I wanted to say to someone "I'll discuss the economics of this later". I hesitated because most of the 'economics' of the matter was in improving public relations, networking, and self-development. There was a good deal of value being discussed, but largely intangible. To frame the topic as a discussion about economics would send us down the unhelpful path of treating the deal as accountants not businessmen.
So I changed the phrase to "I'll discuss the social economics of this later."
Is this tidbit worth sharing? I'm not sure. But it seems an easy turn of phrase to build into our existing business language. Imagine you are making a business case for new HR software. If you say, "And now let's talk about the social economics..." or have a part of the written business case titled "Social Economics", then it firmly puts intangibles right in the discussion on par with accounting.
In these discussions make sure you keep all the usual accounting stuff, but have it in the context of all the intangible value being created.
dimanche 6 juillet 2008
dimanche 29 juin 2008
Un Transformational Leadership
I once assisted Nancy Nazer on an article about untranformational leadership. It included, or at least implied, the rather obvious observation that transformational leadership programs were a rather unlikely thing. What is the chance that you are going to take a manager, put them through a one or two day program, and have them come out transformed?
Nancy went on to talk about the design of a saner, longer term approach to leadership development, but I want to go in a different direction here. I wonder why the rather strange notion of transformational leadership would develop at all. I used to attribute it solely to the demands of marketing—someone offering transformation would have a better chance of selling their program than someone promising that their course might lead to modest improvements. However, on reading Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age I notice something new.
Unlike the established Catholic orders of Europe where one would simply be born into the church and the church would universally be the bedrock of society, there is, particularly in the United States, a Protestant approach which encourages transformation. The sinner, quite possibly a man spending too much time at the tavern gambling with his buddies, would find salvation through a transformational experience and become a sober family man and disciplined citizen. This can happen because they really do want to change and because there really are two reasonably distinct modes of life.
Thus, transformational leadership courses may find some of their acceptance because a society has already bought into this idea of transformation. It would be interesting to see whether established Catholic or Buddhist countries would be as eager to embrace transformational leadership courses as Americans are.
People generally hate it when you take what to them is a simple idea, “Please take my leadership course”, and embed it in a historical-social context. But if one ever wondered why a certain business practice seems normal one place and absurd another then it is precisely in these historical-social factors that you find the answers.
On a more practical level if, as a business person, you find the idea of transformational leadership appealing you need to ask whether that appeal comes from a sober judgement of the effectiveness of this sort of program or from a more general attraction to the idea of transformation.
Most of business thinking is focused on straightforward facts immediately at hand but one can’t help but hope that thinking grounded in the great sweep of history would at least on occasion provide robust insights otherwise unavailable.
Nancy went on to talk about the design of a saner, longer term approach to leadership development, but I want to go in a different direction here. I wonder why the rather strange notion of transformational leadership would develop at all. I used to attribute it solely to the demands of marketing—someone offering transformation would have a better chance of selling their program than someone promising that their course might lead to modest improvements. However, on reading Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age I notice something new.
Unlike the established Catholic orders of Europe where one would simply be born into the church and the church would universally be the bedrock of society, there is, particularly in the United States, a Protestant approach which encourages transformation. The sinner, quite possibly a man spending too much time at the tavern gambling with his buddies, would find salvation through a transformational experience and become a sober family man and disciplined citizen. This can happen because they really do want to change and because there really are two reasonably distinct modes of life.
Thus, transformational leadership courses may find some of their acceptance because a society has already bought into this idea of transformation. It would be interesting to see whether established Catholic or Buddhist countries would be as eager to embrace transformational leadership courses as Americans are.
People generally hate it when you take what to them is a simple idea, “Please take my leadership course”, and embed it in a historical-social context. But if one ever wondered why a certain business practice seems normal one place and absurd another then it is precisely in these historical-social factors that you find the answers.
On a more practical level if, as a business person, you find the idea of transformational leadership appealing you need to ask whether that appeal comes from a sober judgement of the effectiveness of this sort of program or from a more general attraction to the idea of transformation.
Most of business thinking is focused on straightforward facts immediately at hand but one can’t help but hope that thinking grounded in the great sweep of history would at least on occasion provide robust insights otherwise unavailable.
mercredi 21 mai 2008
Pilots cleverly avoiding training (spot the villain)
This very short posting by David Gurteen is a must read. It describes how pilots cleverly avoid some compulsory e-learning.
The trick for HR is to find the villain.
Is it:
a) lazy pilots who are undermining the company
b) people who design/implement poor e-learning
c) trainers who don't check what learners think of the training
d) management who force trainers to implement training programs that look good on paper without really caring if they accomplish anything.
I'm going to take the generous assumption that everyone is trying to do their best.
So I assume the pilots are right, the training is pointless.
The trainers did their best but didn't have the budget or mandate to do better training needs analysis or training design or follow up to check if it is really working.
Management is under pressure to make the numbers/look good and simply shrug this off as one of those things that they don't have time to fix.
What is the solution?
It is easy to think of specific solutions -- in this case it may just be canceling the training.
One can also think of more general solutions -- insist on proper evaluation of the effectiveness of training (even a 'happy sheet' in this case would have revealed the problem...certainly a few phone calls to the pilots would have).
However, what most interests me are the general forces that lead employees to do the wrong things. One can imagine that if the trainers came back and said "Hey we found out the training isn't working" that no one would have said "Good job!" All the way up the org the discovery would have been perceived as a headache.
Strangely I think they may need a less performance driven culture if they want higher performance. Trainers need to be confident saying "We didn't achieve the objective for that program, let's try something else." HR needs to know jobs or bonuses or budgets are not going to be lost because they are being honest.
The only way to get there is to have time for managers to discuss these sorts of issues to get at root causes. This is not a one off event. Managers need to be meeting quite regularly to discuss what goes right around here, what goes wrong, how are our systems working against us, how can we avoid being stupid? This is how you build an effective culture.
Taking time to invest in maintaining an effective culture is out of sync with the heavy short term performance orientation we see in many companies. But if you want high performance you have to focus a little less on performance and a little more on the overall conditions that lead people to behave in smart honest ways.
The trick for HR is to find the villain.
Is it:
a) lazy pilots who are undermining the company
b) people who design/implement poor e-learning
c) trainers who don't check what learners think of the training
d) management who force trainers to implement training programs that look good on paper without really caring if they accomplish anything.
I'm going to take the generous assumption that everyone is trying to do their best.
So I assume the pilots are right, the training is pointless.
The trainers did their best but didn't have the budget or mandate to do better training needs analysis or training design or follow up to check if it is really working.
Management is under pressure to make the numbers/look good and simply shrug this off as one of those things that they don't have time to fix.
What is the solution?
It is easy to think of specific solutions -- in this case it may just be canceling the training.
One can also think of more general solutions -- insist on proper evaluation of the effectiveness of training (even a 'happy sheet' in this case would have revealed the problem...certainly a few phone calls to the pilots would have).
However, what most interests me are the general forces that lead employees to do the wrong things. One can imagine that if the trainers came back and said "Hey we found out the training isn't working" that no one would have said "Good job!" All the way up the org the discovery would have been perceived as a headache.
Strangely I think they may need a less performance driven culture if they want higher performance. Trainers need to be confident saying "We didn't achieve the objective for that program, let's try something else." HR needs to know jobs or bonuses or budgets are not going to be lost because they are being honest.
The only way to get there is to have time for managers to discuss these sorts of issues to get at root causes. This is not a one off event. Managers need to be meeting quite regularly to discuss what goes right around here, what goes wrong, how are our systems working against us, how can we avoid being stupid? This is how you build an effective culture.
Taking time to invest in maintaining an effective culture is out of sync with the heavy short term performance orientation we see in many companies. But if you want high performance you have to focus a little less on performance and a little more on the overall conditions that lead people to behave in smart honest ways.
vendredi 4 avril 2008
Confident Managers
Imagine the question is "Where is the stapler?"
Someone says "It might be on John's desk"
Someone else says "It is in the coffee room, I'm positive."
Who do you believe?
This works fine for staplers but confident managers are one of the most dangerous seductions of the business world.
When it comes to business strategy or tactics no well-informed person ever feels "I'm positive." They know there are many uncertainties. We ought to reach the common understanding that great confidence is a red flag.
There are many subtleties to this. You want your coach saying "I know you guys can win" even when the evidence is clearly against that prediction. However, the notion of a red flag remains valid. If someone is confident they know the truth on complex matters, you should begin to doubt them.
Doug passes on the quote:
Someone says "It might be on John's desk"
Someone else says "It is in the coffee room, I'm positive."
Who do you believe?
This works fine for staplers but confident managers are one of the most dangerous seductions of the business world.
When it comes to business strategy or tactics no well-informed person ever feels "I'm positive." They know there are many uncertainties. We ought to reach the common understanding that great confidence is a red flag.
There are many subtleties to this. You want your coach saying "I know you guys can win" even when the evidence is clearly against that prediction. However, the notion of a red flag remains valid. If someone is confident they know the truth on complex matters, you should begin to doubt them.
Doug passes on the quote:
"The view that truth is found and that ignorance and error are at anCan you identify the author?
end is one of the most potent seductions there is. Supposing it is
believed, then the will to examination, investigation, caution,
experiment is paralyzed: it can even count as criminal, namely as
doubt concerning truth--Truth is therefore more fateful than error and
ignorance, because it cuts off the forces that work toward
enlightenment and knowledge."(1888)
jeudi 6 mars 2008
Adolescents
I recently looked at two books on raising teenagers. To oversimplify:
-one said that we make the mistake of encouraging teenager independence, treating them like adults when they are actually still kids who need our guidance.
- the other said we make the mistake of discouraging teenage independence, treating them like kids when they are actually adults who need their freedom.
This sort of contradictory advice is common in management and that's what I've been exploring in a number of these blog entries. The natural reaction is to argue for one side or the other (or just to, like Hollywood, decide no one knows anything).
But Dave Crisp's reaction was right "Ah, they've identified the issue!"
If we look at it as an issue to be explored not a choice to be decided we will be much better off. As always we can start by asking "What are the dynamics?"
My intent is not to discuss parenting but to explore how to approach this sort of paradox/polarity that we run into so often. In this case, having identified the issue we might think:
- what aspects of life ought to be independent and which ought to be dependent?
- how does this evolve over time?
- how does one assess if the balance is correct for any given aspect at any given time?
- what tactics/approaches will make a teenager more dependent, less dependent -- what are the levers?
This may all seem self-evident, but the truth is we often get into unhelpful debates where we chose a side rather than diving into an exploration that does not presume either polarity is correct. (for more see Johnson's book on Polarity Mgmt)
-one said that we make the mistake of encouraging teenager independence, treating them like adults when they are actually still kids who need our guidance.
- the other said we make the mistake of discouraging teenage independence, treating them like kids when they are actually adults who need their freedom.
This sort of contradictory advice is common in management and that's what I've been exploring in a number of these blog entries. The natural reaction is to argue for one side or the other (or just to, like Hollywood, decide no one knows anything).
But Dave Crisp's reaction was right "Ah, they've identified the issue!"
If we look at it as an issue to be explored not a choice to be decided we will be much better off. As always we can start by asking "What are the dynamics?"
My intent is not to discuss parenting but to explore how to approach this sort of paradox/polarity that we run into so often. In this case, having identified the issue we might think:
- what aspects of life ought to be independent and which ought to be dependent?
- how does this evolve over time?
- how does one assess if the balance is correct for any given aspect at any given time?
- what tactics/approaches will make a teenager more dependent, less dependent -- what are the levers?
This may all seem self-evident, but the truth is we often get into unhelpful debates where we chose a side rather than diving into an exploration that does not presume either polarity is correct. (for more see Johnson's book on Polarity Mgmt)
mercredi 5 mars 2008
The Sift for Talent
Consultants love talking about the war for talent because it implies that companies should hire them to help. However, I don't think companies experience the world that way. It's not so common that a company interviews people for a job and then finds their top choices turn them down because someone else made a better offer (university recruiting may be an exception). More commonly, they sift through mounds of applications and try to find someone suitable, usually ending up with an ok new hire but not a star.
The problem is not battling against a competitor but sifting through a piles of sand to find the gold nugget. The war metaphor doesn't work.
So consultants might want to give the war metaphor a rest. Talent is important, but it doesn't feel like a war, it just feels like a long slog.
The problem is not battling against a competitor but sifting through a piles of sand to find the gold nugget. The war metaphor doesn't work.
So consultants might want to give the war metaphor a rest. Talent is important, but it doesn't feel like a war, it just feels like a long slog.
mardi 4 mars 2008
McKinsey Changes their Mind
In the McKinsey Quarterly 2008 #1, there is an article by Matthew Guthridge et al. called Making Talent a Strategic Priority.
They note that the original war for talent work "made a strong case for emphasizing recruitment and retention of a company's A players" then go on to say "what's much clearer today... is that organizations can't afford to neglect the contributions of other employees."
They go on to note criticism of the original recommendation to focus on A players. The criticism boils down to the fact that if you lavish attention on the top 20% you piss off the other 80%.
So McKinsey appears to have changed their mind on A players. Does this mean HR should now go to management and say, 'forget the A players, we're now being inclusive'?
There are good arguments for that but then someone will trot out the old arguments in favour of A players and those can still sound convincing. So what do we do?
The problem is that we are treating the problem as a simple choice (focus on A players or not) when the situation is more complex. When this issue comes up, rather than get into an argument over the pros and cons of each talent strategy HR should take the discussion to a different level by saying, "Let's look at the dynamics of this."
In fact, for HR, "Let's look at the dynamics of this" is always a pretty good opening line, even if you have no idea what you are going to say next.
One of the key dynamics here is that every time you focus on A players you piss off the B players so you need to judge every action in terms of the balance. You don' t want to give up on the concept of A players, but you do want to weigh every action and tune it so that the overall dynamic is optimal.
Helen Handfield-Jones, one of the original authors of the War for Talent, has since explained that the dynamic plays out differently in different sorts of job. She says her original focus was on the top 50-100 players in a large corporation. For this group you can and should push the A player focus harder than you would lower down in the ranks. It's a bit like professional hockey players in the NHL knowing they will be held to ruthlessly high standards whereas in the junior leagues you just want to give everyone a chance to play their best.
The key point is to lift the debate to a higher level of analysis and not get trapped in a nasty argument. If HR routinely shows they are able to bring the discussion to a higher, more systematic level they will have more impact on the organization.
They note that the original war for talent work "made a strong case for emphasizing recruitment and retention of a company's A players" then go on to say "what's much clearer today... is that organizations can't afford to neglect the contributions of other employees."
They go on to note criticism of the original recommendation to focus on A players. The criticism boils down to the fact that if you lavish attention on the top 20% you piss off the other 80%.
So McKinsey appears to have changed their mind on A players. Does this mean HR should now go to management and say, 'forget the A players, we're now being inclusive'?
There are good arguments for that but then someone will trot out the old arguments in favour of A players and those can still sound convincing. So what do we do?
The problem is that we are treating the problem as a simple choice (focus on A players or not) when the situation is more complex. When this issue comes up, rather than get into an argument over the pros and cons of each talent strategy HR should take the discussion to a different level by saying, "Let's look at the dynamics of this."
In fact, for HR, "Let's look at the dynamics of this" is always a pretty good opening line, even if you have no idea what you are going to say next.
One of the key dynamics here is that every time you focus on A players you piss off the B players so you need to judge every action in terms of the balance. You don' t want to give up on the concept of A players, but you do want to weigh every action and tune it so that the overall dynamic is optimal.
Helen Handfield-Jones, one of the original authors of the War for Talent, has since explained that the dynamic plays out differently in different sorts of job. She says her original focus was on the top 50-100 players in a large corporation. For this group you can and should push the A player focus harder than you would lower down in the ranks. It's a bit like professional hockey players in the NHL knowing they will be held to ruthlessly high standards whereas in the junior leagues you just want to give everyone a chance to play their best.
The key point is to lift the debate to a higher level of analysis and not get trapped in a nasty argument. If HR routinely shows they are able to bring the discussion to a higher, more systematic level they will have more impact on the organization.
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