A simple twist of fate
All this frenetic networking business does not suit everyone. I know that networking has always existed but perhaps it has never been so intense.
I was attending a ‘Gestalt in organisations’ workshop in the summer and I met Nick Wright, Head of HR from the global charity
World Vision. After the event people exchanged cards and I sent fellow delegates my monthly thought, ‘Important but not Urgent’ as a way of keeping in touch.
In January Nick asked me to desist – he gets hundreds of emails every day. I took him off the mailing list. A week later I pulled into a Milton Keynes hotel where I was speaking. The huge building next door had the words ‘World Vision’ emblazoned across the wall.
I rang Nick; we had a coffee; we had so much work stuff to share that we spent the rest of the evening together chatting over dinner. We will meet again.
I guess you never know where networking will lead.
Board Report
People running even quite large organisations have often had absolutely no training in how to do the job. The most common manifestation of this is in family businesses where it is assumed that siblings with the same surname as their predecessors are genetically disposed to replicate or even improve upon what went before.
It really doesn’t work like that. So if you encounter this kind of dilemma, either because you advise a company such as this or because you work there, then one very quick way to establish the calibre of the directors is to ask: “If this business suddenly vanished off the face of the earth and you were left standing there:
Where would you get another similar type of job with similar levels of responsibility?
How much would you be paid?”
The greater the discrepancy between what is and what might be, the greater the training need.
Sacked!
Every couple of years or so I get sacked. I am working in an organisation, with the Board, helping them on their journey towards excellence, and suddenly the going gets too tough for one or more of the directors.
All organisations have to be on the journey towards excellence. It is the demands of World Class competition in a remorseless knowledge world that makes this necessary.
But aspiring towards excellence is not easy. You won’t get there on the back of great products because they can be copied. You won’t do it with technology because anyone can get the same technology.
In organisations it is only people that can deliver consistent excellence. To do that people have to be open, honest and transparent and this always starts at the top. The words are so easy to write, so easy to say, but they can be devilishly difficult to deliver.
In the end however there is the truth, and there can be no running away from that.
Translating transparency
At Board level the clearer everyone is about:
· who has authority for acting on behalf of the organisation
· who is taking responsibility for specific tasks
· what the process is for deciding on routes to market
the better will be the performance of the organisation.
I know that this is common sense. The fact remains that all sorts of Boards do not behave collectively, do not have a mechanism for open and honest discussion, do not respond effectively to the external demands of a knowledge world.
Transparency is not up for negotiation, debate; it is not part of political games and hidden agendas.
You either have it in your organisation, or you don’t.
Twist and Shout
It is really interesting to study top performing people and how they got to the top. I had the privilege of listening to
Cathy O’Dowd who was speaking at the Professional Speakers Association National Convention on Saturday in Birmingham.
Cathy is the first lady to have climbed Mount Everest from both sides. As a result of this achievement Cathy now speaks to business audiences around the world. But Cathy’s is no “didn’t we do well?” story. It is the real nuts and bolts of how do you convert a phenomenal lifetime experience into a 45 minute keynote that will captivate audiences around the world.
It is a story of constant adjustment. Something works for a while but it is not quite good enough so Cathy changes it. Audiences are looking for one thing, Cathy is delivering another, so she changes it. Some people hear the keynote and ask for in house company training, so Cathy tries it, but she decides that that is not where she wants to be. Sometime past Cathy had two keynotes, but then she distilled all her best material into one.
This lady now always starts her keynote with the same words and she finishes her keynote with the same words.
Isn’t this where we all are? Constantly planning, doing, evaluating and changing.
Let’s call it Twist and Shout.
If not for you
You still encounter top executives that think the entire world of business revolves around them. They are big on ‘I’ statements and they behave as if any form of consensus is a weakness. On just about every issue they can be heard expounding a ‘first position’ view.
First position is fine but leaders of real influence are those that try to see things from second and third position too. Second position is where someone else is coming from, and third position is the objective ‘fly on the wall’ perspective.
In maturity terms these people have usually moved from dependency through to independence, hence the “I can arrange this” or “I know what to do with this” or “I will sort him out”
Real maturity however, goes one step further and that is to interdependence. People who operate at this level know that they cannot do it alone. However much talent and energy and intellect they possess, they still add up to one. They say, “How do you think we should tackle this?” or “What shall we do in this situation?”
These people don’t pay lip service, they really do believe that it takes more than ‘I’ for one and one to make three or even four.
It takes you too.
Over and out
Some of the statistics about emerging economies such as China and India, together with facts about technological development have massive, incalculable implications for UK plc.
I work in some Board Rooms where there is almost total ignorance of what is on the horizon. You have labour intensive businesses, materials intensive businesses, machine intensive businesses and knowledge intensive businesses.
Woe betides any organisation that is not working towards becoming a more knowledge intensive business.
And this is now.
Time for you
There are four sorts of time available at the weekend if you (A) live with a partner (B). There is:
1) A’s time - to do whatever they want to do
2) B’s time - to do whatever they want to do
3) Family time - which incorporates any family member (s), friends, neighbours, in fact anyone that wants a piece of your time for whatever reason
4) Intimacy – time that A and B choose to spend alone together
I was working on this model with a group of Head Teachers recently, many of whom were complaining about a serious lack of time in their lives. I said to them, if you only have one half an hour to yourself this forthcoming weekend, what would you do?
This first one said that she would read a book in the bath with a glass of wine. The second one said that he would go for a walk along the river. The third one called Julie said, “I would go and visit my dad”
And that is the wrong answer!
Relationships
The better the quality of relationships you have at Board Level, in the first instance, the better the quality of relationships you have with customers and all stakeholders, the better will be the performance of your business.
It is quite extraordinary how top executives watch relationships in the organisation deteriorate to point zero. I asked, “What does Jenny, your marketing director bring to the party.” He replied, “Nothing. She has done nothing in the last twelve months.”
Now this answer, rather than being a statement of fact about Jenny, is actually a comment about their relationship, for which they are both responsible.
With World Class players out there and so much competition in the market place, you cannot afford to tolerate any unhealthy competition inside your organisation. You have to sort it out.
Three of us go out for lunch on Thursday.
Inside the ring
The business of business happens inside a ring. Inside that ring, anything goes providing that it is in the interests of the business. There are behaviours, there are rules, and there are norms that are appropriate.
Then there is business outside the ring. This may be where we take clients out to shows, maybe to extravagant Cup Finals or even Oscar ceremonies.
But what is really going on here?
Are we really saying, “please keep booking me as your consultant” (when perhaps the client would be better off with someone else)
It’s not an easy call, but when relationships generate an agenda that is demonstrably outside the ring……..
Then that’s the time to call a halt.
Accountant, see!
With the advent of the knowledge economy all sorts of organisations are having to reassess their offering to the market place. Products and services that used to make money in the UK can be done much cheaper elsewhere.
So that accountants for example, realise that much tax, audit and compliance work no longer commands a premium. Intellectual capital on the other hand is not something that is always easy to identify in the first instance or take to market on the second. It actually consists of structural capital, human capital and customer capital. This gives rise to the dilemma of know ing who on the payroll has what sort of tacit knowledge and will customers pay for it?
That is why expertise is such a valuable commodity wherever you find it. Beware however of people that have spent a long time studying finance or law or anything else for that matter, who suddenly turn up offering an entirely different competence and/or expertise.
Remember that fee always follows value until expertise is recognised as a brand, and then value follows fee.
One hundred and fifty hopes
Occasionally you meet business leaders that appear to be living in a time warp. It is as if they are almost totally oblivious of the demands of the global knowledge economy.
I mean that this is not a hanging offence. Goodness knows, it’s tough out there
for everyone, for every organisation.
But if a CEO can calmly say that he / she has never had any form of appraisal; if there is no bull’s eye statement of excellence for the organisation; if there is no training plan (because “we have always tried to avoid training”) then fundamental aspects of best practice are being routinely ignored.
Make no mistake, time is running out for 150 jobs, 150 families (maybe) and 150 hopes.
Belonging in the Board Room
People often ask me, in a roundabout sort of way, "How do you get to work in so many Board Rooms?" There are two answers.
Number one is expertise. Today, in a knowledge economy, it is essential that you actually have expertise in a particular area. Consistent externally validated expertise. Generalists are ten for a penny. You get expertise through the right sort of experience acquired over years, combined with a passion for personal growth and development.
Number two is self-esteem. You have to feel and believe that you belong in there. Again this builds over time, but it derives from self-knowledge. It is partly knowing about your own personality, how you use energy and time, your behaviour, your types of intelligence, the way you think. It is knowing the difference between complexity that is going down in value and simplicity which is going up.
If you don’t belong in there you are best off doing something else.
Things that matter most
I wonder why people don’t talk to each other about the things that matter most?
It’s almost as if we human beings programme ourselves to talk about, think about, activate almost anything – except the things that matter most.
In Board Rooms it’s the same and why shouldn’t it be? After all, Board Rooms are full of human beings too. Board Rooms contain some very bright people, and some that are not so bright. They are capable of talking, laughing, bantering about almost anything under the sun.
Except the things that matter most.
