Mutual trust is essential for successful organisational

Transcription

The Ashridge Journal
Autumn 2012
MAIN FEATURE:
Mutual trust is
essential for
successful
organisational
change
ALSO IN THIS VOLUME:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Do Something Different to create a more sustainable culture at work
Women in business: Blueprint for individuals and organisations
A leadership experiment in the UAE
Can you afford not to take employee wellbeing seriously?
A relational approach to organisation development
Developing a digital learning strategy
Contents
4
My angle
Toby Roe, Communications Director, introduces this issue, outlining some innovative change
initiatives that both individuals and organisations have undertaken, and the new challenges for
business in employee wellbeing and digital learning.
6
Research overview
Emma Bradbury presents an overview of the latest Ashridge research.
13
Mutual trust is essential for successful change
In any major organisational change situation, trust is an essential ingredient for a successful
outcome. Andrew Day and Guy Lubitsh explore this theme in the context of the complex reforms
of the NHS.
22
Do Something Different to create a more sustainable culture at work
Nadine Page shows that people pay less attention to sustainability issues in the workplace than at
home, and gives some pointers into how organisations and individuals can address this.
30
Fiona Dent and Viki Holton undertake an inquiry into the landscape for women in business in the
21st century.
38
Vicki Culpin and Judith Scott discuss a leadership experiment in which a manager in the
Middle East takes an unconventional approach to delegation.
44
Can you afford not to take employee wellbeing seriously?
Responsible organisations are increasingly engaging with the wellbeing of their employees.
Judith Parsons and Marcus Powell explore recent developments, and Vicki Culpin reports on the
latest Ashridge research in this area.
52
A relational approach to organisation development
In stressful business situations, managers tend to revert to the ‘command and control’ concept
of leadership. Dr. Kathleen King interviews a leader who, instead, took a relational approach to
successfully effect a culture change in her organisation.
58
In the digital learning workplace that now blends a bewildering range of different technologies and
working practices, Tony Sheehan introduces a framework for aligning organisational needs with
digital learning strategy.
www.ashridge.org.uk/360

The Ashridge Journal My angle Autumn 2012
My angle
The nature and pace of change that organisations are having to deal with is faster and more
furious than ever before. New technologies, emerging social trends and a volatile economic
environment are constantly presenting both new opportunities and difficult challenges.
Managers are bombarded on an almost daily basis with advice about how better to predict,
manage and implement change.
The truth, however, is that there is no one model, strategy or magic bullet that will result in perfect,
pain-free change. Organisations must find the approach that fits best with their culture and is
congruent with the nature of their challenges.
In this issue of 360° we showcase some innovative change initiatives, look at areas where a
change in approach is overdue, and highlight people who have stepped out of their comfort zone
to find new ways to improve engagement and drive performance.
Our lead article examines the tense relationship between trust and change. Andrew Day and Guy
Lubitsh share the research and work they have done over the past two years with NHS leaders
who are leading complex change projects. They look at the central role that trust plays in
breaking down professional and political barriers, and give advice on what managers need to do
to build mutual trust with both employees and stakeholders.
Few would argue that radical changes are needed if we are to increase the representation of
women at board level. Fiona Dent and Viki Holton look at what women need to do personally to
seize the opportunities open to them and accelerate their careers. They also examine the positive
actions that organisations must take if they are to move beyond lip service and ensure that
women are truly equal in business life.
Mohammed Gheyath is one leader who has been courageous enough to challenge the status quo
and ‘do something different’ in his organisation. Following participation in the Ashridge Executive
Leaders Programme in the UAE he decided to develop a leadership experiment in his workplace.
His approach to shifting the organisation away from a traditional hierarchical model and
encourage individuals to take more responsibility makes fascinating reading.
Key trends emerging in relation to employer practice around wellbeing at work is the subject of an
article by Judith Parsons, Vicki Culpin and Marcus Powell. They share the results of a recent
research project which look at the organisational benefits of investing in employee wellbeing, and
highlight how employer practice is changing in response to economic and demographic trends. A
framework is provided to help employers develop workplace wellbeing strategies which are both
effective and financially viable.

The Ashridge Journal My angle Autumn 2012
Ashridge is passionate about action research and its ability to bridge the gap between thinking
and doing and to connect the world of ‘messy ideas’ with everyday action on the ground. One of
the key roles of its Centre for Action Research is to support people acting as change agents who
want to take a reflective and enquiring approach to their work in organisations.
In an illuminating article, the Centre’s Kathleen King plots the learning history of one HR leader
who adopted an unorthodox and counter-cultural approach to bring about culture change.
She describes how her client managed to break down departmental silos and secure ‘buy in’
from colleagues by starting with small experiments, working with what was going well and
supporting people in making change one step at a time.
Technology has been the driving force behind many of the most significant changes in the
workplace in recent years. Today’s organisations increasingly think, communicate and work
digitally – and learning has had to evolve to keep pace.
Tony Sheehan explores nine challenges in the digital environment, discusses the issues posed by
the ever-increasing range of digital channels and devices and looks at how organisations can
better align their learning strategies with their business strategies. He provides a framework to
help organisations craft the right approach to digital learning and ensure they get an effective
return on their investment.
Recent discussions at the Rio+20 summit suggest that commitments to sustainability are strong
and organisations are exploring new approaches to tackling the problem. Individuals,
organisations and executive education providers all have an active role to play in designing a
more sustainable future. They need to challenge the ‘norm’ and disrupt the status quo of past
practices. Nadine Page has conducted research into the drivers and barriers of pro-environmental
action in the workplace and, based on her findings, she outlines a new framework that has the
potential to supportive effective change for the individual and organisation in the transition to a
more sustainable future.
There is little doubt that organisations will have to operate in an environment of uncertainty for the
foreseeable future. We hope the insights and leading edge thinking in this edition of 360° will help
you improve your ability to adapt and respond flexibly to the challenges ahead.
Toby Roe, Communications Director.

The Ashridge Journal Research overview Autumn 2012
New and ongoing research
United Nations Global Compact
LEAD project
Matthew Gitsham and
Nadine Page
Compiled by Emma Bradbury, Research Manager
Ashridge, in partnership with The Academy
of Business in Society (EABIS), has been
invited by the United Nations Global
Compact (UNGC) to conduct an assessment
of a new multi-stakeholder platform for
corporate sustainability leadership, entitled
Global Compact LEAD (GC LEAD). The
research project is investigating the impact
and progress to date of the GC LEAD
initiative during its initial two-year pilot phase
to offer recommendations for potential future
pathways. In particular, the evaluation will
assess whether the GC LEAD initiative has
lived up to the expectations of the 56
participating companies both as a framework
for collective action and as a platform for
advancing sustainability goals.

Surveys and interviews will be conducted
with GC LEAD member companies later this
year. Ashridge is working in partnership with
a consortium of EABIS and PRME (Principles
for Responsible Management Education)
member business schools internationally to
ensure that both measures adequately
address the priority questions about the GC
LEAD initiative from both a regional and
global perspective.
The outputs from this study will include a
comprehensive report outlining the key
findings from the evaluation. This will identify
the expectations and actions of the GC LEAD
initiative for participating companies, and will
provide evidence-based suggestions for the
development of GC LEAD in future years.
This will provide a useful resource for helping
to shape systemic change for corporate
sustainability leadership in the future.
For more information, please contact
Matthew Gitsham or Nadine Page:
matt.gitsham@ashridge.org.uk
nadine.page@ashridge.org.uk
Matthew Gitsham
Nadine Page
Meditation research
Vicki Culpin and Helen Lockett
To consider the benefits of meditation, this
project compared a group who practised
meditation once a day for 30 minutes with a
group who practised relaxing activities
instead, and a control group who did not
change their routine. At the end of the 45
day study, the meditation group had
significantly lowered psychological distress,
increased mindfulness and decreased
sleepiness at 8 a.m. Participants reported
feeling calmer and more able to deal with
stressful situations, including at work, and
improved sleep quality, during and after the
meditation study. The results will be
published early in 2013.
Vicki Culpin or Helen Lockett:
vicki.culpin@ashridge.org.uk
helen.lockett@ashridge.org.uk
Vicki Culpin
Helen Lockett
Clinical commissioning in the
NHS: Learning from stories of
significant change
Lee Waller, Danny Chesterman and
Wendy Briner
A central tenet of the Government’s health
reforms is to place responsibility for
commissioning with clinicians. To be
authorised as legal entities with statutory
powers
and
obligations,
Clinical
Commissioning Groups (CCGs) are
required to demonstrate competence in a
variety of domains. Ashridge have been
supporting some of the London CCGs in
this process, and we have been conducting
interviews with clinicians, consultants, GPs
and community staff in Brent, City &
Hackney, and Newham CCGs to explore
stories of successful significant change.
We have uncovered some inspiring stories
around improvements in service provision,
patient care, and cost effectiveness, and
discovered some enlightening themes in
terms of what has helped to progress
change.
Clipper research
Vicki Culpin and Trudi West
Lee Waller
Ashridge has been given a unique opportunity to
carry out research among the skippers and crew
of the ten boats in the Clipper Round the World
Yacht Race that concluded in July. The
professionally skippered yachts together with their
amateur crew members lived and worked together
in some of the most extreme environments. As the
race developed, our research explored the key
leadership and team challenges and how they
influenced their performance over time. In our
analysis, we will also be considering parallels in the
corporate environment.
The findings will be available in 2013.
Danny Chesterman
Trudi West or Vicki Culpin:
trudi.west@ashridge.org.uk
vicki.culpin@ashridge.org.uk
For more information about this project,
due for completion at the end of 2012,
please contact Lee Waller:
lee.waller@ashridge.org.uk
Wendy Briner
Trudi West
Vicki Culpin

New and ongoing research
The effectiveness of blended
learning on Ashridge Open
programmes: face-to-face,
digital content and
psychometrics
Ayiesha Russell and Alex Davda
The blending of digital learning solutions with
face-to-face elements to enhance learning is
common practice. However, there is little
research on the effectiveness of using this
approach within executive education.
As part of our research on the effectiveness
of blended learning on Ashridge Open
programmes, we are seeking answers to the
following questions:
1. Does tailoring the Virtual Ashridge
provision improve the virtual learning
experience for participants?
3. Does the increased integration of Virtual
Ashridge with Open programmes
increase Virtual Ashridge use?
To do this, we have increased the integration
between Virtual Ashridge, psychometrics
and the face-to-face part of the Ashridge
Performance through People programme.
We are collecting data on the learning
experience before and after the adaptations
have been made, to allow us to ascertain
whether adapting our approach to digital
content within residential programmes
increases
perceived
programme
effectiveness.
For more information on this project, due
for completion in March 2013, please
contact Ayiesha Russell:
ayiesha.russell@ashridge.org.uk
Alex Davda
2. Does increasing the connection between
psychometric feedback and Virtual
Ashridge benefit participants?
Exploring the virtual learning
experience on the Ashridge
Executive Masters in
Management programme
2. How students apply their learning within
their work environment
Sona Sherratt and Ayiesha Russell
4. What personal and organisational
circumstances are conducive to learning
online.
This research project aims to increase our
understanding of the virtual learning
experience on the Ashridge Executive
Masters in Management programme as
perceived by participants, and explore how
they have applied their learning in their
workplace. In particular, this project aims to
identify the following:
1. What students perceive to be the benefits
and challenging aspects of conducting
an online qualifications programme

Ayiesha Russell
3. The factors that contribute to, and inhibit
the application of, their learning
We have gathered quantitative research
data from both current participants and
graduates of the programme, and are
currently gathering in-depth qualitative data
on their experiences.
For more information on this project, due
for completion in January 2013, please
contact Ayiesha Russell:
ayiesha.russell@ashridge.org.uk
Sona Sherratt
The Ashridge Management Index:
A survey of management opinion
Viki Holton, Fiona Dent, Jan Rabbetts
and Dr, Carine Paine Schofield
• Personal and organisational challenges
Every year Ashridge has conducted a
Management Index — a survey which invites
managers to tell us about their current challenges,
what’s happening in their organisation and more
generally about the highs and lows of management
life today. The topics in this year’s survey include:
• Motivation
• Leadership
• Change
• Trust
• Learning and development.
Over 1,100 managers have responded to the
survey: we will publish the findings early in 2013.
We are also conducting some company interviews
on some key topics such as change, motivation
and trust.
If you would be interested to take part in these
interviews please contact Viki Holton:
viki.holton@ashridge.org.uk
New Open programmes
Business Model Innovation
Group Dynamics
Leaning into the Future
This new programme from Ashridge
Strategic Management Centre provides
tools, case studies and action learning
sessions to enable you to design new
businesses and improve existing business
models. The programme is ideal for
corporate development specialists and
managers with a strategic responsibility for
developing their businesses.
This programme combines psychological
and organisation perspectives to enable
participants to discover the underlying
dynamics that have a profound impact on
the functioning of groups and teams. You
will develop the knowledge, confidence
and skills to intervene creatively as
facilitators, leaders and team participants.
Developed in conjunction with Local
Authority leaders, this programme provides
a space for you to make sense of your
challenges as a locality leader, to align your
passion with your purpose, and influence
the context within which Local Authorities
interact.
The programme runs
September 2013.
Fee: £2,950 + VAT.
in
For full details see:
www.ashridge.org.uk/bmi
April
and
The programme — three 3-day workshops
— runs in January, April and July 2013.
Fee: £7,200 + VAT.
www.ashridge.org.uk/dynamics
Launch date is 3–4 December 2012
Fee: £5,900 + VAT. Reduced fee for public
sector: £3,900 + VAT.
www.ashridge.org.uk/leaning

Published research
Leadership in a rapidly
changing world
Matthew Gitsham and Mark Pegg
In the past few years, more and more
business leaders have begun speaking a
new language – talking about, taking action
on and defining their success in terms of
things that used to be the preserve of
political leaders and NGO activists – the
contribution their core business makes
towards addressing today’s most pressing
societal challenges.
This shift in rhetoric is being matched by a
shift in action, with many organisations
engaging
in
innovative
partnerships
prioritising activities that create stakeholder
value as well as shareholder value. This is all
the more surprising coming at a time, in the
wake of the financial crisis, when negative
stereotypes of business leaders are
flourishing in public debate.
What does this shift mean for how we think
about business leadership? Is there an
emerging group of business leaders that are
leading in a different way to the generation
that went before them? If so, what does that
mean for everyone else? These are some of
the questions that Ashridge and the

International Business Leaders’ Forum have
been exploring in this landmark study.
The report finds that a growing number of
business leaders are adopting a different
perspective on their role and purpose, and
reframing what counts as success. As a
result, they are not only finding they need to
lead complex cultural change within their
organisations, but redefine the scope of their
role and think of themselves as leaders in
wider society, playing an active role
contributing to public debate and leading
systemic change in society in partnership
with others.
Matthew Gitsham
The study was conducted on behalf of the
United Nations Global Compact Principles
for Responsible Management Education to
inform debate and action at the Rio+20
United Nations Conference on Sustainable
Development which took place in June.
Mark Pegg
The full report, Leadership in a rapidly
changing world, is available at:
www.ashridge.org.uk/acbas
The Missing Middle
Amy Armstrong and
Ayiesha Russell
In April Ashridge launched a research report
The Missing Middle: Exploring Learning
Experiences of Middle Managers in the UK,
focusing on how companies can best invest in
their middle managers and what types of
learning middle managers find most effective.
Middle managers are critical to organisational
success — they are a crucial filter between
day-to-day operational demands and
organisational strategy. The learning and
development of middle managers has
sometimes been neglected, as organisations
have felt that any development they need can
be provided on the job.
To improve our understanding of how middle
managers learn, understand their current
development needs and capture barriers to
middle managers’ learning, we conducted a
survey of nearly 600 middle managers across
six industry sectors — in-depth interviews
were carried out to create seven case studies
describing their most impactful learning
experiences. The research showed that threequarters of middle managers work in
organisations which support their learning
and development, yet only half are given
sufficient time for their own learning, and a
quarter say professional development is seen
as a luxury in their organisation.
Middle managers placed a high value on
learning experiences which increased their
self-awareness.
In
particular,
stretch
assignments, the process of giving and
receiving feedback, and leading and managing
people were perceived as important selfdevelopment experiences.
Amy Armstrong
The implications for executive education
include the need for professional development
to continue to bridge the gap between the
classroom and the work environment.
The report is available at:
www.ashridge.org.uk/middle
New book
Virtual Leadership — Learning to lead differently
Ghislaine Caulat
This book summarises what it takes to lead effectively in the virtual
space, and explains how learning to become an effective virtual
leader requires a deeper level of reflection. It requires people to
question key aspects such as their own sense of identity as
leaders, relationships, trust and power. Based on her international
consultancy work with leaders, Ghislaine explains that
organisations with virtual leadership capabilities gain a competitive
advantage by faster implementation of strategy and change.
Ghislaine Caulat
Virtual Leadership
is priced at £19.95
Libri Publishing


The Ashridge Journal Mutual trust is essential for successful change Autumn 2012
Andrew Day is a director at Ashridge Consulting. He is
Guy Lubitsh is a consultant at Ashridge Consulting and
an organisational development consultant who works with
the Head of the Ashridge NHS Practice. Guy is a Chartered
individuals, groups and organisations to help them to change and
Organisational Psychologist, leadership developer, facilitator,
develop. He seeks to introduce participative and collaborative
and executive coach. He has over 15 years’ experience as an
change processes that build trust and engagement.
organisation consultant working in a range of sectors including
A Chartered Occupational Psychologist, Andrew has over 15
healthcare, energy, media, and telecommunications. His
years’ experience of working with large organisations in the
interests include talent management, the turn-around of under-
healthcare, telecomms and charitable sectors.
performing organisations, and conflict resolution.
Email: andrew.day@ashridge.org.uk
Email: guy.lubitsh@ashridge.org.uk
Mutual trust is essential
for successful change:
lessons from
implementing NHS
reforms
It is often said that trust enables change
— but the opposite isn’t true. In fact, the
very essence of change — that
uncomfortable move from the known to
the unknown — often creates fears that
actively erode trust.
It is this tense relationship between trust
and change that Andrew Day and Guy
Lubitsh, of Ashridge Consulting, explore
within the complex reforms proposed for
the UK’s National Health Service.

Introduction
The NHS is experiencing the most dramatic
transformation in its history. We believe that
the scale, depth and pervasiveness of the
changes facing the NHS offer significant
learning to managers in all sectors as to
how to support organisational change.
This article summarises our research
and work over the past two years with
NHS leaders who are leading complex
organisational change and development
projects. Over this period, we have
been interested in how senior managers
and change agents in the NHS can
effectively
introduce
organisational
changes. Our central finding is the pivotal
role that mutual trust plays in forming
the conditions that encourage people
to collaborate across organisational,
professional and political boundaries to
change structures and improve services.
The political and economic
context
The Coalition Government in July 2010,
soon after coming to power, launched its
White Paper, Liberating the NHS, which
set out an ambitious programme of reform
for the NHS. These reforms are intended
to bring about a radical change in how
public healthcare is delivered in England. In
January 2011 the Health and Social Care
Bill was published. This proposes a number
of key changes to the NHS in England,
including:
•
Providing greater choice to patients
•
Abolishing Primary Care Trusts
and giving groups of GP practices
and
other
professionals
—
clinical commissioning groups —
responsibility and budgets to buy care
on behalf of their local communities
•
Increasing
competition
between
providers by inviting the private sector
and third sector to offer services to
NHS patients

•
Moving responsibilities located in the
Department of Health to a politically
independent NHS Commissioning
Board
•
The creation of a health specific
economic regulator with a mandate
to guard against ‘anti–competitive’
practices
•
Moving all NHS trusts to foundation
trust status.
The Government has argued that the
reforms are necessary to enable the NHS to
find £20 billion in productivity improvements
and to effectively meet the health needs of
society. They represent “the biggest shakeup of the NHS since its inception and will be
implemented against the backdrop of the
biggest financial challenge in its history”1.
Comprehensive and complex organisational
changes on this scale can be considered
to be ‘frame breaking’ or discontinuous
change involving sharp and simultaneous
shifts in strategy, power relations,
structures and control mechanisms2. They
are pervasive, affecting the whole system;
deep, requiring a paradigm shift; and large
scale, covering the entire country and the
entire workforce of the NHS and its partner
organisations3. The reform of the NHS is
therefore an enormous change project
and challenge, particularly given that,
historically, administrative reforms in the UK
public sector have frequently failed to meet
publicly-declared objectives4.
Overview of our research
From October 2010 to October 2011
we studied how senior managers
in the NHS have been leading the
transformation of services in their
organisations. We explored two
questions:
•
How are senior managers
responding to and dealing with
the changes to the NHS that
they are experiencing in their
roles?
•
How are they engaging different
stakeholders to facilitate the
process of change in their
institutions?
Our research involved:
1.
In-depth in interviews with 18
senior managers in a variety of
health settings including: Acute,
Primary Care, Strategic Health
Authorities and Mental Health.
These
interviews
explored
how individuals are leading the
transformation of services in the
NHS.
2.
Observations from our consulting
work with ten senior managers
in the NHS over a period of
eight months to support them
in leading change in their
organisations
3.
Our observations from two NHS
Trusts with whom we consulted
over the period of the study to
help them to transform their
structures and services.
What do the reforms require
leaders to do?
Translating policy into local
practice
Senior managers and clinicians are
grappling with translating the macro policy
guidelines set by central Government into
workable and viable local practices. This
involves changing and re–configuring
services to identify cost savings and making
efficiency improvements. It requires action
to turn the abstract principles into tangible
changes which account for the realities of
service provision and the local pressures
and tensions confronting their institution.
It also requires negotiation with external
bodies and stakeholders to ensure multiple
interests and agendas are represented.
To achieve this task, managers have to
exercise judgement and considerable
creativity. Many of the decisions that need
to be made are emotionally demanding
— for instance making staff redundant,
transferring services to other organisations
or scaling back or closing down services.
This has particularly been the experience
of managers in Primary Care Trusts whose
experience over the past two years has
involved preparing for the closure of their
organisations and the transfer of services to
other parts of the NHS.
Vertical and horizontal
integration of services
NHS managers and clinicians are trying to
protect and improve the quality of services
by finding synergies and efficiency savings
through the integration services across
geographical and institutional boundaries.
In effect this is a strategy of vertical and
horizon integration. It involves merging
organisations and departments, forming
alliances across different service providers,
setting up GP Consortia, creating integrated
care pathways and forming partnerships
across Providers.
Creating new organisations
Many managers and Heads of Clinical
Services reported that they are involved
in creating new forms of organisations.
Metaphorically, some managers are building
new organisations, others are knocking
them down and others are renovating
them. This requires them to make decisions
around what form of organisation is required
to deliver the required level of service; how
to re–design services and processes and
how to develop business cases to inform
re-structuring of organisations.
Many,
particularly those from a clinical background,
felt under-skilled for this work, having limited
knowledge and expertise in designing
organisation structures and forms.
Maintaining morale
During the process of change, managers are
working hard to maintain morale and to help
employees’ understanding and accept the
changes that were happening in their part of
the system. For many senior managers this
task is being made extremely difficult, either
because they personally do not agree with
their perception of the ideology behind the
NHS reform or because they are themselves
adversely impacted by the reforms.
A senior manager in a PCT observed
she fundamentally disagreed with
the principles behind the reforms
and the political process by which
the Health and Social Care Bill was
introduced, and she was aware she
was very likely to lose her job. She felt
it was very difficult for her to respond
constructively to staff who were angry
about the changes or were anxious
about their future because of her own
anger and anxiety about the changes.
In her organisation, she was aware
that her colleagues held similar
views — however their Executive had
made it clear that they did not want
people to express their resistance and
opposition to the reforms.

What can be learnt about
organisation change from the
NHS reforms?
On the basis of our research, we have
outlined below a number of observations
about how leaders are establishing
the conditions that support complex
organisation change.
them. In many cases, the decision that is in
the interests of the reforms is experienced
to contradict with those of their institutions,
their professional body or their personal
interests. These contradictions give rise to
dilemmas, tensions, anxieties and doubts,
including:
•
How to transform services whilst
simultaneously meeting operational
and quality targets?
•
How to motivate people when you
are shutting down services and feel
insecure about your own future?
•
How to balance patient care and
quality with financial constraints?
•
How to protect one’s own interests
when they conflict with what one is
being asked to do?
•
How to ensure people support critical
decisions whilst making them within
limited time constraints?
•
How to communicate the rationale
for a decision when it is based on
sensitive and confidential information?
The need to make decisions that
have consequences
In implementing the reforms, senior
managers and clinicians have had to
make complex decisions which have
consequences for many stakeholders
and are not easily reversible. For these
decisions to realise a meaningful impact
they require the support of multiple
stakeholders. The process of decision
making therefore is critical to whether local
changes are supported or not. Decisions
around how the reforms are implemented
are also setting the tone and climate of the
relationships between staff and the NHS for
years to come.
Complex and demanding decisions have
personal consequences for those making
In parts of the system, psychological insecurity is
evoking survival anxieties and defensive behaviour
Professional risks
• Fears about damage to
patient care
• Management has become
the scapegoat
Professional threats
• Loss of jobs and traditional
career paths
• Will I be blamed if the system
breaks down
• Public shame (‘The Daily
Mail’ test)
• Core values
Powerless, loss of
control and helplessness
Survival behaviour
In such a context, the leadership task of engaging people in change and
encouraging collaboration on the task of change becomes extremely challenging
Figure 1. The role of mutual trust as a core condition for organisational change

The pace and magnitude of the changes,
the number of decisions and the level of
anxiety within some organisations make
it very challenging for managers to take
the time to think through and reflect on
decisions and their associated dilemmas.
At a more fundamental level, they have
to grapple with a clash of values between
clinical quality and the growing commercial
and financial pressures on the NHS.
Survival anxiety works against
change
The speed, size, uncertainty and ambiguity
of the changes have left many staff feeling
powerless, out of control and helpless.
Clinicians and managers are worried that
transforming services, whilst simultaneously
cutting back on expenditure, could lead
to mistakes, falls in the quality of services
and potentially harm to patients. This is
provoking considerable anxiety and strong
emotions, such as anger, guilt and fear.
We observed in some NHS institutions what
we have termed ‘survival’ behaviour (see
Figure 1). This is characterised by individuals
trying to protect themselves by looking after
their own interests, avoiding or denying
threats or difficult issues, or attacking
others who may be perceived as a threat.
These behaviours can be understood
as a fight/flight response5 as individuals
attempt to manage their anxiety in the face
of perceived threats and risks. Real or
imagined threats include professional risks,
such as putting patients at increased risk
or being blamed for mistakes in practice;
personal losses such as losing one’s job or
hard won career prospects; the anger and
hostility of employees’ reactions and anger
about the changes; and feeling threatened
and overwhelmed by the magnitude and
scale of the transformation agenda.
Managers’ accounts indicated that when
survival behaviour was present it is very
hard to engage staff constructively in the
process of change. In these contexts, staff
viewed service reforms to be a threat that
was outside of their control. It represented
a disruption to their working environment
which they wanted to prevent or deny,
rather than engage with and enable.
In our consulting work, we have discovered
the importance of providing space for
individuals and groups to meet and
make sense together of their experience
of change, reflect on their role and their
emotional reactions. These social spaces
need to be experienced as psychologically
safe, in as much as individuals can express
themselves without feeling judged or
evaluated.
When we compared the accounts of senior
managers who were able to effectively
change services and practices, we identified
that whether they perceived mutual trust
to be present or not in the organisation
system was critical. Trust shaped how the
managers’ behaviour and decisions were
interpreted by different stakeholders and,
likewise, shaped how managers interpreted
the behaviour and motives of staff and
other stakeholders.
Mutual trust can be considered to represent
the quality of relationships between
stakeholders in a social system. It involves “a
psychological state comprising the intention
to accept vulnerability based upon positive
expectations of the intentions or behaviour
of another”6. Trust relations are reciprocal
in nature and therefore co–created by
all parties. The dynamics of trust revolve
around the willingness to be vulnerable with
others based on an interpretation of their
behaviour and intentions7.
In analysing the accounts of managers, we
identified that the levels of trust in a given
social system vary, depending on the history
of relationships and events in the past;
the extent to which the different parties
understood the motives and interests of
others; the extent to which individuals or
groups were perceived to act consistently
and possess credibility; and the level of

risk and uncertainty that was present (see
Figure 2). Low trust environments were
characterised by historical mistrust between
organisations and professional groups,
the experience of hierarchical pressure
to conform to policy changes, opposition
to the ideology behind the reforms, and
‘unspoken’ emotions of fear and anger.
In contexts of low trust, anxiety and fear
associated with organisation change was
amplified. Different stakeholders perceived
other actors in the system as possible
threats whose motives may lead them to
act in a manner that is in opposition to their
interests. These conditions are likely to lead
to survival behaviour which, as we have
argued above, acts against constructive
change.
In low trust environments, managers
reported the presence of the following
range of responses by staff:
•
Criticism and suspicion of other
organisations
and
professional
groups. For instance, senior clinicians
would continuously question and
challenge managers’ intentions behind
decisions and oppose their proposals
for change.
•
Opposing changes based on a cynical
interpretation of the motives of those
proposing them or because they
perceived the changes to be imposed
upon them. For instance, one clinician
stated: “We must accept it even
though we do not believe in it.”
•
Passive opposition to changes,
such as failing to complete tasks on
time, not responding to requests for
information or general apathy and low
commitment to changes.
Trust therefore appears to be a necessary
condition for change where there is
uncertainty and a level of risk.

A senior manager in a PCT told us
how she is trying to lead the transition
of services from her PCT to newly
established GP Consortia, whilst
her organisation is in the process of
being dissolved.
She commented
that: “At times it feels like it is payback
time for the GPs”. She found that
despite her best intentions the GPs
did not trust her advice or dismissed
her suggestions. At the same time,
she was suppressing her feelings
and emotions around the closure of
her organisation as she felt she was
“expected to toe the party line”.
A Medical Director in an acute hospital
described how she felt trapped
between the board of her institution
and the clinical consultants who
distrusted ‘management’. She was
trying to work with other hospitals in the
region to share specialist staff between
them and make significant financial
savings. She was experiencing much
opposition despite the strong financial
case to work together, because
it would mean clinical staff being
dependent on colleagues in other
hospitals whom they did not trust.
A case of how participation
and involvement develops
mutual trust
In one Mental Health NHS Trust where
we worked for nearly 12 months, the
Executive Board has established a
group of 50 internal change agents
who are working across the Trust to
engage staff in the process of change.
They are taking a highly participative
approach in which employees are
encouraged to gather stories of
effective performance that represent
the Trust at its best. Employees are
being encouraged to identify small
actions and interventions that will
amplify the behaviours and values
they perceive to represent effective
practice. This process is enabling
individuals to express themselves and
it implicitly communicates to staff that
the senior management trusts them
to act in the interests of the Trust. We
have observed that as trust develops
through this process, managers and
staff are more willing to work together
on a shared agenda of service
improvement and to take risk in their
relationships.
Understanding of
others’ motives
History
MUTUAL
TRUST
Quality of the relationship
Credibility and
consistency
Degree of risk
and uncertainty
Figure 2. What influences trust in these contexts
Political dynamics are amplified
in contexts of mistrust
Heightened anxiety and distrust also amplify
covert political dynamics as individuals
seek to protect their interests by forming
coalitions and hiding feelings or opinions
that are not considered to be expressible
in public. We interpreted political behaviour
to both support change and learning, and
operate to block or act against change.
Individuals view the comprehensive
organisational changes through the filter of
their own emotional and political concerns8.
Political acts included: presenting a public
view which contradicted one’s own views
on the changes — forming coalitions to
protect one’s position, spreading gossip and
misinformation to undermine the agendas
of others, making deals behind the scenes
with other stakeholders and manipulating
statistics to present information in a
favourable manner. Much of this behaviour
can be understood as a response to real
or imagined fears about how individuals in
positions of authority or other groups will
judge them. For instance, in one NHS Trust,
senior managers expressed concerns about
a programme of service transformation that
was being demanded by the Board of the
Trust. Most of the management team felt it
was unsafe to express their views in public,
because when they had in the past they
were attacked or criticised by members of
the Board. This led them to express their
resistance through a lack of commitment
to specific changes or to express their
complaints and concerns about the
changes to colleagues with whom they felt
safe.
How leaders are developing
mutual trust
To establish trust is paradoxical. To develop
trust requires both parties to be willing to
make themselves vulnerable to others,
which individuals tend to be reluctant to
do when they mistrust the other. Trust
develops slowly and requires both parties
to progressively take greater risks with each
other in order to demonstrate that they
trust the other party. When trust is low,
leaders need to take the risk to explore the
quality of the relationship and the underlying
dynamics of mistrust if there is going to be
an opportunity for trust to develop. This is
best done by each party taking small risks
with each other rather than taking giant
leaps of faith. The paradoxical dynamic of
trust building, based on the work of Vangen
& Huxham9, is illustrated in Figure 3 below.
The trust building loop
Gain understanding
for more ambitious
collaboration
Reinforcing trusting
attitudes
Aim for realistic
(initially modest) but
successful outcomes
From expectations about the
future, based on reputation,
past behaviour, contracts or
agreements
Have enough trust to be willing
to be vulnerable and to take a
risk to initiate collaboration
Source: Vangen and Huxham (2003)
Figure 3. The trust building loop

The Ashridge Journal Mutual trust Autumn 2012
Our research indicated that managers
facilitate the development of mutual trust by:
•
Helping staff to make sense of
what is changing in their part of the
organisation and why
•
By openly and transparently sharing
information with staff and other
stakeholders, even when the information
is unlikely to be received favourably.
This requires managers to be explicit
about what they know and what they do
not know: for instance, some timescales
will be known and others will remain
undecided or open to negotiation.
•
Listening to employees’ concerns and
opinions. Research revealed that being
listened to and treated with dignity and
respect increases employees’ trust10.
•
Reframing changes to help staff
understand how they can take control
and influence the changes in their
part of the system. For instance,
one leader had engaged her staff by
saying to them: “We have a choice
of how it is done rather than letting it
be done to us”. This intervention gave
staff permission to take control and
responsibility for transforming their
services.
•
Working politically across organisation
boundaries to build connections,
dispel rumours, develop shared
agendas and looking for opportunities
for integrating services.
•
Supporting stakeholders to make
sense of what is changing and
how. This includes helping staff to
understand how and why they are
experiencing specific reactions to
changes in their organisations and
helping them to prioritise activities.
The interaction between line managers and
those they manage is important in relation
to the generation of perceptions of fairness

about organisation change. In our work
with managers we observed how much
of this work goes on behind the scenes
and is not visible or cannot be measured.
Managers experienced it as difficult and
emotionally demanding. It requires a
strong sense of personal conviction that
people can be trusted. Fundamentally, it
requires leaders to exercise compassion for
others and demonstrate empathy for the
pressures and anxieties they experience
in their work. We can only empathise with
others if we take responsibility for our own
feelings and emotions and we have the
emotional reserves to meet others in their
distress or anxiety. We believe therefore that
it is important that leaders have sufficient
support from others to be able to help their
teams work through the process of change.
Conclusion
Our research indicates that mutual trust is
a core condition for supporting effective
decision making and enabling organisation
and behaviour change. If leaders are to
successfully introduce complex change
then they need to pay attention to the
quality of relationships and particularly to
the levels of mutual trust that are present
in the organisation system. This requires
an active focus on developing the quality
of relationships across groups and with
individuals.
How Ashridge is supporting
change in the NHS
NHS London teamed up with the
King’s Fund and Ashridge on Action
Learning for Senior Leaders, a highly
successful development process
which enables both Non–Executive
Directors (NEDs) and Executives to
work in a more effective manner.
Over the course of a year, small
diverse groups tackled important
organisational issues, with members
of the group taking turns to share in
confidence with the rest of the group.
The owner of the issue explored
options, identified ways forward and
was challenged, encouraged and
supported to take effective action.
With the help of a facilitator, all
members reflected and learned from
each other. Members of these Action
Learning sets also built a network with
other senior leaders that they have
been able to continue to utilise.
The process worked towards good
listening and skilful questioning, in
particular how to question, as well as
soft skills of when to show empathy
and when to be sharp and assertive.
It provided a safe environment for
Executives to ask questions, to
check their assumptions and to take
action to introduce changes in their
organisations.
“I always used to jump in with both
feet, now I think ‘what do you want
to get out of this and who am I
seeking to influence’, before I act.”
– Non-Executive
“…not just that you start to question
more, but that you develop a
methodology of HOW to question
and challenge and have a safe
space in which to trial those skills.”
– Non-Executive
Ashridge and the NHS
Ashridge Consulting has been
working in the NHS for many years
with clients such as the National
Institute of Health Research,
the Health Foundation, the NHS
Leadership Academy, NHS London,
NHS Midlands and a number of
NHS Trusts.
References
1. The King’s Fund (2011) www.kingsfund.org.uk
2. Tushman, M., Newman W., and Romanelli, E
(1986) Convergence and upheaval: Managing the
unsteady pace of organizational evolution, California
Management Review, 29, no. 1 (Fall 1986): 29-44.
3. Mohrman, A. et al (1989) Large scale organizational
change, Jossey Bass, London.
4. Metcalfe, L. and Richards, S. (1993) Evolving public
sector management cultures. In: K.A. Eliassen and
J. Kooiman (Eds), Managing public organisations,
Sage, London.
5. Bion, W. R. (1961) Experiences in groups, Tavistock.
6. Rousseau, D.M., Sitkin, S.B., Burt, R.S. and
Camerer, C. (1998) Not so different after all:
A cross-discipline view of trust, Academy of
Management Review, 23: 393-404.
7. Kramer, R. M. and Tyler, T.R (1996) Trust in
organisations: Frontiers of theory and research,
Sage.
8. Neumann (2008)
9. Vangen, S, and Huxham, C (2003) Nurturing
collaborative relations: building trust in interorganizational collaboration, Journal of Applied
Behavioural Science, 39, no. 1, 5-31.
10. Saunders, M. N. K. and Thornhill, A. (2003)
Organisational justice, trust and the management
of change: An exploration, Personnel Review, 32
No. 3, 360-375.
Further reading
Luhmann, N. (1979) Trust and power, Wiley, Chichester.
The end result has been a series of
positive responses from both NEDs
and Executives.
Mayer, R.C., Davis, J.H. and Schoorman, F.D. (1995)
An integrative model of organization trust, Academy of
Management Review, 23, 438-458.
“Provided an opportunity to have
support. I certainly personally don’t have
access to anything like this!” – Executive
Mishra, A. (1996) Organizational responses to crisis:
the centrality of trust, in Kramer, R.M. and Tyler, T.R.
(Eds) Trust in organizations: Frontiers of theory and
research, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.
“I have been able to prioritise issues
and understand the value of my
contribution, which has increased
my confidence. This is particularly
important if your background is nonNHS.” – Non-Executive
Morgan, D. E and Zeffane, E. (2003) Employee
inyolvement, organizational change and trust in
management. International Journal of Human Resource
Management, 14:1 February, 55-75.

Do Something
Different to
create a more
sustainable
culture at work
There is no doubt that
sustainability is on the
business agenda and it is
here to stay. The challenge
is getting individuals and
organisations to take heed
and respond to the
challenge, and do so
effectively.
Nadine Page gives
some insights from her
PhD research about how
individuals and
organisations can be better
prepared for future
challenges, and proposes
a new framework for
helping to support both
to be more flexible and
adaptive to change.

The Ashridge Journal Do Something Different to create a more sustainable culture at work Autumn 2012
Nadine Page joined Ashridge in 2012 as a Research
Assistant in Ashridge’s Centre for Business and Sustainability
(ACBAS). Her interests are in the areas of psychology (social,
occupational and environmental), sustainability and change.
Nadine has an honours degree in Psychology and a Master’s
degree in Research Methods in Psychology. She is also in the
latter stages of her PhD, which is exploring the spillover of
sustainable actions from home to the workplace.
Email: nadine.page@ashridge.org.uk
Introduction
How much of yourself do you take to work
with you each day, or to put it another way,
how much of ‘you’ do you leave at home,
either intentionally or unintentionally? As a
first response I’m sure that most of us would
say that the way we behave at home is the
same way we behave at work. People like
to think that they are consistent in the way
they are in order to lessen their experience
of dissonance; a feeling of discomfort felt by
an individual when they hold two or more
conflicting ideas, beliefs or values. However,
in reality people are not consistent, despite
striving to be so. This is because many of
our daily cognitions, beliefs and behaviours
are patterns of action that are performed
sequentially. Through repetition, they
become habitual acts1 that are performed in
a relatively automatic way and are triggered
by external cues in the context2. The
consequence of this is the possibility that
we are somewhat unaware of who we are
and the way we behave. Consequently, we
can be one person at home and someone
very different at work. And it is likely that
this transition happens unintentionally with
a very low level of conscious awareness
and simply because of a change in setting.
Different selves
Of course, the differences in expectations,
environmental
design
and
social
characteristics between the home and the
workplace do bring out different sides or
‘selves’ of the individual. This is not such
a bad thing so long as one’s actions are
appropriate for each context. However, this
‘split’ in personality can be detrimental to
the performance of those daily behaviours
that need to be performed consistently
across different situations. Actions that
need to be embedded into the routine of
daily living – sustainable behaviours, for
example.
Sustainable behaviours
This article considers to what extent
context differences between the home and
workplace impact on the way we behave,
with a particular focus on the performance
of sustainable behaviours — behaviours
that we routinely perform everyday without
realising3 4 5. It also considers the barriers
and drivers of personal pro-environmental
action in each context with a particular
focus on the workplace, and the role and
responsibility of executive education in
reducing this gap. The article will also
explain how organisations can provide a
supportive framework to nurture the carbon
capability of their employees to develop an
organisational culture that is overall more
sustainable and prepared for the “future we
want”6.
There is an urgent need to better understand
the sustainability or lack thereof of individual
perspectives and lifestyles. This includes
individual worldviews towards sustainability,
and pro-environmental actions that are
performed both in the workplace and at
home. The reason is because individual
lifestyles and current organisational

practices are environmentally, economically
and socially unsustainable. For example,
across Europe we currently consume
30% more natural resources than the
Earth can replenish7. At their core, both
environmental problems and environmental
solutions are rooted within individuals and
cultures. Human behaviour at home and
in the workplace is directly environmentally
destructive through technological and
economic activity. It is also indirectly
destructive by individual beliefs and cultural
norms guiding the development of that
activity8. Indeed, we need to do something
to alter the way we live and ‘do business’.
This action needs to come from transitions
in the way people think and act because
people are the connecting factor at the
heart of sustainability issues at home and
at work.
Frameworks
There have been several frameworks
proposed that categorise individuals
according to their outlook and activity around
sustainability. For example, DEFRA’s Centre
of Expertise on Influencing Behaviours
outlines the Framework for Sustainable
Lifestyles to categorise individuals based
on their willingness to act sustainably and
their unfulfilled potential to do more. There
are seven behavioural segments that reflect
different positions on the sustainability
continuum, from those individuals who are
‘honestly disengaged’ to those who are
‘positive greens’. I’m sure each of us has an
opinion about where we fall. As an alternative,
others9 have proposed eight ecological
selves in the organisation, which include
the Eco–Guardian, the Eco–Warrior and the
Eco–Manager. This framework considers
how sustainable behaviours are guided by
personal identities and values. In essence,
both frameworks provide a structure for
understanding individual engagement with
sustainability. However, what is really needed
and is missing from such frameworks is a
practical model of change that supports
individuals, and organisations alike, to
modify their unsustainable practices.

Individuals’ lifestyles
Individuals are the constant factor in the
sustainability dilemma and thus there is a
need to better understand how they think
and behave. One way of doing so is to
investigate the sustainability of individuals’
lifestyles holistically, by measuring the
commitment and demonstration of proenvironmental action across lifestyle
practices at home and in the workplace,
rather than in one isolated context.
Doing so will give greater insights into
individuals’ positioning on sustainability as
a whole. Previous research investigating
sustainability issues in the organisation
has remained separate from the literature
focused outside of work. As such, the
‘spillover’ of sustainability from one context
to another has been assumed, and policy
makers expect individuals to act consistently
across3 different locational settings, both at
home and at work. However, the research
reported here shows this is not the case
— indeed, there is little fluidity between
home and work contexts and individuals
transform from Dr Jekyll at home to Mr
Hyde at work.
In order to investigate the sustainability of
individuals in two locational settings — at
home and in the workplace — participants
reported on their behaviours in each
context. The behaviours were everyday acts
that had an equal level of implementation
and personal control in both contexts.
Participants also identified the enablers
and barriers of acting sustainably in each
context. The data were collected from
individuals employed in different workplace
settings with variations in organisational
characteristics.
Home to work comparison
The home to work comparison showed
that individuals are more engaged with
sustainability at home than at work – a result
that concurs with previous findings10 11 12 13.
Indeed, 86% of the behaviours performed
at home were either not transferred into the
workplace or were performed significantly
less frequently. In other words, individuals
have one set of behaviours at home and
another at work. These results suggest
that individuals are focused and actively
engaged with sustainability at home but
this ‘sustainable self’ is not transferred in
the same capacity into the workplace. It
seems that organisations can block the
transference of sustainability from home to
work and ‘lock’ individuals into behavioural
routines
that
are
environmentally
unsound14. Individuals change substantially
from one context to the next. Finding out
why individuals become ‘split’ between
home and work was investigated further
by identifying the barriers and enablers of
action in each context.
To investigate the unsustainable side of
individuals in the workplace, participants
were asked to order a range of factors
that had the potential to influence their
sustainable activities both at home and at
work. They considered how much influence
each factor exerted on their behaviour
separately for each context. The potential
enablers and barriers included those factors
that were both intrinsic and extrinsic to
the individual. For example, intrinsic items
included, amongst others, factors relating
to personal values and beliefs, e.g., ‘my
sense of social responsibility’; and ‘belief
in the reality of climate change’. Some
examples of extrinsic drivers included: ‘the
attitudes and behaviours of people around
me’; and ‘others leading by example’. Of
particular interest was participants’ ordering
of these enablers and barriers from the
strongest through to the weakest for home
and work contexts, and the differences in
rankings between contexts.
Behaviours at home and at work
When at home, sustainable behaviours
were largely driven by factors intrinsic to the
individual such as a strong sense of personal
responsibility and personal beliefs. The
attitudes and behaviours of significant others,
e.g., friends and family, were also largely
influential. In contrast, those factors that were
less influential in this context included: good
role models and leadership from relevant
others (see Figure 1).
When considering sustainability in the
workplace, participants also reported
intrinsic beliefs, personal responsibility, and
the attitudes and behaviours of significant
others, e.g., colleagues, as important factors.
Additionally, they also flagged the importance
of good role models and leadership — a
factor that was not important in a home
context. In contrast, those factors reported as
the least influential in the workplace included:
penalties/disciplinary action; training and
information; and rewards — non-social
factors extrinsic to the individual.
behaviours are shown to be social acts that
are embedded within the social context of
the locational setting and are largely driven
by social processes15 such as the social
norms and culture of that setting. It is
apparent that at work, behaviours displayed
by colleagues and managers are perceived
as normal and acceptable and are used as
a frame of reference for guiding one’s own
behaviour16. These can either reinforce or
block an individual’s potential to transfer
sustainable actions from home. They also
show that when it comes to sustainability,
employees are not only influenced by their
personal values and beliefs but also by their
expectations and observations that others
are behaving in a similar fashion17.
These rankings suggest that one of the
strongest drivers of sustainability both
at home and in the workplace was the
personal beliefs and values of the individual.
These appear to provide the foundations
for action in both locational settings and
show a degree of individual consistency
across contexts. Another enabler that was
as important in both contexts was the
attitudes and behaviours of other people.
Pro-environmental behaviours, like many
other everyday acts, are socially construed
and performed in accordance with social
norms. When acting sustainably, individuals
want to fit in with the norm of the setting and
will adjust personal behaviours accordingly
in order to do so. Another particularly
important finding for the workplace was
the exemplification of sustainability by
leaders and significant others. This, again,
asserts to the social nature of sustainability
for individuals and organisations as a
whole and the importance of sustainable
leadership more generally.
Indeed, what we see here is that people
are not consistent in their performance of
sustainable acts across home and work
contexts and one of the reasons for this is
the supportive and constraining factors in
each setting. In both contexts, sustainable
Figure 1. The ranking of a range of factors that influence sustainable activities

Fixed patterns of behaviour
It seems that individuals are not reaching
their full potential to act sustainably at work,
and one of the reasons for this is because
of the cultural norms and leadership within
the organisation — individuals are being
constrained into fixed patterns of behaviour
that are far less sustainable to those employed
at home. One solution to this problem is to
change the perspective and behavioural
profile of the leaders in the organisation so
that sustainability is exemplified from the
top–down. Providers of executive education
have a role to play here by embedding
sustainability into their programmes. This will
help to ensure that the leaders of today, and
tomorrow, are knowledgeable and skilled
in this domain and are able to lead their
organisation to a more sustainable future.
Indeed, this is something that Ashridge
has been working hard to achieve over
the past few years, with a steady increase
in the inclusion of sustainability into our
management development programmes.
Address behavioural patterns
An
alternative
perspective,
which
complements the preceding and has the
potential to cascade faster and to a larger
extent throughout the organisation, is to
address the cognitive and behavioural
patterns of the organisation — those that
are implicitly present in the norms and
culture at work. It seems that individuals
perform environmentally ‘good’ habits
at home but in organisations they are
not yet the norm. For this reason, any
organisational change programme needs
to seriously consider the constraints the
workplace puts on human action and the
possibilities of change. Getting individuals to
see the differences in themselves between
contexts is the first step. Remember that
the majority of our daily behaviours are
habitual acts performed routinely with a
low level of consciousness — people will
be unaware of how they behave most of
the time or how the organisation ‘changes’

them. Thus, individuals need to develop
awareness of themselves in order to bring
behaviours under conscious control and
implement change. The technique of
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) offers
some insight and guidance about how
this could be done. This approach focuses
on changing thoughts to lever changes
in behaviour. While it is not possible or
appropriate to give a detailed account in
this article, some key points about CBT that
are indicative for developing sustainability
in organisations are discussed in order to
set the scene for a second approach — Do
Something Different (DSD) — that targets
change at the behavioural level in order to
shift thinking.
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy
CBT is the name given to a class of
talking therapies at the frontline of choices
for clinical and subclinical disorders. Its
fundamental principle is that it is not events
in the world that cause emotional reactions
and disturbance in people, but rather it
is the thoughts/beliefs that an individual
has about those events that mediates
the event–to–impact relationship. In other
words, the way we interpret the world
determines how we feel, think and behave.
CBT characterises thoughts and beliefs
as negative, automatic and nonadaptive.
These ways of thinking often come to mind
rapidly, particularly when individuals are
in the busyness of everyday life. They stir
underlying core beliefs and instincts, and
cause individuals to think in an irrational
and exaggerated way. This way of thinking
has an impact on how we behave. In
response, individuals limit their behavioural
experiences in order to avoid exposure to
situations that are perceived as potentially
‘threatening’ – situations that individuals
believe will have a negative impact on them
as a person. Remember, these beliefs are
based on personal perceptions that do not
truly reflect the reality of the situation. The
consequence of these perceptions is that
people limit their engagement with different
opportunities in order to stay ‘safe’, and this
often reflects past ways of being. They stay
within their ‘comfort zone’ of experience
and their consideration of new or different
behavioural opportunities becomes very
narrow and highly constrained. People
live their life in an inflexible space and
depend largely on habits for routine and
predictability. They do not try new things
or even see opportunities and potential
for change. The status quo remains and
business continues as usual.
How CBT works
CBT works by breaking the cyclical
relationship between thinking, beliefs,
and behaviours. It supports individuals
to change their thoughts and beliefs
as a lever for changing behaviour – in
this case, changing individuals’ beliefs
Pole 1
Pole 2
Assertive
V
Unassertive
Conventional
V
Unconventional
Cautious
V
Trusting
Predictable
V
Unpredictable
Energetic/Driven
V
Calm/Relaxed
Reactive
V
Proactive
Group orientated
V
Individually orientated
Risk taker
V
Cautious
Behave as I wish
V
Behave as others expect
Systematic
V
Spontaneous
Open-minded
V
Single-minded
Extroverted
V
Introverted
Definite
V
Flexible
Lively
V
Not lively
Gentle
V
Firm
Figure 2. Behavioural dimensions measured by the FIT Profiler
about sustainability at work. Perceptions
might suggest that sustainability is not
commonplace in this context, so individuals
who act sustainably might be perceived and
identified as ‘misfitting’. This could initiate a
negative cycle of thinking and then act as
a barrier for the transference of sustainable
actions from home. It offers an explanation
about why individuals’ ‘sustainable comfort
zones’ are significantly narrower at work.
Challenging these misperceptions is one
way of addressing sustainability issues in
the workplace. However, in order to fully
impact a shift in culture at work, behaviour
change at the individual level also needs to
take place. Employees’ ‘bad’ behavioural
habits need to be addressed directly. The
behavioural component of CBT supports
individuals to plan and trial a series of
small-scale
behavioural
experiments,
with each one taking the individual further
out of their ‘comfort zone’. The results of
these experiments are fed back to clients
to challenge negative patterns of behaviour
and thought.
The Do Something Different
approach
An alternative but similar framework
that tackles behaviour directly is the Do
Something Different (DSD) approach of the
Framework for Internal Transformation18
(FIT). This approach is more scalable to
address culture change in the organisation.
FIT comprises a psychometrically validated
tool – the FIT Profiler — and a variety of
behavioural interventions all targeted at
identifying and moderating an individual’s
degree of behavioural flexibility. At its
foundation, FIT emphasises the need
for flexibility in thinking and behaviour,
rather than dependency on past ways.
The FIT Profiler measures individuals’
cognitive strengths or ‘Inner Constancies’
(Awareness,
Balance,
Conscience,
Fearlessness
and
Self–Responsibility)
that form the foundations for guiding

decision–making and behaviour. It also
measures
preference
and
flexibility
across 15 behaviour dimensions (e.g.,
Introversion-Extraversion; see Figure 2).
Unlike other personality measures, the
FIT Profiler emphasises that for maximum
effectiveness, one would not want to be
located at a single point along a behavioural
dimension — instead, one should be
suitably
equipped
with
behavioural
capacities spanning both ends. This
enables the individual to have a repertoire
of behaviours that enables them to respond
appropriately in different situations and
circumstance, e.g., sometimes introverted
and sometimes extraverted. The FIT/DSD
approach supports individuals to develop
their behavioural repertoire and become
more flexible. This is an approach that could
help to overcome barriers, and change
unsustainable habits at work, to improve
cultural sustainability overall.
The FIT/DSD offers the potential to transform
individuals, teams, and organisations.It
offers individuals and teams the opportunity
to develop personally, to create more
sustainable lifestyles for themselves, with
benefits for the organisation’s culture too.
Individuals and organisation alike need to be
open to change and expand their comfort
zone of behaviours and organisational
practices. FIT/DSD gives them a licence to
experiment in a safe and constructive way.
Key pointers for getting started are:
1.
Be aware of your own and your
organisation’s patterns of behaviour.
Think about why you do what you do
and whether you enjoy acting this way.
Also think about whether this is the
most effective way for you to behave.
2.
Develop your awareness of the
behavioural patterns of others around
you. How do these impact on your
thoughts and behaviour?
3.
Consider the size of your ‘comfort
zone’ and the untapped potential of
you, and the people around you. How
flexible are you, your team, or your
organisation? Are you using a good
range of your behaviours or a very
limited set? Are you adapting and
developing new ways of behaving in
response to new challenges or are you
doing what you’ve always done?
4.
Think about the alternative ways you
could behave and have a go! Commit
to do things differently. Focus on a
single behaviour and try changing it,
even if it’s just slightly to start with. For
example, you could go to the coffee
machine at a different time of day.
You are likely to see different people
and engage in a different conversation
Try new behaviours
Trials of the DSD approach have been in
the domain of weight loss19 20 21. This is
the first considered application of DSD to
sustainability. The DSD programme invites
individuals to try out new behavioural
experiments and engage in doing different
things or doing the same things differently
for a prolonged period of time (one month).
Individuals are instructed to focus on trying
new behaviours and trying new ways of
interacting with people. For example, it
could be trying a different approach with
a colleague at work, travelling a different
route to work, or spending your lunch hour
outside instead of indoors. The DSD tasks
are not focused on the target outcome, e.g.,
sustainability, because the driving credo
is that behaviours are not independent
from one another, but exist in a mutually
supporting network: a behavioural web22.
By breaking the connection there is greater
possibility of changing the target behaviour
itself because the support network has
been weakened. People become ‘freer’ in
their web of habits. The DSD programme

as a result, and this could be beneficial
for developing networks across the
organisation. Alternatively, you could
schedule a meeting at a different time
of day to usual. Would this enable a
different group of people to attend?
Would it change the energy levels in the
room? Such small shifts in behaviour
can have all sorts of positive impacts.
targets change in this way, at a generic
level, in order to transform individuals to a
more flexible place where they can change
anything about themselves as well as
specifically targeting particular behaviours.
5.
Finally, if you want to get something
different, you have to be open to
try different things and do things
differently. You have to challenge
yourself and your organisation to
explore new ways of being.
Conclusion
To conclude, sustainability is now on
the agenda for a growing number of
organisations, but for some, ‘old habits die
hard’. The recent discussions at the Rio+20
summit suggest that commitments to
sustainability are strong, and organisations
are exploring new approaches to tackling
the problem. There is, of course, a need to
look at the world anew. Organisations need
to be open to the possibilities of doing things
differently, to expand the ‘comfort zone’
of employees and organisations, and the
planet too. Sustainability is about “taking
control of the ‘now’ and designing the future,
instead of allowing the future simply to be the
past continued”18. Individuals, organisations
and executive education providers all have
an active role to play in designing a more
sustainable future. They need to challenge
the ‘norm’ and disrupt the status quo of
past practices. The FIT DSD approach offers
a new framework that has the potential to
support effective change for the individual
and organisation in the transition to a more
sustainable future. We do not know what the
future will bring but there is no doubt that it
will present new challenges for individuals
and organisation alike. Being able to adapt
and respond flexibly to these challenges is
mandatory, not optional.
The Ashridge Centre for Business
and Sustainability is Ashridge’s
in-house think tank on sustainable
development and the implications
for leadership, strategy and change
in organisations. Established in
1996, the Centre leads influential
research and thought leadership in
collaboration with external partners,
and works collaboratively across
Ashridge to support its education and
consulting work around leadership
and change for sustainability.
www.ashridge.org.uk/acbas
References
1. Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., &
Wardle, J. (2010). How habits are formed: Modelling
habit formation in the real world. European Journal
of Social Psychology, 40, 998-1009.
2. Wood, W., & Neal, D.T. (2007). A new look at habits
and the habit-goal interface. Psychological Review,
114, 843-863.
3. Thogersen, J. (1999). Spillover processes in the
development of a sustainable consumption pattern.
Journal of Economic Psychology, 20(10), 53-81.
4. Thogersen, J., & Olander, F. (2003). To what degree
are environmentally beneficial choices reflective of
a general conservation stance? Environment and
Behavior, 38(4), 550-569.
5. Barr, S., & Gilg, A. W. (2006). Sustainable lifestyles:
framing environmental action in and around the
home. Geoforum, 37(6), 906-920.
6. http://www.un.org/en/sustainablefuture/
7. http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/economy/
products-consumers/influencing behaviour/
8. Hoffman, A. J. (2011). Climate change as a cultural
and behavioural issue: Addressing barriers and
implementing solutions. Organizational Dynamics,
39, 295-305.
15. Shove, E. (2003). Converging conventions of
comfort, cleanliness and convenience. Journal of
Consumer Policy, 26, 395-418.
16. Clapp, J. D., & McDonnell, A. L. (2000). The
relationship of perceptions of alcohol promotion and
peer drinking norms to alcohol problems reported
by college students. Journal of College Student
Development, 41(1), 20-26.
17. Georg, S. (1999). The social shaping of household
consumption. Ecological Economics, 28, 455-466.
18. Fletcher, B.(C). & Stead, B. (2000) (Inner) FITness
and The FIT Corporation.
London: International Thomson Press.
19. Fletcher, B.(C)., Hanson, J., Pine, K. J. & Page,
N. (2011). FIT – Do something different: A new
psychological intervention tool for facilitating weight
loss. Swiss Journal of Psychology.
20. Page, N. & Fletcher, B.(C). (2008). FIT Science for
weight loss: A controlled study of the benefits of
enhancing behavioural flexibility. European Journal of
Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods, 19(5), 8–10.
21. Fletcher, B.(C)., Page, N. & Pine, K. J. (2007). A
new behavioural intervention for tackling obesity:
Do something different. European Journal of
Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods, 18(5), 8–10.
9. Rogers, A. (2012). Exploring our ecological
selves within learning organisations. The Learning
Organization, 19(1), 28-37.
10. Dolnicar, S., & Grün B. (2009). Environmentally
friendly behaviour: Can heterogeneity among
individuals and contexts/environments be
harvested for improved sustainable management?
Environment and Behavior, 41(5), 693-714.
11. Barr, S., Shaw, G., Coles, T. E., & Prillwitz, J. (2010).
A holiday is a holiday: practising sustainability home
and away. Journal of Transport Geography, 18,
474-481.
12. McDonald, S. Green behaviour: Differences in
recycling behaviour between the home and the
workplace. In D Bartlett (Ed.), Going Green: The
psychology of sustainability in the workplace.
Leicester: The British Psychological Society.
13. Tudor, T., Barr, S., & Gilg, A. (2007). A tale of two
locational settings: Is there a link between proenvironmental behaviour at work and at home?
Local Environment, 12(4), 409-421.
14. Benton, T., & Redclift, M. (1994). Introduction.
In M. Redclift & T. Benton (Eds.), Social theory and
global environment. 1-28, Routledge, London.

Leadership
Summer 2010
Women in business: Blueprint for
individuals and organisations
The role of women in business has
generated much media interest over the
past few years. The publication of the
Davies Report in 2011 highlighted the role
of and representation of women on
boards. These findings, with feedback
from women who attend Ashridge’s
development programmes, led Fiona Dent
and Viki Holton to undertake an inquiry
into the landscape for women in business
in the 21st century.

Autumn 2012
Fiona Dent is a Director of Executive Education at Ashridge.
As a member of the Ashridge Management Committee she
is responsible for one of the two education faculty groups
which manage programmes, client relationships and deliver
management development solutions across Ashridge. Fiona is
also involved in setting the strategic direction of the organisation
with a particular focus on human resources.
Viki Holton is a Research Fellow at Ashridge. Her
Email: fiona.dent@ashridge.org.uk
Email: viki.holton@ashridge.org.uk
interests include surveying current trends in management
and management development, best practice in career
development, HR, equal opportunities and the
development of women managers..
Introduction
Our aim was to explore the current situation
for women in the workplace, focusing on
their day-to-day experience of business life.
We developed this into a “women only”
survey, which involved both a questionnaire
and interviews. We explored a range of
areas:
• People who had helped in their career
• Career promoters and hindrances
• Leadership issues including style
• Work/life balance
• What they wish they had known
earlier in their career
• Advice for both individuals and
for organisations.
A full report of our findings can be found in
our book Women in Business: Navigating
career success which was published in
April 2012 by Palgrave.
In this article we discuss ten pieces of
advice that have been distilled from the
findings – see model at left.

Autumn 2012
Advice for individuals
• Develop self-awareness
Self-belief and self-confidence are two of
the most important promoters of career
success and yet also seem to be two
of the most common hindrances that
women experience – that is lack of both
self-belief and self-confidence.
A good level of self-awareness is a key
contributor to career success and women
need to have a well-honed awareness of
their own strengths, weaknesses, values,
beliefs and needs. It’s all about knowing
“what you want, what you are good at and
how you can get even better.”
Getting feedback from others is a great
way of developing self-awareness.
Feedback can come from many kinds of
people:
• The boss
• Colleagues
• Direct reports
• Customers and suppliers
• A coach or mentor
• Family and friends.
The important thing with feedback is
to frame it so that you get worthwhile
comments that you can act upon. So,
rather than asking someone to give you
feedback generally, it might be more
valuable if you ask a trusted colleague to
observe your listening and questioning
skills and give you feedback about your
performance in these areas. Being more
specific means the feedback will be more
valuable.
Other ways of raising self-awareness
involve taking part in training events which
enable you to get feedback from fellow
participants in a controlled environment –
or possibly to be able to self-analyse by
way of video playback in a group meeting
or other work-based situation.

Self-awareness, however is only the
starting point – but it does help with selfconfidence and self-belief, those two vital
attitudes to help drive success.
• Have a career plan
Identifying career goals, aspirations and
ambitions – in other words having a career
plan – is key. Plans can be changed,
adapted and developed; the important
thing is to have one.
“Have a career plan from early on and
take ownership for your own career
development. Many women that I talk to,
particularly the under 25s, I say to them
OK, when you’re 30 what do you want to
have achieved, inside work and outside
work? Do you want to be married, do
you want to have children, do you want
to be a job grade one, do you want to be
a job grade three? Most of them can’t
answer the question, they just don’t know.
They’re focused on trying to do the best
job that they can and so can’t say after
two years: ‘Hey, I’ve been on the graduate
programme for two years and I haven’t
had my promotion – I need a promotion,
what am I missing? What am I doing
wrong?’ If they’re not pushing their career,
nobody’s going to drag them along.”
Survey quote.
Typically men are far more strategic
about their career than many women and
will happily put themselves forward for
promotion even if they don’t have the ideal
qualifications and experience. Women
have a greater tendency to worry about
having the relevant experience and/or
qualifications and in some cases waiting
to be asked!
The reality is that in many situations when
senior appointments are made, it’s more
about the relationship and overall fit than
about having the exact qualifications and
experience.
The advice to women is to know where
you want to go and what you want to
achieve, and have the courage, selfconfidence and belief to go for it.
As one woman in our survey said:
“Anything is possible if you believe in
yourself.”
• Understand the role of others
Most of the success stories we heard
about involved support from others. In
terms of support the most frequently
• Network
Many women mentioned how important
networks and networking are as part of
the career development process. With the
increasing use of online networking sites
like Facebook, Linkedin, Friends Reunited
and Plaxo, we find ourselves drawn into
being ‘networked’ with many people. It
would be very easy just to think about
networking as an invogue, contemporary
idea that connects you with lots of people.
However, we see it differently – successful
networking is like so much else in life – you
have to be strategic about it.
mentioned people were:
• Bosses
• Colleagues
• Family
• Friends.
Most of the women we talked to and
many of those who responded to our
survey mentioned a boss as key to their
success. Bosses were often mentioned
as the person who challenged them
and pushed them to try something they
wouldn’t normally have attempted. One
quote from our survey that illustrates this:
“When we were looking at going into a
new area my manager pushed me to lead
the project which I would not have done
otherwise.”
Many women also mentioned colleagues,
family and friends as important. Working
within a supportive team and having
colleagues in the organisation who can
act as a sounding board or informal coach
can prove to be highly beneficial. Family
and friends are undoubtedly of huge
support to any woman who is forging
a career in business. It is their support,
advice and encouragement that many
women rely on to juggle their lives. In
particular partners and husbands were
mentioned, especially those who shared
the family responsibilities.
Dame Sally Davies – Chief Medical
Officer and Chief Scientific Adviser for
the Department of Health and National
Health Service, one of our interviewees
and an Ashridge Governor – offered us
her perspective on networking when she
suggested that she does network but
prefers to “build friendships and alliances”.
She believes that having a strategy for
networking where she builds relationships
with people whom she respects and has
shared values and interests with is a good
way of ensuring she can make a network
work in a positive way.
It is becoming clear that promotion and
career development are not always about
hard work or having the right skills – rather
they are often the result of organisational
reputation, chance meetings, personal
recommendations and being in the
right place at the right time. Planning
to network and actively setting out to
develop relationships with those people
is a strategic approach to networking that
may prove, in the long run, to be beneficial
to your career and development.
Autumn 2012
Having a career strategy and knowing
what you want to achieve will help you
to move in the right direction and take
advantage of the opportunities that are
presented to you. The strategy should
be something like a route map where
deviations are possible along the way, to
do things of interest, to take unexpected
opportunities, to develop new skills – all of
which will help you reach your destination.
When we embarked on this research
we thought we’d hear stories that were
different to those we experienced earlier
in our careers. Now 25 years later we
expected that things would have moved
on significantly. It was disappointing
to find that while organisations have
put policies and procedures in place,
our research found that women today
experience many of the same challenges
and issues as those in the past.
While there is still a way to go, many
are progressing in the right direction,
and organisations and individuals alike
must continue to keep their foot on the
accelerator.
“I can’t help thinking that if I’d been a bit
more strategic and thoughtful about my
career, I may have taken a less tortuous
route to my goal. My advice to younger
women would be to know what you want
to achieve, develop a plan and go for it.”
Survey quote.
“I have worked for at least three very
supportive bosses, usually at CEO level,
who have given me opportunities to
develop.” Survey quote.
• Take and create opportunities
One of the overriding messages we gained
from our research was that successful
career-women have charted their own
path and built their own career. Making
and taking opportunities has been part of
their success.

Career promoters
Career hindrances

Autumn 2012
Advice for organisations
• CEO and senior management
commitment
In order for women to become truly equal
in business life, the role of the CEO and
the top team in supporting and modelling
the way ahead is vital. In our research
we heard many stories where lip service
was paid to the importance of women in
an organisation. A fairly typical story that
illustrates this point is: “At a European
meeting I recently attended, the leadership
team for the project put up a slide
to illustrate details about themselves – this
showed only one woman on the team
of 15 and unsurprisingly she earned far
less than any of the other members.”
Stories of this nature were not unusual,
especially in relation to women’s presence
at senior levels.
Many women in our research talked
about the excellent HR policies that
their organisation had in place, yet still
there are barriers. As one interviewee
noted: “If the top team is male
dominated and they continue to replicate
themselves on executive floors in a
closed system way, nothing will change.
It needs a shift in mindset and culture,
sponsored and committed to by the top
in order for change to happen”. Good
HR policies and processes are all very
well, but the real change happens when
behaviour changes and is modelled from
the top.
The active involvement of all C suite
members modelling an attitude of equality
– where people are promoted on merit
and women and men are both equally
encouraged in career development and
growth – would go a long way to levelling
the playing field.
• Organisational culture and attitude
Once the top team is on board and
modelling change, then the whole
organisation will begin a process of
Autumn 2012
movement towards an equal working
environment.
For instance, having
diversity champions in each part of the
business to actively promote the role of
women and to accommodate difference
– of course diversity is not only about
gender so these champions are also alert
to other diversity issues.
Some of the examples we heard about
included:
• Making sure women were offered the
same stretch assignments as men
• Organising an annual conference for
women managers and staff
• Encouraging
women
to
take
advantage of mentoring and coaching
schemes early on in their career
• Looking at innovative and flexible
working practices, for example:
working longer hours each day to
enable a four-day week; a husband
and wife team operated a job
share with each doing one
month on and one month off; and
others talked about enabling home
working with flexible hours to suit
personal situations
• Introducing opportunities for job
shadowing, where a younger manager
shadows a more senior manager
for a period of time, can be beneficial
on many levels. It helps to change
attitudes and provides a development
opportunity at the same time
• One organisation we talked to
operates a “reverse mentoring”
process. This involves a younger
manager mentoring a more senior
manager to help them to understand
the challenges facing the younger
generation. This same process
could be applied to younger
women mentoring senior men and
women
to
help
understand
changing attitudes.
• Organisational gender mix
Some organisations realise that it’s not just
about the number of women employed –

rather it’s about the opportunities afforded
to them. So for instance the more
enlightened organisations are beginning
to understand more about the inequality
issues by analysing gender mixes:
• At different organisation levels
• On
training
programmes
and
development
• Applicants for managerial
leadership positions
and
• People taking on new opportunities
and stretch assignments
And of course
• The Board.
Much of the gender issue is about fairness
of opportunity as well as attitude, and
we heard many stories of women being
bypassed and assumptions being made.
For instance: “Organisations should not
assume that just because I am a working
mother I will not be interested in an
overseas assignment.”
• Development, mentoring and coaching
While many of the women in our survey
talked about the importance of taking
advantage
of
any
developmental
opportunities offered as a key promoter of
their career, an equal number complained
that these experiences were not offered
to them. It is also clear from our research
that women can be reticent in asking
for developmental opportunities.
Enlightened organisations are becoming
more aware of the need to actively
encourage women to put themselves
forward for development opportunities.
Bosses also play a role here and
the better ones are supportive of the
women who work in their area. Our
research highlighted the importance of
the role of the boss as being paramount
in terms of either promoting or hindering
women’s career success.
At Ashridge we notice that on many of
our development programmes – most of

Autumn 2012
which are targeted at middle and senior
managers – women are underrepresented,
usually being less than a third of the
group. In fact in 2011 the percentage
of women attending all our programmes
was 30%.
As far as mentoring and coaching is
concerned, one of the challenges is
access to female mentors and role
models, and the lack of senior women
in organisations made this difficult. The
challenge for many of the women in our
survey was identifying whom they should
approach to mentor or coach them.
Publicising this information so that people
are aware of those in the organisation who
are trained and willing to act as mentors
and coaches may be helpful.
• Talent management
Organisations who fail to recognise
that women play an important role
in contemporary business life will
undoubtedly be losing some of the most
talented people they have. There is much
talked about quotas in the boardroom, but
in our view there is a far more challenging
issue – the female talent pipeline.
Women are outperforming men in
education – equal numbers of women
and men join organisations at entry
levels. But by the time they reach middle
management, women exit in large
numbers – this typically happens between
the ages of 30 and 40. You don’t need
to be an Einstein to determine why this
might be.
This creates subsequent problems for
the female talent pipeline – it is logical
that if there are fewer women in middle
management then there are fewer to select
from for senior and board appointments.
As we have seen earlier, organisations
have creditable HR processes in place.
The key challenge is to ensure that the
attitude of the people applying these
processes is positive and that innovative
approaches to working practices are
encouraged and promoted. For instance:
• Encouraging mixed gender work and
project teams
• Using technology to the full – video
and conference calling are particularly
beneficial
• Recognising that presenteeism is not
the only way of getting a good job
done. Adopting a process of goal and
target setting will encourage more
engagement overall and affords women
(and men) the opportunity to organise
their working day to accommodate
their family commitments.
Talent management is not just about
getting women to the top and on
to boards – it’s about creating an
environment where all employees can
blossom and grow to reach their full
potential.
Background to the research
References
The research involved a self-completion
survey which was completed by over
1400 women – 39% of whom were senior
managers and a further 30% were either
directors or chief executives. These women
worked in the public, private and voluntary
sectors, both nationally and internationally,
and covered an age range from under 30 to
over 60, with 45% of respondents who were
between 41 to 50.
In addition to the survey we also undertook
20 in-depth interviews with senior women
leaders, some of whom are entrepreneurs who
have built their own successful businesses, as
well as a range of senior women in the public
and private sectors.
Autumn 2012
Understanding
Women’s Careers
1. Lord Davies (Feb 2011), Women on Boards
Dept of Business, Innovation and Skills
2. Fiona Dent, Viki Holton, Jan Rabbetts, (Dec 2011),
Understanding Women’s Careers, Ashridge
3. Ambition and Gender at Work (Feb 2010)
Institute of Leadership and Management
By Fiona Dent, Viki Holton and Jan Rabbetts
December 2011
Final note
We would like to acknowledge the help and
support of all the women who contributed to
the survey and interviews. Their thoughts,
ideas and stories were inspirational and
invaluable in contributing to our book.

This article describes a case study: the
desire of one manager, based in the UAE,
to make sustainable changes to (a) his own
leadership style, (b) the organisational
culture around followership without
autonomy, and (c) the decision–making
skills of his direct reports.
Vicki Culpin and Judith Scott discuss the
‘leadership experiment’ that the manager
undertook and outline the perceived shift in
behaviours and culture that were gained as
a result of this unique intervention.

The Ashridge Journal A leadership experiment in the UAE Autumn 2012
Vicki Culpin is the Ashridge Research Director. She specialises
Judith Scott is an Ashridge Associate and works as an
Mohammed Gheyath is the Executive Director of the
in memory, sleep, and research methodology and statistics.
executive coach and facilitator, focusing on individual, team
Department of Technology Development Affairs (TDA), UAE
She has spent over 15 years researching memory, the impact
and organisational performance. Her interests include personal
Federal Government. TDA undertakes various technical tasks,
of poor memory, and how to improve memory. More recent
leadership development and executive coaching, creativity,
projects and initiatives related to the telecommunications
research and teaching interests include the relationship between
action inquiry and learning, and collaborative forms of teamwork
section in the UAE.
sleep, well-being and resilience in management populations.
with multi disciplinary and cross-functional teams
.
Email: vicki.culpin@ashridge.org.uk
Email: judith.scott@ashridge.org.uk
Email: mohammed.gheyath@tra.gov.ae
Leadership and followership
must be noted that firstly, the majority of the
work examining leadership characteristics
in the Middle East fails to include either
Dubai or Abu Dhabi, and secondly, given
the large number of non-Emiratis within the
region, there may be ‘Western’ leadership
behaviours that have been adopted, such
as collaborative leadership5.
Context
The Middle East (the geographical area
from Egypt to the Arab Peninsula), the
Arab Nations (22 in total), the MENA region
(Middle East and North Africa) and the
Muslim world: these are all terms used to
describe a cultural, economic, political and
religious mosaic, and while there are two
common denominators – language (Arabic)
and religion (Islam) – they are not uniformly
present across the region. For example, of
particular relevance to this article, foreign
languages such as English or French
are often used to complement Arabic in
both the education and public sectors,
and whilst Islam is the official religion,
there is a significant cultural diversity,
with both minority religions and differing
interpretations within Islam1.
In relation to leadership and followership in
Islamic communities, Ali2 notes that Islam is
a practical ideology that focuses on equality
and hard work and emphasises qualities
such as honesty, integrity and loyalty. The
work of Robertson, Al-Khatib and Al-Habib3
found high power distance, high uncertainty
avoidance, low individualism and high
masculinity. The GLOBE study by Kabasakal
and Bodur4 found the Arabic cluster (Egypt,
Morocco, Turkey, Kuwait and Qatar) also
to be characterised by masculinity, along
with an in-group orientation, tolerance
of ambiguity, stronger rule orientation,
hierarchy of relationships, institutional
collectivism and low value on assertiveness.
However, in the context of this article, it
Ashridge programmes in
the UAE
Ashridge ran a series of successful
leadership and mentoring programmes
for the UAE Federal Government between
2008 and 2011 for Future Leaders,
Executive Leaders, Director Generals and
Ministers. Ashridge’s distinctive participative

style (which is an excellent match to the
preferred learning style of individuals within
this region), with an emphasis on learning
through experience, meant it was well
placed to work with both emerging and
established talent in the UAE Government.
The Executive Leaders Programme
was launched in 2009 with a change
management and change leadership
workshop in Abu Dhabi. The purpose of
the programme was to develop knowledge
and skills for leading others in times of
change, and by the end of the programme
participants were expected to:
a.
b.
c.
Diagnose a change situation at work
and develop a change strategy and a
series of change interventions
Understand and deploy a range of
relevant tools, techniques and skills for
leading change
Understand how and be able to lead
others through this change.
One of the central tenets of the programme
was mentoring and coaching, with face-toface and telephone sessions conducted with
each participant. Expectations were agreed
early on in the process and the mentors
were encouraged to use transformational
coaching techniques which focuses on
choices through intentional declarations
and committed action6, as well as to offer
advice, inform and challenge participants’
thinking.
The challenge
The mentoring and coaching relationship
was a successful and valued element
of the programme, and supported one
individual, Mohammed Gheyath, in further
developing a ‘leadership experiment’
within his workplace. The aim was to
gain greater understanding both of
himself and his immediate team whilst
also ‘developing leadership in others’7.
During this ‘experiment’, Mohammed

received on-going coaching/mentoring
from his Ashridge coach who helped
support and challenge him during the
process.
Based in Dubai, Mohammed Gheyath is
the Executive Director of the Department
of Technology Development Affairs
(TDA), UAE Federal Government. TDA
undertakes various technical tasks,
projects and initiatives related to the
telecommunications section in the UAE.
Mohammed is responsible for developing
the overall technology advancement
strategy for the country, developing
policies and regulatory frameworks related
to information security and network
security, and building and developing
national capabilities within the information
elecommunications sector.
Mohammed was inspired to influence the
culture of his organisation. He wanted
to see it become more confident and
creative, more flexible and open to change.
He wished to create more decision
makers, move away from a traditionally
strong hierarchical model and empower a
second level leadership team to take over
whenever needs arose. Mohammed was
aware of the theory taught in leadership
and management courses but he wanted
to create something more practical and
thus, hopefully, more sustainable for his
department and the whole organisation.
Mohammed had four key objectives for his
team. These were to:
•
Experience what it is like to be in a
leadership position
•
Encourage individuals to make
decisions and take more responsibility
•
Discover and unlock individual
potential
•
Appreciate their colleagues’ work and
recognise their achievements.
The process
First iteration
Initially, Mohammed chose six individuals from
his team and each was given the opportunity
to ‘be Mohammed’, to ‘experience the new
role’ and to be the ‘boss’ for a two week
period – each individual was given the
opportunity to ‘step up’.
Individuals were encouraged to find out
information about the sections, functions
and staff specific roles through a variety of
methods such as:
•
Discussions with Mohammed
•
Meeting with the Section Heads
•
Talking to individuals who handle a
specific task
•
Being creative and finding new ways
to obtain information.
During the process, Mohammed made
it clear that he was there to assist and
support if needed, but suggested that the
key principle in order to bear the benefits
of the experience was that the individuals
must lead, manage the team and get the
job done using their own leadership style8.
In this first iteration of the ‘experiment’,
there were a number of key elements:
•
Mohammed had assured his staff that
he was still ultimately responsible and
would put his name and signature to
the work
•
The individuals responsible would be
credited for the success and good
decisions
•
Mohammed himself would bear the
consequence of mistakes and wrong
decisions.
Second iteration
After reflection on completion of the first
iteration, Mohammed felt that this approach
didn’t fully allow a ‘stepping up’ and was ‘too
safe’9 , and so in a second iteration (which
lasted a month rather than two weeks),
the selected members were increased
to ten, and each of these members was
expected to sign all documents for internal
dissemination. Mohammed ‘blindly’ signed
documents only for external dissemination
and neither internal or external documents
received any comment or input from
Mohammed. During the second iteration
these individuals were responsible for
all decisions, all documentation, and
all policies and procedures during their
month at the helm. This removed the
sense of comfort and after this experiment
documents started to flow almost
‘mistake-free’.
Following each experience, Mohammed
reviewed the individuals’ work and then
discussed with the ‘future leaders’, using an
appreciative inquiry model, the positive and
development points and where they could
have done things differently in order to add
more value. He maintained an evaluation sheet
for each individual focusing on the following:
•
Leadership skills, namely decision
making, coaching and delegation
•
Management skills, namely planning,
attention to details and follow-ups
•
Meeting management skills, namely
steering the meetings, conclusions,
negotiation
skills
and
building
arguments.
Iteration 1
Iteration 2
Additionally, Mohammed asked for feedback
from each individual about the overall
process, what went well, what could have
been done better and whether they received
the appropriate level of support. He was also
interested in what he, himself, could learn as
a leader from the way each individual had led
and handled different challenges.
Six direct reports
‘stepped up’
Ten direct reports
‘stepped up’
Emotionally intelligent leadership
Three days’ notice between
being given the role and first
day
Planned timetable before start
of iteration
Two weeks of role plus one
week handing over
Four weeks of role plus one
week handing over
All documentation checked by
individual but final check and
signature by Mohammed
All documentation checked
and sent by individual without
ANY input from Mohammed
Figure 1. Details of the two iterations
Whilst the practice of offering ‘your role and
position’ is certainly not common within
Western leadership (and not something
that Ashridge had explicitly helped support
in this format), it could be argued that this
may be something Western leaders could
perhaps aspire to. It is indicative of an
emotionally intelligent form of leadership
which is becoming more established in the
West. Western leadership models often
encompass the collaborative and collective
approach, whilst a more traditional Islamic
model of leadership is inherently hierarchical
in nature. With this in mind, the ‘experiment’
that Mohammed undertook is particularly
‘unorthodox, but it is a tool to develop
people’10. It should also be noted that
perhaps the influence of the large number of
non–Emiratis within this specific region of the
Middle East supported what may otherwise
(or in other regions of the Middle East) be
seen as too radical a shift.

Benefits
Changes are sustainable
The learning from this experimental process
has benefited the individual ‘stepping up’,
Mohammed, the team, and the organisation
as a whole. The practical, ‘lived’ experiential
nature of the intervention for the individuals
involved, and the support from Mohammed
as the leader, are also positive indicators of
a sustainable change. Mohammed was very
aware at the beginning of this intervention
that it is common practice within Islamic
cultures for direct reports to follow, without
question, leadership decisions as long as
(a) the intent is correct, and (b) the required
actions are in line with Islamic principles.
Whilst there was no doubt that both (a) and (b)
were adhered to, Mohammed was also very
keen to ensure that the individuals who took
part did so voluntarily, and that the benefits
gained were sustainable. The intervention
was such a success after the first iteration
(with the benefits tangible at many levels of
the organisation) that he was inundated with
volunteers for the second phase.
Positive changes in attitude
In the words of Mohammed: ‘Success
was measured by the change in attitude of
the staff involved and the level of revision
needed from my side on their work after
they completed the programme. The level of
my intervention to their work was minimised
and all participants were able to make
better judgments on matters and subject,
For the individual ‘stepping up’
Figure 2 outlines the benefits noted by
both Mohammed and his direct reports
who took part in this experiment. For
those organisations considering adopting
this process, whether in Europe, the
UAE, China, India or beyond, this list
demonstrates the wide-ranging and farreaching positive effects at an individual,
team and organisational level.
For the organisation
as a whole
For Mohammed
For the wider team
• Opportunity to learn
• Developing his own
leadership style
• Building a confident
organisation
• Building trust and respect
• Being creative
• Building insight and
awareness into others
and their role
• Enhanced decision making
• Leading by example
• Assuming more responsibility
• Coaching and
mentoring
• Creating a more open
culture
• Challenging the status
quo
• Encouraging people
to give and receive
feedback
• Encouraging a more
creative organisation
• Encouraging individual responsibility
• Increased self-awareness
• Giving and receiving feedback
• Better understanding
of individual and team
strengths
• Opportunity to observe and learn
from different leadership styles
• Opportunity to pass on
learning
• Greater understanding of
Mohammed’s role
• Talent management
• Increased awareness of others
• Valuing everyone’s contribution
• Better working relationships
• Understanding how to help and
support each other
• Building confidence
• Learning to work out of silos
• Learning to manage upwards and below
• Building new relationships;
• Managing difficult situations
• Be spontaneous, flexible and responsible
• Experience of dealing with
different ‘leaders’.
Figure 2. The benefits gained from the experiment

therefore my corrections and comments
were minimised on their day-to-day work.
Additionally, the overall understanding
of the department’s scope as well as
specific section’s work was more familiar
to all the participants. This added levels of
confidence, trust and appreciation between
the staff in addition to adding smoothness
to the flow of work between them’11.
• Long term planning.
• Understanding the
impact each leadership
style has on the team
• Developing relationships
• Encouraging a common
purpose
• More openness to ideas
and change.
• Influencing the culture
• Supporting a learning
organisation.
Going forward
Given the research to date on leadership
characteristics and organisational culture in
the Middle East (albeit with the caveat that
little has focused on the UAE in particular)
it is not surprising that this ‘leadership
experiment’ was counter-cultural and
initially met with some resistance within the
organisation. It was a brave and creative
step for Mohammed to take. It is also
tempting to explain these barriers (initial
lack of support from line managers, peers
and the wider organisation) through a purely
Middle Eastern cultural or religious lens.
However, as noted above, it may be argued
that this leadership experiment is countercultural in the majority of organisations
across the world and that barriers would
exist wherever this experiment took place,
regardless of reported levels of hierarchy,
assertiveness and collectivism.
For those who wish to undertake this
experiment in ‘stepping up’, there
are a number of ‘lessons learnt’ from
Mohammed which include:
•
Have self-belief
•
Involve your peer group in the
experiment
•
Continue to seek feedback
from all
•
Continue to raise awareness
of the process across the
organisation
•
Document your process and
its benefits
•
Capture what you are doing
•
‘Sell’ your ideas internally
•
Be true to own leadership style
•
Be true to your beliefs and values
•
Develop a framework for own
goals and aspirations
•
Be patient.
Conclusion
Through coaching, mentoring, reflection
and
appreciation,
Mohammed
has
created a community of practice where
each member of the team has had the
opportunity to lead and take the ultimate
responsibility. Mohammed has challenged
beliefs and current working practices to
build a team of leaders that thrive and
add real value within the organisation. In
the words of Mohammed: ‘My role is to
build the leaders’12 – and the Ashridge
experience culminated in an original and
dynamic piece of work to support this
aspiration for Mohammed, his team and his
organisation.
References
1. Marmenout, K. (2009) Women-focused leadership
development in the Middle East: Generating local
knowledge, Insead Faculty and Research
Working Paper.
2. Ali, A. (1995) Cultural discontinuity and Arab
management thought, International Studies of
Management and Organisation, 25, 7.
3. Robertson, C., Al-Khatib, J. and Al-Habib, M.
(2002) The relationship between Arab values
and work beliefs: An exploratory examination,
Thunderbird International Business Review, 44,
583-601.
4. Kabasakal, H. and Bodur, M. (2002) Arabic cluster:
A bridge between East and West, Journal of World
Business, 37, 40-54.
5. Ali, A. (1989) Decision style and work satisfaction
of Arab Gulf executives: A cross-national
study, International Studies of Management and
Organisations, 19, 22-37.
6. Hawkins, P. and Smith, N. (2006) Coaching,
Mentoring and Organisational Consultancy:
Supervision and Development, Open University
Press, Berkshire, UK.
7-12. Gheyath, M. (2011/12) Personal
communications.

Can you afford not to take employee
wellbeing seriously?
In 2011, Ashridge and Nuffield Health began
a major research programme to understand
the emerging imperative for employer
investment in employee wellbeing, and how
corporates are engaging with this
increasingly important aspect of
organisational life.
In the first section of this article
Judith Parsons, Ashridge, and Marcus
Powell, Nuffield Health, share headlines from
research to date. In part two, Vicki Culpin,
Ashridge, talks about some of the latest
research developments at Ashridge.

The Ashridge Journal Can you afford not to take employee wellbeing seriously? Autumn 2012
Judith Parsons iis a Business Director and organisation
Marcus Powell joined Nuffield Health in 2008 as Group
Vicki Culpin is the Ashridge Research Director. She specialises
development consultant with Ashridge. Her interests are in
Organisation Development and HR Director, and in 2009
in memory, sleep, and research methodology and statistics. Her
helping individuals and organisations to work with complex
assumed responsibility for Nuffield’s Corporate Wellbeing
recent research and teaching interests include the relationship
personal and organisational change.
Division. Marcus has published several articles in the field of
between sleep, well-being and resilience in management
strategic talent management.
populations.
Email: marcus.powell@nuffieldhealth.com
Email: vicki.culpin@ashridge.org.uk
Email: judith.parsons@ashridge.org.uk
What is behind the emerging
imperative for employers to
invest in employee wellbeing?
Currently, it is difficult to open a newspaper
or watch the TV news without seeing some
reference to employee wellbeing, whether
it is the effects of stress on employees,
inactivity in the workplace or the growing
problems with obesity among key workers
such as the police force. Undoubtedly, the
tough economic times we are living in are
pushing our wellbeing as employees to
the forefront, but the rising interest in the
subject is due to many other factors.
In a joint research programme between
Ashridge and Nuffield Health we found a
number of developments and trends that
are creating the imperative for employers to
take employee wellbeing seriously and that
are also influencing the type of provision
that employers are making.
Those factors include:
•
An upward trend in litigation by
employees for work-related stress,
highlighted by some prominent cases
where employees have successfully
made major claims for stress-related
illness and inadequate health and
safety provision.
•
Demographic change and its impact
on workforce viability; the most
obvious example being the higher
representation of older workers who
bring huge value to the workforce,
want to exercise their right to work
into later years but are more likely to
suffer acute or chronic illness and,
therefore need to safeguard their
health to remain economically active.
•
Changing employee expectations
and growing assumptions that good
employers will provide wellbeing
programmes as a feature of reward
and
benefits
packages.
Until
recently, employers were fighting a
war for talent and needed to offer
comprehensive benefits packages
to be able to recruit.
This has
changed as the economic situation
has become tougher and employers
have downsized.
However, we
found that employers are continuing
to invest in wellbeing even though
the economic imperative may have
diminished and are doing so out of
a sense of responsibility to do ‘right’

•
•
•
by employees during tough and
uncertain times.
context and culture, and these dimensions
might include:
Increasing attention from the
UK Government to the wellbeing
agenda (witness the creation of
the Health, Work and Wellbeing
Executive). Among the detailed case
studies Ashridge and Nuffield Health
conducted, we noticed a growing
trend for government encouraging
employers to become partners in
tackling the national obesity crisis.
Employers are in daily contact with
much of the adult population and are
better placed to help people tackle
the problems of ‘smokadiabesity’ than
conventional healthcare providers
such as GPs.
•
Physical wellbeing in the form of
positive bodily health
•
Social wellbeing and a recognition of
the value of connection with others
and good relationships at work
•
Financial wellbeing from having
enough monetary reward and security
•
A sense of alignment and connection
with the purpose and values of the
organisation
•
Spiritual wellbeing, which might be
derived from people being able to
achieve their highest potential or doing
work which has deep meaning and
purpose.
Increasing international attention
from organisations such as the EU and
the World Health Organisation as the
evidence base grows of the connection
at country level between poor levels
of employee health and wellbeing
and lower levels of productivity and
prosperity; a trend which used to be
confined to the developing world but
is spreading to the developed world as
levels of chronic ill–health associated
with smoking, obesity and poor fitness
increase.
Corporate and academic leadership
Both business leaders and the
academic community are becoming
stronger advocates for investment in
employee wellbeing and the proven
benefits in terms of productivity and
engagement.
What do we mean by employee
wellbeing?
Whilst employee wellbeing is very much in
the headlines on a day-to-day basis, there
is no single or shared definition of what
wellbeing means. We found that employers
are interested in many different dimensions
of wellbeing depending on their sector,

What are employers actually
doing?
As part of the research programme we
were keen to examine how employers
viewed the wellbeing imperative and what
they were doing to develop their own
response. We looked at both the current
research literature on employer wellbeing
investment and carried out a number of indepth case studies with major corporates.
Inevitably, we found significant diversity
among employers in terms of how they see
the wellbeing challenge and the policies and
provision they are putting in place. Recent
research carried out by the Chartered
Institute for Personnel and Development
estimated that only one third of employers
in the UK have an employee wellbeing
strategy in place, and the Black Report
revealed that only 40% of employers
currently have a policy to manage sickness.
This is a real cause for concern given the
relationship between un-managed illness
and the impact on productivity and bottom
line performance (see Figure 1).
About Nuffield Health
Nuffield Health is the UK’s largest
healthcare charity, established for over
50 years, which operates a range of
health and wellbeing facilities including
31 hospitals, 65 fitness and wellbeing
centres, 200 corporate facilities and
20 medical clinics. Independent of the
NHS, it employs around 15,000 health
experts. It is an award-winning not–
for–profit, having won Health Investor
Social Enterprise of the Year in 2010
and Private Hospital Group of the Year
in 2011.
Nuffield Health, one of the leading
providers and thought leaders in
employee wellbeing, chose to work
with Ashridge for their research
experience in this field and their
extensive experience of working with
organisational and personal change.
Two different approaches taken by employers who took part in our research
Bank X
This global bank, operating in
the intensely competitive world
of investment and retail banking,
employs 10,000 staff in its European
centre, many of whom work in the
UK. The bank has a long track record
of promoting employee wellbeing in
the workplace and has traditionally
offered wellbeing benefits in order
to attract and retain employees who
have high value in the employment
market. Following the global financial
crisis and widespread redundancies
in financial services, the emphasis
for this bank has shifted towards
retention of existing employees, and
thus proactively promoting their health
and resilience policies during on-going
turbulent times.
•
•
•
and
smoking
cessation
counselling, and encouraging
health behaviours such as walking
and running, volunteering in work
time, and supportive employment
policies such as parental leave
and sabbaticals
The bank has recently re-developed
its wellbeing strategy, which is now
based upon partnership with its
employees. The bank promotes
employee responsibility for their own
health and wellbeing, while raising
awareness of wellbeing issues and
providing support facilities
○ Support services such as
emergency
childcare
and
homecare,
and
childcare
vouchers
The entire wellbeing programme is
‘branded’ to help get the message
across and is set up online so that
employees can gain easy access to
services and to manage their personal
wellbeing account
○ Reactive services such as
occupational health services,
GP/nursing,
group
income
assurance, private medical care,
critical illness and accident cover
and an employee assistance
programme
Benefits of the wellbeing strategy for
employees include:
○ Proactive benefits such as health
screening, dental and eye care,
subsidised
gym,
fitness
and
relaxation classes, bicycle scheme,
nutrition advice, stress management
•
The bank also reports on
wellbeing at Board level within a
balanced scorecard on business
performance.
•
Wellbeing experiences such as
shiatsu or head massage, provided
free of charge or at a discount
•
The Council also proactively
manages illness and offers stress
counselling
and
occupational
health services.
Local government
North Tyneside is a large local
authority serving an area in the North
East employing 10,000 people. The
Council is managing a cuts programme
equivalent to 30% of its budget by
2014 and is undertaking a radical
programme to reduce or reconfigure
its services. The Council sees the
critical importance of maintaining staff
engagement and resilience during the
change but has to manage severe
financial constraint. It has done this by
finding creative opportunities to embed
wellbeing throughout its employment
policies and practices rather than
providing additional services that would
increase expenditure.
Specific benefits open to staff include:
•
•
Extensive flexible working options
to allow staff to choose a pattern of
working hours that best suits their
lifestyle and responsibilities, including
home working
Salary sacrifice schemes to fund
additional benefits such as childcare,
bicycle scheme and car leasing
•
Healthy eating programmes aimed
at both employees and the wider
community
•
Physical health and fitness services.
All staff and families can use any
Council leisure and fitness facility at a
discount, and can have free eye tests
and discounted spectacles
The distinctive features of the Council’s
approach are that its wellbeing strategy
is targeted at employees, family and
the wider community as part of its
responsibility to promote public health.
In a time of severe financial constraint
every penny counts, and the Council
is constantly looking for ways to get
maximum impact from its investment
in wellbeing.

The case for
investing in
wellbeing
A survey conducted by the
World Economic Forum and
Right Management1 found that
when health and wellbeing are
actively promoted:
1
•
The organisation is seen as
2.5 times more likely to be a
best performer
•
Employees are 8 times more
likely to be engaged
•
3.5 times more likely to be
creative and innovative
•
4 times less likely to lose
talent in the next year
Rapid changes in employer
practice
Our research shows that employer practice
is changing rapidly, especially among those
who are leading the field. Significant trends
that are emerging are:
•
A shift away from employers playing
a paternalistic role in favour of a
partnership approach in which
employees are encouraged to take
up responsibility for their own health
and wellbeing, with the employer
playing an enabling role. Typical of
this trend is the growing number
of employers who allow people
time during working hours to go to
the gym.
•
A change in the types of services being
provided, with a move away from
simply responding to illness in favour
of services which promote health.
•
Increasing personalisation of services,
rather than a blanket provision, that
allows individuals to create their
own wellbeing portfolio. Younger
employees may favour additional
holidays or childcare than some of
the more conventional benefits such
as life assurance.
•
A significant number of employers are
focusing more broadly on promoting
family wellbeing and not just that of
the employee.
………………………………………
Sickness costs an average of
£600 per employee per year2
2
………………………………………
The Black Report3 reviewing
55 wellness programmes,
found reduction of sickness
in 45 (82%) plus reduced staff
turnover in 18 (33%)
3
Figure 1. The case for investing
in wellbeing
•

More employers are taking a more
holistic view of wellbeing and are trying
to develop an organisational culture
which is conducive to employee health
and wellbeing in the broadest sense.
Organisations which are moving in
this direction pay attention to the
entire work context and its impact
on wellbeing, including the style and
behaviours of leaders, developing
the skills of managers to promote
wellbeing and to be able to handle
employee illness sensitively.
What are the benefits for
employers?
Many employers continue to regard investment
in employee wellbeing programmes as a
cost they can ill-afford, particularly in tough
economic times, or are sceptical about
whether these programmes can deliver real
bottom line impact rather than just a ‘feel
good’ factor. However in our research, we
found a substantial and growing body of
evidence indicating that employers who do
invest in employee wellbeing experience
substantial benefits such as improved health
behaviours and outcomes, decreased
accidents and absence, cost savings from
reduced absenteeism, increase in employee
contribution and productivity, increase in
employee engagement and satisfaction,
reduced staff turnover and a reduction in
the negative effects of presenteeism. As
Marcus Powell of Nuffield Health points out:
“Employers are still not recognising that sick
leave and ‘presenteeism’ (where employees
come to work when they are ill) are costing
them huge sums on an annual basis and
that with even limited investment in wellbeing
programmes they could achieve significant
reductions in those costs and the benefits of
a more engaged and productive workforce.
It simply doesn’t make business sense not to
be taking wellbeing seriously.”
Getting started
As we described above, the majority of
employers have yet to develop a formal
strategy for wellbeing. Many are unsure where
to begin and where to get guidance.
Ashridge and Nuffield Health have developed
a guiding framework (see Figure 2) for
planning and action which is designed to
help employers to work through the most
important considerations for developing an
effective and financially feasible wellbeing
strategy. It is especially useful for people
such as HR and Rewards and Benefits
practitioners who need to be able to make a
strong case for investment.
Step 1
Strategic imperative
Determine the strategic imperative for investment
in employee wellbeing for your business
Step 2
Strategic assessment
Assess the current state of employee
wellbeing, both inside and outside your
business
Step 3
Strategic leadership
Identify and build strategic leadership support
for the strategy
Step 4
Strategic priorities
Establish the priorities and develop the overall
wellbeing strategy
Step 5
Strategic design
Design the optimal wellbeing programme and
interventions, given the resources available
Step 6
Strategic management
Communicate and manage the suite
of offerings
Step 7
Strategic monitoring
and evaluation
Monitor the results and learn what works best
for your organisation.
Figure 2. A strategic framework for employee wellbeing
Psychological
and physiological
resilience
Compassion
at work
Wellbeing
at work
Sleep
Willpower and
Ego Depletion
Ongoing research at Ashridge
Given the startling facts around the impact
of poor physiological and psychological
wellbeing on individuals and businesses as
a whole outlined above by the Nuffield and
Ashridge research, and the potential personal
and business benefits of a pro-active
approach to wellbeing within organisations,
the topic of wellbeing at work is seen as a
fundamentally important area for research
and teaching at Ashridge.
We have taken a multi–strand approach to
wellbeing at work, and have a number of
research communities examining both the
psychology and physiology of wellbeing
from an individual, team or organisational
perspective. (See Figure 3).
Sleep
Seventeen hours of sustained wakefulness
(for example a long day at work) has been
shown to result in changes in behaviour
equivalent to drinking two glasses of wine
— and if wakefulness becomes 24 hours
(for example a long flight) then the individual
is performing with the equivalent of having
drunk four glasses of wine4. In addition,
leadership skills and competencies, known as
‘executive functions’ are highly susceptible to
even relatively minor sleep loss5. They include:
•
Comprehending and coping with a
rapidly changing environment
•
Multi-tasking
•
Producing innovative solutions to
problems
•
Assessing risk and anticipating the
range of consequences of an action
•
Controlling uninhibited behaviour
•
Communication skills
•
Updating the big picture
•
Decision–making involving complex and
creative ideas.
Figure 3. Current Ashridge research topics on wellbeing at work

Our research has focused on the impact
of poor sleep hygiene (both quality and
quantity of sleep) and jet lag on the social,
emotional, cognitive and physical health
and wellbeing of senior managers and
leaders. For example, a recent study
found that in a sample of 350 managers,
they spend, on average, fewer than seven
hours asleep at night (less than the UK
and international average) and this amount
decreases as job seniority increases. The
self-reported effects of poor sleep included
headaches and migraines, poor emotional
control (quicker to anger and become
tearful), lack of empathy, poor quality
decision-making, lack of concentration
and reduced attention span.
Psychological and physiological
resilience
Resilience has been defined in a variety of
ways across a number of settings, including
the ability to bounce back or recover from
stress, to adapt to stressful circumstances,
to not become ill despite significant
adversity and to function above the norm in
spite of stress or adversity6,7.
For Ashridge, resilience is defined as the
capacity for an individual “to thrive or to
just keep going in the face of pressure,
influenced by attitudinal, experiential and
physiological differences”8.
We currently work with a number of
clients on the topic of resilience from an
individual, team and/or organisational
perspective. Recent research initiatives
include the Clipper project, where we
are seeking to understand the role of
psychological resilience (along with
EQ, personality and sleep hygiene) in
dealing with significant physiological and
psychological challenges during a yearlong round-the-world yacht race.

The Ashridge
Resilience Questionnaire
The desire to help individuals’ better
understand the personal side of resilience
and to introduce them to a range of coping
skills led us to develop the Ashridge
Resilience Questionnaire (ARQ). The ARQ is
a measure of resilience based on six resilient
attitudes:
1.
Emotional
control:
Controlling
emotions
and
taking
personal
responsibility for thoughts, feelings
and behaviours when responding to
stress and pressure
2.
Self-belief: Belief and confidence in the
self and personal capabilities
3.
Purpose: Setting and organising goals
and identifying a broader meaning
from these
4.
Adapting to change: Adapting
readily to change and responding
to uncertainty in a positive and
developmental manner
5.
Awareness of others: Demonstrating
self-awareness and an understanding
of other people’s situations and
perspectives
6.
Balancing alternatives: Generating and
managing alternative options, opinions
and choices.
The questionnaire assesses individual’s
resilience within each of these attitudinal
areas and the feedback is then used to raise
awareness of strengths and development
areas, so that individuals can develop
effective personal coping strategies.
Research projects at Ashridge that have
used this questionnaire include a study
examining the relationship between
quality and quantity of sleep, personality
and psychological resilience, and a study
exploring the resilience of employees in a
large UK charity.
Compassion at work
There are many sources of individual pain
in organisations, such as bereavement,
critical illness, family-breakdown, dealing
with hostile co-workers, abusive bosses,
demanding clients, or redundancy. By
acknowledging that the ‘whole’ person
goes to work, any suffering inevitably
spills over into work life and may have
knock-on effects in terms of an individual’s
emotions and behaviours and subsequently
their commitment and performance at
work. However, there is a striking lack of
knowledge in organisations about how
to address individual suffering at work.
This research strand aims to understand
how the development of compassion
(i.e. connecting and caring for others)
within the workplace can improve the
psychological well-being of individuals
within the organisation. Compassion is
a critical yet under-developed topic in
organisations, since those people who
practise compassion at work foster higher
levels of well-being, commitment and
connectedness. (See Rynes et al: 2012)9.
Willpower and Ego Depletion
Being skilled at managing oneself
effectively, behaving appropriately, making
good decisions and working well with
others — particularly when under the
pressure of difficult, stressful or ambiguous
environments — is extremely important
at every level within an organisation,
and thought by many to be an essential
leadership competence. Indeed some
research goes as far as to suggest
that
mismanagement
of
emotions,
self-perception,
self-presentation
and
interpersonal relationships can act as
potential ‘derailers’ of otherwise successful
executives10,11. Thankfully, human beings
have the capacity to override our automatic
responses affording us the capacity to
choose the way we respond in any given
situation by using our willpower to think, do
or say something different from our internal
response (think resisting the desire to say
what you really think to a senior stakeholder,
or going to the gym even though you can’t
really be bothered!). Indeed successful use
of willpower (or self-regulation) has been
shown to contribute to success in life and
the workplace by way of superior wellbeing
(including reduced susceptibility to drugs
and alcohol, or overeating in response to
stressful situations), more creative problemsolving, more effective coping strategies
and increased motivation, productivity and
bottom-line performance 12,13.
However, there is a down-side to using our
willpower. A growing body of research has
established that an individual’s capacity
for willpower is limited and that failure
to manage ourselves effectively or resist
temptation stems from the fact that all these
volitional processes draw on a single limited
resource of self-regulatory energy in the
brain. The result is rather like power steadily
draining from a battery over the course of
a day and, when depleted, has serious
implications for an individual’s success, not
just in subsequent acts of willpower but on
performance generally – a state referred to
as Ego Depletion14,15. The good news is
that it is possible to attenuate the negative
effects of Ego Depletion and furthermore
to increase willpower via a number of
routes. Ashridge is undertaking research
examining the implications of Ego Depletion
and helping to develop strategies to further
understand and maximise individual and
organisational performance.
Further information
The full Ashridge and Nuffield Health
research project is available in two reports
which can be accessed on the Ashridge
and Nuffield Health websites:
Corporate Investment in Employee
Wellbeing: The emerging strategic imperative
Developing a Strategy for Employee
Wellbeing: A framework for planning
and action.
www.ashridge.co.uk/wellbeing
www.nuffieldhealth.com
For further information about the Employee
Wellbeing research project, contact:
judith.parsons@ashridge.org.uk
For further information about
Corporate Wellbeing services contact
marcus.powell@nuffieldhealth.com
Research contacts
For further information about Ashridge
research and teaching on:
Sleep: contact Vicki Culpin
(vicki.culpin@ashridge.org.uk)
Resilience: contact Alex Davda
(alex.davda@ashridge.org.uk)
Compassion at work:
contact Amy Armstrong
(amy.armstrong@ashridge.org.uk)
Ego Depletion: contact Angela Whelan
(angela.whelan@ashridge.org.uk)
References
1. The Wellness Imperative: Creating More Effective
Organisations. The World Economic Forum in
partnership with Right Management, 2010.
2. CIPD: Absence Management Survey 2010.
3. Working for a Healthier Tomorrow: Dame Carol
Black’s review of the health of Britain’s working age
population, March 2008.
4. Maruff, P., Falleti, M., Collie, A., Darby, D. and
McStephen, M. (2005) Fatigue-related impairment in
the speed, accuracy and variability of psychomotor
performance: Comparison with blood alcohol levels,
Journal of Sleep Research, 14, 21-27.
5. Harrison, Y. and Horne, J. (2000) The impact of
sleep loss on decision making – a review. Journal of
Experimental Psychology – Applied, 6, 236-249
6. Carver, C.S. (1998). Resilience and thriving: Issues,
models and linkages. Journal of Social Issues,
54(2), 245-266
7. Tusaie, K., & Dyer, J., (2004). Resilience: A historical
review of the construct, Holistic Nursing Practice,
18(1), 3-8
8. Davda, A. (2011) Measuring resilience: A pilot study,
Assessment and Development Matters, Autumn,
11-14
9. Rynes, S.L., Bartunek, J.M., Dutton, J.E., Margolis,
J.D., (2012) Care and Compassion Through an
Organizational Lens: Opening Up New Possibilities,
Academy of Management Review, 37(4), 503-523..
10. Lombardo, M.M., & McCauley, C.D. (1988). The
Dynamics of Management Derailment, Center for
Creative Leadership, Greensboro, NC, Technical
Report No.34.
11. Muraven, M, Tice, D.M. & Baumeister, R.F. (1998)
Self-control as limited resource: Regulatory
depletion patterns. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 74(3), 774-789.
12. Gailliot, M.T. & Baumeister, R.F. (2007). The
physiology of willpower: Linking blood glucose to
self-control. Personality and Social Psychology
Review, 11, 303-327.
13. Tangney, J.P., Baumeister R.F. & Boone, A.L.
(2004). High self-control predicts good adjustment,
less pathology, better grades, and interpersonal
success. Journal of Personality, 72, 271-324.
14. Muraven et al. Op. cit.
15. Baumeister, R. F. (2002). Ego Depletion and
Self-Control Failure: An Energy Model of the Self’s
Executive Function. Self & Identity, 1:129-136,
Psychology Press.

A relational approach to
organisation development
In a stressful business environment, with
downward pressure on costs and staffing
levels, and increased expectations of crossdepartmental, cross-functional collaboration,
leaders and managers are prone to revert to
‘command and control’ approaches to
managing difficult transitions, despite the
fact that they seldom work.
Dr. Kathleen King speaks to a leader who
chose to take a relational way, grounded in a
complexity-informed perspective of
organisations as social processes.
The Ashridge Journal A relational approach to organisation development Autumn 2012
Kathleen King is Director of the Ashridge Masters and
Doctorate in Organisational Change. She is interested in
enabling deep individual and organisational learning in the
service of change and innovation. Kathleen has worked with
organisations across markets and cultures, in the private,
public and not–for–profit sectors.
Email: kathleen.king@ashridge.org.uk
Introduction
What is Action Research?
The context is a large, hierarchical and
traditional organisation in the service
industry. This article explores the
unorthodox and somewhat countercultural approach that Salena Pearl, the
Head of HR of one of the divisions, took
to organisational development in order
to achieve the desperately needed, but
elusive, culture change in response to
dramatic reductions in staffing levels and
the pressure to overcome the functional
silos in the company. This article is the
result of a Learning History-based research
with Salena. The Learning History is part of
an ongoing wider Action Research project
in the organisation.
Note: the details of the organisation and
individuals have been changed to preserve
the anonymity of the organisation.
Action Research is more than a
methodology. It is an orientation
toward research and practice in which
engagement, curiosity and questioning
are brought to bear on significant issues
in the service of a making a positive
difference in organisations. It strives to
create a close link between knowledge
and practice and offers ways for people
in organisations to inquire into their own
practice, learn from experience and
make sense of their actions.
Learning History
A Learning History has been described
as a ‘jointly told tale’1 between outsider
researchers and insider protagonists.
It starts with a tangible happening or
outcome. It is a process that seeks
to bring together analysis and story
in a way that has value for those
involved in the work, as well as those
seeking to learn from it. A Learning
History is gathered through in-depth
conversations, with the objective to get
into the individual human story of what
happened, to get into the ‘thinking,
experimentation and arguments of
those who have encountered the
situation’2. The author engaged in such
a reflective conversation with Salena,
as the work in her organisation was in
progress, in order to develop a better
understanding of how she managed to
achieve significant changes through an
approach that would, by most of her
colleagues, have been described as
counter-cultural.

Context
When Ashridge was engaged by Salena to
support her change effort and to develop
the capability of change agents in the
organisation, it was agreed that the project
would be grounded in Action Research.
Whilst the project was already characterised
by cycles of action, reflection and
experimenting, we agreed that the change
team would also need to pay attention to
what they were learning, what meaning they
were making of their individual and collective
experience, and to find ways to capture that
learning and share it with a wider audience.
In the early stages of the work I was
specifically interested in finding out more
about how Salena had managed to
secure buy-in from her colleagues for a
novel approach to culture change. In my
experience, both as a consultant and as a
leader, high levels of stress and anxiety tend
to lead to ‘trying harder’3, attempting tried and
tested solutions, even if those approaches
have proven less than successful in the past.
This trying harder tends to take the shape
of a centralised, top-down approach, often
supported by reputable consulting firms. A
vision for the future is articulated by senior
management, change plans are drawn up,
outlining values and the related behaviours
expected from all involved. Problems are
identified, solutions are specified, expected
progress is mapped on Gantt charts, and
progress reviews are instigated — resistance
to change is expected and ‘to be dealt with’.
Salena, a highly experienced HR practitioner,
had seen organisational change run into the
ground all too often and was determined
not to let it happen to this organisation she
had recently joined and was passionately
committed to.
What follows are edited extracts of our
learning history conversation, in which I
sought to explore with Salena how she
had managed to get buy-in for her radically
different approach.

Change, but not as we know it
KK: Salena, could you give me some
background information about your
organisation, and about this change
endeavour that you have been engaged in?
SP: When I was hired in my current role,
about two years ago, it was made clear
to me that the organisation was facing
turbulent times. A staff reduction of 15%
across all divisions was to be implemented
within a year, with the obvious purpose
of cutting costs drastically, and with the
ultimate aim to force the various divisions
to collaborate more closely and get out of
a deeply ingrained silo mentality. As the
HR business partner of one of the twenty
divisions, I was expected to implement
the staff reduction within my division and
to support the organisation-wide change
effort. So I was aware that there was going
to be a large Organisational Development
(OD) remit to my role.
Upon joining, I was invited to an OD group,
composed of HR folk from across the
divisions, chaired by a divisional head. The
group met every few months, with the sole
purpose of sharing information. This was
not a mutual support group. I sensed that
the Chair of the group would have liked to
see more active collaboration, but people
were quite settled in their routine and it
wasn’t until about half of the members
left for various reasons, that a space was
created for a different way of working, and
that a number of us started to meet in an
Action Learning set, where we were able to
share our experiences in an authentic way
and begin to support one another more
effectively. It is only now that I realise that
the changing composition of that group
was possibly one of the contributing factors
to making change possible. At the time I
just had a sense of stuckness.
KK: I recognise the pattern. I have
learned from experience how hard it can
be to initiate change in a group that has
settled in a particular pattern. People
seem to become attached to their role
and the function of the group as they
have constructed it for themselves. The
‘unfreeze, move, refreeze’ notion — a
common but unjustly oversimplified
model ascribed to Kurt Lewin — does not
do justice to the myriad of subtle shifts
that comprise change in social systems.
SP: In any case, in those early days, the
group didn’t feel like ‘my space’. The
ritualised, slide pack approach, is not the
kind of environment in which I function
well. It seems to encourage ‘good weather
reports’, even if, underneath it all, we all
know that the floods are coming down
all around us. We seemed to be moving
towards a centralised, top-down, rather
mechanistic attempt at changing the
culture, potentially involving significant
engagement of external experts, which
concerned me. The protagonist of this
approach, I’ll call him Jack, had more
power in this group, because his boss was
more senior than mine. So, although I was
invited by virtue of my formal role, this was
clearly not my show.
KK: So it was not your space, and yet,
you hung in there, despite the ‘slide pack’
approach?
SP: I was keenly aware of the potential of
this group, but I am also cautious and overly
deferential. On the two occasions that I
took an initiative — contacting Divisional
Heads directly, with a very low key update
of where we were headed, and initiating a
separate meeting — I experienced a rather
harsh push back. I felt put in my place and
it made me even more tentative.
KK: I would like to explore that ‘overly
deferential’ statement. Might another
way of putting that be that you are wise
to organisational politics and power play?
Stacey4 emphasises the importance of
working in both the formal and informal
system. Working in the formal system
requires caution, if you don’t want to be
spat out. But working in the informal system
requires much patience and the willingness
to take very small steps, and often doesn’t
get recognised as ‘real work’.
SP: One of the people working for me at
the time was beside himself with frustration
at my approach, which he considered
lacking in leadership. He would have liked
me to grasp the nettle and tackle things
head on. I wasn’t prepared to do that,
it would have ostracised me, and it was
emotionally draining. But I did hang in there,
slide pack and all.
KK: I get the impression that you are a
‘tempered radical’ in your organisation.
Mayerson & Scully5 coined that term for
individuals who are deeply committed
to their organisation, whilst at the same
time at odds with its dominant culture in
some way. Their radicalism stimulates
them to challenge the status quo, but
their temperedness reflects the way they
have been toughened by challenges
and inclined to be moderate in their
interactions with colleagues who are
closer to the mainstream culture. Could
you say more about how specifically you
managed to change the approach to OD
in your organisation?
SP: Well, Jack had both the informal and
the formal power in the OD group, by virtue
of whom he was reporting to. I sensed
that he was seeking to make his mark with
an organisation–wide design for an OD
intervention. We clearly had incompatible
views of how we would achieve the desired
change, and having that discussion out in
the open, in that meeting, wasn’t going
to work. So I set about engaging him in
conversations over endless cups of coffee
in the local café. Nothing spectacular.
KK: I notice that you play down the
significance of that ‘sharing coffee’ gesture.
I assume you weren’t just passing the time.
What were you seeking to achieve?
SP: I wanted to understand his thinking,
and I wanted to create an opportunity
to share my thoughts in a neutral
environment, and in a non–threatening way.
He was a consummate professional, and
I appreciated that, even if we had almost
diametrically opposed views about how
change comes about in organisations.
KK: in my experience, working in the
formal system tends to focus on building
relationships with like-minded people, with
the implicit or explicit intention to build a
coalition that’s strong enough to win the
anticipated battle with the opposition.
What you are describing seems to me to
be the essence of a relational approach6.
Not withdrawing, but not taking people
on, instead exploring any possible
common ground you may have, building
a strong enough relationship from which
differences can be worked with. It can be
a thankless task!
SP: Indeed. It is work below the radar,
it doesn’t show up on my performance
review, and it doesn’t seem to pay off for
the longest of times. It doesn’t count as
real work. But it needed doing, because we
were hurtling headlong into oblivion, as far
as I could see. And in the end it paid off,
and Jack desisted. Eventually he moved on
to another role.
KK: Joyce Fletcher7 argues that this
relational work in the informal space tends
to get disappeared in organisations. It
gets discounted as lacking assertiveness
and authority. It isn’t considered strategic
work. The strategy of building relationships
over coffee...? She asserts that there is a
gendered nature in this division of labour
and that it is mainly women who take on
the relational work, whilst men tend to
feel more at home in the performative
aspect of the formal space. Jack’s desire
to make his mark by drawing up an OD
master plan seems to be congruent with
this distinction. Fletcher encourages us to
assert the significance of that relational

work and the contribution it makes to the
organisational task.
SP: I am aware that the way this story is
unfolding seems to suggest that ‘we put
the Big OD Intervention proponents in their
place’, but in reality it wasn’t like that. They
were there, the whole time. Throughout that
period I felt undermined and inadequate, in
this environment of live volcanoes. I tried
to work in service of our clients and more
than any other work I do, working with that
‘ego’ issue is something that I have to pay
attention to because it is the one thing that
can derail what I am trying to create. It is
different from working in the day-to-day
formal hierarchy where big egos come with
the territory.
KK: I think there is a risk that we collude
with the organisational discourse of what
counts as real work. You use the word
‘inadequate’ and yet, in your subtle way
you achieved an amazing result. What
else did it take to achieve that?
SP:
I had started a wide range of
conversations with peers, or their direct
reports, from other divisions, just informally
— more coffee — about their situation, their
concerns, what they were trying to achieve.
And then one day, one of my peers came up
to me and asked: “Can you help me think
through this change?” It was clearly going
to take more than a brief conversation, so
I volunteered one of my staff, Peter, to go
and work with her. It was energising and
motivating for him, and he did excellent
work. We agreed that he would work
from an appreciative stance, inspired by
Appreciative Inquiry8 — what was working
well, and building on that, rather than to
focus on problems. It’s much easier for
people to seek help if they know that they
won’t be construed as inadequate and it
helps them to strengthen their confidence.
KK: So whilst the party line was still about
putting a centralised OD infrastructure in
place, you strategically ignored the normal

divisional boundaries. You had informal
conversations, and the next thing you do
is lend one of your people to support the
OD effort in another division? You had a
particular way of thinking about how to
make change happen.
SP: Well yes, you could put it that way,
although the very thought of breaking the
rules makes me feel nervous! The brief
for the OD work had been to break down
divisional boundaries. Rather than to take
a big, orchestrated approach to this, with
plans and organisation–wide presentations,
I thought we could just start the work, in
a small way — just getting on with it. The
news got around, and more requests came
in, and I tried to respond as best as I could.
I asked for support from another division
too, keeping things in balance. Eventually
the work got noticed, and I was tasked with
developing people to do more of this work
across the organisation. Our OD approach
to change was on its way.
KK: I want to come back to something
I mentioned earlier about the importance
of your caution in the formal space. In a
tightly regulated environment, such as the
one you are working in, one has to ask
one’s boss for permission before doing
something that’s off the beaten track. You
seem to have made a smart distinction
about when you need to go through the
formal channels and when you don’t.
And since you are such a good corporate
citizen, you are trusted. I don’t think you
quite realise what a sophisticated skill this
is, as it comes natural to you. You break
the rules, but you do it respectfully. And
then you brought someone in to work
in your division too, so that you’re not
seen as the queen of OD who is beyond
needing help. I am reminded of Shaw’s
advocacy that change in organisations
comes about by changing the nature
of the conversations that happen9. You
appear to me to have been very savvy
about working in the formal and the
informal space, attending carefully to the
formal whilst spotting opportunities in the
informal arena. The latter is not obvious.
You made a real strategic gesture by
loaning Peter to another division. It didn’t
show up on your appraisal form, but you
did it anyway, because you knew it was
a move in the right direction. So much
relational work went on to prepare the
ground. It’s not easy to hold on to that
as real work, because it comes natural to
you, and because it happens below the
radar and doesn’t give you recognition.
Conclusions
In times of high anxiety, it is particularly
tempting to pursue an illusion of control
through extensive planning, through
taking an analytical approach to solving
complex and messy problems, and to
rely heavily on external experts who
offer blueprint solutions, despite much
evidence that this approach rarely delivers
the desired outcome.
Starting with small experiments, working
with what is actually going on, supporting
people in making changes, one step at
a time – an approach to organisational
change more congruent with a complexity
perspective – however effective, often runs
counter to existing cultures that favour more
high profile and controlled interventions.
That can be challenging work. It requires
building strong enough relationships to
have a basis from which to challenge
the proponents of a more mechanistic
approach. It also means gaining enough
trust from peers for them to be willing to
join you in your counter-cultural approach.
This ‘extra-curricular’ activity comes on top
of an already full agenda and is not without
personal risk in the highly political context of
organisations under pressure.
References
Congruent
with
relational
practice,
taking care to find a space conducive for
reflection, away from the bustle of the
office environment, is important. Indeed,
it can be a marker of the different kind of
conversation one is aspiring to.
Perhaps it ought not to surprise us that,
in times of anxiety and stress, attending
to the quality of our relationships, and
making them a subject of our focus and
energy, is crucial. Maybe we will learn to
value this relational work as the difference
that makes the difference, to paraphrase
Gregory Bateson.
1. Van Manen, M. (1990) Researching lived
experience: Human science for an action sensitive
pedagogy, SUNY Press, New York.
2. Roth, G., & Kleiner, A. (2000) Car Launch: The
Human Side of Managing Change.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
3. Watzlawick, P., Weakland, J.H. & Fisch, R. (1974)
Change: principles of problem formation and
problem resolution, W W Norton, New York.
4. Stacey, R.D. (2011) Part 3: Complex responsive
processes as a way of thinking about strategy and
organisational dynamics” in Strategic management
and organisational dynamics, 6th edn, 296-495,
FT Prentice Hall, Harlow.
5. Meyerson, D. & Scully, M. (1994) Tempered
Radicalism and the Politics of Ambivalence and
Change, Organisation Science, 6, no. 5, 585-600.
6. Fletcher, J. (1999) Disappearing Acts. Gender,
Power and Relational Practice at Work,
MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
7. Fletcher, J. (1999) Idem
8. Whitney, D. & Trosten-Bloom, A. (2010) The power
of appreciative inquiry: A practical guide to positive
change, 2nd edn,
Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, CA.
9. Shaw, P. (2002) Changing conversations in
organisations, Routledge, UK.
This kind of relational engagement does
not traditionally count as ‘real work’ in
many organisations. Terms such as ‘fluffy’,
‘needing to be liked’, ‘soft’, are ways to
diminish its significance. To avoid colluding
with an organisational discourse that
tends to disappear, this relational work is
a challenge, not in the least for the people
who are engaged in it.
Learning Histories, or other reflective
disciplines, can support participants in
naming and validating their relational work
and can help them to mark the contribution
they have made to their organisation, even
if it does not show up on the ‘balanced
score card’.

Leadership
Summer 2010
Developing a digital
learning strategy
Today’s digital workplace blends different
technologies, working practices and
generations, but how can organisations
ensure an effective return on investment?
Tony Sheehan highlights the value of
considering nine challenges in the digital
environment, and introduces a framework
for aligning organisational needs with
digital learning strategy.

Autumn 2012
Tony Sheehan is Director of Learning Services at Ashridge,
where he is responsible for the teams that create digital
and physical knowledge solutions. These include Virtual
Ashridge (an online learning resource), the Ashridge Library,
and Ashridge Psychometrics. He also actively explores and
advises on knowledge strategy and on the emerging impact of
new technologies on workplace learning.
Email: tony.sheehan@ashridge.org.uk
Introduction
Although Arie de Geus’s quote1 is now
over 20 years old, it still remains true that
in business:
The ability to learn faster than
your competitors may be the only
sustainable competitive advantage
Rapid innovations in technology have
caused digital learning to emerge as an
option that is no longer restricted to merely
blending with face–to–face interventions.
Today’s organisations increasingly think,
communicate and work digitally, and
learning has had to evolve to keep pace.
These organisations exist in a cauldron of
information, of global competition, and of
financial constraint. Individuals are always
connected, always collaborating, always
on, thanks to a wealth of new devices
— yet are pressured to make effective
business decisions faster and faster amidst
a sea of distracting content. This creates
a considerable challenge for executive
education; a need to devise strategies that
help people to learn in a digital age even
though there is little time or inclination to do
so in practice.
So how can organisations develop digital
learning strategies around mobile devices,
online content, social networks, virtual
community discussions and real time
collaboration solutions? How can busy
executives find time to learn digitally in a
world where there is barely time to think? Is
there a way in which new technologies can
help learning rather than simply generate
still more search results?
To answer these questions, Ashridge has
explored the changing nature of three
distinct areas:
•
•
•
The needs of digital learners
Digital learning objectives
Digital channels and devices.
Each of these are considered in turn before
exploring a framework for development of
digital learning strategies that align with the
needs of today’s rapidly evolving business
landscape.
The needs of digital learners
An average person consumes
10,845 words or 34 gigabytes on
a typical day, not even allowing for
information at work2
There is little doubt that digital learners have
become extremely effective information
processors, but current working and
learning practices are somewhat less
effective. Individuals in the workplace are
now more often expected to drive their

own career development, but in the face of
information overload, and of complexity in
the business environment, distraction is rife:
the need to align digital learning strategies
to business strategies and learner needs is
paramount.
An effective digital learning solution needs
to understand the learning objectives of a
particular intervention, the preferences of
digital learners and how they aggregate
into a dominant digital learning ‘culture’
of individuals within an organisation. The
digital learner within a given organisation
will vary in terms of three distinct needs as
shown in Figure 1:
•
Technology — the extent to which
new technologies, social media sites,
online collaborative courses, ebooks
etc are embraced or shunned
•
Timing of learning — the idealised
approach to learning on the job, justin-time, or in the classroom, just in case
•
Location of learning — the place of
‘persistent presence’ where learners
tend to spend their time and think.
By exploring these needs, an understanding
of the most dominant digital preference of
learners within an organisation can emerge,
as well as ideas on suitable learning designs
that may fit with the time, technology or
location preference. For example, a timestarved senior leader who prefers to learn
‘on demand’ will tend towards virtual and
mobile learning solutions, whereas a new
Autumn 2012
recruit getting up to speed in their field or
studying for a qualification will tend to be
more receptive towards more structured
programmes and e-learning modules
requiring formal attendance and assessment.
Even when digital learning interventions have
been created, the behaviours that people
exhibit when engaging with digital content
is highly variable, with a new wave of digital
learning styles starting to emerge:
•
Surfers and divers — characterised
either by a desire to retain broad
overviews of connected concepts
or a preference towards detailed
understanding of narrower subject
areas
•
Contributors and consumers —
characterised by those who actively
engage in digital learning activities or
those who more passively observe with
limited active participation
•
•
Steady learners or socialites —
characterised by those (particularly
those starting to build competence
in their field) who tend to need more
knowledge delivery and ‘scaffolding’:
as opposed to those who are more
willing to learn on demand through
social and business networks
Activists and objectors — characterised
by those who are eager to engage and
explore new learning technologies: as
opposed to those who are less keen
and more cautious.
Shun
Technology
Embrace
Just in case
Timing
Just in time
Face to face
Location
Figure 1. Understanding the needs of digital learners

Online, mobile
Organisations inevitably contain a blend
of these learner preferences which makes
creation of a ‘one size fits all’ solution difficult.
As such, although learning solutions should
be designed to reflect the most dominant
technology culture to stimulate and support
business priorities, there is also a need to
provide some elements of fluidity and choice
to support other learner preferences. It is
easy to become almost paralysed by the
varieties of course design and technologies
that could be used to support learning.
Schofield, West and Taylor3 highlight the
challenges of adopting a suitable strategy
for mobile learning in such circumstances
but also stress the value of starting and
sustaining a freedom to fail approach. They
also highlight the increasingly impatient
attitude towards digital learning from all of
the above groups, highlighting the need for
content that is
Just enough, just in time,
just for me4
Crafting the right approach to
digital learning
Having established the dominant types of
digital learner need within an organisation,
the focus moves towards selection of
methods to deliver the desired experience.
Whilst there is no shortage of choice of
tools, techniques and innovation in the
digital learning space, there is still all too
often limited user satisfaction. The wealth
of resources available results in what
Schwartz5 calls ‘the paradox of choice’,
whereby digital learning designers are
almost paralysed by the choice available,
anxious that they may not have made the
right decision and frustrated at the gap
between their expectations of good digital
learning and the realities of their actual
experience.
The e-learning market space demonstrates
this paradox in practice; it continues to
thrive, with the US market alone worth
$22bn in 2011 and projected to grow
to $27bn by 20166. At the same time,
however, Armstrong and Russell7 suggest
that structured e–learning courses remain
one of the least effective management
development
practices
for
middle
managers. To cut through this challenge
and develop clear objectives for an
appropriate digital learning design, three
key factors again need to be considered, as
shown in Figure 2:
•
Content strategy — in particular, the
decision whether to actively curate
and signpost to content, or to trust
and encourage learners to make full
use of available resources
•
Delivery focus — the choice between
knowledge delivery by experts as
opposed to more active facilitation of
group based discussion and problem
solving
•
Programme scale — the decision
on whether to create more targeted
learning opportunities or to encourage
large volumes of users to learn in
parallel.
The content available to support digital
learners is currently influenced by
the interplay of the declining physical
book market, growth in access to free
digital content and the proliferation of
open educational resources and online
collaborative courses. The explosion in
free online content (through blogs, tweets,
whitepapers etc) creates immense choice
and opportunity for knowledge creation,
but can also add to the frustration of many
Curate
Content
Trust
Expert
Focus
Social
Niche
Scale
Volume
Figure 2. Establishing digital learning objectives
Autumn 2012
digital learners. Mere access to content
does not necessarily equate to improved
quality of new insights and knowledge as
TS Eliot8 observed:
Where is the wisdom we have lost in
knowledge? Where is the knowledge
we have lost in information?
Individuals are now accessing content
on demand (for example via mobile) and
frequently developing increased confidence
in decisions made using this approach.
This, in turn, creates a need to consider the
implications of new learning behaviours that
might start to evolve as a result of our digital
environment. Sparrow et al9 have analysed
this trend and suggest:
When people expect to have
future access to information, they
have lower rates of recall of the
information itself, and enhanced
recall instead for where to access it
Those seeking to develop digital learning
strategies in the face of assumed continual
access to learning materials must therefore
consider whether it is sufficient to allow
learners to find their path in a sea of content
or to what extent distilled signposts to
relevant (or perceived quality) content may
be more appropriate.
There is also a need to build on the social
nature of much of today’s knowledge
base. Internet content can be enhanced
through organisational adoption of Web
2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 principles such
as collaboration and co–creation of
content. Although tools such as blogs,
wikis and discussion fora have been
available for many years, the improved
recent adoption of these tools within
organisations as well as improved access
to debate via mobile devices now allows
the wisdom of the crowd10 to be far more
achievable in practice. The advent of
more social learning models embracing
these principles and empowered through
technology has significant implications for
digital learning design, as the knowledge

of learners within and accessible to a
community of practice can now frequently
be as current, perceptive and powerful as
the expert view.
The impact of social learning is, however,
influenced by the extent to which such
practices can be cultivated in a given
learning context. Communities require
engaged users who are relatively easy to
create when:
•
Networks are social (for example
Facebook to keep up–to–date with
friends)
•
When there is business benefit (for
example LinkedIn networks opening
up job opportunities)
•
When usage is at scale with a purpose
(for example Wikipedia’s ability to
maintain quality due to a belief in the
value of sharing knowledge).
Digital learning designers need to
cultivate similar social drivers of individual
engagement, enthusiasm and energy
within courses and learning interventions.
However, the organisational learning
context often fails to provide sufficient
scale or stimuli to create commitment
and belief in the community. What are the
consequences of not participating in a
collaborative activity in an organisational
learning community? What are the
benefits? Is there enough dialogue,
diversity of opinion and debate to sustain
the community?
Social learning models have challenged
those delivering executive education to
evolve rapidly from expert teacher towards
a blend of facilitator, signposter, problem
solver and critical reviewer.
The need to stimulate and sustain learning
communities is now a given, one which
can stimulate considerable engagement,
participation and knowledge creation
if successful. That said, it requires
some rethinking of existing models and

Autumn 2012
behaviours. For some, this has stimulated
the development of the new modes of
learning delivery that are now emerging at
a pace to fit with new models for content
and social learning. At Ashridge, the
MBA programme has started to ‘flip the
classroom’ with more theoretical principles,
models and knowledge delivery delivered
online in advance via the Virtual Ashridge
platform, in preparation for more detailed
exploration of context and application to
real business problems when in online
communities and real-time sessions.
In the broader context, digital learning
opportunities
are
now
increasingly
presented at scale, increasingly embracing
better digital practice and increasingly free
at the point of consumption by many global
institutions. The development of open
educational resources, such as iTunesU
and MIT’s Open Courseware, meant at
first the offer of free content at scale. This
has more recently been supplemented by
structured MOOCs (massive open online
courses). These courses have delivered
learning on demand to vast numbers,
stimulating new modes of teaching and
learning on a global scale through the likes
of Khan Academy, EDx and Coursera (two
consortia of US universities). At Stanford,
an artificial intelligence course taught onsite
to 200 students in 2010 became an online
event attracting over 160,000 participants
from 190 countries in 201111. Building on
this success, the numbers registered on
MOOCs run by Udacity and Coursera have
now approached and exceeded 750,000
and 1 million learners respectively12.
The benefits of teaching at this scale
include dramatically improved access to
learning and immense scope for peer–to–
peer interactions to build knowledge. There
are also, however, inevitable compromises,
particularly when moving from knowledge
delivery towards activities that may require
more complex levels of dialogue and
debate (for example strategy, leadership,
change). As a result, digital learning has
also benefited from interventions that blend
global reach with online web conferencing
tools such as Cisco Telepresence, WebEx
and Skype. Successfully embracing
such technologies demands both the
recognition of different experience in such
online environments and a need to develop
new skillsets as educators. As Caulat and
O’Brien13 highlight:
Good listening, the ability to
build trust and intimacy in a
virtual environment, becoming
comfortable with silence and
reflecting on its meaning and
acquiring good process skills
appropriate to the virtual
environment, are all aspects
that good virtual facilitators
need to develop
Supporting digital learning
channels
The combination of improved choice of
content, improved internet access and
recent penetration of devices such as
tablets and smartphones has revolutionised
the digital learner’s ability to consume
digital learning. In 2010 more than 60% of
the world’s population were using mobile
phones14, with smartphone penetration
growing at over 20% a year and now
exceeding 50% in the US15.
The proliferation of such devices does,
however, create three further challenges for
learning designers as shown in Figure 3:
•
Devices — the decision as to whether
to support one or multiple devices
•
Formats — the selection of content
format to support a particular device
or to compromise and apply best
endeavours to work across multiple
devices
•
Innovations — the ability to fix learning
for a period or to adopt a more fluid
approach in order to keep pace with
on-going technology developments.
Digital devices — smartphone, tablet,
and laptop alike — have become learning
lifelines, the veins through which knowledge
can be exchanged and through which rich
learning now needs to be stimulated. Costs
of these devices were previously out of
reach of the typical consumer and many
organisations adopted strategies based on,
for example, a single software platform or
mobile device, largely under the control of
CIO and Enterprise IT departments. Such
centralisation brought with it considerable
benefits; centralised storage of knowledge,
centralised support, centralised security
and common business systems which
made digital learning design relatively
straightforward with common standards.
Times have changed. Digital devices now
support digital social lives and set high
expectations for access to learning when
the device is brought to the work-place.
Learning must now be as accessible as
Google, as insightful as BBC.com and
as fun as Angry Birds, with few rules,
One
Devices
Many
Standardise
Formats
Compromise
Fixed
Innovations
Figure 3. Digital channel and device strategy
Fluid
Autumn 2012
standards or systems to outline how to
deliver on these needs. Learning also needs
to ideally work on multiple devices, since
depriving individuals of access through
their preferred device restricts a channel for
knowledge delivery and creates a barrier to
the discretionary effort that many individuals
put in after hours.
As a result, some organisations have
adopted BYOD (bring your own device)
policies, allowing users to bring their own
devices to work whilst trusting them to both
avoid accidentally corrupting company
data through firewall breaches and to
not spend excessive amounts of time
on activities inconsistent with business
needs. Multiple devices are accepted
within the business, content is often stored
in the cloud and social and business
networking co-exist throughout the day.
Others have questioned BYOD practices,
arguing that device inconsistencies create
unnecessary barriers to collaboration,
and create challenges (of, for example,
decentralised password management) that
constrain knowledge sharing. Standardised
device policies do cultivate a level of unity
around users and content that allows
some degree of central support as well as
encouraging investment to ensure that user
experience in the business reflects that of
a social network. At Daiichi Sankyo UK, for
example, the adoption of a standardisation
policy based on Apple iPads and iPhones
has been seen as a way of driving adoption
of digital practices across the business.
From a clear link to business strategy
and culture (in particular, enhancing the
‘Issho’ — togetherness — ethos inherited
from its Japanese parent) the policy has
been seen to revolutionise both internal
communications as well as interactions with
customers and stakeholders16.
Decisions
must
be
made
on
appropriateness of learning object design in
a manner consistent with device strategy;
is it always fitting to deliver learning on
demand in ‘bite sized chunks’ through a

smartphone or is this merely a springboard
to richer learning in the classroom, online
or at work? There is also a challenge to be
faced due to a lack of agreed standards
for learning content on mobile, tablet and
other devices, which can lead to complex
demands for the same learning assets to
work on, for example, iOS, Android, Flash,
HTML5, different internet browsers etc.
If content needs to be suitable for both
mobile and tablet devices, how can content
be readily repurposed to be accessible
through small and large form devices?
Even as such development decisions are
made, the pace of innovation in the digital
space creates an on-going challenge. Each
week brings new devices, new ideas, and
new learning solutions. To remain relevant
and appropriate to user needs, the digital
learning designer must maintain awareness
of evolving trends, explore which solutions
offer best fit and incorporate best practices
as appropriate. There is a need to decide
how frequently to invest in refreshing
learning and, indeed, to consider how viable
it is to innovate continuously in this space.
It is difficult for any one individual, one
team, even one organisation to dominate a
space now occupied by so many diverse
needs and opportunities and as a result,
more flexible approaches are evolving to
keep up with the pace of change. Solutions
are continuously evolving: flexibility, agility
and building bridges between different
knowledge domains and different areas of
digital learning design are more critical than
ever before. As Steve Jobs17 suggests:
Creativity is just connecting
things. When you ask creative
people how they did something,
they feel a little guilty because
they didn’t really do it, they just
saw something. It seemed obvious
to them after a while. That’s
because they were able to connect
experiences they’ve had and
synthesize new things
Autumn 2012
Integrating your digital learning
strategy
In order to distil the above trends into an
effective organisational digital learning strategy,
there is a need to explore three areas:
1.
Business
needs
and
available
investment for digital learning
2.
The organisational response and
position to the nine key challenges
summarised in Figure 4
3.
The resultant scope of both digital
learning strategy and appropriate
digital learning interventions.
These issues may not necessarily be
explored in that order; new technologies
could well influence business strategy, but
the broad process is illustrated in Figure 4.
have emerged. Our work with Ashridge
clients, courses and contacts has allowed
us to observe a variety of good practices
that adopt considerably different positions
and practices shown below. For example:
•
For a retail client, a technology
integration exercise blending an open
source learning management system
with a video based portal and content
from Ashridge and other trusted
content providers into a seamless user
experience
•
For a public sector client with a
limited budget, a Virtual Ashridge
portal provides access to digital
learning content on demand, any
time, any place for a large volume of
organisational learners
•
For a group of high potentials seeking
to energise social networking, a
series of bespoke online conference
sessions supplemented by an online
portal combining Ashridge content
and community features to seed and
support discussion
Given the variety of organisational needs, of
potential positions available across the nine
areas, and of potential learning objectives
and strategies, it is hardly surprising that
many different digital learning solutions
Business strategy and investment
Shun
Technology
Embrace
Just in case
Timing
Just in time
Face to face
Location
Online, mobile
Curate
Content
Trust
Expert
Focus
Social
Niche
Scale
Volume
One
Devices
Many
Standardise
Formats
Compromise
Fixed
Innovations
Fluid
Learning strategy and interventions
Figure 4. Aligning nine key challenges to develop digital learning strategy

•
•
•
For busy managers, a fully virtual online
Masters programme to blend content,
collaboration and certification, and
balance academic requirements with
business relevance
For a manufacturing sector client
working globally, virtual facilitation to
engage the group and to consult on
paths to better practice
For a course made up of time-starved,
technology-savvy learners seeking
to access knowledge on demand,
a mobile solution based on video
delivered to multiple smartphones,
supplemented
by
face-to-face
sessions to build richer understanding
and networks.
Digital learning is an area of rapid change,
with few silver bullets, few right answers,
and a multitude of possibilities where good
practice can be developed. To succeed,
our research suggests it is appropriate
to first consider organisational needs,
then the optimal position in the context of
current industry trends, and only at that
point to focus on exploration of detailed
learning interventions and technologies.
The transient nature of the digital learning
space means, however, that any given
strategy – even in the instances outlined
above – will need to remain fluid. There are
risks that excessive investment at a time
of rapid change could result in outdated
or inappropriate solutions, and yet failure
to embrace digital could also result in
considerable loss of learning opportunities.
Conclusions
The future for digital learning is one of
accelerating change, of rapid shift towards
self-managed development and of demand
for virtual learning solutions that blend
quality content, rich community interaction
and application to real world problems.
Digital learning has evolved rapidly and the
principles of learning any time, any place
and anywhere are not just possible, they
are now a critical business requirement.
Inevitably, such changes will continue to
create questions: Where is the classroom?
Where is the learner? Where is the trusted
content? What is the comparative value
of a certificate of completion for a current
MOOC as opposed to a programme taught
for a formal qualification? What financial
models are appropriate for this new world
of learning?
The answers to such questions will evolve in
response to the volume of learners who are
now starting to experience learning digitally.
These challenges to the learning industry
mirror those of the digital music industry 20
years ago, a world of vinyl, record shops
and marque labels almost unrecognisable
from the digital music sector today due to
innovations highlighted by Bono:
What turns me on about the digital
age, what excites me personally,
is that you have closed the gap
between dreaming and doing.
You see, it used to be that if you
wanted to make a record of a
song, you needed a studio and a
producer. Now, you need a laptop
The digital music industry highlights the
benefits of embracing, exploring and
shaping new possibilities; the digital learning
industry must now do the same.
Autumn 2012
References
1. de Geus, Arie (1997) The living company, Nicholas
Brealey, UK.
2. Short, J E, Bohm, R E, Baru, C ( 2011) ‘How Much
Information?’ 2010 Report on Enterprise Server
Information, Global Information Industry Center, UC
San Diego. http://hmi.ucsd.edu/howmuchinfo.php
3. Payne-Schofield, C, West, T, Taylor, E (2011)
Going mobile in executive education: How mobile
technologies are changing the executive education
landscape, Research for Unicon produced by
Ashridge.
4. Traxler, J. (2007) Defining, discussing and evaluating
mobile learning: The moving finger writes and
having writ, The International Review of Research in
Open and Distance Learning, 8(2).
5. Schwartz, B (2004) The paradox of choice: why
more is less, Harper Collins.
6. Adkins, S S (2012) North American eLearning
Market to Reach $27.2 billion by 2016, Ambient
Insight Research, Seattle, WA.
http://www.ambientinsight.com/News/AmbientInsight-2011-2016-NorthAmerica-eLearningMarket.aspx
7. Armstrong, A. and Russell, A. (2012) The missing
middle: Exploring learning experiences of middle
managers in the UK, Ashridge research report.
8. Eliot, T.S. (1934) The Rock.
9. Sparrow, B., Liu, J., Wegner, D.M. (2011) Google
Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of
Having Information at Our Fingertips, Science, 5:
776-778.
10. Surowiecki, J. (2004) The Wisdom of Crowds:
Why the many are smarter than the few and how
collective wisdom shapes Business, Economies,
Societies and Nations, Abacus.
11. Leckhart, S, Cheshire, T. (2012) University just got
flipped: how online video is opening up knowledge
to the world, Wired, 16 April.
12. Young, J. R. (2012) Coursera hits 1 million students,
with Udacity close behind, Wired Campus.
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/
coursera-hits-1-million-students-with-udacity-closebehind/38801?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_
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13. Caulat, G. & O’Brien, D. (2010) Rising from the
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17. Wolf, G. (1996) Steve Jobs: The next insanely great
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
Ashridge Business School, Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire HP4 1NS, United Kingdom
Telephone: +44 (0)1442 843491 Facsimile: +44 (0)1442 841209
Email: contact@ashridge.org.uk Corporate website: www.ashridge.org.uk
360˚ editorial board: Emma Bradbury, Dr Vicki Culpin, Alex Davda, Lucy Double,
Dr Narendra Laljani, Mike McCabe, Kai Peters, Toby Roe
© 2012 The Ashridge Trust
You may copy and circulate this publication to as many people as you wish. All rights reserved
Registered as Ashridge (Bonar Law Memorial ) Trust. Charity number 311096
Produced by the Ashridge Design Studio
Printed on 100% recycled paper by SEACOURT, counted amongst the top environmental printers in the world

Mutual trust is essential for successful organisational

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