What makes work meaningful? Are there common characteristics of meaningful work? Catherine Bailey (now at King's College, London) and Adrian Madden (University of Greenwich) sought to answer this latter question in research reported in the MIT Sloan Management Review in 2016. For leaders and managers they listed “deadly sins” that destroy employee meaningfulness, which I discussed in a previous blog.
 
Bailey and Madden interviewed 135 people in the United Kingdom from many different occupations. Their research confirmed factors previously identified such as:

• sense of pride in work well done
• interesting, absorbing, or creative work
• recognition from others.

But they concluded these were not sufficient and identified “five unexpected features of meaningful work”:

1. Self-transcendent. Work is meaningful “when it mattered to others more than just to themselves.” For example, a garbage collector feeling value in knowing the trash he collected was being recycled, that he was making a small contribution to a better environment for others.
2. Poignant. Meaningful work is not necessarily associated with being engaged or happy. Challenging, even negative work experiences can hold rich significance, e.g., a nurse with a patient at the end of life.
3. Episodic. Meaningfulness occurs in moments and can come and go. In the midst of their work days people may not be conscious of the meaningfulness of work except when strong experiences occur that highlight that meaningfulness, e.g., a stonemason witnessing the unveiling of a structure he helped build. 
4. Reflective. “Meaningfulness was rarely experienced in the moment but rather in retrospect and on reflection . . .”  For example, a leader is about to turn off the lights after a business Christmas party, pauses, and reflects on the great year that just passed and the achievements.
5. Personal. Meaningful work went beyond engagement or satisfaction at work and seemed more connected to life satisfaction and “personal life experiences.” For example, a musician was deeply moved when his father for the first time saw him perform in public.

Bailey and Madden concluded that it is a complex undertaking for organizations to help employees see work as meaningful, a much more difficult undertaking than increasing engagement or job satisfaction.
 
My take-aways:
 
1.  The five characteristics of meaningful work identified by Bailey and Madden were part of a much larger article. Even so, these characteristics deserve more discussion and research. Their research is descriptive based on interviews. Are there prescriptive ideas we can develop from their findings, suggestions that leaders may find helpful? Seems to be a rich area for research.
 
2. I agree that it is a difficult task to help employees see work as meaningful. But I am a tad more optimistic than the authors. Ultimately it is the individual who gives meaning to anything, including work. However, a leader can create an environment where meaningfulness is more easily seen, especially through words and actions that show connections of work to the bigger picture, words and actions of appreciation, words and actions that share the meaning the leader finds in the work being accomplished.
 
Bailey, C., & Madden, A. (2016). What makes work meaningful -- or meaningless. MIT Sloan Management Review, 57(4), 53-61.
 
Image, "Person holding grinder" by Animal Rezwan.
Retrieved from: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-holding-grinder-1216544/
Free to use.

Modified from my blog of March 31, 2017. 
© John Ballard, PhD, 2019. All rights reserved.
 
Author of Decoding the Workplace, BEST CAREER BOOK Next Generation Indie Book Awards 2016. Now in paperback and available as audiobook. 
 _________________________
"Decoding the Workplace: 50 Keys to Understanding People in Organizations is as informed and informative a read as it is thoughtful and thought-provoking. . . Decoding the Workplace should be considered critically important reading for anyone working in a corporate environment." —Midwest Book Review

• Are you less productive because of your manager’s behavior and actions?
• Do you feel that some of your boss-inspired projects are a waste of time?
• Are others wasting time because of something your boss said?

My guess is that managers wasting their employees’ time is common in most organizations. In an August 2018 Wall Street Journal article, Bob Sutton (professor at Stanford) discussed the ways leaders unintentionally waste the time of their employees. Here are some insights I gleaned from this article, ways managers may cause employees to be less productive. 

• Adopting fads: Jumping on the latest management fad or program, thus disrupting the workplace with “a new round of training, meetings and paperwork.” Employees may react with “fad surfing” and do the minimums to support the initiative while concentrating on getting their jobs done. 
• Not delegating: As organizations grow or change, there is a limit to how much one person can do. Leaders may fail to realize they are overextended and thus fail to delegate responsibilities. They invest their time in tasks others should be doing (“cookie licking”).
• Rewarding wrong people: Boat-rockers (people who always seek to improve operations, challenge old practices) often are not rewarded to the extent that “status quo” employees are. Boat-rockers facilitate organizational learning and renewal. 
• Making “throw away” comments: Some employees (trucklers) will move into action to make something happen based on a boss’s offhand comment, a reaction the boss may never have intended (“Executive magnification”).

Sutton’s advice to leaders: 

• Be skeptical if all news is good news.
• Be careful in making offhand comments or minor complaints. But if you do, add “Please don’t do anything, I am just thinking out loud.”
• Act on employees’ suggestions, feedback, don’t just give “lip service.”
• Reward employees “who end old, obsolete and effective programs and practices” as “star employees.”

 
My take-aways:
 
1. Bob Sutton nails it. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard this employee complaint about time wasted, well let’s just say I’d have a nice wad of cash. Just last week a friend told me about all the time being wasted in his organization because of a fad training program of little or no value in his workplace. Faddism is a problem in organizations. We need more evidence-based evaluations of programs and initiatives, more evidence-based decisions.
 
2. Leaders should work on self-awareness and the effect of our words on others. There will be people eager to please and who will act on your words, regardless of your intent. Self-monitor. Incorporate Sutton’s suggested phrase about thinking out loud into your verbal scripts. I recall in my Air Force days a general commenting offhandedly about the color of a gym. On his next visit the gym was the color he had been wondering about out loud. The general was not happy about the time and expense wasted by those who had it painted. 
 
Sutton, R. L. (2018, August 13). How bosses often waste their employees’ time. The Wall Street Journal. 
 
Image, "White Clock Reading at 2:12", by Stas Knop. Obtained from: https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-clock-reading-at-2-12-1537268/ Free to use. 

Modified from my blog of August 24, 2018.
​© John Ballard, PhD, 2019. All rights reserved.
 _________________________
Decoding the Workplace “deals with principles and practices that are timeless . . . Is this a must-have for managers and would-be managers? Yes.” Ron Riggio, Book Review, Academy of Management Learning & Education, June, 2018. Now also available as an audiobook and paperback. 

How does the leader or manager affect how employees feel? With bad leaders we know the answer. With good leaders, maybe, maybe not. Research on the leader-employee relationship has focused on many factors. One is the well-being of the employee.
 
Ilke Inceoglu and colleagues (University of Exeter, University of Surrey) reviewed research on leader behavior and well-being in a 2018 issue of The Leadership Quarterly. They argued that researchers have not paid enough attention to how the leader affects employee well-being, often measured somewhat simplistically as job satisfaction. For their qualitative meta-analysis, Inceoglu and her co-authors screened over 5000 leadership studies, then closely examined almost 400, of which they selected the 71 most relevant for in depth analyses.
 
They identified five groupings (mediators) of how leaders affect well-being (all grounded in social and organizational theories). Here are their groupings with associated examples of leader behaviors:

• Social-cognitive: Leaders model attitudes and how to view events; they help shape the context of what is happening in the workplace and the organization; they share and clarify information and help clarify how the immediate work fits the bigger picture.
• Motivational: Leaders affect motivation in many ways, positively  and negatively; leaders can use job redesign principles to make jobs more meaningful; provide opportunities and resources to help employees satisfy workplace needs.
• Affective: The emotions of the leader affect followers; events created by the leader can affect followers emotionally. 
• Relational: The relationship between leader and followers can be crucial; is the leader seen as trustworthy; is the leader someone with whom followers can talk openly. 
• Identification: Through words and actions leaders can foster followers’ identification with the leader, the work group, and the organization.

Inceoglu and her co-authors then discussed the studies they reviewed, classifying by type of leadership (change, task, relational, passive, other), the type(s) of mediators, and type(s) of well-being (hedonic, e.g., job satisfaction; eudaimonic, e.g., work engagement; negative, e.g., burnout; physical, e.g., sleep quality). They concluded employee well-being deserves much more research. 
 
This is an important, sophisticated review deserving the attention of management and organizational behavior scholars. Of great benefit to future researchers will be Appendix A in the study: a table of all 71 studies reviewed with methods and results of each. 
 
My take-aways:
 
1. I can think of many examples, both positive and negative, from my career that fit easily into these five categories. I know how they affected individual well-being and morale. My guess is you can also. 
 
2. So what questions might this research pose to the leader concerned about the well-being of followers:

• What attitudes do you project? How do you come across to employees?
• Do you put work assignments in context or do you just task people to do things with no explanation as to why? 
• Do you keep your employees informed?
• Do you look for ways to grow your employees?
• Do you know what opportunities and resources your employees need?
• Do you keep your emotions appropriate to what is needed, not explosive or exhausting to others, showing enthusiasm where warranted?
• Are you trustworthy?
• Are you a good listener, that is, an active listener?
• Are you a role model, someone with whom others identify positively?
• Do you speak positively about your organization as appropriate?

3.  For my management and organizational psychology colleagues, I highly recommend this study. Inceoglu and her co-authors have provided a framework for years of meaningful research that could enrich our workplaces. 
 
Inceoglu, I., Thomas, G., Chu, C., Plans, D., & Gerbasi, A. (2018). Leadership behavior and employee well-being: An integrated review and a future research agenda. The Leadership Quarterly, 29(1), 179-202. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2017.12.006
 
Image,"Thumbs up" by Lucas. https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-man-wearing-black-suit-jacket-doing-thumbs-up-gesture-684385/   Free to use.

Modified from my blog of May 30, 2018.
© John Ballard, PhD,  2019. All rights reserved.

Employees who see their work as very meaningful are more likely to be highly engaged in the workplace. Finding ways to make our workplaces more meaningful is a hot topic for leaders. But what about the flipside? What do leaders and managers do that reduces meaningfulness in the workplace? In leadership research reported in the MIT Sloan Management Review in 2016, Catherine Bailey (University of Sussex) and Adrian Madden (University of Greenwich) addressed this question.

Bailey and Madden interviewed 135 people in the United Kingdom, people from different occupations, and talked with them about meaning at work. Bailey and Madden found that “a key leadership challenge” was not creating workplace meaning but rather not destroying the sense of meaning employees had already developed. They identified actions or inactions associated with leaders who “trample” the development of meaningful workplaces. Bailey and Madden called these “deadly sins.” Here are their top five ranked with “most grievous" first.

1. Disconnect people from their values. Employer and employee not seeing eye-to-eye on what is most important, i.e., reducing costs vs. insuring quality, increasing profits vs. helping clients.
2. Take your employees for granted. Lack of recognition, lack of meaningful feedback, not feeling appreciated for hard work and long hours.
3. Give people pointless work to do. People know their jobs and what they should be doing -- but some work of no meaningful value arises because of others' poor planning or poor decisions. 
4. Treat people unfairly.
5. Override people’s better judgment. People not being listened to, not given a voice on work they know, work-related opinions not valued.

My take-aways:
 
1.  We give meaning to our experiences. If we perceive our work as valued and appreciated, it will be more meaningful. Leaders can affect meaningfulness in the workplace even though meaning is created by the individual. Bailey and Madden point out that it is much easier for leaders to crush meaning than to nourish it. This is an important finding. 
 
2. Look at the list above. Which have you seen or experienced? If you are a leader, do you mistakenly do any of these frequently? What can you do differently? 
 
3. My guess is that organizational climate or culture may be such that some of these actions or inactions are ingrained. Leadership is not easy. Ultimately the leader must care about those being led. Where that holds true, these deadly sins will not exist and the potential for employee engagement in the workplace will be higher.

Bailey, C., & Madden, A. (2016). What makes work meaningful -- or meaningless. MIT Sloan Management Review, 57(4), 53-61. 

Image by Mohamed Hassan. Retrieved from: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/angry-businesswoman-conflict-3233158/  Used with permission. https://pixabay.com/service/license

Modified from my blog of January 31, 2017.
© John Ballard, PhD,  2019. All rights reserved.

Are you being monitored in the workplace by your employer? Do software and other devices track your behavior, monitor your relationships, capture your tone of voice? Are you a data-generator for “people analytics” in your company? Many are. 
 
The July 20th Wall Street Journal featured several articles focusing on “people analytics", the many ways employers are monitoring, tracking, and gathering data on their employees. Sarah Krouse wrote “to be an employee of a large company in the U.S. now often means becoming a workforce data generator.” Krause then described companies and the many ways they gather “people data” and gave examples of how the data has been used to solve problems and increase efficiency. Here are examples of the types of data being captured and analyzed:

• tone of employees during phone calls and meeting conversations
• tone of voices using microphone-equipped badges
• tracking movement using badges
• audio recordings and transcriptions of “phone calls on mobile devices”
• video recordings of employee activities
• hours spent outside office logging into office
• content of emails, texts, Slack chats
• patterns and time on Internet
• frequency of chats and meetings between staff and clients
• profiles of how time is spent
• amount of time spent in meetings
• digital interactions 

 
Some ways this data is used:

• “Classify employees hours as productive or unproductive.”
• Analyze turnover patterns
• Suggest ways for employees to build networks with customers
• Improve training
• Identify key influencers within the organization
• “Spot patterns and praise employees who go above and beyond by detecting, for example, workers who take their laptops home and work after hours.”
• Increase productivity, individually and in groups
• Identify informal networks through organizational network analysis.
• Identify “invisible stars.”

 
My take-aways:
 
1. I understand there are jobs where people analytics software and devices are useful, for example, preventing workplace theft. But the extensive use described in the WSJ articles raises questions for me. 

• How is the information being collected? How is it being protected? How reliable and valid is the data?
• How is the data being used? Do the people analyzing the data understand how to interpret it properly, understand the limitations on conclusions or insights? 
• Are employees aware they are being monitored? Privacy is a concern that has been raised. 
• What are the limits on the legal rights of employers to monitor employees? Where are the gray areas?

 
2. Leaders should use people analytics technology carefully and thoughtfully. Just because something can be measured does not mean it should be measure. This technology is work-centered more than people-centered even though it is human behavior being measure. There’s more to productivity than efficiency. There is also effectiveness. How does employing these technologies affect how employees see their employers or more importantly, their jobs? How does use of software analytics technologies affect employee engagement and meaningfulness in work? Trust is a big component of a healthy organizational culture. It would be interesting to see the relationship between degree of people analytics software and devices and measures of trust in organizations. 
 
3. We need a more comprehensive understanding of people analytics software. What are the best uses, best industries? Where does it extend too far as to affect individual motivation and meaningfulness? Software analytics gathers data on people. We need researchers gathering data on the software analytics software and devices and the impact on organizational climate and organizational culture. 
 
4. I know organizations where people are miserable, feel mistreated, feel they are human robots, and the solution from management is “If you don’t like it, quit.” Unfortunately there are often easy solutions to improve the work environment and effectiveness but management must actually listen to employees and care. Treating people with respect and dignity should be a hallmark of good management. 

Chen, T. (2019, July 20). Three hours of work a day? You're not fooling anyone. The Wall Street Journal, p. B7.
Cutter, C. (2019, July 20). Finding the hidden stars: Holding the company together. The Wall Street Journal, pp. B6-7. (online title: "Finding the quiet employees holding the company together)
Krouse, S. (2019, July 20). The new ways your boss is spying on you. The Wall Street Journal, pp. B1, B6-7.

Image by FotografielLink. From https://pixabay.com/photos/analytics-computer-hiring-database-2697949/
 
© John Ballard, PhD,  2019. All rights reserved.
 
Decoding the Workplace “deals with principles and practices that are timeless . . . Is this a must-have for managers and would-be managers? Yes.” Academy of Management Learning & Education, June, 2018. ​Now in paperback.

How do you feel about yourself? Are you as compassionate toward yourself as you are toward others? We need to understand and practice self-compassion. Dr. Kristin Neff is a leading scholar and researcher. She offers an online test to determine how self-compassionate we are. Honestly answering the 26 questions can give a good indication of your self-compassion. 
 
Several years ago I blogged about self-compassion and Dr. Neff’s work. From her website: “Self-compassion means you are kind and understanding when confronted with personal failings” and has three elements:

• Being kind to ourselves: Be “warm and understanding toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our pain or flagellating ourselves with self-criticism.” 
• Accepting our common humanity: Recognize that “suffering and personal inadequacy is part of the shared human experience – something that we all go through rather than being something that happens to ‘me’ alone.”  
• Being mindful: Observe one’s “thoughts and feelings as they are, without trying to suppress or deny them,” being non-judgmental.

In the May/June 2017 issue of Explore. Dr. Roberto Benzo and colleagues reported a questionnaire study of 400 healthcare workers examining the relationships among self-compassion and a variety of other measures, such as happiness, mindfulness, stress, and exercise. They found:

• self-compassion was highly related to happiness (r = .63)
• “self-compassion was associated with decreased feelings of isolation”
• accepting our humanity and being mindful were “the most predictive of happiness”
• Self-compassion had a far greater impact on happiness than exercise.

My take-aways:
 
1. The study by Benzo and associates was at one hospital. It would be interesting to compare employees at different organizations using the same measures, that is self-compassion, happiness, and such, but add measures for engagement and job satisfaction My guess is organizations with employees who score higher on self-compassion would also be score higher on engagement and job satisfaction.
 
2. This study and others underscore the value of self-compassion and mindfulness training in corporate settings. While such training may seem “touchy-feely,” the potential to affect engagement and the bottom-line may be significant.
 
3. I recommend spending some time at Dr. Neff’s self-compassion website. Watch videos and listen to the exercises. Take time to take care of you.
 
Benzo, R. P., Kirsch, J. L., & Nelson, C. (2017). Compassion, mindfulness, and the happiness of healthcare workers. Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing, 13(3), 201-206.
 
Neff, K. (2017) Self-compassion. http://self-compassion.org
 
Image, “Be Strong.”  © John Ballard, 2019

Modified from my blog of July 31, 2017. 
 
© John Ballard, PhD,  2019. All rights reserved.
 
Decoding the Workplace “deals with principles and practices that are timeless . . . Is this a must-have for managers and would-be managers? Yes.” Academy of Management Learning & Education, June, 2018. ​

How effective is your working relationship with your manager? The boss needs you to do your job. How well you do that job may depend on how well you understand your boss, regardless of whether you like your manager or not. The better you understand your boss, the more likely outcomes will be good, both for the organization and for you.

Few people think about their supervisors’ jobs or work styles. Asking yourself a few questions about your boss might clarify the best ways to work with her or what you might expect from her. The better you know someone, the easier to work with that person. Can you confidently answer the following questions about your boss?

1. What are your boss’s highest priorities? “Sure,” you might answer, “just the other day she stated this is our highest concern.” But is that the highest priority? Formal priorities and informal priorities may not be the same. What are the pressures on your boss from above? How can you help your boss achieve the results that really matter?
2. Is your boss a listener or a reader? Some bosses drop by your workplace or call people into their offices. They ask questions about issues, bounce ideas, and form positions, just from talking and listening. Other bosses want the same type of information but want it in writing. These bosses prefer to read, digest, and form their positions from what they read. Most of us have a preferred style, whether we realize it or not. Your preferred style may or may not match up with your supervisor. Can you adjust?
3. Does your boss compartmentalize work and home? People differ in their preferences for separating their work life from their life away from the job. Some managers eat, live, and breathe their jobs. They may stay late at the office or continue working into the evening at home. Others leave the office and the work behind to focus on other parts of their lives. If you and your boss are mismatched, there may be occasional work-related issues, such as not enough time to meet your boss's expectations or not having enough time to have your questions answered.
4. What are your boss’s greatest strengths and weaknesses? All of us have strengths and weaknesses. You probably know some of your boss’s strengths and weaknesses, but do you know which are greatest? Where does your boss really excel? Could your boss use those strengths to support you better? On the other hand, what can you do to help your boss in areas where the boss may be weak? How can you compensate for these weaknesses when it affects your performance?
5. Does your boss trust you and others? This may be complicated. Creating a culture of trust starts at the top. Your manager may be trustworthy and honest but still not be trusting of you, or some others, for a variety of reasons. When people are not trusted, this can affect performance and lower productivity. Is your boss unnecessarily a micromanager? Are there deficiencies in the work of other employees that need to be addressed? It is sometimes said that trust is earned. The best managers will grow their people as necessary to ensure that any issues of trust are resolved.
6. Is your boss a people-person or task-driven? Most likely you know the answer. Some bosses are very task-oriented and may or may not have strong people skills. Others thrive better where relational skills are most important. They get the job done working with people. The best managers are both, using the style most appropriate to the situation. If you find yourself working with a boss toward one extreme or the other, think through how that might affect your work and how you may need to adjust.

Modified from my original article published online, February 18, 2015, in the American Management Association's Playbook. 

Image, "Executive-business woman", by geralt. Obtained from https://pixabay.com/illustrations/executive-businesswoman-2001849/    Free to use. 

© John Ballard, PhD,  2019. All rights reserved.
_______________________
Decoding the Workplace “deals with principles and practices that are timeless . . . Is this a must-have for managers and would-be managers? Yes.” Academy of Management Learning & Education, June, 2018. 

On this Memorial Day I depart from the typical nature of my blogs.
 
The summer of ’66 was a time of great challenge. Basic training as a “doolie” at the U.S. Air Force Academy was physically and mentally challenging. You try to survive, hang in there, one hour at a time. In August basic training ends and for those who made it, they are accepted into the Cadet Wing. Life is better but still difficult beyond belief that first year. Only the brothers with whom I shared those months truly understand (and it was brothers, no women would be admitted until years later.)
 
That fall I was a member of Fightin’ Fourth Squadron. The commander of 4th was a first classman (senior) Scotty Albright II. He represented the best of the best and became a role model for myself and others. Knowing the hellish times we would face that first year, he called a meeting for the “doolies” in 4th.  We assembled in a room where there were chairs. Scotty asked us to sit and he did also, at our level, facing us. He talked to us sincerely and realistically about our coming months, sharing his wisdom and perspective. 
 
He told us about the challenges ahead, how to face them, how to rise above the obstacles, how to be successful as a cadet. Then he took off his class ring and held it high. “Persevere and toward the end of your 2nd class year, you will receive one of these. It will represent all that you have achieved.” He gave the ring to the nearest doolie and we proceeded to pass it around, looking at it, holding it, and internalizing that drive to succeed. It was a powerful moment. Scotty was a great leader. 
 
Three years later, a cold December, I was a 1st classman in another squadron. We assembled and marched to lunch in Mitchell Hall with 39 other squadrons totaling over 4000 cadets. Before lunch the Wing staff made announcements from their tower overlooking the Wing. It was the years of Vietnam. Among the announcement were Academy grads lost to that war. 
 
"Lieutenant John Scott Albright II, Class of 1967, missing-in-action." 
 
I was stunned. Missing-in-action. But MIA. There was hope. But as the years passed, hope took a trip and never returned. 
 
Lt Albright was navigator on a C123K. The mission was to find truck convoys on the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos and light them up (infrared) so B57s overhead could do their jobs. But a B57 clipped the C123 which went into a spiral. No one is sure how many of the crew jumped from the plane but the pilot survived and was rescued the next morning. He reported that he had seen at least one other parachute. 
 
Whether Scott Albright died that night or later in captivity in Laos, we do not know. Decades later I stood before his name at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C. and slowly shed tears. I so admired the man. He was the first in a line of friends and classmates who made the ultimate sacrifice. This is Memorial Day. Let us never forget its meaning.

Image of John Scott Albright II, photographed from the 1967 Polaris, Vol. 9.

© John Ballard, PhD,  2019. All rights reserved.

What advice would you give young adults just starting their careers? This is a challenge this time of year for commencement speakers across the nation. As a professor I have heard many speeches and a few have been memorable. I do not remember what Neil Armstrong said but I do remember staring at his shoes and wondering which foot was the first foot on the moon. It was the left.
 
Wendy Lea is a highly respected business leader (board leader, CEO, entrepreneur) based in Boulder, Colorado. In 2017 she was CEO of Cintrifuse in Cincinnati and the commencement speaker at Mount St. Joseph University. Lea’s career path as an entrepreneur is stellar and inspiring. She was exceptionally well qualified to share her wisdom with our graduates. Here are a few gems from my notes of her speech. 

• “Business is an art.”
• “Accept responsibility for your whole self.”
• “Stay in a beginner’s mind.”
• “Define your North Star.” Know what is pulling you. This will help you focus.
• “Know what you stand for.” Emerge yourself in learning new skills, developing new points of view, and build the platform that is you.
• “Embrace relationships.”
• “Nothing is more magical than sharing.”
• “Respect impermanence.”
• “Keep your windows open and the wind in your face.”
• “Expose yourself to big, hairy problems.”
• “All jobs are temporary.”

 
My take-aways:
 
1. Wendy Lea spoke from an outstanding career of creating and building. Each of the gems listed here could be a key theme for a speech or book chapter. I found each point right on the mark. This was very sound advice for starting a career and addressing life. Probably the best commencement address I have heard in my academic career.
 
2. I loved the phrase “Nothing is more magical than sharing.” Through our words and deeds we carry each other, support each other, and open doors.
 
3. As I reflected on Lea’s words, I was moved to verse:

         Is Your Window Open?
 
         Is your window open?
         Is the wind in your face?
         ‘Cause no job’s permanent –
         You’ll be leaving this place.
 
         Embrace relationships.
         It’s magical to share.
         Find big hairy problems
        That seem impossible to bear.
 
         Keep a beginner’s mind.
         Find your North Star.
         Know your whole self
         And you’ll go far.
  
Adapted from Wendy Lea’s Commencement Address, Mount St. Joseph University, May 13, 2017.

Image by Dina Dee.
Retrieved from: https://pixabay.com/en/window-moon-open-window-night-blue-1404515/
No permission required:  https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en

© John Ballard, PhD,  2019. All rights reserved. Modified from earlier blog, May 2017.
_______________________
Decoding the Workplace “deals with principles and practices that are timeless . . . Is this a must-have for managers and would-be managers? Yes.” Academy of Management Learning & Education, June, 2018. 
Now available in paperback.

In Lean In Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, cited a 1999 study suggesting stereotype threat undermines the performance and interest of girls and women for STEM careers – Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics. She writes that it “is one of the key reasons that so few study computer science” (p. 22). Stereotype threat is a concept that has generated much social psychological research over the past 20 years. It can apply to any member of any stereotyped group. Sandberg stated that if a woman is aware of stereotypic perceptions of women, then she is more likely to behave or perform consistent with the stereotype. 

There is no question that women are underrepresented in computer science (CS) and information technology (IT).  Stereotype threat may be one factor. Stereotyping by others is another. In 2006 Karen Scales, Mary Ann Edwards, and I published a study about women in IT. Several studies we reviewed addressed socio-cultural assumptions:

• Women receive less encouragement to master computer skills than men do (Smith, 2005).
• Educators are influenced by socio-cultural assumptions about IT and computer science and “steer women away” (Ray et al., 1999).
• Some teachers (17%) and guidance counselors (12%) discouraged young women from IT (Turner et al., 2002).
• To quote one director of undergraduate computer science programs, “Somehow teachers . . . are pushing the idea that this is not a field for girls” (in Grupta & Houtz, 2000).
• In Malaysia women and men pursued undergraduate computer science degrees in near equal numbers. Key CS/IT university administrators and the majority of the computer science faculties were women. Because of the prevalence of female role models and mentors, for young Malaysian women “pursuing a career in CS/IT is a normal, indeed, unremarkable option” (Othman and Latih, 2006, p.114).

What determines whether of not a woman pursues computer science or IT? To quote from our study:

• Adya and Kaiser (2005) concluded, “parents, particularly fathers, are the key influencers of girls’ choice of IT careers” (p. 230).
• Turner et al. (2002) surveyed members of Systers, a listserv for women in IT. For the 275 women who responded, fathers were cited as encouraging by 42% and high school teachers by 37%. For women who earned an undergraduate degree in IT or computer science, by far the most important influences on their career choices were family and teachers, the most frequently mentioned influence being fathers.

The Systers survey also found that only about one third of women in their IT survey had majored in computer science or IT as undergraduates. Richard Rashid, a senior vice president at Microsoft in 2005, suggested to educators, “You need to talk about the romance of the field. It’s not all about people sitting in cubicles eating pizza and typing away endless hours on a keyboard” (Foster, 2005, p. A32). We agree. We found about 90% of the women in our study perceived computer and IT careers as creative activities.

Women are underrepresented in CS/IT. But there are factors we can address individually and institutionally – assumptions about women in IT, the role of teachers, the role of fathers, the way we market computer science and IT. 

For references for the above cited studies, see Ballard, J., Scales, K., & Edwards, M. A.  (2006). Perceptions of information technology careers among women in career development transition. Information Technology, Learning, and Performance Journal, 24 (2), 1-9.  

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© John Ballard, PhD,  2019. All rights reserved. Modified from earlier blog, March 2013.
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