Organisation Development

An organisation is like a garden it has great potential for growth and beauty.  But cultivating a garden requires resources.  Time and effort, it also demands that the organisational leadership look out for and deal with weeds, removing them as necessary to avoid them growing and killing the plants that have been planted.

Two of the most common weeds in an organisation are;

Pet Projects; where the leadership show favouritism towards particular schemes or people running projects regardless of their actual merit or business priority.  Good business leaders don’t show favouritism.  How about you?  Do you realise that too?  Or do you mix only with your own kind?  Cliques in business are highly damaging and may exclude individuals who have the potential to deliver great performance for the organisation.  Look out for employees that are shy, disempowered, insecure or lacking in trust – you might just be able to bring them into a project that will enable them to thrive.

Rumours; The corporate tom tom drums are incredibly powerful, but how often do you take part in spreading the gossip?  When you hear a rumour about the organisation, a department or an individual do you stop it dead in its tracks?  Are you willing to find out the truth by talking directly to those involved?  Don’t talk about situations or people, and don’t let anyone else talk about them either.  Rumour and gossip is the art of saying nothing, and leaving nothing unsaid.  If you want to promote organizational harmony, don’t indulge in it!

The fact is that all organisations have a purpose, it was why they were created.  Organisaton’s don’t just exist to make money or profit for their shareholders, they exist for a higher purpose.  It is the leaders job to do the work that the organisation is designed to do.  Not keeping busy, not squeezing square pegs into round holes, but expending time, energy and resource on achieving the organisation-shaped purpose.  The leadership need to be at the helm, steering the organizational ‘ship’ to do immeasurably more than you ask or imagine.

Do you feel it? I woke up this morning with a sense of purpose. Today is that day. It may seem like you have no idea what the day will bring, or that circumstances are muddled. You may not know what you are doing, or even why you are doing what you are doing?

But maybe today is a day to set aside all the confusion, all the worry, all the uncertainty and stand up and count today as the day that something new is going to happen.

Some time ago, I watched the programme Jimmy and the Giant Supermarket, and could feel my frustration rising. Tesco was great for giving Jimmy the space to experiment. But my frustration was the Jimmy proved that he could produce free range food at the same price and in the case of the Kiev, be a better produce. Tesco has listed his free range sausages and Kiev’s but here’s the thing – throughout the programme the focus was on cost.

The purpose of many organisations today has become about making money. The ‘strategic visioin’ is usually a profit number, or a growth ambition. But for what purpose? Leahey has a iron law of explanation that states that when something is explained, the phenomena to be explained should be contained with the ideas of doing the explaining. Profit is a means of achieving the purpose, it is one of the ideas of doing the explaining of the purpose of the organisation, it cannot therefore be the purpose.

Is Tesco just about making money? What is it’s purpose? The organisation is one of the biggest supermarkets in the UK. It has a moral obligation to do things differently. If Tesco said that it expected higher levels of animal husbandry, and demanded that free range was the only meat acceptable then the producers would find a way, just as Jimmy did of producing their food at that standard.

Just as ‘additives’ and ‘salt’ have been dealt with in food so to should doing things that are right. Not because of cost, but because they are the right thing to do. Customers want the opportunity to do the right things, but cost is often prohibitive.

If organisation decided to do the right thing, like Marks and Spencer’s Plan A and Virgin with their socio-political agenda then human innovation will enable the organisation to do the right the thing, and still make a profit. If the purpose of an organisation is altruistic and is based on good morals, then profit will follow.

The problem is that many corporate heads will look at the current situation and say “it doesn’t pay” – but how have we got into a situation where a profitable company is forced to cut costs, and make staff redundant? It is not because the organisation isn’t successful it is because the focus has become about the numbers. The organisation hasn’t hit an ‘invented’ profit target, and therefore has to cut costs. The fact that the organisation is making a profit becomes an oxymoron.

People begin to think that they are working for unsuccessful businesses, and that the organisation is somehow failing. How have we got ourselves into a situation where being successful isn’t enough anymore? How demotivating

And so to the encounter. What is the right thing to do? If you think that ‘making profit’ is the main priority in business then I wish to get in your face and challenge your thinking. Really? Profit is the number one priority? Businesses fail because of lack of cash flow, they shouldn’t be seen as a failure for lack of ‘enough’ profit. What is ‘enough’ anyway? Once an organisation achieves a profit target it is not enough to achieve the same or less the following year, no the organisation has to make MORE profit.

Why was the business started in the first place? What was its reason for existence? Why did the entrepreneur who start the fledging business get out of bed and start the organisation – to make money?  Should organisations have something other than just a black and white economic agenda?

Profit can only ever be a lagging indicator. It can only drive short-term decision-making – jam for today, forget about tomorrow. A profit motive is a sickness that needs to be cured. You cannot, cannot focuses organisational resources purely on the basis of making profit.

Look at your organisation and ask yourself “why do we exist and for what purpose” – you will find that it is so much more than making money.

As someone who has suffered from myopia since the age of eleven dealing with poor vision is something I have had to learn to adapt to.  Fortunately glasses are no longer nerdy, but have become fashion accessories and the era of milk bottle lenses have been replaced with lightweight, light reflecting lenses.  For a long time I wore contact lenses but suffered from dry eyes, and have now reached a point where I don’t ‘look’ right without glasses on.

However, this doesn’t stop me praying for miracle healing and hoping my eyesight will be restored.    When my kids come into our room in the morning, I have to put my glasses on to see them clearly, going swimming is a nightmare because I can no longer see the edge of the pool without my glasses on, and finding the entrance to the ladies changing room has the potential for huge embarrassment.

It reminds me of a song we used to sing at Primary School, in the Quartermaster’s Store “My eyes are dim, I cannot see, I have not brought my specs with me, I have not brought my specs with me.”

Lense technology has moved on so I no longer steam up all the time, but on the occasions it does happen I am temporarily blinded.  I also have to go on rollacoasters blind, and have lost my glasses whilst playing in the sea on holiday, which left me in a blur for the rest of the day.

It is therefore with some irony that I find myself in a position where my friends and colleagues call me ‘visionary’ – I have an entrepreneurial spirit that cannot be contained and can ‘see’ the possibilities before pen is even put to paper.  My ability to imagine a future, and more importantly work towards making that future a reality is part of who I am.

But maybe there is a benefit of myopia in having vision.  I can’t see the detail of the journey of how to get from today to the future.  I am not able to envision each and every obstacle on the way, and I certainly don’t get lost in the nitty gritty nuts and bolts.    For someone who is physically short sighted, to the point where I can no longer read a book without my spectacles, my approach to life is very long sighted.

When someone says to me ‘how’ – sometimes I don’t have the answer immediately, but I know when we get there what to do, and how to navigate around the obstacles to reach the goal.  It seems being physically incapable of seeing clearly, means that my inner vision is crystal clear.  Where others can’t see that far ahead I can explain in minute detail what the future looks like.   However, I need to work with people who can see the steps on the journey.  My myopia in the short term, is joined with those who have no ability to view the long sightedness and between us we piece together getting from the present to the future.

It is rare for a visionary to be a detail person or a details person to be a visionary.  In developing organisation purpose, strategy and tactical plan it needs both short and long sighted ability to move ever forward to the goal that is envisioned.

I am not ashamed of having to wear glasses, although sometimes it can be annoying, and for those who lack inner vision, there should be no shame either. Visionaries need people who see the detail, and can give warning of hurdles that will need to be jumped, just as those who are detailed need help to lift their head up every now and again to see where we are heading.

Embrace the type of vision you have.  Realise that not all of us can be good at one type of seeing, but that all of us need support to see things differently.  Find those who you can help and support, add value where you can add value.  Without details the vision would remain a hope rather than reality and without vision detail would grow stale.

We all need each other to move forward, to grow and to develop.  And though it might be the visionaries that get lauded, they are nothing without those who bring them down to earth and take them forward step, by minute step.

When I was conducting research in regards to capitalism and human capital for my Book – , I was struck by the way the capitalist system is based on the notion of ‘price’ whilst being associated ideologically with freedom.  Capitalism really does place a price on freedom and it is a lot higher than you might think.

As we start a new year, I wonder what price we put on Freedom?  We are all free to sell our labour to whomever we choose, but when the head of the CBI is calling for organisations to increase wages you know that some how the price of our labour is out of kilter with the labour we do, and that there is a issue with prosperity not being shared equally.

In organisational life, our value to an organisation is also based on price. How much we are paid, how much we ‘cost’ the company to employ us is recorded in minute detail on workforce spreadsheets and on a outgoing line on the P&L. Human beings with all their potential, knowledge, skills and talent boiled down to a number.

When an organisation is faced with cost cutting due to economic pressures, leadership teams and accountants scour the ledgers to see where there can be a reduction in cost, and they come to rest of the cost of human capital. A simple calculation is made as to what cost needs to be trimmed and the conversation moves on to other cost savings; marketing budgets, training budgets, capital equipment, stock holding etc.

Managers are then told what their new revised budget for headcount is and told to get on with it. The managers then pull together a restructure plan to decide how to reduce headcount whilst still get the same work done without any detriment to customer service and quality and a redundancy programme begins.

A simple line on a P&L. Collateral Damage. Lives boiled down to a number.

In Greece hundreds of families are forced to abandon their children because they can no longer look after them, whilst the European Union insists on austerity measures; in Syria children are tortured by government forces and over 120 thousand people have been killed in response to the rebellion.

Here at home there numbers are stark;

• 1 in 6 children live in poverty in the UK
• 355,985 people received a minimum of three days’ emergency food from Trussell Trust foodbanks between April – September 2013
• Just over half of the 13 million people in poverty were from working families

I doubt that a single person will look at these figures and not think that this is wrong, that the values placed on what number is really important is the wrong way round and yet every day we continue to take part in a system, making decisions that ‘devalue’ people to a number.

Ask a manager what the Christmas bank holidays are going to cost the business and he’ll reel off a number, ask him what value spending time with family and friends has to his workers and you’ll get a blank stare and possibly a response about “what has that got to do with the price of eggs?”

If I asked you to find out the cost of training in your organisation, it would be simple case of looking in the right ledger. If I were to ask you find out the value of human potential and talent in your organisation the answer would be impossible to find – we don’t measure those things, we only measure cost.

That is of course that we don’t measure it in people. If I were to ask you to give me a value of your capital equipment – then you could tell me the cost and the benefit associated with the plant in your business, what is more you’ll be able to tell me the utilisation of the capital equipment, how much of its potential you are actually tapping into. So we do value potential, just not that of people.

If you are a leader in the business, I challenge you to adopt a new perspective, just for a few hours. Look around you business and ask yourself not what the people are costing you, but what value they are adding, and what value they could add that you are not yet providing the opportunity to release. You’ll find that your P&L is missing an important line in assets – People Potential Value or PPV for those who like three letter acronyms.

For those of you who are employees, step away from the salary you are paid, and start thinking about the value that you can add in regards to your performance potential. You’ll quickly discover that you can deliver a value far greater than the number you have been allocated. The question is, are you ready to #BETHECHANGE? Are you ready to act as if you are a value-adding asset or continue to allow yourself to merely be a cost to the organisation?

It’s time that price was replaced by value in our economic system and people rather than property were given priority.