organisation

Lessons in life

Posted on by Blog

When I think about the things that my father taught me, two immediate pieces of wisdom come to mind:

– Never put a cork back in an open bottle

– Life is too short to stuff a mushroom

I’m sure there were others. He probably told me not to go in to hotel management (I listened), not to get married young (I didn’t listen) and not to do drugs or get a tattoo (I’m staying silent on these elements).

That’s the way we roll.

When I think about my approach to organisations, to management and leadership, however, I realise that I’ve maybe taken a little bit more on board over the years. Dad was a leader, a leader of people in some of the hardest circumstances that you can imagine. He ran prisons throughout his career, dealing with the good, the bad and the ugly.

Dad believed in trust. I know, because I heard this time and time again. He believed that people were best when they were trusted and should be trusted until they proved they couldn’t be. Dad believed in fairness, in equity and in transparency. Dad believed in building a workplace that showed respect and in turn earned respect.

My dad was a pretty awesome guy.

When I talk to people about my organisational philosophy, they often tell me that, “it won’t work in larger organisations”, or “it is fine in the creative industry”. I even hear, “that’s fine with professional people, but my staff….”

All of which are, of course, just excuses for inaction and ineptitude. Because dad was doing this years ago and in environments that would make your hair curl. Indeed, when a prison publicly melted down in 1995, they called on my dad.

Dad turns 70 today. We don’t always have a perfect relationship, we don’t always see eye to eye, we argue and say things that we don’t mean. But deep down, I’m starting to realise that so much of what I believe, so much of what I do, so much of who I am is driven by the way in which he ran, led and managed his organisations.

I hope one day to get to the top of my profession, in the way my father did. To be the exemplar, in the way he was. And when I do, I know that so much of everything that I believe is down to the early lessons I learnt as a kid. The beliefs bashed out over the dinner table.

Life IS too short to stuff a mushroom. You should NEVER put a cork back in to an open bottle. And you should lead people with dignity, respect and trust. Those are the lessons that my father taught me.

You can’t ask for more than that as a son.

The last resort

Posted on by Blog

We draw inspiration from some funny places. The moments, the stories, the experiences that sometimes we even struggle to place can form our thinking, our feeling and our doing. As a kid, I had a collection of Aesop’s Fables, I can’t even remember whether they were read to me, or I read them myself. Or perhaps even both. But I remember the stories.

The one that sticks with me most is the story of the North Wind and The Sun. If you’re not familiar with the fables then you can read more about it here. The message being that gentleness or persuasion is more powerful than force or bluster. A lesson that has stuck with me through life and work.

The organizational context within which we co-exist is becoming increasingly complex, with relationships stretching across borders and boundaries. Inter connecting departments, shared purpose with separate ownership, leadership from within not above.  The world of work is increasingly full of ambiguity.

And faced with ambiguity and complexity, the natural instinct is to create order from disorder, certainty in uncertainty and control the uncontrollable. But the rules of the games have changed forever and the traditional methods of management are themselves ineffective, outdated and the refuge of the ineffective and outdated; the last resort of the inept.

In this increasingly complex and inter connecting world those that succeed are the ones that understand that trust beats control, that persuasion beats force, that collaboration beats independence. We create cohesion not by instruction, but by willingly coming together, we create certainty by collectively defining the future, we create success through self-determination and empowerment.

The future of work bears little resemblance to the past, the environment is changing at such a pace and some will adapt, but many won’t. The scared, ill prepared and ineffective will try to hold it back. The wise will listen, understand, talk, create, co-operate and succeed.

When things are bafflingly complex, only through empowering, respecting, trusting and collaborating will we find the way through.

Only by letting go will we hold on.

Define the why of I

Posted on by Blog

In our imperfect world we talk of skills, we talk of structures, we talk of competency frameworks, of behaviours and values. But for some reason, we rarely speak about beliefs. We focus on so much else, but give little, if any, time to define the why of I.

I’ve been mulling this one over for a while and my friend and co-conspirator Michael Carty recently caught the debate on this here. The thing that struck me about this brief foray, was how quickly the conversation turned away from beliefs back to behaviours.

Like so much of our work, we focus on the how and the what. But not the why.*

You see, it seems to me that if we can develop this, if we can define the belief system we work within, if we can create a shared higher purpose for our work, then we are simply more likely to taste success.

Let me give you something more concrete to consider:

–       I believe I can make the workplace a better place for everyone

–       I believe that everybody comes to work to do their best

–       I believe I have as valuable contribution to make as everyone else

–       I believe everyone is allowed to be wrong, including me

If you want to change behaviour, you need to address the beliefs that underpin it. Contrast with this. How many HR people come to work, instead with a mindset that says:

–       I believe that people don’t take me seriously enough

–       I believe that people don’t value HR

–       I believe that managers are incompetent

–       I believe that employees are always trying to get one over us

And what different behaviours would be demonstrated by someone with each of these set of beliefs?

The challenge I’ve had thrown at me is that organisations drive the belief systems. That’s rubbish. They can influence it sure, but only the individual truly controls their own beliefs. Almost every inspirational character in history has held a belief system that wasn’t dictated by their environment.

You can fiddle with the behaviours, you can focus on competencies, you can tinker with your structures. But unless you identify the belief systems that underpin them, my guess is, you’ll find yourself just a busy fool.

* (A hat tip to @GrumpyLecturer for that one).

What lies beneath?

Posted on by Blog

When the politician stands up and says that politicians aren’t delivering enough. We applaud.

When the policewoman stands up and criticises the failings of the police force. We consider them brave.

When the surgeon tells us lives are at risk because of falling standards. We’re shocked but supportive.

When the banker talks about the loss of control on risk taking. We say, “at last”.

But, when a HR person says the profession is underperforming?

We tell them to stop being negative and “get involved”.

Funny that. Don’t you think?

The thing is, in order to improve you need to highlight the deficiencies. In order to challenge the norms, you need to raise the possibility of other alternatives.

It isn’t whinging or whining, it is challenge.

And sometimes when behaviours are so ingrained, when opinions are so homogenous, when thinking is so linear, you need to make a bigger noise to wake people from their stupor.

To get us thinking, to get us reflecting, to get us talking.

But yes, if you want to really want to change the world of work, you do need to get involved……..inside a company, on a permanent basis.

Over the long-term.

A tweet isn’t going to change anything, a blog won’t make things happen, I promise. Even if you post it on LinkedIn.

We need to identify the issues, but identifying the issues isn’t providing the solutions. Because the solutions aren’t generic.

Take the, “we don’t need policies” schtick. Go and try that one in a petrochemicals company.

Or the, “we don’t need measurement, we need conversations” diatribe. Take that one into the operating theatre of a heart surgery unit.

We need to challenge the thinking, the perceived wisdom, but the real creativity and problem solving needs to take place in the organisations themselves. And they need to be tailored, compatible with the overall systems and reinforced over the longer term.

The provocation is above the waterline, the real change happens beneath.

Solutions start with identifying problems. There is nothing wrong in identifying and calling them out that damages the profession.

But ignoring them, closing your eyes, sticking your fingers in your ears and going to your happy place, well trust me, that does.