This edition of Human Factors and Change emphasises the role of systems in our working life. I find it exhilarating when I stumble across a useful application or system, and my exhilaration comes from the fact that my productivity skyrockets. Any system that makes me appear super productive or clever makes my day.
I have found tools like Canva, Flaticon and Freepik indispensable. Alongside Grammarly and Hemingway app, these tools have become part of my Change Manager "productivity stack".
I also love to read as I come across powerful concepts that often stick with me. The funny thing is I tend to forget these concepts a fair bit and need to revisit various books. Even so, I delight in learning new ideas and revisiting old ones. I also enjoy how some authors can articulate concepts far better than I have. For example, when researching the OODA loop in one of my articles for this edition. I came across one online author — The Art of Manliness. This author's breakdown of John Boyd and his OODA loop wiped the floor with mine.
Some sources of inspiration provide a grab-bag of tools and techniques that you can dip into. Here are a few of these sources of inspiration:
The Behavioural Design toolbox of 20 ideas and techniques, by Ian Batterbee. Ian describes his article as a behavioural design "starter kit" for understanding and changing human behaviours. I like how he starts his article by encouraging the use of sound ethics, and it can be easy to use behavioural change techniques for both good and evil. Ian then breaks down his tools into heuristics (or rules of thumb) and specific techniques.
I need to have a solid change plan, communication sequence and approach to training and support in place before anything else. Yet I find these behavioural design techniques as the cherry on the ice cream or the melted cheese on my toast. These techniques add a little something extra to my change approach. Yet I need to make sure that I am not over-invested in any of these behavioural design techniques. Like cooking, if you add too much of an ingredient that was originally intended to complement your dish, you tend to lose your way.
I recently wrote about gamification — the final technique in Ian's article. His 10th point is pretty cool — the CAR model. This stands for cue, action and reward. If you are influencing the behaviours of thousands of people, imagine the working life of just one of these people. Do your change interventions have a cue, action and reward? If so you are using behavioural psychology to shape people's behaviour.
I also like the idea of ambient communication (# 17 in Ian's toolbox). In your change communications, you may invariably need to convey complex information. Can you intuitively do this so that people can quickly grasp the main ideas with minimal effort? The use of imagery and data visualisation can help greatly here.
Creativity killers: Toxic workplace factors that quash innovation and how to tackle them with evidence-based practices, by Dr Devon Price. A good academic article never goes astray, as long as the lessons are based on solid research and practical application. Are you influencing change in an organisation? Wonder why employees appear rigid and curt when grappling with your change? Then take a look at this article.
Dr Price's brief article has some interesting takeaways summarised. Yet this work also has practical advice for navigating organisations with a short term mentality. This article identifies organisational cultures which may quash innovation and employee well-being. I liked how this article linked the field of romantic relations psychology to how organisations undermine creativity and innovation.
If you are in a hostile or contemptuous organisation, or one with short-term thinking, this article gives practical suggestions on how to potentially unpick these obstacles. You will not change organisations like this. Yet if you can win the hearts and minds of small pockets within the organisation, you may be able to build support for your change. Also if you can spend time with a small cohort of "non-toxic" change champions, this can help maintain your energy for leading change. We are social creatures after all, and people's toxic attitudes will get you down over time.
Going back to applications now. Beyond my rundown of Muse 2 and Synthesia.io in this edition, I gain great productivity by entering these words using my voice. While I still do the odd bit of typing, there is a better way to get those words onto a page. If you have taken the time to read through my work, congratulations on getting this far. Here is your reward: I can enter work up to three times as fast as typing by using Dragon Nuance software. Some of my articles were "written" while I have been going on walks during COVID lockdown. Right now I am sitting here at my desk talking to myself. My Yeti microphone and Dragon Home Edition are effectively paying for themselves.
When I did my clinical placement for the last part of my master's degree in psychology, we had to write a metric tonne of notes throughout the entire placement. For someone with an aversion to writing, this would be an incredibly difficult task. Yet I was able to stay on task and completely on top of my notes by writing most of my notes in a completely different way. In clinical practice, I am sure you would agree it would be awkward to talk to a computer in front of my client. So tools like Remarkable 2 may be a godsend to professionals in this position.
While I feel I'm spruiking the above systems and tools, I don't have any affiliation with any of these companies. These ideas, systems and tools work for me and I'm sharing this with you.
I am sure you may experience similar exhilaration when you discover tools that open up an entirely new world of productivity. I hope you enjoy this brief rundown of systems-related sources of inspiration.
Our book — The Change Manager's Companion — is available now. You can also check out our online course on Change Management.