Lord Myners' recent report identified how a 'manifestly dysfunctional' board had succeeded in rotting a culture that had underpinned the Co-op Group's purpose for well over a century. The c-word too loomed large in another Government-commissioned exercise in mystery unravelling - The Pollard Review. Whilst focussing on the Saville case, it pointed to a deep rooted and unhealthy 'competitive culture' in the BBC that is to blame for many of the ills that beset the broadcaster.
The impact of the lumpen bureaucracy and factional interests within the NHS and its Trusts, too frequently emerge as 'cultural issues' behind everything from sheer cruelty, to needless body counts. 'Cultural shortcomings' have been highlighted in the Salz Review as the reason for Barclay's LIBOR rigging, whilst 'cultural failings' resulted in the PPI scandal and the sale of interest rate hedging products to SMEs. 'Cultural misunderstandings' contributed to the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and the ensuing blamefest. And so it goes on.
It's all very depressing. However, work over recent months with the UK Investors in People (IIP) Framework Governance Group has reinforced for me the idea that, unlike the above examples, organisations that succeed consistently over time are transparent high performers, investing in their people, their customers and their communities. This is because their people demonstrate specific characteristics. This should be no surprise, as organisations are the sum of their employees and they, in turn, take as their example the behaviours of executives placed in leadership positions. This determines the potential for more ethical behaviour just as it does for fraud, corruption or downright stupidity.
Entrepreneur Tony Hsieh built billion-dollar online retailer Zappos with a traditional organisational structure. But to take the company successfully into the future, this is currently being replaced with 'Holacracy'; a radical self-governing operating approach where there are no job titles and no managers. Instead of a top-down hierarchy, there's a flatter 'holarchy' that distributes power more evenly. The company will in future be made up of different operating circles — there will be around 400 circles once the rollout is complete in December this year — and employees can have any number of roles within those circles. Radical transparency is the goal. In the Zappos of the future there'll be no hiding behind titles or other trappings of corporate life.
Faced with all the challenges of ultra-fast growth business too, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings led the creation of a new people-centred culture in his company that combined high performance with unprecedented levels of responsibility with a clear and radical approach that we see today. For example, Netflix has a 'no vacation policy' for its employees. Staff can take off as many days as they want, as long as they do so responsibly.
Perhaps because they chime particularly with the approach to dealing successfully with rapid business growth that I've used over the years three other things stand out about the current 'Netflix way'. It hires 'outstanding' employees only. Netflix doesn't accept anyone who does an 'adequate' job. The company is driven by 'freedom and responsibility' - not 'command and control'. Employees get to make decisions, and managers act as coaches to give them the right context to do so. It also doesn't hire 'brilliant jerks', no matter how good they think they might be at their job. Jerks operate at the expense of others, so how do you avoid taking on such individuals and not experience the corrosive effect they have on cultural norms?
It starts with the realisation that your people are your most important resource. It follows if you are the founder, CEO or head of an organisation, you are in loco parentis of both the people and the culture. That function should occupy a substantial proportion of your time. That starts with the hiring process, and means you should be the first person to interview a candidate. Don't be the last – a hurried and distracted rubber stamp - as is so often the case.
This is part of turning the conventional interview process on its head. Spend as much time as 90 minutes exploring how a candidate thinks, their motivations and if they're going to be a good fit for the culture going forward. Leave the skills assessments to your colleagues — the people they're going to be working with really closely. This, of course, is also indicative of the culture of trust, and transmits very powerful messages to staff and interviewee alike.
It's particularly important in jerk identification and avoidance to ask open-ended questions such as: How do you like to work? What should I do to get the best out of you? What would you do on your first day, first week, and first month? If the answer doesn't involve some reference to listening, relationships and team work, your internal alarm bells should be ringing, because it's a signal of the prime jerk characteristic — that it's 'all about them'. And if the candidate's descriptions of previous work experience are riddled with complaints about employers, colleagues and clients – none of which are any fault of theirs, of course — you should be backing away fast.
Word soon gets around about a 'no jerks' policy. You'll notice you start getting the right people pursuing you, wanting to work at a place where they are treated like intelligent, responsible people by their leaders and colleagues and enjoy the challenge. In sheer commercial terms, 'no jerks' is a vehicle to help entrepreneurial firms make more progress, faster, with fewer distractions — and deliver on any organisation's prime function: to delight its customers.
If you haven't gone down this route already, I suggest you try it. Even Ian Read, CEO of Pfizer, who is trying frantically to woo the so far unconvinced shareholders and staff of Astra Zeneca, says he has a 'no jerks' rule in his company. That's probably subject to peer review as well as market testing.
It's all very depressing. However, work over recent months with the UK Investors in People (IIP) Framework Governance Group has reinforced for me the idea that, unlike the above examples, organisations that succeed consistently over time are transparent high performers, investing in their people, their customers and their communities. This is because their people demonstrate specific characteristics. This should be no surprise, as organisations are the sum of their employees and they, in turn, take as their example the behaviours of executives placed in leadership positions. This determines the potential for more ethical behaviour just as it does for fraud, corruption or downright stupidity.
Entrepreneur Tony Hsieh built billion-dollar online retailer Zappos with a traditional organisational structure. But to take the company successfully into the future, this is currently being replaced with 'Holacracy'; a radical self-governing operating approach where there are no job titles and no managers. Instead of a top-down hierarchy, there's a flatter 'holarchy' that distributes power more evenly. The company will in future be made up of different operating circles — there will be around 400 circles once the rollout is complete in December this year — and employees can have any number of roles within those circles. Radical transparency is the goal. In the Zappos of the future there'll be no hiding behind titles or other trappings of corporate life.
Faced with all the challenges of ultra-fast growth business too, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings led the creation of a new people-centred culture in his company that combined high performance with unprecedented levels of responsibility with a clear and radical approach that we see today. For example, Netflix has a 'no vacation policy' for its employees. Staff can take off as many days as they want, as long as they do so responsibly.
Perhaps because they chime particularly with the approach to dealing successfully with rapid business growth that I've used over the years three other things stand out about the current 'Netflix way'. It hires 'outstanding' employees only. Netflix doesn't accept anyone who does an 'adequate' job. The company is driven by 'freedom and responsibility' - not 'command and control'. Employees get to make decisions, and managers act as coaches to give them the right context to do so. It also doesn't hire 'brilliant jerks', no matter how good they think they might be at their job. Jerks operate at the expense of others, so how do you avoid taking on such individuals and not experience the corrosive effect they have on cultural norms?
It starts with the realisation that your people are your most important resource. It follows if you are the founder, CEO or head of an organisation, you are in loco parentis of both the people and the culture. That function should occupy a substantial proportion of your time. That starts with the hiring process, and means you should be the first person to interview a candidate. Don't be the last – a hurried and distracted rubber stamp - as is so often the case.
This is part of turning the conventional interview process on its head. Spend as much time as 90 minutes exploring how a candidate thinks, their motivations and if they're going to be a good fit for the culture going forward. Leave the skills assessments to your colleagues — the people they're going to be working with really closely. This, of course, is also indicative of the culture of trust, and transmits very powerful messages to staff and interviewee alike.
It's particularly important in jerk identification and avoidance to ask open-ended questions such as: How do you like to work? What should I do to get the best out of you? What would you do on your first day, first week, and first month? If the answer doesn't involve some reference to listening, relationships and team work, your internal alarm bells should be ringing, because it's a signal of the prime jerk characteristic — that it's 'all about them'. And if the candidate's descriptions of previous work experience are riddled with complaints about employers, colleagues and clients – none of which are any fault of theirs, of course — you should be backing away fast.
Word soon gets around about a 'no jerks' policy. You'll notice you start getting the right people pursuing you, wanting to work at a place where they are treated like intelligent, responsible people by their leaders and colleagues and enjoy the challenge. In sheer commercial terms, 'no jerks' is a vehicle to help entrepreneurial firms make more progress, faster, with fewer distractions — and deliver on any organisation's prime function: to delight its customers.
If you haven't gone down this route already, I suggest you try it. Even Ian Read, CEO of Pfizer, who is trying frantically to woo the so far unconvinced shareholders and staff of Astra Zeneca, says he has a 'no jerks' rule in his company. That's probably subject to peer review as well as market testing.
0 comments:
Post a Comment