Wednesday 24 May 2017

Codifying culture or Are leaders born or made?





Some organisations have a great culture because of great leadership, great people, great values great practices. Is it possible to codify this so that organisations without the charismatic leadership, dynamic high-fliers and brilliant processes can harness the benefits of great culture?

Bob Hope is credited with saying “The most important thing is honesty. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” Or a variation “The secret of success is sincerity. Fake that and you’re in.”

Is it possible to “fake it till you make it”

I think so.

There are plenty of telesales businesses that follow scripts, dancers that have strict choreography and actors who have lines and stage direction to help them deliver a great performance.

Both positive and negative values (including sexism and racism) are learned from parenting, peer groups and society influence on the individual. It is clear that people are influenced by their environment, education, opportunity and social groups. It is also clear that outstanding individuals can reshape the people and the world around them. People like Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela.

I would argue that even if you do not have a charismatic leader you can achieve a great culture through planned interventions and carefully orchestrated social engineering.

If you believe “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” (Will Durant) then establishing great culture is simply a matter of following simple steps and getting better with each repetition. This is how we teach dance or karate, so why not leadership and culture. According to Malcolm Gladwell with 10,000 hours you can be fantastic at anything and according to Josh Kaufman [TEDxCSU] you can become quite good at many things with as little as 20 hours.

In this blog I have attempted to suggest that it is possible to codify culture and that leaders are not born but made (by education, opportunity, circumstance and followers). In my next blog I will explore how to codify culture.

If you have experience of this, or would like to made a contribution to my next blog please contact me: timhjrogers@adaptconsultingcompany.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tim Rogers is an experienced Management Consultant, Project and Change Leader. He is also Commonwealth Triathlete and World Championships Rower and a Tutor/Mentor on the Chartered Management Institute.

Tuesday 23 May 2017

Don’t tick that box for them!





We all know and understand the risks of a tick-box mentality which means people or organisations take the minimal and potentially superficial approach to addressing issues.

Whether it’s to pass an audit, regulatory compliance or assure the supplier, boss or customer that everything is OK, simply doing the minimum to ensure you are legal, decent and honest is seldom enough to protect you if it all goes wrong.

I am reading a book “The Infiltrator” (by Robert Mazure) and it’s revelatory as a true story of the biggest drug cartel in history and the systemic failures of people, process and technology to stop money laundering.

It’s always a challenge in any business to engage staff to be interested, to be passionate, to be informed and to take ownership. Without strong leadership and shared responsibility many organisations end-up with a “do the minimum” approach which although ostensibly compliant is seldom robust.

This is foolish but its becomes insidious if someone is asking YOU to tick the box for them.

“Can you approve this?” is something of which to be wary.

“We just need YOU to satisfy our [Auditor, Regulatory, Customer, Client, Board]”  is something to be cautious of agreeing to because you’ll get little thanks if everything is OK and a whole lot of woe otherwise.

There is a lot of criticism for managers or civil servants who attempt to outsource risk or responsibility by standing behind consultants’ reports and professional indemnities. The bigger fools are surely those that sell their brand or reputation cheaply without being certain what they are underwriting.

A true partnership is not one where Customer-A outsources risk and responsibility to Supplier-B, but one where both organisations work together to fully understand and satisfy all the requirements.

This is the difference between outcome (a robust solution) and output (a completed form). The outcome should be a solution this is suitable, feasible and acceptable and this should precede the output, which is a ticked box.

What do you think?


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tim Rogers is an experienced Management Consultant, Project and Change Leader. He is also Commonwealth Triathlete and World Championships Rower and a Tutor/Mentor on the Chartered Management Institute.

Beware the difference between want and need!





As a young project manager starting-out I noticed that the supplier for the project had recently tendered unsuccessfully for a large government project in the UK. The tender bid cost £1m. I said to the supplier: “You must be making a lot of money on the contracts you win, to be able to offset the costs of those you don’t”

The reply caught me by surprise and shaped the next 20 years as a project and change manager.

The response was: “The bid reflects exactly what your client asked for and is reasonably priced. The truth is that we know that what the client asked for is not what they need, and we will make all our profit by charging them for changes.”

I was sceptical: “But what if a client knew exactly what they wanted, and had a project manager that ensured you delivered exactly that?”

The response was simple. “Neither of those circumstances are likely ever to happen, but if they did we’d make a loss. But there is no such thing as a client who knows exactly what they need, or a project manager that is precise with the contract or its management”

Sadly after the elapse of 20 years I have found that to be consistently true.

Even when a project manager is willing to hold a supplier to account the client’s requirements are seldom sufficiently well-defined to provide solid ground. Instead there is debate, discussion, flexibility and compromise.

What do you think?


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tim Rogers is an experienced Management Consultant, Project and Change Leader. He is also Commonwealth Triathlete and World Championships Rower and a Tutor/Mentor on the Chartered Management Institute.