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Great Quote from Fromm

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Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.

Erich Fromm (1900 – 1980) Psychoanalyst
If we can look past the masculine language I think this quote from Erich Fromm is wonderful.   I think everyone should have a flirt with enteprise nad entrepreneurship to sdee if it provides them with a vehicle for becoming what he/she potentially is.  However I am also sure that for many the flirtation will end up with rejection – and rightly so.
My concern is that for those providing services to support ‘entrepreneurial flirtation’ the cost of rejections is high as those paying for services what to see flirtation come to fruition in business start-ups and success. People walking away from entrepreneurship – even if it is the right thing for them to do – will seldom be rewarded by the funders.

Certificating PMN

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I have recently been asked by a couple of PMN members whether I can issue certification of attendance on PMN training programmes for them to include in the CPD records.

This is certainly something I could do. Let me know whether you think it is a good idea. Also what information would you want the certificates to contain to make them most useful to you.

Would it be enough for me to e-mail a pdf of a certificate – or would ‘the real thing’ be more worthwhile?

The single most costly and common error a manager can make?

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Anger - disposition or context?

The ‘fundamental attribution error’ is, in my experience, the single most common and expensive mistake a manager can make.

The fundamental attribution error is our tendency to over-emphasize ‘dispositional’, or ‘personality-based’, explanations for behaviours observed in others while, simultaneously under-emphasizing ‘situational’ explanations. In other words, we tend to assume that someones actions depend on what “kind” of person they are rather than on the contextual forces influencing the person.

So when someone loses their rag in a meeting it is because they are an angry person who can’t control their behaviour and is unprofessional.  When someone cuts us up on the motorway it is because they are a bad driver.  If someone pushes in front of us at Tesco’s it is because they are rude.

This error frequently creeps into our management.  Especially when people are not performing as we would like.  It is convenient to tell ourselves that their behaviour is because of who they are as a person – rather than because of the context in which they are behaving.  This is because we are powerless to change ‘who they are as a person’ so as a manger we need do nothing – we just accept it.  If we start to consider how the context in which they are operating drives the behaviour then we might have to take a bit more responsibility in making changes.  And quite often we find out that the behaviour that we are getting is at its very root caused by the very context that we are paid to manage!

It requires us to resist the temptation to resort to the quick label (they are just lazy/bad/angry/bossy/arrogant/unprofessional).  These labels let us off the hook but leaves the situation unchanged and the behaviour likely to recur.

Instead we should ask ourselves why a rational, sensible and good person would behave that way.  We need to learn to think ‘How Fascinating!’.  We are then forced to consider how context may have driven the behaviour, and what we might be able to do as a manager to change the context.

So for example perhaps the colleague who lost their rag in the meeting is not just Mr Angry – but is really frustrated at being talked over all the time.   In this case we might be able to facilitate the meeting a little more robustly, ensure that everyone gets their voice heard and the angry behaviour is likely to disappear.

By considering these contextual factors we do create ourselves more work (this IS the work of management and should not be shied away from) but we also give ourselves a genuine chance of making things better.  The kinds of contextual factors that cause ‘bad’ behaviours include:

  • lack of skills, judgement or experience (bad driving for example)
  • the behaviours of others (angry outbursts from someone who feels they are continually being interrupted)
  • lack of incentive/disincentive (the bad behaviour is unrecognised and therefore repeated)
  • unchallenged group norms (our meetings always start late)

So learn to recognise and challenge the fundamental attribution error at work.  I guarantee it will make you a much better manager.

Why NVQs are not enough

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I have just started working with a national charity to improve performance management through an investment in management skills. The HR manager who I am working with said

“All of our managers have been through the NVQ level 3 in Management – but they are still unable or unwilling to recognise and manage under-performers”.

This shows the dangers of pursuing qualifications – rather than pursuing performance. We seem to be trapped in a public policy for vocational education and training that puts qualifications above practice.

We are getting a more qualified workforce – but not necessarily a more able one.

Or am I wrong?

Venturefest Reflections

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This year was my first trip to Venturefest Yorkshire.  This is an enormous annual gathering of entrepreneurs, inventors and investors all looking to build the management and financial teams that they need for business success.  Both private and public sector were well represented.

It was free to attend and extremely busy!

A whole floor of the main grandstand was given over to ‘enterprising schools’.  When I visited the busiest stand by a long way was the ‘Robot Wars’ competition where a broad definition of enterprise was in evidence.  Lots of young people engaged in building robots and competing against each other  as well as collaborating to ensure that everyone had the equipment, time and space that they needed to keep things on the road.

Nothing was being bought or sold but enterprise and enterprise skills abounded.

Some of the quieter stalls had taken a much narrower definition of enterprise.  They made stuff (badges, t-shirts and fruit kebabs) and tried to sell them!  I hope that the young people on these stalls learnt a lot from their efforts.  They appeared to be having relatively little fun (compared to the Robot Warriors) and found selling in an exhibition environment to be extremely hard work.

I only hope that they were not put off the idea of enterprise.