Zealise Blog

Will RISES prevent a fall?

After writing about values for the past few weeks, it seems only appropriate to pause to consider the new values-based direction that Barclays Bank is taking.

The new CEO has apparently decided that 5 values should be at the centre of the business. These are respect, integrity, service, excellence and stewardship (RISES). (Now I have no idea whether Barclays is using this mnemonic or not, but having come up with it I cannot help thinking it would be brilliant if they are, because it would mean without any effort at all they could now claim their logo is a phoenix and not an eagle!) But, jokes aside, the values themselves seem reasonable.

In fact they are just the values you would expect from a bank. They seem so obvious that you have to ask yourself how they managed to move so far away from them in the first place. So encouraging though this is, there are aspects that still give cause for concern.

The Core of Effective Communication

Effective communication is a life-skill and certainly a core competency for any leader. Whether you are trying to change the culture of your organisation, transform its business entirely or simply battling to cope with the constant change that is an integral part of everyday business life, good communication skills are vital. If you cannot communicate effectively you don’t have a snowball in hell’s chance of succeeding.

Unfortunately, communication is a two way process. Thus it is not something you can do on your own. No matter how good at it you are, you depend on someone else. And the thing is, the other person does not feel exactly the way you do about the situation. And, organisationally at least, effective communication means getting someone else to feel the same way you do.

Why?

When marines cry!

It seems unheard of to make a US marine cry – especially in public. So to achieve this through something that can only be described as poor customer service is really remarkable. Yet apparently Delta Airlines managed it.  

To their credit Delta in a prompt response have promised to “make it right.” However, how do you “make right” such personal humiliation?  

Of course Delta claims that, “This incident doesn’t reflect the care with which Delta people serve our customers every day,” and that, “We strive to exceed expectations with every customer.” That is likely true but, unfortunately, this incident happened. So, even if it is a lamentable one-off, it is evidence that there is a lack of organisational integrity and that such good intentions do not always translate into the appropriate action in the work place.  

Being the Best

What kind of business manager or owner are you?

No doubt you want to be the best.

Of course – in this instance – being ‘the best’ does not mean being Number 1 or Top Dog. The key word here is actually ‘be’ - something you cannot avoid doing. ‘Best’ is simply a category of being. Thus it is something that anyone can aspire to – and attain. And you wouldn’t aspire to anything less, would you? You wouldn’t be who you are or where you are if you didn’t.

But how do you go about becoming the best?

Well, you cannot possibly go wrong if you adopt this approach. “As a business owner I have an obligation to create an environment where every person in our company grows as a human being and develops more of their potential so they can truly become all God meant them to become.” (Bob Proctor.)

You see, whether you are an owner or manager, you are responsible for other people and the quality of the work they produce. Consequently it seems to me to be a no-brainer that the more you enable people to grow and develop more of their full potential as human beings, the more successful they will be and consequently the more successful you will be. This is the ultimate win/win recipe.   

Of course the corollary is that if you don’t adopt this approach you will never achieve everything that is possible. Ironically, that means you will never fulfil your own potential either.

It is simple. To be the best you have to bring out the best of your people. But of course, you are already doing that. Aren’t you?

Sociable Business? Do you have a choice?

Do you keep coming across the terms social business or sociable business?

They certainly seem to be more and more frequent. But do you also find them slightly jarring?  

After all, business is ultimately about people providing a product or service to other people who want or need what you are offering. It is useful and it is beneficial to both parties. In my book that makes business a social service and thus, by definition, makes all business sociable.

Consequently, the better you deal with the various human interactions of your business, the better your business will perform. It’s hardly rocket science. So, whatever, the “proper” definition of the term sociable business or whatever it conjures up in your mind, you should never allow yourself to be sidetracked from this basic fundamental. It is the key to everything you do in your business and to its ultimate success – and yours.

When you understand this, the question “How sociable is my business?” takes on a whole new meaning and creates a whole new dynamic and sense of purpose. Just ask yourself, and see the difference it could make. 

A Different Perspective on Employment

Do you ever stop to think about why you are working?

Or who you are working for?

For most of us work is something we have to do. We have no choice. It is essential for our survival and so is unavoidable and inescapable.

But what about your employer – the person or organisation you work for? There perhaps you have more choice. So, if you have no choice about the need to work, but you do have a choice as to whom you work for, what does your place of work say about you? Or, to put it more directly, who do you really work for?

The fact is that each and every one of us ultimately works for ourselves. Irrespective of the name of the organisation, who you boss is, or who pays your wage, your work is how you spend a large part of your waking life. And it is your life and no-one else’s. So it is part of your self-expression and when you boil it down to the lowest level, there is no getting away from it: you are ultimately working for yourself.

Think about that for a moment. Then ask yourself how this changes your attitude to your work. After all, if you are not enjoying your work or maximising your personal potential, you are effectively wasting your life, aren’t you? And since to the best of our knowledge we only get one, and that one is pretty short, it seems a pity to waste it, doesn’t it?

So you see, it’s not about work-life balance – it’s about work-life integrity.

Now change hats. Think of yourself as the employer. How do you view your people? Do you see them as a “resource” and there to do only what you tell them? Or do you see them as people who, like you, are also trying to make the most of their short lives? If so, what are you doing to help them?

The good news is that, whatever you do, you will create greater work-life integrity for both your people and you. This will inevitably transform performance all round. And that makes it worth thinking about, doesn’t it?

An Essential Element for Employee Engagement

Are you really surprised?

Sometimes it seems that we research things where we should – certainly if we are worth our salt – already know the answers. Perhaps this is necessary to reassure us and give us the confidence that we are on the right road. Certainly the results of the latest global survey by Blessing White, highlighting trust in senior leadership as an important factor in employee engagement appear to fall into this category. After all, would you really expect people to be totally engaged if they felt the senior leaders were a bunch of ... (you fill in the blank!)

And certainly the conclusion that "Trust the boss" implies is that senior management “deliver engagement.” But is that the correct conclusion?

The “disconnect” showed only 36% of engaged employees trusted their line managers, compared with 75% percent of the total sample population. This is very surprising, not just because the percentage that trusted senior management remained almost constant for both groups at around 50%, but because traditionally HR have led you believe that dissatisfaction with one’s immediate manager is the primary cause of:

• Employee disengagement; and hence, ultimately,
• Employee turnover.

Yet here you have more engaged than disengaged people who distrust their line manager – and all while the overall trust in senior management shows insignificant difference. So clearly there is something here that warrants your deeper consideration.

The conclusion that trust in senior management is important may be valid, but do you think it warrants the degree of promotion that it’s given? After all, only 30% of people are engaged anyway. And even for those employees “under half trusted their senior leader!”

Makes you think, doesn’t it?

So if it is not the employee’s immediate manager that elicits engagement – and it clearly isn’t – and it isn’t trust in senior management – which may be a factor, but clearly not as significant as the report suggests, then what does?

Are you barking up the wrong tree in your endeavours to win “the talent war” or “the hearts and minds” of your employees? What if engagement is intrinsic? Certainly, that is what I have always believed. It is what the name Zealise is intended to convey and what the solutions we promote and champion offer you - the means to inspire your people to fulfil their own potential. Isn’t that the recipe for true engagement?   

Maximising Employee Engagement through Employee Ownership

You may think the link between employee ownership and employee engagement was well established. Yet, if you judge by the ongoing research into the subject, this does not appear to be the case. Such research suggests there are many who still have to be convinced. For that reason, if no other, the latest findings from a study carried out by Loughborough University are a welcome addition.

Even so, the findings that three quarters of employees who participate in their employer’s share ownership scheme were more engaged, motivated and committed to their employer, are hardly surprising.   

Of course as an employer, manager or HR professional you would jump at the chance to improve your organisational culture to that extent. After all if 71% are more likely to consider the cost implications of what they do and 66% produce as higher quality of work, you inevitably have to benefit from a performance improvement, don’t you?

Yet while no-one in their right mind would refuse an opportunity like this, perhaps the most interesting aspect of this research is, “Why does share ownership only have this effect on 75% of the employees?”    

Could the answer possibly be in the term “share ownership?” You see there are several problems with shares that could diminish their desirability for the lower echelons of employees.    

• They come at a cost. This means that for lower earning employees the marginal income they have to forego – even if they understand the longer-term advantages – is too great for them to be able to sacrifice the income. For them cash is king.
• They may not have the educational or social background to understand the benefits of share ownership.
• Share schemes are complicated to set up and administer and thus they might not understand all the details of belonging, or they might even feel it is not worth the hassle.
• The inequitability of the scheme. It may be all very well offering shares to employees, but if the relative offerings are disproportionate or are perceived to favour managers and high-earners, they may simply fuel or exacerbate resentment. This will certainly do nothing for employee engagement.

There can be a huge conceptual difference between share ownership and employee ownership. The former may be a nice to have, but does it engender the empowerment that comes with a true the sense of ownership and belonging?  The likelihood is that the disengaged employees in the survey are members of share schemes that do not create such a sense of empowerment. If you are looking to engage your employees more you need to come up with an ownership scheme that is:-

• Universal;
• Fair and equitable; and
• Empowering.

How does your employee ownership scheme measure up against those criteria?     

Talent Management versus Employee Engagement

Do you sometimes wonder if HR has a split personality?

It certainly seems that way at times. For instance take the following 2 statements taken from the same talk by Vance Kearney, Oracle EMEA HR Director.

Statement 1:

“Talent is less available and the only way you can recruit talented staff is if their current employer has made a mistake with them [and they want to leave].”

Statement 2:

“Engagement is a good thing, but we are often ignoring skills and talent. If you engage poor talent in your organisation, you are not going to get the outputs you want.”

There are any number of points that you can take issue with, not least the perpetuation of the prevalent HR tendency to separate talent and people. Is there really less talent today than there was 5 or 10 or 20 years ago? Have people really become less talented? The fact that there are no longer 30 pages of recruiting in the Sunday Times is surely more indicative of the changing nature of the recruitment market than anything else.  

However, you can see the inherent contradiction here, can’t you? If there are truly less people on the market today than there were previously, and people only leave because “their current employer has made a mistake with them” is this not de facto evidence that employee engagement efforts are becoming more effective? Of course that would seem to be the logical conclusion. However, it is not borne out by the latest Gallup survey results which indicate that only 11% of employees are engaged – or to put it another way 89% are disengaged. Nor is the UK, where Kearney is based, excluded from this as this recent report also shows.

It would therefore seem that Kearney’s stark warning that “talent management should take precedence over engagement” is totally misdirected. Not only is the science questionable, but:-

• Talent comes in the guise of people;
• People are more engaged when they are fulfilled and their talent is recognised and appreciated.

Thus it should be obvious to any manager worth his salt – especially an HR manager – that developing talent and engaging people are one and the same thing! HR will never get it right until they realise this, and headlines like "Internal talent is best - and better than engagement" certainly won't help!  

Hanging on to your elephant's tail?

What on earth?

I was re-reading Ricardo Semler’s “Maverick” the other day, when I was tickled by his question, “What would you rather have, the tail of an elephant or an entire ant?”

Of course it helps to know the context. After all, unless you are the elephant or an old-school maharajah wanting an elephant’s tail to keep the flies off you, there cannot be much demand for elephant tails!

Actually, the quote comes at the end of the chapter in which Semler talks about profit-sharing and the fact that employees at Semco are entitled to 23% of the profits. Effectively he was the principle “donor” in this arrangement, and he conceded that he felt 23% was “awfully high.” However, he explains his decision to go along with it by saying, “But I kept telling myself I stood to make at least as much money in partnership with a motivated workforce as I would as the sole beneficiary of the fruits of less inspired workers.”

Wow. Here’s someone who really understands the power of ownership and the glorious, potent effect it has on employee engagement.

His point is that employee ownership is what unleashes the true economies of scale and unless you have a fair and equitable basis for sharing profits you are basically operating with at least one hand tied behind your back. And, in case you think this is latent or blatant socialism, he makes the point elsewhere that “Few ideas are as capitalist as profit-sharing.”  

So where do you stand? Do you want to hang on to your elephant’s tail, or do you want the ant?