Byron Kalies

First appeared in ‘CEO Refresher’ (U.S.A.)

Change, change, change. There seems to be so many change programmes, change initiatives, strategic transformations, right-sizings, administrative reforms, re-engineerings, reorganisations these days that you’d be forgiven for thinking that this had been totally done to death now and there was no way you could cope with any more. Unfortunately not. Change initiatives are not going away - they’re coming thicker and faster than ever.

So what do you do about it? There’s one tried and trusted option I learnt from a senior manager in the Civil Service; “Keep your head down”. This seemed to work for a while. Statistics suggest that 80% of change initiatives fizzled out within six months. However it’s becoming less and less of an option now as there are fewer people to hide behind. The only thing to do these days seems to be to stay ahead of the change. As a manager you have a slight advantage over your staff, in that you’ll (usually) know what’s about to happen before them. This can be extremely useful, as we’ll see later.

You need to manage it effectively is what you need to do. If you are the initiator you need to make sure it happens. You need to truly understand the benefits of the change and sell them to all the stakeholders - especially your staff. If you aren’t the initiator but are the one that has to make it happen, i.e. a manager, this applies twice as strongly. As a manager in an Organisation you have to get things done you may not necessarily agree with. In fact there will be times, as you know, when you’ve had to do things you definitely don’t want to do. Ah well. What can you do? You take the corporate money at the end of the month so you need to toe the party line now and again. I’m not suggesting for one minute that you have to accept and agree with everything ‘they’ throw at you. On the contrary you have to argue, negotiate, influence, cajole to try to get your ideas implemented. However, if you lose I don’t see a great deal of point going half-heartedly at the decision and ensuring no one wins. (Unsurprisingly this happens a great deal). No, once the battles are over it’s cabinet responsibility and you have to do your best to make it happen.

There’s a nice little four step plan based on some work by Costas Markides I would recommend. I like it because it’s simple and it works. You can also add a variety of your own bits and pieces to it which gives it flexibility and your own feel to it. The stages are;

1. Rational acceptance

2. Emotional acceptance

3. Light 1000 fires

4. Support

Seems straightforward enough. It’s one of the few models I’ve seen that seems to recognise there’s a difference between hearts and minds and you have to appeal in different ways to each aspect. You start with peoples’ minds.

You start by selling them the benefits. You need to do the sums and show them that the end result is an improvement somehow. Either in terms of hard cash, quality of work, standard of living, self improvement or something. If you can’t do this then you’d better be asking yourself some hard questions. Why are you imposing this change then?

Take time to work through this. People, being people, are a lot like you and me. We tend not to like change for many, many reasons - all to do with being vulnerable. They will have vulnerability about losing their job, their self-esteem, their comfortable way of life and many other things you can’t even think of right now. So once you’ve spelt out all the changes, rationally, analytically - drawn maps, used Gantt charts, analysed the costs, looked at all the logical business you need to dig a little deeper.

Try this with your team; at the end of a team meeting, or some occasion where they are all together, ask them a question;

“You have a cake and can make 4 cuts. What are the most pieces you can have? You have 3 minutes to work this out.” There are no tricks.

After a minute and a half stop them. Invariably they’ll be many of them really concentrating and slightly annoyed that you’ve stopped them. Tell them you’ll let them complete it later but for now ask them what would be the most effective way they could have solved this. After a number of ideas you should have a good list. Ask what the most important reason on the list is. I bet it’ll be that they should have worked as a team. In this exercise 99 times out of a 100 people try to complete it on their own. Ask them why they didn’t work as a team. You will get some answers pointed at you - “You didn’t tell us to.” “You said we couldn’t”. Eventually you’ll start getting to the heart of it.

It’s to do with conditioning. People have had 30, 40, 50 years of working on their own. In school if you collaborated it was called cheating. At an interview you’re not allowed to take a friend. You can explain that n this environment it’s OK to help each other. Let them now complete the task and they’ll find they get a much better result (answer below).

In a similar vein you’ve got to deal with each barrier that gets in the way of people changing. These changes may often appear small or silly (”I didn’t know it was OK to work as a team”) but they do stop change happening. Rationally dealing with all these barriers takes time. However, if it’s not done you know what will happen don’t you? The change either wont work or it’ll work but be half-hearted with people still going on about the old days and the old system.

In a Government Office I once worked at I saw a huge red book with hand written details of certain aspect of marriage regulation. Someone was methodically and painstakingly writing twenty or so new entries.

“Some job.” I said “I bet you’ll be glad when the regulation changes and you can just use computers?”

“Oh there’s nothing in the law about this” was the reply, “We just do it.”

“But why? Isn’t the computer system up to it?”

“Oh yes - it’s a print off from the computer I’m using to copy from.”

“So why are you doing it?”

“Because we’ve always done it this way.”

At the same time as winning their rational acceptance for the change you’ll need to start winning their emotional acceptance. Even if people rationally accept the change and you’ve eliminated all the barriers - you’ve still got to win their hearts.

There’s a superb illustration of this by Adams, Hayes and Hopson called the Coping Cycle. It’s to do with the various stages people go through in times of change.

The premise is that we all go through these stages in times of change. Some of the changes we go through take the blink of an eye to go through - others take years, or maybe we never reach internalising.

Getting people through the defence and denial stages is difficult. Many of the people you need to change may well have invested a great deal of time and energy in the old system and here you are coming along and destroying it. Suddenly all the problems with the old system seem to have disappeared. People are finally accepting and using the old system really well. You’ll even notice an increase in efficiency and self-esteem. This, of course, is further ammunition for the “Why do we need to change. Things are working perfectly” and the “change for change’s sake” factions. The old system may well be working better, but it’s because people are now putting more effort into it. Left to their own devices people would stay here forever if they could (huge generalisation I know, but has lots of truth behind it).

There are many stories of people in defence and denial mode, my favourite was from a colleague who was a tax inspector in Wales - He used to go around West Wales inspecting betting shops and ensuring they had paid the correct amount of tax.

One day in 1976 he was working way up the Swansea valley visiting a small village (well more like a wide spot in the road) called Abercwmtoch - a few houses, 2 pubs, a church and a betting office. In the betting office he looks through the tickets and sees all sort of strange things; 2 shilling each way bets, 6d wins, 2/6 yankee. Bearing in mind this is 1976 - 5 years after decimalization, It hasn’t quite reached Abercwmtoch yet.

“Ah that new fangled decimalization” you can hear them saying “It’ll never catch on.”

I wonder if they’ve changed now.

At this stage there’s a lot of anger and blame - people are vulnerable. Eventually once it’s accepted and they have the new system it gets worse;

“It’s different”,

“It doesn’t do what we want”,

“You can’t even run that report we used to run”,

“It’s too slow”,

“It’s too quick”,

“I told you it was rubbish”.

People need more training, more listening to, more involvement. This stage is often referred to as ‘the pits’ - you can’t get any lower. Eventually people start getting used to it and things start working - easier, faster and you start hearing.

“I wish we’d had this last year”,

“You can even run that report we used to run”,

“I told you it was a good idea”,

“Can we have it in red?”

This coping cycle is excellent to help see what stage people are at and then help them through that stage. It’s that old, old thing I know but you’ve got to communicate with people. Tell them consistently what’s happening. Tell them if there’s nothing happening. No communication form the centre = communication on the grapevine. That’s how rumours start.

The next stage involves lighting one thousand fires. This is to do with letting go and empowerment. This is a brave step. It takes a very mature leader, or manager. They have to trust their staff. It’s still the manager’s fault if things go wrong - it’s delegation not abdication, and they have to let the staff take the credit when things go well.

“That’s anarchy” you say.

It’s not really. You as the manager, have to set the limits and let the people go. They need to know 2 things - the aim (measurable targets in terms of output, cost, time, etc.) and the parameters (what are they allowed to do / not allowed to do). Then off they go. You’ll be surprised at how much ingenuity, collective wisdom your people have.

The final aspect is support. This is the support you need to give your staff - clear, total and transparent. It’s a matter of trust and acceptance. You know there will be mistakes along the line. How do you deal with those mistakes - do you learn form them or do you punish people with them. You know the answer to that one.

Talking of answers - the cake puzzle. Generally people go through a number of stages in solving this;

Stage 1: 4 equal cuts 8 parts

Stage 2: 4 unequal cuts 10 parts

Stage 3: Then, a light bulb moment and someone realises it’s a cake (a 3 dimensional object) and they make 3 cuts on the surface then a horizontal cut to get 14 parts. They then tend to look snug for a while.

Stage 4: Someone really realises it’s a cake and cuts it in half, puts the one half on top of the other and cuts it again. Then they put the four pieces in a pile and cut through it again and so on - giving 16 pieces in total.

Depending on whether someone has asked about the shape of the cake and you’ve said “a round cake” you can give the stage 5 answer - “any number you like”. If the cake were from a child’s birthday party and the child liked caterpillars (it does happen) and the person baking the cake had baked a sponge body with 20 sugar legs you could cut the cake horizontally and have lots of pieces.

First appeared in ‘Across The Board’ (U.S.A.)

Great leaders have stories, legends, myths about them. These tales may be totally true, based on some truth, or purely wishful thinking, but it doesn’t really matter: They inspire people. If you’re a CEO for a billion-dollar company, you need to be noticed. Your employees will want stories to tell about you. They don’t want to be led by faceless accountants (no offence to faceless accountants). However trite it sounds, actions really do speak louder than words.

There’s the example of a British CEO who took charge of a confectionery company that was in serious financial difficulty. His first act was to cut the tails off the mouse-shaped candies. What an incredible symbolic act-with one gesture, he demonstrated the ruthlessness he was going to show to turn the company around.

There’s the story of Michael Grade, then controller and now director-general of BBC One. Visiting the news department one day when they were short-staffed, he acted as a junior researcher to cover a shipwreck story, finding a member of the coast guard to interview. People at the BBC still talk about that today.

You can have the world’s best mission statement talking about teamwork, respect, and treating people as equals, but until you demonstrate it, it’s just words. Bill Gates illustrated this theory in Microsoft Germany. Most German industries operate in a very formal manner, but this memo, on Gates’s instruction, told employees to use the informal German word for you, Du, instead of the more formal Sie. This very small act was highly significant in motivating the employees and encouraging them to recognize a more egalitarian way of working.

Making a statement doesn’t have to involve a grand gesture. James Dyson, founder of the vacuum-cleaner company Dyson, created a superb environment for his staff-subsidized restaurants, no memos, no shirts, no ties. The story that sticks in my mind, however, is what new employees have to do on their first day: Everyone-whatever grade, whatever salary-has to build a new vacuum cleaner themselves and can then buy it for £5. In a similar vein, Edward Guinness, head of Guinness brewers, publicly recalls his first day in overalls and Wellington boots, cleaning out huge beer vats. These examples allow all employees to see their leaders as human. There are a number of television shows at the moment that show leaders getting their hands dirty: Executives are filmed spending a week on the shop floor, delivering products, selling burgers. Aside from being great TV (and great publicity), it’s a way to get employees to respond to the leaders. You can see their newfound respect for their bosses.

On the more serious side, there are a number of acts that organizations make in times of crisis that allow them to stand out from the crowd. In Liverpool, England, the Littlewoods Organization, a mail-order company that is the largest family-owned business in Great Britain, sent each employee called up to fight in World War II a personal letter guaranteeing him a job upon his return. These letters became legendary. During the Depression, Levi-Strauss CEO Walter Haas kept employees working when there was no meaningful work for them. Malden Mills CEO Aaron Feuerstein continued to pay the company’s 2,400 employees after a devastating fire that practically ruined the business. These stories live on in the minds of employees and customers in a way that advertising can’t. They engender tremendous loyalty.

Often in organizations, individuals make the difference. Their values permeate the company, and their acts say more than a hundred mission statements ever could. There’s another story of the Littlewoods Organization’s founder, Sir John Moores, who as a multimillionaire always bought his shoes from his own catalogue. On one occasion, the supplier, knowing whom the shoes were for, sent a handmade pair, with fine stitching and soft leather soles. They were returned with a terse note: “This isn’t what I ordered.”

Other individual stories are legendary: When John Harvey Jones took over at British chemical manufacturer ICI, he moved all of the meetings out of the huge boardrooms and into the offices; Sir Colin Marshall of British Airways attended every session of his customer-care program, “Putting People First”; IBM’s Lou Gerstner was reputed to have unplugged the projector during overlong, convoluted presentations by his executives. These stories appeal to employees, customers, and the media. You cannot buy this advertising. Leaders who are real characters, charismatic and passionate, inspire others by these acts. They take business out of the nine-to-five grind. It gives their employees role models, something to talk about and something to be proud of. It gives employees the freedom to take risks-and that has got to be good for business.

First appeared in ‘Public Servant’ (U.K.)

Working smarter to eliminate a long-hours culture is an essential in the modern workplace. Some managers have yet to gasp that a work-life balance policy means little without practice

Senior managers encourage colleagues and staff to work more effectively (work smarter, not harder) and spend more time at home with their family, pets or hobbies. Yet their actions scream out just the opposite.

People are looked upon favourably at work for being available 80 hours a week. Managers are promoted for showing such dedication and dropping family plans to meet work commitments. Of course, it only seems right that these people are rewarded.

It follows that the others - the nine to fivers - who come in, do a good job and go home, will not get the same rewards. It is only when you stop and think about this that you realise what an unusual situation this is, and what messages are being sent.

People have a contract and are paid to do a job, for a set period. However they are frequently at a disadvantage if they do only that. They are expected to do more. This is not written anywhere – it is just assumed. It is part of the business culture. Imagine if this happened in sport.

In the World Cup, at the end of a 90-minute football match you would see one member of the team still out there playing - and expecting to be paid more. In the same way that 1,500-metres runners could not sustain the pace for an extra lap when they had trained for four laps of the track, people who are geared to working eight hours and then put in an extra two cannot sustain the quality of output.

Occasionally people can produce extra. Some who work long hours do so day after day. They do however become tired and prone to making mistakes. The workplace becomes the only place they know and they can lose perspective. They often come under pressure from home demands and become stressed.

This is well-documented but ignored. There is a short-term mindset that needs such dedicated staff to tackle the latest crisis. Managers believe they will address the problems eventually, but not just yet.

The key to breaking out of this cycle is the behaviour of senior managers. They must set the example. It is not enough to sign an email produced by the HR department urging staff to look at work-life balance, when you are still working 100 hours yourself.

But why are leaders so driven to work ridiculous hours? If you ask them what they want out of life they invariably admit they would like more time with family or for other interests. Somehow they feel they cannot. It is to do with trust and control. There is also a feeling of being indispensable and exceptional. I suggest there is also a macho element to coping with pressure.

This behaviour reinforces the work-life messages to staff. People respond to actions rather than words. Those actions are usually set out in some form of performance management system. In most systems outputs or goals are measured as well as a range of competencies.

The outputs are fairly standard and well defined and will have been set for someone working a standard day and to a particular level of quantity and quality. If you cannot produce in the agreed time to the agreed quality you would fail to meet your objective.

The behaviour required, however, tends to highlight the differences in what is written and what is expected. Most sensible behaviour measures look at how effective people are at producing the outputs. Do they work as part of a team? Or do they steal all the nice work? Other measures have scope for reporting on the way people work - their level of commitment, their willingness to go above and beyond.

Frequently this is seen through the person’s willingness to work outside office hours. Sometimes this can be directly opposed to policy.

It is a nightmare trying to reconcile this and invariably policy is ignored as staff who work late are rewarded. What of the staff who cannot do this, because they have children to collect, parents to care for? Part-time staff tend to suffer a similar fate. They may be disadvantaged, not from any lack of commitment on their part, but from a lack of opportunity.

If people want to work longer hours - so be it. They need not necessarily be rewarded financially. If they enjoy putting in the long hours then work itself may be their reward. If managers want to encourage part-time staff, the first step is to ask what they need. They will have far more practical and creative ideas on how they can demonstrate their effectiveness.

Senior managers need to be role models and to mark out commitment by rewarding staff who do an excellent job in the time available.

First appeared in ‘Business Plus’ (Ireland)

Time management training is awful. Time logging, hints for dealing with telephone calls, email tips - nothing seems to work. You can’t even begin to look at taking anything away from a time management course until you’ve considered your own mortality.

Try this exercise. It’s ten years in the future. You find yourself in a church at your own funeral. One by one people you know get up and talk about you and your contribution to the world. What are they going to say? What will your partner, your kids, your colleagues say? I can bet all the money in my pocket they won’t be wishing you’d spent just a few more hours in work at your desk.

So, having come to terms with your mortality what next? Next you look at the scenario slightly differently. How would you like to be remembered? What would you like those who care about you, and you care about, to say? That’ll be your starter. Once you’ve really got this big picture sorted you can move on.

The next exercise comes from Stephen Covey. It’s linked to the previous exercise and known as ‘Stephen Covey’s Big Rocks’. Imagine a bucket. Put three or four big rocks in. “Is the bucket full?” “No” you reply. “Of course not” I say and put some smaller rocks in it to fill in the gaps. “Full now? “, “No”. I put in some sand, then some water. It’s full.

So, what’s the learning here? It’s to do with the order. What would happen if you’d reversed the order? Put the water in first, then the sand, the small rocks. There would be no room for the big rocks. These big rocks are the important things in your life. You need to schedule them first, not try to squeeze them in after arranging the water (writing pointless reports), sand (unnecessary travel) or small rocks (staff meetings where no-one listens and everyone looks at the clock). What are the big rocks in your life? For many it’s things like family, time to watch the children grow up, time to write that novel, time for themselves, time to back a difference. You decide. You identify 3 or 4 things you believe are important. The 3 or 4 things that will make a difference at your funeral. When you’ve decided what they are then schedule them. Schedule time for yourself, time to take that French class, time to spend a week with the children at half term. Once these times are scheduled fit the rest of your work around them. Try it - it works.

It’s not big and it’s not clever to work more than forty hours a week. I repeat, it’s not big and it’s not clever. So stop it. Stop that ‘poor me, look how many hours I work’ nonsense. Work as little as you can. Do as much as you can in the time agreed, but once you’ve done - run away - go home. The surprise will be how little people miss you. It may be hard at first to realise the world of work can carry on without you but give it time. This feeling will be replaced by one of immense joy. “I’m dispensable!” This will give you enormous freedom.

There are ways of accelerating this process; get a team of happy people to work for you. Build a group of people who appreciate and trust you. One of the great ways of building up this trust and appreciation turns old time management theory on its head. When you arrive at work don’t get straight to your desk and start wading through emails. When you arrive at work talk to each member of your team, properly. Ask about their family, their son’s football match, the health of their car, their cat or whatever is important to them. Invest the time in people - it really pays dividends in the long run.

Once you’ve got all this sorted time management is a doddle. There are useful little tips about only opening emails twice a day that you can totally ignore. Why? Because you’re a human being and incredibly curious. Tips you can use in many ways - the Pareto principle. This states that 20% of effort gives you 80% of the result. This is excellent. Unless there is a dire need to complete everything (carrying out a heart transplant would fit into this category), ask yourself if you could live with getting 80%. If you can - perfect. You can then do something else and get the 80% of that from 20% of the effort.

There are lots of hints and tips about time logs, to do lists, telephones, meetings, emails, mails, procrastination, “time stealers” (a philosophically difficult concept for me to get my head around), paperwork and working from home. Have a look at each one. Then discount 80% of them. If you’ve heard of them but still not doing them my guess is you never will. If they are new and sound interesting - try them.

But never forget the big picture. Why save 10 minutes in handling paperwork if you’re only going to spend it trawling through useless emails. Remember you can’t save time - you’ve only got so much. You know that. So now, what do you want to be remembered for?

First appeared in ‘Training Zone’ (U.K.)

Could a gung-ho, risk-taking attitude at work be giving men a head start on the career-ladder? A look at how women with a cautious nature may be disadvantaged in the interview process.

I am reluctant to write about one particular issue for trainers: the differences between men and women. I have noticed that in many publications dealing with HR issues one step away from the Politically Correct line and the writer gets savaged (Training ZONE seems less guilty than most I must admit).

However it is this sense of saying the wrong thing that is becoming a real problem in training rooms. It’s not that we (trainers) deliberately try to discriminate – but mistakes happen. I’ve been castigated on a few occasions for not including a woman (or man) when I’ve split training sessions up for group work. There was a time when I was mortified and felt like such a sexist pig for failing to have the right mix. Luckily I’ve become far more comfortable admitting my mistakes.

So, what is this difference? It concerns interviewing and competition in the workplace. Interview training is something I’ve done a fair amount of and it never occurred to me that there could be potential problems for women. (“Why would you - being a man,” I hear.)

“When a senior management role was advertised with a salary of £55,000, there were no women applicants. When the same post was re-advertised with a salary of £35, 000, the advertisers were overwhelmed with applications from women.”

There is always competition in the workplace: If people acknowledge this then it is overt competition and often healthy; If they fail to acknowledge this then it is covert competition and invariably destructive. Individuals will compete to be the most popular, the least popular, the most productive, the least productive etc.

A psychologically interesting example of a potential problem occurred recently when a senior management role was advertised with a salary of £55,000 per annum. There were no women applicants. However, when the same post was re-advertised with a salary of £35,000 per annum the advertisers were overwhelmed with applications from women.

On a more day-to-day level I’ve started thinking about interviewing. There are some differences between men and women. (My disclaimer here – I know this doesn’t apply to everyone and people shouldn’t make assumptions, etc. I’m not saying it’s a good or bad thing – it’s just a thing.)

Men tend to be more aggressive and in a workplace situation this often shows itself as taking more risks than women. This has been established through a number of recent studies. Women tend to choose high probability, low payoff strategies. Men will often rush to a high-risk solution and take a chance in a ‘do or die’ gesture. The implications of this behaviour in assessments may well imply to (more often than not, predominately male) interviewers that the female lacks confidence or competence.

In a recent study Fisher and Cox argue that this could well be the underlying reason women, on average, take longer to respond to questions. This can often indicate to interviewers a degree of indecisiveness. In fact they may well need to weigh up all the options. This will be compounded by the fact that women are generally less likely to take guesses than men. Under pressure, perhaps at an interview or in an assessment, men would be more inclined to have a stab at an answer. Women would tend to want to consider the situation and assess the risks. In a real work environment one would suppose these virtues of balance and control would be ideal. In the artificial assessment situation however this failure to respond quickly is often taken as an indicator of lack of confidence.

There is a lot more data behind this and numerous other factors. I feel it is, at the least, interesting and at worse, possibly discriminatory. It’s an area we, certainly I, have never considered before when training interviewees, or interviewees. Maybe I should.

* Reference: Fisher, M., and A. Cox, Gender and programming contests: Mitigating exclusionary practices, Informatics in Education (2006)

First appeared in ‘Manager N.Z.’ (N.Z.)

Behavioural interviewing is based on the belief that the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. The best way to gauge if a person is going to perform well in a new job is to look at the way they have performed in their current and previous posts. I agree. How could you not? Especially when you look at the alternatives;

“The stress interview sorts the men out from the boys. Put people in a stressful interview and you’ll see what they’re like in a stressful job”. Oh yes. That’ll work then. Why not pull a gun on them and be done with. There’s a story a friend tells of his stress interview with a major bank.

“What if you had to deal with someone who had raped your sister!” screamed the first interviewer.

“But I haven’t got a sister.”

“Hypothetically” came the retort.

“Well hypothetically I would put this fact out of my mind. I would treat each occasion as objectively as possible not allowing my feelings to impair my judgement. I would make no assumptions. I would attempt to love and respect this person as an individual. I would try to understand where they were coming from. I would treat each situation on its own merits…” You get the point. You ask hypothetical questions you get hypothetical answers. You put people under stress at an interview they react like they would if they were put under stress at an interview. It doesn’t translate to life outside the interview room. Unless the job does involve being shouted at in an interview room - maybe the interviewer was rehearsing a hostage situation? - No it doesn’t work does it? If you want to find out how people perform under stress at work a great line of questioning might be “Can you give me an example of a stressful situation you’ve been involved in at work? Tell me what happened? What did you do?”

Another alternative is the ‘good cop / bad cop’ interview - which is truly bizarre. A person you may have know for the past twenty years turns into Torquemada for twenty-five minutes. What does this interview prove? You tell me. I have no idea unless it’s a spin on the stress interview. I detest it when interviewers put on their “I’m a real interviewer” head and refuse to be themselves, laugh or even smile. I know it’s a serious business but come on….

There’s the casual interview. “Hi - just a chat. Let’s get a coffee and sit over there.” pointing at two strategically placed chairs - set at the prescribed ninety degrees to each other, no armrest, low coffee table. There are benefits to this. I like it when that tone is right, both are relaxed and there’s genuine information being passed between each other. Unfortunately most candidates dislike it intensely. It’s an interview; it’s for a new job, a better job. They want some formality not a chat with a senior executive in immaculately ironed black jeans.

So what can you do? Well if you have to conduct an interview (and I’m not convinced this is the best approach in ninety percent of cases) then do it properly. .

Tell candidates what’s going to happen. Tell them what areas you’ll be discussing. Tell them how long they’ve got. Don’t surprise people. If there’s a position as a System’s Analyst - ask them questions about that. You wouldn’t interview a nanny for your children and ask them questions on thermo-nuclear dynamics would you? Would you? Yet people get asked some odd things? I was asked how I would resolve the miner’s strike when I first applied for a computer programmer’s job. Other stories abound about “killer questions” - “Do fish feel pain?” was a classic some time ago. “If a mother and a baby were drowning and you could only save one, which would you choose” I was asked a very long time ago. With a little more life experience my answer now would seem to be along the following lines;

“Neither”

“Neither - then they’d both die?”

“Good”

“That’s stupid!”

“Well you started it”

Look at the skills required for the job, look at the candidates - match them up. Choose the candidate who’s the best fit. The older I get the easier (some parts of) life gets. I know this is easier said than done. I agree, but it’s a lot easier than playing some convoluted game that only interview panel members know the rules to.

It all starts a long time before the interview. Way before the advert goes out. As soon as there’s a thought about a job being available it begins. Define the job. Spell out the skills needed. Advertise these. Send out application forms that are helpful to this process, please. Ask candidates to supply examples they have gathered of them displaying the skills. Don’t ask for a set of six skills and send a form out that relates to other skills - “It’s our standard form” Personnel will say. Argue. Disagree. Refuse. Send out forms related to the job -it will save you so much grief in the long run.

Evaluate the forms matching the evidence (past behaviours) against the job (current criteria). At the interview you should merely have to fill in the gaps, or build on the examples, or (with any luck) choose between well-qualified candidates. Don’t have a list of questions. This can be staid, ridiculous and downright embarrassing. I was once asked if I knew the “Seven layers of OSI” (it was a buzzword to do with computers at the time).

“I’m sorry Mr Barry but I know nothing about OSI”.

He looked at me. He looked back at his notes “What’s the first layer?”

“I’m really sorry Eric but I honestly have no idea.”

He didn’t even look up “The second layer?”….

Decide who will ask questions about each of the skills required - teamworking maybe or management skills. Then explore those areas, look for examples, ask follow up questions, listen, listen, listen. Don’t show off. Let the interviewee guide you. The examples can come from anywhere as long as they meet the requirements. I once interviewed someone for a managerial post - ideally qualified but could supply no evidence of organisational skills.

“Never get the chance to do it in my job - just get given a set of tasks.”

“In your previous job?”

“No I’m afraid not.”

“Outside work?” I asked desperately.

“Not really, ” he said, “Most of my time is taken up with football.”

“Oh ” I asked - he looked more like Pavarotti that Pele.

“Yes - I’m secretary of the Boys’ teams”.

It transpired that he had to deal with twelve teams of various ages, arrange the fixtures, referees, pitches, kits, corner flags…. No organisational skills indeed!

It’s as simple as that. Then at the end watch out for that final question. Candidates can be too relaxed. They’ve seen the finishing line and anything can happen. Ask something open. Ask if they would like to reconsider some answer they’ve given maybe. Ask if they’ve anything to add. You never know it could bring results. There was a candidate doing reasonably well until that last question. “I’m glad you didn’t ask me anything about equal opportunities”. He started to dig the hole.

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Well I couldn’t never work for a woman again.” he kept digging. “I worked for one once but, you know, they’re different aren’t they. No, never again”.

“Interesting. Would you like to tell us a little more?……..”

First appeared in ‘Succeed’ (South Africa.)

Perhaps the ultimate symbol for a company is the name. This is the focus; it’s what people (hopefully) remember. Would Ben and Jerry’s have been as successful if they’d been Cohen and Greenfield’s? Would IBM be as world-renowned if they’d stuck with their original title - Computer Tabulating and Recording Company? Ryanair were going to be called Trans Tipperary - not quite as dynamic. Intel could have been named Moore Noyce if Moore and Noyce could have registered the name before a hotel company did. Goldwyn Pictures (Later part of MGM) was named as a combination of Samuel Goldfish and Edgar and Archibald Selwyn. A different combination could have been Fishsel or Selfish. Would Mitel have flourished under the full name of Mike and Terry’s Lawnmowers? Or Psion as Potter Scientific Instruments Or Nothing?

Looking at the film and TV industry it’s hard to imagine John Wayne winning an Oscar as Marion Morrison? Would ‘Dad’s Army’ have been such a huge show if it had kept the title; ‘The Fighting Tigers?’ Would ‘Pretty Woman’ have been such a huge success if it had been marketed under the German title - ‘I’m Rich But I Like Cheap Prostitutes’ - one from the Pan’s People school of interpretation?

Some brand names seem to have chosen wisely - Maxwell House was, thankfully, named after the hotel the meetings were held at rather than the owner (Joel Cheek). KANGOL (the clothing company with a billion dollar turnover) was named after the three materials used to make berets in the Second World War (silK, ANGora and woOL). It could have been far worse

It can get even worse. There is the story of the new Italian executive for PowerGen rushing to impress his bosses and securing copyright on the name Powergen Italia!

First appeared in ‘CIO’ (U.K.)

Look at the top sports managers. With a few exceptions they all have a similar profile. They weren’t the best players at their sports but they have performed at a high level and have a good understanding of the pressures involved.

If you consider the 1966 England World Cup winning team, only one player, Jack Charlton, has had any success as a manager. All of today’s top Premiership managers: Jose Murinho; Alex Ferguson; Arsene Wenger and Rafael Benitez were all – without being at all disrespectful – journeymen professionals. So was this year’s Italian World Cup winning team manager, Marcello Lippi.

This phenomenon isn’t confined to football. Tiger Woods’ golf coaches – Hank Haney and Butch Harmon – were professionals with no major wins. Tony Roche, Roger Federer’s coach, was a competent tennis pro but won just the one major title. What this seems to imply is that there is a huge difference between the skillset required to play a game and one needed to manage a team of players.

In sport this seems blatantly obvious yet this logic is frequently ignored, often with disastrous results. Look no further than Paul Gascoigne.

You would expect business to have more sense. However there seems to be a flawed logic that often forces this same, potentially dangerous, mistake.

Here’s how it goes. Someone performs particularly well in a specific job function and there’s no system for rewarding these outstanding individuals, so the only option to retain them seems to be to promote them.
As I was told by a leading civil service economist: “I added up some hard sums and got promoted. I added up even harder sums and got promoted. I added up some incredibly hard sums and they gave me 120 staff to manage.”

Holding on to the past

It’s hardly any wonder that new managers face a particularly difficult time at the beginning of their new role. Any new job is stressful. With this particular career move they have to ‘unlearn’ the old skills and start learning new skills – often with their old peers. The danger for many new managers is that they try to cling to the past – put in long hours and still get involved with the day-to-day, hands on work. After all, this is why they were promoted. This is their ‘comfort zone’. In footballing terms they become ‘player-managers’. They and their staff get confused as to their role and responsibilities. Are they the boss or still one of them?

However, there comes a time when they need to define their role. There just isn’t enough time to do everything and they need to get others to do the work for them. This can be incredibly difficult for managers to cope with. They know how they would do it so letting someone else do it differently can be incredibly frustrating.

Learning to adapt to this lack of ‘hands on’ involvement is very difficult, as managers have to learn to give up control and trust people. There aren’t enough hours in the day for you to do everything or check everything. The only option is to take a deep breath and let it go.

This doesn’t mean anarchy. Managers and staff need to have sensible discussion and agree outputs, time frames and parameters. Both parties should be absolutely clear about where the boundaries are and what support is available.

The lucky few

There are exceptions. The Franz Beckenbauers, Jack Charltons and Ruud Gullits who seem to have all the footballing skills, plus incredible interpersonal skills and ‘something special’. No doubt this also applies to some individuals in businesses.

But for the majority companies need to offer alternatives. For instance, give people the training and opportunity to look at management before they are thrown into it. Or even more radically – give them a three-month trial.

Frequently, programmers or economists don’t want promotion – just the recognition for doing a good job. It may be the case of just building in some financial rewards.

The alternative is being stuck in a cycle of: recruit and train specialist – specialist performs well – promote specialist to manager – specialist struggles as manager – specialist leaves the company. Recruit and train specialist… and so on…. and so on…

What this seems to imply is that there is a huge difference between the skillset required to play a game and one needed manage a team of players.

First appeared in ‘CIO’ (U.K.)

An aircraft crashes in the jungle. It’s filled with staff from their works’ outing. The survivors get out of the aeroplane - there are 20 administration staff, 3 managers and a leader. The leader disappears. The managers mutter phrases such as “Typical”, “Well what do you expect” and organise the staff into teams. They distribute tools (machetes, knives, etc.) which are luckily available and start making their way through the jungle, cutting down trees, bushes creating a path. Suddenly they hear a shout “Stop”- it’s the leader. The managers look around - there’s no sign of her. They continue motivating and encouraging their teams. Again they hear a shout “Stop”. One of them looks up and sees the leader in the tallest tree. The managers go to the foot of the tree and listen. The leader is pointing in the opposite direction;

“You’re going in totally the opposite direction” she calls down,

“Shh” one of the managers answers “They’re working really well”.

*****

Three months ago I spent 25 minutes at a conference the other day with a Senior manager who I’d never met in my life before - and would never like to meet again I hasten to add. He talked for 23 of those 25 minutes about…. himself. I listened.

I saw a colleague of his last week. The chap I was with at the conference told this colleague that I was one of the most interesting chaps he’d ever met!

There’s a lesson there I guess. I once worked for a boss who was not the most dynamic person ever, not the best speaker in the world nor was he ruthless in an Adolph Hitler / Bill Clinton / Margaret Thatcher way. However we would all do anything for him. Why? I guess it was because he always had time for you. He always asked about your family, what was important in your life. Every day he was in our office he spent the first 30 minutes “working the room” - not in a manipulative way, but in a genuine way. He invariably missed his first meeting of the day as he would insist on doing this without fail. As I say we would have died for him.

Compare that with another way of “working the room”. A senior manager came along to speak on a training program. Before he was due to speak we chatted;

“Any of my people here?”

“Two I think” I replied

“Oh, who?”

I told him who they were. Blank look. He had no idea who they were.

“Where are they sitting?”

I told him.

He walked in - walked straight over to them “Hi Annie, Hi Rita Great to see you again.”

They beamed. They were absolutely thrilled that a senior manager earning ten times as much as them had remembered their names.

Well they were until he left and I explained to them how he had manipulated the situation.

To talk or not to talk - that’s the question?

As a leader you can be quiet or loud, it seems to me but whichever route you choose you’ve got to treat your people with care and respect. There was a survey carried out a few years back asking staff what quality they admired most in their leaders. The result was surprising, well to me at least it was. The top quality was ‘honesty’. Interesting, eh?

The top business leaders I’ve come across have one surprising quality that I barely noticed at the time but becomes more obvious more idiotic leaders you work with. This is a quality about treating people (all people) especially their staff (all their staff) with total respect and never making them wrong.

I’ll explain. Maybe it’s easier to illustrate this with a negative situation. I’ve seen a very, very senior manager in the Civil Service throw his laptop computer at the head of the multi-million pound Computing section exclaiming “What can I do with this piece of shit. You told me you’d fixed it last week and nothing’s changed. Take it away!” (I’ve removed the expletives).

I understand his frustration. To many in the Office he’s a hero - someone who won’t take crap from anyone - but I do wonder. Someone once said “Don’t make someone wrong. If you make someone wrong they’ll get you back.” Humans, unlike other animals, hate being wrong. It’s the second most potent drive - so I’ve been told. This was illustrated to me by an (allegorical?) experiment involving rats and humans. This is where you place a rat in a T box at the bottom of the T and put some cheese in the left hand corner of the top of the T (got it?). The rat goes to the cheese and eats it. This experiment is repeated a number of times until the rat gets the idea. Next the cheese is moved to the right hand corner. The rat goes to the left hand corner - sees no cheese then goes to the right hand corner. Sensible. Imminently logical.

Bring in the human. Repeat the experiment until the human gets the idea about where the cheese will be (left hand corner). Then move the cheese to the right hand corner. The human goes to the right hand corner -sees no cheese and sits down. He waits and waits and waits thinking “Someone screwed up - and it’s not me.” Humans hate being wrong. I’m sure the Head of Computing Section will get him back - sometime, somewhere. Life has a habit of working out like that don’t you think?

The best leaders don’t do that. They don’t make people wrong. They go out of their way to let people ‘lose’ with dignity. They invent ways out for them - even their opponents. You never know when you might meet them again.

A colleague relates the story of his stressful day going for an interview. He was driving along - quite stressed when someone cut him up. He overtook to see a little old lady - totally oblivious to him. Without swearing - he said nothing to her. Of course you’ve guessed who was chair of his interview panel.

There are, of course, many other aspects to leadership. There has to be some charisma - some inner confidence, even a touch of arrogance in a person to inspire others. Now if you could just bottle that it would be something. However I truly believe trust, respect and honesty are as important to leaders as that charisma.

I once made some ridiculous, offensive remark about the intelligence of a certain group of individuals - computer programmers. Someone, rightly, got really upset and irate. My boss defended me totally saying things like “In this business (management development) you think need to think on your feet… learning the ropes ….you can’t be sure what you’ll say all the time… it’s to do with the intent not the words… etc. etc..” and calmed the situation.

As we chatted later I explained that I hadn’t realised how difficult it was and that my intent was, obviously, true and I agreed with everything he said. He looked at me and smiled “You do anything like that again and I’ll have your balls for paperweights”

First appeared in ‘CEO Refresher’ (U.S.A.)

There are some people who walk into a room and you can almost feel the energy levels in the room double. Other people walk into a room and the temperature seems to decrease a degree or two. What is it that gives certain people that particular brand of authority?

How do you define this indefinable feeling of warmth, charm, personal impact a person just ‘has or hasn’t got’?

A lot of people use a single word to hide behind;

Charisma - “Oh, that’ll be charisma, a thing that cannot be bought, learnt or given”,

“Leaders are born, not made”,

“I’m just not a natural leader so what’s the point?”

“It’s just something you’re born with - you’re either lucky or you’re not.” etc., etc.

But as Arnold Palmer famously said when asked about his lucky shots from bunkers; “It’s a funny thing, the more I practice the luckier I get”.

There’s the story of Winston Churchill, one of the best, most ‘natural’ speakers of the last century. Churchill, like so many leaders, was not a natural speaker. Yet in one of his first speeches to Parliament in 1904 he delivered without notes and had to cut short as he become totally lost. He had to sit down in embarrassment. He was quoted as saying that this would never happen again. He prepared relentlessly for every speech after that. For every one minute of delivery he spent an hour preparing. So it wasn’t unusually for him o prepare 30 or 40 hours for one speech.

Although a lot of research indicates that how you say it has more immediate impact than what you say, what you say will be remembered for a great deal longer. So, make sure you’re clear about what you’re saying, especially what your intention is. If your intention is to be helpful and honest, people will forgive many deficiencies in body language, tone, etc. So be absolutely clear what you’re intention is, then check that this is the effect that the others’ take away.

On the whole people are pretty good at picking up intentions. People, being a bit like me and you, are quite clever. We generally know when someone is lying, or “being economical with the truth” or whatever the current acronym is. As a leader however it’s good practice not to totally rely on your good intentions. You may have the best intention in the world but if the audience are not in tune with you they may not recognise this. This could be due to all sorts of reasons - some history with you, previous leaders, something currently going on in the workplace that you know nothing about, etc… If this is the case the effect you have on your audience may not be the same as your intention and you will need to rethink. So, it’s vital that you find out what the effect is as well as being sure of your intention.

The Gerald Ratner story leaps to mind. I’m fairly sure his intention wasn’t to say that his shops were selling rubbish, but that was certainly the effect.

Studies show that leaders appear more powerful by acting as they think leaders should act. “Fake it till you make it” would be one way of describing this process; The more you act like a strong, powerful person the easier it is for people to regard you as this and the easier it is for you to become this.

If you have someone in mind you respect as a role model that makes this process even easier. Copy what they do when they enter a room, answer a question, etc. Suddenly after a few weeks of acting authoritatively you realise you aren’t acting anymore. Within a few more weeks you’ll start adapting and developing your own style.

In terms of public speaking there are a number of simple, straightforward tips that can make a huge difference. From the beginning you’ve got to “take control of the environment” as I think Al Pacino advocates. This means everything you can control you control - the physical aspects; lighting, temperature, drinks, food, numbers, seating arrangements, screen, handouts, etc. etc.

The ‘non-physical’ aspects - introductions, questioning policy, number of slides, timing, your appearance, knowledge of the audience, your preparation, posture, etc. etc.

In a little more detail - ensure you take control of as much of the physical environment as you can, or get someone you really trust and recognises the importance of, to do it.

Don’t be distracted by “Oh, it’ll be OK - it’s the same as last time”. Say “show me” and check, check, check and have back ups for everything.

Also recognise that even done everything you can things will happen that you haven’t thought about. You know this so don’t pretend it won’t. When that fire alarm goes off accidentally, or the police rush in chasing an armed robber, adapt and don’t start thinking about who to blame. Well, not for the time being at least.

The vital part of this is the non-physical aspects;

Make sure you’re introduction (if you’re having one) is correct, and more importantly is what you want. If you’re making a speech in front of 500 people don’t let yourself be introduced with; “Tonight we have someone making their first speech in front at a large audience so please be gentle on them.” Tempting though it may seem to get some audience sympathy it just won’t work.

In a classic experiment two sets of students were given identical lectures and told that the first lecturer was new, and the second an expert. Guess which one received vastly better ratings?

Quick tips;

No ‘death by PowerPoint’ - unless it’s vital (people get bored).

Keep handouts until the end - unless it’s vital (people get distracted).

Practical things to do;

- Stand straight and tall - taller people are perceived as having more authority.

- No leaning against anything.

- Maintain eye contact with a number of people.

- Gear the material to the audience. Mention people’s names - choose people in the group you know, or are popular.

- Don’t talk for longer than you need to.

- If possible allow far more time for questions than speeches.

- The smaller the group the better your message will get across - there are of course practical considerations for this.

There are some leaders who, I admit, do have that special ’something’. But I guess they’ve worked extremely hard at developing other aspects of themselves, and I really believe anyone can learn to lead. The outside part is easy (well relatively). The hardest part is inside - the intention and the vision. If these are solid then with a fair amount of hard work, the rest will follow.