Death by a Thousand Cuts...

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!

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

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.....

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

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

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!

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

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...

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

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....