What’s more important for leaders, goal setting, or the inner compass to stay the course?

Introducing Inner Development Goals

As a leader in an organisation, you might experience the act of setting goals as what’s important to direct your steps and those of the teams you lead. The idea that goals fill us with inspiration and propel us to great achievements is an assumption sitting behind an ever-increasing number of frameworks available to guide this activity in management literature. “Make sure your goals are ‘SMART’ (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound)” is a widely adopted recommendation. More recently setting ‘Big hairy audacious goals’ (BHAG) is a favoured approach for motivating and aligning teams towards a common vision. But perhaps goals, whether they are smart or big and hairy, are not what keep us on track?

The shadow side of goal-setting

Researchers at Harvard Business School have contributed to a much less popular discourse on the shadow side of goal setting. They argue that the beneficial effects of goal setting have been overstated and that systematic harm caused by goal setting has been largely ignored. Their research identified specific side effects associated with goal setting, including a narrow focus that neglects non-goal areas, a rise in unethical behaviour, distorted risk preferences, corrosion of organizational culture, and reduced intrinsic motivation. The authors suggest that leaders and managers need to consider the complex interplay between goal setting and organizational contexts, as well as the need for safeguards and monitoring.

When we are unable to meet them, instead of being inspirational, goals can feel defeating

In my own working life, I’ve both participated in and led planning processes focussed on goal setting. Working in organisations I’ve also found taking action towards specific goals can sometimes be difficult. When the action steps to meet set goals are not part of BAU it can be hard to devote the required time; and when circumstances change and new competing priorities emerge what seemed like clear goals become murky and a sense of overwhelm sets in. When we are unable to meet them, instead of being inspirational, goals can feel defeating, like a measure of what we have failed to achieve. This seems to be true in organisational settings and in bigger contexts such as collective efforts to combat global issues.

Slow progress on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015 the United Nations goal setting was aiming high, introducing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a holistic blueprint for achieving global sustainability by 2030. The set of 17 interconnected goals aims to address social, economic, and environmental challenges by promoting actions such as poverty eradication, hunger alleviation, gender equality, climate action, sustainable cities, and partnerships for sustainable development, among others. I remember feeling inspired when the SDGs were announced. The vision created by the SDGs in 2015 seemed to provide a path forward. However, the actual progress toward attaining the vision has been dishearteningly slow.

New hope with Inner Development Goals

Recently when a colleague in Europe mentioned the Inner Development Goals (IDGs), I went looking and had reason to feel a renewed hope. The IDG’s aim to address the main obstacle to achieving the SDGs: a collective deficiency in coping with the escalating complexity of our environment and the associated challenges. Seems like that familiar overwhelm leading to inaction. The Inner Development Goal initiative offers a framework of essential skills for sustainable development; it encompasses five dimensions and 23 skills and qualities crucial for leaders addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and for individuals worldwide. They are based on research demonstrating that the inner capacities required for addressing these complexities can be cultivated. The IDG framework is gaining traction in Europe including via three MindShift – Growth that Matters conferences that have been conducted with 3000+ active participants.

Inner growth is at the heart of the Inner Development Goal framework; the first of the five dimensions is ‘Being – Relationship to self’, with the related skills:

Inner Compass
Having a deeply felt sense of responsibility and commitment to values and purposes relating to the good of the whole.

Integrity and Authenticity
A commitment and ability to act with sincerity, honesty and integrity.

Openness and Learning Mindset
Having a basic mindset of curiosity and a willingness to be vulnerable and embrace change and grow.

Self-awareness
Ability to be in reflective contact with own thoughts, feelings and desires; having a realistic self-image and ability to regulate oneself.

Presence
Ability to be in the here and now, without judgement and in a state of open-ended presence.

It makes sense to build the inner capacity of leaders to be able to sit with uncertainty, to think through overwhelm and to keep working towards and adapting goals as change happens. To my mind, this is part of “considering the complex interplay between goal setting and organizational contexts” as the Harvard research (above) recommends.

Leadership development for an inner compass

The Inner Development Goal approach resonates strongly with the leadership development work we do at NIODA. We hold that as a leader, knowing yourself and getting in touch with the conscious and unconscious drivers of your own behaviour underpins the capacity for managing yourself in your leadership role, and being able to lead others from a place of authenticity. One approach we use with our students and clients is to hold a space for inquiry into each person’s unique personal leadership history allowing connections to be made between past experience and present role challenges. This is just one powerful tool for growth and development of the inner compass needed to navigate the complexities of contemporary organisations, and as with the IDG’s, bigger world problems.

At NIODA we are interested to learn more about the Inner Development Goals and the non-profit foundation that is working with leadership development experts, scientists, practitioners, and organisations globally to explore, gather, and disseminate evidence-based skills and qualities that enhance the ability to lead purposeful, sustainable, and fulfilling lives. This is important work keeping the Sustainable Development Goals alive and hopefully more attainable.

NIODA’s related contribution is to continue to offer a post-graduate leadership and management course that goes deeper than a motivational goal-setting approach. The courses take a psychodynamic view of human behaviour. Students develop insights into individual and group behaviour and how to apply these to create meaningful change in the workplace – finding ways to deal with the overwhelm and consider the context for goal setting and much more. Learn more

We also offer a series of leadership development workshops, starting with one for emerging leaders to develop that inner compass by ‘Embracing your personal history for impactful leadership’. Learn more

Helen McKelvie

August 2023

This is the third in a series of short blogs about the title of NIODA’s forthcoming Group Relations Conference (GRC), ‘Authority, Role and Distributed Leadership in the Hybrid Workplace: the challenge of transforming experience’ 30 Oct – 3 Nov 2023, online and in Melbourne Australia.
If we work with the idea that whoever we are and whatever we are doing we are always in some kind of role, we can see that the role we think we are in (either consciously or unconsciously) determines how we behave at any given time. Consider these different scenarios:

• Reading a bedtime story to a small child
• Pillow talk with your intimate partner
• Carrying out a performance review with a junior member of staff
• Pitching a new idea to the Executive Group
• Returning a faulty product to a store

Across a day or a week, the same person might engage in such a variety of activities, moving from one role to another: parent, lover, boss, employee, customer etc. We all make assumptions about what role we think we are in and what behaviours are appropriate to these roles, but we are not always conscious about these assumptions. For example, a parent or caregiver reading a bedtime story to a small child might assume that in this role one is gentle, speaks softly and is present and engaged. By contrast, in the role of employee pitching a new idea to the Executive Group, the same person might assume the role demands them to be assertive, even a bit aggressive, confident and charismatic. The behaviours are starkly different, but the person is the same.

In my experience of working closely with people in a coaching context, I have learned that we can be inclined to confuse ‘role’ (and particularly work role) with ‘personality’ or personal character traits. I recall working with a CEO who was due to meet the Chair of the Board for a performance and pay review. They wanted to ask for a raise that was long overdue. The client felt paralysed and terrified in anticipation of this meeting. The prospect raised old issues of self-worth they had carried into adulthood due to an overbearing parent who often undermined them. I invited them to take themselves and their personal history out of the equation and to consider what they thought the role of CEO of this organisation deserved to be paid in order to attract and retain the right person? This was one of those moments of transforming experience. For this client, the answers to these questions were clear and they were able to quickly shift from the unconscious role of child to the conscious role of highly competent CEO. The behaviours appropriate to the role of CEO were clear and the client was able to negotiate the raise in an uncomplicated and assertive way. Asking ourselves and others the questions, what role are you in now and what are the behaviours appropriate to that role can free us up to make different choices about how we inhabit the roles we take up and, how we shape these roles.

By definition, roles always exist in relation to other roles: parent to child; lover to lover; employee to colleague, team or boss; leader to follower; customer to provider – even hermit to the rest of the community. In the workplace, every role is in some kind of interdependent relatedness and relationships with other roles and the nature and quality of these are arguably the most important determinants of organisational efficiency, effectiveness and health. Thus, being clear about one’s role, what is required of it, what behaviours are appropriate to it, how it is connected to and impacts other roles, and how it affects us are amongst some of the most vital considerations. In the temporary learning organisation of the GRC, there are many opportunities to explore these things for the individual, within a group, as between groups and within the GRC as a whole.

The Primary Task of this GRC is:

“With a spirit of enquiry, to explore and study the exercise of authority and leadership in the taking up of roles through the interpersonal, intergroup and institutional relations that develop within the conference as an organisation in its wider context”.

By studying roles in the different events of the GRC, members can explore and experiment with the roles that they either find themselves in or have claimed for themselves. These roles may be explicitly or unconsciously chosen or given. Such roles are not pre-determined by conference staff, rather, they are invented and co-created in the experience of the conference. For example, when we stop to examine and ask ourselves this question, ‘what role am I in now?’ we might discover that wittingly or unwittingly, we have become the spokesperson for the group, seemingly with the role to do the talking on behalf of the group. The roles we take up can also be more subtle, and even unconscious. As an example, a member might find themselves crying and feeling a lot of emotion. Under examination, it becomes possible to hypothesise that they have been unconsciously chosen by the group to take up the role of ‘the emotional one’, doing this work on behalf of the group. On reflection, this member might realise that this also happens at work. Once discovered, it becomes possible to consider other role options and even test them out during the five days of the GRC.

Through this deep investigation into the roles we find ourselves and others in, it becomes possible to make sense of group and organisational dynamics by asking such questions as: ‘what is the purpose of these roles?; ‘do these roles serve or work against the task we are trying to do?’; ‘what roles would best serve the task of this group?’ and ‘who is best placed to fill them?’. When roles are under-examined in organisations this can lead to all manner of problems and inefficiencies. For example, where the boundaries and task of roles held by different people are not clear enough, it can result in what look like interpersonal conflict, but what is in fact role confusion or role clashes. Under-examined roles can lead to role overload and impossible roles that lead to stress and burnout. So, by gaining skills in examining roles in the GRC and gaining insights into the roles we seem habitually to find ourselves in, a vast array of new choices and resources are opened up that we can apply to our back-at-work context.

Beyond this, as we face into global environmental and ethical challenges, this exploration of role also invites the question, ‘how do we want to show up and what role/s are we prepared to take up, both inside and beyond organisational settings?’

These are the reasons why and how role, as a unit of study within the GRC, is so important.

I hope that you will consider joining us. Scroll to read the other blogs, or learn more here.

Dr Brigid Nossal

August 2023

Why is the idea of ‘Role’ important?

ps NIODA’s forthcoming Group Relations Conference is 30 October – 3 November 2023. This is a hybrid event both onsite in Melbourne and live interactive online

We’re all born to someone bigger and older than ourselves, and in the first years of life, we are completely dependent on our caregivers for survival, nurture and learning the ways of the world. Do we ever stop to wonder how these early experiences and relationships with parents, caregivers, teachers, the school principal shaped the way we think about and respond to authority? What hidden assumptions may have been laid down that continue to impact current work relationships and, indeed, workplace design?

This is the second in a series of short blogs examining the title of NIODA’s forthcoming Group Relations Conference (GRC): ‘Authority, Role and Distributed Leadership in the Hybrid Workplace: the challenge of transforming experience’. Learning about authority and authority relations is one of the key takeaways from a GRC experience and a fundamental aspect of our experience of work.

The GRC is a temporary learning organisation that is co-created by its members (both staff and members). Our task is to study, through the experience of becoming an organisation, the dynamics as they emerge. I think of it as a kind of research laboratory in which we each take up the dual roles of being Jane Goodall and being the community of apes that she was so carefully observing. You can imagine that in this process, authority relations naturally manifest. This offers a unique opportunity to both discover and shape how authority in this temporary system of the GRC is established, negotiated and challenged; by you, by other individuals, by sub-groups and by the membership as a whole. If you bring an open mind to this process, it is really fascinating to explore.

Authority in a GRC can be discovered through what is said, by whom and in what tone, in how decisions are taken, in groups that form and dissolve and in how these things make you feel. For example, do you feel authorised and like you have agency to influence outcomes or do you feel silenced and powerless, as if someone else calls the shots? What is informing this experience? Is it what is really going on right now in the conference, or is it what you assume to be going on based on other similar experiences of being in groups and systems? If you wanted to, what would you need to change to transform the experience you are having? How is this the same or different to what you experience in your work organisation? These are just a few of the questions that are available to conference members to become curious about.

Through exploring and reflecting upon authority relations and our own and others’ responses to those we see as holding positions of authority within the GRC, we have the opportunity to examine what may be familiar and/or previously unchallenged assumptions. For example, there may be someone in the group whose tone of voice, combined with their age, gender and work role always seems to command attention in the group – everyone stops to listen. Why is this so? Another member in a small group, from the moment you first encounter them, may leave you feeling intimidated. What is it about them that makes you feel this way? It is only when we stop to reflect on these questions that we can discover the way past experiences may be shaping current work and authority relations even though, in reality, the situation is very different. Discovering these kinds of hidden assumptions can be very liberating and open up new opportunities for how we perceive and exercise our own authority, our own authorship in our lives.

The invitation in the GRC is to explore dynamics at a number of levels: individual; interpersonal; small group; large group; intergroup and the whole organisational system within its context. So far, we have considered the individual and interpersonal levels of enquiry. There is also much to think about and learn from how authority is being experienced and exercised at these other levels of group, intergroup and system-wide. For example, we can study how authority is resisted and/or how much compliance and conformity seems to be in play within the system. We can consider what cultural, societal, or even global factors may be influencing these authority relations. Is authority experienced and felt in the same way when people gather in small groups from when everyone is together in the room? What kind of authority is listened to and what kind of authority is rejected and rebelled against in this system? How do you feel? What are you observing about how the group seems to be responding in these different configurations? What authority do you want to take up and act upon right now and what do you observe others to be doing?

This offers you just a brief insight into the rich learning that is available to you in a GRC. You can think of the conference as representing a microcosm of contemporary organisations and the authority relations that we assume to be operating within them. Together, we bring these assumptions into the system of the GRC and sometimes reproduce our own experience of authority dynamics just as we experience them in our back-home workplace. By making them explicit and available to be studied, it is then possible to consider, both individually and collectively, is this how we want them to be or, could we be doing things differently and better?

Through taking this deep dive together into the study of authority relations within the GRC, we can emerge after five days with fresh insights and new resources that usually bring clarity about what it is that needs to be transformed in the way we work together in our own organisations. This learning can usually be immediately applied back at work and, from what members say, and from my own experience, it goes on for many years to come.

I hope that you will consider joining us. Scroll to read the other blogs, or learn more here.

Dr Brigid Nossal

July 2023

What is the big deal about Authority?

ps NIODA’s forthcoming Group Relations Conference is 30 October – 3 November 2023. This is a hybrid event both onsite in Melbourne and live interactive online

Thinking systemically and understanding organisation dynamics
can be leadership and management superpowers.

NIODA students certainly think so, with a 100% satisfaction rate for the Master of Leadership and Management (Organisation Dynamics) course. They know first-hand that being an organisational leader or managing a team can be enormously satisfying but equally can be frustrating and confusing. Why do smart, sensible people behave irrationally? Why does competition seem to outweigh collaboration? Why is it so hard to shift a toxic work culture? If, as neuroscientists are telling us, 95% of our brain activity is unconscious (Young 2018), then perhaps it’s little wonder these are the sorts of confounding questions preoccupying leaders and managers. How well equipped are most of us to make sense of the paradoxes and irrationality that are regular features of work life? How able are we to just ‘get on with the job’ when we are not aware of so much of what is occurring?

How well-equipped are most of us to make sense of the paradoxes
and irrationality that are regular features of work life?

Business degrees typically cover disciplines such as finance, marketing, operations, strategy and leadership and are designed to equip graduates to take on managerial and leadership roles. Taking a rational, cognitive approach to analysis, problem-solving, and decision-making is valued alongside developing effective teamwork and communication skills. However, this approach on its own is not enough when people and workplace dilemmas don’t respond to logical formulas, when emotions are running high and the capacity for coming up with sound and strategic business solutions is overwhelmed.

Applying an organisation dynamics lens

This is when taking a systems perspective and applying an organisation dynamics lens will help. Having an approach to discerning what might be really going on can feel like having secret superpowers for finding a way through the maze of workplace complexities.

The discipline of ‘systems psychodynamics’ is at the core of the National Institute of Organisation Dynamics Australia (NIODA)’s post-graduate degrees in Leadership and Management (Organisation Dynamics). Founded in 2010 for the purpose of providing high-quality education in systems psychodynamic approaches, NIODA builds on and continues the world-class programs first delivered at Swinburne University and then at RMIT University.

Study designed for work-experienced professionals

NIODA’s Master of Leadership and Management (Organisation Dynamics) is designed for experienced professionals who wish to develop their leadership and managerial capacities. In this world-renowned work-integrated program you learn to:
– analyse, understand and manage ‘below the surface’ group and organisational dynamics in organisations
– identify blockers to change due to structure, culture and technology
– work with the emotional labour of leading complex systems in fast-changing environments.

This part-time course supports the development of individual capacities to shape and take up work roles that are meaningful, values-based, and which serve the ultimate purpose of the organisation. It provides industry-relevant, post-graduate education grounded in rigorous conceptual development and work experience and provides opportunities for engagement with real-world learning in a social and global context.

Reflecting on study at NIODA with graduate, Laurette Chang-Leng

It is so rewarding to hear about how this is being applied by a NIODA graduate who has taken up the option of a continuing professional development subscription with NIODA. I find it such a privilege to think with Laurette about her work and carry on exploring how the concepts and skills learned in the NIODA course can be applied in the workplace.

“I’m more comfortable with the complexity, I embrace ‘not knowing’ and observe what is emergent.”

– NIODA MLM(OD) Graduate, Laurette Chang-Leng

We recently reflected on how Laurette now takes up her role managing large and complex transformation projects as compared to when she came to NIODA. “In some ways, not much has changed, except for one major thing: my attitude and the perspective I bring… large, big-budget projects still have the feeling of being impossible, but now I’m more comfortable with the complexity, I embrace ‘not knowing’ and observe what is emergent. I sit back and think when others are focused on charging ahead, even when the train is heading for derailment! I have the confidence to call it out, and I am listened to – especially because I know the value of a good metaphor!” (an early subject in the course puts a spotlight on the ways in which metaphors are used in management practice and how working with them opens up understanding and new possibilities.)

Laurette and I also talked about the benefit of knowing about her own, what we call, ‘valences’ (predispositions) or what she is bringing into work encounters and what gets triggered for her. “I’m much more in tune with what’s mine and what’s not” – what belongs to the organisational system and others within it. This echoes something I wrote a couple of years ago: The course supports you to locate and integrate learning about yourself, who you are, where you have come from and all the ‘selves’ you are bringing with you to work.

I see the fruits of this self-knowledge all the time in our supervision sessions. Laurette has a courage and a curiosity for reflecting on roles, and what is being avoided or defended against. It is so exciting to witness how she is building the capacity to take up bigger roles, for fostering healthier dynamics, and creating a more effective and resilient team and organisation.

Postgraduate study with 100% student satisfaction

Laurette is just one of the many students who have valued learning with NIODA. We are proud of the 100% overall student satisfaction rating we have gained in the Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching (QILT). QILT is a suite of government-endorsed surveys for higher education that NIODA has participated in since 2021. Currently, all 41 Australian universities and around 90 non-university higher education providers take part in the surveys. Over the two years of our participation, our students reported higher levels of satisfaction than the QILT national averages on key indicators including: learner engagement (NIODA received 97% compared with the national average of 42%), teaching quality (97% compared with 78%) and student support (97% compared with 74%). As institutes of higher education go, NIODA is small, but punching above its weight with these teaching and learning outcomes.

Helen McKelvie

June 2023

If you’re interested in knowing more about studying system psychodynamics and developing leadership and management superpowers, enrolments are open for our mid-year intake. We also have preview sessions coming up soon.

Young, E. (2018). Lifting the Lid on the Unconscious, New Scientist, Viewed 20 June 2023, https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23931880-400-lifting-the-lid-on-the-unconscious.

This is the first of a series of short blogs exploring NIODA’s forthcoming Group Relations Conference title, ‘Authority, Role and Distributed Leadership in the Hybrid Organisation: the challenge of transformation’.

First, what is a Group Relations Conference (GRC) and why is it important for leaders, managers, and anyone interested in organisational life to attend one?

A Group Relations Conference is a unique opportunity to learn from experience about yourself, groups and organisational dynamics. Generally, our work days are so filled with meetings and the pressures of work there is no time to stop and consider some fundamental questions such as, what’s really going on here? How am I showing up as a leader and follower? Are we working to purpose and, if not, what is getting in the way? The GRC is an opportunity to pause and explore some of these questions in depth.

The GRC is a temporary learning institution. I think of it as an incubator for in-depth exploration of contemporary organisational life. Members and staff bring with them into the conference their experiences and often hidden assumptions about organisations, work teams, and how authority and leadership are exercised. We also bring less conscious, habitual ways of behaving and taking up roles. In the GRC, without the distraction of day-to-day work tasks, it is possible to learn about these hidden assumptions both in oneself and in others. We also have the chance to try out different ways of taking up leadership within a group and within the temporary learning organisation as a whole.

In the GRC, members and staff are a bit like anthropologists or ethnographers. Together, we work on the conference task and we immerse ourselves in the co-creation of the temporary learning organisation. At the same time, we study what is happening, as it happens, to discover what it reveals about organisational life. The task of this conference is:

With a spirit of enquiry, to explore and study the exercise of authority and leadership in the taking up of roles through the interpersonal, intergroup and institutional relations that develop within the conference as an organisation in its wider context.

The title of the conference will also influence how we go about the task. As the conference will take place in a hybrid format, we can study how this impacts interpersonal, group and intergroup dynamics. We can then consider what this means for our back-at-work context and how we might apply this learning. The reference to distributed leadership is also an invitation to explore. It is a concept that has been used a lot in leadership and management circles over the past 15-20 years, but what does it mean in practice, especially in the context of a hybrid workplace?

This GRC is designed in the Tavistock tradition. It was invented by a multidisciplinary team in post-war London in the late 1950s and has been evolving ever since. These days, GRCs are held all over the world and attended by many senior leaders. One reason for this is that GRCs are a highly efficient way for people to learn in-depth about group and organisational dynamics and the influence that unconscious processes can have in shaping organisational life.

The conference design is an inspired innovation; the temporary learning organisation is highly structured and contained, which at the same time allows for maximum freedom of expression and shared exploration. Past participants have described having learned more from a five-day conference than they learned in three years of an MBA. One organisational leader who attended a GRC at the beginning of his tenure as CEO credited the experience with laying the foundation for his success over a 30-year leadership career.

It is difficult to write about this upcoming GRC in concrete terms because it has not yet taken place. What I can say with certainty is that if you are a curious, courageous, and open-minded person with an appetite to be stimulated and stretched, both intellectually and emotionally, then this conference is not to be missed. Be prepared to learn deeply about organisational dynamics and maybe even be transformed by the experience. You can learn more here.

Dr Brigid Nossal

June 2023

What is a Group Relations Conference (GRC) and why is it important?

ps NIODA’s forthcoming Group Relations Conference is 30 October – 3 November 2023. This is a hybrid event both onsite in Melbourne and live interactive online. Scroll to read more…

How to lead and manage in the hybrid workplace

I keep hearing how it’s a tough gig being a people manager right now. Sustained challenges from the COVID pandemic have left many leaders smashed and exhausted. It can feel like all four of the VUCA elements (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) have become ubiquitous and are impacting everyday decision-making, not just long-term planning. For those who were full-time in the office with their teams, there are now the added ongoing complexities of managing a hybrid workplace as the new normal. Continuing the flexibility around working from home means dispersed teams; building and maintaining trust and connection has become harder. Finding the balance is not easy.

Staff well-being has been a high priority during and post-pandemic, and will always be important. But as business demands increase, leaders are under the pump to deliver and may be suffering ‘compassion fatigue’. Managers are faced with the difficulty of adjusting the implicit messaging for their staff from “we’ll look after you” and “we can be just as productive at home” to “we can’t make everything right, we just need you to do your job” and “flexibility is good but you have to come into the office at least some of the time”. Having the confidence to lead in the hybrid workplace is tricky when critical staff networks have been disrupted, and lines of authority blurred by remote working. With everyone recalibrating, including top-level executives, people managers are left to figure out how to make these new arrangements not only workable but optimal to meet organisational expectations.

Leeds University research has uncovered a huge training need: 74% of office workers surveyed would like to receive training for hybrid working, yet only 8.5% had received any specific training for hybrid meetings (a key employee concern of hybrid working). Hybrid working is a distinct way of working, and investment in support and training is crucial to help employees and managers to thrive in the new workplace.

The research identified that when employees had a choice over where to work within a workspace they reported a whole range of positives, demonstrating the value of designing with more discretion for workers to decide how, when and where to get tasks done. The challenge for managers is to reconsider their role, particularly in relation to authority and responsibility, around employees’ expectations for greater self-management. Managers can also learn to pay attention to supporting social networks in the hybrid workplace, and to developing a sense of belonging and identity in their staff, especially for new starters. Learning to consider the team as a network or system helps managers recognise the location in the network of new and diverse employees. (Davis, M.C., Collis, H., Hughes, H.P.N., Wu, C., Gritt, E., Fang, L., Iqbal, A. & Rees, S.J. (2022) Where is your office today? New insights on employee behaviour and social networks. Leeds, UK: University of Leeds)

Helen McKelvie

May 2023

Is trauma causing your toxic work environment?

ps If you’re a people manager who would like some support in your role in the hybrid workplace NIODA is offering a new workshop series ‘Optimising the New Normal’. The workshops aim to enhance capacity to manage the work boundaries relating to staff well-being and safety in the hybrid workplace; and to provide the sense of containment from leadership that has been compromised or lost in the move to working across onsite and online spaces.