In my last blog I described a recent case study with a large NZ company, which began by questioning the usefulness of a 360 feedback system comprising 31 dimensions, each rated on a 0 to 5 scale.  Complex rating systems like this are almost impossible to analyse, and as a first step the dimensions were reduced by factor analysis to just two, labelled Relationship Skills and Task Skills.  

Does training actually work? The only way to answer this question is to do research. Boring, I hear you groan! Try this.  

Over the years many models have been proposed to try to define and explain stress, but a common feature is a reliance on capacity.  So-called life-event scales, for example, assume a capacity for coping which is exceeded when someone is exposed to a sufficient number of events.  The approach was refined by adding ‘readjustment scores’ to the events, but to no avail: the life-event approach not only completely fails to explain stress, it also misleads people into thinking that events are somehow inherently stressful.  Other models have relied on materials science, using concepts of strain and stress, but since coping is fundamentally influenced by emotion, inert materials are no model at all.  Others again have spoken about coping resources being exceeded by demand, another mechanical view which explains very little.

Business is based on competition, and it is the choice between competitors that benefits consumers by keeping prices down.  Monopolies can charge whatever the market will bear, which is why most governments have mechanisms to control monopolies.

At the beginning of September I had the great pleasure and privilege of again being able to contribute a talk about my work to the annual HRINZ conference in Wellington. The theme for the conference this year was ‘Regaining the Trust’, but to regain trust it must once have existed. My experience is that in many cases there never has been any trust to regain. However, the problem is rarely company-wide; rather, there are teams in all companies where there is trust and others where there isn’t.