Sterling Performance

 Executive recruitment firms are full of talented candidates who cite the reason for their career transition (aka redundancy, resignation or dismissal) as being the politics of their former employer.

Many are looking for greener grass — an organisation where they can perform at their best without demotivating office politics and power struggles. This aspiration is laudable but it’s a little naïve.

Humans are political by nature. In many respects, political activity is synonymous with influencing activity. Scholars such as Maslow and McClelland have demonstrated that we are hard wired to achieve, if only to put food on the table or to be accepted by supportive social groupings. This requires that we have to influence other people in some way.

For many, the difference between influence and politics is found in the underlying intent that motivates the action. In most cases the actions — and the skills — are identical.

If the intent is orientated towards self-interest, lack of trust pervades and politicking escalates. When the motivation is to move the organisation forward while recognising personal interest, collaboration can flourish.

Holding on to the belief that you don’t do politics can create a blind spot which may prevent you from developing positive influencing skills.

If this applies to you, reflect on the questions below. There’s every possibility that the grass could be greener where you are working now.

1. When you hear the words “politics” and “influence”, what thoughts come to mind?
2. What are the differences between these words?
3. What skills are relevant to each?
4. How good are you with these skills?
5. In your organisation, what sort of politics dominates the culture?
6. What is motivating this activity?
7. Where does trust feature in this?
8. How well does all this fit with your values and integrity?
9. Who do you know who is able to survive with the right motivations?
10. What do they do that you don’t do?
11. Could you find a way to maintain your integrity and flourish in this climate?
12. What new things would you have to learn to be able do this?

Those who deny the inevitability of organisational politics are potentially also denying themselves the opportunity to build positive influencing skills which they can use with good intent. “I don’t do politics” is not the answer.

(Photo: Theresa Thompson, CC2.0)

A month ago I completed the Coast-to-Coast cycle route from Workington to Tynemouth. Along with a couple of friends, I covered the 150 miles through the Lake District and across the Pennines in three days.

It was a new and exhilarating experience. One lesson in particular sticks with me — the power and motivation of milestones.

The weather, particularly on the first day, was horrible — wet, windy (I was blown off my bike twice) and cold. On a glorious summer’s day it’s easy enjoy the view and be in the moment. When it’s lashing down with rain the thought that you are making real progress is essential for your psychological wellbeing.

In today’s torrential business conditions using milestones to remind you and your organisation that you are still moving forward will be critical to improving your collective momentum and commitment.

Here are six lessons from our bike ride that will help:

1. Have a crystal clear, ultimate goal. We benefited significantly from knowing our overall objective (reach Tynemouth). Without such a specific goal we would have given up a lot earlier — we probably wouldn’t have set off in the first place.
2. Milestones must be celebrated (but not always publicly). I made sure that I celebrated all the milestones in some way. Some were private — opening my next chocolate bar — or a small group reward (stopping for a cup of tea). Others were big enough to share more widely (calling my wife after completing the first day’s route and texting friends when we finally reached Tynemouth).
3. Beginning the endeavour is a milestone in itself. Goethe, Germany’s giant of literature, once wrote, “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” Such magic should be celebrated in some way and we made sure we took group photos at the start as well as at the end of our journey.
4. Don’t have too many milestones too early. I soon learnt that in the first couple of hours it was important not to think too much about milestones. Far from being motivational, they simply reminded me of how much more there was to do. This was the time to simply get my head down and get on with it.
5. Group dynamics are strengthened through achievement. Sharing our feelings of success, however insignificant to those outside our small group, helped give us the belief to tackle our future challenges with greater confidence.
6. Learn to love the climbs. There are always gaps between milestones and some of them can be tough and unforgiving. I learnt that if I took my mind off the next milestone and focused on maintaining my rhythm and pace I began to enjoy the climbs much more. At times they gave me my most exhilarating moments (”Yes, I can do this!”)

(Photo: pl_jakub, CC2.0)

If your business generally holds some kind of party at year’s end, now’s not the time to play Scrooge, advises Penny de Valk of the Institute of Leadership & Management.

Some people dread the annual knees-up — but cancel the Christmas party and you could have demotivated and mutinous teams to answer to — as one employee put it, why punish your people for what’s going on in the economy?

So what if you can’t afford the extravagant, James Bond-themed bash you held in Marrakesh last year? That may be for the best — restraint is now the watchword and lavish parties (usually a City tradition) wouldn’t go down too well with the banks’ new shareholders.

But there are ways to curb your party costs without turning into the Grinch, says de Valk. Here are five:

1. Join Forces: Team up with other organisations in your building or, if your business is large, with different divisions in your company. Office Christmas has other ideas for shared, as well as private, parties in the UK and Europe.
2. Child’s Play: Hold a “kid’s style” party with home-made sandwiches, crisps and cake, fizzy pop and some games. Get someone to bring in their karaoke machine if you want the requisite red-faced morning after feeling that usually accompanies too much booze.
3. Go Local: If you’re really hard up, use your office as a venue, decorating a room and ordering food from nearby or picking up snacks at the supermarket. Or find a local bar or pub where you don’t need to pay for room hire. Negotiate on a bulk buy of house wine.
4. Fair Exchange: Swap old CDs, books, clothes or other stuff  an environmentally-conscious way to give presents. Recycle scrap paper for decorations.
5. BYOB: Find an unlicensed restaurant that allows you to bring your own booze. Just make sure they don’t charge for corkage.

(Photo: AlexJuno, CC2.0)

Sometimes, all a business can do in the face of recession is accept that it will make less money, says John Timpson, chairman of the UK-wide Timpson chain of dry-cleaning, shoe repair and locksmiths outlets. But it doesn’t pay to penalise your employees.

There may be parts of your business where it’s possible to save on head-count — parts that should perhaps have been addressed anyway. But if you cut bonuses or lay-off large numbers in order to make a quick saving, you’ll probably struggle to survive in the long term, he says. Timpson should know — his business is over a century old and has had its share of near-misses.

Now it operates in a radical way — it’s run by the people who work in the outlets, rather than at HQ. Like other unconventionally run businesses such as Brazil’s Semco, Timpson works because it has buy-in at leadership level — John Timpson explains how it can work in any business in the full interview here.

Reading BNET1’s latest find from Bain & Co, it occurs to me that there’s rarely a day that goes by without a new (usually pessimistic) forecast about the economy, an industry, or an individual business.

But whose predictions should we heed — how reliable are the analysts and economists now (as opposed to 12 or 18 months ago)?

The UK’s pre-budget report raised serious questions as to how accurately the government could predict future growth (if you hadn’t harboured concerns already).

In the US, the National Bureau of Economic Research questioned the very definition of recession by claiming that the US had been in recession for 12 months. Merrill Lynch told us the very same thing about 10 months ago and was largely ignored.

A recent gathering of entrepreneurs and investment professionals only served to underline how hit and miss predictions can be. When asked to call the end of the recession, there was little consensus. Predictions ranged from six months to 10 years (the latter from Andrew Keen, who also predicted the demise of the “free” business model and is not without his critics.)

One investor said that the next six months would be largely determined by the mindset of those in business — their outlook would determine whether recession or recovery would win the day.

This seemed unrealistic — that resolutely positive thinking could so swiftly bring an end to economic turmoil the likes of which we’ve not seen in 18 or 79 years, (or ever, depending on who you believe).

That said, psychological outlook certainly works on the negative side — the NBER’s declaration of recession was enough to send the Dow plummeting (again).

So can we use reverse psychology to get ourselves out of recession?

Just shy of its 100th birthday, two main divisions of Woolworths are to go into administration, potentially putting 30,000 people out of work. With debts of £385m, the retailer will shut the doors on over 800 outlets, as well as its Entertainment UK division, a DVD and books wholesaler.

Woolies has had longstanding problems — analysts reckon the rot began with its demerger from Kingfisher in 2001, when Woolworths somehow got saddled with an inflexible and expensive leasing deal and a poor succession plan. In the intervening years, it went from a £350m business to one that closed at £18m. How could a board comprised of experienced retailers from Asda, Littlewoods Shop Direct and a 50-year veteran of Woolworths itself get it so wrong?

It’s been a similar story over at furniture chain MFI — that is, the writing’s been on the wall for a while, with chief executive Gary Favell’s buy-out only buying the 44-year-old business a couple of months before its demise.

If the administrators decide to make a cash-grab by offloading stock, the immediate effect on other retailers — already fighting tooth and nail for Christmas business — could be detrimental, according to Dresdner Kleinwort retail analyst Sanjay Vidyarthi.

Leading Woolworths shareholder Ardeshir Naghshineh, founder of Norfolk-based Targetfollow, which owns London’s Centrepoint, expressed anger at the government’s failure to intervene.

Earlier in the day, it looked as if Peter Mandelson, the business secretary, might step in on the government’s behalf. But how could a bail-out be justified? The UK can hardly afford to prop up failing stores — even those as venerable as Woolworths.

The fightback

Call it desperation, if you like — I prefer creativity. Here’s a short list of how the nation’s shopkeepers are fighting the downturn.

• Seam-work: Arcadia and M&S’s bosses, Sir Philip Green and Sir Stuart Rose, have put aside their differences to show solidarity, according to Retail Week. They are joining Next, New Look and Mosaic Fashions in implementing Chancellor Darling’s VAT reduction, due to take effect on Monday, with 2.13 per cent coming off prices. It’s believed they will save the cost of re-ticketing individual items by taking the discount off at the till.
• VAT’s off: Tesco’s implementing the VAT cut early on its non-food products, so customers can take advantage of it from Friday. DSG International — which owns PC World, Curry’s and Dixons.co.uk — has already passed on the savings.
• Wheel deal: Colchester car-broker Broadspeed.com, perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, offloaded its stock of Dodge Avenger SXT 2.4i, in possibly the first BOGOF (buy one, get one free) ever to be undertaken by a UK car dealer. Initially offered at half price, the two-fer offer was all that was needed to draw 22,000 customers to the site, which temporarily crashed as a result of demand. Managing director Simon Empson is so impressed he plans to do more offers in future.
• Banana breakfast: London’s West End stores are fighting the Westfield effect by opening early and offering free gifts and breakfast. On Friday, West End outlets of Topshop, Brooks Brothers, Wallis, Boots, Jaeger and Mamas & Papas will offer discounts in an Early Bird event, while other retailers are offering other early morning incentives to spend. Grab breakfast at Banana Republic, pop over to Liberty for a glass of champagne and a free cosmetics gift, then pick up a sobering free coffee at M&S from 7am to 9.30am.
• Big Mac attack: “With all the doom and gloom, we wanted to bring a little Christmas cheer,” said Bragster.com founder Bertrand Bodson, explaining his £10,000 giveaway. Bodson projected a massive display of his credit card, with all details visible, onto the side of the Bank of England on Kensington High Street in London. It also provided his address and telephone number and a £10,000 float — with a single shopper blowing £7,200 the Apple Store.

(Photo: TheTruthAbout, CC2.0)

Ten years ago, the current economic forecasts would’ve had UK businesses reaching for their sharpest downsizing tool. But there’s much more feistiness today, according to Tom Barry, European managing director at BlessingWhite, the engagement, leadership and coaching specialists. “Businesses are saying, ‘let’s fight and innovate our way out of this’,” he says.

So the findings of its report, The Coaching Conundrum 2009, are baffling. After surveying over 2,000 managers and employees worldwide, then following up with interviews of 60 HR and business leaders, BlessingWhite found that the majority of employees (87 per cent) like to be coached.

Likewise, the majority of managers — 84 per cent — love to coach.

Yet one in two employees receive no coaching at all.

“It’s a bit like charity and world peace,” says Barry. “We think it’s great, but we’re not doing anything to achieve it.”

Among the “believers” in management, there’s a general consensus that coaching is fun and important. Managers said that scheduled one-on-ones pay more dividends than anything else they do and that they make the difference between good and great performance — 70 per cent believe coaching leads to better bottom-line results.

So what’s the problem?

There are also a couple of commonly held beliefs that get in the way of more regular coaching.

• It takes too long.
• I don’t have all the answers.
• I have to know the job I’m coaching someone to do inside out.

“I don’t think we’re very good at role-modelling the job of coach,” says Barry. What’s more, coaching is often mixed up with mentoring. A coach may or may not have done the job they’re helping someone else with, whereas a mentor is likely to be an expert in that role.

Coaching is about helping another person to achieve their goals or enhance their skills for the good of the business. It’s not telling people what to do, nor stepping in to do their work.

It can be a positive boon for a manager to be unfamiliar with a role he’s helping to coach an employee in — the challenge comes when a manager has done the role and thinks they have all the answers.

So it’s essential, says Barry, to persuade managers that coaching doesn’t mean having all the answers and that it shouldn’t take up ‘extra’ time, but be part of their day-to-day role. There also needs to be more connection between inputs and output — only 24 per cent of those surveyed had a portion of their pay directly tied to coaching.

“We haven’t yet made the financial connection,” says Barry. “We should be saying, ‘your bonus is reliant on coaching and performance improvement’.”

So while managers need to become coaching leaders, organisations, too, need to develop a sympathetic culture where people are incentivised to make it a priority.

Managers can and must coach — it’s integral to their role, not a nice-to-have. But there’s only so far that tools and training will take a manager. Coaching is fundamentally about trust. It may mean doing different things for different people, tailoring your approach to the individual. It’s not just a process, it’s a relationship at heart. Says Barry: “It’s not a pill you can take. It’s about doing the right things at the right time.”

There’s also one more issue for to consider when it comes to coaching: do you hire ‘coachable’ employees — and how would your rate your own ‘coachability’?

(Photo: Irish Philadelphia, CC2.0)

An experienced asset manager today observed that some of the latent aggression exhibited by young men in City jobs might have found a better outlet in National service, scrapped in the UK in 1960. Now they channel that energy into aggressive deal-making, with sometimes detrimental results. OK, assuming he did his turn in the French military, it didn’t seem to stop Societe Generale fraudster Jerome Kerviel from getting carried away. But the point is that self-management, teamwork and leadership are disciplines traditionally associated with military training.
Not without reason, as Stefan Stern’s Remembrance Day commentary today demonstrates. He’s unearthed some suprisingly enduring notes on officer training, courtesy of a distinguished business leader’s National Service days.

The advice on “man” management not only stands up today, but stands out for its simplicity (old-fashioned terminology notwithstanding). Take the definition of leadership: “the art of influencing a body of people to follow a certain course of action” by “controlling them, directing them and getting the best out of them.”

Here are some other useful highlights from the notes:

• “Being a leader is a big job, a fine job and a thoroughly worthwhile job. See that you become a leader in the real and best sense of the word.”
• “The business of man management takes time and it requires the taking of infinite trouble…. Your men are your material; you must know all about them. You must give each one individual study and be prepared to make an individual approach to each. You must be something of a psychologist.”
• Leaders should put team members’ interests first, “be their champion but also their chief critic”, “be yourself and don’t act a part” and “be self-critical”.
• “The leader must have his heart in the job and be cheerful and enthusiastic, even when conditions are difficult and the task unpleasant.”
• Leaders need to commit to decisions, however unpopular they may be.
• They need to be flexible — “orders must be constantly renewed and once they become inapplicable or out of date, they must be abolished.”
• Your work will never be done, according to the notes: “You will always have something more to learn, so be prepared to profit by experience.”

(Image: Polari,  CC2.0)

The sharp downturn in the world economy has changed the nature of the talent business. It’s suddenly gone from frantically trying to recruit bright and able people to focusing on keeping and developing them.

A chief executive of a large British company recently described the scramble for talent that existed before the downturn: “We were begging graduates to work for us. We were bribing them.” Now the big question is less how around how to recruit talent but how to identify and keep existing talent.

Defining talent: Do you know it when you see it?

The definition tends to be highly subjective and when pressed many executives say things like, ‘I can’t define it precisely but I know it when I see it.’

But do they? Or do they see mirror images of themselves? We tend to admire our own skills, abilities and characteristics and pay less attention to people who don’t somehow conform to our view of the world.

Matching skills to situations

Talent is the ability and capability to do something well, but the key word in the definition is ’something’. Talent is situation specific — it doesn’t pay to place a highly competent, technically expert engineer who doesn’t relate well with people in a role where he or she needs to manage a team, motivate, co-ordinate and get high levels of commitment and involvement.

Rather than thinking in terms of looking for talent it is more useful to think first of the task and then the behaviour that is required to perform it most effectively. Once you’ve done that you can begin to identify who exhibits the relevant type of behaviour.

Finding the perfect 10

Instead of using the word talent, switch to using the word ‘best’. Who are our best people? Who would be best for a particular job? Whose performance, in terms of achieving the objectives of the job, should get 10 out of 10?

To understand what we mean by best, think of how the sporting world uses it. After every big international football or rugby match the newspapers rate each player on a scale of 0 to 10. The rating is not about talent, it’s about performance — performance on the day, in the role.

The world of work really isn’t much different. If the standard of performance in a job is clear then an individual’s performance can be rated on a 10-point scale. You get full marks if you do everything you were expected to do.

Keeping your top scorers

The ones who are scoring eight, nine or 10 at the moment are your best people. To keep them, put them in positions where they can score 10 out of 10.

Nothing succeeds like success, and people are far less likely to want to leave a company where they are succeeding and being recognised for the success.

(Photo: Serendigity, CC2.0)

Everyone needs friends during hard times. In business, social networking could be a safety net during recession, helping to build outside partnerships and encourage greater innovation and communication within the business, says think-tank Demos.

It’s done some research for telecoms provider Orange that indicates businesses are beginning to see the value of social networking within the business, using tools such as Facebook, Huddle, Twitter, as well as blogs and wikis to get people collaborating across the business and with customers and partners.

Social networking tools can provide a safety net for business during difficult times, says Peter Bradwell, Demos researcher and the co-author of the report, “Network Citizens”.

“In today’s difficult business environment the instinctive reaction can be to batten down the hatches and return to traditional ‘command and control’ techniques,” he says. But allowing employees flexibility and freedom “appears to create businesses more capable of maintaining stability,” he says.

According to their CEO John Chambers, Cisco saved $150 million through collaborative tools that harnessed networks of ideas: “For the first time, collaborative IT will be so
intertwined with the business strategy you won’t know the difference between the two.”

It also encourages employees to forge relationships across the company, and to build links with customers and partners.

Key areas where social networking can help are in encouraging people to innovate, raising productivity and helping with what Demos calls ‘democratic working’.

But the nature of social networking means there are certain unwritten rules that users should abide by — largely to do with respecting users’ freedom and trusting them not to abuse that freedom.

Some do’s and don’ts for making social networking successful at work:

1. Don’t separate ‘professional’ and ’social’ networking — don’t try to control your team’s use of social networking tools.
2. Do recognise the value of building outside relationships via Web 2.0. Too often, it’s only the most senior people in a business who are allowed to build outside relationships, but the more democratic workplace recognises the value of “horizontal networks” at all levels of the organisation.
3. Keep in contact with former employees through networking.
4. Do encourage employees to use social networking to build relationships with people across the business.
5. Don’t police networks, but do look at how you can improve them and collectively create your own in-house rules for operating within networks. Otherwise, there’s a risk you create exlusive and “self sealing” clubs which act against openness.
6. Don’t allow networking tools to replace face-to-face meetings. Mix and match tools to fit your business needs.
7. Do canvass your employees to find out which tools will work best for your business and try out a few methods before committing — don’t just latch onto the social networking tools competitors are using.
8. Do start at the top — encourage interaction between the business’s senior executives and the rest of the business. Show your commitment to creating an open, democratic organisation by getting everyone to learn how to use social networking tools.

(Photos: Luc Legay, CC2.0)