It’s Autumn. I know it is. I look at the trees near my house and I see the leaves turning brown. That’s a sure sign that Autumn is on its way.

Unbidden, autumnal thoughts enter my head. I really ought to get a new, smarter, fleece this year. I should take a look at the timer settings on the heating. Better start to think about getting the garden sorted out as well. Aren’t the mornings just a little nippier lately? Definitely Autumn on the way.

Except it isn’t. Unknowingly and unwittingly I’ve responded to the work of the Horse Chestnut Leaf Miner Moth. Uncritically, and without conscious thought, I’ve responded to a visual stimulus in my immediate environment and drawn entirely the wrong conclusion. The leaves are brown, therefore Autumn is on the way.

I even introduced other environmental clues to confirm and support the hypothesis driven by my unconscious thoughts. The mornings getting nippier? Not so. The reality is that the temperature yesterday was a lovely 70 degrees and the sun was shining brightly.

The Horse Chestnut Leaf Miner is a moth that attacks the Horse Chestnut tree and turns the leaves brown. It only attacks the Horse Chestnut Tree and, now that I look at my environment more critically, I can see that all the other trees are still a beautiful green and in full foliage.

The thing is, I didn’t look at my environment critically and neither do most of us. We go about our business and respond, often unconsciously, to the visual stimuli around us.

Which, in a round about manner, brings me to the point of this post. What are the performance, cultural and organisational visual stimuli where you work ? What effect, conscious and unconscious, are they having on you and your colleagues? Have you walked around your part of the business with your eyes wide open (and your critical senses engaged) lately?

Are there images, words and visual signposts relating to the culture that you’re working to support and deliver, or things that subtly detract from your efforts?

Is the current performance agenda reinforced or is it undermined by evidence of previous exhortations and initiatives?

Staff are focused on financial cuts, operational cutbacks and the probability of job losses. Times are going to get harder. Does your business environment support and reinforce the doom and gloom. Are things looking tired and dog eared, messy noticeboards, scruffy parade rooms, unwashed cars? Subliminal message: things are bad around here. It’s all out of control. Or, are things smart and cared for, clean, tidy, ordered. Subliminal message: We are focussed, delivering a great service and professional.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s worth ten minutes of your time to take a walk around and check out the level of Horse Chestnut Leaf Miner infestation in your working environment. Maybe your people are thinking that it’s Autumn without realising why.

Me? I’m off to enjoy the countryside. It’s still Summer!

NB

For those of you who are remotely interested, the Horse Chestnut Leaf Miner infestation was first observed in Macedonia in the late 1970’s and has spread through most of Europe and into western Russia, Ukriane, Belarus, Moldova and Albania. It was discovered in England in 2002 in Wimbledon. Since then it’s spread has been rapid and it now covers south-central England, East Anglia and the Midlands and is spreading rapidly West and North.

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5. Moving to joined up performance assessment