The plenary offered -after the usual welcome speeches- two both interesting and well delivered keynotes. The first one was by Mathieu Weggeman who reminded us of the different mindset and expectations of a new generation of workers he refers to as 'employee 2.0'. The Dutch speaking among you can read his presentation here. All in all this presentation summed up what has mostly been written before on new expectations for the workplace (the Porsche is less important than challenging work, immediate feedback and trust). On every presentation on 'generations' I tend to have the same reflection: it will all depend on their balls. I do not believe earlier generations actually wanted to get stuck in an organisation that did not fulfill, but as the dynamics of youth passed and there were children and houses to pay for, crisis and economic bubbles that came and passed, they just grew patient and held on. If this 'new' generation will have the balls much more than its predecessors to walk away in spite of that, then we have a new situation in the workforce and things get interesting...
Then Frank Van Massenhove took the stage and presented the work format of the ministry of social affairs. I've read about his work in the national press before, but what he has accomplished (with his team) inside one of the most fossilized work environments imaginable (a government ministry) is just breath taking. His task was to make the ministry of social affairs a 'sexy' employer again. A majority of people that pass the general exams for government positions now elects his ministry as a place they like to go working, so I think he succeeded. He basically set clear targets for everyone, and removed the barriers such as where, when and how to work to get the job done. They measure and discuss everything, but leave freedom on how to get the job done. He told me the most difficult part of the transformation phase for him was to 'let go' of giving instructions and moving to a facilitating role where people come up with various solutions.
When I walked in to my chosen workshop with the mysterious name of 'Tzatziki workshop', I immediately got assigned the green team and went to a separate part of the room where I could not see the other three groups. Our space has one large working area, ingredients in a basket, a recipe for Tzatziki and a picture how it was supposed to look like. We were told we (about 7-8 people) needed to create 25 dishes that were going to be judged on quantity, quality and taste. The rest was up to us, so we started organizing ourselves, and I started cutting cucumbers, well aware I was wearing a white shirt that day... Half way through the exercise an order from the 'CEO' disrupted the work as the guy wanted 5 more plates with 'something creative'. At the end, our team had it all ready, the jury gave it full points, and we got the whole table cleaned and everything. So far so good. Then we got the discussion on the workshop. Turns out that the four groups each had their own work format as a variable. For example, our green group got clear objectives on the outcome, and a complete freedom how to organize that. Another group could only work with fixed work stations in a single task (Taylor) and had to fill in forms to get something out of the ingredient basket. We were the only group that got the job done. One of the other groups actually generated a lot of frustration, but zero Tzatziki dishes.
The workshop was based around the 70ies work of sociologist Karasek. One dimension is the job demand (is that clear or not), the other is the freedom to organize the work.
The whole experiment was a real eye opener and strengthens me in my belief that more than content and curricula or even processes, the key to successful working and learning is the right ecosystem, the right format. I'm actually wondering how difficult it would be to retune this workshop for learning formats and see how that goes. One group could get free access to all learning resources and clear instructions on what they needed to be able to do at the end, while the other might need approvals to get pages out of a handbook etc.
The most interesting came at the very end. The main observer had just given her observations on the motivation and results in the 4 groups and how she would immediately apply for a job on the green team, when a guy who had been on the green team commented. The discussion went a bit like that:
- Union guy : Hi, I was on the green team, and I work for the labor union in my daily job. I have to say if this had been a real working environment, I'm afraid I would have had to call a strike. You see, there was not enough water to clean our hands, the sanitation ..... etc.
- Workshop organizer : yes of course those are important too, but this workshop was only about work formats
- Frank (the keynote speaker from the ministry of social affairs) : Union guy, would you also have called a strike in the three other groups where the people were all frustrated?
- Union guy : I was not in those groups
Then it went on for a bit. Very polite and all.
- Concluding remark : Let's just say that stupid organisations create stupid unions and the other way around.
The Dutch slides of the workshop are here.
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