The two things we have to achieve for our grandchildren

The two things we have to achieve for our grandchildren

Oct 31, 2019 | Governance, Leadership

Yesterday I listened to a hysterical condemnation of Woolworths, who had come clean to the Employment Ombudsman when they realised they had underpaid staff.

Another example of big business rorting workers, or more evidence of the impact of overwhelming complexity of a system causing self implosion?

Woolworths is the biggest private sector employer in the country, so it is reasonable to assume they have the will and resources to ensure employees are paid properly. On the other hand, with the complexity of the award systems, staggered and differing shifts, varied hours of operation, and the sheer number of people moving from one job classification to another, across locations, the complexity of the payroll must be staggering.  

Over the millennia, as we humans have become more ‘civilised’ and our social and commercial systems more sophisticated and complex, from the early Greeks through to today, there has been an increasingly delicate balance at play.

Varying supply systems and the bureaucracies that control them, deliver the means by which the surplus from our collective endeavours is distributed. While the cost of that complexity is less than the revenue generated, we continue to become more complex. Once we reach a tipping point, where the revenue generated is less than the cost of the management bureaucracies that enable it, we become pointed at shitters ditch.

Look at almost any part of the ‘management’ systems in a democracy. There are always competing priorities, with vocal advocates on all sides. The tax system, NDIS,  defence, social welfare, personal power Vs institutional power, and on, and on, and on. In Woolworths case, the responsibility to get employees pay correctly compliant with various agreements and regulations, while remaining in control of, and extracting maximum return from the biggest expense incurred in operating, is such a balancing act.

It seems to me we have reached if not passed the tipping point.

As Hemingway asks in the Sun Also Rises:

‘How did you go bankrupt?‘

‘Two ways:  Gradually, then suddenly”

Unless we find ways to address just two challenging items, we will continue to slide, as complexity increases, goals become more fluffy,  and accountability diffused .

Those two items:

Priorities.

Focus.

We have to identify and prioritise the few key things upon which the future of our children and grandchildren are based.

We then have to focus resources on their achievement. It will be long term, incremental, and politically difficult, but the alternative is ugly.

The challenge is the same for any enterprise as it is for the country, only the scale is different, along with the accountability. After all, politicians have 3 or 4 years to make a start, depending on the location, while public companies have  to make adjustments quarter by quarter or be castigated by the stock markets.

I wonder if we mere mortals have the grit and foresight to act?

A very rare few do, they are not mere mortals, they are true leaders.

Have you seen any recently?

 

Cartoon credit: Scott Adams and his mate Dilbert.

 

 

 

A critical antidote to confirmation bias.

Oct 28, 2019 | Governance, Leadership, Management

Confirmation bias is a seductive bitch.

We see what we expect to see, the things that confirm our existing views and expectations, to the exclusion of alternatives. When taken to extremes,  loonies like holocaust deniers, and the ‘no vac’ lot emerge and sprout their fact and logic free poison, and attract a small following, and the rest of us just fail to understand how.

We humans tend to see things as if we were looking out a window.  It consumes less cognitive energy when patterns of the past are just assumed by our brains to be repeated, so that is the brains default. The further back from the window, the narrower the view, but however close you get, there is still a restriction.

The challenge therefore is to find an alternative window through which to look at the problem facing you, or better still, assemble a few others with different windows through which they look at the same problem.

Do  not just  think outside the box, get another box!

One way to use this different box, or window, to continue the metaphor, when facing a challenge is to ask better questions, ones that force the challenge to be examined from different perspectives.

  • Why is it so?
  • Where is the leverage?
  • Have we described the problem correctly, or just the symptom?
  • What is the pain point?
  • What has to be true for this outcome to emerge?
  • For this expected result to become about, which assumptions have to be accurate?
  • What happens if we do not decide?
  • What does this challenge look like in other arenas?
  • Are we relying too much on data?
  • What does the behaviour of others when confronting this really look like?
  • Is the data we have reliable, or has it been ‘managed’?
  • How is this different?
  • Have we simplified the challenge sufficiently for a solution to emerge?
  • What would the devils advocate say?

I could go on, but you get the picture.

Driving change in a business means butting heads with confirmation bias.

This is why you need a distinct catalyst to kick it off, and keep it running, for the change process to be successful.

Ask better questions!

Who, and How, do we trust?

Sep 30, 2019 | Governance, Leadership

 

 

To me it is a paradox that we have never been so connected, and yet we have never been so polarised and isolated.

With all the information we could possibly hope for, we as a society seem to avoid using it to make sensible rational decisions that will stand logical scrutiny. 

We humans evolved in groups of around 150, according to the well accepted theory first posited by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar. It is the number of people with whom we can maintain stable personal relationships. 

Richard Edelman in his presentation at the Davos conference earlier this year put it as, ‘Trust is local, and very personal’. The comment is based on the 2019 version of the long running Edelman Trust Barometer. It seems to reflect the ambiguity of our evolutionary selves, limited as we are to Dunbar’s number of 150, and our modern  selves, inundated with ‘friends’ served up by the connectivity of the net.

We have substituted the ‘natural’ depth of a relatively few relationships, with the breadth of many superficial, perhaps illusionary ones.  I have 800 connections on LinkedIn, and while I have been very careful, really only know a small number. There are 6,000 names, email addresses and phone numbers in my contacts list, all of whom I have physically met at some point in the last 20 years, but again, really know only a tiny percentage of them.

In a complementary piece of research to the Edelman barometer, the  IPSOS  Global trustworthiness index showed that scientists are the most trusted profession in the world, followed by doctors. Globally, politicians are the least trusted group. 

In other words, the group least trusted by people are those who are instituting the policies that impact on our lives, often in contradiction of the suggestions of the most trusted group in our midst. Our children will inherit the impact of many of the decisions we make, should we not be making them with the best information we have, informed by those who understand it, in the best interests of those who follow us?

It seems not, and my head hurts trying to figure out why.

 

The photo in the header is lifted from a video taken at the UN last week where President Trump and Teen activist Greta Thunberg presented their differing views.  The most powerful man in the world, Vs a 16 year old Swedish schoolgirl. Who do you trust?

 

 

 

 

3 words summarising the challenges of maximising productivity

Sep 25, 2019 | Leadership, Management

 

‘Rhythm’, ‘Flow’ and ‘Balance’.

These three simple words reflect the ideal state for a process, big or small, in any enterprise. That state where the process is optimised for both efficiency and productivity, which are very different beasts. I have seen highly optimised processes that are still way short of being  productive, simply because there has been too little time spent considering the most productive use of the range of resources consumed by the process.  For example, US car companies used to  be highly efficient at driving the assembly of a car through a production process, but the cars they produced were terrible.

Rhythm.

Everything happens in an orderly and predictable manner, the ebbs and flows of volume have a cadence to them that enables the appropriate level of resource to be planned and allocated. No surprises!

Flow

The product being produced, or the process being followed proceeds in an uninterrupted manner, without obstacles, and complications. Achieving ‘Flow’  should be a core objective of anyone charged with the responsibility of managing a complete process, or participating in any part of a process, which is all of us. In most cases creating flow is like fitting a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle together. Complex at the beginning, but when completed, the picture is obvious, with no irregularities.

Balance

There are always forces acting against both rhythm and flow, forces that tend to distort the process. Seeking to balance all these forces is a job of leadership, and when efficient processes are optimised, all these forces are kept in ‘Balance. It is a  bit like trying to balance a top heavy piece of wood on the palm of your hand, you have to keep all the forces acting on the wood in balance in order to keep it vertical.

When you need some assistance in herding all the cats involved in this crucial but often easily pushed aside exercise, let the experience I have gathered over 40 years help you.

 

Please sir, can I buy another ‘Indulgence’?

Please sir, can I buy another ‘Indulgence’?

Sep 9, 2019 | Governance, Leadership

These days, we indulge ourselves in an ice-cream after going to the gym, an extra piece of cake, a new dress when we do not really need it, but they make us feel good.

A bit of harmless indulgence seems OK.

Except when it is  not.

The word originated in the middle ages, when the few rich and powerful people, ruled spiritually as they were by the church, could wander along to their local bishop and buy an ‘indulgence.’  It was simply a bribe to regain Gods favour after a bit of rape, murder, incest and pillage.

An ‘indulgence’ bought you forgiveness, it seems  much easier than  changing behaviour.  You are forgiven,  so now it is Ok to go out and do it all again. Forgiveness and salvation are for sale. Whoops, another ‘indulgence’ required!.

It was how the church made its money, gathered power, and exerted control over the politics of the day.

Seems not a lot has changed, although we have put different packaging around the sale of ‘Indulgence’.

The church in the middle ages has largely been replaced as the controlling institution in our lives by governments, and the body politic more generally, of all sorts of persuasions. These continue to evolve, and sell ‘indulgence’ in more sophisticated ways. They sell, and trade favours, make laws and determine the degree, and against whom they are enforced. They make decisions binding on the rest of us, that are coloured and directed towards those seeking advantage and able to pay for it, in one way or another.

Greed, ego, personal advancement, power, and self-aggrandisement seem to have replaced the  observance of the common strictures of the major religions as the spiritual framework guiding much of our private and public lives.

As individuals and communities we are the lesser for it.

Anyone got an Aldi bag?? 

 

PS March 29, 2020. 

Re-reading this post, it seemed sensible to clarify the reference to the Aldi bag that was current at the time of writing. A Chinese ‘businessman’ had given 100k in cash, in an Aldi bag to an official of the NSW Labor Party. No doubt paying in advance for an ‘Indulgence’, or two.

it also seems likely in the reconstruction that will soon be occurring, both from the fires over Christmas, and the subsequent Corona induced catastrophe, that there just may be lots of Indulgences’ for sale.

The 7 principals of business success.

The 7 principals of business success.

Sep 4, 2019 | Leadership, Strategy

 

Over a long career, I have seen many successes, and just as many, if not more, failures. In both cases, there are a small number of common factors. The successes all have most, if not all, of the factors below, and the failures are typified by their absence.

Be constantly learning.

All business skills are learnable, so be constantly learning. Business skills are  not rocket science, business is in principal simple, and the skills are there to be learnt. This is not to say you will be the best in the world at it, but you will be good enough to make a huge difference. How many people do not understand how their accounts work, the basics of marketing, how to be a leader rather than just a manager? All these things are easy in principal, and those skills can be learned, with time and commitment.

New things rarely work first time.

You might try a Facebook add campaign, or different sales pitch, and it does not work, but nothing works entirely as expected first time.  Aim for the top 10% in your field, experiment, be different, and learn as you go. The alternative is to aim low, and you might just get there.

Leverage.

Doing more with less. Leverage risks becoming a cliché of the business coaching set, but it is not a new idea, just a recycled one. Organisations of any type have at the core of their existence rarely stated, the recognition that together we get more done than alone, and to work together takes some form of organisation. That organisation offers the benefit of leverage.

Work on, not just in, your business.

Every  business, whatever the size has two dimensions. The first is transactional, the things that have to be done in order to deliver a product or service for which someone is prepared to pay. The second is to determine what I call the ‘which’. Which customer, which product, which capability, which market segment, which advertising channel, you get the idea. It is all about the choices that need to be made that have no direct impact on any individual transaction as it occurs. A disturbingly common factor in small business failure I see is the functional focus of the person who started the business. They may be a great  electrician, architect, retailer, or whatever, and their time is spent in the functional area where they are comfortable, the ‘in your business’ things at the expense of  the wider questions of ‘Which,’ that are all about ‘on your business’ issues.

Have goals.

Short term medium term, long term. All change starts with a change in your mental models, and to grow and prosper, change is essential. Another cliché, if you are not running hard, you are being left behind. See in your mind what things could be like, that leads to a change in actions as a result. If the mindset does not change, it does not matter how many tools and techniques you see and learn, if the mind set does not change, it will be all for nothing.

Why.

Understanding your ‘Why’  your business purpose creates the potential for synergy and alignment of people and resources, that is needed to enable you to jump the hurdles that will emerge.

People. Nothing happens without them. A business is not a business until it engages with people, employees, stakeholders, funders, and customers. Never forget the customer is really king, they are peope too, not numbers on a spreadsheet, and never forget the people who make it all happen.

How many of these factors can you identify in your business? Winning is not an accident, it takes long, hard work, physically, intellectually and emotionally, and you cannot do it alone. Give me a call when you need some independent and experienced input.

Header photo courtesy of Hugh McLeod at gapingvoid.com