performance | change-effect

Let the lawmakers make law

I hesitated before writing this post, there are some topics that I’ve seen over the years tend to draw the wrong kind of audience, the ones that want winners and losers, the ones that want to blame and point fingers, the ones that – no matter how many caveats or waivers you include – want to read hidden meaning into the words that you write. But on the flip side, there are more people in the world that want to reflect, consider and discuss than there are those that want to provoke.

So perhaps unsurprisingly, for a UK audience, my thoughts are on the Supreme Court ruling in the last week on the legal definition of a “woman”. But, (and here come the waivers) I don’t want to talk about the decision, the opposing arguments, the rights or the wrongs. I want to talk about the role of leadership and organisations and how they organise themselves for their employees and customers in a broader ecosystem.

One of our primary responsibilities is to act within the law. Over the thirty years I’ve been running businesses I’ve seen a whole host of legal decisions, some that I’ve agreed with, some that I haven’t. But that doesn’t really matter, because my role is not to make law, but to run my business. The simple fact is that the ruling last week has brought clarity on an area that was previously driven by opinion and belief (often in conflict with others) and so any leader should welcome that clarity, even if they may not personally agree with it.

Organisations get into trouble when they are led not by the law but the beliefs of a few senior people and I’ve written before about the dangers of business moving into social policy. My guess is that some organisations who’ve been doing that will be left scratching their heads at the ruling and trying to figure out how they reconcile the approach that they’ve previously taken, based on some half complete advice, with the direction they’ve just been given, based on the law.

Of course there will be those that don’t agree with the judgment, like there will be those that don’t agree with the outcomes of elections, referendums or the actions of government or the authorities. But ultimately, the reason we have these mechanisms in our society is to make these decisions for us and to give us the clarity to operate within the parameters we are set. In the same way there is no point in calling the electorate stupid for voting for a different outcome than the one you want, there is no point in suggesting the Supreme Court judges made a poor decision unless you have the knowledge, understanding, means and wherewithal to challenge the technical legal points. We should remember, that the judges were faced with a specific question, not given an open opportunity to opine.

The politicisation of business over the last decade or so hasn’t, in my opinion, been a positive step forward. There are very few founder led businesses who can essentially do their bidding, the rest of us should focus on our stakeholders, customers, shareholders and employees and knuckle down to deliver. If we’d been doing that, rather than making statements, the ruling of the Supreme Court would have been significantly less sensational, regardless of the decision they landed on. And we would have spent more time, focusing on those things that we truly had under our control – which is what we all need to do right now.

It isn’t a game of two halves

Posted on March 10 by Blog

I’ve written before about my dislike for sporting analogies in business. I’d argue that hiring ex sports people to come and speak to your management teams is the prime example of leadership development as a placebo. Very few are prepared or experienced enough to make the translation of their knowledge into the world of work, mainly because very few have lived in that world. Think of it the other way around, how many of you would suggest drafting in a CEO to speak to your favourite sporting team on the eve of their most important contest? If the knowledge and experience was that transferable, it would make absolute sense. And yet it doesn’t, because it isn’t.

Most sporting contests have a clear beginning, middle and end. Whether it is a triathlon, a football game, the pole vault, sailing around the world, or ice skating. There is a defined structure to it that includes a start, an end and an expected period of time. If you have a shocking race, match, tournament or competition, you get to go again at the next one and in most cases the slate is entirely wiped clean when you do so. You get to train, research and perfect your performance in a non-competition environment before you enter the live environment and perfect any set pieces, moves or manoeuvres time and time again.

By contrast, business never stops and is always live. As a business leader your practice is pretty much wholly in the live environment and your mistakes aren’t mostly behind closed doors but in front of the people that you will come in and be with every day of the working week – time and time again. You don’t get to go again, unless you leave the organisation – but even then your reputation will often follow you – and there is no resetting of the time, the score or the points.

My intention isn’t to make a qualitative assessment of one against the other, merely to say that they’re different and require different approaches, a different mindset and a different focus. Sport can learn from business as business can learn from sport but neither is a panacea for the other. But recognising the differences can also help us focus on the things that we need to do better as leaders.

If we recognise we are always on, then we need to recognise that people will see us falter and fall and we need to embrace that as a strength not a weakness. If we recognise that every day is the real thing, that there is no rehearsal, then we can forgive ourselves when we aren’t our best, learn from it and move on. And if we recognise that there is no beginning or end, we can view our leadership as a journey rather than a competition – one that will have highs and lows and many bits in between.

If you want fairness, you might need to give something up

Posted on March 3 by Blog

I came into business on the back of studying Psychology many light years ago before it became such a hot topic for undergraduates. Fortunately for me, back then you didn’t need three straight As to get anywhere near the hallowed halls of university. The course that I took, and the modules I chose, focused a lot on child development something that I’ve light heartedly (and sometimes seriously) suggested prepared me well for dealing with fellow execs and the world of work.

Let’s take the concept of fairness. There are countless studies that show that a quite a young age, around three or four, children understand the principles of fairness. They understand that if you have three toys and two friends, then the fair thing is for every child to have a toy to play with. But there is often a gap between understanding and behaviour depending on the context being observed – whether there is a level of collaboration, whether rewards are given separately, whether there is a windfall.

Fast forward into the world of work and whilst we aren’t necessarily talking about toys anymore (unless you work for Hasbro or Lego), the concept of fairness is something that we talk about a lot. For example, we’ve all seen the various cartoons and explanations of the difference between, equality and equity. Similarly, studies have shown that employees view fairness at work as being one of the fundamental pillars of “a good work place”.

But similarly to the kids in the experiments who understand the concept of fairness but don’t want to share their toys, there is often a gap between our desire for a fair outcome and our willingness to accept that this might mean we, ourselves, need to give something up. Let’s go back to where we started this post, in getting into university. Unless university places increase exponentially (and there’s another post in here somewhere about whether they have tried to do this at great cost to young people) then by increasing access and widening participation it is likely to mean that the children of people who might previously attended without batting an eyelid, might not be getting into the university or course of their choice.

The whole concept of WFH (yes I am going to mention this again) is another example of us not factoring fairness into our own decision making. The proponents of WFH will often say, “I am more productive”, or “I can work like this, so why shouldn’t I?”. And of course they’re entirely correct and in some organisations where everyone can do the same, say a digital marketing agency, that might be a fair direction of travel. But in those where that isn’t the case, let’s say a retail bank, how many would give up their own freedoms in order to create a fairer workplace for those that can’t?

Why is this important? Is this just another opportunity for Neil to have a pop at working from home? Well no, not on this occasion, it is important because as leaders, as people professionals, it is fundamentally our responsibility to shape workplaces that are as fair as possible. And to do that we need to do a number of things; we need to make decisions that won’t be popular with some and not be lured by the idea that fairness and approval are the same thing; we need to be very aware of our own perceptions of fair and what we personally might need to give up; and we need to recognise that it will never be perfect and that not being perfect is ok as long as we are constantly checking in on our decisions and our approach and how we can make them fairer, little by little, bit by bit.

In praise of personnel

Posted on February 24 by Blog

I started working in the profession in 1996, the year that saw Take That split and the airing of the last episode of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air – although I don’t remember either of these things in much detail, I admit I had to look them up. AOL was also named the most popular website of the year, for the c.20 million people that had access to the Internet, but behind the scenes a little known company called Google was indexing the web – but it wouldn’t have it’s own domain until the following year.

At work, I wrote out memos that were typed by a typing pool and deliver by hand in the internal mail system. And I was called a Personnel Services Officer, worked in Personnel – and I provided services to the personnel.

Nearly 30 years later, the world and the world of work has changed considerably. I’m writing this on technology that I couldn’t envisage would exist, to share on platforms that weren’t in existence. So much has changed and yes the fundamentals of how we come together to get things done – an activity also known as work – hasn’t changed that much at all. These days, whilst I don’t go by the title of Director of Personnel, I have stuck to the HR description and frankly, I’ve got no desire to change it.

A quick search in Linkedin will deliver you a cacophony of job titles for people doing the same and similar jobs. There are trends, counter trends, justification for changes (normally something about being more strategic – but we all know, calling yourself a “thought leader” doesn’t make you one). And all of these tiles and descriptions are on one hand fine, but also beg a fundamental question;

Who is a job title for?

Is it for the individual, so that it represents what they want to be seen as or how they want others to feel about them? Or, is it for everyone else so they understand what that person does, what they’re responsible for and when they might be helpful or when to get them involved?

If our jobs as leaders and people professionals is to make organisations simpler, easier to navigate, more effective and efficient, then using simple and straightforward language might not be a bad place to start. Job titles, department and function names are how people make sense of the organisation, they’re a universally recognised shorthand that help us to get things done. Where do I go, who do I speak to in order to carry out the task that I need to get done?

Marathon bars didn’t get tastier because they were called Snickers, Twitter didn’t become a better place because it was named X, The Independent didn’t get better editorially as The i, and we all know Hermes didn’t stop chucking parcels over hedges with it became Evri. In some ways, names and job titles don’t matter at all but in other ways they absolutely do.

Ok, so maybe Personnel was a little bit dated but people knew what it was and what it did. And sometimes, that has greater value to organisational performance than any rebrand simply to assuage the egos of the job holders. That’s something would could all do with a little bit more.