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Author: Nailia Tasseel
The upheaval of change
Put Your Business In Pole Position
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You can’t tell an adult what to do…
Back in the 1980s one of the management gurus of the day, Sir John Harvey Jones, coined the following phrase: ‘You can’t tell an adult what to do, you can only create the conditions in which they discover it for themselves.’ It’s a principle that underpins much of our work at The Storytellers. But back in the 80s I wonder if Sir John was slightly ahead of his time?
Much of business at that time was based on engineering principles – a legacy of the industrial revolution that started 100 years previously. The business was a system designed to produce things at scale, to a consistent standard and as efficiently as possible. Human beings were part of the system, a cog within the machine, and the system worked if you did what you were told.
Ian Davies, the global head of the consulting firm McKinsey, was around at that time. He was recently asked to share some of his wisdom from advising businesses over three decades. He talked about living through three major recessions, and observing the businesses who came out of them first and strongest. In the 80s these successful businesses had better strategies than their competitors. In the 90s, whilst strategy was still important, it had lost its competitive advantage, Everyone had one. Successful businesses in the 90s were the ones to harness the power of information technology.
That revolution is still going on and it has fundamentally changed the role of people in business. In many functions of business, human beings are no longer the cog in the machine; technology has replaced them. At the same time IT has become accessible to all, available to buy in bite size chunks at the click of a mouse. It is no longer a major source of competitive advantage. So what does the man from Mckinsey see emerging from the recession of 2008/9.
The answer is talent. The ability of businesses to realise the potential of their people and use them to do things that no computer, even the largest ones on the planet, can do.
Let’s take an example. Back in 90’s, a new retailer hit our streets, called Zara. Zara sold fashionable women’s clothes. They, like their competitors, knew that fashion is a fast moving business. But Zara had a secret weapon. They worked out a way of producing and distributing clothes in two weeks from order to store. This was compared to somewhere like M&S who needed 9 months. Zara called it ‘instant fashion’. If customers saw a new trend in a magazine, they could buy it that season not the next year. Zara started to steal market share, and its competitors started to steal their process. Now everyone has fast turnaround.
John Lewis, on the other hand, has a different kind of secret weapon (actually it is not very secret). It is its people. It has found a way of attracting, retaining, motivating and realising the talents of its people, and using them to create a distinct and attractive customer experience. Despite all the developments in technology, no competitor has managed to copy them.
At The Storytellers, we have seen how businesses who have harnessed the potential of their people have transformed their performance. Take two manufacturing plants within a European packaging client of ours. The first had an old command and control, management style. A new general manager arrived and with our support, actively engaged his whole workforce in the journey the business is on. He then invited teams of employees to develop ways of improving performance – celebrating their stories. In two years, the plant has seen a ten fold increase in its profitability. Another site focused its employees on reducing product defects. Within months their defects per million had fallen by 80%, to a rate that was world class within their industry.
A large pharmaceutical client of ours recognises all too well the talents of its employees, especially within the R&D division, which employs many of the world’s leading experts. Their challenge has been to harness this talent to deliver demanding commercial targets. Demanding a different kind of culture. The leadership have invested time in helping employees to engage in what it means to be part of this business, and to use their talents to discover how they can work more effectively together. Within 12 months of the launch of the programme, the division had beaten all its performance targets by 20%.
What would Sir John Harvey Jones make of all of this? I suspect that he now might alter his 1980’s insight to: ‘You don’t want to tell an adult what to do. You want to create the conditions by which they discover things for themselves. It’s key to your competitive advantage.’
Our role at The Storytellers is to help businesses to create those conditions…
The power to turn your life around
We met Clive today.
Clive is an ex-offender, released a few weeks ago after a six-year prison sentence. He was entertaining, self-deprecating, humble, honest and open about his past, and he made a real impact on us.
Before I go any further I should explain that in a month's time Scott, Penny, Roger and I will cycle from London to Paris in three days. In doing so we are raising money for an amazing charity, Aspire, which is based in Oxford. Aspire creates work placements and social enterprises for severely disadvantaged people like Clive: ex-offenders, ex-substance-misusers and homeless people. They give them valuable skills such as painting and decorating, recycling, textiles, property maintenance and landscaping before sending them out as teams, contracted to local authorities, social housing and corporate organisations. The idea is that they gradually build their confidence as they take on the responsibility of work, eventually gaining paid employment and independence. Often these trainees have lost contact with their family, friends and support network, have no money, no stability nor place to live – those things that many of us take for granted when we go through tough times. The fragility of their personal circumstances is greatly magnified beyond the lack of a job prospect. Life is indeed, very, very tough.
Aspire's work means that everyone gains. For the contracting organisations they are taking on truly dedicated people and at the same time helping them to build a sense of pride and value in their work. This is real, meaningful CSR. Aspire saves the public purse over £1m annually, and is three times more successful in securing employment for their trainees than the UK Work Programme average. Most remarkable of all are some of their statistics: in 2011 87% of trainees sustained their recovery from addiction, and 94% did not re-offend.
Back to Clive. Now living in a hostel, he talked of the frustrating days immediately after leaving prison when he had no money to cater for himself (in self-catering accommodation) nor even some soap powder to wash his clothes. But he saw Aspire's posters, signed up, and is now part of a team of trainee painters and decorators. He's really gone for it, and his renewed sense of purpose and determination was palpable.
The Storytellers is an organisation which exists to help create meaning at work; to get the best out of people in the workplace. It seems only natural that we should support Aspire, and as we roll up the Champs Elysees on 22 June we will spare a thought for those who haven't been so lucky in life, but, with the help of Aspire, are finding it within themselves to turn their lives around.
If you'd like to donate to Aspire before our London-to-Paris ride, please visit my Just Giving page at www.justgiving.com/alison-esse . We would be very grateful.
The most important document to come out of Silicon Valley
Sandy Sandberg (Facebook's COO) called it “the most important document to come out of Silicon Valley”. It's Netflix's cultural manifesto and we. love. it.
Read it for yourself here.
Who wouldn’t want to work there? It’s an environment where people can be great. Give people a clear idea of the context: what you want to achieve and what you value and leave the rest to them. Pay them top rate and tell them not to worry about short-term fluctuations in fortune so they can focus on the work that really matters.
When you read the deck it all seems to make so much sense and what’s more you believe it’s true – so why isn’t the company you work for more like this?
A tradition is just an innovation we keep
Claridges. A heavyweight in the London psyche, steeped in royalty and glamour, conjuring up stories in our mind of the world’s most privileged having fanciful wishes taken care of with no more than the raise of a perfectly arched eyebrow. Glimpse around the door left ajar by the BBC’s behind-the-scenes-documentary and the reality is even more exceptional…
After each visit, guest rooms are photographed so that should that person return, their bedsheets can be turned down at exactly the angle they prefer. ‘Do we have a room with a Jacuzzi?’ ‘Yes of course’ the plumber is onto it now… Patrons are made to feel that they themselves are the hotel’s raison d'être. One elderly couple who have celebrated their wedding anniversary each year for the last 40 years with a night at Claridges are even given staff keys on arrival; a symbolic gesture of their being so integral to the fabric of the building.
With that kind of service, there is little wonder that those who can afford it keep coming back for more. But on their 200th anniversary Claridges faces considerable challenges. Their history is unshakeable, they lay claim to royal connections like no other, providing a unique competitive advantage as each guest revels in having a little piece of it. As well as appealing to paying guests, the singular history is an enormous source of pride to the staff. So much so that Roman, the doorman (and internal ‘face of Claridges’), has respectfully guided guests into the Claridges fairytale from the mortal world outside for nearly four decades, and many more have worked there for at least ten years.
The slick service rests upon this impressive shared identity, each individual acutely aware of the institute they represent and prepared to serve it first and foremost. This identity not only defines the group but serves to ensure that the impeccable standards are replicated with military position, creating the quality of service that differentiates Claridges. In a hotel where you want to feel remembered, consistency is king. Each waiter has to know that knives and forks must be exactly one inch from the table edge… and care enough about this to actually do it.
Yet these qualities alone will not suffice. Today’s elite travellers expect the very latest technology and innovations to be available at the touch of a button. The services available have to evolve to stay relevant. As Claridges’ General Manager so eloquently put it; ‘What is a tradition? It is just an innovation that we decided to keep’. And therein lies the dilemma, how to keep a group of employees so tightly bound by their pride in history and keeping things as they always have, delivering a consistent service that is fresh and modern enough to avoid Claridges becoming a stuffy caricature?
This is where stories come into their own. Sharing the stories of the successes and mishaps of the last services reinforce the principles, values and nitty gritty behaviours fundamental to delivering on Claridges’ promises but also airs the inevitable, if minute, deviations from the norm. What have the latest guests asked for? What worked? How does it fit with existing practice? Stories provide the richness for everyone to stay on the same page but engage in a process of social reality testing. What will be fascinating is to see how new ‘traditions‘ are selected and then embedded. With a changing clientele only time will tell what Claridges will become…
The uncertainty is going nowhere
A blog posted last week on Reuters (and brought to my attention by the Harvard Business Review on Tuesday) made it evidently clear that “Uncertainty is not going away”. The US may have just re-elected President Obama for another four years, and the Chinese Communist Party may have this morning confirmed Xi Jinping as the new leader of China for the next decade in a formal handover of power to the next generation, but our economic and political worlds are not about to settle into a comfortable period of predictability. Many Western economies still face debts larger than most of us are able to comprehend, and political sensitivities that range from further Arab Awakening in the Gulf States, to tensions around suspected and existing nuclear weapons programmes in Iran and Pakistan, continue to ensure any threat of a calm and tranquil future is kept firmly at bay.
But how does this tumultuous world affect the CEOs and leaders of businesses that exist within it; striving to deliver the results their investors expect? If you’d listened to Erik Weihenmayer at YamJam’12 you would have heard how he believes you can use adversity to your advantage to propel yourself to greatness. As businesses try to navigate these turbulent times, many are facing new challenges and barriers to their traditional success. Whilst barriers don’t make life easy, they can often be the thing that drives us on — creating a desire and determination to overcome them in order to achieve our vision. Erik became the first blind man to climb the seven summits, the highest peak on each of the seven continents of the world. He saw the adversity he faced as an opportunity; it became his pathway to greatness. The very fact that Erik’s feat was the subject within YamJam'12 demonstrates the increasing focus within businesses to equip their teams to operate effectively and ultimately grow in this uncertain world.
The challenge for senior leaders is to accept that they are operating in a world full of uncertainty and to be honest with their employees about the difficulties they face. Rather than trying to conceal the issues and paint a glossy picture, they should instead equip their employees with the skills to flourish in this environment. Leaders should help their people to recognise their personal strengths as these are the attributes they can draw on when they face adversity and they then need to inspire their people to want to succeed.
Recently we supported one client in taking their employees on an adventure where they faced a series of unexpected challenges framed within the context of their business’ journey. We brought their business story to life through the metaphor of an adventure and used a real-life adventurer to illustrate the themes of the business journey with his own stories. In this way we were able to create an experience that both engaged and inspired employees and showed them clearly how their experiences during their adventure applied to the journey their organisation is on. These leaders chose to be open about the known (and unknown) challenges ahead for their teams but they did this in a way that then equipped their people to embrace the uncertainty and inspired them to want to succeed. Erik Weihenmayer described three kinds of people in his YamJam talk: quitters, campers and climbers. Quitters will give up at the first sign of trouble. Campers will make it to their comfortable spot before settling. Climbers will keep going, always looking for the next peak. The comfortable spots for the campers to settle have become a rarity in our turbulent world, for businesses to continue to grow they need to develop climbers who are going to keep on striving for the top.
Telling tales – storytelling and corporate narrative
Many organisations struggle to tell their company story and do so in a simple, coherent and compelling way. On top of this, stories need to be honest for them to have any credibility with their people, and meaningful too if they are to serve their purpose and enable employees to make the connection between their day-to-day role and the strategy and vision.
David Benady at Communicate magazine presents the case for the corporate narrative, saying ‘it has become more important than ever before’ as organisations increasingly recognise the need for a joined-up narrative for both internal and external stakeholders. And he talks to Carolyn Esser, Global Head of Communications at Logica about how the technology company developed and rolled out a strategic narrative to ‘enthuse its staff’ and persuade them ‘to support a new strategic direction for the company’.
Business case: A Colt following
How does a technology company go through a number of changes including some redundancies and five CEOs in seven years, then five years later achieve revenue growth for the first time in almost ten years? And how did Colt succeed in driving employees’ confidence in their leaders and create a culture of two-communication where it can now ‘take more risks with its talent’ and be ‘fleeter of foot’?
In this month’s issue of People Management magazine, Claire Warren, Deputy Editor, talks to Andrew Powell, COO at Colt on how the business successfully shifted its focus from selling fibre optics to services yet keep its people onboard with change. Read ‘Business case: A Colt following’ for tips and learnings about effective business transformation, which Colt say they achieved with the help of a clear, simple and compelling company story and an internal ambassador group drawn from across its European offices.