Author: Blog

Don’t look back

Posted on by Blog

I stand to be corrected, but if memory serves me well I’ve only once employed a direct team member in two different organisations. And in that case it was many years later and after they had already left the organisation in question. To say that I find it peculiar when people hire people from their previous teams, is an understatement. It completely baffles me.

Let’s start first of all with the moral arguments, or those of good and decent etiquette. Whilst there are often contractual and legal reasons for not seeking to solicit previous employees, there’s also in my opinion a really simple point of etiquette. A bit like stalking an ex on the internet to look at the pictures of them with their new partner, or driving slowly past the house that you once lived in to see what they’ve done with the decor, there is something a little bit icky and unbecoming about going back into an organisation that has been part of your past to make it part of your future again.

But more than this, it also infers a limited self confidence and a level of protectionism and closed mindedness. The chance that the very best people that are available to do the job that you need doing are in the place that you previously worked is highly improbable. There are of course certain circumstances that might prove extenuating, when a full team moves from one organisation to a near competitor, for example. But these are nearly always closed off by the contractual restrictions I mentioned above.

One of the things that I’ve loved throughout my career is working with different people, with different perspectives, ideas and approaches. Sometimes learning to get on and find your groove can take a bit of time, but that’s as much about stretching yourself and adapting to other people’s styles. In many ways that’s one of the joys of moving to a different organisation, learning new things, new ways and working with new people (incidentally that’s also one of the joys of moving sector). Bringing the people that you’ve previously worked with is going to limit that stretch and potentially lead you to continue to have the blind spots that you previously were unaware of.

Would I rule out ever working for a CEO I’ve worked with before? No, but I’d want to know that there was enough time and space between it to make sure that they’d changed and so had I. I’d want to know that the organisation was entirely different and there would be things that I would need to learn and develop in. But would I ever take the people who’d worked for me with me? I just wouldn’t. For the very simple fact that I would want them to grow and develop and learn from different leaders in different contexts. When push comes to shove, no matter how brilliant they are it would be better for them, and it would be better for me.

Five things I wish I’d known as a first line manager

Posted on by Blog

I remember very clearly getting my first “proper” manager role and the excitement and trepidation that came with it. It doesn’t really matter how many courses you go on, I don’t think anything ever prepares you for the realities of managing teams – the good, the bad and the indifferent. And no matter how many good and bad managers you’ve had yourself, a bit like parenting you only understand the full expectations when you’re finally in the seat. I was talking to a group of wannabe first line managers a couple of weeks ago and it made me reflect on the things I wish I’d known then.

  1. You’re a manager, not a leader. The first thing to say is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with this, being an amazing manager is something incredible to aim for. For some reason over the last few decades we’ve decided that everyone needs to be a “leader” and frankly most organisations only need a small handful of these, it is an entirely different thing. Your team will thank you more for your one to one focus and coaching more than they will another stupid mission statement or departmental strap line.
  2. Processes are a guide, not a law. Yes I know, before you say it, HR functions are probably THE WORST department for this. Processes and policies are there to help you, but nothing is going to handle the situation better than a person that knows their team, knows what they want, how they are and what is going on in their lives. Spend more time learning about that and less time following processes without context and understanding of application. Would you rather listen to a story told with knowledge and understanding, or one read from a script?
  3. Recruitment is as much about your existing teams as it is the new hire. As a rule, I generally hate recruitment but I do like shaping teams. And I’ve learnt that the two things are inextricably linked. Bringing someone new into your team should be additive in every way, not just the skills and the experience they bring but the perspective they have, the way they think about the world and how they interact. If you get it right, a new hire should increase the performance of other people in the team.
  4. Being liked and being respected are different. First line managers tend to lean in one of two directions, over steering towards formality or trying to be everyone’s friend. Neither path is the route to happiness or a good night’s sleep, the reality is a bit more nuanced. The best managers that I’ve seen don’t mind being unpopular in the short term in order to gain respect in the longer term, they don’t hide behind the rulebook or worse, “HR have said…”. They own messages that are tough and gain respect that way.
  5. No-one gets it right all the time. In most areas of life when we want to improve we rehearse, we practice, we assess our past performance and we learn. Management is absolutely no different. Bad meeting? That’s something you can learn from. Horrendous conversation? What was the point that it started to go wrong. You won’t get everything right, every day and nobody does. That’s ok, what really matters is that you take the time to reflect, to learn and to build on your past experience for the future. That’s how we all grow.

You can’t hurry love. And you can’t measure it either.

Posted on by Blog

Most of us are familiar with the Drucker assertion, “what gets measured gets managed”. It is a rare year in my business life when this isn’t rolled out at some point or other in a conversation about how to improve some area of performance. It goes without saying that measurement is a hugely important part of delivering a change in performance, but it isn’t the only important part.

The risk of adherence to statements like this is that there is an inherent acceptance that if you can’t measure it, it can’t be managed and therefore isn’t important to focus on. This is particularly problematic when we start to look at the management of people in the workplace and the push for HR analytics. I should say, before we go on, that I’m a big fan of using data to better understand people’s experience of work and the workplace and I’m a fan of using it to better understand the way in which we can improve performance at work. But I don’t believe that everything important for leaders to focus on can and should be measured.

If we are looking to lose weight, run a marathon or swim the channel then measurement and performance data becomes important. I need to know the weight that I’m starting at, I need to know the target that I want to achieve and when. I need to measure the amount of calories that I’m taking in and those that I’m expending and it probably helps if I check my progress as I go along. But what if you want to know how much you’re loved?

Is it how many presents you’re given or their value? How long or often you hold hands? How many times you think about that person during the day? Or how many times they think about you? For anyone with two or more children, answer the question which one you love the most. In the vast majority of cases I’m sure you’d say that you love them all equally, but I wouldn’t mind betting that on quantifiable measures there would be differences. I’m not doubting that you do love them the same by the way, the point is more that measurement is incapable of dealing with the complexity of some areas.

Why is this important? Well it matters when we start to talk about topics such as culture and employee experience. It matters because there are two potential traps that we can fall into – firstly that we say that it can’t be measured and therefore isn’t important, secondly to avoid this first argument we create meaningless measures (the organisational equivalent of the number of times you hold hands) that drive the wrong behaviour.

There are whole load of really important things in our workplaces that can’t properly be measured but they can be managed. The answer is not to look for one, two or three killer measures but instead recognise that there are a myriad of tell tale signs that might help you understand how you’re doing. As human beings we’re hugely adept at processing enormous amounts of small data points and drawing sense of them, we should be encouraging that in leaders as much as a focus on data and measurement.

If you’re working in a crap culture, you probably know it even if you can’t measure it. Just like if you’re in love.

Nobody needs another opinion

Posted on by Blog

Just before Christmas a colleague asked me why I hadn’t written anything on here for a while. Whilst I was obviously aware that I hadn’t, I was surprised when I looked back and saw that it had been around three months. As someone who had previously written once a week, my writing during the pandemic had started to slow and then eventually, and intentionally stopped.

When people are dying, people are losing their businesses, families are being kept apart, writing about the importance of strong cultures or leadership felt…well a bit glib. And then all the space for debate in the workplace was filled with vacuous debates around hybrid working which, any objective view would tell you, is the least pressing issue for anyone running an organisation.

Frankly, I came to the conclusion that the last thing I or anyone else needed was another opinion.

A bit of time and space and I can’t help thinking that I was entirely wrong, we have never needed a diversity of opinion more. The problem is our ability to convey opinions sensibly and our reluctance to listen to and consider those that are different or challenge our perspective. Immediately jumping into criticism and critique, rather than embracing curiosity and asking questions. I know I am, and I think others are are, prone to falling into that trap.

Our thinking, decision making our choices and our ideas can only be improved by taking into account the widest range of perspectives. Whether that is in our teams, in our businesses, around board tables or in broader societal debates. Listening to different views or perspectives that are held sincerely and expressed respectfully is an undeniable strength, particularly when they challenge our beliefs or long held perspectives. The moment we think, “well they would say that”, we’ve shelved our curiosity.

But in order to consider the widest range of perspectives, we need people to feel confident they can express freely and openly those opinions. We need to value independence and creativity and avoid the trap of slipping into group think and soundbites. We need to be careful in the language that we use ourselves and to others and when we do come across something we find uncomfortable, we need to be willing to ask more and assert less.

Add to this the inevitable social media pile on when someone tries to outline a different opinion particularly about any of the “golden topics” – flexibility, diversity, executive pay, working practices, trust, employee responsibilities to name but a few – and you end up with the type of anodyne debate that serves no-one well and leaves many silently frustrated. And what is perhaps worse, is we give those that shout the loudest the false impression that everyone thinks the same, encouraging them to raise their voices even further.

So as my little self coaching session concludes; I need to take more time to listen to genuinely held and respectfully made views that challenge me, likewise I need to have the courage to express views responsibly that might challenge others and I need to silence the noise of those that don’t want to enter into a genuine conversation but instead want to simply point score.

Let’s see how we go.