Performance

People strategies are unnecessary noise

Posted on by Blog

I have a confession to make. I hate “People Strategies” with a passion that comes close to my reaction to mushrooms, or people eating bananas anywhere close to me.

Yes, that bad.

The last couple of decades have seen the profession become obsessed with being strategic to the point that every student coming out of their CIPD training thinks that unless they’re doing something “strategic” they’re somehow falling behind their peers. The result of this is that across sectors, throughout organisations, hours and hours and spent and wasted on creating unnecessary presentations and documents outlining pointless stuff that no-one remembers and will never get done. Combine that with another pet peeve of mine, departmental mission statements and values, and you’ve probably identified one of the main reasons for a lack of productivity in the country.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been asked to develop people strategies in the past. The conversation usually goes something like this:

“We need a people strategy”

“To deliver what?”

“We want to be an employer of choice”

“For whom?”

“We need to attract and retain the best talent”

“What do you mean by best?”

To using a sporting analogy, it’s akin to saying “we want to win the cup” without understanding what the sport you’re playing is, when you want to win it and what resources you have at your disposal.

But let me be really clear, this doesn’t mean that I don’t think people aren’t an integral part of strategically driving the organisation forward, quite the opposite. I think they’re so integral that they shouldn’t be looked at in isolation of all the other elements of organisational strategy, they should be consider a fundamental part that’s discussed by everyone around the executive table rather than looked at by a particular team.

There is only one strategy, the organisational one. There is only one vision, the organisational one. And there is only one set of values, the organisational one.

Our job as leaders, regardless of where we work, is to help our teams to understand how the work that they do aligns to this, how they contribute to organisational success, to bring to life the vision in a way that makes that work feel valuable and to make sure that the values across the organisation are clear, coherent and lived every week.

Everything else is unnecessary noise.

It is all about the rituals

Posted on by Blog

I’m sure like me you have your rituals, whether that’s the daily coffee always bought from the same coffee shop, the time that you eat your lunch or the run that you take after work. The small and seemingly important fabric of our lives that we execute without much conscious thought or application. And as we go about our days we notice the pattern in others, the woman always stood on the same corner waiting for a lift as we drive to work, the car that always parks in the same spot in the carpark, the person who gets on the train in the same carriage every day, the person who sits in the same seat at the bar, come rain or shine.

Those of us who’ve been involved in the raising of children are acutely aware of the importance of ritual, the bed, the food, the temperature, the bedtime story and hot milk. Change any of the fundamental parts and we deal with the repercussions for days if not weeks thereafter. And anyone with a pet will tell you that they become accustomed to patterns and will know when to sit by the door for a walk or when there is likely to be a warm lap about for a snooze.

When we think about work and the workplace there is, of course, no difference. Our workplace rituals form part of the same fabric, equally important but also so deeply ingrained that they cease to play in our consciousness. The seat that you sit in, the coffee with the team before setting out for the day, the coffee break to catch up on the chat and gossip with our co-workers, the order in which we approach work and how we deal with the daily tasks that arise.

And in the same way we rankle when someone is parked in our space, the coffee shop is closed, the same way that children fail to sleep or wake to early, when we mess with these rituals then we create a sense of disquiet and unease. That’s why change at work is never a science and is always an art. Over the years I’ve learnt that anyone who thinks change is explained through a gang chart is probably going to be gone before the full ramifications are understood. It is why I hate the faddism for “disruption” promoted by the same Linkedin voices that will also happily share their daily routine for success, “I get up before I go to sleep, run two marathons powered only by pecan nuts and then meditate on hot stones. Smashing it.”

We’re hugely adaptable as a species, the pandemic has shown that in technicolour, but that doesn’t mean that the adaption doesn’t cause stress and discomfort. And during that period we are less productive, less focused, more risk adverse and generally less happy. To make change effective we need to understand this, support it and take it into account in our planning but execute it with compassion, care and consideration.

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

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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.

Who is your compass?

Posted on by neiljmorrison

The UK news was awash last week with contestants for media villain of the week – almost as if there was a competition to outdo one another. And without commenting on any of the specific stories or individuals, the question that came to mind when reading each of the stories was, “who let you get there?”

My genuine belief is that most people aren’t inherently bad, whether in the world of work, politics or sport. In the same way that I believe that most people come to work to do a good job, I don’t think that is any different for those in leadership positions in their respective fields. It is convenient for the media to portray it differently and it often suits the public zeitgeist to have someone to blame. But it strikes me that often the issue is more that people have lost their way, rather than intentionally set out on a particular course.

So why does this happen? Well it might not be the only factor, but there is no doubt that the failure to surround ourselves with people who are willing to speak up when they think we are heading off course and our willingness to listen to them plays a significant contribution. There is a weird dynamic that arises as a result of organisational power, where those around think that their success and progress is based on their ability to tell those in power what they think they want to hear. We all remember the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes from our childhood and probably laughed at the vanity, the pride and the ultimate stupidity. In our adult lives, do we consider which character we best represent?

Everybody needs at least one compass, the person that holds them true to who they are and what they are trying to achieve. We need someone who has little to lose, or is not afraid of losing what they have and is willing to hold up the mirror, to speak the unspoken truth and to bring us gently back onto course. Not in order to point out our failures, but to make us more successful. And we need to open our arms and our minds to those voices and trust that they want the best for us, no matter how hard the truth.

So my question is, who is your compass?