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Archives for June 2008

The Power of Acceptance

June 30, 2008 by admin

“We need to tell people not to be helpful. Trying to be helpful and giving advice are really ways to control others.

Advice is a conversation stopper…we want to substitute curiosity for advice.

No call to action.

No asking what they are going to do about it.

Do not tell people how you handled the same concern in the past.

Do not ask questions that have advice hidden in them, such as “have you ever thought of talking to the person directly?”

Often citizens will ask for advice. The request for advice is how we surrender our sovereignty. If we give in to this request, we have, in this small instance, affirmed their servitude, their belief that they do not have the capacity to create the world from their own resources; and more important, we have supported their escape from their own freedom.”

Community – The structure of belonging – Peter Block

“One of the basic elements of the relationship between oppressor and oppressed is prescription. Every prescription represents the imposition of one individual’s choice upon another, transforming the consciousness of the person prescribed to into one that conforms with the prescriber’s consciousness.”

Pedagogy of the Oppressed – Paulo Friere

“It was wonderful! Incredibly powerful – just to be listened to.”

Participant on an Introduction to Enterprise Coaching Programme.

Filed Under: enterprise, entrepreneurship Tagged With: community, development, enterprise, entrepreneurship, professional development

The War for Talent – and the option for pacifists!

June 27, 2008 by admin

The War For Talent

Another copy of People Management drops onto the doormat and once again I am reminded about the potential for Human Resource Management to help negotiate the credit crunch.  My favourite piece of advice –  ‘Look for ways of saving money without laying people off’! – Just wrong in so many ways.  How do ‘membership magazines’ get away with such dross?

And then there are the usual mantras about talent management, talent recruitment and talent retention.  There is even a glossy supplement on Recruitment Marketing that shows just what lengths some organisations go to in order to recruit the best.  Pictures of gyms, yoga classes and the Bourneville Sports Ground all provided to help retract and retain talent.  Articles headlined ‘The Talent Crunch’ – and then over 30 pages of very expensively crafted and placed adverts many of them from organisations that consistently under-invest time and money in people development.  (They obviously take the CIPD advice seriously and see training as a place where you can ‘save money with having to lay people off‘.  Indeed it even saves you the expense of redundancy as you can watch your talented people walk out the door on their own volition!  Double bubble!  Indeed many of the recruitment ads are from the NHS where the recent Healthcare Commission report showed that the chances of you getting even an annual appraisal that you feel is helpful are less than 1 in 4!

Most wars are stupidly expensive and damaging – and the war for talent is no different.

This is because people have an innate and practically limitless potential to learn and develop.  Some people have switched on to this potential and been developing it successfully for a while (this is what we mean by talented).  Others have not yet learned to believe in and develop their potential.

So if you really want to develop a great team of talented people don’t join the talent recruitment wars.  Instead fight for more engagement with people, more feedback, more coaching and more work based opportunities for development.  Fight for the right of every person to be supported effectively, frequently and professionally to develop their own potential.  Practice the rhetoric of investing in people instead of flying the flag for it.

Don’t head hunt other peoples talent.

GROW YOUR OWN.

Not only will you find remarkable talents in some quite unexpected places – but you will also get a reputation as a place where talent can flourish, people can express themselves and explore and develop their potential – and that is more appealing to talented people than the sexiest job advert or well appointed gym.

Filed Under: Leadership, management Tagged With: Leadership, learning, management, performance improvement, performance management, talent, talent management

How Not to Inspire a Green Revolution – or anything else

June 26, 2008 by admin

I awoke this morning to hear the following rallying(?) cry on the Today Programme:

‘We need nothing short of a green revolution…if we are to hit European targets on climate change’.

I didn’t catch the speakers name – but the last reason that we need a green revolution is to hit European targets. In fact I can’t think of a worse reason for a revolution.

Yet many managers use this kind of pathetic rhetoric on an almost daily basis.

‘We need to improve training and development as part of our pursuit of third star’.

‘We need to improve boys literacy at Key Stage 2 if we are to get a good inspection’.

‘We need to increase sales if we are to hit our targets’.

Most people do not care about targets or inspections.

They do care about doing a great job, doing the best that they are capable of and making a secure living. So we should be saying:

‘We need to improve training and development so that we can deliver the very best public services that we can’.

‘We need to improve boys literacy at Key Stage 2 if we are to be a great school’.

‘We need to increase sales if we are to increase our profitability and grow the company’.

Perhaps the most inspirational speech ever is Martin Luther Kings ‘I have a dream speech’. Here is an excerpt:

‘I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.’

In the hands of the unknown revolutionary on the Today Programme this might have become:

“I have a plan that one day we could pass some really good equal opportunities legislation and pursue some really ambitious diversity targets.”

Filed Under: Leadership, management Tagged With: change, Leadership, management

Management is a Team Sport

June 26, 2008 by admin

I get to work with a lot of businesses.  Some of them are successful.  Very successful.

And all of the successful businesses have one thing in common – a successful management team with diverse talents.  Between them they are able to produce a great product or service, market and sell it brilliantly and have in place first class financial management, planning, forecasting and controls.

If good management teamwork is a pre-requisite for a successful organisation then why are so many management development programmes designed to work with individuals and to promote the cult of individualism rather than good management teamwork?

Filed Under: management Tagged With: learning, management

Entrepreneurship as a Team Sport

June 26, 2008 by admin

I get to work with a lot of businesses. Some of them are successful. Very successful.

And all of the successful businesses have one thing in common – a successful management team with diverse talents. Between them they are able to produce a great product or service, market and sell it brilliantly and have in place first class financial management, planning, forecasting and controls.

Nearly all of them were founded by a team as well. It seems to be a very difficult transition for most founding solo entrepreneurs to make from being the lone ‘big cheese’ to being part of a management team. Generally they either sell their business to a management team – who are often able to grow it significantly – or they retain complete control of a pretty small empire.

If good management teamwork is a pre-requisite for successful high growth then why are so many entrepreneur development programmes designed to work with individuals and to promote the cult of individualism rather than good management teamwork.

Good business plans are always written by teams. The best entrepreneurs always build the team first. Then they help the team to develop the plan.

Are any of you working on enterprise development programmes that put this reality smack bang in the middle of things?

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Uncategorized

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