Giving up control

Uncle Seth Godin has an interesting post/rant the other day about how it seems that Gmail has (at least for some), been delivering his daily blog's email version to subscribers' 'Promotions' tab in Gmail, or even worse, shunting the email to their Spam folders.

In the post, Seth correctly reminds readers that if they (or you), rely on any kind of a algorithmic filter, be it Gmail's spam machinations or Facebook's (and other networks), 'newsfeeds' to make a determination of what posts the platform thinks you will be interested in seeing, then you constantly run the risk of missing things and content that at some point you had indeed indicated that you were interested in seeing/reading.Mark Rothko, Number 14 (1960)

I wrote about the same phenomenon, from a slightly different point of view, recently too, when I posited more or less that we get the algorithms we deserve to some extent, by allowing ourselves to be beguiled into thinking that superior networking tools and technologies can somehow allow us to usurp the famous Dunbar number which suggests an absolute limit to the amount of social relationships a person can manage at any time. 

Both posts, mine and Uncle Seth's, are really about the same issue at a fundamental level. In our information overload existence, we are increasingly ceding the signaling of what content is important enough for us to take a moment to actually consider to algorithms, which are at least in part informed by what everybody else thinks is important. Before the Facebook newsfeed took over the world, we used to subscribe to the sites/blogs we decided we were most interested in, either getting posts via email or the dearly departed Google Reader, and we could confidently rely upon either of those mechanisms to reliably deliver the content we explicitly desired.

Sure, we may not have always had time to read all our email, or plow through all the unread items in Reader, but that was on us - the content would always be there whether or not we were ready to consume. And now, with Google deciding for us what messages we should be prioritizing, and the social networks relying on some mysterious formulas to determine the relevance of content, we have, even if we have not really intended to, relinquished some of our own agency in the process.

And while I think things like spam filters and 'smart' algorithms can improve the way we see and engage with the barrage of information we confront on a daily basis, there still needs to be some kind of a universal setting for 'I want to see this all of the time, even if I don't read it right away, and especially if I don't click the like or share button every time I see it.'

There needs to be an override to the algorithm for the things we decide we care about.

Even if these things are not super popular. Even if they don't get 'enough' likes. 

Even if Google thinks they are spam.

Even if none of your Facebook friends like them.

Whose fault is it that you are working too much?

A week or so ago I wrote about how France is considering placing a ban of sorts on after-hours email - the idea that people/workers are working too many hours as it is, and they should have the right to ignore work-related email messages that are sent outside of 'normal' working hours.  

As is normally the case when an idea like that pops up, a number of folks chime in about how that is a terrible idea, and that people/workers need (and for the most part want), the ability to move between 'work' and 'not work' more freely and fluidly than the traditional design of work (in the office from 8:30 - 5:00, or some such), typically allows.

In the modern world it is argued, people should 'blend' work and not work so casually that sitting in on a conference call while watching Junior's U8 soccer game and ducking out of the office at 10:30AM to go have a facial should both be seen as more or less normal and acceptable ways of 'blending' work and not work. And while I think that this is generally both a good and decent idea, and the way of the future (and possibly the present) of work for many folks, I also think that the balance never seems to really balance. Said differently, work is like water (or air), it flows naturally to where it isn't, and it expands to fill all the available space it can.

I thought about this entire idea again, of the French idea to set a harder border or barrier between work and not work when I read this piece on the Campaign Live site the other day - Wieden & Kennedy trials limits to working hours, on how the Ad agency W&K is approaching these work/life issues. Here is a little bit from the piece:

For the next few months, the creative agency is barring staff from organising meetings before 10am and after 4pm in a bid to stop its employees coming into work too early and leaving too late. No staff will be expected to work more than 40 hours a week. 

Agency staff have also been told not to send or read work e-mails after 7pm and are encouraged to leave work at 4.30pm on Fridays.

Neil Christie, the agency’s managing director, told Campaign that the changes are intended to make Wieden & Kennedy a more appealing place to work.

In recent years, creative agencies have been forced to compete for talent with tech companies, such as Google, that ask an equal commitment of employees but are able to offer higher salaries to recruits.

Pretty basic but still interesting ideas, that while positioned as a 'We think you all are working too much' also come off as decent recommendations on how to make better use of the time you are working. Early morning meetings stink. Late afternoon meetings stink even more. So trying to ban both of these makes sense not just from a 'we need to work less hours' point of view but also a 'let's make work a little more productive and enjoyable' while we are there perspective.

But the real question is why the leaders at Wieden & Kennedy felt the need to set some guidelines and restrictions in order to ensure their staffs will work less. I bet most folks, when given the choice between working 70-80 hours a week and just logging a reasonable 40 hours will choose the latter, (all things being equal which sadly, all things never are). 

Someone (or someones), in leadership there have set up a system/culture where, save for the few W&K staffers that probably really love what they are doing, have not much of a life outside of work, and see putting in 70-80 hours a week as the cost of getting ahead in the ad agency business, working all of the time is the norm and the expectation. And now leadership sees that this culture is not sustainable and may be creating an issue with retention and recruiting. Shocking, I know. It turns out that after a while grinding it out week after week takes a toll on people.

But it is a little bit cheeky as a leader to place restrictions on working hours and after hours emails and not take at least some of the responsibility for creating the very conditions that you are know having to curb.

Whose fault is it that you are working too much? Probably not yours, at least not totally.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

It's after 5PM: Don't you even THINK about replying to that email

Clearing out a bunch of 'saved for later' articles in my feed reader this past weekend and I came across this gem from our pals at the Washington Post - France may pass a law allowing people to ignore work emails at home. Here is all you need to know on this, (in case you couldn't figure out the gist from the on the nose headine):

Among a host of new reforms designed to loosen the more stringent regulations in the country’s labor market, France’s labor minister, Myriam El Khomri, is including a provision that would give employees the right to ignore professional emails and other messages when outside the office. It would essentially codify a division between work and home and, on a deeper level, between public and private life.

El Khomri apparently fleeced this idea from a report by Bruno Mettling, a director general in charge of human resources at Orange, the telecommunications giant. Mettling believes this policy would benefit employers as much as their employees, whom, he has said, are likely to suffer “psychosocial risks” from a ceaseless communication cycle. As reported in Le Monde, a recent study found than approximately 3.2 million French workers are at risk of “burning out,” defined as a combination of physical exhaustion and emotional anxiety. Although France is already famous for its 35-hour workweek, many firms skirt the rules — often through employees who continue working remotely long after they leave for the day.

I know what my (primarily) USA-based readers are thinking right about now. Likely some combination of 'Those French don't know what it takes to compete in the modern economy', 'It is too late for that idea, technology has made the walls between work and non-work just about irrelevant', and 'You will never get the raise/title/office/parking space you want without working ALL THE TIME'.

At least here in the USA, the vast majority of advice and strategery around helping folks with trying to achieve a better level of work/life balance seems to recommend moving much more fluidly between work and not-work. Most of the writing on this seems to advocate for allowing workers much more flexibility over their time and schedules so that they can take care of personal things on 'work' time, with the understanding that they are actually 'working' lots of the time they are not technically 'at work'. Since we all have smartphones that connect us to work 24/7, the thinking goes that we would all have better balance and harmony between work and life by trying to blend the two together more seamlessly.

And I guess that is reasonably decent advice and probably, (by necessity as much as choice), that is what most of us try and do to make sure work and life are both given their due.

But the proposal from the French labor minister is advocating the exact opposite of what conventional (and US-centric), experts mostly are pushing. The proposed French law would (at least in terms of email), attempt to re-build the traditional and firm divide and separation between work and not-work. If this were to pass, then if it is outside of your 'work' time, then feel free to ignore that email. No questions asked. No repercussions. At least in theory.

An interesting, if very Frecnch-sounding idea.

But here is the question I want to leave with you: What if the French are right about this and the commonly accepted wisdom and advice about blending work and life is wrong?

What if we'd all be happier, and better engaged, and more able to focus on our work if we were not, you know, working all the time?

What if you truly shut it down at 5PM every day?

What would that look like?

Dunbar strikes again

This recent piece on CNET, You can only really count on 4 of your 150 Facebook friends, study says, a recap of some recently published research by none other than Robin Dunbar, (of Dunbar's number), reminded me of a piece I posted here almost 5 years ago. Long story short, once again Dunbar's essential observation and conclusion about the number and strength of personal relationships that a person can have and maintain, (around 150 in total), continues to be validated even in the age of constant connectivity and ubiquitous use of social networking platforms. 

You can check out the CNET piece, and the link to the related research paper from Dunbar, and just for fun, I am going to re-run my almost 5 year old piece below as well. That Dunbar, he never stops being right it seems...

In the Jungle, or on Twitter, Dunbar Still Has You Beat

June 2011

You might be familiar with Dunbar's number - the theoretical limit on the number of meaningful and stable social relationships that one can successfully maintain. First proposed by the British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, it asserts that the actual number of social relationships one can maintain ranges from 100 to about 230, with 150 as the commonly accepted value.Should I 'unfriend' Steve?

Dunbar's original studies that led to the development of the concept of the 'number', were conducted on studies of the social activity of non-human primates, that as far as we can tell, did not have many Facebook friends or Twitter followers. Why do I toss in the social networking bit? Well, in this modern age of social networking, hyper-connectivity, and the ability to make some kind of connection, (meaningful or otherwise), with thousands upon thousands of people is now quite possible and fairly simple.

Naturally the technological and social revolutions have led many to question or even claim that modern social networking technology can indeed finally enable individuals to effectively expand the actual number of social relationships they can successfully maintain, that in the age of Facebook and Twitter and the ease with which these tools allow essentially limitless connections to be made, that Dunbar's number might no longer apply.

Recently Bruno Goncalves and a team of researchers from Indiana University set out to determine if indeed this was the case. They studies the actions and interactions and the networks of connections of over 3 million Twitter users over a period of 4 years, examining a grand total of over 380 million tweets. The researchers wanted to see if indeed among these 3 million users, they could discern patterns and evidence, (replies, conversations, sustained connections, etc.), that could prove that the long-accepted Dunbar limitation of 150 would indeed be more easily overcame, aided by the ease and speed and facilitated connection engine that is Twitter.

Their findings? (below quote lifted directly from their paper's conclusion)

Social networks have changed they way we use to communicate. It is now easy to be connected with a huge number of other individuals. In this paper we show that social networks did not change human social capabilities. We analyze a large dataset of Twitter conversations collected across six months involving millions of individuals to test the theoretical cognitive limit on the number of stable social relationships known as Dunbar's number. We found that even in the online world cognitive and biological constraints holds as predicted by Dunbar's theory limiting users social activities.

I follow about 6,000 people on Twitter. I probably interact regularly with maybe 100 or 150 of them. Which is altogether normal and expected and not at all unexpected according to our friend Dunbar, the primates he studied, and the results seen from the recent research from Indiana University.

The larger point in all this?

I suppose keeping in mind that no matter how large and diverse and important seeming these giant networks of contacts, connections, followers, and friends we build online are to us, to our businesses and our personal lives, the technology itself has yet to do much to overcome some of the apparent laws of nature and biology.

What do you think? Can you really have more than 150 'friends'?

PODCAST - #HRHappyHour 230 - Email Me! Battling Constant Connectivity

HR Happy Hour 230 - Email Me! Battling Constant Connectivity

Recorded Wednesday January 6, 2016

Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane

Listen HERE

This week on the show Steve and Trish recorded the first HR Happy Hour Show of 2016 by chatting about email and the impact of connectivity on multiple platforms.   We somehow get derailed a little bit and end up hearing what Steve plans to do before conference season starts.  Hint....it has to do with facial hair!

We wind talking about not making predictions about the HCM industry.  Instead, we cover what should HR leaders be talking about in 2016.  From intelligent technology, the world of benefits, to the importance of the employee experience, we cover it all.  Please listen in and then weigh in on what you think is important for the upcoming year.

You can listen to the show on the show page HERE, or using the widget player below, (Email and RSS subscribers will need to click through)

And of course you can listen to and subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show on iTunes, or via your favorite podcast app. Just search for 'HR Happy Hour' to download and subscribe to the show and you will never miss a new episode.