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One of the fundamental reflections of business people is to ask themselves whether their employees are happy in the company. "Happiness is a cure-all, we cannot be happy all the time but we can have a culture in which moments of happiness reoccur," says SimonDolan, an expert in the psychology of work and people management.
Some 14 years ago, professor Dolan came to Spain for love, he speaks seven languages and has written more than 60 books; the latest, Liderazgo, dirección y coaching por valores - Los 10 mandamientos para gestionar personas en el siglo XXI, came out this week. The professor, who directs the Future of Work Chair at Esade and who is director of innovation and creativity at EsadeCreapolis considers himself to be an agent of change: "A good coach helps people to reflect on the concept of success."
When business people talk about values, is it conviction or just marketing?
Values are a positive concept that anyone can talk about, from business people to politicians. However, some 90% of business values are just empty words. There is no substance to them. For example, when they say that a company's best assets are its people, or when a hospital makes quality patient care a priority, but then doctors are asked to see three patients every half hour… Sometimes in the business world we kill with economic values. We have to be aware that values are the DNA of our behaviour. It is a field lacking in coherence and metrics.
The book deals with the art of managing people through coaching. Is it a fashion at a time of crisis or a profession of the future?
In the business world there are concepts that grow like foam and then disappear. At the beginning I was very sceptical about coaching. Today, this area is a jungle: it is not regulated and you can find all sorts. It has something of a fashion about it but it also has substance. Coaching is a tool; a good coach helps people to reflect on the concept of success..
For some people, success means a good wage at the end of the month.
Yes. There are people who are happy about salary success but this type of happiness is not sustainable in the long term. There are football players who earn millions but who are not happy, because happiness is relative. The day you discover that there is another player who earns half a million more than you, you stop being happy, because the message is that there is someone better than you. Coaching by values is the way of applying Einstein's theory of relativity to the personal world.
How can we know what our concept of success is?
To understand what is important for you in the different areas of your life, you have to keep a triaxial model in mind that is based on values associated with economics, such as salary, values associated with ethics and society, and emotional values. The ethical axis provides the rules of the game. Volkswagen ignored this ethical axis when it decided to manipulate its engines. When you violate ethics, you are only looking at the short-term objectives. The emotional axis is linked to passion, the only thing that is sustainable throughout life and that has to be constantly fed. In fact, this is the main task of leadership: to create an ecosystem in which the team will not lose its passion.
What happens when we do not share the values of the company?
Not good. When we share values related to the same axis, we can talk of culture, because we are acting according to our values. For example, a Chinese group buys a French company that distributes cosmetics and so, as a result, they have to rethink their values in order to realign themselves. Casillas is an example of someone who has chosen to play at another football club for less money because he no longer shared the same values as the coach.
Today, leaders are judged by turnover, the capacity to generate revenue, and so on. Does the economic axis have more weight than the others?.
Yes, but bearing in mind that we live in a fast-moving world, we need to think in the long-term. I am not saying that money need be lost, companies are not NGOs, but if you earn 5% less every year to achieve a long-term objective, then that is okay. What isn't is that one of your axes of values should be at zero. They do not need to be symmetrical, but the economic axis cannot be at 70%..
And which axis do workers care most about?
The workers of the future will expect something more than just money: they will want welfare, learning and growth. They will put more value on the ethical and emotional axis. There is no need to look into the future, millennials already act lhis way: they want transparency, honesty, that the company be a source of learning where they can develop over time. In the future there will increasingly be more companies like this. In the United States, competent young people will change company between 15 and 25 times over the course of their working lives.
It sounds like a utopian labour relationship. Is there a current example?
The American firm Zappos. It is a 21st-century company, happy and that makes a lot of money. It even does things that are far from common, such as sacking people, not because they are not a good professional, but because their values do not fit with those of the company. In short, People will work for wherever they have more passion, not where they can earn more money.
Some 14 years ago, professor Dolan came to Spain for love, he speaks seven languages and has written more than 60 books; the latest, Liderazgo, dirección y coaching por valores - Los 10 mandamientos para gestionar personas en el siglo XXI, came out this week. The professor, who directs the Future of Work Chair at Esade and who is director of innovation and creativity at EsadeCreapolis considers himself to be an agent of change: "A good coach helps people to reflect on the concept of success."
When business people talk about values, is it conviction or just marketing?
Values are a positive concept that anyone can talk about, from business people to politicians. However, some 90% of business values are just empty words. There is no substance to them. For example, when they say that a company's best assets are its people, or when a hospital makes quality patient care a priority, but then doctors are asked to see three patients every half hour… Sometimes in the business world we kill with economic values. We have to be aware that values are the DNA of our behaviour. It is a field lacking in coherence and metrics.
The book deals with the art of managing people through coaching. Is it a fashion at a time of crisis or a profession of the future?
In the business world there are concepts that grow like foam and then disappear. At the beginning I was very sceptical about coaching. Today, this area is a jungle: it is not regulated and you can find all sorts. It has something of a fashion about it but it also has substance. Coaching is a tool; a good coach helps people to reflect on the concept of success..
For some people, success means a good wage at the end of the month.
Yes. There are people who are happy about salary success but this type of happiness is not sustainable in the long term. There are football players who earn millions but who are not happy, because happiness is relative. The day you discover that there is another player who earns half a million more than you, you stop being happy, because the message is that there is someone better than you. Coaching by values is the way of applying Einstein's theory of relativity to the personal world.
How can we know what our concept of success is?
To understand what is important for you in the different areas of your life, you have to keep a triaxial model in mind that is based on values associated with economics, such as salary, values associated with ethics and society, and emotional values. The ethical axis provides the rules of the game. Volkswagen ignored this ethical axis when it decided to manipulate its engines. When you violate ethics, you are only looking at the short-term objectives. The emotional axis is linked to passion, the only thing that is sustainable throughout life and that has to be constantly fed. In fact, this is the main task of leadership: to create an ecosystem in which the team will not lose its passion.
What happens when we do not share the values of the company?
Not good. When we share values related to the same axis, we can talk of culture, because we are acting according to our values. For example, a Chinese group buys a French company that distributes cosmetics and so, as a result, they have to rethink their values in order to realign themselves. Casillas is an example of someone who has chosen to play at another football club for less money because he no longer shared the same values as the coach.
Today, leaders are judged by turnover, the capacity to generate revenue, and so on. Does the economic axis have more weight than the others?.
Yes, but bearing in mind that we live in a fast-moving world, we need to think in the long-term. I am not saying that money need be lost, companies are not NGOs, but if you earn 5% less every year to achieve a long-term objective, then that is okay. What isn't is that one of your axes of values should be at zero. They do not need to be symmetrical, but the economic axis cannot be at 70%..
And which axis do workers care most about?
The workers of the future will expect something more than just money: they will want welfare, learning and growth. They will put more value on the ethical and emotional axis. There is no need to look into the future, millennials already act lhis way: they want transparency, honesty, that the company be a source of learning where they can develop over time. In the future there will increasingly be more companies like this. In the United States, competent young people will change company between 15 and 25 times over the course of their working lives.
It sounds like a utopian labour relationship. Is there a current example?
The American firm Zappos. It is a 21st-century company, happy and that makes a lot of money. It even does things that are far from common, such as sacking people, not because they are not a good professional, but because their values do not fit with those of the company. In short, People will work for wherever they have more passion, not where they can earn more money.