to all of the knowledge and experience that that person has gained in life. So a Chief Executive may also bring skills garnered from being a mother, a youth leader, or a hockey player.

Component 2: Creative Thinking

Amabile includes a number of elements in her description of creative thinking. For example she cites a ‘capacity to put existing ideas in new combinations’, ‘perseverance’, ‘the capacity for incubation’ and the combination of ‘knowledge from seemingly disparate fields’.

Component 3: Motivation

Motivation is the fuel that drives the vehicle provided by the two elements listed

above. All the expertise and ability to think creatively in the world will be useless, if the person is not motivated to put them to good use.  In most organisations, there is a wealth of talent, both visible and hidden among the staff and volunteers. The ability to think creatively can be learned or encouraged by reading books or blogs, or attending training courses. But nurturing a positive motivation to be creative among its people is the one element that most organizations leave out. And a car without fuel is going nowhere.

How to motivate creativity

There are three things a manager can do to build individual motivation to solve

problems.

1. Match people with the right task. If you play to people’s strengths you may

find that they begin to enjoy the challenge. It seems obvious, but when we want to deliver a presentation, how many times do we see the person with the strongest dread of presenting being chosen? If a piece has to be written for the community newsletter, do we choose the best communicator, or simply the person who is closest to the task, to prepare the copy? If we do not put conscious effort into the matching process, then mismatches are inevitable. And then of course, we will have people who are not enthusiastic and engaged, far less passionate, about their task.

2. Give people freedom to act. A manager may give team members a clear brief, or target. But if the manager then constrains their freedom to act in order to retain control over how something is to be achieved, then they will limit the team’s ability to provide creative solutions. So delegate responsibility for the results, as well as the task in hand. Ask people to solve the problem or to come back to you with alternative solutions, but not with problems. Hand over ownership of the problem. Light the blue touch paper of your peoples‟ creativity and then stand back.

3. Give people time: People need time to be creative. They need strategic time.

In other words a long period of time in which to consider, gestate, ponder and wait for their subconscious brain or intuition to kick in. You don’t necessarily get creativity by demanding results yesterday. They also need tactical time. This is time knitted into the fabric of a day to brainstorm or dream. So create a long enough timeline, but also encourage people to schedule in quite time into their daily schedules. Encourage them to clear their decks of urgent but not necessarily important tasks and “have a meeting with their creativity‟.

The past, present and future of corporate philanthropy

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Background

Business investment in the community is not a new phenomenon. In the nineteenth century William Hesketh Lever raised money for a lifeboat - ‘Sunlight No. 1’. This was gifted to the RNLI after the money to pay for it was raised as part of a Sunlight Soap competition in 1887. Leaders from the fields of commerce and industry, such as the Cadbury and Rowntree families also pioneered business giving. In the USA Andrew Carnegie set about giving away his vast fortune to endow civic buildings, libraries and museums.  Even then there was a mix of motivation. As Tony Elischer tells us in ‘Corporate Fundraising’ (CAF/ICFM - Ed Valerie Morton) ‘Even in these early times, the motivation behind company support was complex and sophisticated, ranging from the purely philanthropic, through ambitious desire for self promotion and social aggrandisement, to recognition of mutually commercial self interest.” This range of motivation still exists today. Indeed it, and the techniques employed to achieve it have increased in sophistication, breadth and scope.

How does corporate funding work?

In ‘Cause Related Marketing’ (Butterworth Heineman 1999) Sue Adkins describes a ‘continuum’ with ‘philanthropy’ at one end and ‘business basics’ at the other. In the ultra competitive world of the business person, it is easier to justify spending money on those relationships with community groups that are at the 'business end' of the spectrum - in other words that deliver some sort of business benefit.  Author Sue Adkins describes Cause Related Marketing as ‘ a commercial activity by which businesses and charities or causes form a partnership with each other to market an image, product or service for mutual benefit’.

Specifically, what can businesses offer you?

Businesses can support you in a number of ways:

· with cash: Depending on the nature of the relationship, the sums can be very small or very large.

· with expertise: When a small dyslexia charity needed a new brochure, it was printed and designed free of charge by a local printer.

· with people: When the Gateshead Hilton experienced an unexpected delay in opening in 2003, the company were left with around 50 employees, already under contract, but with nothing to do. They asked Gateshead Council if they could use any people on a temporary basis to accomplish specific goals. Similarly, the City Centre Manager of Newcastle City Council was, in the late 90’s, a seconded employee of Barclays Bank.

Cash or ‘in kind’

Most of the resource that companies put into the community is not in the form

of cash at all. The Directory of Social Change recently calculated the balance between cash donation and other forms of ‘community contribution’ (goods, services, etc) and found this to be the case with regard to almost every major corporate donor.

 

What do they want from you?

In a ‘Business in the Community’ Corporate Survey, Chief Exec’s, Marketing and Community Affairs Directors were asked what they thought could be achieved by a relationship with community organisations. The results were:

Enhance reputation: 75%

Motivate employees: 54%

Achieve good PR: 51%

Brand awareness: 44%

Develop loyalty: 39%

Increase sales: 34%

Deflect bad PR: 14%

Trial product/service: 6%

So if your pitch puts the emphasis on ‘enhancing reputation’ or ‘motivating employees’ then they are already likely to believe you can deliver!

Your offer may be motivational: Especially at a time of recession, companies are interested in joint promotions or fun events involving their staff.

Your value may be delivered by association: A relationship with a local organisation can demonstrate to a variety of stakeholders - from local authorities, to customers to staff, that a business is committed to a specific community.

You may allow access to key groups: Companies may be interested in reaching out to the people you can reach. For example when a local supermarket launched an Asian Food line, it supported the Leicester Mela.

What if you have no ‘features’ to offer

It is still possible to build a relationship with a business and get them to support you. One way to do this is to help them build a relationship with someone else...

Many charities offer ‘corporate clubs’. Companies join and are afforded various benefits. Often they don’t really care a lot about what the organising charity does - but they like to be in the club because it helps them build other valuable business relationships.

For example the Royal Shakespeare Company raised money for its Globe Theatre in

London by allowing sponsors to join their corporate club. The club had a number of different levels, with increasing benefits, dependent on the size of the member’s contribution. The five status levels were:

1) The Lord Chamberlain’s Men

2) Master of the Revels

3) Countess of Pembroke’s Circle

4) The Patrons

5) The Nobles

Barrow in Furness Council has set up an Arts Club to raise money from local businesses for its Leisure Department. The list below shows the three levels with examples of the kinds of company who have joined:

1) Level Member example Membership Cost

2) Gold British Gas £3,000

3) Silver Kimberley Clark £2,000

4) Bronze Furness Plastics £1,000

In 1997 this raised around £65,000 of ‘free’ income to be spent on arts activities. In return for their money, member organisations were invited to a black tie dinner. Gold members got a better seat and preferential treatment over Silver - who in turn got a slightly better deal than the Bronze members.

 So what of the future?

It might seem logical that businesses will withdraw from community involvement when times are hard.  But in fact the opposite may be true.  As companies find that they need to become more competitive, one way they can do this is through the added value that Corporate Social Responsibility offers.  A tough economic environment means that they have problems - and you may be able to help them solve those problems - the simplest example being by helping to motivate staff with team building challenges, fundraising events and so on. 

What should your proposal look like?

It of course depends on the company - and who you represent.  But if there are constant, unchanging principles, they are these:

1.  Start small - Take your time building the relationship - no one gets married after a first date!  

2.  Go in 'warm' (if you can) rather than 'cold'.  In other words use contacts to find clients, customers or suppliers of the business to introduce you.

3.  Find out what they are most likley to want from the relationship.  Motivated staff is a good place to start.

4.  Focus on companies with which you share some territory (the same neighbourhood, the same customers, the same issues, similar values, etc)

5. Don't ask for money - find creative ways to use their muscle, expertise, contacts or skills to save you money or deliver services and outcomes that you would otherwise have to pay for. 

Keep Smiling!

Mark

How to generate ideas and solve problems

How to generate ideas and solve problems

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a technique, developed by an American Advertising Executive, Alex Osborn in the 1930s. It is based on what we know of the brain’s physiology and operation. The latest thinking in neuroscience has poo poo'd the idea of a strict demarcation of function between the right and left hemispheres of the brain as it has been found that both sides are involved (in different ways and to differing degrees) with almost everything we do or think.  However, I'm going to use 'right = creativity' and 'left = objective rationality' as a sort of shorthand for the different mental processes of  generating ideas and evaluating those ideas.

Regarding the 'left brain' approach to evaluation - we are very good at spotting the weaknesses in our ideas pretty much straight away. This can become a powerful habit, with the left brain happily trashing every idea the right brain can throw at it. We have an internal monologue repeating ‘that’ll never work’ and before we know it, we’ve ‘run out of ideas’. In fact, the right brain has just become dispirited and given up! Plato told us that ‘necessity was the Mother of Invention’. Well then that makes ideas into infants and your left brain guilty of infanticide many times over, as it has snuffed out new born idea after new born idea!

This isn’t just an internal process - it is something that happens when groups of people come
together to discuss an issue or a problem. Teresa Amabile, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School has asserted that ‘people believe that they will appear smarter ... if they are more critical ... In many organisations it is professionally rewarding to react critically to new ideas”.

Brainstorming works because:

* it forces the left brain (our own and that of other people) to suspend judgement, to shut up
for a while while the right brain does its work. Only when this process is completed do we
begin to evaluate.

* it suspends the culture of criticism referred to by Amabile, encouraging the acceptance of ideas
- at least temporarily.

Osborn spotted how ideas were often killed in meetings before they had a chance to develop. He
developed four simple rules to ensure that all ideas were able to survive long enough to ensure
proper debate and evaluation. These were:

1 Criticism is ruled out and judgement withheld until later.
2 Wild ideas are welcome.
3 Quantity is more important than quality.
4 Combination of ideas is good; in other words, building on and developing other people’s
ideas is just as important as coming up with new ones of your own.

Structured brainstorming - Radiant Thinking

In ‘The Power of Creative Intelligence’ Tony Buzan outlines the idea of Radiant Thinking. This idea is similar to Mind Mining, with one crucial difference - it offers a visual and tangible ‘map’ to ensure that your ideas are more systematically identified and captured. The fact that the technique helps us actually draw a map of our developing thoughts is vitally important to its effectiveness. In ‘Thinking Skills and Eye Q’, Caviglioli, Harris and Tindall assert that because of the central role sight has played in our survival and success as a species, we are hard wired to learn visually. ‘Show me’ rather than ‘tell me’ works better for most of us ... ‘when people can see what they are thinking, they immediately become better thinkers’ say the authors. And that is what radiant thinking does. It shows us the map of our ideas as they develop, stage by stage. In so doing it gives clarity to the relationships between facts, ideas, issues and so on, and allows us to free associate to look for answers or solutions.
An example of radiant thinking, wherein one starts with a single idea and then adds associated ideas can be found below. I tried this with a small charity working in London which needed a basis to begin looking for new ways to fundraise.

Step one: Start with a single idea, let’s say ‘Fundraising’. This is the Primary Concept. Create a
figure with the word in the middle, so:

Step 2: Radiate 5 ‘spokes’ away from the core idea, and write an associated idea along each of
these. These each represent a Secondary Concept. For example:

Business / Trusts / Community / Statutory  Individuals

Step 3: Next take each of the secondary branches and radiate 5 (or so) sub spokes from each of these.
Place ideas that you associate with the Secondary Concept along each of these branches. These
are the Tertiary Concepts.

This is a really quick way to exploit your mind’s natural ability to build connections and ‘map’, in
quick succession many ideas. The three step sequence above took only a few minutes and yet
produced 30 Tertiary fundraising ideas for further discussion. Specifically, the ideas looked like this ...

Business
Sponsorship - develop packages. Create a Gifts in Kind schedule. Use Chairperson’s connection.
Investigate Give As You Earn. Research local corporate HQs.
Trusts
Take training in proposal writing skills. Invite past donors to AGM. Develop supporting materials.
Create new ‘trust friendly’ projects. Get policy details of top 50 trusts with an interest in our
beneficiaries.
Community
Run a flag day. Contact all local schools. Ask local churches for Christmas donations
Get adopted as charity of the year by one major local employer. Enlist Student Union in
fundraising activities.
Statutory
Search Home Office web site. Invite Councillor Jones onto committee. Make presentation to full
Council . Check out Primary Care Trust funding. Secure one major contract.
Individuals
Undertake prospect listing session. Identify local high net worth ‘players’. Purge and update the
database. Profile the charity supporters more accurately. Launch legacy pack.

Below you can see a Mind Map designed by a delegate on a time management course run by the author.

Variation on a theme - Mindwriting

This idea is based on the Crawford Slip Method, first developed by C.C. Crawford at the University
of Southern California in 1925. The key difference is that participants are asked to make
contributions in writing instead of verbally.

This has a number of advantages:

* because all ideas are captured, there is less chance that the session facilitator or leader can
influence the outcome or place an emphasis on just some of the ideas generated (in a
conventional brainstorming or mindmining session it’s easy to move on quickly without writing
something up on a flip chart, either because you don’t fully understand it or you don’t really like
it. When this happens, it is not often challenged.)
* people may be less inhibited.
* if you keep the contributions anonymous before critically examining them, it takes ‘personality’
out of the equation. The ideas stand or fall on their own merit.



Hope you found this helpful and interesting!!