An ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, is quoted as saying that: “change is the only constant in life”. Since then, the phrase ‘the only constant is change’ has often been used to underline the need for individuals and businesses to be ready for it and adapt. We no longer need the many books written to help us meet the challenge of change; our interaction with technology has provided experiential learning. While technological change was frequent, at least it was controlled and we were forewarned. At the beginning of 2020, we had to cope with the sudden and dramatic change as a result of COVID-19. Two years later, when we had just about got back on an even keel, we were hit with further sudden and impactful change, leading to high inflation and a cost-of-living crisis. We are also dealing with the effects of climate change, which is only going to impose greater changes in weather, behaviour and technology. Heraclitus’s statement has therefore been proven to be correct.
Being predisposed to pick up on change, my interest was stirred when a radio news programme started talking about ‘quietly quitting’. I was behind the curve on this because evidently it has been dominating social media recently. Like any apparently new phenomenon, the label given is designed for maximum effect. Quietly quitting is not about quitting your job, but rather quitting doing anything that is above and beyond your job description. It is a reaction to high-pressure work environments, where doing extra work may be expected but without proper recognition or recompense. Its objective is to restore a work-life balance. There are any number of articles online discussing the pros and cons of quietly quitting. While the label is a recent construct, designed to push back against a culture of long hours, people have long had to balance careers with everyday life, effort at work with possible future progression and extra hours with a professional sense of pride.
My recently acquired understanding of quietly quitting took me back to another ancient text, which states: “There is nothing new under the sun”. This was further reinforced when I came across another term that was new to me: collective leadership. This is where the different people on a team work together with their individual contributions and perspectives to achieve the team goal. It is an alternative to heroic leadership, where one individual makes all of the decisions and only seeks advice when they think it necessary. My immediate reaction on delving into collective leadership was one of incredulity. Of course you should be maximising the input from the team members, allowing them to contribute their particular strengths and working together for one aim. After all, anyone who has played team sports knows that each position demands specific skills and each is expected to apply those skills, when required, in order to win the game. Similarly, in certain units in the military, leadership is shared, especially through early engagement in the planning of an activity, so that the team’s collective intelligence can be exploited. The role of primary leader is rotated depending on the situation.
As I delved a little deeper into the articles I had found on the topic, it was apparent that a lot of them were about looking to set up the organisation and processes to stimulate the adoption of collective leadership. I also realised that, despite being exposed to collective leadership as a child, just like creativity, this is likely to be constrained as we progress through hierarchical educational and work organisations. I also realised that my view and practice of collective leadership could be improved by promoting opinion from a wider and more diverse pool.
While I would not advocate the adoption of quietly quitting within the non-destructive testing community but would advocate the consideration of collective leadership, I do believe that we could benefit from both of these newly packaged, old behaviours. Non-destructive testing can be a high-stress occupation, working to tight deadlines with a high degree of responsibility for getting it right and possibly spending long periods of time away from home. Taking time to adopt actions that can help improve the work-life balance will lead to health benefits.
The adoption of collective leadership may be difficult to implement in certain individual non-destructive testing tasks. However, non-destructive testing requires specialist skill and knowledge and it interacts with a number of other specialist disciplines in asset management. Providing non-destructive testing input to the planning of an outage or an inspection is a perfect vehicle for collective leadership.
Please note that the views expressed in this column are the author’s own personal ramblings for the purpose of encouraging discussion within NDT News. They do not represent the views of Jacobs or BINDT.
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