Create Flatter Not Hierarchical Management Structures To Achieve More, Please!

Managing people successfully clearly means different things to different people, whether they are doing the managing or being managed. Some managers look for unquestioning obedience and servitude. They sustain a hierarchical structure. Their writ to their employees states the requirements which are not to be deviated from. For employees preferring to obey more and think less, this can be attractive – however, my suspicion is that the number of these is dwindling fast.

And recently I witnessed graphically the danger in this – achieved even sixty years ago - as I watched the TV documentary on the little known wartime code breaking operation at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, UK.

The narrator described how the hierarchical structure of the Nazi war machine dictated that there should be total sub-servience and unquestioning obedience to all elements including their top secret communication codes. No-one should question them.

Meanwhile the UK adopted a very different approach to code-breaking. It retained quirky mathematicians and thinkers who would simply not fit into such a hierarchical system. It encouraged them to think outside the box and question everything.

The result? The German code was broken and it is claimed it shortened the war by two years.

It was also intriguing to me to see the elements of intellectual / mathematical intelligence being adopted alongside emotional intelligence, then not truly acknowledged or identified as a valuable human resource.

More and more of us want to contribute to the business process we are involved in. Most of us respond better to inclusive rather than exclusive management styles. True, we do not see things the same way and businesses who see this as a handicap rather than a strength will continue to suffer. Those enterprises adopting flatter management styles will always be able to change far quicker than those very much managed from the top down.

More  to the point, unbeknown to the world, the computer was born at Bletchley on a campus I walked alongside – unknowingly – to catch the train to school!

Gerry Neale author of "Squaring Circles"

www.squaringcircles.co.uk

Psychology Simplified on Achieving Stress Reduction by Rituals

Neuroscience& Biobehavioral Reviews has just published some fascinating research on how we can achieve stress reduction by adopting helpful rituals..

Apparently we can reduce and control our stress in any number of ways unrelated to the challenge we face. For example,  it is now clear that a professional tennis player about to serve a ball, will bounce it one or more times first. Far from this being an attempt to increase the sense of anticipation, it is to reduce and control his stress. The higher the number of bounces the more effective it is!

Even taking a deep breath before starting something testing is a simple example.

Instinctively, and even to the extent we are now unaware of it, we can generate private rituals to reduce our stress. Stopping at a particular point for a break, or even making a cup of tea, can have the same effect.   

The research has been conducted by Tel Aviv University. It took into consideration obsessive compulsive disorder too. Significantly the research centred on the breakdown of the basic ingredients of any human or animal activity.They concluded that there are three parts or stages - preparatory, functional and confirmatory.

The 'functional' activity is the part which must be executed to complete the task. It is separate from and need not be connected or related to the 'preparatory' or 'confirmatory' stages, which can also be termed 'head' or 'tail' stages. So, a tennis player bouncing a ball before the serve is conducting a 'head' function but it does nothing directly to be part of the service action.

It seems that 'head' and 'tail' rituals overplayed can be a sign of obsessive compulsive disorder. But in moderation, 'head' and 'tail' rituals can be extremely helpful in reducing stress before and and after a challenging task.

It can help us too by clearing our mind in better preparation for the testing task we are about to complete.

The research details are now in the public domain.

Gerry Neale
Author of "Squaring Circles" available in paperback from
www.amazon.co.uk
www.squaringcircles.co.uk