Energy, food, fuel – the costs of all the basic essentials of life are increasing dramatically and rapidly. No wonder there is concern about inflation and widespread talk of a “cost of living crisis.” For all but the highest earners and the wealthy, life is increasingly becoming a question of what to do in order to survive.

This puts pressure on employers. After all, if you want to safeguard your operations, you need to ensure that you have the full attention, capacity and capability of your employees. In such circumstances this is hardly likely. Yet, while the news is full of stories of people who are struggling from payday to payday, there are never any reports of employers who are doing anything about it.  

There can be little doubt that the world is in crisis. The number of issues humanity is facing seems to increase daily. Soaring inflation and a cost of living crisis, climate change, the war in Ukraine and the threat of global food shortages, millions of displaced people, increasing political polarisation are only some of the challenges we face. And all are largely unprecedented. And one thing is certain – we cannot meet them with historic solutions. As Albert Einstein said, “You cannot solve a problem with the same thinking that created it!”  

Many of these problems are the result of issues that have troubled me for years. However, as someone who always looks to solve problems rather than criticising or complaining about things, I have always sought to answers. And as matters have increased my concerns, and made me anxious about the overall trend, my efforts have multiplied. This has led me to make more effort to develop and share my solutions, culminating in my latest book, “Searching For Better.”

Unless you’ve been out of the UK for the past week or so, you will undoubtedly be aware that P&O Ferries has been in the headlines. This followed their firing of 800 employees and immediately replacing them with agency staff. Now, it is hardly unheard of to announce a redundancy programme of that sort of number of employees, but it is pretty unusual when that number represents 46% of your entire workforce! Yet even that wasn’t what created the backlash of this announcement.

No, what really created the storm is the way the whole affair was handled, because:

1. The employees (a number with over 30 years’ service) were notified via a short (three-minute) video-link and expected to immediately evacuate their vessels and go home with security guards on hand to escort them off;
2. Their agency replacements were waiting on shore to board immediately after they had disembarked.  

Not since I saw the redundancy of an entire division of employees who were all in the top ten percent of performers, have I witnessed anything like it. Headlines are referring to it as an extreme example of the ugly side of capitalism. But it isn’t. It is just a further revelation of asinine management and the complete lack of understanding of the value of people and the consequence of treating employees exclusively as costs.

A quick attempt to model the numbers gives a quick idea of the thinking behind the decision.

“In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.” Benjamin Franklin may have been correct about the inevitably of death and taxes, but they are not the only certainty in life. You can definitely add change to the list.

Describing change and the pace of change and the increased complexity it creates as a critical factor of modern life is rather a cliché. It is so much a factor of life that, as long ago as 2010, managing it was cited as the biggest concern for C-Suite executives. (IBM: Capitalizing on Complexity. Insights from the Global Chief Executive Study)  Yet it seems odd how little the need for adaptability follows from such discussion. Or, even worse, how little adaptability is recognised as being a people management issue.  

“Motivation is the reason that people develop talent in the first place.” That line from Adam Grant’s book “Give and Take” really made me stop and think! Imagine the talent, and its impact, if everyone was motivated – especially in business! Yet somehow we don’t do enough to realise this.  

Several years ago the “war for talent” was a major management topic. Now you seldom, if ever, hear it mentioned. Instead the big themes of today seem to be “big data” and “artificial intelligence.” No doubt these are important and denote significant changes to the way businesses and organisations operate, but you risk failing to reap their full benefit if you neglect talent.

To communicate effectively you’re going to need

1. Information, which becomes
2. Knowledge, which leads to
3. Experience, which leads to
4. Proficiency, which gives you
5. Wisdom, which gives you
6. Deeper Experience, which gives you
7. Authority

At least that is what I learned from a recent “Wizard of Ads”, Roy H Williams’, weekly newsletter. Impressed, I decided to depict it graphically.

In creating this, I realised two important lessons.

1. Each “need” is effectively a stage or milestone and thus, in and of itself, effectively inert.
2. The process is a cycle and thus continuous.

These are significant because they mean:

1. Their qualitative measure is not innate, but dependent on how they are derived.
2. Even “authority” becomes redundant if it is not continually updated.

Nevertheless, this provides a useful start in the quest for proficiency, which you would have to think is the objective of any and every organisation. Certainly it provides a solid argument for “continuous improvement.” So let’s examine how this can help you and your organisation.

Developing proficiency is a people-dependent process. It can perhaps be better depicted as delivering milestones using a simple equation or series of equations as follows:

1. Consciousness x Context = Knowledge
2. Knowledge x Application = Experience
3. Experience x Practise = Proficiency

And, if you want to move beyond Proficiency to Authority

4. Proficiency x Challenge = Authority

Naturally these terms are subjective and the equations perhaps simplistic, but hopefully they give you some indication of the scope of the process and the iterative nature of what is involved if you wish to optimise your level of proficiency. Don’t hesitate to contact me if you wish to find out more or need my help to further your efforts.

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If you like what you have read contact me today to explore how my original thinking could help you break though logjams that are inhibiting your business or how my ‘Every Individual Matters’ Model could help you value your people and provide the catalyst to help you create an organic culture where everyone cares and the business becomes our business, embedding continuous improvement that engenders ‘love at work’ and transforms – and sustains – organic business performance.

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Bay Jordan

Bay is the founder and director of Zealise, and the creator of the ‘Every Individual Matters’ organizational culture model that helps transform organizational performance and bottom-line results. Bay is also the author of several books, including “Lean Organisations Need FAT People” and “The 7 Deadly Toxins of Employee Engagement” and, more recently, The Democracy Delusion: How to Restore True Democracy and Stop Being Duped.

Newton’s 3^rd Law of Physics. You might not remember it is as that but you almost certainly know it or have heard of it:  “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Even if you are familiar with it, you are unlikely to think about it very much or very often. And certainly not in a business context.

This isn’t your fault. It is perhaps simply the inevitable consequence of our natural human need to label things. By categorising this as a “physical law” you inevitably compartmentalise it as “scientific” and so fail to consider its applicability to business. But perhaps you ought to.

After all science pertains to all life. It is only convention (that need to label things) that causes us to break science into different fields. We tend to treat these as discrete and distinct when in reality they are not. The boundaries – like any – are subjective and artificial. As a result we may be short-changing ourselves, as I suggest we are in this instance.

In his book, “Leadership” the Pulitzer Prize winning author, James MacGregor Burns defines leadership as, “The reciprocal process of mobilizing, by persons with certain motives and values, various economic, political and other resources, in a context of competition and conflict, in order to realize goals independently or mutually held by both leaders and followers.” When you distil this, you can identify two primary elements:

• Two parties - leaders and followers;
• Goals - each party wants to achieve a specific purpose.

You cannot have leadership without both these essential elements. Burns, however, expands on this and avers that there are basically two types of leadership: transactional leadership and transforming leadership.

What’s the difference anyway?

That is the question I found myself asking. I was reading the Pulitzer Prize winning author, James MacGregor Burns’ book “Leadership” when I came across this statement; “… leadership of reform movements must be among the most exacting.”  (Interestingly, reform leadership would appear to be even more demanding than revolutionary leadership – but that is a whole different topic!) However, it was as I read on and came across the statement, “… reform leaders must deal with endless divisions within their own ranks” that my brain kicked into overdrive.

Silo-thinking: even if unfamiliar with the term, you are likely familiar with its effects. That’s because the root of silo-thinking is differentiation and distinction. And this has consequences – conscious and unconscious.

You define any activity, role or responsibility according to predefined criteria, which may be shaped by the person, their applied skills and training or the way in which they create, use or adapt a system to carry out their assigned tasks. This is all well and good; only all too often we tend to identify ourselves by our roles and what we do. Even Aristotle (384-322 BCE) recognised this, as he is reputed to have said, “We are what we repeatedly do.” As result we, personally or collectively, tend to become:

• Protective and – clinging to the adage that “knowledge is power” – erect barriers to ensure that we maximise the perceived value of what we offer, and thereby our status; and/or
• Self-absorbed or unduly focused and single-minded, and thus uncooperative.  

Collectively this may be at the individual business unit, functional or even divisional business unit rather than at the enterprise level. But when it occurs at the collective level – and is recognised – it is identified it as ‘silo-thinking.’ That’s when you start to take steps to remedy it.  Unfortunately, even when you do, you may not realise how pervasive and pernicious it is.