HR

It’s ok to say sorry

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As a leader you won’t always get thing right. Because no matter which business school you went to, or how amazing people say you are, you’re still human. And when things go wrong, when you screw things up, when you make a mess, it is absolutely ok to say sorry.

Rather than being a weakness, apologising is both a strength and a means of asserting control. It demonstrates recognition and understanding of the situation and a desire to move on and progress.

The number of times I’ve heard teams, or employees complain along the lines of, “they know they’ve screwed up, but they’ve never even said sorry. That is all it would take”. Most people can accept that leaders get things wrong, they can’t accept that they’re too big to need to apologise.

That’s not to say that simply muttering the word, “sorry” can get you out of any situation, there is an authenticity and humility that needs to comes with it.  We’re great at sniffing out a contrived response.

Recognising when you’ve fallen short, acknowledging, apologising and rectifying are critical steps in building real trust with the people who you lead. They’re also hugely important in your development and personal growth.

We talk a lot about engagement levels, happiness at work, productivity and health and wellbeing. Whilst I have no empirical evidence to back it up, I can’t help feeling that humble, respectful leadership would be a vital ingredient to success.

Gauging the speed of change

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We’ve all been there, the conversation where the speed of change is, “just not quick enough”. I’ve probably uttered the words myself. One of the biggest tricks for any leader in this circumstance is being able to differentiate between the input activity and the desired output. Or, the things we need to do in order to get the results we want to see.

It’s a wonderfully alluring concept to equate the speed of delivering the first with the achievement of the second, but sadly there is no direct line between the two. Regardless of their experience, leaders will be told to reduce the time to implement, to condense the programme of activities to realise results much more quickly.  And many will happily comply to demonstrate the activities have been done, ahead of schedule. Which is good, right?

Except the desired change doesn’t happen as we wanted.

But that’s ok, because it must be the fault of someone else, somewhere else. We absolutely nailed our contribution – they just didn’t do what we needed.

The inescapable issue is that there is an optimum rate of change in any organisation and in any situation and it won’t always be the same, dependent on context. The key to successful change is twofold –

  • Understanding the contextual climate for change
  • Measuring success on outputs and inputs

To give a simple example, let’s imagine a bottle of organisational goodness (aka water) which we trying to unlock and set free into a new organisational design (aka a bowl). On one end of the spectrum, we could hold the bottle upside down and shake it frantically, the water will probably come out pretty quickly, the chance of splashing, missing the bowl and causing a mess though are high. At the other end the spectrum, we could tip it slightly below horizontal, place the neck against the lip of the bowl and transfer all the water. It will be super slow, but highly effective.

The reality is that somewhere between the two is the most effective spot, based on the deign of the bottle and the bowl.

Ultimately, the answer to success lies in the name itself – “change”. If all we were interested in was the activity, we’d probably call it “stuff”. One of the key skills of any leader is to be able to articulate the importance of the embedding and sustaining of change and not get caught into the organisational pressure to do some stuff quickly. It won’t always be the answer people want to hear, it won’t always make you the most popular, but if you’re genuinely keen on delivering success, you need to be sure everyone knows and agree what it actually looks like.

Note: Having researched the optimum way to extract water from a bottle at speed, I’m led to believe that in principle it is to swirl the bottle in a circular motion, creating a vortex through the centre that allows water to extract via the sides whilst air rises through the vortex. Sounds complicated.

A few gender pay comparisons

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  1. Conservative Campaign headquarters reported that women’s median hourly rate is 15.7% higher than men’s, whilst the Labour Party recorded a median hourly rate for women 4% lower than men’s.
  2. The CBI reported that women’s median hourly rate is 15.1% lower than men’s, compared to Unite the Union’s gender gap of  29.6% lower in favour of men. The GMB’s Women’s median hourly rate is 32.4% lower than men’s and Unison’s women’s median hourly rate is 15.8% lower than men’s.
  3. The Royal College of Nursing has a median gender pay gap of 13.7% lower than men, whereas the General Medical Council has a median gap of  6.7% in favour of men. The Nursing and Midwifery Council has a women’s median hourly rate of 3.7% lower than men’s and the British Medical Association has a gap for women that is 13.6% lower than men’s.
  4. The Rugby Football Union reports that women’s median hourly rate is 6.6% lower than men’s, at the Football Association the women’s median hourly rate is 12.1% lower than men’s and the England and Wales Cricket Board has a Women’s median hourly rate which is 17% lower than men’s. At the Jockey Club, women’s median hourly rate is 23% higher than men’s.
  5. The Guardian News and Media has reported that women’s median hourly rate is 12.1% lower than men’s, The Times newspaper has a women’s median hourly rate is 12.7% lower than men’s. Associated Newspapers (home of the Daily Mail) has a Women’s median hourly rate is 15.4% lower than men’s, whereas at The Economist Women’s median hourly rate is 29.5% lower than men’s.
  6. The University of Cambridge has a gender pay gap where women’s median hourly rate is 15% lower than men’s, at the University of Oxford women’s median hourly rate is 13.7% lower than men’s. The University of Sunderland reports  that women’s median hourly rate is 20.9% lower than men’s, the gap at the University of Portsmouth is for women’s median hourly rate to be 23.3% lower than men’s.
  7. Bravissimo has a pay gap where women’s median hourly rate is 6.2% lower than men’s, Ann Summers has a women’s median hourly rate which is 21.6% lower than men’s. At Victoria’s Secret, women’s median hourly rate is 19.4% lower than men’s.

NB: The company median hourly pay gap for the UK is 9.8% in favour of men.

Toxic cultures and ticking time bombs

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The strange thing about toxic cultures, is the inability of those within to see how bad things have really got. It normally takes an inflection point or disruptive external event to raise levels of awareness to the point of consciousness. Looking at the recent tribulations of the UK Labour party and the Australian cricket team, we can see perfect examples (in different ways) of the way that toxic cultures become all-encompassing in a blinding fog of self-delusion. We’ve seen similar situations play out in the banking sector and other industries, which I’ve written about before.

It raises the question whether there is anything that can be done to prevent the slow slip towards implosion, or if a turbulent outcome is inevitable. What can leaders do to intervene?

Recognise it starts small – recognising small behavioural changes and calling them out is crucial to preventing the situation getting worse. Tolerance to bad cultural epithets increases over time unless they’re nipped in the bud.

Don’t explain away – it is very easy to explain things away, even when they get to seemingly gargantuan proportions. We’re just highly competitive, we have an overarching will to win, others are just jealous, they’re trying to drag us down, we know the real truth. And yes, you probably do but you won’t admit it.

Listen and be willing to hear – There are people who know that things are going the wrong way, there is seldom a lone bad apple or renegade group. People see and know, they just need to be given permission to talk and leaders need to listen and hear. If people think you’re just paying lip service, they won’t bother to risk the wrath and the pain.

Define your values and stick to them – The corridors of corporate power are littered with mission statements, values and charters which no-one knows and no-one applies in business decisions. Values in business are important, but only when they come off the poster and enter the psyche.

Look outside in – Don’t be afraid to ask someone else to take a regular look at your culture, behaviours and ethics. In business we are used to having people look at our accounts, our data and reports, our supply chain and other areas of our operation. So why not culture? An annual health check, by an independent third-party would go along way to holding yourselves to account.