Uncategorized | change-effect

Culture is complex

Culture is a funny thing, people will tell you they can measure it, improve it, encode it, decipher it. I’m really not that sure they can. Culture is so many things, moving in intertwined ways throughout organisations, it is complex and ethereal and yet most of us will be able to say quite quickly whether we like or dislike a particular one without any real assessment or measurement.

For large organisations, culture also isn’t consistent teams working in the same location, business area or building can have overwhelmingly different cultural experiences. Sat different sides of the same office, employed under the same terms and conditions, with the same facilities, but totally different reactions to the experience.

Some people will immediately jump to the line manager as the determining factor, and whilst I believe that can be an important part, I think it provides an easy get opportunity to diminish our personal responsibility. I think the biggest factor is how people show up each day.

Having watched toxic teams over the years, my honest reflection is that they often choose to be that way. All the participants in the team have an active contribution and play an active role in creating the toxic environment. They choose to let it be so and reinforce it, When people join the team that have a different perspective or view they are either infected with the pervasive culture over time, or they choose to go elsewhere.

This isn’t about excusing management or organisational responsibility, it is about saying we all have a critical role to play in the culture that we experience. We can have a deciding factor on our working lives and that of those around us. Culture is complex, because we are complex beings, but it is simple because we are both the problem and the solution.

If you’re coming into work this morning feeling gloomy about your week, try to spare a moment not to think about what others are going to do say (or not do or say), but instead what you are going to do to make the experience of all those around you just a little bit better.

9 things that won’t happen in 2020

Posted on January 6, 2020 by Blog

We close the gender pay gap – Repeat after me, “equal pay and gender pay are not the same thing”. Gender Pay reporting is a good thing and has opened up a much needed debate. The issues are widespread and complex – occupational segregation, education, family and cultural influences – not to mention the media. All need addressing, but can’t be handled by companies alone, so sadly don’t expect significant change soon. (Also: worth checking out the Trade Unions’ pay gaps if you have a minute to spare).
We accept zero hours contracts – When Matthew Taylor wrote one of the best reviews of modern working practices a couple of years back, he was roundly condemned by everyone for being…well, thoughtful and reasonable. Zero hours contracts aren’t wrong, workplace cultures that misuse them are. Fact.
We realise flexible working has failed – Similarly to executive reward, the ability to have a reasoned and balanced debate on the issue of flexibility seems to elude us. It isn’t working, either for organisations or individuals and the evidence is in the stubbornly low take up. So how do we make it better for all, not just keep banging a broken drum, or inscribing a problem into legislation?
L&D grows up – If I hear another whinging article about why L&D is a separate, strategic function, I’ll beat someone over the head with their Insights profile (no, never done it either, but I bet I’m an orange ). Unless fully integrated, learning and skills development are pointless, self pleasing, momentary activities. Just without the tissues.
HR chills out – There are very few scenarios I can conceive where anybody dies as a result of HR, but millions, daily, where they lose the will to live. That’s all you need to know on this point.
We stop wasting money on leadership – Everyone is disengaged, profits are falling, we are at risk of disintermediation. I know, let’s get a member of the third squad for the British Hockey team that almost won the bronze medal in 1984 to help us figure out why! Frankly, it’s probably that sort of logic that got you where you are in the first place.
We hold CIPD to account – When not spouting Orwellian nonsense, “The future of work is now!” (wide hand gesture and pause obligatory), they’re partnering with the pressure group the High Pay Centre to beat up on their members. More interested in column inches than member representation, chartered membership numbers are consistently falling and missing target. When even Number 10 are openly criticising you, you know you need to do better.
We have a sensible debate on executive reward – See above. If your own professional body can’t get it’s head around the topic, then who is going to lead a thoughtful debate on the issue, rather than one driven by soundbites on the christian names of CEOs in the FTSE100? Will Hutton might, as ever, be our best bet. Interesting stuff here.
We stop making faddy predictions – Big data, AI, Employee Experience, Generation Y, I could go on. Anyone who writes anything with numbered predictions, based on the time of year, needs to be taken outside, put against the wall and shot. Oh wait.

Start somewhere

Posted on May 20, 2019 by Blog

Here’s a bet…

I reckon I could ask anyone in your workplace, or mine, to name one thing that would improve their work or working lives and they’d be able to tell me within an hour maximum.

And of course, if I asked you the same question, you’d be able to tell me too.

Yet we all sit on all of these ideas every day, because;

we don’t have permission
it’s complicated
we don’t have the time
they wouldn’t like it

All of those good ideas going to waste and instead we do a whole series of things that we don’t understand the purpose of, can’t define the value of, do because we’ve always done. We knowingly reduce our potential value.

As leaders our fundamental responsibility is to help teams to deliver the value that they hold, to allow them to contribute to the best of their ability and to fulfil their potential. To do this, we need to remove those things that prevent and get in the way.

Whilst changing cultures and refocusing teams isn’t easy, it is the reason we exist and the duty we have. We should ask ourselves, what other better purpose we could serve? Every transformation had a first step, everyone needs to start somewhere.

Principles or pragmatism?

Posted on June 5, 2017 by Blog

In life there is a natural continuum between principles and pragmatism. It runs throughout our work, our personal decisions, our politics and our businesses. Running the gauntlet between the two polar forces is a key tenet of successful leadership.

The allure of the principled leader is strong. We want people who stand for something, organisations with clear values and purpose. But the frustration is palpable when they stand in the way of things just getting done.

People who make things happen, who are willing to compromise and change their position. We admire them with a distrust. What wouldn’t they forsake?

Knowing when to stand by your personal value set, your principles and knowing when to let go and move on for the sake of organisational/societal benefit is perhaps the biggest challenge for us all.

This easy answer is to say it’s neither one nor the other – it is a beautiful simple, yet totally impotent perspective. An anodyne position which adds little to any understanding of the complexity of values and decision-making.

Because the truth to leadership is not recognising when you need to compromise, or stick by your principles – but understanding why others need to do so. Giving forgiveness and tolerance to the value sets of others.

It doesn’t matter whether it is personal, business or political. Our difference is created by recognising the difference in others. That sometimes we all need to stand firm and sometimes we need to change, admit we were wrong and reconsider.

Failure is when we judge without seeking to understand.