Monday 30 January 2012

The Spiral of Culture Change

My last two blogs have been about culture change. And I’m continuing the theme today....
I believe there are a number of common stages any organisation must go through in order to change culture, at least if the change is going to be sustained. Here’s my view on the spiral, the process to follow to dramatically increase the probability of successful, lasting change,
and a brief explanation of each stage?
Stage 1 - Create a compelling purpose
People who are going to be subject to any change need to understand what the changes will be and why they are necessary. And they need to feel that the reasons for change are valid, that they’re important and that after the change has occurred the outcome will be positive. So it’s critical to spend time at the outset establishing why the change is required and how to communicate it in a compelling way, so that it’s seen as important. It’s easier sometimes than others.
I once worked for an organisation who explained the need for a change programme by clarifying that the business was at risk and that unless change occurred quickly everyone’s jobs were also at risk. Hearing a message like that tends to focus the mind! On the other hand, the business may not be at risk, if might be performing reasonably well, and culture change is more about improvement and becoming even better. The compelling purpose then is probably more about painting a vision of just how bright the future could be. Some people are drawn towards change
whilst others move away from the present – if the risks of staying put are strong enough. Cater for both scenarios are provide a message that people can hear, irrespective of what motivates them to change.
Stage 2 - Catalyse leadership
Leaders in any organisation play a key role in causing, supporting and accelerating change – or not. If they aren’t supportive of the proposed change the likelihood of it succeeding reduces considerably. It’s therefore very important to ensure that people in positions of power and influence in the organisation are on-board and support the change. You will want their support not just in terms of the words they use but also in their actions and behaviour. It’s worth taking a little longer at the outset to ensure their support.

Stage 3 - Understand personal impacts
It’s all very well asking leaders to support culture change, but how can they really do that if they don’t understand what the likely impacts are for them personally. The human brain is
genetically programmed to seek clarity and certainty about the future. The likelihood of any individual supporting change tends to be in direct contrast to the degree of clarity they have about what the change will mean for them. If the change is likely to be positive then naturally, people will be more enthusiastic than if it is likely to be negative but it’s still better, always,
to provide clarity on what’s known – even if the impact is likely to be negative. Usually, even negative changes can be reframed to find some positives.
This of course holds true for everyone in the organisation and not just leaders. The fuller the
explanation of the proposed changes the greater the success of the change over the long term.

Stage 4 - Understand organisational constraints and enablers
In his excellent book ‘The Unwritten Rules of the Game’, Dr. Peter Scott-Morgan explained how the unwritten rules impact the success or failure of any and all organisational change. He stressed that no matter how clear and detailed the policies and procedures of an organisation, the key conditions impacting it are the things that aren’t written down anywhere but nevertheless influence how people behave every day.
Consider your organisation. What is the honest advice you’d give a friend about how to get on in
it? How would they need to behave and why? What are the most important things to say (or not say)? What are the most important things to do (and not do)? Who should they seek to get on well with and who should they avoid? Given all that, how should they be when they’re at work and overall, what should they do? The answers to these questions are likely to be the unwritten rules of your organisation, or at least of your department in the organisation. If you were to ask enough people to answer questions like these, you’d start to build a picture of the unwritten rules at play, and how they affect how it operates.
And the key thing to remember is that they interfere with any organisational initiative that seeks to change the way people behave. It’s possible that they will support the desired culture change but if they don’t, left unchanged they will dramatically increase the likelihood of it failing. That’s
why it doesn’t make much sense to seek to change culture without first having an understanding of the current culture, and why it’s how it is.
Stage 5 - Design the plan
So you understand what the desired change is, you understand how it’s going to impact people and the unwritten rules in the organisation that might enable or constrain it. The next stage
is to decide what actions are needed to cause the change to actually happen, how best to sequence them, how they will fit with other things happening in the organisation, who will be responsible for implementing them – and so on. Actions properly planned and delivered are
always more likely to succeed than those that aren’t.
Stage 6 - Take action
Once the groundwork has been done, it’s time to take action and implement the plan.
Stage 7 - Monitor and measure progress
As the plan is being implemented and actions taken, it’s makes sense to monitor the results and measure progress towards the desired change. However, be conscious that it might take a
little time to see changes, so don’t change course too soon. If the previous stages have been undertaken well, the change will happen in time.
Culture is difficult to change and it’s wise therefore to position any culture change activity as ongoing and not a short term programme. Those organisations who approach changing culture as a project which once down can be shut down and focus switched to something else don’t really understand the nature of cultivating something long term and are more than likely to fail....
For more information or help with the stages:
LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/timhadfield
Twitter: @accordengage
Telephone: (0044) 07906650019

Tuesday 24 January 2012

Why Organisations Don’t Try to Cultivate Culture #Culturechange

I haven’t come across an executive who is unaware that there is a culture at work within his or her organisation. I’ve met a few who haven’t made the link between culture and the performance of their business but the majority seem to understand that the two things are inextricably linked. I’m therefore surprised how often there’s no conscious, planned activity underway to shape their culture or continuing the theme from yesterday, to cultivate it.

Either consciously or unconsciously, every organisation is shaping their culture. The way in which it responds to internal and external influences, the manner in which decisions are taken and the impact of those decisions, the tone of communications, the behaviours of managers and leaders, the things they recognise and reward, the behaviours they encourage, things they give attention to and talk about (or not), things they tolerate or turn a blind eye to.....are all examples of ways that they cultivate their culture, irrespective of whether they are aware of it or not.

Ignorance of the link between culture and performance is may be an excuse for them,
albeit a poor one! So what's the excuse in organisations where executives do understand the link but still don’t consciously and deliberately cultivate it?

In my experience there are four key reasons:

  1. Fear
    This is a reflection of the human fear of change. We might not like our current circumstances but stay where we are because if we change it might be even worse. “Better the devil you know” and all that. It’s fear of losing control, of making things worse, fear of trying to change and failing, fear of succeeding and having a new set of problems, fear of the unknown. When fear is the dominant driver in the business it will be slow to change, slow to react to changes in the market – and at risk.
  2. Complacency
    Organisations that have no burning platform for change are often complacent. Results will typically be ok, not great but also not poor enough to make change unavoidable. So the “we’ve always done it that way” and “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality prevails. These organisations will be ‘comfortable’ places to work, but not great places that encourage and stimulate people to achieve more. These organisations are insular and not particularly concerned about what competitors are doing – and consequently are at risk. See Kodak for an example.
  3. Habit
    When the senior team in an organisation gets too comfortable and habitual ways of managing become embedded, it becomes difficult for leaders to step outside their comfort zone and drive change. It becomes in their best interests to safeguard the status quo – because the alternative would mean them changing. Decisions are communicated and if challenged, explained by suffixing “because the Chairman / CEO says so”. Leaders in these organisations might be perceived as arrogant and disinterested in change and these behaviours put the organisation at risk.
  4. Degree of difficulty
    Some organisations know they should change their culture, thet want to but just don't know how to do it. They perhaps can’t put their finger on what’s wrong currently, and consequently they don’t know exactly what needs to change, and even if they do they don’t know what actions to take to do it or how long it will take, how employees will react, or who
    needs to do what. These organisations are ambitious for change but don’t know where to start and so stress is part and parcel of working there, because it’s hard work overcoming the difficulties inherent in the culture. They experience other organisations doing what they do ......but doing it better and this puts them at risk.

And then there are organisations who understand it and are consciously and deliberately shaping and cultivating their culture. It's a culture that is aligned with their vision, their strategy and their business objectives. They're the organisations you admire and respect AND are achieving extraordinary performance.

What group is your organisation in?

Get in touch, I'd like to help......


LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/timhadfield
Twitter: @accordengage
Telephone: 0044 7906 650019

Scary!

I was talking to a friend last night and he was telling me about a frighteningly bad experience he's had with his insurer. The details are so bad it's almost unbelievable - but every detail of what follows is true. The background to this by the way is that he recently advised his provider that he wanted to cancel his policy.

Yesterday morning he received 6 letters from his buildings and contents insurance provider:

  • Letter 1 was his renewal notice and policy
  • Letter 2 was a letter advising him to ignore the renewal as they had cancelled the policy
  • Letter 3 says advised that when it's up for renewal it will be shut down
  • Letters 4&5 were selling the option of an independent quote
  • He hadn't at that time had the courage to open Letter 6!

The letter were all from different departments and different people. And, unless letter 6 contains clarification he's still unsure whether his original instruction to cancel the policy has been actioned.

And it gets even better. He's married and his wife is jointly named on the policy - so she received the same 6 letters too!

Just how is it possible for an organisation to get something so wrong......

Monday 23 January 2012

Cultivating Culture

Culture is a complex concept for managers and leaders to understand. It’s hardly surprising, even ‘experts’ have different views about just what it is.

Here are just a few of the definitions I found in a few minutes online:

  • The way things are done around here
  • The specific collection of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organisation that control the way they interact with each other and stakeholders
  • A complex set of attitudes, beliefs, values, opinions, rules of behaviour, ideologies, habitual responses, language, rituals, quirks and other characteristics of a particular group
  • An unconscious set of collective beliefs and assumptions steering values and through them the artefacts and actions of an organisation
  • The deeper level of basic assumptions and beliefs that are shared by members of an organisation, that operate subconsciously and define in a ‘taken for granted’ fashion an organisation’s view of itself and its environment

However you choose to define it in your organisation, it shapes everything an organisation does and is the critical factor influencing success......or failure. There is an inextricable link between culture and performance. Culture either supports delivery of business strategy......or constrains it. To reiterate - it dictates whether organisations succeed or fail. And that’s why organisations that cultivate their cultures have a competitive edge.

Interesting word cultivate. According to Wikipedia the word culture comes from the Latin cultura, stemming from colere, meaning ‘to cultivate’. And the dictionary definition is:

“To bestow attention, care, and labour upon, with a view to valuable returns.”

“To direct special attention to; to devote time and thought to; to foster; to cherish.”

For me, it fits perfectly with culture. It means we can (and must) change culture so that it enables success - however, to do that we need to direct time and attention to it. We need to think about it, to work at it, cherish it so it grows in the direction we want.

So, if we’re going to cultivate culture, what should we do? I think we can learn from drawing
some parallels with the sector where the word is more commonly used - Farming:

Step 1 - Planning
A farmer doesn’t plant his crop without planning it first. He/she thinks about his business plan,
identifying what crops will deliver a yield that will deliver it. He looks at the map of his fields, thinking about what crop he’s going to grow in each, recognising the type of soil, the likely weather and temperatures, and what he’s grown successfully in recent seasons. He prepares for the impact of pests, pathogens and weeds and then he produces the action plan – what needs to
be done, and when.

The culture practitioner should follow a similar approach. He must understand the business strategy, its business plan, targets and objectives. Because the sole purpose of the organisational culture is to support delivery of that strategy. He should have a ‘map’ of the organisation which describes the current culture in each part of it as well as a description of the desired future culture. (By implication, this means he has to have a methodology for defining culture.) He
must think about the actions that will progress culture towards the desired future state and consider the potential impact of internal and external influences. And then he must pull
together the plan of actions i.e. what will be done and when.

Incidentally, planning is a cyclical process for the farmer, and it should be for the culture practitioner too.

Step 2 - Preparation & Planting
For the farmer this is the first stage of implementation of the plan. He understands the importance of preparing the soil to ensure it suits the crop. He’ll perhaps plough the field, he’ll consider plant spacing, time of seeding, and seeding depth. All because he knows these things influence the eventual yield of the crop.

And so it is with culture. A practitioner will consider how to create the conditions in which culture change can occur. He will think for example about how leadership and communications will need to support change. He’ll think about how the actions to be taken will be delivered, when and by whom – and then start delivery.

Step 3 - Feeding
The crop might grow quite well on its own without intervention but the farmer knows that if he wants to maximise the yield then he really should be giving it extra help. Just as humans
could probably survive on a diet of bread and water but in order to thrive they need a broader diet with other nutrients, so it is for a healthy crop. And so the farmer will add nutrients to help
the crop thrive.

Culture change too needs to be fed. Opportunities to support the changes desired need to be noticed and sometimes created. The positive elements need to be recognised and rewarded, leaders need to lead by example and communications need to spread the message of change and support the continuing journey.

Step 4 - Weeding
Growth of the crop might be affected by pests, pathogens or weeds. They all damage the plants. Pests for example are creatures that damage the crop, weeds are simply plants that are not wanted - or at least not wanted where they’re growing. They tend to be naturally prolific, resilient and suited to local growing conditions: they’re survivors. Pathogens are agents that
cause disease. And the farmer knows that if left alone they’ll damage the crop.

I suspect every organisation has its equivalents. Pests who damage culture change by behaving
in a way that stops it. At the extreme, maybe there are some weeds, people who as a result of their behaviours just don't ‘fit’ in the organisation. Maybe they need to be ‘weeded out’. And the organisational equivalent of pathogens are the hidden and often unconscious beliefs which people within it hold and, which left unchanged, will damage the seedlings of change. The practitioner needs to be on guard against them all, ready to act to prevent their impact.

Step 5 - Harvesting
The farmer harvests the crop when it’s ripe and then sells it to the market, comparing the price achieved with the figures he included in his business plan. In other words he checks whether the benefits he anticipated from the crop were delivered – and if not, he’ll include that learning
in his next plan.

Likewise the culture practitioner should periodically harvest. He should understand the change that has been delivered and the benefits it’s producing in terms of the key metrics of the
organisation. And if they're not what was anticipated, he’ll include that learning in the next phase of his culture plan.

Good luck cultivating your culture. And let me know if you’d like some help, I’m
a skilled culture grower....

LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/timhadfield
Twitter: @accordengage

Thursday 19 January 2012

Changing Culture to Enable Couragous Conversations

Yesterday’s post focused on the importance of Courageous Conversations in every business right now. Today’s is about how to create the environment in which they actually
happen.

If they don’t already happen in your business, why not? Normally the reason is FEAR. People aren’t willing to speak up because they don’t want to look silly, don’t want to be the only one objecting, don’t want to disagree with their boss, don’t want to damage their career or other
don’t want to’s. The common thread is that they are afraid of something – that’s what causes them not to. The fear may be irrational, it may have no foundation in truth but the fact that they believe it to be true is what’s important. So in order to create the right environment, or to put it another way create a culture, in which they happen naturally, you have to change the belief and replace it with a belief that having courageous conversations is the right thing to do.

In order to understand what’s driving the fear, I suggest talking to people and encouraging them to share their views in a safe environment. The skill is to ask broad, open questions to get them talking and then be quiet and listen to what they say. As it’s possible that the fear is caused by the individuals manager it’s usually best for this conversation to take place with someone who is seen as impartial.

The specific actions to take to change the belief will obviously depend on the cause(s) of the fear but generally the following steps will be useful in changing beliefs and embedding a new culture:

1. Communicate the reasons why you want people to speak up and that it’s an important behaviour in your organisation. This is even more important if this is a big change from the current situation and the higher the status of the person who communicates it the bigger the initial impact will be.

2. Reward people who are courageous enough to speak up. Never, ever dismiss or punish them
for speaking up because the old belief will immediately be reinforced. Rewarding them means that when they speak you listen to them and demonstrate that you are doing so. It means actively listening, maintaining eye contact with them and allowing them to finish.

3. Help Leaders and Managers to welcome contributions, no matter how negative. In
order to do this, they may need to change some of their own beliefs. Above all, they must assume positive intent i.e. that they individual means well and is seeking to help. If they come from this position then it’s much harder to be negative.

4. Encourage contributions. Find ways to ask people their opinion, seek out those views you suspect will be different.

5. Leaders and Managers must role model the behaviour. This means them speaking
up and being seen to do so and being rewarded and congratulated for doing too.

6. Be consistent! Deeply held beliefs take time to change so persevere with the new behaviours and over time the evidence people see will cause a new belief to emerge.

Wednesday 18 January 2012

Courageous Conversations

In my blog post of last week entitled ‘Pay someone a compliment – and watch performance improve’ I gave an example of how a team I led in the past tried to get past the superficiality of some conversations with work colleagues by telling others what they respected and admired about them. I explained that some found this difficult to do – that they had to have courage to do so.

The theme of today’s post builds on this and focuses on Courageous Conversations. First I’ll clarify what the phrase means to me. One dictionary definition of courage is: “the power of
quality of dealing with or facing danger, fear, pain etc. It comes from the old French word ‘corage’, which is derived from ‘cuer’ or heart. Possessing courage is having the ability to overcome the fear you have about something and because fear is a feeling it’s about being able to subdue the feeling such that it doesn’t prevent you from taking action. It isn’t a word that’s used often nowadays and tends to be thought of as being more relevant to past times, when standing
up and fighting for your rights usually meant physically facing your foes. Nevertheless, I believe it’s a quality that is vital for the success of any business in the present day.

The word ‘conversation’ is one most people will use more often. It’s a communication between
people, an exchange of thoughts and information. Some definitions suggest a conversation is
informal but for the purposes of this post I’m taking it to mean both formal and informal.

So how’s it relevant to business right now? In less challenging economic times it perhaps wasn’t so critical. Mistakes were ok, poor decisions weren’t usually fatal – the bottom line
could absorb some failures. Sayings even emerged suggesting that the most successful people were the ones who’d made the most mistakes. In the current economic climate, the cost of mistakes could indeed be fatal*, the difference between success and failure. It’s become much more important to prevent them. By the way, I don’t intend to suggest that making mistakes is a bad thing. It’s a sign of being human and I think John Wooden was absolutely correct when he said “If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything. I’m positive that a doer makes mistakes.” My point is that it’s not a good thing to make mistakes when they could have been prevented.

And the best people to do that are the people who work in the organisation. In the aftermath of a big mistake, when the analysis of what went wrong is taking place, it’s common to hear that someone disagreed with the decision, they ‘knew’ it wasn’t right – but said nothing. They chose to stay silent because of fear – they were worried they’d look silly, they didn’t want to be the only one disagreeing, or they didn’t want to ‘rock the boat’ because it might damage their career. And at the moment they chose to say nothing, the chance to prevent the problem was lost.

Going back to the current economic environment, ‘fear’ amongst employees is growing. It’s not
surprising, in Europe and North America we’re seeing bad news stories about the economy almost daily, and reading about more people losing their job. Many people know someone who’s lost their job, it’s getting closer to home. And in such an environment people are unlikely to take a risk and disagree with something. I don’t think it’s likely for example that an employee at RBS is going to rock the boat right now and risk upsetting the boss.

But paradoxically, now is the time when it’s even more important. Every organisation should be
cultivating an environment in which people feel comfortable to have courageous conversations. They should be encouraging conversations when the stakes are high and topics might be
controversial, welcoming the fact that different opinions are healthy and constructive. And they just might be crucial to the success, or maybe even the continued existence of the business
in the future.

More tomorrow on how to create an environment which supports them.....

Footnote:
*It could actually lead to fatalities. In his book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell investigated why Korean Air had more plane crashes than almost every other airline in the world at the end of the 1990’s. His conclusion was that it was because Korean culture was very hierarchical. This meant that Korean people were very deferential towards superiors – and meant that a co-pilot wouldn’t challenge a pilot even if they thought there was a problem. Courageous Conversations weren’t happening because the culture of Korean Air didn’t support them. In contrast, the culture in other airlines was such that co-pilots were encouraged to challenge as a kind of safety mechanism on the flight deck. When Korean Air realised the issue they trained co-pilots to be more challenging – and the number of crashes fell.

Tuesday 17 January 2012

Engaged Employees Not Important in 1 in 4 Organisations.

In a recent survey on LinkedIn, employee engagement practitioners gave their views about the key trends they’d experienced in 2011 and what they were experiencing going into 2012. The
headlines from the survey were:
  • Practitioners said that levels of engagement in their organisations are moderate or low and over 30% said engagement has fallen over the last 12 months.
  • The key reasons given for falling engagement were uncertainty caused by economic conditions and the impact of leadership behaviour.
  • Almost half (46%) of those who responded reported that there is increasing pressure in their organisation to achieve more with less. And 30% said that their budget has been reduced for the current year.
  • On the other hand 15% said that employee engagement had grown in importance in their organisation and 16% said that budgets had been increased.
  • A worrying 23% said that employee engagement isn’t seen as important in their organisation.
  • The key priorities for 2012 were reported as being:
    - Improving morale
    - Improving communication
    - Alignment with the company strategy
    - Leadership development
    - Keeping employees engaged in a ‘do more with less’ environment

It’s very worrying that one in one in every four organisations employee engagement isn’t
seen as important. Is that really true in your experience?

In the current economic environment it’s more critical than ever.....

Monday 16 January 2012

Contrasting Public Sector Experiences - and lessons learned (Part 2)

Following on from the poor experience with the Office of the Public Guardian, on Friday of last week I had a completely different experience with another public sector organisation - NHS Blood and Transplant, who manage the voluntary donation of blood by hundreds of thousands of people across the UK.

My appointment to give blood was last Friday afternoon. I took with me the letter I'd received confirming the appointment. Actually I'd had a busy afternoon so could have done without having to finish early but when I got the letter out I couldn't not go. The strapline 'do something amazing' was on it, and it also thanked me for donating. I felt valued already and so it didn't seem right not to go.

I felt I'd made the right decision as soon as I walked into the room. A nurse took my letter and thanked me again for going. The same happened when I was called to give a small sample, and again when I was called to actually donate. The nurse who looked after me couldn't have been more pleasant and was made sure that I was comfortable. She checked I knew what was going to happen and had no concerns, and then came back to me a couple of times to make sure everything was ok.

Afterwards, they sat me down, made me a cup of coffee, offered me a biscuit and stopped to talk. And then when I left several of the staff there said "thanks" and "goodbye". I felt valued and was pleased I'd gone.

As with the previous experience, I know it wasn't personal to me. The process is designed to be the same for everyone. But it's 'outside - in', thought about from the customers perspective - and on the basis that I seem to see the same people there everytime I go, I suspect it produces the results they're looking for - loyal customers who go back time and time again.

I guess they're forced to get the process right because if it's not, they wouldn't get sufficient people going back, and whilst I suspect that's true, it's more than that. I believe that because the process is customer focused, the behaviours of the nurses follow almost automatically and then then the whole thing comes together to deliver a great experience for their customers, time and time again.

Design your processes to evoke positive emotions for your customers, make them feel good, and they'll come back....

Contrasting Public Sector Experiences - and lessons learned. (Part 1)

I've had two very interesting experiences with public sector organisations during the last fortnight. What made them interesting to me was the emotions I felt during each one - which were at oppostive ends of the good to bad spectrum.

This post explains how I felt about the first, there'll be a further one later about the second. Some background about the first: I have an elderly mother who suffers with dementia and lives in a residential home. About 18 months ago I applied to the Court of Protection to be appointed as her Deputy - a legal representative responsible for managing her property and financial affairs. I'm sure every family hope that it's never necessary for them to have to do this, but given the deterioration in mum's mental capacity it was in ours, and so with the agreement of my two brothers and sister we agreed that I would apply to act as her Deputy. Incidentally, given the forecasts about the increase in the number of people with dementia in the future I anticipate many, many more people will have be in a position where they need to do this in the future. If you're reading this in the UK I recommend you consider putting a Lasting power of Attorney in place to prevent the difficult Court of Protection Process.

The process of applying to the Court of Protection is difficult, and I understand the reasons why. It's important for anyone fulfilling the role of a Deputy to be able to demonstrate they have the integrity and capability to do it properly. Anyway, I was eventually confirmed as Deputy in April 2011. Responsibility for the monitoring of Deputies then passes to the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) - a government body that protects the private assets and supervises the financial affairs of people who lack mental capacity for making decisions.

Following my appointment I received a letter from the OPG that was full of phrases clearly designed to ensure I fulfilled my duties properly:
"You are required ...."
"It is a condition ...."
"Your order specifies ...."
"You must ensure that ...."
"Please be aware ....".

I also received a telephone call shortly afterwards to check that I'd taken action to comply with one of the conditions although to be fair, the lady I spoke to also said in a much softer tone that the role of her team was to provide guidance and support for Deputies like me.


I then received a letter just before Christmas advising me that a visitor from the OPG would be calling to see me and mum at the residential home on January 6th. It also clarified what I was required to produce on the day to illustrate that I was performing my role properly. It went on to state that I should let the visitor know if that date wasn't convenient and that I should inform the residential home of the visit.

I felt insulted. It seems to me that the correspondence contains an implicit assumption that careful monitoring of my actions is required because either a) I am incapable of performing the role or b) I am dishonest. I thought that the application process had illustrated that a) isn't the case so I was left feeling that b) is the real reason for the visit and I feel cross and indignant that anyone could feel that I would betray my own mum.

I'm not saying by the way that this was specifically intended or that it is unique to me. The OPG approach all Deputies in the same way. It's not personal - but it becomes so for Deputies who out of love for their family member are doing all they can to ensure that the remainder of their life is happy and their needs are taken care of. The OPG would probably say that they are fulfilling their statutory duty but do they really need to be so confrontational in the way they do it?

Minor changes could result in a huge difference in perception. Letters could start by thanking Deputies for their role in assisting the person they represent, pre-prepared accounting spreadsheets could be distributed (rather than telling the Deputy it's up to them how they keep records and then giving them a prescribed format at year end when an annual report is required , which is what happens now), visitors could ring (they have my number!) and soften the delivery of what they'll need to check.

My guess is that a small number of Deputies are not capable of fulfilling their role and that a further small number are dishonest so the policies and procedures followed are designed to prevent such problems. I say that it would be better to improve the application process so that these people are more effectively identified at the outset, and to assume that the majority of Deputies are capable and honest.

The biggest challenge is to change the mind-set within the organisation. To change it from being one which is focused on itself and which results in its customers having to comply with its policies, processes and behaviours, to one which is focused on it's customers and which designs itself to support them. They design the organisation 'inside - out' rather than 'outside - in'. This is by no means exclusive to the public sector, but it's the reason it has such a bad reputation.

Being 'inside - out' is also the reason why many private sector companies can't engage their customers, it's impossible until they think 'outside - in'.

Having said all of that ......the second story which I'll post later paints a different picture, one of a public sector organisation who are delivering 'outside - in'.

Friday 13 January 2012

Short Termism: The Dumbest Idea in the World

I must reference Stephen Baishya for this post. Stephen responded to my post on Monday 9th January entitled 'A Customer Engagement Manifesto for 2012' and pointed me in the direction of another blog post.
It's entitled "The Dumbest Idea in the World: Maximising Shareholder Value"
I've since read it and it contains some powerful thoughts with huge relevance for these troubled economic times. It's also full of extraordinary common sense that will appeal to anyone whose role is about the delivery of service to customers. Here's a few of the snippets I like best:
“On the face of it, shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world. Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy… your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products."
Jack Welch
“We must shift the focus of companies back to the customer and away from shareholder value.” The shift necessitates a fundamental change in our prevailing theory of the firm… The current theory holds that the singular goal of the corporation should be shareholder value maximization. Instead, companies should place customers at the center of the firm and focus on
delighting them, while earning an acceptable return for shareholders. If you take care of customers, shareholders will be drawn along for a very nice ride. The opposite is simply not true: if you try to take care of shareholders, customers don’t benefit and, ironically, shareholders don’t get very far either.”
Roger L. Martin
"Admonishing CEOs (and investors) to ignore the expectations market and refocus on delighting the customer isn’t going to work, says Martin. It’s as likely to be “as effective as admonishing frat boys to stop chasing girls.” For CEOs, there are massive incentives for staying attuned to it and severe punishments for ignoring it. Investors, analysts, and hedge funds continue to reward firms
that meet expectations and punish those that do not."
Roger L. Martin
"We must restore authenticity to the lives of our executives. The expectations market generates inauthenticity in executives, filling their world with encouragements to suspend moral judgment. They receive incentive compensation to which the rational response is to game the system. And since they spend most of their time trading value around rather than building it, they lose perspective on how to contribute to society through their work. Customers become marks to be exploited, employees become disposable cogs, and relationships become only a means to the end of winning a zero-sum game."
Roger L. Martin
Customers become marks to be exploited, employees become disposable cogs, and relationships become only a means to the end of winning ....WOW!
"American capitalism hangs in the balance. A large number of rent-collectors and financial middlemen making vast amounts of money are keeping the current system in place. The fact that what they are doing is destroying the economy will not sway their thinking. As Upton Sinclair noted, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends
upon his not understanding it.”"
Roger L. Martin
The blog also quotes Peter Drucker, who said, very succinctly: "There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer... The customer is the foundation of a business and keeps it in existence. He alone gives employment. And it is to supply the consumer that society entrusts wealth-producing resources to the business enterprise."
In my blog I referred to it as short termism. We're sufferering from chronic short term thinking in business. It's deeply embedded in the very structure and the way in which business is conducted. Life revolves around this week, this month, this quarter, in order to get the right results for this half year, this year. And I think it's becoming more firmly embedded directly as a result of the economic environment we're in.
The blog concluded that change will happen and that customer value will replace shareholder value. Some strong visionary leadership is required I think.....
The blog is by Steve Denning and is Roger L. Martin's book Fixing the Game: Bubbles, Crashes and What Capitalism Can Learn from the NFL and you can read it at http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/11/28/maximizing-shareholder-value-the-dumbest-idea-in-the-world/

Thursday 12 January 2012

What's the problem at Tesco?

I was reading an article by Robert Peston this morning following Tesco's results announcement. In it he questions whether their poor relatively performance is a blip or something more fundamental.

He comments:
"The big question is whether Tesco's British problems are mainly the result of pricing errors made in the past few months by the new chief executive, Philip Clarke, who took over from Sir Terry Leahy in March, or whether they represent structural flaws that Mr Clarke inherited.

To put it more crudely, is this Mr Clarke's mess or one bequeathed to him by his predecessor, who ran the company for 15 years and turned Tesco into the global giant that it is today?
And, if the problems are structural, how easily can they be sorted?"


The fall in the share price would seem to suggest that the market seems to think it could be the latter.

If that's true, what's causing it? I know of an unofficial Tesco staff website so I decided I'd have a quick look and see if it provided any clues. Here's some of the comments I found (all posted during the last six months:

"...in my experience, around 99% of tesco staff are unhappy with tesco. they pay well though and that is the only reason they do their jobs and i cant say i blame them but that does not excuse poor service. as a customer i cant really fault any of the shop staff that i have come across although there are a few grumpy ones on the back door of the odd shop. i personally do not put it down to individual shops or even regional management. tesco as a company are obsessed with image and cost cutting and it is the staff and customers who are suffering as a result of these ill thought out ideas and company policies."

"It's down to training and staff self esteem. If staff are so demotivated that they don't care how they act, in front of customers, then something is wrong. Tesco, as a company, has gradually lost the ability to identify with the customer and customer dissatisfaction is growing. The emphasis put on one in front and till speed has outweighed service. While I appreciate that some customers can be difficult and even rude, there's no reason for bad manners from staff."

"I'm a (long-time) ex-employee of Tesco and I'm seeing the same thing in stores all over the country. I travel a lot as part of my work, and every single store I go in these days has problems with customer service. I've actually come to expect distant, uninterested and visibly stressed out staff at Tesco - it's really not a lie to say I can't remember the last time I had good service in one of the stores.A few weeks ago I went into Sheffield - Infirmary Rd store (my nearest), got round with a basket of purchases and found that more than half of the checkouts were unmanned with queues an absolute mile long. The staff who were managing the checkouts were trying to herd everybody into one big queue - which was stretching along the front and half way down the wines and spirits aisle. But people coming from the other side didn't realise this and were joining single queues. It was a total disaster and I was hearing call after call going out for the management team to get to the checkouts and nobody came. There was no way on God's earth I was standing in those queues so I went to the service desk - it was mobbed with angry customers - and gave them my basket.I was advised by the staff there to submit feedback on the comments website, as this issue had been caused by budget cutting and the staff in store were as angry about it as the customers were (didn't quite explain why so many replenishment staff weren't being moved to checkouts though). I felt very sorry for the people having to take the flack over it and I did submit my comments. Roughly five weeks later, still no reply. Is this really how badly wrong Tesco is getting things these days? If it is, how long is it going to be before sales start to suffer spectacularly?"

"Sounds about right, its ok Tesco wanting more from their staff but there comes a point where you can only cut so many hours before the quality of service suffers. You see this in most stores!It is highly annoying as a shell filler to be pulled from the job you are supposed to be doing to go and support checkouts, which to be fair, should have a full bank during busy periods anyway! It’s not unheard of in our store for shelf fillers to spend half their shift covering tills and it’s just compromising availability and the presentation on the shop floor. Then this member of staff often gets complained at by management for not completing the tasks they were given on their department.This isn’t the customers fault, but unfortunately when you have a demoralised and unhappy member of staff then service is going to suffer."

"i informed customer service that customers are being overcharged at the self service 6 months ago and they still haven't fixed the issue eg: price on the shelf £1.40 ...at self service £1.89!"

The reasons why certainly start to become clear when you read comments like these. In a cost cutting environment, having employees fully engaged becomes even more important. Without that , the customer experience suffers. My own experience of Tesco's service is that it is now mediocre at best and I no longer find myself driving an extra few miles to seek out one of their stores. And the sales results speak for themselves!

I wonder a) if they'll be able to turn it around and b) how many other organisations are storing up exactly the same problem as a result of decisions they've made in recent months.

By the way, if you want to have a look at the comments, you can find the website I mentioned at http://www.verylittlehelps.com/index.php?topic=10513.0

Footnote: Robert Peston updated his article following an interview with Tesco CEO Philip Clarke. Mr Clarke indicated that:

"However he concedes there was a more fundamental weakness, which is that the group under-invested in the UK stores over the past few years, as it concentrated its expansion on Asia, Eastern Europe, the US, banking and the internet.

In the years since the 2008/9 recession, the UK managed to generate maximum profits rather than maximum sales, he implies. And in his view this means there were and are too few employees in stores. So, for example, checkout queues can be too long and shelves may not be as well stocked as they should be. He is planning to remedy all this. In the next year and a bit, there will be a big investment in what he describes as the "experience" for British shoppers, with thousands more people hired (Tesco already employs 300,000 in the UK and half a million around the world) and store layouts changed."

The number of employees in stores obviously came out in the comments above. I guess it would be surprising for him to admit there's an engagement problem but I suspect that employees would have appreciated an acknowledgement of that from him.....

Wednesday 11 January 2012

Pay a colleague a compliment - and watch performance improve!

A joke made me smile this morning. Here's how it went: I was getting into my car this morning and a neighbour said to me "Can you give me a lift?" I said "Sure .......you look great today, you can achieve whatever you want, Go for it!" I know, I have a silly sense of humour!

It made me think afterwards about how often we genuinely give other people, whether they're a neighbour or a work colleague, a true lift by telling them what they're good at or simply be complimenting them. In the UK in particular it doesn't tend to happen very often. It's just not the done thing. At work we usually have quite superficial conversations with all but a few of those we work with, those we'd class as 'friends'. We think of the rest as 'colleagues' and we talk with them about the weather, about what was on TV last night, and of course about our work. Probably most about what work we have to do, particularly if we're part of a team who have shared objectives. But it's rare to find colleagues telling each other about 'how' they do it unless they do it badly - but this blog isn't about negative feedback.

Even bosses usually seem more comfortable giving people 'feedback' suggesting how they could / should improve their performance. Appraisals tend to place at least as much emphasis on the individuals PDP (personal development plan) as on what they have achieved and done well.

And that's why one exercise that I experienced a few years ago sticks in my mind. The team I was leading decided that we should deepen relationships between team members. We felt we wanted to be more courageous in the conversations we had - with the aim of improving team performance. So each team member was asked to prepare to give every other team member feedback based on the following areas:
  1. What I respect and admire about you is....
  2. I noticed you did a great job when you....
  3. Something I've learned from you is....
  4. Something that would make you even more successful is....
    (I know this one is reverting back a little to 'feedback')

N.B. The feedback didn't necessarily have to be about work. It could be about things you knew about them beyond their job.

and then everyone had a chat individually with every other team member and gave them the feedback. The conclusions were:

  1. Generally people found it easier to talk to others about number 4 rather than the first three. (Interesting that we're so much less comfortable telling people good things. Perhaps we feel more vulnerable?)
  2. When on the receiving end, people really appreciated the information they got from numbers 1,2 and 3. It made them feel good about themselves. It really did give them a lift.
  3. A number of people said that some of the things they'd been told in 1,2 and 3 were a surprise to them. They didn't realise they had respect and admiration from them or that they were really good at some things.

It was a powerful exercise which broke through the 'superficiality' barrier I referred to above. It encouraged people to be courageous and talk to colleagues at a deeper level, and the team became closer as a result. The exercise produced the phrase 'Courageous Conversations' and having a 'tag' like that to use meant that afterwards people could introduce a deeper level conversation by using the phrase. Actually the exercise was so good that we did it formally like this again on future occassions to make sure it continued to happen.

I'd recommend it to every team. The most important thing to come out of it was how everyone was given a lift after learning that they were respected and admired by their colleagues. Their day, and the following days and weeks afterward were because of it. Oh, and performance improved afterwards because people were more motivated and talked more deeply about 'how' the work got done.

Footnote: I think some teams might find it just too difficult to go from having no conversations to having deep conversations like this so if you think that's a risk for your team there's an interim step on the way. Get each team member to write down the things they appreciate / value / respect / admire about each other team member anonymously. The leaders role is to create an envelope containing the comments for each team member. It's a bit less risky when you can write it down rather than tell them in person. If you do this, WATCH THE PLEASURE ON PEOPLES FACES WHEN THEY'RE READING THE COMMENTS PEOPLE HAVE MADE ABOUT THEM. IT'S PRICELESS!

More on COURAGEOUS CONVERSATIONS and on CUSTOMER COMPLIMENTS on future blogs over the next few days....

Monday 9 January 2012

A Customer Engagement Manifesto for 2012


Companies in western economies find it hugely difficult to truly engage customers. The phrase 'Customer Experience' has been a key theme for years and yet still it's rare to find companies who are able to deliver a brilliant experience - and sustain it.
There have been many articles written about the reasons why. I've read and agree with the logic in many of them. In truth the reasons why vary from organisation to organisation, with each having a different problem to address. But I believe one stands out above all the rest. It's short termism. We suffer from chronic short term thinking, particularly in western economies. It's deeply embedded in the very structure andf the way in which business is conducted. Life revolves around this week, this month, this quarter, in order to get the right results for this half year, this year. And in the current economic environment it's becoming even more prevalent - I've spoken to employees who are being more closely managed than ever - sometimes on a day to day basis.
Of course I understand the importance of sales right now. Profits depend on sales numbers. But it makes no sense to achieve short term sales and damage long term relationships with customers, and that's what many organisations are doing right now. There are so many examples - from the shop that attracts someone with a price reduction in a sales promotion, only for the customer to discover later that the pre-sale reference price was almost twelve months ago. Or a financial institution who attracts someone with a leading rate now, but causes distrust when the customer realises it's been reduced six months later. Or the company that attracts new customers through special offers, but damages the relationship with with existing customers because the small print says it's a new customer offer only. Expedient in the short term, bad move in the long term.
It's time for longer term, more strategic thinking. It's the right time to build businesses based on deep engagement with customers - by thinking longer term about how every action taken by every person in the business aligns with the experience customers want. Oh, and it also requires courage to reduce the focus on the short term and stop managing by numbers. But it's also counter-intuitive - focusing on what you want your company to known for rather than what you do will result in higher and sustainable sales into the future.
With this in mind, here's a new Customer Engagement Manifesto*. It's a credo, written from a customers perspective, to influence the way your company is, and as a result everything it does. The Accord Customer Engagement Manifesto...
* The first Manifesto of this sort that I came across was the Holstee Manifesto. See it at http://shop.holstee.com or type Holstee Manifesto into Youtube.

Saturday 7 January 2012

New Year Sales Are Not What They Seem

The Sun Newspaper carried an article today entitled 'Bye buy to a bargain'.

It describes "a string of sneaky pricing tips aimed at luring shoppers into thinking offers are better than they really are". They include examples such as:
  • retailers inflating prices of the ''bargains' for as little as a week before reducing them again for the sale
  • using a pre-sale price that was last used nearly a year previously
  • using a pre-sale price that was only available at a small number of stores in the chain

A report published by the Office of Fair Trading last year said "Evidence shows that a reference price is very effective at encouraging consumers to make a purchase they may not otherwise have made by increasing consumers' perceptions of the value of the product and the inferred saving. As a result, where the reference price is misleading and consumers are not able to easily identify or verify the reference price - and thereby verify the saving - there is considerable scope for consumer harm."

The article clarifies that the retailers aren't breaking any laws but are making use of loopholes - for example by printing the dates that the items were on sale at the higher price in small print.

You might think that the retailers concerned would be at the 'shadier' end of the scale or perhaps recent well publicised examples of retailers struggling tyo avoid administration. Not so - those named include Sainsbury's, Comet, Argos, Tesco, JD Sports, Boots, Curry's, PC World and Smyths Toys.

It's something I've noticed previously too, particularly at Curry's and PC World but I was surprised at just how common it is.

It's a great example of a policy developed at the expense of the customer, and extreme short term thinking. The objective is to increase the short term volume of sales - during the period of the sale. Do they assume customers won't find out? But what if they do, have they considered the damage to the long term relationship?

Wednesday 4 January 2012

6 Opportunities to really engage customers in 2012

2011 was another very difficult year for UK PLC and indeed for many parts of the
Eurozone and North America. It was the year that debt built up over decades finally started to become unsustainable and in which, according to Sir Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, the liquidity crisis which developed during the credit crunch became a crisis of solvency. Governments introduced ‘austerity’ measures and the latter part of the year was characterised by almost daily speculation about whether Greece and Italy would default. Sentiment on the money markets was consistently negative, levels of confidence fell sharply and consumer behaviours were increasingly driven by fear. Many consumers reacted by reigning in their spending and focused instead on reducing debt and the result was that businesses faced very challenging conditions. The continuing decline of high streets in towns and cities illustrates well the difficulties – and as recently as last week Hawkins Bazaar and also Past Times entered administration, and La Senza announced its intention to early in 2012.

And given that many forecasters seem to think the coming year will be even more difficult, the need for every business to engage with its customers is greater now than ever. It will be a core part of the strategy for every successful business and indeed may be the difference between survival and failure.

Customers want to feel good about every element of buying a product or service. They demand a
positive experience and if they don’t get it they will simply go somewhere else. The traditional marketing mix (Product, Price, Place, Promotion) are not enough, they don’t reflect the overall customer experience. Process and People must be added.
So to ensure true customer loyalty every business must provide:
· the right product
· at the right price
· in the right place
· using the most suitable promotion
AND
· using a process which is designed around the customer
· by people with the right skills

Courageous companies will pursue changes to process and people, despite them being the
most difficult to change. Most will focus purely on product, price, place and promotion.
So what things can companies do to deepen engagement with their customers in 2012? Here’s what I see as being the main areas of opportunity:

1. Changing the recipe

Thinking about the traditional marketing mix first, the key activity will be deeper and
more regular price discounting in order to maintain revenues. The companies who do so will be forced to also reduce costs in order to protect margins.

This is a short term strategy with obvious flaws.

Other and perhaps more innovative approaches will include:

Place
Online sales will continue to grow but there will also be more experimentation with different retail formats as retailers seek cheaper, smaller and sometimes temporary ways to respond to identified opportunities. This will also include off-premises sales, despite the increased EU regulation relating to direct sales.

In addition collaboration will rapidly increase as businesses try to find opportunities to partner with complementary businesses for mutual benefit.

Promotion
In the UK in particular there will be a huge focus on the 2012 Olympics and to a lesser extent on the Euro 2012 Football Championships as a promotional opportunity for businesses. We’re likely to see some weird, wonderful and sometimes very tenuous links to these events.


Smarter organisations will look more broadly at what can be done and will consider other
opportunities:

2. Employee Engagement

John Lewis has consistently bucked the trend in retailing in recent times and I read again just this morning of it's excellent Christmas sales results. Curry’s electrical superstores has started to create a reputation for knowledgeable staff who provide excellent service. Why? The answer is that they have put their people at the heart of their strategy. John Lewis is owned by its employees, who are partners in the business. It is one of the few businesses to have a written constitution, which places the happiness and well-being of its partners at the heart of the business. Partners know the aims of the business and are committed to achieving them. Curry’s identified that its success was dependent on the help and advice customers received in-store and the way it was delivered by their people. So they invested in a training programme for their people and the results saw uplifted sales of up to 15% through Curry’s stores.

The latest research shows that truly engaging customers is dependent on first
engaging employees. It’s a pre-requisite, it’s what the great companies do, engage their employees first, knowing that they will in turn engage customers. It isn’t easy - but it is
worth the effort.

3. Customer Involvement

One of the benefits of having engaged and knowledgeable employees is that they can overcome weaknesses in processes. Executives in most organisations will say, and probably truly believe they have processes which are customer friendly but in reality, the vast majority have designed processes which are for their benefit and the customer has to comply with them as a condition of buying. It’s true that customers will forgive if the people they deal with overcome the problems inherent in the process – although there’s no substitute for truly designing processes around the customer. How best to do that? Involve customers and ask them how processes should operate in order to work most effectively for them.

4. Imperfectionships

One of the most important elements of the relationship any organisation has with its customers is trust. It’s critical to how customers feel, is difficult to win and very easily lost. Ask executives from UK banks about how difficult it’s proving to be to rebuild their tarnished reputation. The problem is that the actions required to do so are counter-intuitive. Rather than covering up problems it requires a level of honesty that’s been rare in most companies in recent years.

In the early 1990’s a mortgage lender analysed levels of customer satisfaction amongst new borrowers and found that it seemed to be slightly higher for customers who had experienced a problem which had then been resolved. To establish whether this was coincidental they then ‘invented’ problems on a small number of cases, rang the customer to tell them there had been a problem but that they’d overcome it but in the interests of openness they wanted the customer to be aware of it. What they found was that satisfaction levels of such customers was noticeably higher.

Despite the temptation to introduce this as a standard approach, the organisation decided it was unethical, the trial stopped and was soon largely forgotton.

Years later, and with customer mistrust at all time high levels, there is a real opportunity for organisations to create customer relationships built on trust - by being human, being honest and admitting mistakes. The evidence suggests that customers will forgive and providing they’re able to see a genuine commitment to put mistakes right and prevent them happening again, will be more satisfied and more loyal than they were before.

5. Community Engagement

The phenomenon of social networking continues to grow and online communities are ever more influential. At the same time though I believe we are starting to see a counter-trend caused by the economic difficulties we are facing. My view is that as the effect of austerity measures bites more deeply people will become increasingly concerned about the impact on the communities in which they live and that there will be a resurgence of local community groups seeking to safeguard and improve their locality as a result. This will present a rich opportunity for businesses to focus on community and to generate loyalty through their contribution to that community.

6. Customer Networks

Consumer networks are likely to grow in importance as customers group together to seek
maximum value and businesses pursue relationships with them. The emergence of movements like carrotmob.org illustrate the beginning of a consumer desire to collaborate to leverage their
collective buying power and it won’t be long before community groups work directly with businesses, either to benefit their community as in the example above or for other purposes.

For more information or a conversation about what 2012 will bring, contact Tim Hadfield at Accord Engagement (accordengagement@btinternet.com) or on 07906 650019