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Creating growth

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My friend Rick over at Flip Chart Fairytales wrote a post recently bemoaning (or at least questioning) the lack of creativity in business. Pulling together a number of commentators he makes, as you’d expect, some great points and the comments are equally as good. But, I read the post with a certain sense of despair.

“Creativity has always been a long hard slog, slowed down by corporate obstacles, spiked by saboteurs and smothered by indifference. But I’m not sure this is any worse now than it has ever been.”

So why the despair?

First is the sadly common mistake of mixing the terms innovation, entrepreneurialism and creativity. I’d argue these are very different skills and very different mindsets.

There is a pervasive “old world” business approach and mindset to the blog. A lot of the comments refer to creativity taking place in small start-ups that are later bought by the corporate giants and therefore the lack of creativity in those corporations, and hence a passive outsourcing of thinking.

I’ll come back to that point later.

However, most depressing is a focus on a very limited segment of the economy. And here it brings me great pleasure to introduce to you, the creative industries. That’s right, there are business out there that have as their core, as their raison d’etre, a creative purpose. Film making, gaming, television, design and yes….publishing, to name but a few. We, in Britain, are incredibly lucky to have a ridiculously healthy creative industry. And it isn’t small, the creative industries in their entirety are as big, if not bigger, than the financial services sector. We have the biggest creative industry in Europe and, pound for pound, probably the world.

More so, this is an industry that is growing and growing, despite the current economic climate.

Is there a lack of creativity in UK plc? No. Really, no.

Rick and those that commented are talking about one or two specific sectors of the economy, they are confusing entrepreneurial flair and innovation with genuine creativity. The UK economy is thriving with creativity, but it is lacking the focus and investment that other, less profitable and, dare I say it, less future proof industries receive. If Government is serious about growth then it could do far worse than focus on the creative industries as the keystone of recovery.

Now, to come back to the point about passive outsourcing. Business is changing, the face and structure of business is in an evolutionary stage. Small businesses, sole traders, bedroom ventures are all bursting with innovation and entrepreneurial endeavour. Many of them are niche, many of them don’t grow, many of them don’t want to grow and ultimately some of them do sell out to corporate monoliths, before then going on to their next endeavour. Is there anything wrong with that? I honestly don’t think so. That is at the heart of entrepreneurialism.

So, to answer Rick’s question, “Is there a creativity crisis?” No. Are our established corporations designed for entrepreneurial flair and innovation? Also no.

But the two questions are not the same.

Our creative industries are thriving, they are full of truly creative people, not bureaucrats, working to make world-class products and develop leading edge content. They may be quiet, they may sometimes be unseen, but they are an economic force to be reckoned with.

Overlook them at your peril.

The HR sausage factory

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Every company has a back and forth debate.  The sort of debate that, if you spend long enough in that company, you get to see various solutions attempted at either end of the scale, normally unsuccessfully, before swinging to the other end of the scale. Back and forth. I spent many years working in retail, our back and forth debate, was about customer service.

At one end of the argument was that customers just wanted to get in, get what they wanted and get out (an argument I had some sympathy with given the state of a lot of the stores). At the other end was the view that customers wanted to be given a bit more individual attention, advice and support. We went back and forth, back and forth. The reality was that they probably wanted the latter, but the financial model of the retailer wouldn’t properly allow for it, so they got the former and, well, you only have to read the news to see how that worked out…..

Moving from one end of the alphabet to the other, we arrive at Zappos. There isn’t much to write that hasn’t been written about the American retailer. One thing that amazes people on first reading about the company is their approach to the customer.  The customer is put at the heart of the organisation, even if it means finding a product for them in a competitor’s store.

Now let’s make one gigantic segue into the world of HR. The mainstream agenda over the last decade has been about standardisation, about systematization, about centralisation.  How can we get slick processes that are efficient and allow us to reduce the amount of resource we need to deploy? The answer is simple, you treat employees in the same way that my old company treated customers. You process them.

The thing is about processing rather than serving is that initially it looks like great value for money. It costs less, it moves quicker, it isn’t resource hungry.  So you feed the disease. Slicker and slicker you get, faster and faster, more streamlined, you start to measure, so that you can get even better. And then suddenly you realise…..you can’t remember why you’re doing this anymore.

In the same way the retailer forgets the customer, you’ve forgotten the employee. This is all about them fitting into your process, not you understanding their needs. In fact, their needs are an inconvenience that gets in the way of your process. Because they aren’t really a “need” in the first place are they?  They don’t REALLY need it, they’re just being difficult.

Humans want to feel like they are being treated as individuals, that they are being listened to and that their needs are being taken into account. Treating people as people isn’t an inconvenience; it is should be the foundation of every half decent company.

Engagement, motivation, retention? So why is it than In HR we talk a good talk, then put on the overalls and get back to the sausage factory?

Raw belief, raw talent

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Bloggers have a habit of seeing something in life and trying to draw parallels with the world of work, or whatever topic they choose to blog about. I know, I’ve been there, done that, got the t-shirt, bought the t-shirt company. I’m going to try to avoid that. But being half cut on Night Nurse and paracetamol, who knows….anything could happen.

Last year, after final school reports, I was walking with my daughter in the Ardeche. She had done really well that year, but maths remained an issue for her. Half confidence, half ability. She struggled to perform to the level of her natural intellectual ability. We were hiking a particularly arduous 12 mile route and to keep her mind off the hills, we talked about school and subjects and basically anything to prevent the “are we there yet” syndrome kicking in.

When we got to maths, she was, as usual, self-effacing, honest and humble. “I just don’t understand it” she told me.  “You can understand anything”, I replied rather tritely. “I bet by this time next year, if you really want to, you can be on the top table”. She looked at me and said, “I can’t. I’m not good enough”.

“I can’t do it for you” I replied, “but if you really want it, if you think you can, if you tried hard and if I help you, you will.”

The conversation continued and fast forward 7 months and I am sat in the classroom with her teacher. We start talking about maths and she tells me how she has seen an incredible improvement in my daughter. From being in the bottom group, she is now in the second to top. She explains that she is out performing her ability, because of her desire to learn, to do well and to succeed. “It is truly incredible” she tells me.

So what happened? Well, some of it is about the right moment. Some of it is about the right support. Some of it is about maturity. But as my daughter said to me this evening, “well we said that was what was going to happen”. Some of it was about having a vision of success and the sense of belief that comes from other people sharing that vision.  There was no intellectual or physical reason why she could not achieve this, but there was a psychological block.

Would I have spent the same amount of time and effort with one of my team? With an employee? Probably not and this is a salutary lesson that I need to reflect on a little more. If we are set on getting people to perform to their potential, sometimes that goes beyond training, sometimes it goes beyond structures and job profiles. And it definitely goes beyond the nonsense that is talked about the war for talent, talent communities, talent pipelining etc. etc.

Most of the time, the raw talent is sat just in front of you. With a little bit of personal investment, a bit of belief and, of course, with the right support and instruction. Well, most things are possible. You just need to approach it with the passion and dedication that you would with someone you love.

Time consuming? Yes. A waste of time? No.

And I’ll leave the last word to my daughter, “Well, I’m pleased…….but I’m not on the top table yet. But I have another four months to go…..and I will be there. Because I can.”

UPDATE: The results are in and she has gained four levels this year, from being one behind target to three above. Now that, my friends, is DATA.

Lies, damned lies and business

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Business is full of lies. FACT.

Sometimes the lies are big, sometimes the lies are small. Sometimes the lies are inconsequential and sometimes they rock the foundations of the civilised world. But like the urban myth that you’re never more than 8 foot from a rat, in business you’re never more than one cubicle away from a lie.

And that is just the way that it is.

I’m not going to try to argue that the Nick Leeson, the Olympus Corporation, Lehman Brothers or Jérôme Kerviel lies are in any way appropriate or defendable.

But the only difference between these and the others is the size and the consequences, those that make a moral judgment would be better off looking closer to home.

Is it a coincidence that so many public limited companies come in within their stated profit targets every year? Good management or good financial management? Over perform and you run the risk of raising expectations for future years, underperform and you run the risk of your share price being devalued and your tenure being reduced.

If you release provision in a bad year to bolster the bottom line, or take bad news in a good year to managed down profits, are these really lies? Well yes, in the truest sense of the word they are. But they are universally accepted and ignored.

And in the same way how many companies that state “people are their greatest asset” would stand up at the AGM and announce,

“Profits? Shareholder return? Pah…..we’ve got great people….we rock!”

Business is full of lies.

Anyone who has ever answered the question, “Which dress do you prefer?” with a, “they both look great, but I prefer that one because it matches your eyes, not because there is anything wrong with the other one which is perfectly lovely and looks great on you in every single way…..” (you can tell I’ve practised that).  Can easily transfer this to, “you performed really well and we really enjoyed meeting you, unfortunately we need to make a decision and there were candidates who better matched the criteria for the role”.

Likewise the “bijou property with unusual features and scope for improvement” can easily become, “we are committed to the development of all our employees and helping them fulfil their career potential”.

The language of business is a weasel mix of truth and lies, correct. But it isn’t any different from any other part of society. Politicians, Teachers, Doctors, Sportspeople, Charities, Husbands, Wives, Children.  Let he is who without sin etc. etc.

It is very easy for the press, for the public, for the politicians to highlight individual failings and to find a helpful scapegoat.  Business shouldn’t be held to any higher moral standard than we would hold anyone else. We shouldn’t confuse profit-making with profiteering, we shouldn’t engage in duality or assertions of duplicity. We should be open and honest about our imperfections and the societal need for conformity and complicity.

Lies are an everyday part of our lives and in covering over this fact we are of course reasserting its veracity; an inconvenient, but inescapable truth. Just like any other context, business needs lies to survive, it needs lies to maintain balance and it needs lies to underpin its existence. But like in our social lives, like in sport, like in the church, sometimes a lie becomes so big, so grave that it causes damage, hurt and concern. The fact that in business they are reported more sensationally, doesn’t mean that they are more prevalent or indeed any worse.

Business is full of lies. Guilty as charged. But lets face it, it isn’t in the dock all alone.