The BBC Business Doctor

Simple...NO!

2011-02-08T03:26:00.000-08:00

I’m writing this in the café of the Centre of Creative Leadership in Brussels so forgive the leaps. The tea is great and all the varying languages going on around me, it feels a little like the UN, it's so entertaining. As an aside, it is interesting that how, when you don’t recognise the words (my French is weak, okay pretty appalling if honest), you try to guess the conversation by body language and gestures of the actors. I’m sure this does not work however, otherwise when you are listening to native Chinese talk, you would assume a domestic fight has broken out, and whilst the Chinese are not unlike the West in marital disputes, not all of the time I’m sure.

Let's get to the point of my rant. I have been amused this and last week at the Sky and Sports commentators’ scandal and it amazes me that people are so shocked, well shocked for the wrong reasons. I’m also strangely disappointed as pro-feminist, that most people still don’t get it. Sport was ‘created’ to enhance masculine values. Values, which I won't go into in this post, that promote masculinity per se, but mirror the values in most organisations that are also created out of these masculine roles. Organisations are built by men, for men, for men to play their games in, is one quote from Rosebeth Moss-Kanter work in the 90's switch sticks out even into days, liberal, equality bound, ethical structures and policy.

Forming a 'lobby group' as one 'expert' suggested, to change the male attitude is extremely difficult given that their whole life has been about creating an image based on not being the ‘other’ i.e. feminine. There is no grey area to most men. Its masculine or the other. Most men fear the notion that they can be fluid in terms of masculinity and femininity, and not based in any fixed category.

This for me is the rub. If feminist’s, or for that matter people want to change society then focussing efforts on to sport is only a tiny part of that change and some would say a waste of effort if it fails to grasp the core root of the values of sport itself. What I mean here is we spend a fortune trying to treat the symptoms of something rather than it's multifaceted cause. It somewhat like a company providing private healthcare to employees who go absent sick, to reduce the sickness figures, rather than attempting to find out why they are on the sick in the first place and removing the cause! What I mean specifically is with all this sport, is that I spent one hour on a running machine yesterday in a gym, which is a feat in itself as running indoors is so boring. Nevertheless the whole hour was spent looking at the music channel on TV, and what can only be described by my generation as ‘soft-porn’ music videos, which depicted women as purely sexual objects, even when the artist was female. These sort of images portray women as sex objects, to be used and stared at AND if you ask any teenager its "cool"!

My point? Things are always a lot more complex than sacking two football pundits and hoping this will change the sexism in sport. Most simplistic ideas are counter-intuitive and fail really to achieve the answer, without causing other problems, hidden away in the system. Just think ASBO, and the now badge of honour having one is, to the disruptive youth. If we are really to achieve diversity, respect and equality (in the true sense) then we need to look deeper, and explore human solutions to human causes.

The Business Doctor: Be the Boss - Council Update

2011-01-21T05:07:00.000-08:00

The Business Doctor: Be the Boss - Council Update: "Just a quick update on life and progress. I am now a visiting Research Fellow at Plymouth, I just found out this week! How nice and it ..."

Be the Boss - Council Update

2011-01-21T05:06:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update on life and progress.

I am now a visiting Research Fellow at Plymouth, I just found out this week! How nice and it makes me proud and delighted to be part of a successful research team and University with a vision. I have other job offer changes but will let you know this at a later date.

However, as many who follow me on Twitter know, I did a re-visit to the Council Depot this week to catch up with the latest gossip, news, issues and tantrums. Wow…… what a difference!

The Council, Councilors (Labour mainly) are still acting like five year olds and fighting amongst themselves, the opposition and the Senior Officers anyone it seems to score points, failing to realize the good work that’s going on in the Borough and the impending doom for local authorities and lives at risk. Nothing changes there then, but the greatest change of all…. The Environmental Service Department, the focus of my programme last year.

They are leading by example, with great ethics and passion. The Binmen and Recycling Crews are at one! The work I did last year in removing ‘management’ theory and systems, has been truly taken on, and driven to new heights. I never doubted them, but I never thought it would have such dramatic results so quickly, and this is of course down to people like

Keri Jones (HR), Phil Edwards, Steve Price, Mike Wilcoks, Beth Jones, Justin Hodges (the man), Lisa, John, Matthew Stone, John Issacs, Steve Postlethewaite, to name but a few of the ‘democratic leaders’. The process hasn’t been smooth, but the results amazing. Why? Well its simple, give people the chance to change the system, trust them and allow them to do it their way and the results will always be beyond what you expect. Is it perfect, of course not, no system is perfect, but with this way of thinking we have 60 leaders now not just one as in the old system.

I also have to mention here Alan Reed, the ‘Director’ of Environmental Service, who was brave by volunteering his service, some 15 months ago. He stepped up to the mark, and never wavered in his commitment to change the service, relationship with his team and the public. I am hoping that he will never stop working for the Council and gain some reward and recognition for the tireless effort to support this programme.

The results:

The results at BGCBC (and I use BGCBC to represent the crews rather than the five year olds) are truly wonderful a year on. Not sure if you picked up the press this week, but BGCBC Recycling crews topped the league in Wales for the biggest improvement in recycling rates. From 19% when we first went in to 41% as measured in October, but I can't wait until the official Audit figures come out in May as we suspect they will be in the 50% region. It’s the biggest change in recycling rates WAG have seen. Also the waste to tip is down 140%.....stunning figures, all done by managementless crews/teams by implementing their ideas. Ideas such as Buster & Dean, who went around houses in the evening to ask people to recycle more of their food waste. Also Justin Hodges, who on the programme was, lets say not very happy with me and my ideas, driving the new bins delivery and fortnightly collection implemented seamlessly over the past year.

The binmen were also praised over Christmas being the best authority in the UK for maintaining collections in the snow. In two months of snow disruption the Binmen only missed one day, claimed NO overtime, and lost just one staff day in sickness. Unlike the more affluent, and flatter counties such as Oxford who were a whole month behind collections. I know some out there, will still say so what, but the saving made, the increases in service targets and WAG PI’s are all clear indications that the Environmental Services have it right.

More to follow…

The Business Doctor: A Year in Review

2010-12-31T05:18:00.000-08:00

The Business Doctor: A Year in Review: "The year is about to end and as always I like to do a personal reflection of what happened and if things have changed throughout the year..."

A Year in Review

2010-12-31T05:17:00.000-08:00

The year is about to end and as always I like to do a personal reflection of what happened and if things have changed throughout the year gone by. I suppose, like with reflections in history, I do this, so we don’t repeat the same mistakes…. As if! Even as I write, David Cameron is warning us that we have a difficult year ahead! As if we didn’t already know this….

The year 2010 started badly and I was certainly up to my knees in Rubbish and being filmed at every moment by the BBC. I’m joking here because this time last year I was working with the Refuse & Recycling Crews at BGCBC. It was a tough 5 months and even though the project continued well into the summer, it was without question, worth every minute of sacrifice. The crews are now running themselves and with a strange twist of fait I’m back working with them as after the Refuse project I moved onto after the Binmen, changed its product line to reuse scheme for the things we through away, and yep the Binmen were the best consultants in the business. Their advice and new mindset has been outstanding. So from one tough project of changing the Binmen minds, two new mindsets have resulted. Bonus!

It’s not been a totally great year though. Research from First Direct reveals almost 7m (28%) of workers have moved jobs in an attempt to find a better boss and improve their working environment which is a stark reminder to all those companies worried about loosing their talent. Forget the bonus schemes or free tea, get the leadership right and you will be a long way to being the best. So elusive is the perfect manager that more than 12% of workers have taken up a new career entirely in their search, while 5% have decided to leave the corporate world and set up a business by themselves. DNA Wales Research along with First Direct conformation clearly sees that when working under a manager doing traditional management, employees report a loss of motivation of on average 63% and productivity decreases by 30% best scenario and 90% worst, with one on average 29% of public sector workers and 22% of private taking "sickies" as an avoidance tactic to get away from managers nonsense (I added the nonsense bit in…).

The main key to all this year has been the frequent and heart breaking waste of talent in organisations. The key message here, as always is the utter failing of managers who are simply uninspiring.

The problem as I see it:

They think management is the way forward
They think they as managers they know best, and anyone who challenges them is trouble
They fail to be accountable, blaming others or the 'system' for their actions
They don’t trust the people they work with (even though they say they do!)
They think risk, means trouble and therefore has to be removed
They mistake fear with respect (Bullies tend to thrive on this)
They don’t understand that their intellect is not as good as the combined people that work with them
They forget that the people on the frontline add value, not cost, unlike most managers
They think any idea from the shop floor, cannot be any good, as they’ve not thought of it first
They also think problems have easy solutions

And this maybe just a welsh thing, but managers here seem to dislike anyone who may have a better solution, idea, profile or energy, which ‘shows them up’ (or they think so)

One final thing from the First Direct (FD) research was the startling similarity in their results and our concerning the failure of managers to inspire the people. 88% according to FD, 92% according to ours, claim their manager is well simply ‘not inspiring’. Yet as I have commented on and proved now, in over 25 companies, leaders are the energy, which drive the people. If your manager(s) are uninspiring the can you imagine the impact this has on your company/service.

We have spent the year, driving the message home to more companies, managers than I care to remember and I have felt this year that the resistance to my message has begun to diminish. People of all sectors are starting to realise that there is another way. Its not the darkside, or chaos, or indeed ‘tree-hugging’ bollox, as one person stated 6 years ago. Its real, human, messy, fun but above all sustainable, but only if you have the respect from the people within.

I have come across both professionally as an academic, working in company and personally some awful managers/people. I am constantly amazed how devious, corrupt (in the ethic sense) and morally devoid some people are, but here again it’s the company or organisation that allowed this dreadful behaviour to be encouraged/promoted in the organisation. I would like to say here that these people will soon disappear, but even if this wish were true and there was a ‘God’ like figure for companies, organisations who would smite the evil souls, the damage for a lot of people has already happened.

So my work, with organisations has still a strong pull. I won’t be working for Glamorgan University any longer, which is another story for my book, but the work goes on.

There will be a new Institute of Social Innovation, Creativity and Change (ISICC). Based in company and driven by organisations for bottom-line impact (and here I don’t mean just profits).

My work with Monwel, e-Vale Service, a Social Enterprise for disabled workers will continue, and this has been one of those life changing projects for me, one I will be eternally grateful for, even though at times I thought it would never happen.

So my friends, colleagues and partners; I’m now going out for my off-road run, which I now do for the scenery rather than any times, or to beat last years stopwatch, so Happy New Year! And a VERY big thank you for all those who questioned, listened, thought, considered, helped and was there for me at my deepest, darkest moments. Without friends and certain people, who I know, have no idea they do it, energise and support me, I would not have had the success gained over the past year.

Happy Chaos!

Institute of Social Innovation, Creativity and Change (ISICC)

2010-12-07T03:26:00.000-08:00

The Educational and Social Innovation part of Monwel Social Enterprise (MSE) in Ebbw Vale, which is informally known as 'my factory' will host the ISICC. This Institute to be launched in the new year will create a Non-Profit educational and training arm of MSE principles in Wales and beyond. It will offer training, education, advice and objective negotiation services for other organisations looking to create and establish a Social Enterprise, Democratic and Empowered workforce or department. I have in the past needed an organisation which would help

ISICC Passion - To improve and change the quality, criticality and impact of Leadership, Human engagement and 'Emergent Leadership' within the Context of all organisations.

ISICC will aid ‘all leaders’, Policy Makers and advisors within the organisation to understand that the behaviour of the people and how the Strategic Human Assets (SHA) impacts the design and direction of the whole organisation in a non-linear human perspective. The ISICC will change practice first, to create a body of connected bodies which is reactive and faster than traditional tools/methods normally seen in business management today.

ISICC will also influence the level, type, and direction of intervention by various representative forums and training programmes. It will compliment and extend the work of various leadership development initiatives by adding a new dimension to the sustainability of economic development.

Staffing – These will mainly comprise of external Consultants, Academics, Representative Bodies and Advisors. There will be internal administration support and a venue presence at MSE.

Ethos – Non Profit, CIC – All income will directly support the ISICC actions and income gained will be reinvested back into the MSE for distribution and reuse.

It is hoped that this Institute will be created by and driven from the passion of its members. It will however be about saying the things some cannot say due to funding or fear. It will be about action and not words, articles or anything other than changing the social world of organisations to truly empower and trust the workforce for the 21st Century.

Okay - The simple version

2010-12-02T14:08:00.000-08:00

Dear Public Sector Leaders,

I am writing confidentially again to express an interest to help save the Public Service (any public services, Police, Fire, Health at any level…just need to prove a point...).

As you may already know, I have recently completed two major in-'company' research and change projects in Public Services. We helped save large amounts of money, without a single job loss or move to Social Enterprise, Co-operative, CIC, Charity or any other ‘new’ form of organization.

· The process is not radical, or controversial but stops, simplistic reduction in staff numbers simply on financial principles.

· It does not make managers (people) redundant or anyone else for that matter. It simply stops them doing this thing call management and starts ‘Democratic Leadership’.

· Its an alternative to top-down change, with a little bottom-up mixed in, it becomes everyone's change.

· It does not encourage a ‘one-way’ of thinking, but a mix of theory/tools to suit your organization.

· Yes, it removes management power and control, but replaces it with much greater powers of influence, trust and respect through leadership from within

· There are no tricks, hidden fees, cons, or anything other than open, honest, transparent and democratic processes. Yep anyone can stop the process at any stage….its the organization that drives the process

· Its not chaos….. there are clear boundaries, movable to improve but never reducible, but it still deconstructs the service from the frontline up (or in my world down ;-).

· The new way of ‘doing’ is completely customer focused and built

· The change has no resistance. Its led by the people themselves, at their pace, with their way of thinking.

· Its sustainable. Why because the frontline providers drive the ‘new thinking’ and therefore once started, they continue to adapt, evolve and create new (always within boundaries) as the customer demands/constraints change

You would like to hear more, or require external references to check out this change initiative, please do not hesitate to contact me, IT WORKS!

The Greedy People....

2010-12-01T09:09:00.000-08:00

Will Hutton today published a report in a vain attempt to cap Public Sector Chief Executives pay in Public Services. He states that top executives should be kept below what is around 20 times that of their lowest paid staff. Hutton said the pay of the top 1% of earners in the UK was escalating disproportionately and “outstripping the rest. Well tell us something we don’t know! I have written about this not only with Public Sector Leaders, but also Private Sectors, including our Banks. Now Owners of private companies can earn what they want…that’s a different argument we’ll save for another time (but I have written and talked about this many times)

Hutton claims the “ratchet effect”, where the rise in top senior public-sector salaries was simply “to compete in the labour market for CEOs”. What utter nonsense. Its greed, plain and simple, and an abuse of power by a certain small group or network of people. It was only revealed a few months ago that the university VC’s, a small and very elite group, earn some of the highest in the public sector between £250k-£350k yet the cutback in this sector over the past few months has meant the loss of frontline teaching and research jobs and the cutback of classes & courses. Yet, no VC, or ProVC’s have lost their jobs that I am aware of….

“There should be a proportionate relationship between effort and pay,” states Hutton, of the Work Foundation, who earns a reported £200k salary, must now have joined the ‘other side’ as the book which sprang him to popularity called the ‘State we’re In’ demonstrated the massive injustice in pay and work in the UK in the 1980’s. Yet we are now seeing our MP’s, Senior Leaders and Public Servants doing the same as Hutton complained about in the 80’s.

The problem here; this is a “missed the point” report. The question should be ‘Why pay them this amount in the first place?’

There is no evidence that suggests placing a ‘super-star’ manager at the top of an organization helps the organization succeed. Why? Well the Public Sector is not Private Sector without the profit element. The meddling by ‘Management Theorists’ and the MBA world has done untold damage already to non-profit, service driven, people led organizations. Take Targets and PI’s for example, they are now starting to be removed in the more progressive organizations, simply because they have proved worthless in service delivery and indeed, some (me) would say that they have been detrimental. Why? because they have diverted resources away from frontline services and into this measurement mindset. Great if you like numbers, graphs, and stats, but bloody-hopeless if you need a housing repair or replacement hip!

Anyhow, back to my point…..sorry, I have a tendency to rant and wander!

We do not need to pay Bankers, Chief Executives or anyone else for that matter more than what the frontline staff agree with! If the frontline staff think, ‘you’ as the ‘Boss’ deserve £500k per year then who am I to disagree, however it should be up to them to decide as they are fully aware of your contribution to the cause. If all you have done is slow things down, create more bureaucracy and policies, which hinder frontline speed and services, then, expect a low payout…..simples!

Its a Friday

2010-11-26T09:55:00.000-08:00

Well I’m sitting in the only ‘business meeting’ hotel convenient to the M4, Valleys and Cardiff and it’s a strange world if I'm honest. Firstly I’m sitting here in casual dress, and jeans are definitely not the standard dress in this establishment. However, what’s strange is the conversations going on around me. Now I don’t normally eves-drop on peoples conversations, but some of these people are what my Grandfather would call ‘Characters’. That is they are loud and wanting to be the centre of conversation. I have one former student (seems to happen everywhere I go these days, and is a distinct sign of age) sitting opposite trying to sell something with great care and concentration and another by the side, desperately trying to convince the three quiet suits he’s their man…..why, he’s even written a book on the subject. Yet despite this, his loud tie, flamboyant arm gestures and of course obligatory book, not gaining much ground with his surrounding suits…..

I’ve never felt at home with the business world or indeed business discourse. It is as I grow more experienced (okay older) with running various organisations and tired of the traditional Business School teachings, (which for the most part of not moved on since the 1990’s), I grow more comfortable with this gap. This world ‘ant-just like that’ I was once told by a leading business academic Charles Handy. Which was a strange tone of voice for a very ‘well-to-do’ chap like Charles, but his point was clear, books, theory (which is someones experience made formal) are fine but they don’t help much in real world of business itself. And why should it…..its someone else's experience....simples!

I have often said that people are inherently messy, than getting a group of them together in one place for one cause is well, even more messy and yet Business Schools and society seems to expect the manager to manage this mess into order, neatness, uniformity and well structure. Its just not going to happen. The 21^st Century needs to understand that whilst we may all dress the same, we are not the same underneath. The great company understands this and celebrates individuality, mess and creativity which results. Great service doesn’t come from a company or organisation, it comes from a human at the point of contact with that customer.

Lets stop management, managing and all that silly stuff produced about people in organisations in our failing Schools and lets start ‘emergent leading’ or allowing the ‘mess-influence’ to start moving us into the sustainable world of great companies.

Leadership is about, passion, people, energy and love. Its not about, the appearance, the tie, the strategy or the ‘book’….they are all meaningless if you don’t love people, can handle the mess each day and have the energy to lift others to that happy place who are delivering your product, service or simply doing the back office stuff.

You have to love it, for it to work. I always say that the day you get paid for the thing you love you will stop working….

Dear Public Sector Leaders!

2010-11-19T07:31:00.000-08:00

Dear Public Sector Leaders,

I am writing confidentially to express an interest and volunteer to help with the current drive for efficiency within the Public Service (any public services, Police, Fire, Health...).

As you may already know, I have recently completed two major in-'company' research and change projects in Public Services. The most 'public' being the Environmental Services Department in Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council. My methodology has now worked on 26 companies, mainly UK based, but also from 17 countries around the world. These companies range from small to large, national to multi national, the largest being USA based with 48,000 staff. In short, the Human Architecture Intervention (HAI) has seen 26 sustainable interventions, ranging from saving companies from bankruptcy to recovering over £750k in a public services dept. The results would be seen in weeks, not months and is also driven from the customer (frontline) backup the system, ensuring all staff are adding value to service quality, cost and performance.

The process is not radical, or controversial but stops, simplistic reduction in staff or process or simply on financial savings at the expense of long-term sustainability. It offers a real alternative that limits damage to already stretched resources by working out with frontline staff where and more importantly how service cuts and improvements are made. It defines three phases of activity, Fluid-Diagnosis, Adaptive-Connectivity by frontline and seamless Emergent-Implementation.

HAI is a cyclical methodology that operates very clearly in unstructured and uncertain environments. It is intended for a team of inquirers such as us to examine the various perspectives of a situation, organisation (large) and produce appropriate system models (human based) to act as an intervention strategy for change (continuous and sustainable). It should be seen that normal models and methodology might become invalid when the situation that they are intending to represent is subject to environmental change. The HAI method is well proven to establishing core strategic directions incorporating change and environmental dynamics, without the normal harm seen by convention thinking in cost reductions.

HAI also provides a returning structure for inquiry to the core values that, for example the employee passion for customer/service user experience, so the principle of iteration to deal with uncertainty and human interaction, individuality and identity (change) is built into the process.

HAI operation lies more or less centrally within the hard-soft continuum, which should please 'both' schools of thought within the Senior People, Staff, Unions and above all customers. Indeed the approach was developed as a reaction to the difficulties associated with hard methods seen in simplistic reductions. I have also been doing this for several years. HAI is simple methodologies applicable to complex uncertain situations such as we are experiencing at the moment in Wales, UK and beyond. It is an architecture-approach that is designed to enable development of a set of intervention strategies (note the 'ies') for change, which is sustainable, and product/service led. This change is 'effective' first and then efficient.

I would seriously offer to help the Public Services through these changes, knowing the successes, which can be, achieved overnight, without loss of key skills, frontline people or long-term recovery lapse. I am more than willing to offer my services immediately and suspend all other projects. I would also be willing to provide an 'experiment' area to prove this methodology would/could work, in providing immediate savings, increases in quality and greater service provisions and satisfaction.

You would like to hear more, or require external references to check out this change initiative, please do not hesitate to contact me,

Regards
Dr Paul Thomas

A Week in Being Out

2010-11-19T06:52:00.000-08:00

Well it’s been a very busy few weeks indeed. A great trip to the USA, North Wales, London and yesterday Pembroke.

I have already commented on my trip to the USA and I am already receiving some great ideas, contacts with possibilities of working overseas. Lots to think about over the next few weeks.

However, positioned in between all this were the comments I made for the Week in Week Out programme shown on the BBC. Not all my interview was shown, so I'm told as I've not seen the programme. Firstly, I must add that, I have always been and still am an avid supporter of the University of Wales, indeed I have stated on numerous occasions it should be re-instated in its old form, with all the Universities positioned underneath one administration body, with one VC. The shambles we have at the moment with Universities, leadership and management is simply unsustainable in Wales. The answer is the University of Wales. However my comments were simply to say ‘stop’ the growth strategy and commercialisation. It’s so unhelpful.

I also feel that whilst the quality processes of the University of Wales are exactly the same as other Universities, the problems as seen with the Malaysian Pop-star is that the system adopted doesn’t hold when not in the host country or indeed a ‘University’ setting. So perhaps, the WAG should radically remove all the VC, PVC’s management layers and hand some of the power back to the UoW and reinvest the rest in creating more world-class education.

I’ve not seen the programme, nor read the comments from there on, but I am sure that if Business Schools do not alter what they offer in Universities such as Glamorgan then the future of our industries and communities will be at risk. The DTi in 2001 clearly stated that the only thing which students from business schools should be certain about when leaving, is the ‘irreducible core skill of thinking!’….. We are perhaps, over teaching simplistic models and techniques, crushing creativity and innovation but more importantly removing ‘Critical Thinkers’ both academics and students. We have mechanised teaching, with its measures, teaching schemes, assignments, grading and fear of being sued by students. Its time to change....or perhaps we have missed even this opportunity

Its NOW!

The Business Doctor: Absent....but not gone!

2010-11-07T08:20:00.001-08:00

The Business Doctor: Absent....but not gone!: " Oh dear, its been a long while since my last update. Not for one reason but a combination of unsavoury events coupled..."

Absent....but not gone!

2010-11-07T08:20:00.000-08:00

Oh dear, its been a long while since my last update. Not for one reason but a combination of unsavoury events coupled with pleasant proceedings.

Firstly, I left Glamorgan University on 8^th October, and despite 6 years of dedicated work commitment with only ever taking one week’s holiday in four years on the day I finish I get only a single email from the ‘establishment’….which said, “Your email account is now closed”….. that was it! Never mind, I have to say that since ending my role there, my friends and colleagues at the Business School have been in constant touch, seeking advice and information. Its good to help and be of use to people going through change.

Then my laptop completely broke! In May this year I ‘lost’ my Apple laptop, replaced it with another ‘nearly new’ identical model and the day I was intending to travel to London to teach, it had a complete, Hard Drive meltdown. Oh, yes and of course before you ask, I did not have the memory backed-up…..yep! Lost everything….including passwords, photos, files, PowerPoint’s…. I won’t say anymore at this stage for fear of crying in public.

However, having changed life-direction, and completely ‘let-go’ as a true Buddhist would expect, every aspect of past life I had a great venture to the USA. I met up at North-western University colleagues, then onto Florida and a meeting with a great academic from Mississippi University. The venue for the meeting was in Tampa, and wow what a warm place, and here I mean friendly not temperature. Then it was back to Chicago and onto Wisconsin University.

I have to say the people, staff and students at Wisconsin were truly magnificent. The faculty build, outstanding and the ideas of the staff I met, cutting edge, passionate, and I went away energised.

As a bonus, I also drove through Wales! Wales the village, not the country and met some lovely people. I called in on the Fire Chief and Village Hall and found myself feeling so proud of my home country and the Village of Wales, who had our dragon on every street sign.

Thank You Wales!

Okay, enough from me as this was just a quick email to say, normal blog will resume shortly

Paul

Death by a Thousand Cuts...

2010-10-05T13:49:00.000-07:00

Our government here in Wales is top-heavy and costly and our universities have been accused of being poorly led, with a huge waste of money going on administrative services and top salaries. The public sector wastes money and everyone it seems is about to pick on it. Anyone in the Public Sector will now be saying ‘nothing new there then’, but we in the Public Sector world have to realise that we have reached a watershed moment. For we have to accept that many public bodies here in Wales are simply "not fit for purpose". They are living in yesterday’s era, fighting yesterday’s battles, in terms of criminals and health issues and public needs, not today’s. Ask any police officer and they’ll tell you that what you see on The Bill is not what you get in real life. Nor is it Ashes to Ashes or Life on Mars, yet some police forces still manage as if they were still in the 1980s. I suppose there’s the rub. Most senior managers and politicians take their lead from the same era or worse still yesterdays when it comes to seeking out new ways to save money, deliver better resources and serve our communities and residents.
In 2009 we saw the sad management trait of making people redundant and this has continued into 2010. One company, Air New Zealand, announced it would “disestablish up to 100 long-haul cabin crew positions”. I am sure public servants will feel much better knowing they are going to be ‘disestablished’ rather than thrown on the scrap heap. This will ease the blow, even when they learn that some CEOs received great pay awards throughout 2009/10.

Recently our education minister Leighton Andrews, warning that he was about to be “blunt and candid”, brought home what I think most knew but were too frightened to say. Universities in Wales are, frankly, poorly led. Speaking at Cardiff University, he said he saw “too much institutional behaviour and not enough leadership”, and added that 52% of funding goes on support administration and managers’ salaries. In my world, I’ve seen that increase to 60% of costs, yet we now again see frontline jobs under threats of cuts, service closures and being indeed “disestablished” without any thought to the real costs and consequences. One vice chancellor shouted that her/his salary was not that large compared to industry. Indeed CEOs of large companies would think VCs’ salaries to be peanuts. Yet, when you think that universities are public sector, are small by comparison and carry less financial risk, their salaries seem rather large. Or am I alone in that thought? Whatever – that’s not really the point.
What’s actually needed is a real, radical overhaul of public services in Wales. They really could do more with less if they simply took a long, hard look at their set-up, their purpose and what they now do for us ‘the public’. For far too long we have known they are too big, over-burdened with administration and are a mess when it comes to structures, layers of hierarchy and 1950s styles of management thinking.
A little like in the NHS, we have seen the rise of a management and performance measurement ethos in most public services. We’re all familiar with tales of more and more targets, performance measures and indicators, which actually do very little to help the police officer, teacher, binman or woman, when they’re trying to battle the agile criminal, teach children or help reduce waste. We know, all of us, that what public services do now is spend too much of their time ticking boxes and completing forms and feeding the bureaucratic beast. None of it is to ensure the criminal is punished, bins collected or children taught with the correct resources, but rather to feed the ‘management’ animal in a bid to prove their worth.
But while we, the customers, might know what service we want our public services to provide, we can’t pretend we know how they should go about providing it or indeed continue to. We can’t be experts in all these areas. So who would be best placed to decide that? How about those on the frontline – the police officers, the refuse collectors, the teachers, the social workers, out there providing the service to the customers? How about those in power asking the frontline people how services should be providing the best possible service? But instead what we see – and it’s endemic in public services – is a lack of democracy and accountability for performance, and instead a culture of rules, procedures and control and top-down decision making. That disengages frontline staff to the point where they don’t even question their own methods and procedures. Surely what we need are enthusiastic, empowered staff, who are trusted to make decisions about what’s best for the customer, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach that officers, staff, teachers and so on are meant merely to follow.

I have heard claims of political independence are a "myth", and senior managers are already "highly politicised". Those dealing with the public services need to act as if their every decision is open to scrutiny, that every penny must be justified not by targets, but simply by how is it adding value to the customer. They should be subjected to the scrutiny of the public, but, even more so, to that of frontline staff.
It’s time to have a major, open and harsh investigation into the system of organising the public sector in Wales, and the way it’s managed and before cuts are made, what do we want from our Services, and more importantly what can we, should we be doing for ourselves. We cannot keep tinkering with an engine which burns fuel inefficiently, breaks down frequently, needs an army of mechanics (HR, Consultants) to keep patching up the problems and fails to start quickly when needs must.

Radical change needed? No. Costly consultants needed to help this change process? No. But can a liberating change in the mindset of ‘the public’, which releases savings whilst improving frontline service actually happen? Yes. Just take a visit to Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council’s Environmental Services Department, where the binmen, recycling crews and mechanics have all grouped together to make savings, increase quality and do things in a way that focuses on customers. How? They simply removed managers, replaced some of them with specially selected leaders and started to take ownership of the services they deliver. Who best to make the change? The people who deliver it. It’s simple and the consultants are already there….yes, the frontline staff.

The Time is HERE!

2010-10-03T08:11:00.000-07:00

I have for over 15 years, been telling organisations and Leaders, that Complexity will help understand the problems of today.

I have written to most Political Leaders, Blair, Cameron, Brown....who have never replied, not sure why? Yet, even with 26 companies now operating using the fundamental principles or architecture of Complexity we still fail to make inroads to the major issues, of crime, health, education.

Complex adaptive systems or CAS, is old in terms of theory and understanding. It explains nature, its unpredictability and or failure as humans to control it. When we think we understand one thing then something else comes along and upsets this certainty or fact. Indeed, many CAS thinkers state there is no such thing as fact, only truth. But we won't go down this philosophical argument, otherwise we'll be here for days.

I know research and talk about CES, nor CAS. Complex Evolving Systems or simply, humans! Human systems who unlike animals and plants, not only adapt (although a lot would say we've even stopped doing this) to the environment/circumstance we evolve. By this I mean we can alter, change the environment or circumstance. Air conditioning is one such simple example, allowing us to work in hot conditions.

However, one thing is for sure. The problems we have created in the 21st century and in particular in our organisations cannot be solved by current thinking. There are a number of impacts which the CES approach may potentially have for organisational leadership/structure in terms of adaptive, innovative and sustainable operations. The first and most obvious is the major implications for strategy, its suggestion of control, visions and mission statements, most of which are consistently ignored by organisations in daily operation. For Critical Leadership which underpins the CES, the fact that fully accurate prediction is impossible but still commonplace is of growing worry for business in Wales as everyone understands that the only certainty is the need for constant adaptation to consumer demands. We are still unable to predict the path of a simple raindrop moving downwards on a pane of glass, let-alone a human organisation. So why do we get so stressed in trying to do so?

So much of the dominant management literature focuses on the role of the ‘leader’ as an enabler of change and that most leaders believe that they can ‘make things happen’ which according to CES this is at best mistaken and at worst highly damaging for the organisation and the employees within.

The mechanical engineering metaphors still dominate most management discourse and whilst ‘organic’ approaches may have a higher feel-good factor, cut little ice with those charged with satisfying shareholders. The traditional view of the linear supply chain and ‘controlled employee’, while useful for academic analysis for example, is well recognised as being unrepresentative of the true operating environment of many organisations, who’s reality requires them to function effectively within a structure better described as a dynamic, random network built on relationships. The environment organisations operate in is therefore inherently multifarious and the most effective approach to managing such an organisation is to accept this dynamic impact and allow the agents themselves to evolve the next product, service or innovations. Rules, procedures, regulations etc. normally used by managers to control staff limit the organisations ability to evolve and remain ‘fit’ for the present day customer expectation.

We are now at that point in time, where the next revolution of thinking is taking place....

Ban The Boss - Update

2010-08-08T09:43:00.000-07:00

I want to comment on some resent comments and emails, in one hit. So here is one reply I made earlier.

This idea started 10 years ago for me, when at the LSE I met a guy called Ricardo Selmer. He owned a company of 4000 staff, made everything from ship pumps to Insurances, all without a single manager in sight (I will explain what I mean by manager & management in a moment). It was remarkable. No plans, strategies, KPI's or anything like that. He offered an alternative from the ‘machine’ idea of an organisation with people as cogs and not humans. He did it intuitively, not as a result of theory or with a management consultant, no pre-conception or ‘plan’ just a need to have a fun, happy place to work. Soon after meeting and learning about Ricardo I discovered and studied ‘Complexity Theory’ or Human Systems thinking, which in simple terms explores how we ‘operate’ as people, in our systems, life and how this particular organisation stayed together and worked.

I started BGCBC over two years ago when the CEO invited me in to talk to the Senior Management. They were looking to change the way Public Services operated, whilst maintaining services with ever decreasing finances. My theory, tried and tested in over 25 small, medium, large businesses, I thought could help achieve results, increase democracy, remove the ‘systems’ of nonsense such as KPI’s and release staff to do things their way.

This was NEVER about getting 'rid' of managers (people), only management (the thing they get paid to do). If you get frontline staff to realise that they know the job best, that they can change it to do things better, then the results are amazing. Despite the impression from the programme it took two months to gain trust from the staff, to get them to understand they can change the ‘system’ and deliver a better service to the people of Blaenau Gwent. After all, most if not all of the staff were from the Borough, and customers themselves.

There are now no 'managers' left in Environmental Services, only a few leaders, and they change according to experience, responsibility, project and needs of customers and councilors, voted in as and when needed by the staff themselves. The money saved by this experiment was/is being invested for the most part back into frontline services, decided by the staff themselves.

I would add here, that in all other organisations I have dealt with ‘managers’ or as I call them leaders receive less money than frontline staff, after all as one person stated at the beginning, managers do less, have more freedom and after my process less responsibility.

It’s also worth noting here that the Binmen and the Garage bosses were the product of the Council system. They have behaved and acted this way, I suppose, simply as that was what the system expected. They are the product of the way the organisation was socially constructed and structured. They were/are not naturally managers, they became managers because the organisation expected them to and indeed the staff wanted it. They saw only one way of organisation. I showed them that there is an alternative. This alternative, whilst similar to ‘co-operatives’ is not, as there are always elected ‘leaders’, and in my private companies profit is still a motive, albeit a tiny part.

I also have to add that as the ‘Expert’ in all this, I never got paid a penny. I did this to prove to everyone, Councilors, Unions, Academics, more than anyone that if you ask the staff, trust them and let them do it their way to please the public, it is more effective, less expensive (for the most part) and much more efficient. Organisations are about people; people are messy, subjective and individual. Leadership is about people, dealing with messy, understanding we don’t see it all ‘one-way’ and if we treat people with respect and difference we get a better place to live and work. Good leaders sell passion and trust others.

I would also note here that as an academic, I never once ‘taught’ the Binmen or Recycling Crews ‘Leadership or Management’ theory. As I think most of the problems of businesses and work today is the historical subjectification of managerialism and performativity that still ruins most organisations in the western world.

In short I moved the 250 staff beyond focusing on targets and measures of effectiveness, away from performance management and instead focus on values and boundaries that really matter for organisational sustainability, which is people focused, more so individually maintained. Values and boundaries that inspire innovativeness, creativity and support natural human-system. The starting point of all this is ‘managers’, ‘CEO’s’ and anyone who will block the removal of power from the top and disperse throughout the organisation.

The change is taking managers to this place called ‘leadership’ (but not in the conventional sense, but I still don’t know how to describe it’s fluid, emergent process). Leadership for me revolves around ‘individual values’, ideas, direction, and has more to do with inspiring and influencing people as to direction and values than with day-to-day implementation, which is best left to the experts – the frontline staff. The ‘democratic leaders’ in my thinking, are capable of influencing other people to do things without actually sitting on top of them with a checklist. But all this requires trust, openness, communication, risk and creativity, which are founded on the leaders being from within the social network of the organisation. Leaders in my companies are within and throughout the organisation and resultant democratic processes as inspiring confidence in others and ourselves and as a result, we become more relaxed, communicative and successful (whatever this means for the organization or department).

My dislike for ‘management’ is nothing personal bytheway. It is about how we think about what management and managers are, and about how we act and behave in our role as manager, it is not the person. Managers cause so much unhappiness in organisations through a focus on targets and measurement, control, organising others with an absence of critical thinking skills, and not people. This is in part due to the growing standardisation in MBA programs and the trend toward measurement, regulation and command in vain attempts to avoid uncertainty. There are exceptions, but these managers (leaders) are rare and usually eventually ‘conform’ to the world of mechanics, cogs, targets and measurement. This destroys the natural fabric of human creativity, innovativeness, trust, openness, ownership, inspiration and leadership. We are simply different, each one of us are individuals with our own ways of thinking and doing. I attempt to realise this in my work and the development of an organisational architecture that accepts direction is needed in the organisation without causing harm to the people within.

Then it’s about changing the mindset of the workforce. From one of subservience to ownership; from a blaming culture to one of responsibility; from the individual to the networked. For employees to take increased ownership and personal responsibility for moving the organisation forward, employees require support, respect, trust, open communication, and opportunities. They have to network and communicate far more than is currently realised. However with change, comes risk and uncertainty and the biggest challenge is the acceptance that uncertainty is a natural part of the process. For example, inspiring frontline staff to choose their staff uniforms, or arrange shift-patterns, or order equipment, gradually increasing responsibility. Naturally, self-organisation and self-leadership will start to unfold, as other questions will begin to be raised.

The successes are always different in each division, organization, department and these are always stated, as ‘successes’ by the frontline staff themselves, no manager states what s/he wants from the outset. I am not a ‘management consultant’. The job and finish for the binmen and now all the workers still remains. The idea of this is we buy talent and outcomes (note here not output) and not time. If we maintain the same ‘managerial ideals’ systems, thought processes, then yes the increasing burden on the ‘men would result in a decrease of the value in wages, but this doesn’t happen. Why? Well its quite simple in most organisations we throw out all of the systems, processes, rules, regulations (even Health & Safety) and rebuild them from the service/product back up the structure (or in my world down). The Binmen, get released from for example filling in 5 forms before they leave each morning to one simple checklist. You are correct in that senior managers were not replaced, one left and wasn’t replaced right at the beginning, but his salary was used to hire 4 full time letter wardens and the same with others, although I accept a little was used to pay the frontline staff more, but this was to equal out injustices in the pay scales.

Whilst there are on the face of things similarities in Post-Fordism approach, these are incidental and if I’m honest only used by me to allow me in to the next department/organization as it simply ‘talks their language i.e. Manageralism. The quest of my approach is freedom, fun, trust, happiness and fulfillment of the workers. Allowing the passion of people to come to the fore, result in post-fordism symptoms (increasing productivity) but again, in some it doesn’t, it’s not the purpose. The purpose is simply to show, if we don’t treat people like children in work, telling them what to do, when, how and then watch them like 5 years we get similar results (perhaps) but a dam better place to work.

I agree with your worry and concern that I may indeed be providing a ‘shot in the arm of capitalism’ and or doing the work of "lazy" Senior Managers, and that thought was never my intension and indeed frightens me with same level. All I would say that as an academic in a business school for the last 15 years, the only way to change the managerial discourse is to change organisations from within, then hopefully the theory will follow, and we have an upwards spiral of change, towards the working class interests.

I hope this helps, and thank you for taking time to respond. I appreciate the thoughtful debate.

Have YOUR Say.....

2010-08-05T06:14:00.000-07:00

So the Government has been given 100,000 ideas of ways to cut public spending.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10877282

And it says about two-thirds of them have come from public sector workers themselves. The BBC is reporting that Prime Minister David Cameron apparently favours those ideas which chime with his Big Society philosophy.

And they also report that public sector unions have described the Government’s Spending Challenge as an “outrage”, seeing it as getting workers to contribute to their own sacking.

I really cannot see what all the fuss is about. Surely every single one of us who works for a company (i.e. not for ourselves) moans on a fairly regular basis about what could be done better. Haven’t we all been caught declaring how much better the place would be if we/you/anyone else but the bosses were running it? All this without cutting jobs! We did it in Blaenau Gwent, in a small service, so I'm sure there are better ideas out there for doing the same, cutting costs, removing waste and saving vital jobs in the process.

So now’s our chance. If we’ve implementing a money-saving scheme, spread the word and see if others can follow suit. If we think we could save a bit of cash, if only the powers-that-be took off their blinkers and allowed us to do it, let’s speak up about it.

As for voting ourselves out of a job, the way I see it we’d all be much more secure if we starting implementing some efficiencies.

How can anyone really argue for the status quo? Of course the big question which remains to be answered is how many of these 100,000 ideas will we see in practice? How much of this will be taken on board? How will we know what ideas are taken are really from the democratic will of the 'can be bothered' bunch?

But in the name of democracy, let’s not knock them for asking.

Customer Service...big or small

2010-08-02T22:19:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

The Squirrel - Guest Blog

The customer is always…..dispensable.

The customer is always right. That’s the message I grew up with, coming from a retail family. It’s one I thought, in these straitened times, companies would be embracing with a new-found vigour, all competing for a share of a significantly smaller cake.

Well, it doesn’t seem to be happening. Not if my experience this week is anything to go by, anyway.

Having decided to treat myself to a (very self-indulgent) holiday learning to dance, I thought maybe my trainers weren’t really going to cut it in the clubs of Havana and set out to buy some proper, glamorous Latin ballroom shoes.

First stop was the internet, just to gauge the range available and the prices. Then I headed to my local dance shop, where they didn’t have my size in stock but were very helpful and said they’d order them. I wanted to support this local, independent store, so I duly placed my order, about six weeks ago or so. They promised to call me when they arrived.

After a month I thought I’d better check on the progress. No, they weren’t in yet, but maybe in a few days, I was told. A week later and still no call. I rang back. No, still out of stock with the supplier – we’ll call you next week. Still no call.

Last week I was starting to lose patience and went online and found another small, independent shop which sold online. I emailed them to check availability, telling them exactly which shoes I wanted, and that I needed them urgently. A week later, I’m still waiting for a response.

So on Tuesday, having again not received the promised call from shop number one, I called again. They might be able to get them next week, if they were in stock with the supplier, I was told. But the good news was they could get tap shoes from another supplier. Great! – except I don’t want tap shoes. Fat lot of good they’d be for salsa.

I cancelled my order and headed to Amazon. I placed my order at 5.30pm on Tuesday. My shoes arrived this morning – 36 hours later.

So, is the customer always right? And should we always assume that small – and local – is good, and big, corporate and global is bad? Whose business model is the most sustainable?

Ban the Boss - BBC1

2010-07-29T13:58:00.000-07:00

Just when managers thought it was safe to come back out......

Monday 2nd August 10.30pm BBC1

Tuesday 3rd August 1030pm BBC1

Ban the Boss at Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council. The Binmen, Recycling Crews and Mechanics taking over the lead!

Paul

Which One Are YOU!

2010-07-20T05:04:00.000-07:00

In most organisations, permission is required for employees to do things, particularly if this is outside of their daily routine. In most organisations there are limited options for employees to function and there are inflexible structures. Once you are for example in ‘Marketing’ you cannot escape, unless you move organisation! Policies, rules, and guidelines tend to 'control' staff. Indeed my Dean who is pushing this thing called ‘Social Innovation’, recently stated in an email that she was appointed as Dean knowing the School was a bureaucracy and therefore she had to ensure the procedures, policy and rules were followed. How then can we have ‘Social Innovation’ as a core theme in the Business School if this is not practiced by the ‘leader’ or at least challenge the bureaucracy above?

You see, in my organisations, people are treated and seen as individual who are, fluid and dynamic and who’s interest change over time. In my organisations, no permission is needed to do things, only responsibility to ensure the customers are satisfied within the core values/boundaries. The structures we are in, are changeable, emergent and fluid, with individuals who have unlimited options to do what ever it takes. The focus on boundaries the values become the guidance. Life becomes the main understanding of organisations, not the machine doctrine, which mirror clocks not nature.

We need to establish the simple yet difficult principle that we are buying talent not time. Everyone in the organisation needs to be a personnel manager, operational manager, finance manager, strategist, marketing manager…..and anything else needed at the point of contact with service users/needs of customers. This new 'manager-throughout' means everyone needs to talk, but above all, listen to ALL employees, staff, competitors, non-users etc. on a minute by minute, hour by hour basis. How else do we maintain a Competitive advantage in this fast changing 21st century, if not via change through the people who actually deliver the service/product.

However, this is not easy as anyone leading people will know. Many issues impact on the organization but the biggest is the one of trust. Without trust nothing else works in the organization. With trust we have creativity, risk taking throughout and within our values as boundaries and we have customer as well as intelligent satisfaction. With trust we create simple but effective flexible performance. By this, I mean the product or service is delivered to the customer’s independent individual satisfaction. The employees with trust count the decision makers not just the implementers for the system. Great companies understand this, live this through their actions and it pays dividends. Great companies don't strive for efficiency they strive to be effective (efficiency follows).

For lots of employees, work means a daily torture, within a boring, arduous, energy-sapping , eight hours of wasted life. Yet in my organisation work becomes interesting, fun, energising, creative, exciting, with life merging without any hours attached. If work is completed in six hours or a ten hours, no one cares, staff or leaders, as long as the customers are satisfied.

Impossible!!! You only have to ask the Recycling Teams at Blaenau Gwent Council, Environmental Services how its done. Why? Well as an example, some of the frontline crews, after a shift collecting waste are going out in the evening (when most people are home!) to ask if the homes they collect from, could recycle more to save the planet.

This is true ownership and empowerment in action….in a council…without job losses…making a saving in financial terms and still increasing a service to the public….. WELL DONE BGCBC!

Step Back & Emerge

2010-07-14T13:58:00.000-07:00

The use of complexity theory in leadership, management and organization is built around a fundamental architecture. This architecture is simplistic but built upon the foundations of human subjectivity, fluidity and dynamics.

The starting place to this foundation is emergence from the interaction of agents (people) who mutually affect each other and create a new world, thinking or understanding. This interaction is NOT controllable only influenced by those in the system (hence here is the problem of tools and theories implemented in organisations). The influence is certainly around, at this stage of my research about core human values. Trust, openness, honesty, fun, love, passion, commitment… I could go on, but people gel with other people of similar values and the spiral if positive values move up or indeed forward in organizational sustainability terms.

If the negative values such as distrust, lies, hate, fear, insecurities etc attract in an organization then the spiral is downward. You cannot control the spiral as attractions take place regardless of rules, regulations, value statements, etc. This is sometimes called the ‘shadow system’ or real systems. Hope you are still with me….its very rare I have an academic writing moment here in my blog….

My point here is that Leaders should attend to relationships characterised by mutuality or core values among people, among teams, and among departments, in order for novelty to emerge and for this novelty to be aligned with strong core human values. Unfortunately in these times of austerity, some ‘Managers’ are attempting to create their world, in which they are Queen/King so to control others and make their reign stronger. This is at best grossly mistaken for its actions not words or statements that dictate what’s emerges from social systems. As small changes lead to large effects. Removing Research at our a Business School for example stops, cutting edge thinking but also has consequences yet to be realized.

So with all my change processes and advice is that I always seek change through many small trials, led by the teams/people themselves, but with the core boundaries directing these systems forward. For Emergence and new behaviour in human systems is certain, but there is no certainty as to what it will be. Good leaders create the conditions for constructive emergence rather than trying to plan every strategic goal in detail. Try to step back and evolve solutions, do not design them. If you try to design them, you will miss the real system, as you will be worrying about details! Oh yes and one really important bit of experience, always seek diversity; of people, cultures, expertise, mindsets, personalities, gender, etc…. oh and then build in confidence to make mistakes, take ownership and have fun, so that when staff interact with others, the emergence of new is democratic, honest, transparent and real.

The problem with what I have experienced so far in many companies is that the control freak is rampant, the devious people group with other devious people and we have a downward spiral of negative, mediocre, untrustworthy individuals.

Hope as a leader you live the values, because if you do not, you in all probability won’t get away with it….. at some one the system will either end (dissipate – the people will all leave for example) or the system will remove the person causing the negative spiral.

However, whilst this sounds as if the system will eventually sort itself out as the agents (people) will evolve, the problem is that many agents with positive values suffer.

Its time to have democracy, open debate about awful leaders and have the ability as frontline staff to vote in as well as out the tyrants who infiltrate the organisations seeking power, money and status above the core values of human systems.

Have a Cup of Tea Instead...

2010-07-13T06:38:00.000-07:00

I just had to join in on a CMI conversation yesterday on Performance Appraisals and their use in companies. Well you can already guess that I do not favour them that much! Why? Well I have dealt with the consequences of "Appraisals' 'Performance Reviews' culture for over 20 years now, both in Public and Private organisations as an academic and change agent (sorry not sure what that means ‘change agent’, but trying to avoid the word Consultant). They are an un-mitigating disaster in organisations, both private and public sectors. Indeed, in my time at Glamorgan University I have avoided being appraised for the whole 6 years there…. Now that takes some doing!

They are like most academic theories, wonderful on paper and as a set of instructions, but hopeless in real life practice. Indeed, if the world was neat, ordered, uniform, and staff cogs in the machine world, with perfect information and objectivity; they would be perfect, just the answer to all the mess we have in our companies created by our employees, as detailed above.

Indeed, it was Demming in the 1980's who called Appraisals the 'number one disease in USA Companies' adding that they were the 'Sterile paper chase' causing untold damage to staff morale and performance. I would add here that in my view that is a bit extreme, but they (Performance Reviews) are rarely completed correctly and always have unintended consequences’. They are also a clear sign that managers are out of touch, relying on HR ‘systems’ to help and therefore not leading very effectively.

You also have to consider the costs directly associated to the collection and management of these reviews, add in at the same time the problem of truly understanding how, what, why, when etc. the employee carries out his/her function. Then throw into the mix this thing called ‘subjectivity’ in human interaction and we have a huge potential for ‘issues’.

I suppose it comes down to the problem that if you have to be forced into doing these appraisals as part of your management, then perhaps you are in the wrong job!? Management is about people! Getting the best out of people, creating value through individual employees and allowing people to achieve outcomes (not output!) their way, within core values. If you truly lead people, then formalizing reviews such as these become impossible and each person will be different or messy as I put it. Never fitting into the neat little box, we call employees.

Its also interesting to ask, just how many managers actually know (any more) what, how, why etc the jobs need to be done? We have an idea of course, more so if we live the ‘Performance Review’ on a daily basis (i.e. talk to staff, support and facilitate help) and not rely on a yearly formal meet and if we did that, we would not have time for the PR’s thing, as we would be too busy leading the company.

Is this a bit strong? Sorry of if it is, but I have seen so much nonsense in companies with Performance Reviews or PRP, or Appraisals being just one of the big ones…

I am sure Performance Reviews, Appraisals, will soon go the way of the ‘Targets’ culture in Policing….out!

If you are still not convinced then just ask one question at the Appraisal “Why should you be led by me?” …then sit back and breath in the reply, then go and have a cup of tea together....

Cheers Paul

Lets Rid the World of Managers

2010-07-09T08:53:00.000-07:00

I’ve had a great week this week, with some wonderful outcomes and I sometimes delight at being me. With a role that helps people achieve their potential, without any pre-conceptions or worries I am truly privileged . Indeed one definition read recently about leadership, stated that the good leader creates other leaders around them.

However, it’s Friday and feeling a little despair I worry over the future. I seem to deal with and experience some truly awful managers, management and actions in my day job, company visits and change programmes. Not all of course, and one exception this week one lovely Scots lady said that I had made a huge difference to a factory and more importantly to her in the work place. No more a greater compliment can a person like me receive. Indeed, comments like that are what energise my whole drive to change the world…. Well okay Managers, but the world is next.

However we must not forget there are more awful managers than good leaders.

A bad manager can take a good staff and destroy them. Causing the best employees to run and jump ship, and the remainder to lose all motivation and decay from the inside. We see this at Glamorgan Business School at the moment.

Just the notion that someone has been promoted to the position of Manager or Dean does NOT; mean that they are particularly intelligent, hard working, capable, thoughtful, astute, considerate, talented, open-minded, or worthy.

The problem I see in most organisations is that the person who is the most aggressive, socially inept, devious, expert manipulators and lacking morals gain promotion! …..and the very notion they have authority over you because they are expert in your field or well connected is again misguided. Look of course, you may be the exception from the rule if you are a leader reading this, but most are not! The bigger the organisation the more you will in one sense get-away with it and rise to the lofty heights of power. More so if it seems its an organisation in a “Public Sector” institution like, say a University. I think this is so, as a result of the confusion of roles and responsibilities. ‘Its not my job…its HR responsibility’ to sort out the problem managers, is something I hear quite often….

The sad truth is, that whilst most managers conform to the well-known living embodiment of the "Peter Principle" ... that is, they have been promoted to their level of incompetence. Most rise above this level and continue to do untold damage, simply those above are even worse than the one below. What’s worse is they may actually believe they are the manager because they are somehow superior, when in simple terms they are by any definition completely dysfunctional and suffer from some kind of learning disorder!

I suppose the lack of respect for some managers receive is a very serious problem that can make the life of the employees quite miserable. Indeed, research from various bodies tells us the damage these men and women deal out on a daily basis. We spend out a fortune on Counselling for employees, support for those victimised by these idiot managers and yet fail to do anything regarding the cause itself!! Do you think we have got it wrong? Or is it just me?

One thing I always bleat on about is democracy in the workplace. It has to be better than management…..well, it cannot be any worse surely!

Have a great weekend all you leaders....

More Social Innovation - Just When we Thought it Was Safe..

2010-07-04T13:45:00.000-07:00

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." I say this as I’ve just read an email by our illustrious ‘leader’ reminding me of the torcher, that the UN would love to investigate, as I am sure our human rights were suspended in our away-day. Okay, I know it was at a posh hotel, with posh coffee and a posh room, which I am confident cost in excess of £3000 (this is without the top 60 brains in the UK being costed in to this amount!) at a time of severe austerity. It was a day in which all the positive research; individual core beliefs and research agendas were to be suspended in order 'to do'... ‘Social Innovation’ in all our ‘products’…. I hate that word. Do Universities supply ‘products’….I’m sure they don’t and any self-respecting academic would never refer to their work as a production process, linear, simplistic and measurable! Its not, so I would suspect that the Vision of the Business School (I don’t believe that you can have a ‘corporate vision’…its more management speak, as if the organization is a single human-being) would allow for this and the fact it cannot be measured. Ahhhh nope…… they want an audit of the modules which have Social Innovation, and don’t, so those that don’t, can have the words ‘Social Innovation’ placed in at regular points.

Look my point is simple. Social Innovation is action, not just words, it’s a belief system not just ‘products’, it’s a way of life not just a form. You are ‘Social Innovation’ or you are not. Most academics are, but that does not impact of their stance or belief, their ontology and epistemology. Multiple discourses in education and life shape what we include in our life, what are we able to think, speak about and imagine. Our lives are embedded in educational systems, documentation and policies, which may stem from academic and research and literatures but would also include professional magazines and the experience and practices per se. This allows the complexity of the present indicated by talk within the social world to offer useful ways to attempt to understand for example leadership. Giddens (1994) has called "manufactured uncertainty" of the present where many of our contemporary problems are the result of previous human interventions including those based on scientific knowledge in their natural and social worlds. We know, indeed it was presented by two external speakers that ‘democracy’, freedom, trust, bottom-up leadership were the way forward and underpins ‘Social Innovation’, yet we get ‘commands’ to place into all modules irrespective of the ‘social’ values of each academic! It seems the mechanical engineering metaphors still dominate most management discourse (including ours), Education and thinking and whilst ‘organic’ approaches may have a higher feel-good factor, it fails to influence those charged with satisfying shareholders.

The traditional view of the linear supply chain and ‘controlled employee’, while useful for academic analysis for example, is well recognised as being unrepresentative of the true operating environment of many organisations, who’s reality requires them to function effectively within a structure better described as a dynamic, random network built on relationships. Rules, procedures and regulations used by managers to control staff limit the enterprises ability to evolve and achieve a level of fitness so that delivery of consumer requirements are achieved in spite of shorter lifecycles and higher customer expectations, which is why ‘Social Innovation’ exists as a subject in the 21^st Century.

The classical ways of teaching is in reality management in a different guise that imposes critical mass thresholds on people and many organisations are finding this unrepresentative of how they actually operate particularly with today’s educated peoples as stated by our second speaker at the posh away-day, and try to discover ways in which natural systems, themselves are the generators of influence and not control where there has to be a controller and a controlled.

Theories such as SWOT or Six-Sigma, so much ridiculed on the day claims behaviour is specified from the top down and suggests that through a process of reduction everything can become ‘knowable’ via linear causality with perhaps some exploration of the edges where the gloom is not quite impenetrable, but never moving to the ‘unknowable’ dark. It is here that the perception of the survival of the fittest is the route to success where progress is made through the influence of one person over another by means of the force that they use over them. From time to time someone manages and my Council, like the guest speakers to switch on a new light; a paradigm shift, and a new area of exploration is opened up and a new way of doing things occurs i.e. Social Innovation, or Human Systems Thinking. Until recently, the light by which science was working was only able to illuminate simple, linear systems where metaphors hide the detail, with logic and averages working to direct organisations toward their futures. Leadership will need to address this non-linear thinking in organisations and provide additional thinking to challenge the conventional thinking in Business, if we are to survive as a society if not academics.

Guest Rant...

2010-06-30T10:33:00.000-07:00

This is by The Squirrel...

I've never thought of myself as a tree-hugger. Never been the type. But since the local council slapped a Tree Preservation Order on the tree in my front garden, I must admit to feeling more than a little protective towards my sycamore. Possessive, even.

I've never really given it much thought before. I mean, it's just there. It was there when I moved in, it's pleasant enough, and apart from covering my car with sap every spring and autumn it's never done anything to make me wish it any harm.

But now the tree has taken on a whole new significance for me.

It seems the council has singled out my tree for special treatment because "so many others in the city are being chopped down". Well, I've never entertained any thoughts of chopping down my tree - not even for a second. And not for any eco-warrior, defender-of-the-natural-world reason - to be honest it provides a nice, handy barrier which blocks me quite neatly from my neighbours' view. So I wouldn't want to go chopping it down. It does need a bit of pruning now and then, when the branches get precariously close to the roof - but from now on I'm even going to have to apply for permission to do that.

But even though I'm a little bit put out, shall we say, about this nanny-state intervention on behalf of my tree, what really makes me cross is the thought of just how much it has cost to put said order in place. I found out about its existence through (irony of ironies) a huge wad of documents which landed on the doormat. It details all the trees in the neighbourhood which have been identified as needing protection. And it details the hoops the council is now going to have to jump through to get the order passed in perpetuity. And that's before I (a) object or (b) apply for permission to lop, crop or do whatever else I might want to do to the tree, thereby creating a whole load of extra work for our council staff. I wonder how many of them are employed to look after our trees? Even ones like mine, which I'm quite capable of looking after by myself, thanks. And I don't demand any payment for doing it.

I just want to be left in peace with my tree. And if we could just find a way to do that, I think we could save a bit of taxpayers' cash while we're at it.

Social Innovation - AKA Complexity

2010-06-28T14:29:00.000-07:00

It was Heraclitus who is credited with the saying that “it’s impossible to step into the same river twice” in he believed the universe is characterised by constant change. Well if he had been at ‘my’ Business School away-day today, he would have changed his mind instantly. Not only did we step into the same water, we swam about in it for seemly days on end! Parmenides denied the existence of time and took the opposite view that change is not possible. What exists now has always existed, and whilst I do not agree that in his rational approach to thinking change never happens, you only have to consider that I have according to the new Dean (okay she never said this directly) been doing ‘Social Innovation’, increasing Democracy, getting frontline workers empowered, oh er.. for about 10 years. So yep, spot on Parmenides! But you would never know if asking my School.

The message today, albeit a painful replay of the last 6 years, was that revolution is upon us and that ‘Management’ is dead…..

The ability to influence change as it emerges is the most important aspect in todays modern world. Most people now understand that you cannot implement change to ‘get what you want’ but rather the start the ‘chaotic’ period and attempt to influence via, strong, core values. Values here meaning real lived values, which are seen through the passion of peoples action – NOT words in a statement. Social Innovation is seeing change through people, via this influence but never control! Something I am afraid was missed from today’s discussion. Most it seems, feel more comfortable in attempting to hunker-down in known theory or space, whilst the world around shakes, moves and changes beyond most academics recognition as they are still concerned in being the ‘expert’ in their field, even though the field in now a lake, awash with a million twitters, blogs and changes taking it all to a new unknowing level!

Order comes with disorder. The butterfly Effect is we know just a myth in terms of its social impact, but still there is truth that change will happen. The Human System will ensure this happens. One small change in one sector means changes in others, sooner or later. Thinking of ourselves as separate in terms of politics, or class, or economic or cultural will only delay the inevitable. Change!

We were urged today by one speaker to light fires, in the metaphorical sense of course, as these fires will light the landscape. Yet we already have lots of camp fires, with lots of people gathered around, muttering all-sorts. The problem is that we cannot see or hear what the other campfires are doing. The influence is only in the near or we fail to walk off into the dark seeking new fires, new conversations, new ways of doing things! And if anything like the past 6 years is to go by in the Business School, to wander into another tribes camp will be instant demise.

I'm getting old - I know!

2010-06-23T13:34:00.000-07:00

In a recent survey, 68% of employee’s think that their managers speak jargon and “At the end of the day” they may very well be correct. For I find “Best practice” for most managers is to “Drill-down” and have loads of “Facetime” or indeed have “Space” to become “World-Class”. These managers most insist that the only way forward is “Joined up Thinking” to “Takeaway” mainly to “Close the Loop” or ensure that great things are “brought to the table” for real structural “Social Innovation”. Otherwise we must get the “Heads up” on “Directional Issues”. Failing all that we can simply “Performance Manage”……

Ok…enough-already I hear you scream!

But you get my point. We in the business world or is it business academe make up these words, jargon at a rate that would make Jenson Button head spin. No longer are we doing Strategy every semester or is term now(?), or Corporate Social Responsibility, or Sustainability we are now onto Social Innovation….. look I had no idea what the fuss was with Strategy, so I’m completely lost with Social Innovation!!!

Its okay though as my Business School is having an away-day in a posh hotel, hopefully with a posh lunch, and the copious posh coffee, which is vital for “Blue sky thinking”, oops sorry, couldn’t help myself. So I should after several hours be completely ‘into’ our new 'modern', strategic intent.

So what do the above mean…

At the end of the day – look we are all fed-up so just get on with it and stop answering back

Drill Down – you haven’t thought through this, have you?

Facetime – I know talking to the plebs is rough, but that’s what you get paid for… talk to staff now and find out what colour t-shirts they want

Space – okay, I’ve really had enough of you now, please leave

Best Practice – well this has to be better than worse practice

Takeaway – mmmmm food….mmmmm (thats just me, I know!)

Close the Loop – You still haven’t thought through this, have you?

Social Innovation – I’ll complete this when I’m Social next week at the Posh Hotel..

Heads up – Look out, some real shite is coming our way, and if you’re not looking you can’t blame the staff…

Directional issues – Strategy! What strategy…. The blue file… thought the blue file was our Best Practice file, dam that’s an issue!

Performance Manage – you failed to think it though after repeated warnings and so now I’m going to have to draw out a list….

If you can do better, brain-dump… I’m all ears, ready to think outside the box, so crack-on

A Lovely Day!

2010-06-15T13:53:00.000-07:00

I started today by visiting my most recent project 'Monwel Signs & Services' Factory in Ebbw Vale, Wales, UK. It is a sheltered employment organisation, which has been struggling for reasons best left until later. However, the staff there, are simply brilliant... well most of the 30-odd staff are, some are just what you would expect after 30 years of being treated like, well, children.

However, this is not my story today! After my normal early morning visit to this factory, I had to visit my Dentist. Again not the main reason why I'm writing this short blog. Nevertheless, instead of being there, waiting hours as you do in Dentists, a few minutes I was out, scaled, polished and booked in for another visit, as they know I will simple go out, drink coffee, eat chocolate and generally stain my teeth all over again. I’m such a scary guy. Therefore, given this short period 2 hours of freedom in my schedule, I go and visit some of my old staff.

Not many people know, but my first real ‘Managers’ job was in Aberfan Sports & Community Centre in 1988! Yep had the job when I was just 9 years old….well okay may be a little older, but it's my blog and I’m not telling. People from the UK and are over 30 will know the terrible tragedy of Aberfan in 1966. It was one of the first major ‘corporation’ disasters in Wales for sure. The then National Coal Board (NCB) mined the coal out of the valleys and the communities around grew as a result. The problem was that from the coal came waste products ‘slag and coal dust. This was just dumped around the areas and simply turned the green valleys and hills black, and large to say the least from the ‘slag-tips’. To cut a long story short, in Aberfan & Merthyr Vale, it rained heavily and coupled with the fact that the slag tip was dumped over a natural stream, on the morning of October 21 1966, the slag tip turned into a thick sludge and poured down onto the School and Streets below killing 144 people, of which 116 were children.

This event was, without question heart breaking, and if you visit Aberfan, the feeling of this loss and knowing a whole generation was wiped out, and a parents left to moan the incredible hurt that only comes from out living a son or daughter still hangs in the air.

So as you can imagine going to manage a facility which was built for the children left, and in memory of the children lost was firstly an honor, but extremely scary as a 21 year old…dam gave my age away.

This still is not my point. My point here is that in 1988 as a ‘boy’ I was placed in charge of staff a lot older, wiser and with special connection to the place they worked. I also had to deal with the ‘Trustees’ of the facilities. Each with their own ‘difficult’ memory and loss on that day in 1966. One such gentleman is Bryn Carpetenter. He is a gentleman, and that’s whom I met whilst I was surprising my ‘super-woman’, former Receptionist June Foulkes today. Bryn, around 87 years old now, recogised me, after June had told him who I was, well I have put on weight. I had a feeling of pride, knowing that in my time at Aberfan I had supported his dream of the centre, respected their wishes, and above all, never allowed business, rules, Council Policies to get in the way of their/his desires for the centre as manager. I came away, sad at not being there in Aberfan, but with a strange sense, that I had got something right in my life, something small I know, but I had ‘touched’ others and left a good impression, even after all these years.

I also have to say that I have never come across a worker of such honesty, pride, passion and human empathy as June. Even today, she calls me Mr Thomas, and at the time, all those years ago I kept turning around to look for my father, only to realize she was addressing me.

I wish I could have studied her in my research, captured her essence as a person, employee and Receptionist bottled it and I know now I could have made a fortune changing others.

I have led a really luck life, and its people that make it special

Its been a Good Year... I Think!

2010-06-05T11:48:00.000-07:00

Its that time of year when I begin looking back at my achievements, and despite the lack of support, constant battles with ‘bureaucrats’, half-wits, and Managers ;-), its been a pretty good year.

Three major organisations changed successfully, and are now sustainable without ‘management’ damaging the democracy and passion of the frontline service producers.

I have witnessed productivity improvements of 300% in one, savings in the region of £400k in another; sickness decreases by 10% and above all happy people going to work. This is not to say the saving of one manufacturer from disappearing. So all in all a good academic year!

So why do I feel sad! Is it that not all this change, whilst proved is happening quickly enough? Is that despite working 14 hour days (not that I’m complaining) my organization fails to understand what I do or what I stand for? Alternatively, is it that I am just ‘bloody fed up’ and that’s life?

I do know that in 2009, we saw the sad management trait of making people redundant and this has continued into 2010. However, one company Air New Zealand, announced it would “disestablish up to 100 long-haul cabin crew positions”, awww that’s so much better I’m sure for the poor old cabin crew than being made redundant, especially when their managers, CEO everywhere received even great pay awards throughout 2009/10, most greater than third world debt!

I’m not bitter, honest, but quite recently our new ‘Blunt’ Minister Leighton Andrews, brought home what I think I knew but was too frightened to say. Universities in Wales are, well, poorly led…. There I’ve said it….and what a surprise I am still alive, not struck down in a bolt of lightening…well not yet anyhow.

Speaking at Cardiff University, he saw “too much institutional behaviour and not enough leadership”, note here he never mentioned the word ‘Management’…but he goes on to say that 52% of funding goes on support administration and ‘managers’ salary. In my world, I’ve seen that increase to 60% of costs, and yet Lecturers, Researchers and Research Units are being Indeed “disestablished” without any thought to the real costs and consequences. Yet, one VC shouted that her/his salary was not that large compared to industry. Indeed CEO’s of large companies would think VC’s salaries to be peanuts. Yet, when you think that Universities are public sector, small by comparison and with less financial risk, their salaries seem rather large, or is that just me! However, this is not the point. “There are times when there is a need to dig deep and find another gear – while never losing sight of the bigger picture.” This three-way mixed management metaphor so confuses me, I’m saying it here to avoid saying anything just incase…

I have also been at hundreds of speaker events, business networks and after dinner talks all for the glory of my wonderfully led Business School and I met one person who placed on her business card: “Life Coach, Storyteller, Experience Architect, Thought Creator.” Just 2 years ago she would not have been able to get away with this, even as a Consultant, yet something tells me she will be busy in 2011 and retired rich in 2012! Oh dear perhaps that’s it, my values just don’t get me noticed, or rich!! Nope, I don’t think this is it…..

I do know one most irritating thing this year is this growing sign-off’s on e-mails with, “Hope that helps”, to HTH, a nasty little abbreviation, and “bw” for Best Wishes, against which “rgds” starts to look merciful. Yes it that’s it, the text world seeping into our academic and business standards, well that could partly be it…LOL! Or lmao….

Finally the elephant in the room for me, (In newspapers and journals alone, last year 3,700 elephants were reported as being in rooms) as an academic pushing the envelope, getting people to think outside the box and thought shower is can I survive being disestablished. Simply because 60% of my job should be management and administration, not putting academia firmly into helping the economy?

Here's to another year as a 'Life Coaching, Storytelling, Thought Creator'.......lol ;-)

So How - Part 1

2010-03-30T09:32:00.000-07:00

A lot are asking ‘why’ and how it all starts!

It all starts with YOU, and changing how we(you) think about how we work and how we view management. We need to move beyond focussing on targets and measures of effectiveness, move away from performance management and instead focus on values and boundaries that really matter for organisational sustainability which is people focused, more so individually maintained. Values and boundaries that inspire innovativeness, creativity and support natural human-system. We need to change our thinking and then our behaviour will change.

The starting point of all this is ‘managers’, ‘CEO’s’ and anyone who will block the removal of power from the top and disperse throughout the organisation.

The change is taking managers to this place called leadership (but not in the conventional sense). Leadership for me revolves around ‘individual values’, ideas, direction, and has more to do with inspiring and influencing people as to direction and values than with day-to-day implementation, which is best left to the experts – the frontline staff. The ‘democratic leaders’ in my theory, are capable of influencing other people to do things without actually sitting on top of them with a checklist. But all this requires trust, openness, risk and creativity, which are founded on the leaders being from within the social network of the organisation. Leaders in my companies are within and throughout the organisation and resultant democratic processes as inspiring confidence in others and ourselves and as a result, we become more relaxed, communicative and successful.

My dislike for ‘management’ is nothing personal bytheway. It is about how we think about what management and managers are, and about how we act and behave in our role as manager. Managers cause so much unhappiness in organisations through a focus on targets and measurement, control, organising others with an absence of critical thinking skills, and not people. This is in part due to the growing standardisation in MBA programs and the trend toward measurement, regulation and command in vain attempts to avoid uncertainty. There are exceptions, but these managers(leaders) are rare and usually eventually ‘conform’ to the world of mechanics, cogs, targets and measurement. This destroys the natural fabric of human creativity, innovativeness, trust, openness, ownership, inspiration and leadership. We are simply different, each one of us are individuals with our own ways of thinking and doing. I attempt to realise this in my work and the development of an organisational architecture that accepts direction is needed in the organisation without causing harm to the people within.

We start with CEO’s and senior management. To change the organisation we need to start at the very top and inspire the view that there is a better way to ‘manage’ for all of us. To inspire democratic leadership and to empower a workforce, you need management to be 100% involved and champions of change as the biggest impact will be on them, otherwise it could result in sabotage of change, resulting in further worker frustration. So management first for sure.

WARNING - If the architecture of Complexity is introduced without full understanding and support, it will result in confusion, frustration and chaos. It is about starting with small changes. For example, inspiring frontline staff to choose their staff uniforms, or arrange shift-patterns, or order equipment, gradually increasing responsibility. Naturally, self-organisation and self-management will start to unfold as other questions will begin to be raised. Questions such as, ‘why can’t they see the income and expenditure sheets’? However, this will also lead to questions about the value of management, ‘what do you add to their role as managers’!

Once set upon this path, it cannot be undone. To do so will cause increased frustration (normally seen in organisations as absenteeism or rule breaking). So it requires long-term commitment and trust of those within the organisation.

Update...

2010-03-20T12:06:00.000-07:00

After an incredible week of hundreds of emails asking for more and saying well done, I just wanted to update everyone and answer some of the points missed in the programme. I hope this helps.....

This idea started 10 years ago for me, when at the LSE I met a guy called Ricardo Semlar. He owned a company of 4000 staff, made everything from ship pumps to Social Services, all without a single manager in sight. It was remarkable. No plans, strategies, KPI's or anything like that, other than "15% profit, number one in the market, and best quality"..... oh and letting the employee free rein to do it their way!

He offered an alternative from the ‘machine’ idea of an organisation with people as cogs and not humans. He did it intuitively, not as a result of theory or as a management consultant. Soon after this I discovered Complexity Theory or Human Systems thinking, which in simple terms explains how we ‘operate’ as people, in our systems, life and how this particular organisation stayed together and worked.

So why Public Sector? I started BGCBC over two years ago when the CEO Robbie Morrison invited me in to talk to the Senior Management. They were looking to change the way Public Services operated, whilst improving performance with ever decreasing finances. My theory, tried and tested in business, we thought could do the trick and it did, with amazing results.

I started with all the Senior Managers, then as an experiment to prove it can be done, Alan Reed volunteered his department, Environmental Services, for the change and this started last October with BBC One in pursuit.

There are now no 'managers' left in Environmental Services, only a few leaders, and they change according to experience, responsibility, project and needs of customers and councillors. The money saved by this experiment was/is being invested for the most part back into frontline services. This, is after all, is the main purpose of the whole programme.

You also have to remember that the Binmen and the Garage bosses, were the product of the BGCBC system. They have behaved and acted this way, I suppose, simply as that was what the system expected. They are the product of the way the organisation was structured. They were/are not naturally managers, they became managers because the organisation expected them to and indeed the staff wanted it. They saw only one way of organisation. I showed them that there is an alternative.

The Binmen have now come on-board and after five months they are now ‘self-managing’, looking to improve services their way and helping to achieve a huge recycling target.

I also have to add that as the ‘Expert’ in all this, I never got paid a penny. I did this to prove to everyone, Councillors, Unions, Academics, more than anyone that if you ask the staff, trust them and let them do it their way to please the public, it is more effective, less expensive and much more efficient.

Organisations are about people. Leadership is about people. Good leaders sell passion and trust others.

Thank you everyone who has responded. Its great to have others thinking the same way...

Paul

Its Not Just me!

2010-03-20T11:31:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the comments I've received over the past few days following my 'Ban the Boss' programme on BBC One.

“My wife and I watched the programme on iplayer tonight and were so impressed with what you're doing. It was so inspiring to watch.”

“Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed "Ban the Boss" on Wednesday evening. I've thought for a longtime that some Managers are not needed. I work at a Hospital and was wondering if you've ever reorganised an NHS Trust?”

“Brilliant program, at one stage it looked as if the public sector was a  step too far, however you had the tenacity (and the BBC camera crew) to stay with it.”

“Congratulations on a great effort.”

“Having just seen your programme this evening I wanted to congratulate you on an excellent piece of work. Having an interest in business myself … it raised some important points. I especially enjoyed the format of the programme in which you provided commentary to the work which you were undertaking.” 

“Well done again and definitely an hours TV worth spent viewing!”

"Having just watched your programme on BBC1 Wales I can only say how impressed I was….I wish you lots of luck with your campaign to rid the world of managers"

If managers and traditional academics think this liberation is going away.......

'BAN THE BOSS'

2010-03-10T14:01:00.000-08:00

BAN THE BOSS

Wednesday, March 17, BBC One Wales, 9pm

Like local authorities across the UK, Blaenau Gwent Council is under pressure to save money but improve services. As with other institutions, some practices have been set in stone with things done the same way over many years, just because it's the way it's always been.

Doctor Paul Thomas, from the University of Glamorgan, thinks it’s time for a revolution in management thinking - in short, he wants to remove managers and allow workers to take that responsibility for themselves.

And in Ban The Boss (Wednesday, March 17, BBC One Wales) he gets the chance to put his theories into practice in the public sector as Council bosses sign up for what could be a sobering period of change for both workers and managers.

Paul’s mission is to get the refuse workers, and the recycling and transport teams, to buy in to his vision - to see them making decisions themselves. In a bid to prove to them they can do it he removes the managers for a period of time, handing responsibility for the day job over to those on the front line.

The transport workers are the keenest to change, and embrace the idea with enthusiasm, while the recyclers, although lagging a little behind, start to see the benefits when they realise they can spread their recycling message into schools and among the public.

But the binmen are adamant they are not there to sort out management’s problems, and look set not to budge.

Will Paul’s methods convince the workers at large that taking on the task of running themselves can reap rewards in the long run?

And what becomes of the managers, who have been out of the office and fearful that chaos will ensue, when the workers are allowed to vote on whether or not they want to see their former bosses back in charge?

Student Inquires.....Assignment Help

2010-02-28T08:09:00.000-08:00

I assume that someone in UWIC or Cardiff has set an assignment on SEMCO and is, it seems comparing this to my work in various organisations as I have had several student enquires pouring into my inbox.

However, my work is nothing to do with SEMCO, as it is based in Complexity, Complex Evolving Systems and Chaos Theory. SEMCO and indeed Ricardo Semlar the founder of this wonderful organisation based in Brazil, and who now has operations in over 16 countries, is a unique organisation, with only similar principles and some core values to what I am attempting to do here in the UK.

However, let me answer in more depth, to help those assignments. Management practices of this century have been and still are greatly influenced by Taylor's concept of 'scientific management'. Taylor's theories can be traced to the paradigm of Newtonian mechanics. Yet ALL organisations are non-linear and organic. It is simply the assumption by managerialist perspectives, and teachings that it should be something else, which traditionally is 'industrialist', mechanistic and 'clockwork'.

As you will see with my work, the Newtonian perspective, or current teachings could not be further from the reality of human systems. People are messy and a number of authors have stated that organisations are simply a collection of messes! Not cogs or parts in a machine. Systems can be understood by basic physical laws that describe a deterministic world in objective ways. The natural state of the system is equilibrium; disturbances to equilibrium are controlled via negative feedback. The complexity paradigm uses systemic inquiry to build fuzzy, multivalent, multilevel and multi-disciplinary representations of reality. This is where SEMCO is not BGCBC or any other company involved by my methods.

Current HR practices for example can be summed up by the mechanistic, simplistic, and rational perspective. This is nonsense compared to current thinking even in Science. And this is the core issue of my work, vis traditional thinking. Business thought has been greatly influenced by reductionism. These concepts and practices, all steeped in the Newtonian paradigm, came about in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which was good for its time: division of labor, the idea of task, interchangeability of parts, standard procedures, quality control, cost accounting, time and motion study, and organisational charts (George 1968).

As systems theory or complexity has been applied across the disciplines, a number of "theoretical fields" have developed consistent with the complexity paradigm. Here specifically with HR and what the HR lecturer is informing you, simplistically and incorrectly that there are just traditional v SEMCO, as there are several, along a continuum and multi-dimensional with two bodies of theory as an example - nonlinear dynamical systems (or "chaos theory"), and complex adaptive systems being just two to develop the relationships and change in my organisations yet I draw upon several as each case develops.

Chaos theory as an example has developed along two dimensions. Experimentalists found ways to discover deep and complex patterns in seemingly random, or "chaotic" systems. Prigogine and Stengers (1984), among others, use chaos to describe how order can arise from complexity through the process of self-organization.

Here is a summary of some of just a few of the main points from chaos theory:

(a) observed randomness may not be randomness after all,
(b) even simple deterministic systems can have limited predictability (HR rules example), and
(c) a system can move from equilibrium to chaos not only through structural changes but also parameter changes.

Here you will see that with BGCBC and even within BGCBC there cannot be replication of any practice or process to achieve a given end. There is no such thing as 'Best Practice' as often stated, only 'past practice' based on highly subjective, newtonian thinking. What I offer via Complexity is an Architecture to see/understand the world in which we live. It does not allow you to predict only provide a limited, and accepted understanding of the limitations of 'knowing' in a human systems world. To predict the outcomes of companies would simply place me back into the Newtonian, Mechanistic perspective!

BGCBC, is of course there to provide a service. However, when you adopt a Human, Individualist, Post-Structuralist perspective you move away from efficiency (as with pay scales etc.) to effectiveness (mess and individual systems). As with the Pay and rewards, once you provide the frontline staff with the budgets, salaries of all, bosses, admin, HR, etc. to get them to rationalise the contributions they make from the work up, not 'HR' or Management down. In simple terms it means treating people like Adults not Children! We are all adults if allowed to be, even Binmen or Admin staff. The result when you do this is breathtaking, spectacular and challenging to those who only think there is one way to achieve 'work'.

Regarding the success of BGCBC, well the documentary is out in March and as a post structuralist, Complexity Thinker I will let you be the judge of this, but it is already revolutionising Management here in the UK and the world. Lets hope that University Lecturers who study books and fail to connect with real world practice, catch on soon or some students will I am sure be asking for their fees back quite quickly after venturing back into the real world.

Lets hope this helps..... I hate email at the best of times!

Carwyn Jones talks change

2010-02-25T09:28:00.000-08:00

I was encouraged today reading about First Minister for Wales, Carwyn Jones, on the eve of the first Welsh Public Services Summit, talk about the drastic need for change across public services.

He talks about the pressure across public services in the 21st century, the NHS, fire, police. education etc created by increased costs, decreased public funds available and an aging population. In my eyes, the amount of waste and excess across the public sector should be seen as an epidemic, compounded by often unnecessary reporting and assessment procedures. But the government, local and national seems to be allowing some degree of recognition of this unsatisfactory state of affairs, to start filtering through.

Last week we heard David Cameron talk about the importance of the frontline workers and this week Carwyn Jones said: “change will only work if it engages and empowers the workforce – often it is the front-line staff who know where the solutions lie, and they have to be involved from the outset.”

Hallelujah, I say! It echoes the work I’ve been doing across public and private organisations for years, and have been banging on about for even longer! At Blaenau Gwent, a large county council, with many challenges, they’ve embraced the need for change and we’re making significant progress. Like many workforces there are some brilliant human beings, who if allowed to flourish and shine can have a massive impact on the future health of the business and the profit! Let’s hope the Summit comes away with some valid, efficient and fast action plans!

Cameron's Pledge is already real in Blaenau Gwent

2010-02-18T08:21:00.000-08:00

I have to have my say on David Cameron’s pledge to give public sector workers the chance to form co-operatives and take on the running of services themselves.

The Conservative leader wants this to embrace primary school teachers and nurses, for example, allowing them to make decisions. A brilliant idea indeed. But these decisions would be within certain national standards…and there’s the catch. You can’t hand over power but then tell them what to do with it. If you hand over power to the frontline then that has to mean they get to decide what is a high standard. It has to be like this, because everything is context specific. You can’t – or shouldn’t - generalise.

Mr Cameron thinks this policy would "unleash a new culture of public sector enterprise". Not so new in fact – this is exactly what I am already doing in Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council. The authority’s environmental services department has been turning itself upside down, quite literally, since last autumn. Recycling, the binmen, highways, stores and transport - all are undergoing a radical change which has seen the frontline staff allowed to take control. And this is in an ‘Independent Party’ authority and with full consent from the chief executive and corporate leaders.

In his speech, Mr Cameron said employee-owned co-operatives would be able to decide on management structures, "innovate" to cut costs and improve the standard of service. They’d also get to share any financial surpluses among the staff. Admirable stuff, but there’s another problem. When I start work with any organisation I’m faced with removing 19^th century management practices. Getting managers to unlearn the past, treat people like adults, not children, and start to behave as they’d like to rather than as they’re conditioned to is a difficult process.

Nor am I sure where the surplus of money talked about would come from. Public services I come across are generally in – or in danger of being in - huge deficit. And anyway, at the risk of generalising too far, people don’t go into public services for the money. In fact, at Blaenau Gwent Council I’m working with the staff to re-invest “surplus” money back into frontline services.

The problem is not with co-ownership itself, which can and does empower frontline workers to achieve a high level of customer service. The problem is whether managers can give up their power, status and money as a result of the shift.

Mr Cameron also described how there are millions of demoralised public sector workers who feel disrespected, and lack recognition. Isn’t that incredibly obvious? It’s a result of being management-driven machines given targets and performance measures and treated, quite frankly, like children. Then today Durham University released evidence that flexible working creates happy staff and happy staff equals better performance… another exceedingly-obvious claim, but at least one now supported with ‘evidence’. I have been saying this for about ten years, and I see the results in practice time and time again.

I know that frontline workers in a democratic, management-free zone can boost productivity and staff morale and reduce absenteeism. Even in a short period we saw a 2% reduction in sickness. Savings also ranged from the £100 removal of a fixed cost to nearly £500,000 in the reduction of ‘management’ cost/overheads to a service.

These ideas are no "gimmick". Even though the frontline staff at the Council have only been immersed in this for a few months the authority overall has been working hard at this transformation for more than two years now. It’s no quick fix – but nor is it a passing fad.

You’ll be able to see how the frontline staff have risen to the challenge in a BBC documentary to be shown in the next few weeks. Watch this space for more details…

Let the frontline respond!

2010-02-18T08:06:00.000-08:00

“The Government could save billions of pounds by scrapping a flagship programme to assess and publicise the performance of local services”, a think-tank report stated recently.

The Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA), launched last year, brings together reports from six inspectorates to provide an overview of local services on the ‘Oneplace’ website.

The think-tank's chief executive, James Morris, said: "Local authorities are more accountable to central government than to their residents. Without doubt this has been a contributing factor in the disengagement of local people. The new system we propose can turn this underwhelming system of performance and assessment on its head."

This is welcome news indeed, recognition of the accountability that’s been forced on local government when the only true accountability should be to the taxpayer, i.e. the customer.

My recent work with Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council (much more on this coming soon!) is focussed on working with the frontline workers, from the binmen to the receptionists, to the team that maintain council vehicles in fact everyone who provides direct services to the public. Time and time again I’m amazed, impressed and encouraged by the ability of these people to devise and deliver the best, most efficient and relevant processes/services within their remit. They are the people doing the job and therefore have the most knowledge when it comes to understanding what works best, simple really!

A long process of assessment and response at a distant level from central government cannot have the insight and impact that the frontline people can have. The assessment of public services should, I believe, be completely in the hands of the customers and the response to complaints or inefficiencies should be dealt with by the service providers.

DNA Wales at St Josephs Catholic Junior School, UK

2010-02-15T13:25:00.000-08:00

In September 2009 the Head Teacher at St. Joseph’s Junior School, Mr Michael Daley, asked four pupils to embark upon a small business venture that would lead to an enhancement to the school environment. The four pupils were all in Year 6, the final year before moving to Comprehensive School, with their age range between 10 years and 11 years of age. All four children were the elected Year 6 members of the newly formed School Council and in Mr Daley’s words, “They were the perfect choice to embark upon such a new and innovative school project.”

Philip Crocker, School Parent and DNA Wales Adviser was invited to provide business advice and support to the fledgling school project. Soon the four children Danny Dobson, Kathryn O’Leary, Kiara Parker & Caitlin Thomas organised themselves into a formal team, with a flat structure, operating as equal Senior Partners in the project. They named themselves “DKKC Project @ St. Joseph’s”.

It was decided the project would consist of asking school pupils to design 4 panels, each one depicting a colourful interpretation of the four Seasons. The results were overwhelming and a total of 130 pieces of Art were passed to Mr Davies to be incorporated into the final products.

DKKC set about developing their idea into a business with objectives, timescales and a framework for achieving their Aims. Having completed this phase of the project they then developed their ideas into a formal compelling business case. The project would be based around the notion that they could develop the indoor panels which could then be expanded in years to come with outdoor panels, ensuring the project would not be a one-off. The business case was comprehensive and very impressive.

On Tuesday 9^th February, a Special Assembly was held at the school led by Mr Michael Daley. Present were the Senior Partners of the DKKC Project, Special Guest Dr Paul Thomas (DNA Wales Founder), Mr John Davies (Bright Ideas Ltd), and Mr Philip Crocker (DNA Wales Adviser).

During the Assembly much praise was given to the efforts of the four children and to all parties involved in the project. Dr Paul Thomas addressed the Assembly and spoke about the virtues of teamwork.

Much has been learned and achieved via this project but one of the most important rewards of all, must be the true and lasting friendships made.

Many thanks to Dr Paul Thomas (The Business Doctor); Mr John Davies, the DKKC Project and of course all of the pupils!

Philip Crocker

Can/should business schools survive?

2010-01-15T05:37:00.000-08:00

In his 22 years in business, Professor Bones recently commented, “At their best, business schools are critical friends who hold up the mirror, they provide thoughtful, talented people who do the right thing not just for themselves and their organisations but also for the wider communities in which these organisations exist,” he says. “Too often however, perhaps in the face of the economic pressures we all face, they act as cheerleaders for organisations who represent poor business practice and the people they produce are self-centred, egotistic and over-confident in their own abilities.”

At the heart of all good business schools is the MBA. Now I do not believe or indeed claim that the UK or US MBA model with a common set of foundational elements is at the centre of the global crisis in business, but I do think it’s dam close to it.

The needs of MBA students and global business leaders are all quite different, and the skills necessary for success are subject to evolution, organic change, passion and human messiness. A criticism I constantly aim at all business schools, has been their inability to change from teaching 'stuff' which is at best outdated, and at worse downright wrong for the 21st century, rooted in an undifferentiated, outdated core curriculum, delivered in a staid, stiff academic style separate from the real world.

That being said, yes there is a need for a foundation in business skills, such as profit/loss accounting etc. However at the core of all educational programmes should be ‘critical thinking’ ...and I would argue that in addition to this, we need to emphasize creativity, agility, and, above all, context to show how most of the systems are based in serendipity not strategy.

It used to be that most MBA students would be in their late thirties, experienced and in employment. The MBA program should focus on fusing the art, thinking, and technology of businesses full of human ‘mess’, who can think systemically, rather than functionally, and who are adept at just one thing... leading people...

The problem is today that most business schools or MBA’s, as its quality product, do not help industry or key members to sustain their organisations. To be honest, I would question whether an MBA is even seen as the pinnacle of management education in the US let alone the UK.

I’m sure programmes such as the Harvard MBA hold greater kudos, but clearly in the US the MBA is the established management qualification, unlike in Europe, where there are undergraduate and masters programmes as well as MBAs and executive education. But all this is simply ‘image’ and PR spin. The elite schools don’t necessarily offer elite education, and indeed I have seen a number of small programmes from supposedly ‘lesser’ institutions provide immense educational value to its students.

Over the past couple of years, and even more so the past few months, I have seen the manufacturing arm of the economy not on its knees but now flat on its belly, crippled and begging for mercy. We now need risk-takers and risk-accepters, not planners, analysts or structure creators or tool heads.

An MBA education should be an experience, a way of unique thinking, that changes the way one addresses problems and develops solutions. It’s an experience that teaches a person about themselves more than anything else. Indeed good business schools don’t build character, they reveal character. A leadership character which allows each individual to use their way to communicate values, how to gain consensus, how to give and accept constructive criticism, how to appreciate and support various talents and enable those talents to shine, how to understand one’s own limitations and encourage democracy at every threat, turn and success.

This learning is difficult if not impossible to “teach” in individual technical courses. Properly educated MBAs should deal with all of life’s issues in a more complete way. So indeed, should the business school itself. Times are changing... business schools need to alter their ways now, or they will be doomed.

What's wrong with work?

2010-01-13T01:37:00.000-08:00

Especially now when things are tough, leaders, elected into their positions by frontline staff, should be trying to create a sense of momentum, enthusing people who feel less than positive after Christmas. With the CMI reporting recently that over 8 million people had sleepless nights thinking about the return to work. I still keep asking myself - ‘What’s wrong with work’?

Okay, most of us might rather be on a sunny beach somewhere, but when you really consider that ideal, many of us also actually enjoy work, and the beach would become a little tedious after a while.....wouldn’t it? It might sound sad to some but work defines us, provides us with a sense of worth and purpose and indeed we like it for the most part.

What matters for me, far more than the niceties of traditional HR practice/theory, methods of appraisal, coaching tools etc., is simply being open, passionate, caring, listening to others goals and generally helping progress, regardless of how slow it might be to begin with. These are surely amongst the most important activities for Leaders when times are tough, so that we all work together for a common, shared goal.

We should embrace the mentality of the Joker in the last Batman film where he says, “You will never beat me, as I don’t follow the rules..... you have to follow them as you created them”.... this is Chaos theory in its simplest form. “If you can’t beat em, don’t join ’em, change the rules of the game”.

We must for example bring to the surface some of the needlessly confidential information in our organisations, which, if more widely known, would actually allow people to do their jobs better. Budgets, salaries, payments etc. Greater frontline control over systems and procedures, increased transparency and meritocracy could all emerge and do good rather than harm. Even as old staid organisations and outdated senior management teams begin to feel the pain of operating in yesterdays ways and structures, times are changing.

I suppose most of the problems begin with what these outdated managers think. Ask them what they think makes employees passionate about work, and they’ll tell you in no uncertain terms. In a recent survey of more than 600 managers, from dozens of companies, to rank the impact on employee motivation and emotions of five workplace factors commonly considered significant - recognition, incentives, interpersonal support, support for making progress, and clear goals. “Recognition for good work (either public or private)” came out at number one” (FT 2009).

Unfortunately, those managers are wrong. Having just completed seven years of in-company, frontline research and change we now know what the top motivator of performance is— it’s freedom. This was apparent in all organisations, for the workers just wanted the freedom to get on with things and the power to make a difference, their way. As a Leader, you should regard this as very good news, for the key to success is quite simple and in your control. It doesn’t depend on elaborate incentive systems, top rate procedures or rules written in gold font. Just stop managing and let go!

But remember; New ideas, it is said, are first ignored and then ridiculed before finally becoming conventional wisdom. But why bother going through those first two stages with ideas that have merit? Get ahead of the pack. Start the new year with some fresh thinking. Just stop Leading, listen and focus on people .... simple!

Bankers getting to know the customers - revolutionary!!!

2010-01-06T01:23:00.000-08:00

I saw a report yesterday morning on high street banks and how they're going back to rewarding current and loyal customers by giving them better interest rates, mortgage and insurance deals etc. A good example is the Halifax and the £5 per month campaign for current account holders. The rationale behind some of the benefits offered to existing customers is that if the bank has access to your current account activity they can better assess what you can and can't afford in terms of mortgages and loans. Is it just me or was this how we used to do banking business years ago????
The report also mentioned Bank Managers are now making a concerted effort to get to know their customers individually and to better understand each persons circumstances. Again....didn't this make sense years ago???!!! It seems crazy that it has taken decades of technological advances, investment and understanding for businesses to see that what ultimately matters most is the customer and what they actually need and what works for them (for banks surely that means long-term more than short-term customer needs being met).

Perhaps the internet and indeed the social media revolution has finally made us understand each other again! Everyone complained that new barriers were being built when we all started emailing and texting instead of talking. Is it only now though that we are actually listening to each other again, and not just online,? With the explosion of citizen journalism we're actually appreciating the importance of talking and engaging with people and trying to create something that people actually want.

This new era of understanding translates directly to the workplace. We're now better educated and connected than ever before and if we don't like something (and sometimes someone) we can shout about it to a listening audience. This is the same for employees, people in general want to have a say, have input and to be a part of what is supplied to the customer. And do you know what? This actually works better for business. We have to treat people and indeed staff with the respect they deserve and also to expect them to respond in an educated, intelligent and responsible (and this is key) manner.
At the end of the day we all want to feel like we're doing business with people, and we all want ultimately to feel loved!

Half tidy feedback from the 2009 ISRM Conference!

2010-01-04T02:16:00.000-08:00

In my travels, trials and presentations during 2009 I was invited to be a guest speaker at the annual Institute of Sport and Recreation Management Conference in November. An organisation and indeed an industry very close to my heart, as I previously worked in sports and leisure management, am a self-confessed fitness freak and passionately believe in the importance of sport in our culture, at every level.
A two day event, the line-up of speakers was varied, the venue was inviting, Alton Towers! And the hunger amongst the attendees was for a wide range of topics and hard-hitting advice. There was also, dare I say it a lot of 'networking' going on! An overused and abused term these days, we used to call it talking, and we used to have conversations that didn't always need a goal or objective or outcome in mind! Anyway...... I am sure real conversations happened.....but I digress
Following a packed and eventful 2009, where I was asked to speak, appear and/or facilitate at large corporations, organisations and events, from the NHS to a small family run department store, from Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council, to an ailing knicker factory, it was pleasing to receive open praise from the attendees at my last public appearance of the year.
Thank you to the ISRM Conference for staging such a successful event, and thanks to the attendees who said such nice things!....... I couldn't resist including a couple below....I'm only human!...

"The conference’s best speaker (Paul Thomas)..... Thomas gave an engaging, refreshing, inspirational talk – galvanising the mind and the audience"

"Could have listened to Paul Thomas all morning."

"Dr Paul Thomas was an excellent speaker who was also very entertaining! His topic and ideas gave food for thought and made the individual think about their own methods of management."

Some videos and posts on the 'Mad Management Virus' will be appearing here very very soon!