Talent Management by Attracta Mooney

This article appeared in the ILM news in June, announcing '1 in 3 workers not achieving their full potential'.  Who says that soft skills development doesn't deliver tangible, measurable performance - just look what people say when they are missing!

"A lack of communication between upper management and employees is leading to low motivation levels, a study from European Leaders shows.In total, 64% claimed they would work more efficiently if they were better motivated by management.

Bosses need to be more aware of the skills employees have and what expertise is being underused, the research also found.

Ashley Ward, director of European Leaders, said management needs to listen more to the views of their workforce and utilise their skills."A seemingly negligible investment can get teams much closer to their full potential performance, resulting in a happier workforce and significant financial benefits," he added.

A recent study by engagement specialist Peter Wilde for Activitymix found that employees are generally happy with their jobs, but their opinions of their bosses have worsened over the last couple of years."

Surely organisations cannot afford to stick their heads in the ground while such potential is going untapped?
Kate Peacock 

Happiness at work

Interesting article in the Guardian by Prof Cary Cooper & Stephen Wood on the importance of well-being at work and what makes happy workers.  The rules for creating positive working environments are quite simple, but often ignored.  You can also take a quick quiz to measure your own level of happiness.  Fascinating insight into the topic and how it links with the current drive for employee engagement.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/jul/15/happiness-work-why-counts
Miles

The Right Coach: Howard Morgan, Phil Harkins and Marshall Goldsmith

Executive coaching is a precision tool for optimising the abilities of leaders.  Most often, coaching focuses on the leader’s individual effectiveness.  In other cases, the coaching aims more at the leader’s effectiveness within a team environment or at this or her capabilities to drive organisational change.  Regardless of where coaching aims on the leadership spectrum, the executive coach works in close, trusted partnership with the leader.  The coach applies experience, know-how, and insight to key areas, and judiciously pushes the client beyond his or her comfort zone to reach levels of performance greater than the client would have achieved alone – all within an accelerated time frame.

Coaching is not just for problems anymore.  Ten years ago, coaching primarily concentrated on people with performance issues.  A coach came on board because a leader’s personal style had a negative impact on peers and reports, or because his or her skill set was inadequate – conditions that were leading to derailment.  Today the impression has turned 180 degrees.  As the marketplace has become increasingly competitive and fast-moving, organisations now realise they must work with speed and precision to enable key people to achieve critical business objectives.  In response, coaching has embraced a whole new focus: how to take good people and make them the best they can be, positioning them to work more effectively and cohesively in their environments, and making the most of their capabilities.  In other words, coaching is now most often applied to top performers whose leadership and growth potential are highly valued by the organisation.

To define what coaching is, let’s examine what it isn’t.  Coaching often differs, for example, from consulting.  As outsiders, neither coach nor consultant is likely to understand the client’s business environment as well as the client does.  Both coach and consultant rely on data gathering to interpret the organisation’s or individual’s challenges.  However, although the consultant uses that data to prepare a path for others to follow, the coach uses it to build the critical capabilities of key people so that they themselves can forge their own paths.  Unlike the consultant, the coach works in partnership with the client to discover solutions together, finding them through careful listening, provocative questioning, enlightened guidance, and the right level of prompting at the right time.  To a great degree, the coach’s goal is to enable the client to find the right answers by him- or herself.

Although coaching may sometimes feel like something halfway between the couch and the confessional, coaching is not therapy.  The orientation is very different.  The coach may use some of the listening and analytical tools of therapy to build connection, trust, and openness.  But although personal issues or deeper problems are likely to arise in the course of working together, the coach is not meant, and is usually not qualified, to provide more than supportive, confidential advice in those matters.  A coach will maintain the focus of the engagement on moving the client forward, in line with business objectives.  The coach is not a substitute colleague or fellow executive.  Many coaches have been successful in business in earlier incarnations.  This provides a sense of comfort and familiarity in the client’s world, allowing him or her to communicate in the same language.  It also provides key insights into the complex and competing pressures of the client’s work environment.  The coach’s stay in the organisation is meant to be short.  A best practice coach, by design and ethic, is not in the business of creating a dependent relationship.

Thanks to Simon Whitehouse for finding this article! Kate Peacock

Kings Fund Publishes NHS Leadership & Management Report

The King’s Fund set up a commission on leadership and management in the NHS with a brief to:

• take a view on the current state of management and leadership in the NHS
• establish the nature of management and leadership that will be required to meet the quality and financial challenges now facing the health care system
• recommend what needs to be done to strengthen and develop management and leadership in the NHS.

The Commission has found that high-quality, stable management to be key to high-performing health services - no surprise I hear you cry! 

Taken from an except of NHS Innovation and Improvement the report says 'across the NHS, the average chief executive spends just 700 days in post. In part, this reflects a culture where ‘heroic’ leaders grapple with problems only from the top of the organisation, or are ‘parachuted in’ to replace individual managers and ‘turn around’ troubled NHS services. The report advocates a new type of ‘shared leadership’ involving leaders at different levels of the workforce working collaboratively with all those involved in patient care to lead change and improve services, rather than only tackling problems inside specific institutions.'

This brings me to one of my favorite quotes (thanks Chris) from Bob Nelson, head of Corporate Management Development, BBC who said, " Some leaders are at the top of their organisations, although the behaviours of leadership can be exercised at any level.  Where ever we are in an organisation, most of us are leaders, subordinates and colleagues.  Resent research has also found paradoxically, that there is more freedom to act at lower levels in organisations than at higher, where constraints and other influences can be more complex.  The knowledge and skills necessary to make organisations work are decentralised - so power is decentralised and leadership is needed at all levels.  An organisation that permits people to manifest and develop these kinds of power without regard to their official status is nurturing leadership."

It's quite disturbing that even now it appears it needs to be pointed out that there is talent throughout our organisations and more than ever we need to tap into it and give people the responsibility and recognition that they deserve.

Kate Peacock

For the full report http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/nhs_leadership.html

All watched over by machines of loving grace

Have you been watching the BBC 2 series, 'All watched over by machines of loving grace'  (BBC 2, Mondays, 9pm)?  If not you can catch up by clicking on the following link and watching through iPlayer:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/search?q=all%20watched%20over%20by%20machines

It is a fascinating exploration of the rise of machines (computers in particular), how humans have come to create and use them, but also how we have been influenced in turn, by growing networks of advanced technology.  The first part explored the influence of technology on financial markets (and their role in the current economic crisis).  The second looked at how technology was supposed to help in creating more egalitarian societies.  Why write about this on a blog which is about leadership and human development?  Well, what the series makes clear is that introduction of new technologies were based on changing philosophies, new world views and radical thinking of various groups.  Each new technology was an attempt to 'realise' what had been created in thought. 

From a psychological viewpoint, the series contains numerous examples of how people can act together to complete a common goal, seemingly without direction or open communication between individuals.  What happens is something emerges which is bigger than the sum of the individuals involved.  But there do seem to be limitations. For example, while social networking was acknowledged as a key element in mobilising people in revolutions in the Ukraine (amongst other countries) it was also shown that it had not provided an effective alternative to the regime that had been toppled.

The second programme, in particular, showed the dangers of metaphor becoming 'truth'.  The idea of an eco-system that was self-regulating and balanced was 'de-bunked' and shown how it had led to ultimately unsuccessful attempts to create egalitarian communities.

The last part is next week (June 6th, 2011).  It's not just an insight into the influences of technology, it's a fascinating exploration of how we live and work together, the underlying assumptions that underpin our society, while also giving us a glimps of who really 'sets the rules'.

Miles

Making an Impact

Last night was the AGM of the Lancashire Branch of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).  As I'm a committee member, I attended the meeting, part of which was a short presentation by Chris Kelly of Voiceworks.  His topic was 'Making an Impact' and Chris's background in acting and radio journalism gave him a unique slant on a well-established topic.  Often, effective training is not in what you say but how you say it, and Chris took some familiar aspects of presenting powerfully and provided new insights through his creative and engaging style.  Using a spectrum of 'expressiveness' he was able to highlight differences in presenting styles but also how the roles of presenter and audience move further apart over the course of a presentation - unless the presenter takes corrective action.  He dealt deftly with both internal factors and behaviours that can affect the impact someone is having.  A few simple exercises provided immediate benefits; for example an activity which required the talker to say out loud 'I pause and I breathe' at the end of each sentence, quickly showed how 'Ums' and 'Ahs' could be eliminated, sentences shortened and overall a more powerful impact could be achieved.  This was all done with great humour (and skill) and judging by the audience's reaction he was modelling what he advocated. 

Underlying his approach is the idea that if the impact of a presentation is constructed between talker and receiver, then it is more helpful for the presenter to think about the impact he/she wants on the audience, rather than the other way round (which is what leads to nervousness and stress).  You can find out more about Voiceworks at:

http://www.voiceworkslondon.com/

For more on CIPD Lancashire branch click on the following link.  They put on some really good workshops (Check the previous blog post about Tony Whalley of Achieve Dynamics).


http://www.cipd.co.uk/branch/lancashire

Miles


http://www.voiceworkslondon.com/

The role of HR in creating innovative organisations

'Charting the Territory for HR' a workshop on the role of HR in creating innovative organisations

20 May 2011, Innovation for Growth Project, Lancaster University Management School

Speakers:  Prof. Paul Sparrow, Centre for Performance-led HR, David McNerney, Executive Director of HR, Sellafield Ltd.

This was the first in a series of workshops exploring the people aspects of innovation.  It was a fascinating introduction into the macro and micro factors that need to be considered in attempting to construct innovative organisations.  The starting point is that innovation is a 'people-centric' issue.  Macro elements discussed included the requirement to move away from traditional business models, to consider different organisational structures and to 'institutionalise' innovation within a company.  Micro factors included training of leaders, creating climates to support innovation and recruiting (and supporting) innovative people.

Some interesting dilemmas facing organisations seeking to become innovative.  For example, organisations that have honed themselves to perfection/optimal efficiency may also be insufficiently flexible to cope with unforeseen, step-changes in the trading environment.  (Consider the current recession or the effect on the auto-trade and computer chip industries as a result of the tsunami in Japan).  Organisations seeking to increase their level of innovation have to find a balance between creativity and control, cost and risk (and the associated difficulties in managing an increasingly complex organisation), managing the conflict between pursuing innovation and other strategic imperatives, and effective resource allocation (innovation inevitably comes with a degree of failure).

Six business models for innovation were discussed briefly, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.  Delegates were invited to think about ways of remodelling their product offering.  This was linked to the idea of 'product service innovation'; the notion of product is changing from one of design and functionality to one where the consumer assesses it in terms of the access it gives to other services and technologies.  Consider the iPhone, for example.  It is well designed (aesthetically pleasing) has good functionality (and reliability) but also is a platform for other designers to distribute 'apps'.  The phrase, 'the democratisation of innovation' was used to describe how new technologies are changing the face of innovation from 'closed' to 'open' approaches.  (Read Chesburgh's book, 'Open Innovation' if you want to find out more).

At the micro level, some interesting research by Fiona Patterson was used to show that traditionally desirable personality traits such as 'agreableness' and 'conscientiousness' may not actually be high scoring traits in innovative people and as a consequence, organisations may be deselecting innovators by default.  Changing recruitment policies and adopting different development approaches for innovators may be necessary.  That implies organisations need to develop flexibility for managing diversity too.

A really fascinating workshop, and I haven't really done it justice here, but it provided real food for thought.  It was a challenge to HR professionals, in particular those who communicate the psychological contract to employees.  While the current narrative is a plea for trust and engagement, we were asked to be more honest in recognising the heightened levels of risk and uncertainty for employees and the need to drive for greater flexibility.  You can download a copy of the white paper, 'The Innovation Imperative:  Charting the Territory for HR' from the Centre for Performance-Led HR's website:

http://www.lums.lancs.ac.uk/research/centres/hr/WhitePapers/

There are three other workshops in this series:

1.  A HR strategy for Innovation (8th June 2011)
2.  Leading for Innovation  (15th June 2011)
3.  Innovative People  (22nd June 2011)

Contact ifg@lancaster.ac.uk for further details.  If you decide to attend, put up a summary on this blog.  Let's get the world inventing!

Miles