Blog

Bored with the Board?

I struggled to stay awake as the BT board bored us with the cost cutting blah @ the AGM this week. It may well be necessary but boy is it dull, haven’t they got any other tricks up their sleeve?

I recall the CEO of Global Services showing us all the downward trend in mobile spend and expenses on a recent webcast and pointing to this as a success. We all know that these costs can be very easily and quickly driven to zero. I can’t believe he really sees these things as sustainable success, as a shareholder I sincerely hope not.

Rather than just squeeze until the pips squeak, what else might you do to get people fired up and enthused in these difficult times? Before I left BT I posed a few questions to the Global Services leadership team, they were:

How are you going to motivate your people?
How are you going to get them to give the discretionary effort that’s so vital in delivering a great customer experience?
How are you going to get your people to trust you, and each other?

Referencing the first question specifically, Roy Saunderson drew my attention to the following interesting analysis from the USA and Canada. It would be convenient to dismiss it just because it’s not from our own backyard, but I think it’s worth a look, and a think, and a do. My experience in BT Global showed me that simple basic recognition is poorly executed. Less than 3 out of 10 could strongly agree with the statement “In the last 7 days I’ve received praise or recognition for good work”. That’s despite the fact this statement is widely acknowledged as a critical key in the link between managers and staff. BT is not alone as the data below suggests and as I said to Ian Livingston (BT Group CEO) before I left, just think how powerful BT could be if it could get just one step ahead of the herd in these vital areas?

Have a read, have a think and do. The sad news is I saw little evidence of action when on the inside, and if the board are to be believed, that attitude persists. The great news is this can be easily fixed, in any company. I hope you enjoy changing it and I wish you every success in doing so.

Recognition definitely needs leadership at the helm, so lead on!!

Check out this latest study from Ipsos Reid which is highlighting that recognition or the lack of recognition maybe impacting lowered engagement scores in Canadian workplaces.

Apparently Canadian employees are becoming less loyal to their employers. According to these recent findings from Ipsos Reid’s Build a Better Workplace syndicated study, 22% of Canadian employees are expressing decreased loyalty to their employer.

“Loyalty to one’s employer is very dependant on recognition,” says JB Aloy, Ipsos’ resident expert on employee engagement and author of the study. “Staff who feel their involvement is not acknowledged are more likely to become disloyal.”

Interestingly, Recognition Professionals International, has “Management Responsibility” as its second Best Practice Standard for recognition practices and programs.

A few years back Roy Saunderson asked managers in the public sector across the United States and Canada how important it was for them to have senior leader involvement in recognition.

How important is it to managers to have Senior Leader involvement with Employee Recognition?
* 93 percent of managers indicate Senior Leader involvement is very or extremely important
* 75 percent of those managers stated Senior Leader participation was extremely important

Now consider the harsh reality when they asked what percentage were REALLY involved:

Actual level of Senior Leader involvement
* 21 percent of Senior Leaders are very involved
* Another 58 percent are somewhat involved

*(Source: Roy Saunderson, “Survey on the Effectiveness of Employee Recognition In the Public Sector”, Public Personnel Management , Vol. 33, no. 3 (2004): 255-275)

The Way We Were

I listened to a very interesting short interview on Radio 5 Live breakfast yesterday. Nicky Campbell was speaking with Linda Yueh from the London School of Economics about the results of a recent economic survey. The survey showed a third of respondents think the economic climate will get worse (so two thirds don’t – yippee!), 12% already think things are getting better, and the biggest fear is unemployment. Four out of ten fear for losing their job.

Linda came across brightly and spoke with enthusiasm. Nicky Campbell tends towards flowery language a bit too much for my liking and this interview was no exception. I nearly choked on my toast when he hit us with “…merely bits of flotsam tossed on the oceans of economic trends…” Linda laughed and said she couldn’t match that and Campbell expressed a wish to withdraw the statement, but the flowers had been flung.

Apologies, I digress. What really drew me in was Linda’s response to Nicky Campbell’s double barrelled question, “Will we ever be the way we were? Will we ever get back to how it was?” She said that previous levels of consumption based on credit are not sustainable. My ears pricked up. There will likely be a push not to return to the way we were. The financial sectors excess will need regulation to ensure it doesn’t stray off course again. That will mean we need a new sector to sustain growth and our standard of living. Linda suggested green industry as a replacement.

This age of change could potentially be a very good one as we seek to rely less on financial services and more on sustainability. We can change the way we live and the things we do. Very good…but something was missing. I was urging Linda to get stuck into what kind of behaviour she felt was needed from politicians, business leaders, everyone, to make this change. It didn’t come, the harsh reality of radio deadlines cut things cruelly short.

I’m interested in what you think about Linda’s opinions. More importantly, I’d love to hear what you think about the behaviour required to make the shift from consume to sustain?

You can listen to the radio interview here. It’s at 1:12.58 into the programme and 4 min 30 sec in duration.

The serious business of fun

The past few days have been fun. Serious fun. Principally I blame two people for this, each of whom I met for the first time a few days ago. First in the dock is Nish Kotak, second up is cycling legend Chris Boardman.

Nish is MD of execellence, and he kindly invited me and several others interested in sustainable change, to an event last week. We listened with interest to the guest speaker, Emily Walker. Emily’s talk provoked a lively questions and answers session. A great debate full of agreement and constructive disagreement. Afterwards I spent some time talking with Nish and a colleague of his, Helen Pybus. What struck me about both of them, and the other people they introduced me to, was a serious sense of fun. I don’t mean clown suits or endless jokes. I mean a lively spark, a genuine sense of interest, and enjoyment. Enjoyment for the moment, for their business and for their clients and contacts. I left the event buzzing with excitement, what fun.

The following day I met Chris Boardman. As a keen cyclist this was a rare, exciting opportunity for me. Chris was with a few of us to talk about innovation and his part in leading the hugely successful technical team which supported our cyclist at the Beijing Olympics. What really fascinated me was the honesty with which Chris spoke about his transition from solo selfish focussed sporting superstar, to a visionary, exciting team leader. At the very essence of this transition were some really interesting things that Chris felt are essential when it comes to high performing teams. I list them here and will come back to these in more detail at a later date:

Value diversity
Clear Definition of Roles
Parked Egos
Share Praise
Trust
Listening
Fun

Chris illustrated this last essential, the glue that holds all the others together, with some great photos. His team have lots of fun and conceive, develop and deliver exciting sporting innovation and excellence. Their collective sense of fun was a major contributor to a huge haul of Olympic medals. Fun at the highest level.

Fast forward to last night and I was privileged to be catching up with two ex-colleagues. We spoke about times past and opportunities yet to come. Without exception, the reflection was all about the fun we had working together. Working to overcome challenges, deliver success, whatever, what mattered was the fun that made it memorable.

People often ask me how I manage to have so much fun in work. It’s my job. And I now realise that I’m connected to fun everywhere. It’s a serious business.