Process this….

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It won’t come as a surprise to people who know me that I’m not keen on unnecessary process. I understand that there is a minimal need for it, but I can’t accept the need for process to drive practice. That for me is alien and wrong.

I had a particularly problematic conversation with Tesco Bank this weekend (Yeah…..I know….) when I was subject to two immortal lines,

“The problem is that you’ve been a customer with us for a long time”

“We can’t override the system”

I do have much left to die inside, but that is pretty much going to clean it up.

But it also really resonates in a “shoot me now” kind of a way.

How many times in the last month have you or your teams uttered:

“It would set a precedent”

“It isn’t as simple as that”

“I can’t do that”

“The system doesn’t work like that”

“The policy is….”

“You need to complete this form”

“Have a look at the process/policy”

“We can’t make an exception”

And how would it feel if you’d said:

“We completely see the need to make an exception here”

“Let us work out how to make this possible”

“Of course”

“We can work around this”

“I understand your specific needs”

“Let me sort out the paperwork for you”

“What is it you’d like to achieve and how can I help you?”

“You’re the most important person to us”

Then ask yourself two questions:

Which feels better to the person asking the question?

Which feels better to the person answering the question?

And as a supplementary:

Why do we make this so hard?

We have no future, we have no Somewhere

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One of the joys of being a little bit stupid, is that you constantly learn. Arrogant people bathe in their ignorance. Simple folk, like me, swim in the waters of collective knowledge in an ignorantly blissful haze.

But in this seeming bliss there fall moments where the brain starts to stir, the neural pathways buzz. The moments that really make you think.

I’ve made a career of not doing what everyone else is doing. I’m obstinate. I get it. But I love a good idea.

It’s last Wednesday, I’m in Berlin. I’m in a collective workspace. There is a remarkably un-nervous presenter in front of me. And she introduces me to “Somewhere“.

And my brain starts to buzz.

“Work matters.

Find work that truly matters to you and your life will change. Forget about traditional recruitment and searching for a job. It’s time to find the people you should be working with.”

How about that for a vision?

I’m not here to do a sales pitch for Somewhere. I’m not being paid by them (although I admit they offered to buy me a coffee the next time I’m in Berlin….just for full disclosure). But it seems to me they’re on to something.

People want to work with people that they like. That is maybe more important than the skills that they have.

Because, in a world that is in constant change, where skills become obsolete in the blink of an eye, where yesterday’s giants are tomorrow’s victims. Is there another way to build commercially competitive teams?

Would it be different if we recruited people who cared for what we were doing rather than a traditional skills for currency transaction?

What if we hid our brands and exposed ourself for our values? Would people choose different companies? Different careers?

And where would you go, if you really had a choice?

Nobody wants to be engaged

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I once said that “nothing says past it” more than Human Capital Management.

I was wrong.

Don’t worry, I haven’t suddenly become a HCM groupie.

Far from it…..

I was wrong because NOTHING says past it more than the term “Employee Engagement”.

I recently tweeted that “every time I hear this term another part of me dies“…so you can imagine what writing about it does to me.

But sometimes I just can’t help myself. We all have our crosses to bear.

I have a confession. Never…..absolutely NEVER in my life have I woken up and thought….”I wish I was more engaged”. Moreover, I can guarantee that there is not a single employee within your organisation that has either.

Engagement doesn’t exist. Engagement is the sort of term a consultant would create. And then claim it was measurable and sell it at massively inflated amounts to a profession that was insecure and desperate to find some data to prove that they were both relevant and commercial.

I have no idea where they would find a profession like that. Do you?

Please. Let’s stop.

Let’s grow up.

Let’s be human.

For generations people worked for the same companies. They worked there because the organisations valued them, they treated them well, they gave them security, they gave them incentives to stay. But, they NEVER TALKED ABOUT ENGAGEMENT.

Engagement doesn’t replace a decent pension scheme, engagement doesn’t pay the mortgage on your house, engagement doesn’t provide job security.

Engagement is a term that we create to apologise for using people to generate profit.

We need to stop focussing on vacuous self-created concepts that are completely alien to the vast majority of human beings. We need to start talking about the things that matter to people. Real people.

Call me uncool, call me old-fashioned. Call me naïve.

I’m ok with that.

You aim for engaged employees…..I’ll do what’s right for my people and treat them like valued grown ups.

I think they deserve that.

The poor performer, is you.

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How many times have you heard a HR person tell you, “You can’t reward poor performance”?

You can’t reward poor performance. Of course……

But the thing is, it isn’t their poor performance. It’s yours.

Who recruited the person?

Who promoted the person?

Who trained the person?

Who rewarded the person?

As convenient as it is to say that individual poor performance just “happens”. It doesn’t. Organisations make poor performers. You make poor performers.

If HR is accountable for organisation performance, it is also accountable for individual performance.

Getting rid of poor performers is a quick and convenient way of papering over your organisational incompetence.

Papering over your incompetence.

You can’t reward poor performance? Too right.

How confident are you, that you’re earning what YOU deserve?