Thursday 20^th October is the day that two extremely important gatherings clash. The fact that they contrived to unknowingly share the spot represents a matter of great concern. At least, it does to me as an aspiring attendee of both – so far it seems just myself and @drrmcewan might have attended both, not least because we are both speaking at the more formal of the two.

I blogged back in June that for property/workplace and HR its not just a one night stand http://theatreacle.posterous.com/its-not-just-a-one-night-stand-hr-property. It would appear at this juncture that it still remains so, at least in the world of (un)conferencing.

The connectinghr unconference at the Spring in Vauxhall will be focussing on “the new world of work” – and in doing so will be wading into issues that dominate thinking within the workplace community – attraction and retention of talent, the impact of social media and informal networks on work and the workplace, wellbeing, and the very nature of the future of work itself. Being an unconference of course there is no speaker programme, content for the day is organised and driven by the attendees. At the previous (and outstanding) unconference I presented a pecha kucha on flexible working – a subject entirely relevant to both communities.

Workplace Trends at the Royal College of Physicians has the theme “Property is a People Business” – and has a speaker line-up focussing on the psychology of the workplace, work processes, social media and the social life of buildings. They all being areas of interest and thought for the HR community. The strapline for the conference even ponders “how we can create working environments which enhance performance  and wellbeing?”

I have shamelessly stolen the title of Hugh McLennan’s novel about a character struggling to reconcile the differences between his English and French Canadian identities. However that is just how this clash of dates appears.

At least it has given me the theme for the poem I plan to write and present at both. A small personal consolation.

My plea to the HR and workplace communities is to grow closer for our mutual benefit, to not let this happen again – and perhaps in future we might hold a joint event. At least, that is my intention.

Watch this space.

This presentation is being shown at the CoreNet Paris Summit this morning -

It foscusses on opportunities to re-imagine the workplace as space for growth and personal development.

In a large corporate organisation, it is no surprise to find politics at play – individual and collective ambition pitching individuals and teams against one another for advantage, however small. It is usually like the most mindless trench warfare, scrapping needlessly over small patches of worthless ground. It is not what the organisation wants, or would wish anyone to be spending their time doing, yet it frequently preoccupies over half people’s remunerated time. Call it a product of society, an anthropological given – call it what you will, there is seemingly no getting away from it.

A most common feature of petty organisational politics is negativity. From overt public criticism, to calculated attritional snipes, the “cat” in the personality of the often most mild mannered “dog” assumes dominance and sets to work.

Its effects are physically and emotionally draining, and it detracts from our productive and creative life. For the perpetrators, it provides cover for not taking responsibility, not participating, and for omitting to respect the reason they are there in the first place. In many cases, it stimulates a response of equal or greater counteracting negativity– and the sapping cycle takes hold until one party is brave or humble enough to break it.

As the recent beneficiary of someone embarking on a needless negative offensive for perceived personal advancement, I have been reflecting on how you break the cycle of negativity. Situations such as this are necessarily a long game, and while resolving not to get drawn in, the distractions of repeated offerings are seriously distracting.

Several years ago, on a long car journey to Gatwick from north London, I got into a discussion with the driver who revealed himself to be a champion kick boxer, and who was training his daughter in the fine arts of legitimately smashing other people’s teeth in, under license of course. I asked how they dealt with the inevitable pain. He explained how he was educating his daughter to take the pain from a blow, box it, and push it aside for collection. It was a process of distancing yourself from the sensation. I have tried it when fumbling around performing occasional and inevitably fruitless DIY tasks, and with the right degree of focus it works. You do have to see it through, though.

Similarly, the act of boxing and setting aside negativity works too. The individual blows can be dealt with effectively, and the supply of boxes is as endless as you want it to be.

That together with a belief that over time, purveying negativity begets its own just consequences.

It seems we are always so occupied and immersed in the immediate that we rarely reflect on just how we got here. The pivotal moments – the chance encounter, the advert in the newspaper you rarely look in, the call you answered on someone else’s phone, the magical utterance in an interview that was going nowhere until it arrived – any or many of which changed our lives irreversibly.

I finished my MSc in IT in 1991 in the middle of an economic downturn, and having spent the summer in Athens on a student exchange, didn’t have a job to return to. I had gone back to study with the intention of being a new “hybrid manager” who understood IT and business, but with the jobs pages bare I soon secured myself a teacher training place at Keele. My plan was to return to Greece for the following summer before the course began, and see where it took me. Then I received a letter – yes, one of those – asking if I would return to the company I left to go back to University, as a systems analyst to finish some of the work I had started. Three months later a vacancy arose and I was a Facilities Manager. That was twenty years ago.

If only we could map those interactions and life-changing moments between us. Then consider how your own actions have created transformational moments for others, possibly many times over. If ever we doubt that our environment is a complex adaptive system, a simple consideration of the web of meaningful flashes of light should be enough to convince.

Finally consider how complex a single day might be. The interactions and their implications may not be quite so life-changing, but are meaningful in their own relative space. As I sit here now, I know that by the end of the day I will b a different person, that my interactions with others will have changed me – and them.

So consider, in such inherently chaotic human environments how we might manage a change process involving large numbers of people. Yet still we attempt to apply scientific and rigorous structured change plans, and to “manage” the process. To successfully guide change we need to first acknowledge the inherent complexity of the environment, and from there to weave narrative and story we can relate to. We are all about to go on multiple journeys.

If we start by consider our own path to the present, we might stand a chance of understanding how to take others to a new place with us.

In this age of flexibility and mobility, why do we still cling to presence in the workplace? Here are ten possible reasons:

1. We have been brought up on the importance of “home”, as opposed to the emptiness and anomie of mobility – reinforced through family, culture, games and popular sentiment

2. The hope of chance encounters – whether professional or personal, there is always a possibility that a chance interaction may change our day, or even our life

3. As much as we try to dismiss the notion or rationalise its senselessness, "out of sight" still essentially means "out of mind"

4. We think we may miss something, even though we are always amazed at how little changes when we are not there and that we never actually miss anything at all

5. It’s all laid on – we often get fed and watered, either for free or with a helpful subsidy

6. Habit helpfully removes a tranche of things we might otherwise have to think about – like where we are going to work for the day or part of it – it’s simply easier to go to the same place every day

7. We cannot help but be suspicious of what others are thinking and doing that may be to our disadvantage if we are not there to monitor and occasionally surprise them – even if we flatter ourselves that anyone may be at all concerned about us

8. The sarcasm that colours the barbs about sunbathing, shopping, drinking (to name but a few) offered to those not within eyeshot – hollow as they are – still create the perception and feeling of being unfairly judged

9. We are concerned with who may actually be sitting in “our” chair – the odd sensation that we may return to find “our” desk and seat occupied by a stranger, with the terrible sense of having been unfairly displaced

10. Mobility is still relatively new in the 20^th and 21^st centuries – these ideas take time to bed in and become mainstream – just because a small number of organisations have gained disproportional exposure for adopting such approaches, the majority of organisations have not – give it time

As Blondie asks – “was it destiny?” Yes, mobility is destiny – in progress.

You must have heard the expression “work is something we do, not a place” – that’s because it is now so vogue it is crass. It is supposed to covey meaning and support a viewpoint, but actually creates more confusion than it resolves.

We have all said at some point "I am going to work". We didn’t say "I am going to work at my workplace" – because the expression refers to “work” as both verb and noun. The listener understands both without needing to question, because we instinctively know that work needs to be performed somewhere, wherever that place may be. In this regard, “work” means both the act of working, and the place of work. We have simply dropped the “place” element for convenience, as our understanding of the dual meaning is firmly established.

However I would content that “work” actually has six facets and not just two, or even one. I have often considered analogies from one of the most well organised and productive communities nature has to offer, the beehive. Incidentally the hexagonal shape deployed by bees makes extremely efficient use of space and building materials – so they are workplace planners and sustainable builders too.

The six facets are:

Why: you will have a practical reason for needing to work, blended with an emotional relationship with what you do – how many times have you asked yourself “why am I doing this?” – and considered making a change, either within your environment or to a new one?  

Who for: you will have an employer and/or clients/customers, and a rational and emotional relationship with them that governs your attitudes and behaviour. We can – in most instances – make the changes we need to alter our relationships for the better.

How: this occurs on many levels – from your overall approach to work right down to the detail of how you perform each task. It covers the technology and tools you apply, and the help you obtain and receive through connections, colleagues and teams. We evolve our modus operandi over time, and by circumstance.

What: the actual job, task or service. Again there are several level to this. On the face of it – and to the knowledge of most of my colleagues and connections – I manage property and create workplaces. In reality, what I really do, is manage change. We may describe what we do on various levels, and change this to suit our audience.

Where: contrary to popular myth, we do actually have to work somewhere, even in this age of ubiquitous technology. This may not be the office or the factory, with the myriad of other connected places on offer. It may simply be home. But it’s a “where” all the same. You still “go to work” like you used to, but in many cases have more choice of where you actually go. Even if you don’t get out of bed at all.

When: judging by how packed the trains and roads are each morning and evening, most people still keep to regular office hours. However more opportunities have opened up for breaking up the working day. As people manage their responsibilities across various time zones, a “split” or even “fractured” shift becomes all the more necessary. We also have to learn when to stop working too. In an always-on world, the temptation not to down tools is ever greater.

The six facets are naturally categorised –

The “when” and “how” I tend to attach to “flexible working”, and the “where” to the “flexible workplace” –. an organisation can specifically address and support these; and

The “what”, ““why” and “who for” are personal matters – only you can address them.

The next time someone confidently says “work is something we do, not a place” –a wide berth may be called for.

We hear a lot about the benefits – freedom, variety, social interaction, inspiration – but if it was that easy, we would all be mobile workers and leave the office behind. Here are ten reasons why people may not take up mobile working, even when it is on offer:

1. No guarantees of space or connectivity – even when you think you will get a seat or a connection, often you don't or can't – plans can be disrupted - can you afford the time?

2. You have to fork out – there is a price to pay, whether measured in lattes or by-the-hour wifi charges – and can you expense them?

3. You have to make an effort –it’s easy to slope into the office and slump at your usual desk, but a day of mobile working has to be thought out in advance – or at least some of it does - can you be bothered?

4. Your bag is heavier – a portable office is often not quite – and if you forget a key accessory, it can be hard to find someone to borrow from

5. The IT support team aren’t downstairs – if fact they are probably far too far away to help you even if you wanted them to – you are on your own

6. It’s lonely – you may well be in a space with lots of other mobile workers, all doing different things, but still no-one speaks to each other – and if you do make the effort, did you accidentally pick the lunatic who isn’t there to work, but to follow you home?

7. No peer pressure – for when motivation slinks away, and you need a fillip from a colleague, even just a look that says “come on, get on with it!”

8. Stuff – the things around you that you take for granted always being able to find are no longer there – stationery, notepaper, a pen that works....

9. Distractions – far from getting away from the distractions in the office, mobile working can present even more – from the noisy teenagers in the coffee shop to the temptations of immediately accessible shopping

10. No-one brings in donuts on a Friday – you have to buy your own

Coming later – ten ways to combat the above….

Prompted by a series of Tweets from a BIFM meeting, the following is a possible manifesto for developing the FM profession:

1. Dream of better, define it clearly and promote it so that everyone associated with the profession understands it: what is the future-perfect?

2. Recognise that FM is a key part of the property lifecycle, and act and position the profession accordingly. It has an inherent relationship with property strategy, transaction management, workplace strategy and design and project management – it does not exist in a vacuum, and cannot be fully understood if its context is not appreciated.

3. Design and promote Corporate Real Estate (CRE) learning and a CRE agenda - from (2) above. BIFM needs to integrate with other lifecycle professional bodies including CoreNet, the WCO and the RICS.

4. Reconcile the persistent supplier/in-house divide by promoting careers that span both, and share the experiences. BIFM needs to bring suppliers and in-house practitioners together in ways that direct address the divide and that will help them understand each other’s pressures and challenges.

5. Identify, develop and support strong leaders with the gravitas to speak for the sector. All professions need spokespeople who will be listened to. In order to command broad attention within industry, they first need to be able to command the room.

6. Learn to balance strategy and operations. In seeking to be a business partner, FM also needs to remember to stay close to its practical roots, and never set aside its direct customer-facing experience.

7. Promote and be proud of the inherent diversity of disciplines and sectors within FM as a major asset. There are few professions that cover as broad a range, with the interest and challenge that accompany this. The best FM’s are “specialist generalists” – this needs to be celebrated.

8. Promote success, constructively and intelligently. In particular where customers are delighted, solutions are innovative, and excellent results are achieved cost-effectively. This positive experience needs to be gathered, validated and organised to be fed into FM learning programmes.

9. Embrace and promote social media, and widen the productive debate. The more FM practitioners intact and share knowledge, perspectives and experience, the better. It takes time and no small amount of courage, and very often some training.

10. Earn the respect it deserves. It is no good just demanding it. All professions have had to do so since their foundation. The road is long and difficult, but with action in many – hopefully all – of the nine areas above, recognition of the vital role of FM to organisations and industry will come.

We have been there too many times before, lost together in the heady success of a project and forgetting ourselves entirely. Yet it always leads to one party slipping away into a misty dawn, followed by an uncomfortable silence, averted glances, taking the long way round, and a reversion to estrangement. Until the next time.

Do we never learn, or are we just in perpetual denial? For HR and Property, it’s no longer a one night stand. For better or for worse, and whether we like it or not – it’s marriage. We deserve each other.

But why, after all the talk and acting up? Here are some reasons. HR and Property both:

1. Have people at their core. Buildings are nothing without the occupants that give them life and energy, and employees need great space in which to work, and the flexibility to choose the most appropriate way to use it. Disciplines such as psychology and anthropology – often cited as vital for HR to study and understand – are just as important to Property.

2. Manage change. Relocating people from one workplace to another – often involving a radical shift in approach and facilities due to the inherent time lag inherent in property commitments and expenditure – affects all aspects of an employee’s working life.

3. Focus on attracting and retaining the best people. The workplace can and should be a source of pride to the organisation, and a demonstrable benefit of belonging.

4. Drive productivity and performance. The most talented people can only function to their full potential in the best environment and with the best kit to meet every possible need. The investment in both people and workplace is highly significant, and to show a return neither can be neglected.

5. Value and create engagement. The workplace can embody a symbol of trust, stating that the organisation respects its employees and offers them a choice of how and when (“flexible working”) and where (“the flexible workplace”) they work. Flexible working overlaid on a tired and traditional workplace will be unlikely to succeed, as will a flexible workplace without the programmes to permit and foster a flexible approach to working time and method.

6. Foster, promote and encourage innovation. A flexible workplace – allied with a corporate and organisational culture that promotes and accepts experimentation as a key component of learning and development – can facilitate the genuine collaboration that leads to innovation.

7. Develop organisational culture through facilitating and promoting the sharing of meaningful stories and experience that – when shared and publicised – enable the organisation to grow and better understand itself and its underlying core values.

8. Gather, process, analyse and utilise organisational data. This includes – amongst others – business growth and headcount planning, demographics, workplace usage, and levels of engagement. Far better that it is gathered in a co-ordinated manner, useful to both disciplines.

So let’s be adult about this once and for all……

A guest blog for adifferentkindofwork.com

Would Your Workplace Creativity Benefit From A Naughty Step?

Why is it that we find our inspiration in the gym, the shower, the pouring rain, the 65 bus to Kingston, the café, the splintered bench third on the left through the park gate, or the naughty step?

http://bit.ly/manlkE