Technology is rapidly changing both our work and lives. Many experts are predicting that we are rapidly headed toward a ‘fourth industrial revolution’.
In this masterclass, held on 2 May in London, Lecturer in People Management Dr Charles Barthold asked how can the rapid technological advances in computing, robotics and communications that are revolutionising work and life, be empowering, rather than dis-empowering, for people and organisations? He explored the ways in which practitioners can use technology for social empowerment and how we can create a smarter work force.
Robert Herian, Lecturer in Law from The Open University Law School, discussed Blockchain – what is it, how it is regulated, and how it will affect workplaces of the future.
Video highlights are available:
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Our Business Perspectives webinar on “Disruptive technologies and intelligence: business opportunity or threat?” took place on Friday 26 January. If you missed the webinar or want to watch it again, it is now available to view on demand. If you haven’t already, you will need to complete the registration form for access.
During our webinar we discussed how general data protection and compliance may be affected by a ‘fourth industrial revolution’ as technology rapidly changes both our work and lives. This was followed by a question and answer session with questions and insights from the webinar audience.
Our webinar panellists included David Mudd, IoT Business Development Director, BSI and Dr Peter Bloom, Head of the Department for People and Organisations, OUBS. The webinar was facilitated by Janet Barker, External Engagement Manager, OUBS.
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Guest blogger: Dr Matthew Haigh is Senior Lecturer in Accounting at The Open University Business School (OUBS). Dr Matthew Haigh is leading the Festive Networking event on Wednesday 6 December. For more information, visit the OUBS website.
This mis-named Brexit – the existential crisis of our day. Maybe, or maybe not. What to do about it seems the more pressing question. Any period of substantial structural change represents an opportunity to examine ourselves as much as an opportunity to understand employment markets. Take the City of London as an example of a regionally important market. The interesting thing here is that one can see the best parts of regionally important industries dumped into a tiny area, all co-operating, competing, communicating and relying on each other. Basically, the City’s an ant’s nest and not many outside it know much about what happens inside. In the lead up to EU-withdrawal, we might be able to learn both something about the City and something about how well we adapt to change in the workplace.
At the time of writing, EU-withdrawal already tells us something about the City. What stands out in public discussions and the press is a generalised fixation on the City. It’s interesting that the City’s borders – who’s in, who’s leaving and where they’re heading – has suddenly become a matter of national concern, when what the City does is organise a market without borders: globalised financial services. The City supports 100,000 business administration positions; 87,000 positions in financial services; 80,000 in professional services; insurance, perhaps surprising some, comes in at 50,000 positions; technology, 25,000 and growing fast, and retail with 23,000 positions (1). All in one not very square mile, plus Canary Wharf. As we approach the big date of 29 March 2019 – the day the United Kingdom is due to leave the European Union – how will this employment pattern change?
If one were to look at recent data, it would appear that net employment losses in the City, going forwards into 2019, are likely. Perhaps net losses in 2019 will prove no larger than any of the five big employment dips since 1997. Certainly, there has been widespread expectation that the City’s employment landscape is about to change. Between March 2016 and November 2017, the fourteen regional newspapers distributed in central London published at least 700 articles alluding to the City’s future relationship with the European Union. Four rhetorical themes emerge in London’s daily press: in descending order, we have Loss (42% of headlines), Existential Threat (30%), Uncertainty (15%) and Hardship (11%). Let’s take a peek at two articles.
Extract 1, 8 November 2017: “Wall St warns Trump team of Brexit point of no return. High-level meetings hear lack of clarity threatens thousands of UK financial jobs. […] Absent clarity from the government about post-Brexit plans, the executives said jobs would move back to the US or to other European capitals as banks begin to enact their worst-case contingency plans, the sources said.”
Extract 2, 31 October 2017: “Brexit/City job cuts: Oliver’s army: Consultants predict the loss of 75,000 jobs, but forecasts of shake-outs are often wrong.”
Extract 1 adopts a militaristic tone: ‘Wall St warns’, ‘point of no return’, ‘threatens thousands’. Many headlines have used numbers to frame predicted losses in the City. A headline from October 2016 predicted 100,000 City positions at risk. A few weeks later, another warned “Losing clearing would cost London 83,000 jobs […] up to 232,000 losses across the nation”. A year later, one read “Uncertainty over Brexit transition ‘could put 75,000 City jobs at risk’”. This type of arithmetic rhetoric speaks strongest to Existential Threat.
Extract 2 may prompt your knowledge of military history. The headline alludes to the professional status of soldiers in the New Model Army and their eventual fate: unemployment. The New Model Army fought for a Commonwealth of England, only to be disbanded in 1660 following disputes over pay and political demands. A connection to the ‘army’ of commuters heading for City of London is clear, as is our classification of Extract 2 under the Loss and Uncertainty categories.
In all of this, the City has been cast both as a victim of circumstances and as something to blame, or that should be made responsible, for the consequences. Why both victim and scapegoat? The answer, of course, is employment multipliers, with the Office for National Statistics using multipliers between 1 and 5 for financial services, insurance and related industries (2). Whatever happens in the City in the run-up to March 2019 we might expect that to be felt across a range of employment markets. So we might benefit from considering how well we adapt to change.
Conveniently, a tool exists to help you gauge how you adapt to change. It’s called a career adaptability scale, it’s from vocational behaviour research, and it’s been tested in English-speaking and non-English-speaking countries. Access a copy of the instrument and score yourself using a five-point scale: 5 for ‘strongest’ to 1 for ‘not strong’ (3). If your total score comes out below 60, you might need to work on your adaptability strengths in the run-up to March 2019.
See ONS tables ‘Type I employment multipliers and effects by SU114 industry and sector (market, government and NPISH) Reference year: 2010’.
Mark L. Savickas and Erik J. Porfeli (2012) “Career Adapt-Abilities Scale: Construction, reliability, and measurement equivalence across 13 countries”, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Volume 80, Issue 3, Pages 661-673.
During our masterclass in Hemel Hempstead on 11 October, Penny Asher, Director, Executive Education at OUBS hosted David Mudd of BSI and Dr Peter Bloom of OUBS at this event to explore the challenges of working smart with disruptive technologies and intelligence.
Dr Bloom’s presentation asked “Are you ready for the fourth industrial revolution and should you be?” and discussed issues such as whether we are heading for a utopian or dystopian future workplace, considering new ways of working, planning for the future today, and highlighting that the future is not inevitable.
David Mudd’s presentation explored the “Internet of Things: What does it mean for business today?” David addressed issues including Reward vs. Risk, IoT security, why people matter most and why your organisation shouldn’t rush into joining the new revolution.
Video highlights are available:
Are you ready for the fourth industrial revolution and should you be?
Dr Peter Bloom, Senior Lecturer in Organisational Studies, The Open University Business School
The Internet of Things (IoT): What does it mean for businesses today? The rewards and the risks
David Mudd, British Standards Institution (BSI), IoT Business Development Director
To conclude the Business Perspectives innovation quarter, we have created a summary report that offers diverse ideas and insights about innovation – a snapshot of perspectives from around the globe.
We invite you to download and share the report and please send us any comments. We will create a similar summary report following the strategy quarter, if you would like to contribute your perspective towards the strategy theme, please contact our Business Perspectives Editor using the web-form below.
Sarah Platts, Open University Business School MBA Alumnus, Change Consultant at FreshNetworks
Innovation is a common topic of debate and strategy in most businesses (be they new or well established). In the current economic climate, and with the huge potential of the likes of social media data, brands are increasingly looking at innovation (large and small) as a way to beat the competition.
But innovation is often misunderstood. After a recent event debating the topic at the Open University Business School, I left with some insights into what the attendees thought that innovation was, and some misconceptions about what it has to be:
Five things that innovation is
Inextricably linked with growth, according to the BBC’s Evan Davis. He surmised that innovation hasn’t come to a standstill in 2012, although we do have a growth problem which innovation itself will be crucial to solving.
Delicate. It’s important to nurture it gently so as not to kill it off too quickly, but also carefully contain and manage it to prevent any huge financial, market, or reputational fires.
More prevalent during recessions. The atmosphere of fear engendered by recession is often the trigger required to force organisations to adapt and survive (as opposed to ending up at the decline end of the sigmoid curve, such as Kodak), as well as being ideal for start-ups. Recessions tend to shake out the worst performers, and those simply coasting along with the status quo.
Often within your team already. Any business is likely to have great ideas and innovators already within the team. An open and creative organisational culture and office space is crucial to finding, developing, and encouraging these employees, who will always move to another company (possibly a competitor) to innovate if they can’t do so where they are.
Often the victim of resistance and sabotage. Some tactics to look out for and actively surface and manage include Peter Keen’s “lay low”, and “keep the project complex, hard to coordinate, and vaguely defined”. Plus also the wonderfully expressed “Say yes! But do nothing”.
Five things that innovation doesn’t have to be
Big or complex. Sometimes the best innovation can come through a series of incremental steps which ultimately amount to something quite large, impactful and radical. Such gradual change can often be more palatable in businesses.
Hugely expensive or driven forward by companies. As demonstrated by the user-led innovations of the maker movement, and also Jugaad Innovation’s more flexible, frugal, and bottom-up approach.
A risky business. At least not to the innovators – who have complete faith in their idea. It’s the financial backers who are taking the risks. However, if we’re taking an incremental approach, perhaps that can help reduce the overall risk by breaking innovation up into more manageable and less intimidating or costly chunks.
A driver to cut costs. As it’s enabling many companies to retain their current cost bases but stretch those resources further into more countries and ventures.
About technology. Thinking and process innovations show it’s not just about technology (e.g. queuing), and service innovations prove it’s not only about products either. Nevertheless, technology is certainly vital, and SAP UK’s CTO Adrian Simpson explored how innovation is being shaped by greater mobility (e.g. increase in mobile devices), social media and networks, the cloud, and huge data sets (including social data).
Ultimately, innovation seems to depend on persistence, belief, adaptability, and relevance to customers and the market. While its success relies on people, behaviour and skills, and spotting and pursuing the opportunity before it’s too late. Undoubtedly money and resources help, but perhaps more of a barrier exists in the minds of employees and cultures of organisations?
(This article was originally published on FreshNetworks on 20th Dec 2012.)
Evan Davis, OUBS Visiting Professor and guest speaker at the Innovation Masterclass, talks about the relationship between innovation and economic growth.
Professor James Fleck, Professor of Innovation Dynamics at The Open University Business School.
At the beginning of the Innovation Masterclass, I proposed to run a challenge for examples of an innovation that does not involve technology.
Definition of innovation:
“Innovation is the practical implementation of a new idea or invention for intended economic impact.”
General points:
1. There is a distinction between innovation and simple change: essentially we are considering innovation as a business and economic category.
2. Involvement of any technology: existing or old – does not have to be new; simple or basic – does not have to be complex.
3. An innovation may well be based on a natural phenomenon, but it has to include an extra element to make it into a human idea or invention.
4. There is a distinction between innovation as we have been discussing (essentially a business and economic category) and artistic or cultural innovation.
5. Innovations in process look like the most promising candidates, although most modern processes do in fact depend on ICT (information and communication technologies).
6. Innovations in policy look promising, but until they are practically implemented, usually as processes with determinable outcomes, they are not really innovations in the business sense.
There were 21 submissions in total. The best answer won a bottle of champagne. More detailed observations are noted under each suggestion.
Comments on submissions:
1) The wheel
Well, this is surely the archetypical innovation and if a wheel is not technology, what is?
2) The abolition of slavery (disappearance of the feudal system)
This certainly represents a major societal change, and is more a combination of many other changes than a singular change. But would slavery have been possible without ships, weapons and other instruments of oppression? There is an interesting thesis about feudalism which suggests that it is a society that results from the invention of the stirrup (which enabled the technology of horse-based warfare to underpin the emergence of a class of horse owning overlords).
3) Gay marriage
Not sure that this is a new idea, and don’t think any economic impact was intended. It’s more of a cultural change. Also see general points 5 & 6 above.
4) A choral work, performed for money
An interesting one, but more of an artistic/cultural change. Also, unless purely voice, without any musical instrumental support, then technology certainly is involved (musical instruments are technology).
5) Organised religion
Not sure what the specific idea is that is being practically implemented; not sure what the intended economic impact is, and not sure that it is in any way new. This is more of a cultural change – see general point 5 above.
6) Innovation in dementia care (a “feelings-based” approach involving quality interactions instead of task completion)
Not sure what is new about this. Surely more a reversion to what historically has been the essence of good family-based care. Perhaps the industrialised “task completion” approach, dependent on the technology of time-keeping and efficient division of labour, was the innovation?
7) The introduction of “total football” by the Dutch in the 1974 World Cup (where each player shared a posting on the field)
An interesting one – an example perhaps of a process innovation (see general point 5 above). But what about the pitch and the stadium, the football, specialist boots, TV and all the other technologies that make the modern World Cup what it is? Also, sport perhaps is more part of the artistic and cultural domain in its essence as a game. And increasingly, modern innovations in sport are in fact based on technology (goal line technology for instance).
8) The behavioural management of safety
This is very cryptic and not sure what the key innovation is. Appropriate behaviour has always been an important ingredient in safety. In its modern manifestation, I think it does depend on technology, that of monitoring and recording as well as a range of training tools to impart correct safety behaviour (I am thinking here of the programmed instruction about computer work that I have to undergo as an academic).
9) A new technique in knitting transferred from grandmother to mother
But knitting needles are technology, albeit a very simple and basic one.
10) Having children (Adam and Eve)
Mmmm. An entirely natural process. No new ideas or inventions (well…) (In the robotics literature there is a joke about how human beings are the only robots made by unskilled labour).
11) In nature where mutations occur which result in increased longevity of that species
Another natural process. No new idea and no practical implementation. But once there is practical implementation for intended economic outcomes, then perhaps you do have an innovation. Artificial selection for breeding?
12) Free entry to museums about 10 years ago leading to a massive increase in visitors and attendant cultural benefits
A clear example of a policy innovation (see general point 6 above). Not sure how new this was as museums were always free when I was a boy. Also not clear what the economic impact has been.
13) Sigmund Freud
Not sure where the practical implementation is. And perhaps there is a distinction between factually based new ideas and imaginative new ideas? Clearly an artistic/cultural example (see general point 4 above).
14) Money
Another very interesting example. Originally money emerged as a universal barter commodity, such as salt. But the real innovation when money became money in the modern sense, was the invention of coinage with symbolic value indicated on its face. And this of course depended on the technologies of metallurgy and minting. Even with salt and other barter goods, some means of measuring or weighing the quantity of the goods was required.
15) “Kissing it better” innovation in child and health care
As with example 6 above, not sure there is anything new in this. This is rather a reversion to ancient family based approaches.
16) Fire
Is this in itself an innovation? The effective control and harnessing of fire surely is the basis for innovations, and these all constitute technologies such as design of hearths, furnaces, chimneys etc.
17) Change from counter-service to self-service in shopping
I think this does necessarily involve a range of technologies, from effective tagging systems for the goods purchased, scanning systems for the checkout points and the design of the checkouts themselves so they are easy to use by a range of customers.
18) Agile methodologies
A good example of a process innovation (see general point 5 above) but rather generic and difficult to consider in the abstract. And surely it intrinsically involves technology especially in its practical implementation? As I understand it, it is a software development methodology, and is software not a technology? Moreover, various other supporting software technologies are required for monitoring and managing the overall process.
19) Microcredit
An interesting example, but one which necessarily ultimately depends on all the technologies involved in the modern financial system, even though the front end might be a very low technology of local paper records.
20) The way in which we now queue in one line rather than many, thus avoiding choosing the wrong line
21) The post office queue from many lines to one, saving frustration
These two suggestions (20 & 21) both capture a key idea arising from the formal mathematics of queuing theory, namely that one queue feeding many servers is far more efficient than many queues each feeding their own server. In essence it requires no technology as it could be implemented in any situation although to be purist, usually various technologies are involved (barriers to direct the lines; checkout technology in the servers etc).
Nevertheless, this impressed me as the best example of an innovation that does not involve a technology, and so the two people proposing this example shared the bottle of champagne. (And very kindly, they offered me a glass as well!)
Bridget Grenville-Cleave, Open University Business School MBA Alumnus, MAPP graduate of the University of East London, is a UK-based positive psychology consultant, trainer and writer
I recently had the privilege of attending an Open University Business School Masterclass and networking event at which Ken Keir, the Executive Vice President of Honda Motor Europe, talked about the way innovation, the lifeblood of the Honda company, drives its success.
Even though he focused on Honda’s R&D philosophy, explaining for example how, in recessionary times, the company goes against the tide and invests more in R&D rather than less, by the time we reached slide 5 of the presentation on the Honda strategy, vision, values, and behavior, it was pretty clear to me that here is a company founded on positive psychology principles.
What intrigued me was that Ken Keir didn’t mention positive psychology once. For all I know, he has never even heard of it. However, if you look at how Honda operates strategically, how it works day-to-day as well as the kind of language it uses to describe the business, it’s pretty clear that it’s a strengths-based company through and through.
How did I reach this conclusion?
An Organisation Based on Three Joys
Quite simply, Honda is a company which lives and breathes its values.
Back in 1951 the founder, Mr Soichiro Honda, outlined in a Management Policy document the principles on which the Honda Company is based.
It may surprise you to discover that these are:
The joy of making
The joy of selling
The joy of buying
Now many corporate leaders might raise their eyebrows at this point and baulk slightly at the use of the word joy. If you’ve worked in the corporate environment you’ll know how pretty much any mention of emotions is unwelcome, especially positive ones like joy, kindness, and awe. The only time emotion really gets its foot over the corporate threshold is when we’re talking about that rather rational and sanitized topic, emotional intelligence. The difference here is that Honda brings these three values alive. It lives and breathes them in everything it does. You could say that the Three Joys are its raison d’être.
The Joy of Making
Take the joy of making. Ordinarily engineering isn’t a term which lights many fires, unless you happen to be an engineer. Engineers are not known for their people skills nor their positive emotion. In fact engineering tends to be perceived as a bit dull. Dry even. And definitely dusty. Engineering is a highly technical, specialized domain, dominated by deep-thinking, serious left-brainers.
But just read Soichiro Honda’s explanation of the first joy:
“the joy of producing…is a joy known only to the engineer. Just as the Creator used an abundant will to create in making all the things that exist in the natural universe, so the engineer uses his own ideas to create products and contribute to society.”
So what does this tell us? Firstly, that the joy of making, the engineering that is at the heart of the Honda company, is its strength. Secondly, that Honda encourages its engineers to embrace and play to their strengths, rather than try to be something they’re not. Thirdly, Soichiro Honda clearly saw that using this strength in the service of something greater was crucially important to the success of his company. More than half a century later positive psychology research tells us that this is the essence of finding meaning and a key to flourishing.
Mr Honda continued,
“This is a happiness that can hardly be compared to anything else. Furthermore, when that product is of superior quality so that society welcomes it, the engineer’s joy is absolutely not to be surpassed. As an engineer myself, I am constantly working in the hope of making this kind of product.”
Not only does he refer to joy, but also to happiness and hope.
The Joy of Selling
The second joy, the joy of selling, arises naturally from the creation and manufacturing of high quality, high performing, reasonably priced products.
“…it goes without saying that the people who engage in selling it will experience joy… What sells well generates profits, as well as pride and happiness in handling those items…”
Students of positive psychology will have come across the study by Martin Seligman that suggests that optimistic sales people are more successful at selling. What sales people wouldn’t be passionate and optimistic about selling a product that they knew would delight their customer?
The Joy of Buying
The third joy, the joy of buying, is the sole preserve of the customer, the person who buys a Honda, whether that’s a motorbike, a lawnmower with a Honda engine, or a car. I’m currently driving my 4th Honda, so I can personally vouch for the joy of buying. The way Soichiro Honda describes this third value makes you believe that other people’s happiness is the sole reason the company exists:
“It is neither the manufacturer nor the dealer that best knows the value of the product and passes final judgment on it. Rather, it is none other than the purchaser who uses the product in his daily life. There is happiness in thinking, “Oh, I’m so glad I bought this.” This joy is the garland that is placed upon the product’s value. I am quietly confident that the value of our company’s products is well advertised by those products themselves. This is because I believe that they give joy to the people who buy them.”
So in these three, deceptively short and simple values, we have a whole positive psychology philosophy, culture, and way of doing business. As Soichiro Honda concluded,
“The Three Joys form our company’s motto. I am devoting all my strengths in order to bring them to reality.’
Learning from Honda: Creating Your Own Company Joys?
So what can we learn from Honda’s Three Joys? I’d suggest the following:
Stick to what you’re good at! Allow, encourage and facilitate all your employees to play to their unique strengths. This assumes that a) you know what their strengths are and b) you need these strengths in your company.
Don’t shy away from positive emotions at work. They have a place in every successful company. If this seems a bit scary, you could start by looking at how to create a more healthy balance of right brain and left brain, feeling and thinking, intuition and analysis. Alternatively, if you had to suggest Three Joys for your company, what would they be and why?
Make meaning important. People want to know how the work they do benefits others, especially customers, clients, patients and society generally. Help them make those connections and find ways to reinforce them.
When I heard Ken Keir speak, I was expecting only to find out about Honda’s innovation and creativity. Instead, I also discovered a company imbued with positive psychology principles. Every time I drive my Honda I’ll be thinking about the Three Joys. And every time I meet an engineer I’ll be reminded of why you should play to your strengths.
Bridget Grenville-Cleave, MAPP graduate of the University of East London, is a UK-based positive psychology consultant, trainer and writer. She is author of Introducing Positive Psychology: A Practical Guide (2012), and The Happiness Equation with Dr Ilona Boniwell. She regularly facilitates school well-being programs and Positive Psychology Masterclasses for personal and professional development. Find her on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter @BridgetGC. Website. Full bio. Her articles are here.
References
Honda, Soichiro (1951). The Three Joys. Honda Monthly #4.
Seligman, M. E. P. & Schulman, P. (1986). Explanatory style as a predictor of productivity and quitting among life insurance sales agents. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50(4), 832-838.
sful company. If this seems a bit scary, you could start by looking at how to create a more healthy balance of right brain and left brain, feeling and thinking, intuition and analysis. Alternatively, if you had to suggest Three Joys for your company, what would they be and why?