Sir Michael Parkinson is the UK Government’s so-called ‘Dignity Tsar’. He has come up with many suggestions for improving the treatment in care homes for the elderly, much of it based on the experience of his own mother. In parallel to this, Sir Gerry Robinson has been looking into the state of care homes in a television programme and coming up with his own insights and advice.
Those responsible nationally will be hearing of the many views and suggestions for improvement and many will find themselves agreeing with them. This is all very interesting and pertinent. But the serious question is ‘How can this become an agenda that can be operationalised?’. Which brings us, as ever, to leadership and its role in bringing about change.
It was reported that after the Robinson programme, the wife of Phil Hope, the government minister for social care, phoned him to ask: "And what are you going to do about it?" Some commentators offer the familiar formula of an injection of money and training, a re-evaluation of professional caring, and the recruitment and retention of compassionate and dedicated staff. But there is more to leadership than that, beginning with a systemic understanding of what is going on.
There are basically two kinds of possible intervention in a case like this. If you would like to know how these would work in this context, please email bill.tate@organisational-leadership.com.
Friday, 15 January 2010
Thursday, 14 January 2010
Matching the job to the person, and matching the person to the changing environment
On the train two days ago I sat next to someone reading a job description. These ritualistic documents continue to look important. Yet they fit with an image of the organisation as a machine, with each jobholder in the role of a reliable cog. The aim is to produce predictable output. Everything and everyone has its correct place. But is this what makes organisations tick any more? Systems thinking, complexity science, and shadow-side dynamics suggest otherwise.
If it is the individual who holds pride of place in an organisation’s success and its productivity, then a formal, detailed, fixed job description that defines what lies at the heart of a job might make some kind of sense. But organisations succeed because of what happens in the spaces between individuals – whether smooth-running or sparky. It is the quality of those relationships that matter.
We live in an organisational economy. Services are successfully supplied to customers by systems, not by individuals. Arguably, what goes on at the periphery of a job and between jobs is more important than what goes on at the heart of a job, but this receives little if any attention in job descriptions. Similarly, it is what goes on between partner organisations that is increasingly significant. Organisations are open systems not closed ones. A job is an open system too.
When Alistair Campbell appeared before the Iraq Inquiry yesterday, he gave a most creditable performance. He seemed to see his job as protecting Tony Blair, protecting his own skin, and laying into the media. Campbell’s successor sees his job very differently. What matters is interpretation, one’s personal gifts, what the boss calls for, and what is changing in the environment.
The machine metaphor fails because it can’t be redesigned quickly enough for fast-moving and unpredictable times. Complex organisations need to be capable of adapting quickly as demands and environments change. Job responsibility needs sharpening while becoming less pinned down – a modern paradox.
The most valuable things people do are often not what is contained within the defined job, but what lies beyond it – in special tasks and projects connected with improvement and change. Appearing before the Iraq Inquiry was surely not in Campbell’s job description, but what he did mattered, couldn’t be ducked, and he made a good fist of it.
The most important question a jobholder can ask is “Why am I continuing to do what I am continuing to do the way I am continuing to do it?” No doubt it is someone’s job to write job descriptions. Perhaps they should be asking themselves this very same question.
If it is the individual who holds pride of place in an organisation’s success and its productivity, then a formal, detailed, fixed job description that defines what lies at the heart of a job might make some kind of sense. But organisations succeed because of what happens in the spaces between individuals – whether smooth-running or sparky. It is the quality of those relationships that matter.
We live in an organisational economy. Services are successfully supplied to customers by systems, not by individuals. Arguably, what goes on at the periphery of a job and between jobs is more important than what goes on at the heart of a job, but this receives little if any attention in job descriptions. Similarly, it is what goes on between partner organisations that is increasingly significant. Organisations are open systems not closed ones. A job is an open system too.
When Alistair Campbell appeared before the Iraq Inquiry yesterday, he gave a most creditable performance. He seemed to see his job as protecting Tony Blair, protecting his own skin, and laying into the media. Campbell’s successor sees his job very differently. What matters is interpretation, one’s personal gifts, what the boss calls for, and what is changing in the environment.
The machine metaphor fails because it can’t be redesigned quickly enough for fast-moving and unpredictable times. Complex organisations need to be capable of adapting quickly as demands and environments change. Job responsibility needs sharpening while becoming less pinned down – a modern paradox.
The most valuable things people do are often not what is contained within the defined job, but what lies beyond it – in special tasks and projects connected with improvement and change. Appearing before the Iraq Inquiry was surely not in Campbell’s job description, but what he did mattered, couldn’t be ducked, and he made a good fist of it.
The most important question a jobholder can ask is “Why am I continuing to do what I am continuing to do the way I am continuing to do it?” No doubt it is someone’s job to write job descriptions. Perhaps they should be asking themselves this very same question.
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Chinook Board of Inquiry still grounded after crash landing
The crash of an RAF Chinook Mk2 helicopter on the Mull of Kintyre on 2 June 1994, killing all 29 on board, is again in the news. Controversy continues to surround the verdict of the internal RAF Board of Inquiry conducted at the time. The RAF claimed that the Chinook had been serviceable and airworthy, and that its two experienced pilots were responsible and had been guilty of gross negligence. This outcome was convenient for the RAF, whatever the truth of the matter. But some new documents obtained recently by the BBC raise serious leadership questions, which we comment on below.
The so-called ‘new evidence’ consists of internal correspondence 9 months before the crash. It described the new ‘Fadec’ engine-control software as “positively dangerous” and said “pilots’ control of the engines cannot be assured”. Officials at Boscombe Down, the RAF’s aircraft testing centre, tried to have the Chinook fleet grounded over severe safety concerns with the software. But MoD officials gave the fatal flight permission to proceed. RAF officials today point out that this so-called ‘new’ evidence is old; it was known about at the time of the Inquiry.
Malcolm Rifkind, who was then Secretary of State for Defence, claims that he was not told about this evidence at the time. When the officials were questioned years later they acknowledged the problem with the software but had ruled it out as a possible cause of the crash and had therefore not brought it to the attention of ministers or the wider public. They stated that the documents were available to the Board of Inquiry but were not contained in its report, leaving some confusion over whether members of the Inquiry may have chosen not to consider them.
The way Rifkind describes it, the MoD officials’ communication process denied him and other junior ministers the opportunity to properly consider and question whether the software may have offered a possible explanation for the accident. Rifkind firmly believes that the Inquiry verdict is now in doubt and should be withdrawn on the basis that we simply don’t know whether or not the pilots were negligent.
A second new point to emerge is that when the chief accident investigator was looking into the cause of the crash, knowing that he himself lacked expertise in helicopters, he asked for help from the Chinook’s chief test pilot Squadron Leader Robert Burke. Burke began an unofficial trial to reproduce the control positions before the crash. He then received an order to stop his investigation and not talk about the accident to anyone, officially or unofficially. Burke expected to be called before the Inquiry to offer his expert view, but was not asked to appear. He was given no reasons for these decisions, but added “I’m a serviceman and I accept orders”.
At the time the Chinook was several years late in coming into service. The Army was subjecting the MoD to embarrassing pressure over this. The RAF was keen to demonstrate its confidence in the Chinook to the Army, and laid on this ‘showcase flight’, in the words of Burke. “As a result of the RAF’s assurances, the Northern Ireland office and the Army put on board the most valuable possible group of passengers it could, which was the heads of the security services in Northern Ireland, and it all went horribly wrong”. This passenger complement was a political and needlessly risky strategy, without considering the ‘shadow’ nature of the motives and rivalries between the services. One can easily see how a finding of pilot error was expedient and face saving.
In the intervening years, three further non-RAF inquiries have found the evidence inconclusive. Subsequent Secretaries of State for Defence have re-examined the evidence and have chosen not to reopen the case or modify the verdict. The RAF and MoD have refused to change their mind. But experience from Rifkind onwards raises questions about politicians’ willingness or powerlessness to challenge MoD officials’ opinions on the evidence and the process.
The above description shows the dysfunctional nature of old-fashioned hierarchical power and associated attitudes. It is horribly reminiscent of the Challenger Shuttle disaster in 1986. When I was Head of Management Training in British Airways, a long time ago, I recall frequent discussions about whether it was necessary or useful for managers to offer an explanation behind their decisions. Some believed that to do so undermined their authority, which should not be questioned. The question was asked: was it therefore sufficient for the manager simply to tell the recipient what the decision was and have it obeyed?
No doubt some of this old-fashioned thinking remains. But, by and large, things have moved on considerably since then. These are less deferential times. Nowadays, the talk is of distributed leadership, participation, relationships, challenge, critical followership. So, for how much longer can it be argued that older military officials who are permanently away from front-line theatres of war should be able to remain so firmly attached to their hierarchical and deferential model when it is patently no longer fit for purpose?
Younger MoD officials are faced with a question that needs to become more conscious: ‘What do you want to use your leadership for?’ Each is faced with a degree of personal choice of focus (notwithstanding the weight of the culture). That choice lies between a role that is political, defensive, inter-service competitive, manipulative, bureaucratic and tradition-maintaining. Alternatively, they may use their role to be reforming, collaborative, open, which entails risk-taking with their career.
There is a saying: ‘Never let a crisis go to waste’. Is a reopening of the Chinook Inquiry such an opportunity?
The so-called ‘new evidence’ consists of internal correspondence 9 months before the crash. It described the new ‘Fadec’ engine-control software as “positively dangerous” and said “pilots’ control of the engines cannot be assured”. Officials at Boscombe Down, the RAF’s aircraft testing centre, tried to have the Chinook fleet grounded over severe safety concerns with the software. But MoD officials gave the fatal flight permission to proceed. RAF officials today point out that this so-called ‘new’ evidence is old; it was known about at the time of the Inquiry.
Malcolm Rifkind, who was then Secretary of State for Defence, claims that he was not told about this evidence at the time. When the officials were questioned years later they acknowledged the problem with the software but had ruled it out as a possible cause of the crash and had therefore not brought it to the attention of ministers or the wider public. They stated that the documents were available to the Board of Inquiry but were not contained in its report, leaving some confusion over whether members of the Inquiry may have chosen not to consider them.
The way Rifkind describes it, the MoD officials’ communication process denied him and other junior ministers the opportunity to properly consider and question whether the software may have offered a possible explanation for the accident. Rifkind firmly believes that the Inquiry verdict is now in doubt and should be withdrawn on the basis that we simply don’t know whether or not the pilots were negligent.
A second new point to emerge is that when the chief accident investigator was looking into the cause of the crash, knowing that he himself lacked expertise in helicopters, he asked for help from the Chinook’s chief test pilot Squadron Leader Robert Burke. Burke began an unofficial trial to reproduce the control positions before the crash. He then received an order to stop his investigation and not talk about the accident to anyone, officially or unofficially. Burke expected to be called before the Inquiry to offer his expert view, but was not asked to appear. He was given no reasons for these decisions, but added “I’m a serviceman and I accept orders”.
At the time the Chinook was several years late in coming into service. The Army was subjecting the MoD to embarrassing pressure over this. The RAF was keen to demonstrate its confidence in the Chinook to the Army, and laid on this ‘showcase flight’, in the words of Burke. “As a result of the RAF’s assurances, the Northern Ireland office and the Army put on board the most valuable possible group of passengers it could, which was the heads of the security services in Northern Ireland, and it all went horribly wrong”. This passenger complement was a political and needlessly risky strategy, without considering the ‘shadow’ nature of the motives and rivalries between the services. One can easily see how a finding of pilot error was expedient and face saving.
In the intervening years, three further non-RAF inquiries have found the evidence inconclusive. Subsequent Secretaries of State for Defence have re-examined the evidence and have chosen not to reopen the case or modify the verdict. The RAF and MoD have refused to change their mind. But experience from Rifkind onwards raises questions about politicians’ willingness or powerlessness to challenge MoD officials’ opinions on the evidence and the process.
The above description shows the dysfunctional nature of old-fashioned hierarchical power and associated attitudes. It is horribly reminiscent of the Challenger Shuttle disaster in 1986. When I was Head of Management Training in British Airways, a long time ago, I recall frequent discussions about whether it was necessary or useful for managers to offer an explanation behind their decisions. Some believed that to do so undermined their authority, which should not be questioned. The question was asked: was it therefore sufficient for the manager simply to tell the recipient what the decision was and have it obeyed?
No doubt some of this old-fashioned thinking remains. But, by and large, things have moved on considerably since then. These are less deferential times. Nowadays, the talk is of distributed leadership, participation, relationships, challenge, critical followership. So, for how much longer can it be argued that older military officials who are permanently away from front-line theatres of war should be able to remain so firmly attached to their hierarchical and deferential model when it is patently no longer fit for purpose?
Younger MoD officials are faced with a question that needs to become more conscious: ‘What do you want to use your leadership for?’ Each is faced with a degree of personal choice of focus (notwithstanding the weight of the culture). That choice lies between a role that is political, defensive, inter-service competitive, manipulative, bureaucratic and tradition-maintaining. Alternatively, they may use their role to be reforming, collaborative, open, which entails risk-taking with their career.
There is a saying: ‘Never let a crisis go to waste’. Is a reopening of the Chinook Inquiry such an opportunity?
Monday, 4 January 2010
The Blackwater scandal
As the post on 18 December showed, there is a slippery slope when commercial interests and practices are allowed to contaminate the activities of those who act as guardians of the public’s interest.
Currently in the news is a US commercial security firm awarded government contracts to act as armed bodyguards for US State Department diplomats in Baghdad. Five Blackwater employees were accused of opening fire in Nisour Square, on 16 September 2007, killing 17 innocent civilians. The Iraqi government is incensed that legal charges against the bodyguards have been dropped for technical reasons concerning the manner in which prosecution evidence was obtained.
The first question behind what should remain public and what could be privatized is: ‘What is being done in the name of the state?’ A national army is a clear-cut example; mercenary armies are few compared with historical times. The criminal justice system is another example, as is the police. But, controversially, the state does let private companies run prisons. Their contracts reward them for having more prisoners, generating a clear conflict of interest. Imagine if those companies ran the courts and employed the judges who decided who should serve a prison sentence. Firefighters work for the state; though common commercial practice raised its head when New York City decided to reward firefighters for how many fires they put out – something over which the firefighters had no control. Until, that is, some of them realised that they could earn more money if they started fires! Thankfully, the firefighters knew where the fires were and all were put out!
Time and again leadership and management problems turn on matters of individual, team and corporate accountability. To whom were Blackwater bodyguards accountable? And how well equipped was that person or body to carry out the duties of holding the bodyguards to account for their performance? There is also the issue of the distinction between the bodyguards’ responsibility to, and their responsibility for, certain people and things. This is a major leadership issue and one that is much neglected; a whole chapter is devoted to it in The Search for Leadership. This blog will return to this subject in another day’s post.
Currently in the news is a US commercial security firm awarded government contracts to act as armed bodyguards for US State Department diplomats in Baghdad. Five Blackwater employees were accused of opening fire in Nisour Square, on 16 September 2007, killing 17 innocent civilians. The Iraqi government is incensed that legal charges against the bodyguards have been dropped for technical reasons concerning the manner in which prosecution evidence was obtained.
The first question behind what should remain public and what could be privatized is: ‘What is being done in the name of the state?’ A national army is a clear-cut example; mercenary armies are few compared with historical times. The criminal justice system is another example, as is the police. But, controversially, the state does let private companies run prisons. Their contracts reward them for having more prisoners, generating a clear conflict of interest. Imagine if those companies ran the courts and employed the judges who decided who should serve a prison sentence. Firefighters work for the state; though common commercial practice raised its head when New York City decided to reward firefighters for how many fires they put out – something over which the firefighters had no control. Until, that is, some of them realised that they could earn more money if they started fires! Thankfully, the firefighters knew where the fires were and all were put out!
Time and again leadership and management problems turn on matters of individual, team and corporate accountability. To whom were Blackwater bodyguards accountable? And how well equipped was that person or body to carry out the duties of holding the bodyguards to account for their performance? There is also the issue of the distinction between the bodyguards’ responsibility to, and their responsibility for, certain people and things. This is a major leadership issue and one that is much neglected; a whole chapter is devoted to it in The Search for Leadership. This blog will return to this subject in another day’s post.
Thursday, 31 December 2009
Unintended consequences go to waste
The Search for Leadership: An Organisational Perspective discusses some of the truths and traps that await powerful CEOs who don’t know what they don’t know. Lacking education in organisational behaviour, such leaders are vulnerable and may push for the wrong thing.
One such trap awaits those who decide to centralise services to save costs. It seems obvious to them that economies of scale are bound to deliver savings. Figures may show that this is so, provided that the boundary of the system being considered is defined in narrow terms. But if all types of cost are taken into account, including those passed onto others who are affected by the change – often inadvertently – then the net cost may increase. There is also the added cost of frustration, delays, more customer complaints and lowered staff morale.
Centralisation is a political game, sometimes with a small ‘p’ and sometimes large, as in the case of government ministers looking for departmental savings. This week the probation union Napo treated the public to a laughable tale of this tragi-comedy in practice. Harry Fletcher, Napo’s assistant general secretary explained that “five years ago the Home Office decided to centralise [on regions] and privatise the maintenance of the probation estate”. Previously, local probation services had sought local solutions to local problems.
The upshot was stories such as “Window cleaners travelling from Preston to Leicester and staying in a hotel overnight. An office with four staff receiving 5000 paper towels each month that had not been ordered. A three-hour drive by an electrician to change a lightbulb. A dishwasher arriving that was too large to fit the available space”. These result from a distant and impersonal service that relies on a written contract rather than a customer and a supplier who know each other. Centralisation damages relationships as much as the balance sheet. No wonder ‘motivational and inspirational consultants’ were then hired to address probation staff. Only they told them that there was no such thing as stress.
Unintended consequences of one form or another are predictable, even without knowing about the natural oscillation between centralisation and decentralisation. When the lesson of the increased cost of centralisation is ultimately learned, these leaders will rediscover the attraction of decentralisation, localism and ‘small is beautiful’. Jack Straw, Justice Secretary, has now ordered a review of the contract. It can also be predicted that apparent weaknesses in subsequent decentralisation will lead to some future leader insisting on centralisation.
The current political vogue is for centralisation, but the political rhetoric is about localism. This is another of those ‘tugs of war’ (see yesterday’s post) that challenge leaders – and these days is talked about as managing ‘polarities’.
One such trap awaits those who decide to centralise services to save costs. It seems obvious to them that economies of scale are bound to deliver savings. Figures may show that this is so, provided that the boundary of the system being considered is defined in narrow terms. But if all types of cost are taken into account, including those passed onto others who are affected by the change – often inadvertently – then the net cost may increase. There is also the added cost of frustration, delays, more customer complaints and lowered staff morale.
Centralisation is a political game, sometimes with a small ‘p’ and sometimes large, as in the case of government ministers looking for departmental savings. This week the probation union Napo treated the public to a laughable tale of this tragi-comedy in practice. Harry Fletcher, Napo’s assistant general secretary explained that “five years ago the Home Office decided to centralise [on regions] and privatise the maintenance of the probation estate”. Previously, local probation services had sought local solutions to local problems.
The upshot was stories such as “Window cleaners travelling from Preston to Leicester and staying in a hotel overnight. An office with four staff receiving 5000 paper towels each month that had not been ordered. A three-hour drive by an electrician to change a lightbulb. A dishwasher arriving that was too large to fit the available space”. These result from a distant and impersonal service that relies on a written contract rather than a customer and a supplier who know each other. Centralisation damages relationships as much as the balance sheet. No wonder ‘motivational and inspirational consultants’ were then hired to address probation staff. Only they told them that there was no such thing as stress.
Unintended consequences of one form or another are predictable, even without knowing about the natural oscillation between centralisation and decentralisation. When the lesson of the increased cost of centralisation is ultimately learned, these leaders will rediscover the attraction of decentralisation, localism and ‘small is beautiful’. Jack Straw, Justice Secretary, has now ordered a review of the contract. It can also be predicted that apparent weaknesses in subsequent decentralisation will lead to some future leader insisting on centralisation.
The current political vogue is for centralisation, but the political rhetoric is about localism. This is another of those ‘tugs of war’ (see yesterday’s post) that challenge leaders – and these days is talked about as managing ‘polarities’.
Wednesday, 30 December 2009
The Great Tug of War
The writer Beverley Naidoo recently visited Yarl’s Wood Child Detention Centre, where children are detained pending possible deportation. She was there to run a story-telling workshop for the children aged five to 16. On entering through security she passed under a sign saying ‘Serco brings service to life’. Inside she found the teachers wearing guards uniforms. They had bundles of keys dangling from their belts.
Does this remind you of another item in the news last week? By a strange coincidence we heard of a different sign over a different entrance: ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ (‘Work sets you free’). It hung over the entrance to another detention centre - Auschwitz. Perhaps I’m cynical. Perhaps the sign is. Like 'free', the word 'life' can have more than one meaning for people in detention.
Organisations sometimes tell tales about their brand. There can be tension between rhetoric and reality. Leadership is about being authentic and attending to these gaps.
And what book did Naidoo take with her to read from? The Great Tug of War. Just so!
Does this remind you of another item in the news last week? By a strange coincidence we heard of a different sign over a different entrance: ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ (‘Work sets you free’). It hung over the entrance to another detention centre - Auschwitz. Perhaps I’m cynical. Perhaps the sign is. Like 'free', the word 'life' can have more than one meaning for people in detention.
Organisations sometimes tell tales about their brand. There can be tension between rhetoric and reality. Leadership is about being authentic and attending to these gaps.
And what book did Naidoo take with her to read from? The Great Tug of War. Just so!
Thursday, 24 December 2009
An event, a dear boy, an event
Paraphrasing Harold Macmillan, when asked about the challenges facing leaders, he nearly said the above. Though he didn’t mean it in this particular way, an event in Bethlehem long ago made them think. And still does.
Happy Christmas!
Happy Christmas!
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