Tag Archives: leadership

Idea Antibodies – Do some organisation have an autonomic immune response that kills ideas?

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20121223-150016.jpgI’ve just met an old friend who told me they had moved jobs because the old organisation was ‘sucking the life out of them’. As an ‘ideas person’ they were fed up of constantly having their ideas; dismissed out of hand, ridiculed or worse, buried in bureaucracy. They were getting out before their spirit was crushed and they became one of the ‘sheep’. Sounds familiar?

With innovation and improvement (all fuelled by good ideas) being so high on the agenda it’s disappointing to hear this. Shouldn’t the ideas people be cherished and encouraged, not crushed and ridiculed?

Here are some ‘ideas’ about how ideas are killed off in organisations, suggesting that this might a very deeply seated behaviour. Could there be an evolutionary response that pushes people (and organisations) down the path of settling for ‘best practice’ and the status quo? Sub consciously are most of us are resisting new ideas as a type of autonomic response.

Blocking new ideas is an evolutionary trait. I touched on this in the post is best practice the enemy of innovation where I referenced an article, Innovation is not Best Practice by Alf Rehn from Manchester University. The article talks about us still being hunter gathers that rely upon the evolutionary advantages of sticking to best practice. To survive we know the ‘best’ place to catch Bison, the ‘best’ way to gather roots and berries and this is transferred into modern-day thinking. The majority of the time we stick to what we know. Established practice is what got us to where we are now, so why would we want to try out ideas that are new and potentially dangerous?

Mavericks and Accidents are source of ideas. This is a point made by Dave Snowden in this video about the discovery of the method for measuring Longitude. Ideas generated by Mavericks are frequently ignored by the establishment for a long period of time, before they become accepted. The role that established experts play in suppressing new ideas is significant. New ideas can represent an attack upon the power base of the experts (their expertise and knowledge) and the organisation. Dave used the analogy of ‘autonomic response’ by organisational ‘white blood cells’ killing ideas when he spoke at this event. Mavericks (like my friend) have a tough time in many organisations.

Turning to what you might do about the organisational ‘autonomic immune response’ to get ideas accepted, here a few suggestions:

  • Pretend you’re not a Maverick. If the autonomic response doesn’t recognise you or your ideas as a threat, you might get past the white blood cell defences. This is quite a difficult position to achieve. There is always the risk you will ‘go native’, ‘get the life sucked out of you’, and become one of the sheep.
  • Use Immunosuppressant Agents. In the context of an organisation this might be strong leadership saying ‘all new ideas are welcome’. There are many examples of this working, but it takes time and commitment from the top.
  • Just Wait. It’s funny how once upon a time radical ideas, (for example using open source software) appear mainstream once the rest of the world catches up or overtakes the organisation.
  • Find a Host that accepts you. There are places that love ideas. For example Ricoh in Telford and other organisations who are Members of IdeasUK, a body which focussed on helping organisations to involve their staff in generating ideas and getting them implemented. The percentage of ideas being implemented in Ricoh was in excess of 80%, a fantastic example of an organisation that nurtures ideas and the people who come up with them.

So, what’s the PONT?

  • An autonomic response to killing ideas could be a deep-seated in some organisations. The causes could be evolutionary or expert driven.
  • Recognising the organisational level of ‘immunity to new ideas’ would be helpful before embarking upon any improvement programme that depends upon ideas.
  • Pick your tactics carefully to get around the immune response. Sometimes it might require finding a new ‘host’ organisation (like my friend).

Just one final thought, Zombie Organisations. Are these the places where the people who like to crush ideas need to move on to, or are the idea killing organisations actually already on their way to becoming zombified?

Disclaimer: I know this post might upset a few organisations that are good at nurturing ideas. Please let me know of your good work in the comments.

Picture source:  Graphic by Laura Sorlava of http://www.auralab.co.uk/. Created at this event with the Wales Audit Office, http://www.wao.gov.uk/assets/englishdocuments/WAO_DaveSnowden_sketchnotes_Auralab.pdf

Dysfunctional organisations can turn a good person bad.

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You may have heard the proverb “if you sup with the devil you need a (very) long spoon”. The idea is that if you mix with bad people you should be careful not to be influenced by them and start behaving badly yourself. It’s a very old sentiment that was mentioned as far back as 1386 in Chaucer’s ‘The Squires Tale’.

This week I got a modern, evidence based example of this aspect of human behavior at a Leadership & Management Wales (LMW) seminar.

“Management behaving badly” was presented by Professor Ralph Fevre of Cardiff University on the findings of a huge piece of research work into ill-treatment at work. The report ‘Insight into ill-treatment in the workplace: patterns, causes and solutions’ summarises the research which involved almost 4000 interviews. The report is well worth reading for anyone interested in HR, employee engagement, organisational development or just being a more effective manager or leader. A few points I took from the seminar:

Problems

  • Small organisations tend to have less of a problem with ill-treatment;
  • Bigger organisations have a higher level of ill-treatment despite ‘proper’ policies (Dignity at work etc) and HR Departments which are supposed to prevent ill-treatment;
  • Many policies and subsequent interventions, to deal with ill-treatment, don’t seem to be effective;
  • Manager against subordinate was the most common form of ill-treatment; and
  • Managers themselves are highly likely to suffer ill-treatment.

Some solutions

  • Manage the managers. Supporting managers to develop their people skills is an essential part of treating people properly, and getting the most out of them. It’s disappointing that the archetype of the technical expert with poor people skills, promoted to a managerial position who then causes havoc was mentioned several times during the session. The evidence suggests that there are still plenty of them out there (have a look at the report case studies).
  • Manage sickness absence properly. The evidence points towards the inappropriate application of sickness absence policies, particularly against people with serious conditions. Implement the policies properly and fairly (train managers to do this), and you prevent some of the ill-treatment.

One finding did stand out for me. This was the importance of the overall culture of an organisation. It was summed up as, “if you have a dysfunctional organisation the levels of ill-treatment will be greater”. This issue around culture is linked to the issue of managers   being the source of ill-treatment against staff, and being the subject of ill-treatment themselves.  It seems like a case study of behavior begets behavior and an example of a ‘vicious circle’ that arises from ill-treatment from (and to) customers and service users. The role of leadership in addressing such a culture and reversing ill-treatment is fundamental, which is probably why LMW put on the seminar. Good choice.

Linking back to the idea at the top of this post….do be careful where you choose to work. If it’s a dysfunctional organisation where ill-treatment is commonplace there is a chance you’ll be on the receiving end of it. I wouldn’t want to crush anyone’s hope and desire to change organisations (or the world) but do be aware that “if you sup with the devil you need a very long spoon”.

So, what’s the PONT?

  1. Ill-treatment of staff does happen in organisations, but is more likely in big compared to small organisations (see the is 150 the magic number post).
  2. If you are a manager, you are likely to receive, as well as, dish out ill-treatment.
  3. Organisational culture has a huge influence on ill-treatment, as well as you, so be careful who you sup with.

Self Organised Workgroups – Keystone Cops or Well Oiled Machine?

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Recently my kids held a ‘garden party’, which has reversed many of my expectations. The end result has been a much neater garden; some repaired power tools and an enhanced reputation for me as a really cool dad. I’d like to say it was down to my supreme leadership, but actually I had very little to do with it. The kids just did things themselves. It’s astonishing what the shame of an unkempt garden can do for the motivation of teenagers wishing to impress their peers.

My expectation had been of something like an episode of the Keystone Cops, a complete mess, lack of coordination, and a great deal of energy spent achieving nothing (ring any bells?). Instead I got weeding in the rain, hedge cutting and internet searches to locate a replacement part for a broken strimmer. Wonders will never cease.

The point of all this is to direct a friend towards some advice on how they might get a group of people to self organise.  It’s a fairly straightforward challenge (compared to a teenage party).  Approximately 30 people who need to pair up to carry out some work together. The options currently being considered are:

  • Issue precise instructions on exactly how they should do things;
  • Get involved and organise them; or
  • Let them get on with it (they are after all grownups).

Here is the advice; watch this video who needs leaders? This was shown by Nick Obolensky one of the speakers at this year’s Welsh Public Services Summer School .

Nick’s video illustrates that it is possible for a large number of people to self organise to carry out a reasonably challenging task. The keys to success seem to be:

  • A clearly defined outcome that everyone understands;
  • Setting a limited number of clear boundaries (basic rules); and
  • Trusting people to get on with it and do the job.

I won’t spoil the video for you, have a look for yourself. In particular look out for the bit at the end where Nick asks, “how long would that have taken if we had put someone in charge?”

Back to my friend; my advice to them, go on, have a go at self orgaisation. All you need to do is trust them (and yourself). Imagine how much time and effort you will save, which you can then spend doing something much more interesting and productive than herding cats.

So what’s the PONT?

  1. Self organised workgroups are possible and do work, even with the most unlikely subjects (my teenage kids).
  2. Everyone having a clear understanding of the outcome and small number of basic rules is important.
  3. Above all trust is critical. Trusting people to get on with it, and trusting yourself to let go.

Link to herding cats post: http://whatsthepont.wordpress.com/2011/06/26/herding-cats%e2%80%a6-is-this-an-unconference/

Engaged or actively disengaged employees. Where do you focus energy?

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Here is a guest post from my good friend Ena Lloyd. A better biog will follow once I get some decent internet connection in Tuscany. Thanks Ena…..

I also attended the IdeasUk Employee Engagement network meeting, hosted by the Wales Audit Office in Cardiff, where it was great to meet colleagues not only from the Welsh Public Sector, but also the Voluntary and Private Sector who I fully intend to meet up with again to exchange some ideas.  There was great buzz on the day, particularly at the end of the workshops. All three workshops  were very engaging (pardon the pun but true!), very different, and were hosted by:-

They represent very different parts of the UK business but they all had two key themes running through their workshops:-

1.      Keep it simple; and

2.      You have to continually evolve to keep staff engaged.

What I also took away from all three workshops was that all three organisation had re-launched their staff engagement schemes several times since its initial launch and most importantly, that it’s OK to do this.  In fact, it’s essential for a number of reasons, namely, staff turnover, advancement of new technology and also to simply remind staff of the scheme. They on average, re-launch or update every two to three years. They viewed it very much as an evolving process.

There was an added moment of realisation for me in the Ricoh workshop hosted by Rob Bland and Chris Nicholls.  They were talking about the results of their latest staff engagement and the ratio staff engagement at their Telford.  They showed a recent slide which highlighted the level of engagement amongst their staff in terms of:-

  • Engaged;
  • Disengaged; and
  • Actively disengaged;

What Chris Nicholls said next, brought ‘yes of course moment’ to mind. He simple pointed to the part of the slide which highlighted  the engaged staff, and said, we only focus on these staff. Adding we do some work with the middle ground of staff who are not engaged to see what we can to try to convert them to being engaged. However we don’t not worry about the actively disengaged,…………………… Why waste our energy, as we are unlikely to convert them, We focus only the staff who are engaged and make no apology for this.

When Chris said that, i immediately saw parallels between the concept of focussing on engaged staff and the mantra which is constantly being repeated on the successful House of Tiny Tearaways programme by the eminently sensible Dr Tanya Byron, child psychologist. She constantly repeats to parents struggling with the challenging behaviour of their young children, acknowledge and praise positive/good behaviour in children.  Ignore or don’t acknowledge poor behaviour.  Well it’s just the same for adults really isn’t it!

What I’m taking away from this is simply this, direct your resources where there is greatest impact. If some people don’t want to engage, don’t waste your energies.

Three Very Different Organisations, Five Common Words. IdeasUK Employee Engagement Network Meeting.

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Last week I had the great joy of attending an IdeasUK Employee Engagement network meeting in Cardiff, hosted by the Wales Audit Office. The three organisations presenting workshops were incredibly different yet, I picked up on five common themes: Longevity, Trust, Evidence, Belief and Passion.

Question: Are these the key elements of success for any employee engagement approach?

To set the scene, the organisations involved couldn’t be more different in relation to what they do, the numbers and type of people they employ and where they operate:

  • HSBC, financial services and banking (global);
  • Ministry of Defence (GEMS Scheme), defence (domestic and global); and
  • Ricoh Manufacturing UK (Telford), photocopier manufacturing (European wide).

The success of each of these organisations and what they have achieved in employee engagement through their staff ideas schemes was obvious to see through the day. What struck me were common phrases/words/ideas/approaches/beliefs and values that kept popping up, despite them being very different organisations. Here is my take on what I think linked these three very different organisations, and what seems to support successful employee engagement.

Longevity: Each one of these organisations has been pursuing a path of employee engagement for a long time. The MoD started Gems in the mid 1990s and it’s even longer for Ricoh (1986). I think this long-term view is critical in developing a culture where employee engagement is taken seriously and people live the values through their everyday behaviours. Things like the ‘Thank You’ culture in HSBC don’t happen overnight.

Trust: This is mentioned so often that it’s almost a cliché; however the difference between saying it and actually trusting people is huge. It was impressive to see how HSBC trust their staff to interact with an internal social media type platform to share ideas. In the highly regulated world of financial services it would be so easy just to say no, ‘manage the risk’ and shut everything down. I heard the phrase ‘why wouldn’t you trust your staff, they know the job they do better than anyone’ several times during the day.

Evidence: Every single organisation had rock solid evidence of the benefits their suggestion schemes had delivered. These ranged from a 14:1 return on investment through to hundreds of millions of pounds saved. My key learning point was the necessity of having solid evidence when someone questions the effectiveness of employee engagement and suggestion schemes. It’s surprising how many people ‘just don’t get it ‘(see the David MacLeod & Nita Clarke report) so you will need solid evidence.

Belief: You’ve got to believe, because if you don’t, how will you convince anyone else? Everyone I met totally believed in the power of employee engagement; nothing else to say.

Passion: This absolutely stands out for me as the defining characteristic of what makes great employee engagement. Passion is what I saw in all three organisations across the day but if you want one example of what passion inspires here goes…….

Walking out of one of the workshops with Ricoh an individual who works in the NHS turned around and said out loud, to everyone…… “I found that inspiring, I would like to come and work for Ricoh”. Not a bad impact after sitting there for an hour.

It was an incredibly useful session and I would like to say thanks very much to:

  • Stuart Laws – Ministry of Defence
  • Rob Bland & Chris Nicholls – Ricoh UK Products
  • Zufi Yousaf & Michael Davies – HSBC
  • Anthony Denatale – IdeasUK

I know that IdeasUK are planning to keep the momentum going by publishing a series of blogs about the day. This is part of the pledge I made during the day to help keep things alive through my own blog posts.

So, what’s the PONT?

  1. Longevity is a key feature of successful employee engagement which other organisations would benefit from thinking about.
  2. Evidence of success (and cash savings) is highly necessary if you want to convince the ‘just don’t get it’ crowd.
  3. Passion above all will inspire people to do great things.

Links:

http://blog.ideasuk.com/2012/07/06/i-pledge/

http://whatsthepont.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/employee-engagement-kaizen-passion-in-the-west-midlands-ricoh-telford-to-be-exact/

http://whatsthepont.wordpress.com/2012/03/10/ricoh-gemba-mat-the-best-of-ohno-circles-gemba-walks-and-employee-engagement/

http://whatsthepont.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/gemba-walks-kaizen-the-elvis-way-walk-a-mile-in-my-shoes/

http://whatsthepont.wordpress.com/2012/02/03/social-media-staff-ideas-better-engagement-a-bank-that-says-yes/

http://www.goodpracticewales.com/Resources/Employee-Engagement

Just to emphasise the point about longevity……

Fun at work is allowed……….employee engagement at Admiral

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A quick post on my day out at the Engage4Success  event hosted by Admiral Insurance in Cardiff.

One of the most significant things I heard about was the Admiral approach to employee engagement. They are a hugely successful company, based largely on having engaged employees. Have a look at the impressive history of the  best workplace awards Admiral have won, including 6th place in  The Sunday Times 2012 awards (officially the best place to work in Wales).  Interestingly the Sunday Times article talks about W L Gore who I’ve mentioned previously.

Back to Admiral.  I don’t think I could adequately do justice to them in a post, (I’m sure there are plenty of people who will have written far more eloquent papers) but here is what I picked up in short digestible bites. Their approach can be summarised in 4 words: Communication; Equality; Recognition and Fun.

Communication.  Everyone talks about ‘communication’ with employees, and lots of organisations do it badly, tokenistic and lacking authenticity. What I got from Admiral was the sense that they are completely committed to effective two way communication. I picked up on a phrase “no matter how much communication you think you are doing, do even more, and use as many channels as you can”.

Equality. This really impressed me.  There was a strong sense of everyone contributing together, no differentiation or a ‘them and us’ culture.  There was mention of only two people in the whole organisation having personal offices, no separate dining areas for executives and no privileged company car scheme.

Recognition.  People get recognised and rewarded for the good work they do. Simple! (obviously not “simples”, that would be very wrong).

Fun. Woah! This really is radical. The idea is that people can and should enjoy themselves at work and have some fun.  You may be aware of the Admiral Ministry of Fun.  This should be something people in other organisations sign up to.

Nothing more to say really, just a quote from the Admiral Website about their culture

“People who like what they do, do it better”

We firmly and wholeheartedly believe people who like what they do, do it better and as such we go out of our way to ensure coming to work in Admiral Group is enjoyable. We think happy staff will create happy customers, happy customers increase profits, and increased profits will make happy shareholders.

So what’s the PONT?

  1. Communication and recognition, things lots of organisations seek to enhance as part of employee recognition.  Good stuff part of the staple diet.
  2. Equality, something a bit trickier as it does affect those who think, “they deserve more, or better”. But special company cars are very divisive.
  3. Fun. Absolutely brilliant. We definitely need to make the job more enjoyable, “People who like what they do, do it better”

What’s eating the Trojan Mice?

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Cute, but potential mice killers.

Cute, but potential mice killers.

Last week I posted about setting free Trojan Mice and argued that when faced with complex situations we need to carry out multiple ‘safe to fail’ pilots (rather than large single option solutions) .  All very fine, but once you’ve set the Trojan Mice free, how do you give them the best chance of success? Learning from failure is all well and good, but a box full of deceased Trojan Mice isn’t going to help anyone. They need an environment where they can at least ‘run free’, and if they fail it’s due to them alone and not the ’environmental factors’ (organisational culture and behaviours) that get in the way.

To get the best out of safe to fail pilots you need to implement a number of them. The
more pilots you have running, the more likely you are to come up with many right answers – a bit like buying lots of raffle tickets.  In a complex adaptive system diversity and a range of options can only help you. Like Euan Semple says “Unleash Trojan Mice. Don’t do big things or spend loads of money. Set small, nimble things running and see where they head.”

I’d suggest that helping the Trojan Mice is all about creating this right environment. Working out the technology, corporate policy and procedures should be dealt with by the people running the safe to fail pilots. If they need to comply with rules or fill in some forms (or not), leave it up to them. It might be better that they beg forgiveness later rather than wait around for permission.

These are my views on the 7 most important things that will let the mice run free, and avoid them getting eaten:

  1. Accept Uncertainty. You cannot predict the future in complex situations.
  2. Believe.  Solutions will emerge from safe to fail pilots.
  3. Trust People. They have knowledge and will do their best.
  4. Give Protection. Give cover from organisation or factors that will cause harm.
  5. Tolerate Failure. Accept that not everything will work.
  6. Be Patient.  Just because things are pilots, they aren’t instant.
  7. Evaluate, Learn & Move On (All at once). Learn and scale up where successful and stop where not.

So, what’s the PONT?

  1. Trojan Mice / safe to fail pilots are vulnerable. They need some protection.
  2. Try to initiate as many pilots as reasonably possible.
  3. Leadership that creates the right environment is probably the most important factor in determining the success of the Trojan Mice. It stops them getting eaten by the metaphorical (organisational) cat.
Greebo (as cat) from Discworld. Avoid this bad boy!

Greebo (as cat) from Discworld. Avoid this bad boy!

Beware of this bad boy Greebo the Cat, he will eat Trojan Mice without a second thought (a bit like some organisational cultures). He needs a Nanny Ogg  to keep him under control.

Picture source: http://www.terrypratchett.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1372&sid=07edba36b93fff88ad830547924d7052