Edge Spring 2018

INSPIRING GREAT LEADERSHIP

SPRING 2018

Breaking down HOW TO MANAGE THE PRESSURE TO PERFORM Plus Find your self-belief Leadership and spirituality The end of annual appraisals

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22 Contents SPRING 2018

Update 6

All the latest developments in leadership and management

Debate 11

Mailbox

12

Guest columnist Angelica Ashbrook Heyworth explains how leaders can help suicidal colleagues

13

Our regular LBGT+ columnist, Christopher Hallas, discusses the link between sexuality and mental health issues

28

Insider INSIGHT FROM THE INSTITUTE OF LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT

15

Well, well, well Chief executive Phil James on why leaders need to take care of themselves and others

16

News Collaboration workshop; Walter Balmford is awarded an MBE; date set for June AGM; events

19

Goodbye 9-to-5 Kate Cooper, head of research, policy and standards, argues the case for flexible working

20

A day in the life of Polly Pascoe

21

In the Hot Seat Genevieve Bolan, training manager – consultant learning services at Sutherland Global, reveals what leadership means to her

The Edge Interview 22

Edge meets John Coughlan, chief operating officer of TSP Engineering

Spotlight MENTAL AND PHYSICAL HEALTH

28

The brain drain Why leaders must support people with mental health issues

32

Stress-resilient workplaces Recognising the difference between healthy and unhealthy stress

34

Out of action Returning to the workplace after serious illness

38

Case study Nomura

3

Making it Happen MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE

77

53

Charisma and workforce engagement

54

Five ways to deal with a narcissist

56

Creativity begins with refusal

Vision SETTING THE LEADERSHIP AGENDA

Beyond Borders

41

INTERNATIONAL INSIGHT AND BEST PRACTICE

42

Collaboration for leaders

46

China: business in the world’s second-largest economy

Leadership in professional services Spirituality and the journey to the True Self Self-belief: don’t let fear of failure limit your success

48

Leadership for beginners

50

Charity trustees

MANAGING MENTAL, PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL WELLBEING AND DEVELOPMENT

59

75 Coaching Column Jeff Matthews

60

76 Management Dilemma Is an office affair anyone else’s business?

Coaching in Bangladesh

64

77 How to deliver critical feedback

Future of Work

78 Workplace bullying

STRATEGIES FOR LONG-TERM SUCCESS

67

Strategic workforce planning

68

Virtual reality

46

Live & Learn

70

Technology and employee wellbeing

72

The end of annual appraisals

81 Inspiration Directory Your go-to development resource 82 Book Club 84 Leadership Legend Charles Hampden-Turner explores the reasons behind the UK’s productivity crisis

4

Contributors

PAUL BOROSS

KEITH CRANE

TAMARA ERICKSON

Paul Boross is The Pitch Doctor, an internationally recognised authority on communications, presentation, performance and ‘the art and science of persuasion’. As well as being the resident team psychologist on Sky TV series School of Hard Knocks, he is the author of three books. His latest book, Leader on the Pitch, is co-authored with rugby legend Scott Quinnell.

Keith Crane is a professional print and broadcast journalist who has 12 years’ experience of working in China for media outlets including CCTV News in Beijing and Shenzhen Daily newspaper. As a freelance writer, he provides content to a range of international publications on topics including business, politics and international affairs. He is currently travelling around Southeast Asia.

Tamara Erickson is an awardwinning author and respected authority on leadership, the changing workforce, collaboration and innovation, and the nature of work in intelligent organisations. She has been named one of the 50 most influential living management thinkers in the world by Thinkers50 and is adjunct professor, organisational behaviour, at London Business School.

REV STEPHEN WINTER

MARY McGUIRE

RITA TREHAN

Rev Stephen Winter was ordained in the Church of England in 1988. Between then and 2011, he held various posts within the church, including parish work, training and development, and interfacing between the church and the economy.

Since 2011 he has worked on a freelance basis, with an emphasis on accompanying people on a spiritual journey.

Mary McGuire holds an MBA and MSc in HR. Her early career as a social worker led to her becoming chief executive of a charity for people with autism. For the last 20 years she has worked as an international business consultant, supporting companies and leaders all over the world.

She has recently published her first book, Coming Home to You.

Rita Trehan is a global business transformation and capacity-building expert, president of her own consultancy, and chief people officer at AGL, Australia’s largest energy company. She has over 25 years’ experience in improving the performance of Fortune 200 companies, working with organisations including Coca-Cola and the World Bank.

Editor’s Letter

5

Confessions of a workaholic Human nature prevails By

O

nce upon a time, in my pre-Edge days, a fellow editor asked me how I managed to juggle so many different projects.

“Well,” I said. “I work 60 hours a week and I do the work of three people during that time.” Rightly, she looked horrified by my response.

Of course, there is a price to pay when you work 60 hours a week and do the work of three people – burnout. Indeed, burnout is something I have struggled with on and off for years now, although so far I have always managed to pull myself back from the point of no return.

But while I recognise my issues with burnout, I had never thought of myself as a workaholic until a few months ago. Workaholics, I believed, had no friends or social life. Clearly, workaholism didn’t apply to me when I had both. Then I read an article entitled ‘Six signs that you’re a workaholic’ and found I could identify with five of the signs.

My husband had been accusing me of being a workaholic for some time and now I saw that he had a point. Ouch.

Since that revelation, I have been trying to work on my workaholism – excuse the pun – with a view to getting more of a balance in my life. After all, you have to accept you have a problem when you’re sending emails to other people, advising them on how to manage their own burnout, at 5am on a Saturday morning.

My discovery has also drawn my attention to the really unhealthy relationship so

Sally Percy many people have with their work. In the 21st century, it seems if you’re not rushed off your feet / frantically busy / have no time to think (delete as appropriate), you can’t possibly be incredibly successful / incredibly important / living a fulfilling life (delete as appropriate again).

That’s nonsense, of course. Not least because living your life at 100 miles per hour is totally unsustainable in the longer term and can have serious consequences for both your health and your personal life. It’s also nonsense because evidence suggests

WORKING TOO HARD ONLY MAKES YOU LESS PRODUCTIVE that rather than making you more productive, working too hard only makes you less productive. And, certainly, if you have a breakdown, you’re not productive at all.

Ultimately, if we are to thrive in life, we have to believe that success cannot be summed up by how many products we’ve sold, how many people we manage, or how many white papers we’ve written. That requires a complete change of mindset, however, which is difficult in an age when the staffing model of most employers is based on giving as much work as possible to as few people as possible and paying those people as little as they can get away with. It’s no wonder that mental health is one of the most pressing issues in the workplace today. sally.percy@lidpublishing.com

Edge is brought to you by: LID Publishing Editor Sally Percy sally.percy@lidpublishing.com Art Director Kate Harkus Assistant Editor Kirsten Levermore Chief Subeditor Camilla Cary-Elwes Digital Reporter Matt Packer Account Director Niki Mullin Editorial Director Ben Walker Publisher Martin Liu Institute of Leadership & Management Pacific House, Relay Point, Tamworth, B77 5PA. Chief Executive Phil James Head of Research, Policy & Standards Kate Cooper Head of Membership Janet Payne For advertising sales, please contact Niki Mullin on niki.mullin@ lidpublishing.com Publishing Published in the United Kingdom by LID Publishing, 204 The Record Hall, Baldwins Gardens, London EC1N 7RJ Disclaimer Copyright 2018 The Institute of Leadership & Management and LID Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved. Material may not be reproduced without permission of the publisher. While we take care to ensure that editorial is accurate, independent, objective and relevant for the readers, Edge accepts no liability for reader dissatisfaction rising from the content of this publication. The opinions expressed or advice given are the views of individual authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Edge, The Institute of Leadership & Management or LID Publishing Ltd. Edge takes every effort to credit photographers but we cannot guarantee every published use of an image will have the contributor’s name. If you believe we have omitted a credit for your image, please email the editor ISSN 2515-7809 Printed by Asendia www.asendia.co.uk

Update

6

Four-hour days and cobots await us in 2050

B

ring on 2050. By then we will be working just four hours a day and sharing our most onerous tasks with robotic co-workers known as ‘cobots’.

That’s the prediction made

by Future Gazers, a report by futurist James Wallman and business information provider Yell. According to the report, a wave of new technologies, including artificial intelligence, augmented reality and the internet of things, will change work for ever.

As cobots take on our repetitive, routine tasks – from chopping and fetching through to searching vast libraries of information and making complex calculations – we will be freed up to be more creative.

The current working day was set up to squeeze as much work as possible out of workers performing routine tasks in factories and offices. But, as the research points out, the best way to be creative is actually to work for around four hours per day.

The report also predicts that businesses will become data-driven and algorithms will make it easier for them to access capital and accept payments.

On the staffing front, they will make more use of temporary teams to deliver projects and will have to invest in protecting their reputations amid heightened concerns about ethics and the environment.

Furthermore, businesses will need to adjust to the ‘experience economy’, since the most successful organisations will be those that “provide their customers with meaningful, memorable experiences”.

Commenting on the report, Mark Clisby, product and marketing director at Yell, said: “We’re living in a time of incredible change, but the importance of reputation in the future resonated with us. For any small business owner, the focus must be on the customer, no matter how advanced technology gets.”

Discover what leaders need to know about virtual reality, on page 68

FTSE 100 companies are shy about workforce Although nearly all FTSE 100 companies talk about the impor- details of internal hire rates – the number of jobs that are filled tance of their workforce in their annual reports, less than half by internal candidates.

(43%) report on how employees have added value to company Interestingly, despite the rise of the ‘gig’ economy and strategy. In contrast, 91% discuss the workforce in relation to companies’ increasing reliance on temporary or self-employed risk management. workers, just 7% provide data or policies on their use of A study of the FTSE 100’s corporate reporting by agency workers. Also, only 7% state the pay ratio between the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA), the chief executive and the average worker. working with Lancaster University Management School, Luke Hildyard, policy lead for stewardship and also found that just 49% of companies provide forwardcorporate governance at the PLSA, said: “A company’s looking commentary on their workforce, such workforce is a key part of its strategy and busias commitments to enhanced engagement or Less than one in ten FTSE ness model, but meaningful information about training, while the remaining 51% focus solely 100 companies share details workers in annual reports is still too rare. It on past performance. of internal hire rates appears that most companies are not explaining What’s more, only a fifth (21%) of FTSE 100 how they are equipping their workforce with the companies provide concrete data in relation to investment in skills necessary to deliver their long-term strategy.” training and the development of their workforce or the number What is the secret to successful strategic workforce planning? Find out of workers trained. Meanwhile, less than one in ten (9%) share on page 67

9%

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The five dimensions: what you need to know The Institute of Leadership & Management recognises five dimensions of leadership, which are also our values.

These are authenticity, vision, collaboration, ownership and achievement. Each dimension is represented by an ambassador, who is an inspiring individual, selected for exemplifying the value associated with them in their everyday practice of leadership.

Leadership is complex and far more than a collection of qualities possessed by any one individual. It is inextricably linked with management, is essentially relational and, most importantly, always takes place in a context. Great leadership is not just about authenticity (being the sort of person who inspires trust), it is also about understanding the organisational environment in which you operate, knowing what success looks like, delivering results and being able to communicate success when it occurs.

Engaging with our multi-dimensional approach to leadership will support your development in a changing environment,

help you to relate better to colleagues, facilitate a more in-depth understanding of your role and ensure you look to the future.

These five dimensions also offer a unique approach to framing the everyday challenges of organisational life. For example, they can structure conversations about performance, be used as the basis for job expectations, be a simple means of communicating a business case, or act as an alternative to the Balanced Scorecard, to name but a few applications.

Our new learning platform explains the dimensions in more detail and offers new leaders the opportunity to acquire and test their leadership knowledge. More experienced leaders will have the opportunity to demonstrate that they ‘meet our standard’. See www.institutelm.com/learning.html.

The Institute is also launching the 49 Webinar Series, which is based on the five dimensions of great leadership. For more information, see page 17.

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MPs discuss our flexible working research Research by the Institute of Leadership & Management was presented at a House of Commons roundtable discussion on flexible working in autumn 2017. Mims Davies MP, chair of the all-party parliamentary women’s group, hosted the event, which explored whether technological working practices and technology had improved or hindered equality in the workplace.

The Institute’s head of research, policy and standards, Kate Cooper, talked other roundtable participants through the Institute’s research, which dates back to 2011 and argues that flexible working is good for both businesses and staff. Participants included Anne Milton, the minister for women, Maria Miller, the chair of the parliamentary select committee on women and equalities, Conservative MP Matthew Hancock, Fiona Cannon

OBE, diversity and inclusion director at Lloyds Banking Group, and Katie McSweeney, head of work and the family friendly programme at popular parenting website Mumsnet.

Commenting on the event, Cooper said: “The discussion was wide-ranging, and Mims Davies expressed a real interest in our research. She has also indicated an intention to work with the Institute in the future.”

A separate study on flexible working, published in the International Journal of Management Reviews, found that employers should do more to ensure employees do not feel pressured into working outside of their contractual hours, and offer more support regarding how they work flexibly. The research, led by the University of Surrey in collaboration with Birkbeck, University of London and the University of Exeter, found that a desire to prove dedication and ‘go the extra mile’ were reasons why people were working more than their contracted hours.

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International Update

Heritage affects CEO performance The cultural heritage of a chief executive can influence the profitability and success of their company, new research suggests.

Academics from the University of Edinburgh Business School and the University of St Andrews studied the performance of banks headed by more than 600 US-born chief executives, who were either the children or grandchildren of immigrants.

They found that leaders with a cultural heritage that emphasises restraint, group-mindedness and long-term orientation took a more cautious and cost-efficient approach to business and were more likely to outperform under pressure as result.

Chief executives with German, Italian, Polish and Russian heritage were associated with delivering 6.2% higher profitability than average under competitive pressures. Yet those with British or Irish heritage demonstrated no difference in performance to the market average.

Researchers analysed data on national cultural characteristics from the GLOBE Project, an international study of chief executives and top

management teams, and the World Values Survey, a research project that explores people’s values and beliefs. They then compared information on the performance of publicly listed US banks between 1994 and 2006 with the ancestral records of their CEOs on genealogy database Ancestry.com.

Professor Jens Hagendorff, chair in finance at the University of Edinburgh Business School, said: “At a time when the economic benefits of immigration are increasingly questioned, our study offers a glimpse of the positive contribution that people of immigrant heritage make in the business world.”

Dr Louis Nguyen, a lecturer from the School of Management at the University of St Andrews, added: “A growing body of research shows that managerial traits explain a lot of the variation in a firm’s capital structure, investment and profitability. Our research shows cultural values that can be traced back generations can influence decision-making in the present time. This implies culture is deeply rooted and slowmoving. Our study is especially timely, given the ongoing debate about immigrants.”

Human touch has value in the digital age The leaders of tomorrow believe that exceptional people skills will be key to business success in the technological age.

This finding comes from CEMS, the Global Alliance in Management Education, which examined the views of hundreds of millennials from 54 different countries, all of whom have recently graduated from its Master in International Management programme.

Over half (56%) of the graduates surveyed consider either social skills (33%) or the ability to manage people (23%) as the most important skills to develop as technology increases in the corporate workplace. They rated these soft skills more highly than teachable hard skills (7%), technical job-specific content skills (7%) or process skills such

as critical thinking (12%). Furthermore, 97% believed that technological advancement (including automation and artificial intelligence) would have a positive or very positive impact on the future of business.

Roland Siegers, executive director of CEMS, said: “Technology will certainly

mean that the human touch will be more important than ever in the workplace over the next few years. In terms of leadership, traditional ways of thinking about management – where technically qualified people are eventually promoted to management – are likely to become a thing of the past.

“Instead, future leaders will need to develop a new set of people-centric skills.

The most successful managers will be those who can invest in their community, skilfully develop employees to get the best out of them and cultivate highly effective teams with the ability to work seamlessly across borders. Promoting the values of openness, sustainability and inclusiveness will be extremely important as the foundation of these people skills.”

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A leader decoded Paul Polman Who is he? Paul Polman is the Dutch chief executive officer of Unilever, which owns some of the world’s best-loved brands, including Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, Hellmann’s mayonnaise and Marmite, the yeast extract spread. Polman is well known for being a champion of sustainable business and an advocate of purpose. In an interview with the Financial Times in December 2017, he said the first leadership lesson we learn in life is the realisation that we depend on the environment in which we live.

Leadership style: As befits a man who once wanted to become a priest, Polman believes in using leadership to make a positive difference. He wants his team to follow him because they are energised by his vision and share his willingness to serve. The son of a man who worked in a tyre factory, Polman is not afraid to display humility when appropriate.

Greatest triumph: In February 2017, Polman fended off a £115bn hostile takeover bid for Unilever from giant US food group Kraft Heinz,

which takes a ruthless approach to cost-cutting.

Polman reacted decisively to the threat, rallying the board to reject Kraft Heinz’s proposal on the grounds that it had “no merit, either financial or strategic, for Unilever’s shareholders”. In doing so, he saved Unilever from suffering the same fate as much-loved UK confectionery brand Cadbury, which was swallowed up by Kraft in 2010.

WHAT ARE THE BRITISH PUBLIC’S FIVE BIGGEST JOB FEARS?

1

Being fired from their position 13%

2

Failure 13%

3

The overwhelming anxiety of dealing with too many tasks 10%

4

Confrontation 8%

5

Not fitting in with colleagues 6% *Source: Forward Role

In brief

Shutterstock; Alamy

Won’t make it if you fake it Employees who pretend to share values with their colleagues in order to ‘fit in’ damage their wellbeing and ability to engage with work, a study suggests.

Research by associate professor Patricia Hewlin, from the Desautels Faculty of Management at Canada’s McGill University, found that employees often pretend to share organisational values so they can survive at work. They feel they are benefiting the organisation by conforming to the values, but by suppressing their own values and views, they hinder progress for the business and their careers.

“When people are true to themselves, they are more likely to feel connected to their work, which can enhance personal wellbeing and work performance overall,” said Hewlin. “Managers should encourage employees to voice their opinions without fear of repercussion. They should create a comfortable work environment and clearly communicate that disagreements can be good for business.”

Workplace sport is healthy Workplace sport keeps people physically and mentally healthy, and also improves productivity, a new study has found.

According to research

by Loughborough University,

employees who play team games with their work colleagues, such as football, netball, volleyball and rugby, do not only improve their own fitness, health and wellbeing, they also help their organisations to function better.

Andrew Brinkley, one of the report authors, said that workplace sport is just as beneficial to employees’ physical and mental wellbeing as the physical activities they do in their leisure time. Furthermore, workplace sports give people the chance to do team activities that they may not be able to do in their leisure time due to childcare commitments and other work-life barriers.

For insight on the link between sport and self-belief, see page 46

Time to end domestic abuse Only one in 20 medium and large UK organisations have a policy to cover domestic abuse among their workforce, research

by Durham University’s Centre for Research into Violence and Abuse reveals. This is despite the fact that March 2017 figures from the Office for National Statistics estimated almost two million UK adults had experienced domestic abuse in the preceding 12 months.

The research found nearly three-quarters of HR leads believe companies can empower victims.

Professor Nicole Westmarland said: “The time has now come for more workplaces to step up and join the movement to end domestic abuse.”

Update

10

T

What business can learn from sport

he world of business could learn many lessons, but not every lesson, from the world of sport when it comes to growing its leaders.

That was the key takeaway from the Developing the Corporate Athlete event hosted by the Institute of Leadership & Management in the autumn.

Kate Cooper, the Institute’s head of research, policy and standards, presented the key findings of The Elusive X, an Institute white paper that explores how learning from sport can be transferred into leadership development within the business environment. It particularly focuses on whether there is an ‘elusive X’ quality that drives great performance over and above financial investment.

Cooper highlighted that mindset is crucial in sport, and improvement is often a result of concentrating on the little things, which leads to the big things getting better. She also pointed out that sports people don’t have annual reviews – they are constantly assessed and measured.

Dr Elesa Zehndorfer, author of the book The Physiology of Emotional and Irrational Investing: Causes and Solutions and former general secretary of the International Federation of American Football, was a panellist at the event. She observed that having a sporting background helps leaders to become more resilient, since they have had to learn how to bounce back from failure, adding: “Exercise is a great way of building resilience as it gives the body a positive neural experience of stress, making a person neurally more resilient in the face of stress on future occasions.”

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FROM THE BLOG

Catch up with the latest Edge thinking at: www. institutelm.com/research-news/edge-articles.html.

Here is an extract from a recent article:

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Fellow panellist Alex Loudon, a former international professional cricketer and now a partner at investment firm Abercross Holdings, named purpose, people and environment as the key elements of high performance in both sport and business. “To ignore these is to set ourselves up for problems,” he said. But he noted that business has a longer life-cycle than sport, which means it needs to be managed differently. “You’ve got to get your rhythm right. If you approach it like a big match day, you’ll burn out.”

Asked whether there were some sporting practices that do not translate well into business life, Zehndorfer said: “The epic coach speech – a lot of people try to package that up and use it to motivate a sales force, but it just doesn’t work.”

The Corporate Athlete event supported the Rainbow Laces campaign, which aims to tackle homophobia and promote inclusion in sport.

To download ‘The Elusive X’, visit bit.ly/2k6XZSJ

Is intelligence overrated in leadership?

Signs that an abundance of grey matter may not always be the greatest asset for managers have emerged from a study that cites intelligence as a potential roadblock to motivating people. Carried out by researchers at the University of Lausanne, the study took the form of a Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, in which management figures not only rated themselves, but were marked by their peers and subordinates, too.

While the study drew a correlation between intelligence and effectiveness, it

noted that this link tended to break down at around the IQ-120 mark – with particularly low effectiveness occurring at IQ-128 and above. As the study suggests, the test subjects north of that threshold didn’t necessarily resort to poor techniques – they simply had trouble marshalling good ones.

Among the resulting flaws were that subjects i) wouldn’t simplify tasks; ii) couldn’t grasp why subordinates found certain tasks difficult; and iii) were often unhelpfully verbose. As such, the researchers concluded, these leaders “suffer from too much of a good thing”.

Does this mean intelligence is an overrated virtue among leaders, obscuring other qualities that recruiters should value?

The Institute of Leadership & Management’s chief executive, Phil James, says: “In leadership and management, we often hear about emotional intelligence.

But if you’re so ‘bright’ that you are unable to explain something clearly, and cannot understand why you are not understood, you are clearly lacking in emotional intelligence because you’re missing those cues. You’re missing that essential, relational skill, whereby you should be able to sense, and empathise with, a person’s confusion and struggle to absorb the information. You ought to be able to ask that person to help you to help them to deal with what they’re experiencing.” To read this article in full,

see bit.ly/2A3hQNq

Debate MAILBOX

11

SHARING THOUGHTS AND IDEAS 11 Mailbox

I

12 Angelica Ashbrook Heyworth

13 Christopher Hallas

Yule Edge offers pause for thought

enjoyed looking through the Yule 2017 edition of Edge, but wanted to respond to some of the articles and hear what other readers thought.

With regard to Sally Percy’s editorial, ‘Why we still need leaders’ (page 5), since leaders do seem to fulfil a vital function, it would be interesting to detail them explicitly. I also wondered that if ‘leaders’ were known, for example, as ‘coordinators’ and they were not otherwise distinguished – for example, through financial compensation – could

INSPIRING GREAT LEADERSHIP

YULE 2017

The end of the boss IS AUTONOMY THE WAY OF THE FUTURE? Plus Courageous leadership The eight pillars of innovation Bringing your emotions to work

their roles be accomplished equally successfully?

Turning to ‘The biology of trust’ by Maria Katsarou (page 44), I completely agree with the author that trust is highly desirable in any business, as it is in any walk of life, and is well worth cultivating. It is interesting that the hormone associated with trust is the same as the one associated with the bond that a child develops with its ‘primary carer’, usually its mother, which in turn is the same hormone that facilitates childbirth. This is an example of how ready nature is to recycle and find new uses for ‘old’ chemicals.

Another example is the adoption of serotonin to signify satisfaction in the brain – when it was originally a gut hormone used to signal fullness.

Then there is ‘The knowledge monopoly’ by Kirsten Levermore (page 72). It is true that much information does consist of facts that can be found online (in an instant, if one is a capable user). But there is also a skill in being able to manage those facts, which I fear is often missing. I would suggest that school is a good place to learn this, as well as serving numerous other functions such as being a place where social interactions can be practised.

Dr Peter Balfour, locum addiction psychiatrist Note from the editor: The aim of Edge is to stimulate discussion and debate, so we welcome your comments and views on the articles that appear in this journal.

All the Twitter chatter on the last issue Bryan Rodgers @BryanRodgersHWU Nov 14 Grateful to @InstituteLM and @SallyPercy for hearing me out on the subject of leadership in the Yule edition of Edge. My last interview before my retirement from policing. One final time in the ‘Hot Seat’!

Peter Calvert @PeterACalvert Nov 21 Thanks for sending this out @InstituteLM – includes a great article on bridging the digital skills gap.

Marcia Ore MSc MA @marciaore62 Nov 18 @InstituteLM a few thoughtprovoking articles on lack of minority leaders, 51 being the golden age of motivation & coaching millennials in Edge. Well done.

Grant Peisley @CymrAussie Nov 18 Was excited to see #Wales included in @InstituteLM Edge magazine.

Only to find it was a completely negative story! Sure @WelshLabour have a lot to

answer for, but there’s also lots of good in Wales that could have been covered in the @LeadersinWales article.

GeorginaFullerWriter @GeorgieR30 Nov 14 Great to see my piece on emotional evolution at #work in the latest issue of Edge magazine. It’s about how you can bring your ‘whole’ self to the office, with comment from @TheSchoolOfLife @HenleyBSchool & @InstituteLM among others #management #leadership #HR @lidpublishing

GET IN TOUCH If you would like to share your views on leadership or management, or content that you would like to see in Edge, please email the editor at sally.percy@lidpublishing.com. Letters may be edited for publication.

Debate ANGELICA ASHBROOK HEYWORTH

12

Let’s talk suicide How can leaders broach the topic that no one wants to raise?

W

ith the pressures of modern living, mental health problems are on the increase, as is suicide. According to the Samaritans’ Suicide Statistics Report 2017, 6,188 people in the UK committed suicide in 2015, up 3.8% from the year before.

Even if they do not actually end up taking their own lives, many people consider suicide at some point. But until you have been in that frame of mind it is difficult to understand. It doesn’t matter whether the cause is bereavement, failure, financial ruin, guilt, loneliness, physical pain, mental illness, shame, the breakdown of a relationship or some other reason, the feeling is the same. It amounts to a shrinking of that person’s world so they feel that they live in a bubble, where they are drowning in their problem and separated from the world and normality. Within this bubble, there is only one solution: suicide. They cannot see how outside solutions could ever work in their world.

You could be working with someone who feels isolated in this way. Here are some tell-tale clues: They have an existing mental health problem that you are aware of and you notice their condition is worsening.

They complain of being down or depressed, or say they have feelings of hopelessness.

They appear agitated.

Their mood improves after a period of depression. This could indicate that they have made the decision to solve their problem by attempting suicide.

By

Angelica Ashbrook Heyworth

RESOURCES Download Mind Culture, the Institute’s research on mental health, at: www.institutelm.com/ resourceLibrary/mindculture.html Find out how you can help to reduce the risk of suicide, and apply crisis management following a suicide, by watching this webinar: bit.ly/2hGReXa

They have sudden, apparently unreasonable, emotional outbursts.

They talk of taking part in dangerous activities.

They talk of feeling trapped or of not being able to find an answer to their problems.

They use alcohol or drugs when they do not normally, or to a higher degree if drugs and alcohol are a normal part of their lifestyle.

They become increasingly withdrawn from friends, family and society.

If you do notice any of the above signs, or you have a ‘gut feeling’ about a friend or colleague, what should you do? First, ask them if everything is OK, but explain you are asking because they do not seem themselves as opposed to asking out of politeness. If you are wrong, there is no need for embarrassment; you have only shown human concern.

If there is a problem, try to draw them out and get them talking. Emphasise that you are there for them. Ask why they are feeling so low and whether there could be a solution to their problem. Find out if they have a plan to take their life. If so, how, when and do they have the necessary equipment?

Ask about the support networks they have. Inform a wider network of support about the person’s mental state, including management, their family, and their GP or an NHS mental health crisis team.

You should acknowledge that suicide is an answer to their problem, but it is not the best answer. Talk about the impact it would have on the individual’s family and friends. Ultimately, suicide is an irreversible solution to a short-term problem, which has other solutions that have not been explored.

Angelica Ashbrook Heyworth is chief executive and crisis negotiator at National Mental Health Solutions. For more on mental health, see Spotlight, starting on page 27

Debate DIVERSITY

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The society effect Negative attitudes explain why LGBT+ people are more likely to have mental health issues than their heterosexual peers

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nyone can experience mental health challenges and distress during their lifetime. Yet evidence, both from the UK and internationally, highlights increased levels of common mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety and stress, among people from LGBT+ communities. Rather than simply presenting a set of statistics, I think it’s helpful to suggest some thoughts on the subject.

Firstly, being gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, non-binary, asexual, pansexual, or any of the other many identities that make up the LGBTQQIAAP community, does not constitute a mental health condition or illness. The World Health Organisation (WHO) removed homosexuality as a formal psychiatric diagnosis in 1992, but still defines and lists transgender identity as a mental illness. It is, however, reportedly considering a reclassification of the latter when it revises its list of mental and behavioural disorders for 2018.

Nevertheless, many people adhere to an outdated ‘medical model’ for understanding LGBT+ people and their issues. Some believe LGBT+ identity and expression is something that can be cured through therapy. In particular, transgender identity and expression is often conceptualised on a medical basis. This approach is especially prominent in shaping government policy and practice in many countries. There has been a significant shift recently within the UK, with the prime minister, Theresa May, saying in October 2017 that “being trans is not an illness” and announcing that the UK government will seek to “streamline and de-medicalise” the process of changing gender.

Secondly, being LGBT+ does not, in and of itself, cause mental health problems. Rather, it is increasingly recognised that social attitudes and behaviours towards members of the LGBT+ community create conditions that elevate their

By

Christopher Hallas

risks of experiencing mental health issues. This represents a ‘social model’ or framework for understanding LGBT+ people and their experiences.

We live in a world where societies treat everyone from birth as if they are heterosexual and cisgender (a person whose self-identity corresponds with the gender they were born with).

Since this is presented as the norm – via our parents, our schools, the government, the media and so on – LGBT+ people come under huge pressure to suppress the part of themselves that is not considered to be the norm. Coming to terms with an identity that is different to that of most other people, or coping with ignorance, prejudice and discrimination, can be confusing and distressing.

At a time when LGBT+ people have achieved a greater range of rights, and are better represented across the media than ever before, homophobic

LGBT+ PEOPLE COME UNDER HUGE PRESSURE TO SUPPRESS PART OF THEMSELVES and transphobic bullying, rejection from family members, harassment at work and poor responses from healthcare professionals, are still commonplace for many members of the LGBT+ community.

Although most people would accept attitudes towards LGBT+ people are improving, many are surprised that people who identify as LGBT+ experience levels of difficulty in their lives that are greater than those who identify as heterosexual or cisgender. Equally, they are surprised that these elevated levels of difficulty are a result of sexuality and gender identity and expression. In particular, when it comes to the mental health of LGBT+ people, there’s a huge negative differential between them and those who identify as heterosexual or cisgender. A lot of catching up needs to be done.

Christopher Hallas is a higher education and diversity consultant and executive director at Trans*formation

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15

NEWS AND VIEWS 16 News Collaboration workshop; Walter Balmford honoured; events

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am glad to see that this issue of Edge is dedicated to mental and physical health. It is great that, as leaders and managers, we are being challenged to pay greater attention to the wellbeing both of the people we work with and of ourselves.

Anyone who is in any doubt about the relevance of this subject to management and leadership need only turn to Thriving at Work. This report is based on the review of mental health and employers by Lord Dennis Stevenson and Paul Farmer, and was published in October 2017.

The study concludes that business bears annual costs of £33bn to £43bn from both absenteeism and presenteeism as a result of poor mental health. A staggering 300,000 people with long-term mental health conditions lose their jobs each year in the UK, while the number of working people with mental health problems keeps rising. Andrew Sharman and Dame Judith Hackitt’s 2016 book, Mind Your Own Business, tells us that while regulatory changes are starting to make a difference, there are still around 2.3 million deaths per year around the world as a result of accidents and related diseases at work.

In my own experience across industries, the profile of workplace health has been raised, but there’s also a tendency for us to think of these as separate issues. “We’ve focused on safety; now let’s focus on health. Then let’s focus on mental health.” But of course, these issues are all linked. We are all beings with bodies and minds. Performing well depends upon us being physically and mentally well.

In 2016, the Institute of Leadership & Management undertook a survey of 433

19 Setting the Standard & Webinars

20 A Day in the Life 21 In the Hot Seat

Well, well, well Bodies and minds matter By

Phil James

respondents, who answered a range of questions relating to mental health in the workplace. A large majority (84%) indicated they had experienced mental health symptoms that were linked to work. Yet only 46% thought they would be comfortable talking to their manager about a mental health problem. Unfortunately, the prevailing stigma about mental health, and what it may say about you as an individual, means that people often suffer in silence. Campaigns such as Time to Change and Heads Together, supported by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry, have received media attention and are aimed at reducing this stigma and opening up the conversation.

EMPLOYERS NEED THE CONFIDENCE TO MANAGE MENTAL HEALTH AT WORK Mental Health at Work, an organisation focused on raising awareness among employers, has something interesting to say about why it is important to talk: “We all have mental health, which moves along a continuum from wellness through to issues, and may progress to illness,” it notes. “We need a level of understanding and awareness to have the confidence to manage this within the workplace.”

We must all not only talk, but take action to look after our health, both physical and mental. It’s about staying well, not trying to fix things after they’ve gone wrong. So let’s look after ourselves.

Phil James is chief executive of the Institute of Leadership & Management

Insider

16

Collaboration has three key ingredients

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uccessful collaboration is dependent on trust, transparency and acceptance. This is the conclusion of a recent workshop hosted by the Institute of Leadership & Management.

The workshop, together with corresponding seminars and a research investigation, took place in autumn 2017.

It was held in response to the urging of thought leader Tamara Erickson for organisations to place renewed emphasis on collaborative capacity.

(Erickson herself was not present at the workshop, but she explains what leaders need to understand about collaboration on page 59 of this issue.)

“There are over 600 cancer charities in the UK,” commented Gemma Holding, chief executive of Cancer Support UK, and a participant at the workshop. “But we currently have no way of knowing about each others’ resources – there’s no cross-organisational conversation. Collaboration could lead to streamlining, teaming-up or even merging.”

Other workshop attendees noted that collaboration has value internally, too. David West, head of communities at the Business Continuity Institute, added: “Business continuity can only be effective if all parts of the business are involved and collaborate. No one person can truly know every detail of every element of a business.”

In our connected world, the group determined the main barriers to collaboration to be human in nature. “Successful collaboration involves acceptance and a give-and-take approach on a really deep level,” observed organisational psychologist Reece Coker. “For this to happen, people need to trust.”

The key starting point for this ‘trust’, participants concluded, lies in transparency during initial

WHAT WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS THOUGHT “I can’t think of any aspect of work in the charity sector that doesn’t involve collaboration” Tom Fyans, director of campaigns and policy, Campaign to Protect Rural England “‘Conflict’ is not a dirty word when it comes to collaboration” Reece Coker, organisational psychologist, Positive Psychology Network “If I couldn’t trust a company, I wouldn’t consider collaborating with them” Janet Thorne, CEO, Reach Volunteering “I would suggest there are two things you need for collaboration: the first is trust and the second is to be benefiting from the collaboration” Jonathan Marks, project manager and business analyst, The Poppy Factory

Good collaboration is dependent on trust and acceptance

discussions with potential collaborators. Clear, honest and structured sharing of aims, terms and timescales for the collaboration were seen as the primary facilitators of deepened trust.

Once transparency has been secured, then acceptance of partners’ perspectives and the overall arrangement is essential for successful collaboration. Phil Lane, head of sport at Greenwich Leisure Limited (GLL), highlighted that, especially when the aims of collaboration differ tremendously between parties, it is “necessary” to accept those discrepancies.

Conducted as part of the British-American Project, the findings from the Institute’s investigation are hoped to be instrumental in furthering collaboration globally, between super powers, as well as between businesses, charity-sector leaders, employees and volunteers across the UK. The white paper from the Institute’s investigation into collaboration is available to download from www.institutelm.com/research-news/ research.html.

Save the date for our June AGM Members, please save the date of 28 June 2018 in your diaries. That is the day when the Institute of Leadership & Management will be holding its Leading

Differently Conference and AGM. It is also time to nominate Members for the three available spaces on our Board of Trustees. Last year the response

from you, our membership, was huge. We had many people applying from both the UK and overseas. More details will arrive in your inbox soon, so do keep an eye out.

News

Walter Balmford is awarded an MBE The Institute is very proud to announce that one of its members, Walter Balmford, has been awarded an MBE. He was awarded the honour for his services to training and education over the course of more than 65 years. Although he is not a teacher by profession, Balmford has been involved in the administration of every type of educational organisation, from nursery schools through to universities and technological colleges, in London and the Midlands.

Reflecting on his experience of receiving the award from Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace in 2017, Balmford said: “He shook my hand, and as I stepped back to depart, commented, ‘I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but you don’t look old enough to have done 65 years.’”

17

Events update The Institute of Leadership & Management is launching the 49 Webinar Series, which is based on our five dimensions of great leadership: ownership, achievement, collaboration and vision, with authenticity at the heart, linking all the dimensions together (see also page 7).

Our webinars are an effective way for Members to pick up evidence-based tips from their fellow leaders and to invest in their professional development. The webinars run at lunchtimes and last for 30 minutes, including time for questions.

If you would like to deliver one of our 49 webinars, please contact our event manager at jane.nicholson-biss@institutelm.com.

We are also delighted to announce that Labour MP Laura Pidcock will present our International Women’s Day webinar on 8 March 2018.

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Top document downloads from the Learning Resources section of the Institute’s website 1 Ten tips for a successful digital detox 2 Mind culture 3 Successful coaching

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4 Workforce 2020 5 Inspiring leaders through emotional intelligence

6 How do we understand authentic leadership?

7 Understanding yourself 8 Flexible working 9 Mentoring vs coaching: do you know the difference?

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SHARE YOUR RESEARCH If you have undertaken any research into leadership and management, written a paper or participated in a best-practice case study, we want to hear about it.

We may even be able to feature it in Edge. Email us at: research@institutelm.com

To access the resources, which are exclusive to members, log in to your web account

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Insider SETTING THE STANDARD

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lexible working has been on our research agenda for some years. It first received our attention when we explored the experience of women managers in the financial services industry and identified that flexible working was not held in very high regard.

Flexible working takes many forms, ranging from employer-driven offers, where the immediate benefit supports peak-time operations, to a more autonomous, output-focused, employee-driven flexibility.

The business case for flexible working is frequently and persuasively articulated: the bottom line being its potential cost savings, such as reduced office space. An experiment in flexible working conducted in China also reported other benefits, including increased productivity and a reduction in labour turnover. Nevertheless, the same study reported that flexible working is not entirely beneficial for employees, since it appeared to have an adverse impact on promotion prospects.

As our Future Trends research report confirmed in 2014, flexible working is here to stay. So, in 2015, we took an in-depth look at the experience of working in distributed teams.

Reduced or part-time working continues to be the most popular form of flexible working, with job sharing – in spite of its huge potential for productivity and continuity – much less so.

Flexible working is often offered as a solution to those people who want to combine work with caring responsibilities, but our research has revealed that it is so much more than that. The most attractive benefit of working flexibly appears to be the autonomy it offers the individual to manage his or her own work-life balance. We found that employees of all ages, regardless of whether they have caring responsibilities or not, value the increased control flexible working gives them and appreciate an employer that makes this possible.

Goodbye 9-to-5 Flexible working is here to stay By

Kate Cooper

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While the opportunity to work flexibly may widen the talent pool and please many employees, there is no substitute for meeting up. Participating in out-of-office activities encourages the social element of working that is important for many of us. As our Christmas party survey revealed, 82% of managers recognise the team-bonding potential of the office party – and it provides a great opportunity to include home-based workers.

At the Institute, we recently decided to combine one of our regular off-site meetings with our collective desire to do some good, so we volunteered for a day at the In Kind Direct warehouse in Telford. In Kind Direct distributes new, usable consumer goods (which have been donated by some of the UK’s best-known manufacturers and retailers) to charities, not-for-profit organisations and social enterprises working in the UK and abroad.

As a team, we had to unpack, sort, count and pack a range of products donated by Colgate Palmolive, fulfilling orders placed by the In Kind Direct customers. Not only did we enjoy the day, it provided such a rich insight into our work behaviour. There was nowhere to hide in the warehouse. If you weren’t unpacking, packing, making boxes, sweeping or moving pallets, you were visibly ‘not busy’.

The opportunities to consider approaches to planning (we seemed to favour an emergent approach), resource optimisation, qualityassurance processes, informal organisation, job-enrichment strategies and our place in the supply chain were endless and invaluable.

In Kind Direct certainly offers a cost-effective and powerful team-building intervention and I encourage anyone looking for a different sort of away day to get in touch with them: www.inkinddirect.org/about-us

Kate Cooper is head of research, policy and standards at the Institute of Leadership & Management

For more on flexible working practices, see ‘Flexible Working: Goodbye Nine to Five’: bit.ly/2B7CMms

WEBINARS The Institute runs free ‘Learn at Lunch’ 30-minute webinars most Wednesdays from 1-1.30pm. To find out more, visit www.institutelm.com/events/ webinars.html

Check out these webinars, which you may have missed: Mandatory dress codes – an equalities issue?

29 November 2017 bit.ly/2iTocYn

We need to talk about behaviour – now!

22 November 2017 bit.ly/2ByJP3Z

Inspirational leadership 11 October 2017 bit.ly/2iRdnly

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20

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF

Polly Pascoe

An early run is great preparation for a demanding job

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ormally, I wake between 4.30am and 5am. My bedroom has sheer curtains because I find it easier to wake up to natural light. In summer, it’s great because I will rise with the sun, but it’s much harder in winter. I have to rely on my alarm, which I hate. I try to start my day with an hour of exercise, partly because it helps to wake me up and partly to get it out of the way. My body normally kicks in before my brain does, so I make the most of it. Either I go for a run near my home in east London or I head to the gym.

I leave for work at 7am and when I get to the office in Barkingside, I make myself a big cup of coffee and eat breakfast, which is usually a high-protein yoghurt with fruit. If I need some extra energy after a long run, I’ll pick up something from the café across the road. I work for the Centre

OUR WORK CAN AFFECT US EMOTIONALLY, BUT AS A TEAM WE ARE GOOD AT SUPPORT of expertise on child sexual abuse (CSA), which is funded by the Home Office and hosted by the children’s charity Barnardo’s. The centre aims to identify, generate and share high-quality research on what works to prevent and tackle child sexual abuse. I am responsible for the scoping, planning and commissioning of research projects, and overseeing the publication of any subsequent reports.

As I’m more creative in the morning, I prefer to have my meetings before lunch. Often these will

be with members of my senior management team. We scope out areas of work, catch up on various projects and discuss how we can work with our delivery partners to solve problems where necessary. Our work can affect us emotionally, but as a team we are good at supporting each other.

I spend my lunch hour going through emails, and when I have a little spare time, fitting in some studying for my PhD in evidencebased management. Where possible, I like to keep afternoons free to focus on delivery. This may mean reviewing a research report that we have commissioned, analysing data to inform project planning, or writing up scoping documents for new research projects.

I tend to leave the office between 4pm and 5pm, then head home to do a little more university work, draw up conference papers or draft a blog piece or journal article.

In the evenings, I catch up with friends.

I definitely exercise as much as I do to counteract my love of food – my favourite dinner is Turkish mezze. Before I go to bed, I review my to-do list.

Then I take a nice, long shower and watch something mindless on the telly. While I enjoy crime documentaries, I save those for the weekend, when my brain isn’t so full of the day. I’m in bed for 10.30pm and asleep by 11pm. I keep my phone on silent because I’m asleep when the majority of my night-owl friends are at their peak. They know they have to wait until the morning to get a response from me.

Polly Pascoe is senior research and evaluation officer at the Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse If you would like to feature in A Day in the Life, email sally.percy@lidpublishing.com

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Member Q&A

21

I N T HE HOT SEAT

Genevieve Bolan This month, Edge meets Genevieve Bolan, training manager – consultant learning services, at Sutherland Global, based in Virginia, USA

What does leadership mean to you?

What are you focused on now from a management perspective?

Leadership is about inspiring others to perform at their best in order to progress the business and its people in the best way possible. I believe that people make an organisation what it is, so collaborating with employees, and providing them with direction, is vital to success.

Since I’ve just moved across the pond, it will be interesting to experience how the workplace here differs from that in London. I’m hoping to plant some nuggets of best practice here and take others away from this experience when I move back to the UK. From a personal point of view, I’d love to focus on inspiring and supporting more women to reach senior management.

What are the biggest leadership and management challenges of today?

How have you developed your people in the past?

It is easy for senior management to make decisions and impose those decisions upon their teams.

The challenge is to understand what your teams need in order to make business decisions or changes, and bring them along with you. I’m a big believer in empowering your people and using their knowledge and experience to better inform your decisions.

In my last role as senior training design manager at Transport for London, my priority was to develop both my team and our whole department.

Formally, I was managing a trainer development programme, which was led by one of my training design managers. This is now being rolled out to all trainers across the department. The aim is that they will develop, discuss and refresh the training tools and techniques that are used to facilitate training.

How does the general context of training feed in to those broad challenges?

Training can have a huge impact on business performance and output. If it is done well, then it can have a very positive effect. Training is traditionally a longer-term investment, however, and in a world where customer needs can change very quickly, a lot of managers get stuck on short-term solutions. It is important to show that longerterm investment in training is still valid and effective. Also, there needs to be a role for justin-time training to meet the changing landscape.

Training specialists need to share their differing experiences to provide the best solutions and recommendations to the business.

Where would you like to see the Institute focus its future efforts from a policy perspective?

LONGER-TERM INVESTMENT IN TRAINING IS STILL VALID AND EFFECTIVE

I would like to see the Institute getting into schools. There needs to be discussion around what makes a good manager at a younger age so that boys and girls are inspired to become leaders for the right reasons and perform well when they are promoted into these positions.

Would you like to feature in In the Hot Seat? Email sally.percy@lidpublishing.com

22

The Edge Interview

John Coughlan

23

Man of steel TSP’s chief operating officer, John Coughlan, had the courage to lead a loss-making engineering business back to profit Writing Sally Percy

Photography Molly Matcham

W

hat does it take to turn a business that was losing £2 million a year into one that produces net profits of the same amount? Ask that very question of John Coughlan, chief operating officer of Cumbria-based engineering and manufacturing firm TSP Engineering, and his answer would be: “The people”.

“A lot of people look at business turnarounds from an accounting perspective and don’t understand why that doesn’t work,” observes Coughlan, who is an engineer by background and an experienced manufacturing leader of many years’ standing. “A turnaround in any business is about the people within that business. You need to be able to turn to people and say, ‘Look, I want you to be part of this. This is your business. It is your future. Let’s get some pride.’ Then people will come along with ideas and things they want to do.”

When Coughlan arrived at TSP in 2014, the business was a subsidiary of steel-making giant

Tata Steel, and its initials stood for Tata Steel Projects. It had few external customers; instead it concentrated on providing services to other divisions within the group, which had led to spiralling losses. Tata’s leaders convinced Coughlan that there was a huge opportunity to change the business – but with just one caveat. He didn’t have any money to change the business with – the turnaround would have to be done on a shoestring.

First things first Fortunately, Coughlan likes a challenge and when he visited TSP’s Workington plant, he immediately saw a chance to effect change at very little cost.

Inspired by the American mechanical engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor, who discovered that small changes to workers’ environments could improve productivity, he decided to give the plant a makeover.

“I said, ‘The first thing we’re going to do is increase the lighting and make the place a lot brighter to work in. Then we’re going to paint the inside of the building, which doesn’t cost

24

The Edge Interview

a lot of money, but it will make a difference to the people. So they will see there is a visible change happening within the business.’”

Rather than commission an expensive interior designer to come up with a scheme, he used leftover paint that was available in the storeroom.

Most of the walls were white but some were painted in bright colours. “People said, ‘This guy is mad.

Where’s he getting his colours from?’” Coughlan recalls. “But if you can stimulate people to start asking why and start getting inquisitive about what’s happening, then they are already engaged in what you need to do to start making the change.”

Later, the colours that were used for the walls became the basis for TSP’s values – excellence, integrity, responsibility, understanding and unity.

TSP is reinvented Next, Coughlan turned his attention to a more complex problem: overhauling TSP’s business model and winning new clients from outside the steel industry. “When I came in, around 75% of our turnover came from the steel sector and around 25% came from other industries,” he explains.

“Now, that’s turned around completely. We get around 25% of our turnover from the steel sector and 75% of our turnover from the civil and defence, nuclear, oil and gas, and other industry sectors.”

Among the products TSP manufactures today are fuel flasks for transporting nuclear waste, specialist components for submarines and aircraft carriers, and sub-sea oil and gas pipelines. It also provides engineering expertise for the steelmaking industry, along with specialist technologies that extend the operational life of equipment.

Coughlan realised that he needed to change mindsets so that TSP’s people would become more proactive about generating work themselves, instead of relying on it to trickle in from other parts of the group. “I also recognised that an organisation only works at the pace its leader works at,” he says. “You’ve got to step up the pace yourself a little bit so people see that and start stepping their own pace up. Once we got our productivity up and started delivering on time and on budget to customers, the work started to flow in. But you also have to stay competitive, so you need to explain that to people as you’re going along.”

Critical to the success of the turnaround was “winning over the hearts and minds of the people” and building a strong relationship with the GMB and Unite unions. “You don’t have to beat people into doing things or discipline them by threatening their jobs,” Coughlan explains. “Most people want to do a good job and leave a legacy from what they’re doing. So you need to sit down with the various factions within the business, try to get them to buy in and see that there’s something in

MOST PEOPLE WANT TO DO A GOOD JOB AND LEAVE A LEGACY

this for everybody. That’s what I did to win over the people and drive the business forward.”

Inevitably, Coughlan needed to take some hard decisions – TSP made about 20% of its employees redundant and also cut back heavily on its large workforce of contractors. Nevertheless, the benefits of Coughlan’s collaborative approach were soon visible when TSP quickly began to return to profitability.

Yet there was more change to come because, in 2016, Tata Steel sold three of its subsidiaries, including TSP, to private equity firm Greybull Capital. Greybull Capital revived the name British Steel for the group. TSP kept its name but the meaning changed to Technical Solutions Provider.

The business has continued to go from strength to strength under its new owner, notching up a 420% increase in profits in 2016/17 and targeting an increase of twice that amount for the 2017/18 financial year.

John Coughlan

LEADERSHIP LESSONS Who is your real-life leadership inspiration?

“Austin Gormley, a former managing director of Lift Manufacturers, where I worked as a design engineer. I learned a huge amount from him in terms of being relaxed and natural, and not trying to be something you’re not.”

What does a good leader look like?

“A good leader is somebody who listens, understands and is prepared to see the difficulties that others have in a task and help them to achieve it.”

What’s the greatest challenge you’ve faced as a leader and how did you overcome it?

“Getting people to believe in you and believe in themselves when embarking on change. The way to get over that challenge is to show that you’re prepared to be part of the change.”

What’s the most important leadership lesson that you’ve ever learned?

“Listen before you speak, and understand the impact of what you are going to say and do has on other people.”

What’s the secret to your own success?

“I believe the secret of my success, as for any effective leader, is the relationship I have with the team and the individuals within the team.”

How do you like to relax at the end of a long day?

“I like to go home and relax with my partner.”

People, product and profit Looking back on the turnaround, Coughlan says his biggest challenge was establishing credibility with TSP’s workforce. “They thought I was just another name, another face, another person who had come through the door and who would probably be gone in the next two years. I had to convince them that this was not what I was going to be doing.”

To address this challenge, Coughlan made it clear to the workforce that change was not something that he was just inflicting on everyone else; he was also embracing change himself. He relocated to Cumbria with his partner, instead of commuting from Birmingham, where he had lived previously. He also moved his desk into the main part of the Workington plant, along with everyone else, instead of shutting himself away in the corner office.

25

Significantly, Coughlan is adamant in his dislike of the B word. “I hate being referred to as the boss,” he says. “The boss is not a leader. The boss is maybe a manager, but there’s a difference between being a leader and being a manager. A manager directs and controls. A leader motivates and drives enthusiasm into people to want to do something.”

Coughlan, who is a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership & Management, develops himself by reading about other leaders. His particular inspiration is Lee Iacocca, the one-time president of automotive giant Ford, who later turned round its rival Chrysler. Iacocca once said that all business operations could be reduced to three words: people, product and profit. The idea was that if the people were right, they would get the product right and the profits would follow. “These are the principles I have followed for a long time in my career as a leader,” Coughlan explains.

In December 2016, Coughlan’s leadership credentials were publicly recognised when he was named UK Manufacturing Champions Awards Manufacturing Leader. The judges commended his “authoritative yet pacesetting management techniques” as well as his “selfless attitude” and his willingness to roll his sleeves up and get stuck in.

A further accolade came in November 2017, when TSP won the Best Manufacturing Business award at the Cumbria Business Awards.

What’s next?

While he has achieved much to date, Coughlan recognises that TSP’s journey continues and he needs to be focused on making sure that TSP has the right people, with the right skills, to support its clients in different sectors. “I need to invest both in my own development and in my people’s development,” he says. For this reason, he appreciates the knowledge and expertise of older workers – recently TSP hired a 72-year-old as a full-time employee.

The welfare of staff is another important concern. TSP has invested money in the health and wellbeing of its people and has paid for around 20 of its staff to be certified as mental health first aiders. “Business today puts a lot of pressure individually on people,” he comments. “If people are made ill by their work, it creates a hole in your business, which is not very easy to fill.”

As for determining the way forward, Coughlan is clear that he alone does not hold all the answers.

“I’m not afraid to be told by the team that some of my ideas are rubbish,” he says. “And I have to listen to that, because listening is a very important part of leadership.”

Sally Percy is editor of ‘Edge’

CAREER TIMELINE 1983 – 1988 Design engineer, Lift Manufacturers 1988 – 1990 Studied for a diploma in engineering and welding process engineering 1990 – 1991 Operations manager and deputy CEO, Dianorm Teo 1991 – 1994 General manager, Rubair Motor Teo 1994 – 1996 General manager, industrial products division, Gates Rubber 1996 – 1999 Operations manager, Southborough 1999 – 2002 European operations manager, Celestica 2002 – 2005 President and general manager, UpRight 2006 – 2013 Global commercial operations director/ managing director, AWTX 2014 – present Chief operating officer, TSP Engineering Not-for-profit roles 2017 – present Member of the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership board

Immediate impact, growing advantage.

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The same promise we make to our clients—immediate impact, growing advantage—we offer to our people. Working together, we drive immediate results and help build lasting, transformational advantage.

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A.T. Kearney is a leading global management consulting firm with offices in more than 40 countries. Since 1926, we have been trusted advisors to the world's foremost organizations. A.T. Kearney is a partner-owned firm, committed to helping clients achieve immediate impact and growing advantage on their most mission-critical issues.

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Spotlight

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MENTAL AND PHYSICAL HEALTH

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28 The link between mental illness and productivity

32 Distinguishing between healthy and unhealthy stress

34 Back to work after serious illness: what leaders should know

38 How Nomura became Britain’s healthiest large workplace

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Spotlight

The brain drain Managers who fail to support staff with mental health issues are jeopardising their organisation’s productivity Writing Peter Crush

I

t’s a well-known fact that UK plc suffers from a huge (and arguably embarrassing) productivity problem.

With productivity 15.9% lower than the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), it’s so severe that French workers could take every Friday off and still achieve the same as the average British worker. At the same time, it’s not exactly a secret that Britons take a huge amount of sickness absence. Latest (2016) data from the ONS suggests that 137 million working days were lost due to sickness absence that year – or to put it another way, that’s nearly a week (4.3 days) per employee, per year.

So it’s obvious, isn’t it, that a significant proportion of Britain’s poor productivity could be solved if employers reduced overall sickness and poor health?

Simple? Well, the answer is yes, but also no – which might explain why organisations aren’t always on the same page in their approach to employee health.

Take the ‘yes’ part. Undoubtedly there is ‘some’ link between sickness and low productivity. The Centre of Economic and Business Research (Cebr) says £18 billion in lost productivity is directly caused by sickness, and this figure is predicted to rise to £21 billion by 2020 and £26 billion in 2030. What cannot be ignored, however, is the fact that officially, sickness absence rates haven’t been rising at all; they have been falling – to their lowest level since 1993. So how can lost productivity through sickness be on the up, while actual sickness absence is down? The answer is down to another huge rise – that of mental health issues – and it is this rise that seems to be leaving employers scratching their heads about what to do.

MENTAL HEALTH IS SOMETHING NOT ALL HR PROFESSIONALS FEEL ABLE TO DEAL WITH

Mental illness: the new backache “Mental wellbeing seems to have exploded as the new national condition,” says Dr Brian Marien, founder of learning provider Positive Group. The Cebr data shows there has been a 71.9% rise in mental health issues since 2011. Suggested causes include everything from fewer people doing the same work, increased financial worries, and even the pressures of simultaneously caring for elderly parents and young children.

But, as Marien says, “It’s a problem employers find difficult to grapple with.” He adds: “Mental wellbeing lies almost entirely within the individual. With physical issues, like viruses or cancers, pathology is found and you’re agreed to be ill. The problem with mental ill health is that 50% of consultations reveal no physical ailments at all.”

The result is that employees with poor mental health don’t tend to be off work at all, until things really implode. They soldier on, but unproductively so. Meanwhile, employers have largely bought in to looking after their employees’ physical health – with support ranging from health insurance and gym memberships, through to promoting exercise and health checks, and offering nutrition advice – but they find mental illness much harder to manage.

“Mental ill health is definitely harder to get to grips with,” says Karen Bates, human resources director at Opus Energy, and former head of HR at health retailer Holland & Barrett. “What I hear more of my HR peers saying is that it has almost become the new ‘backache’ – in the sense that this is what everyone went off with 30 years ago, but mental health has taken its place.”

Mental Health

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THE AGEING POPULATION Rising longevity is often celebrated, but it isn’t welcomed so much by employers, not least because Britain’s population isn’t just ageing, it’s ageing within the workplace. Thanks to the removal of the default retirement age, and minuscule pensions, 15.5% of men are still in employment at the age of 70 (up from 10% in 2012), according to the ONS, while the number of women in work past the age of 70 has doubled in the past four years.

And while age alone doesn’t always bring sickness, employers will increasingly have to deal with many age-related ill-health conditions (cancers, diabetes, eye problems and heart disease) in staff members who might previously have been in retirement by the time they emerged. Conciliation service ACAS recently found that there are 40,000 people under 65 with dementia, and with more people working until later in life, it will only become more common in the workplace.

Kate Headley, director at diversity consultancy The Clear Company, says: “While a dementia diagnosis does not have to mark the end of work, the number of employees with the condition looks set to rise.” She adds: “It is crucial that line managers and HR professionals learn to recognise when an employee is displaying signs of the condition, so they can offer these individuals the right type of support in good time. Symptoms can often be mistaken for depression or stress, so early assessment and diagnosis is vital in preventing problems arising at work.” She adds: “Adjustments may be as simple as installing new signage or allowing individuals to stagger their working hours to make their commute more manageable.”

WHEN IT COMES TO MENTAL HEALTH, THE KEY IS SIMPLY NOT TO BE AFRAID OF IT

Although Bates is adamant that she treats mental health seriously – by taking a holistic view about the benefits, career development opportunities and work-life balance that her workforce has, and even the environment they work in – she suggests other HR directors are suspicious about its sudden rise. This is itself a problem, but more than this, she says mental health is something not all HR professionals feel able to deal with. “I don’t think HR people feel properly equipped,” she says.

“They’re not mental health experts – and I think this lies at the heart of some employer reticence.”

Raj Hayer, HR adviser at human capital transformation consultancy Weavee, adds: “Employers almost don’t want to be held liable for giving out the wrong health advice.”

Part of the problem is lack of training.

According to a research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, only 10% of employers currently train managers in mental health. Others argue that there is also a cadre of ‘old school’ managers who simply believe staff should be able to separate their personal problems from the workplace. “The biggest problem is the ineptitude of managers,” argues Tim Marsh, who has recently published A Handbook of Organised Wellbeing for the British Safety Council. He says: “Some believe staff are just getting on the mental health bandwagon, but worse than this,” he adds, “we just don’t train employers in soft skills.”

Fear of rebuttal, or of not being believed, will hardly encourage more sufferers to come forward – yet this is still a big problem. Among workers who have suffered a mental health problem in the past five years, only 34% said they felt well supported by their manager, according to research from the Mental Health Foundation. The Institute of Leadership & Management’s own research, Mind Culture, corroborates this point. It found that most (51%) staff who had confided to their manager about a mental health problem had not received any extra support, while 8% said they faced negative consequences from doing so – including being sacked, demoted or forced out. It seems that small-to-medium-sized businesses are particularly bad at handling mental health issues.

Almost half (45%) of respondents who worked for businesses with 10-49 employees said that their employer was poor at supporting staff members who had experienced mental health problems.

Age of enlightenment Fortunately, enlightened employers are out there. These employers not only elevate employee health in all areas, but also tackle mental health because it’s a business benefit.

Liz Ellis, HR director at Danone, says the French food group lives the values of its healthy

Mental Health

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MENOPAUSE AWARENESS – THE NEWEST WELLBEING PUSH

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Workplace wellbeing strategies come in many guises, but one of the newest is taking a grown-up approach to women going through the menopause. According to a government report by the University of Leicester, women feel unable to talk about this particular wellness issue, and the impact is that they restrict their participation in the workplace – either by not seeking promotions or scaling back on their hours – because of it.

One business that is determined not to let this happen is IT giant Oracle. Jenna Mullet, wellbeing manager at Oracle UK, is in the process of introducing a new toolkit for the business aimed at managers and colleagues alike to help show understanding for the issue. She says: “This is a very real issue for women and the symptoms can be quite debilitating.

There is likely to be an impact in work but we don’t hear people talking about it.” To address this, an education pack is being put together to inform people of the cognitive, emotional and physical symptoms that a woman may experience and how this might impact them in the workplace.

products. She explains: “Until 2014, only our executives were offered company-paid health screening as part of their benefits package. The cost of offering it to all staff was seen as prohibitive, but we decided to lean towards reactive support rather than preventative health.” She adds: “We have been able to provide all 1,300 employees in the UK with a free annual comprehensive health screening. The service is voluntary, but around 60% of staff currently take the health tests.”

As well as offering free yoga and Pilates classes three nights a week, Danone has teamed up with BUPA to give staff access to its Healthy Minds counselling programme, and more firms are realising that tackling mental health will bring dividends.

“We’re now providing line manager training about how to have mental health conversations,” says Sharon Wands, HR director of business services group Rentokil Initial, whose staff are often tasked with cleaning up after suicides, or at homes where people have been found dead. “We know it reduces absenteeism,” she says. “We also support this with a employee assistance programme – a helpline staff can ring in confidence.”

Because staff can feel judged reporting mental health issues to managers, a solution many companies are taking is training up so-called ‘mental health first-aiders’, where ordinary members of staff are equipped to spot the signs of poor mental health. For example, sudden drops in performance at work, being more angry or looking more unkempt. “We’ve just introduced

THE IMPACT IS THAT WOMEN RESTRICT THEIR PARTICIPATION IN THE WORKPLACE

She says: “Line managers will be trained on how to be proactive about supporting someone with the menopause – including what reasonable adjustments can be considered.” She adds: “Given Oracle’s population has more men than women, it is likely a lot of our female staff report into a man and may not feel comfortable talking to them about such personal things. Anything that can help with this will be a benefit.”

these ourselves,” says Bates. “Sometimes people want someone apart from their immediate boss to talk to.”

With sickness now accounting for 1.7% of all working hours in the private sector, and 2.9% in the public sector, according to the ONS, getting better at dealing with it has to be in employers’ best interests. Emerging research now suggests that early intervention pays even greater dividends, because while long-term absence only comprises 5% of all sickness, it is responsible for a third of all days lost, and short-term sickness can easily turn into longer-term illness if not confronted early.

“Anything we can do to reduce sickness and increase wellbeing is proven to help our business,” says Barbara Davenport, HR director at train operator GWR. “Sometimes it’s the simplest things, like ensuring our people – who work lots of nights and shifts – get recognition that they need a good work-life balance, and doing the rosters appropriately.”

And, when it comes to mental health, the key, say HR directors, is simply not to be afraid of it. “Mental health is less about making people mental health professionals, and more about equipping everyone to notice when people aren’t themselves,” says Tom Loeffert, HR director at technology company SAP UK. “People stay and are happy and productive in organisations when they believe the business has their vested interests at heart. It’s just about showing you’re listening.”

Peter Crush is an award-winning freelance business journalist and editor

INSTITUTE RESOURCES ON MENTAL HEALTH Download Mind Culture, the Institute’s farreaching research on the topic of mental health, at: www.institutelm.com/ resourceLibrary/mindculture.html Find out how you can help reduce the risk of suicide and apply crisis management following a suicide, by watching this webinar: bit.ly/2hGReXa

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Spotlight

Pushed to the limit Understanding the dierence beween healthy and unhealthy stress is key to building a high-performance workplace Writing Anita Douglas & Doreen Yarnold

Illustration Adam Quest

Stress-resilient Workplaces

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t’s a fact that if we demand more and more output from the same resource, that resource will begin to falter. Machines, tools and equipment can all only perform to the level they are designed to withstand.

It’s written in the specifications. There are usually warning labels that advise what will happen if these levels are breached. There is also generally a hefty price tag attached to this equipment, and an even heavier price when parts need to be replaced – or worse – when the item itself needs to be replaced.

It is interesting that businesses don’t seem to pay nearly as much attention to their human resources, and the levels of pressure and stress they can withstand, as they do to their physical resources. That’s probably because people don’t come with a specification sheet or manual that explains where their physical, emotional and psychological limits are. There are no upfront warnings that give guidance as to what will happen if these limits are breached.

But just because these warnings don’t exist, doesn’t mean that the risks aren’t real. They are and, potentially, they can be very costly for businesses not attuned to the subject of stress in the workplace.

In 2016, a survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found that stress was the second most common cause of absence from work, with 47% of all absences being stress-related. It also estimated that absence from work costs a business an average of £660 per person, per year.

7 STEPS TO A STRESS-RESILIENT WORKPLACE

1

Ensure there are enough resources (time, money, staff, tools, equipment etc.) in place for people to succeed and do a great job.

2

Always maintain open lines of communication, making staff feel valued and involved. Keep them abreast of company developments and conduct regular appraisals and check-ins.

3

Where appropriate, make jobs flexible to help employees achieve a good work-life balance, but keep job specifications clear and defined.

4

After a period of absence, help people back into work by carrying out returnto-work interviews and, if appropriate, use occupational health services or employeeassistance programmes.

5

Promote healthy lifestyles by managing working hours, introducing wellness schemes such as gym memberships, and organising walking/running groups or nutritious-eating challenges.

6

Work with individuals to explore alternative interpretations of situations to minimise the stress response. For example, get them to focus on what they can control in a situation versus what they have no control over.

7

Explore with team members the concept of individual differences.

Often the stress response is triggered because people behave differently to our expectations. Learning to accept individual differences is at the heart of resilience.

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Healthy and unhealthy stress There is a difference between ‘healthy stress’ and ‘unhealthy stress’. It is critical that your business understands the difference if it is to avoid the pitfalls associated with stressed employees.

Unhealthy stress is where the demand for output (quality, volume of work, time to get work done, etc.) is not matched by available resources (time, money, number of people, tools, etc.). In this situation, staff may have a feeling of being overwhelmed by the demands being made of them, which in turn can lead to poor self-esteem and negative behaviours such as absence through sickness, bad attitudes towards work, and even resignation.

Healthy stress is mostly about feelings. It occurs when there is a challenge and a stretch that requires incremental effort and focus in order to achieve a goal. Healthy stress demands that a person ‘steps up’ and displays a certain amount of mental toughness and resilience to get a task done to the standard needed.

Stress in the workplace is fairly constant, and sometimes it can actually be positive. The exhilarating feeling of meeting a deadline or target under pressure can boost performance and team spirit. It is crucial, however, that a leader is able to identify at what point that stress turns negative and when an individual has passed that very fine line.

Business leaders and managers must create the right environment for peak performance – an environment where pressure enables focus and drive but doesn’t tip employees over the line. Leaders and managers must also be aware of which conditions create healthy stress and how to support people who may be feeling anxious or frustrated.

Stress indicators Signs of unhealthy stress in a team include changes in behaviour, a drop in performance and, of course, absence from work. Stress is different for each individual and people react to it in their own way. Knowing your teams and individuals is crucial. Managers don’t need a checklist to tick off the various symptoms, but ensure that their radar for such behaviours is permanently switched to ‘on’.

When we are invited into an organisation to tackle workplace stress, we don’t look for symptoms of stress and then simply roll out a cure. We find the root cause, and then take countermeasures to address it. This often includes helping the leaders to build a stress-resilient culture that is adequately resourced for what they are in business to achieve. We pass on strategies and techniques that build personal resilience and mental toughness to enable individuals to better deal with situations that could cause unhealthy stress.

Interpretation is the key. People are different and what one person finds stressful, another might describe as positive pressure that brings adrenaline. A manager has to be skilled enough to influence their people’s thinking so that perceptions of their situation or challenge are set in an accurate context. This, along with other coping techniques and tools, will build a resilience to workplace stress.

Anita Douglas and Doreen Yarnold are directors of Leading Results, a leadership and management development company. See www.leadingresults.co.uk

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Spotlight

Serious Illness

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Out of action The prospect of returning to work can be daunting for someone who has suffered a serious illness. How can leaders help?

Writing Sally Percy

T

he diagnosis of a serious and potentially life-ending illness is among the most devastating news that anyone can ever receive. What’s more, trying to beat a serious illness while keeping one foot in the workplace is one of the biggest challenges an employee can ever face, especially if they are off for an extended period of time. That challenge becomes infinitely greater if the employee is not well supported by his or her manager.

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Discrimination at work Jackie Archer*, a project manager within the NHS, was working for an unsympathetic manager when she was diagnosed with a rare form of bowel cancer in 2010. She suffered terrible pain as a result of her chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments, and struggled to get up and down stairs. She took six months of sick leave in order to recover, a decision that prompted her manager to accuse her of “stringing it out”.

Archer had a phased return that took place over three months and she gradually progressed to working full-time again. The exhaustion she felt was similar to having a new baby, she says. Matters were not improved by the frostiness of her manager, who undermined her at every opportunity. “I think she felt I had let her down,” Archer explains. “I was a pretty good wingman for her – I made sure she had all the papers she needed in meetings and suddenly she lost that.

She was really angry. You would have thought I

LET THE PERSON SET THEIR OWN PACE AND DICTATE THE SUPPORT THEY NEED

had gone off for a cruise for six months without her permission.”

Archer was excluded from meetings and had to check in with her manager as soon as she arrived at the office each morning. Prior to her illness, she had managed two staff members, but they reported in to someone else while she was away and never reverted to being her line reports. She was also denied the chance to lead a project because her health meant she couldn’t commit to the 40-50 hours a week that the role would require.

“My job became more and more administrative,” Archer recalls. “My manager was trying to push me out. It was bad enough that I had been sick, but to be treated like that was adding insult to injury.”

Ironically, the situation only improved for Archer when her manager was herself diagnosed with breast cancer and took a year off work.

Then Archer landed a promotion and moved to a different department. She believes that her manager got away with mistreating her because when she returned to work, she didn’t look like someone who had been seriously ill. “Just because someone looks OK on the surface, don’t assume that there are no problems underneath,” is her advice to leaders.

The cancer journey Brian Wright, a volunteer with the Macmillan Cancer Support Work and Cancer programme, concurs with this point. In this role, he gives talks to employers on how they can support staff who are on the cancer journey – and it’s a

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topic he has first-hand experience of. He himself was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2005, when he was the director of a Doncaster-based engineering firm.

Wright is clear that employers should recognise that the affected individual is going through a life-changing experience from the moment cancer is diagnosed. “The person across the desk who has had the diagnosis is not the same person they were pre-diagnosis,” he says. “They may have changed emotionally, mentally and psychologically. In future, they may change physically as well. Let the person set their own pace and dictate the support they need.”

Good communication should exist between the sick person and employer throughout the whole cancer journey, from diagnosis and treatment through to recovery and a staged return to work. Wright suggests that the diagnosed individual could be offered a weekly telephone call with their manager while they are away, as well as a colleague to buddy up with once they are back. Some people may prefer to tell their colleagues about their diagnosis themselves, he

300,000 PEOPLE LEAVE THEIR JOBS EVERY YEAR DUE TO LONGTERM MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS

explains, while others would rather their manager did it.

Cancer is classed as a disability under the 2010 Equality Act, so sufferers have the right to ask for time off to attend hospital appointments and to request flexible working. Employers are also expected to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to accommodate an individual’s disability. This might include practical measures, such as changing the floor that someone works on so they don’t need to climb stairs, as well as allowing that person to work reduced hours and changing their performance targets. Someone who has been seriously ill needs “all the help they can get” from their organisation, emphasises Wright.

Recovery from breakdown Interestingly though, it is not physical but mental conditions that are most likely to prevent people from returning to work after a long-term illness.

The UK government’s Thriving at Work review, published in 2017, found that the number of people forced to stop work as a result of mental

WHEN THE LEADER ISN’T COPING

THERE WERE DAYS WHEN I COULD HARDLY GET OUT OF BED Martin Enault

In October 2017, António Horta-Osório, chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group, described his near-escape from a nervous breakdown in an interview with The Times. “I felt I was Superman, that I could do it all,” he told the newspaper. “The less sleep and the more work, the better.” In reality, he was cracking under the pressure of trying to turn round the ailing banking group’s fortunes. The upshot was that he spent nine days in the Priory clinic, recovering from chronic insomnia, amid speculation that his career at Lloyds was over. Determined to defy his critics, he managed to resume his high-flying role at Lloyds, while simultaneously overhauling his lifestyle and diet.

Returning to work after you’ve suffered from a serious mental illness requires a huge amount of bravery, as Martin Enault knows.

Enault, chief operating officer of Montreal-based events company C2 International, has suffered anxiety, depression and panic attacks since he was a child. “For many weeks of my life there were days when I could hardly get out of bed,” he says. “And there were phases when I had to take a couple of months off entirely because I couldn’t function as a normal human being.”

Today, Enault is on a mission to raise awareness about mental health, which is why he is also president of Revivre, a Canadian not-for-profit organisation that helps people living with anxiety, depressive or bipolar disorders. His advice for leaders who think they are teetering on the brink is this: “Take a day or two over the weekend to clear your mind, disconnect from the world and look clearly at what you are doing. If you feel overwhelmed, it means there is something wrong that you need to address.” He adds that leaders should not see mental illness as a sign of weakness. “So many people suffer from it these days,” he says. “It’s no longer something to be ashamed of.”

Serious Illness

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SERIOUS ILLNESS AND SELF-EMPLOYMENT

I TRY TO TAKE A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO LIFE Mary Huckle

issues was 50% higher than for those with physical health conditions. Indeed, around 300,000 people leave their jobs every year due to long-term mental health problems.

For people who have suffered from mental illness, rather than physical illness, the process of returning to work reflects “a return to a sense of normality, which can enhance wellbeing, selfesteem and social acceptance”, explains Shainaz Firfiray, associate professor of organisation and human resource management at Warwick Business School.

In this situation, she says managers should adopt a “sensitive approach” to returning employees and show a willingness to listen to the employee’s concerns. They should recognise that their behaviour can occasionally cause additional stress to employees and be careful not to lose patience with an employee when things get difficult. “In particular, they should avoid displaying intimidating behaviours that may make the employee feel like a nuisance,” she warns.

Good practice Some leaders are already setting a good example when it comes to supporting staff members who have been off sick for an extended period of time. Michael Foote, founder of insurance comparison website Quote Goat, had a positive experience of returning to work in the security services division of HSBC after he was struck down by glandular fever in 2012. In total, he

Sue Rizzello had been running her own she has been clear of cancer for five marketing agency for ten years when years, she continues to have hangovers she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. from her illness, including pain that “I was put out of action very fast and she has to manage. The demands of the symptoms galloped,” she says. “I running a business also intrude on her did very little work for 18 months, but health. “As a self-employed person I did try to keep my clients happy.” or business owner, you work yourself Following the diagnosis, Rizzello closed into the ground,” she says. “I still work her office and her two employees around the clock and at weekends. I’m moved onto a freelance basis. She conscious that it’s not very good for used them and other contractors to me, but I do it.” serve her regular clients Mary Huckle is a while she was off. self-employed personal Although she trainer based in Enfield, managed to keep her north London. After business ticking over beating cancer once, while she was ill, Rizzello she is now living with struggled to get back to secondary breast cancer full speed once she was that she manages with better. “Returning to medication. Despite work as your own boss is feeling fatigued, she very difficult,” she says. keeps working because “I had to think about her job distracts her how I would restart RETURNING TO and helps her to stay revenues and prove positive. “There’s not WORK AS YOUR one day that passes to clients that I would be dependable going OWN BOSS IS when I don’t think about forwards and wasn’t the breast cancer,” she VERY DIFFICULT says. “But I try to take a on the verge of dying on them.” She also had Sue Rizzello holistic approach to life.” to juggle immoveable She works with a lot hospital check-ups and scans with her of other women who have suffered client commitments. from breast cancer and notes that Today, Rizzello is managing people who are self-employed are director of two businesses – business much likelier to return to work quicker success consultancy Success after treatment, and be much happier, Mechanics, and Remedy Marketing. than people who work for someone She is also a volunteer with cancer else. “I hear all the time that employers charity Target Ovarian Cancer are not very understanding, supportive (targetovariancancer.org.uk). While or considerate,” she says.

For more information on supporting people with cancer to get back to work, see the ‘Work and Cancer’ section of the Macmillan Cancer Support website: bit.ly/2B1OFX7

was off work for two months and was daunted by several aspects of returning to his role, including the commute to Canary Wharf and reintegrating with his colleagues.

Fortunately, his then manager, Jonathan Harker, helped to ease his transition. “He came up with a plan on how to get back to work without it being too stressful,” Foote explains. “He suggested I came back to work one day a week at first. It took a month to get up to five days. I was very lucky to be working for such an understanding employer and such an understanding team.”

Sally Percy is editor of ‘Edge’ *Name has been changed

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Clockwise from left Nomura’s office at One Angel Lane; the bright, open-plan workspace; healthy eating in the staff canteen; the on-site gym; and a pleasant green area for staff to relax in

Fitness focus The UK office of Japanese banking giant Nomura is officially Britain’s healthiest large workplace.

How did it land that accolade?

Writing David Crowley, Ian Edwards and Dario Pacioni

N

omura has always had health and wellbeing as part of its culture. In the past, however, we did not bring them together as a cohesive programme. We had an external gym provider, a healthcare service and a catering team that provided minimum ‘healthy’ options in our canteen, but we did not have a joined-up approach or health pathway.

That all changed in 2010, when we moved into our new offices at 1 Angel Lane in the City of London. We seized the opportunity presented by a move to new premises to design facilities that included a health centre and gym, and to develop a new health and wellbeing programme that would benefit our entire workforce.

THE OVERALL WELLBEING OF THE WORKFORCE STAYS HIGH AND PRODUCTIVITY IS BETTER

Today, our canteen is linked to an outdoor space. We have a green terrace with views over the Thames and the City, where employees can socialise, relax and take sunrise Pilates lessons.

Fresh organic produce is grown in our kitchen garden, which is tended by a group of volunteer gardeners. We have a ten-room, on-site medical facility, where a GP, nutritionist and other medical practitioners are based. These medical practitioners liaise with external support providers, such as professional counsellors and psychologists. We actively foster the development of religious and relationship groups, and have a dedicated multifaith area with rooms and wash facilities.

Prior to 2010, a staff member might go to our on-site GP and discover they had high cholesterol.

Then they would walk out of the room with a basic

Case Study Nomura

NOMURA HEALTH INITIATIVES In addition to the Blueprint, Nomura also offers programmes to support health and wellbeing. Here is a selection:

health plan. Now, however, that same employee can speak with the nutritionist, join a healthy weight programme, enjoy healthy options in our restaurant, begin follow-up monitoring with a nurse, and be given access to our fitness programme.

It is this kind of synergy that defines our approach to health and wellbeing. We are partnering with Nuffield Health to deliver on our strategy. Nomura even has its own Nuffield programme director, whose job it is to integrate the health and wellbeing programme into office life.

Nomura

Strategic priority The Nomura Healthy Blueprint is our game plan for a healthy workplace. It sets out our motives, goals, strategy and results. Revised every year, the

Beat the Chiefs – beat an executive’s minitriathlon time and raise money for charity. This combines leadership, exercise and fundraising.

12-week nutrition challenge – meet with the office nutritionist and make healthy food choices for 12 weeks. Accompanied by educational cooking classes.

Six walks in London – join a programme of guided City walks and network with colleagues while learning about London’s history. For employees who would not otherwise exercise.

Free weekly relaxation class – with monthly mental resilience workshops.

Employee Life and Families Network sessions – on topics such as parenting, managing stress and anxiety in children, solutions to bullying for children, and caring for elderly parents.

ABOUT NOMURA Nomura is an Asia-based global investment bank.

Founded in 1925, it employs 27,000 staff across 30 countries.

Nomura’s presence in London dates back to 1964, and its office in Angel Lane, London, holds more than 2,500 full-time staff.

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Blueprint is almost entirely driven by data. We collect and analyse data to see how our health and wellbeing facilities are being used, the most common health issues that our employees experience, and the kinds of treatment they need.

Data helps us to decide how much money we should allocate to the different services we offer. It is especially useful for comparing the reactive versus proactive use of our facilities, so we can work out what more we can do to alleviate the major health problems people have. If we can help employees take care of themselves pre-emptively, then the overall wellbeing of the workforce stays high and productivity is better.

Our health and wellbeing facilities see a footfall of about 1,000 people every month, both for proactive and reactive care. Since 67% of our staff use Nomura’s on-site general practitioner, our facilities save individuals time and the organisation money. They also reduce the burden on the National Health Service. Someone can be seen, treated and back at their desk within 20 minutes.

Higher, better, stronger Work shouldn’t make anyone ill. At Nomura, we want to offer our employees the chance to improve their lives through being at work. Of course, we benefit from our wellbeing programme as well, because it helps us to attract and retain some of the UK’s greatest talent and maintain an engaged, happy and productive workforce. That’s the main reason for the Blueprint, and for our work with Nuffield Health.

A meaningful achievement for us is that in 2016 Nomura’s health check-up service identified 130 health issues, including two early-stage cancers. We were able to help people identify their health problems promptly, provide treatment, offer support and get them back to good health and work.

We are fortunate that we have won many awards for our wellbeing programme, including the Large Workplace category of the 2017 Britain’s Healthiest Workplace Awards, developed by VitalityHealth in partnership with HR consultancy Mercer, research institute Rand Europe, and the University of Cambridge. But awards are meaningless unless we use them as a benchmark to improve standards year-on-year.

We are always pushing the boundaries of our plans and of our Blueprint. Nomura’s commitment to health and wellbeing is not a passing fancy. It is here for the long term.

David Crowley is health, safety and environmental manager at Nomura; Ian Edwards is Nuffield programme director at Nomura Health & Fitness; and Dario Pacioni is EMEA benefits manager at Nomura

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SETTING THE LEADERSHIP AGENDA 42 Find your True Self Spirituality matters in our irreligious world

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46 Belief systems How to manage your self-doubt

eaders, by definition, must have followers. But among professionals it is not as simple as that.

For a start, many professionals have no ambition to become leaders, and they are equally reluctant to see themselves as followers.

What professionals really want is autonomy from control by others. In theory at least, this autonomy is justified by their need to make choices about how to apply their specialist technical expertise to the delivery of customised services to their clients. This is perpetuated by the fact that technical knowledge, client relationships and reputation are often proprietary to specific professionals.

In a professional firm, executives are typically elected by their peers to leadership positions and can be deposed at any time – meaning that their authority is highly contingent. As a result, senior executives can only lead by consensus and need to be aware of the power structures and shifting networks of influence among their colleagues.

Here it is useful to draw on an idea that is a subject of interest among leadership scholars: ‘plural’ leadership. From this perspective, leadership is not necessarily something an individual does, or a quality they possess, but is a process of interaction among organisational members seeking to influence each other.

During my research, I developed the concept of ‘the leadership constellation’ to express an organisation’s informal power structure and understand how these processes of interaction and influence work.

The individuals who comprise the leadership constellation do not form a leadership team in any explicit sense, because the constellation as a whole has no overt identity within the organisation. Some

48 Leadership for beginners Discover the shortcuts to success

The hidden dynamics In professional services, senior executives lead by consensus By

Laura Empson

50 Charity trustee A stepping stone to a board-level role

people see themselves as leaders because they have important-sounding titles, but may not be part of the leadership constellation because they are not recognised as leaders by their colleagues. Similarly, individuals may be part of the leadership constellation without having a formal title. Typically, the key elements of the leadership constellation are: Leadership dyad: Managing partner and senior partner, or chair and chief executive, or some hybrid of these terms. Heads of major businesses, these professionals are in charge of the most important client-facing areas.

Senior management professionals: These may include the chief operating officer and other directors of business functions, such as finance, HR management and marketing.

Key influencers: These individuals may have no formal leadership role, but have considerable informal power, derived from their client relationships, valuable technical knowledge and strong reputations.

The concept of the leadership constellation has important implications for leaders in professional services, for those who wish to become leaders, and for those who wish to exert influence on leaders. It is important to work out who is part of the leadership constellation, and how they relate to each other. It is particularly important to distinguish between those who think they matter, and those who actually do, if you do not wish to fall foul of the hidden power dynamics at play within your organisation.

Laura Empson is professor in the management of professional service firms at Cass Business School, London; director of the Cass Centre for Professional Service Firms; and senior research fellow at Harvard Law School's Center on the Legal Profession. Her latest book is ‘Leading Professionals: Power, Politics, and Prima Donnas’

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Finding your True Self Spirituality is an important part of leadership, even in our irreligious world Writing Jeff Matthews & Rev Stephen Winter

Illustration Stephen Collins

Spirituality

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here was a time, long ago, when leadership meant religious leadership and the organisation of religious communities. Indeed, much of Western bureaucracy is based upon the models bequeathed by the major churches. Although we retain many of these structures, we moderns seem to have ditched the religious ‘world view’ they supported. Nevertheless, while many do not go to church, survey data suggests that a majority of us self-identify in some way as ‘spiritual’, without knowing or agreeing quite what that means. Our purpose here is to argue why those engaged in leadership development – both their own and others – need to consider the spiritual dimension in their work. We offer some language, a model and a challenge.

In the pursuit of paid work, we see a quest for personal meaning beyond achieving return on capital employed, satisfying clients or making a personal material gain. Often this need is disguised through terms such as ‘time management’ or ‘life/ work balance’, and in development themes such as ‘personal resilience’. The philosopher Charles Taylor expressed this yearning succinctly, saying: “We all see our lives, and/or the space wherein we live our lives, as having a certain moral/spiritual shape. Somewhere … lies a fullness, a richness; that is, in that place … where life is fuller, richer, deeper, more worthwhile, more admirable, more what it should be. This is perhaps a place of power: we often experience this as deeply moving or inspiring.”

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Or as French philosopher and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin put it: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

In its 2012 report Spiritualise, the RSA (Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) took this dimension of organisational life seriously and argued that in overlooking the spiritual, we may be missing a significant aspect of the human condition. We are surely more than just our job titles, cars and professional qualifications.

What is spirituality?

The first challenge for any leader wishing to embrace a notion of spirituality is the confused meaning of the word. Often enmeshed with organised religion, blurred with the concept of wellbeing or collapsed into moral and ethical debates, it can be challenging to know exactly what it is we are talking about. The RSA suggests that “within organisations of all kinds the spiritual deepens our vision of intrinsic motivation and gives structure and texture to human development and maturation”.

So what if we were to accept the proposition of transpersonal coaching expert Ken Wilber, that “we are all on a form of psycho–spiritual journey (whether we know it or not)”? If this means the serious pursuit of spiritual maturity, what implications would that have for personal and professional development plans (PDPs)? If PDPs focused on ‘spiritual maturity’, what would that look like and what would be the benefit?

At first glance, engaging in anything that might be described as a ‘spiritual discipline’ can conjure up images of sackcloth and ashes, of confession and penance. Yet a second, longer look at what such practices might entail reveals ideas you may have seen before, and some that could be refreshingly new. These disciplines might include:

AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP? THE SPIRITUAL CHALLENGE Not created, but encountered

2 The exploration of the relationship of self – other.

2 Our relationship with the Total (or the divine, if you’d rather, but not necessarily).

2 The daily Ignatian exhortation to ‘do the inner work’, called the ‘examen’.

2 Staying true to who we are.

Idealised Self: What is expected of me, ideally 2 Formally defined role status 2 Stakeholder expectations 2 Mine and other people’s hopes, and what they imagine about me

ROLE SELF

IDEALISED SELF

This enables me to do my work and other life tasks

The basic story I tell about myself to others and myself

Of the disciplines listed, we would like to expand upon the notion of ‘staying true to who we are’. Are we simply expanding on that famous dictum of leadership development, ‘know thyself ’?

Well, yes, and we point to an argument based on ancient wisdoms from all traditions, of a life journey of two parts. We think you will be very familiar with the first; perhaps less so the second.

It is this second part we see as the wisdom that can be drawn from spiritual thinkers, which could be crucial to developing an authentic leadership style.

Self-construction

2 The foundational role of regular reflection and contemplation (aka mindfulness, meditation or centring prayer, depending on your tradition).

2 The use of retreats from daily life.

TRUE SELF

Role Self: My role in practice 2 What actually happens 2 The pragmatic, the real 2 The system pressures that mean other things happen

WE SPEND MORE ENERGY ON CONSTRUCTING A SELF THAN ON ANY OTHER TASK

Alone among all creatures, we humans have the capacity to construct a self, and we spend more energy on trying to achieve this than on any other task. In fact, the nature of our relationship with work, and achieving success in our careers, demands that we do it and do it well. The mystics, and great spiritual thinkers of the last four millennia challenge us to become our True Self. Not only do they believe that such a thing is possible, they also believe that there comes a time where this task becomes necessary; indeed the very point of life itself.

If the first half of life required us to construct a self that would enable us to navigate that part of

Spirituality

life successfully, then the second half of life would have a different task: to enable us to grow into our True Self. The 20th-century thinker, writer and Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, is credited with reintroducing this idea to the West. The torch continues to be carried by Franciscan friar Richard Rohr, among others. Our proposition is that traditional PDPs are concerned with the first journey.

We have seen few concerned with the second.

We propose a model based on a triangle [see diagram left], starting with two points developed in the first half of life. We have labelled these Role Self and Idealised Self. Their construction is necessary in our journey to early adulthood and we do not want to say these constructed selves are intrinsically ‘bad’. We need clear ego boundaries at this point in our life journey, and a person who has not done the boundary work will find it hard to go on to find the True Self.

We need a strong Role Self in order to function effectively in the world. It gives us confidence in our ability to fulfil a particular role and it tells others that they can entrust that role to us. Our Idealised Self is the bigger story that we tell about ourselves. It is our attempt to tell the best story we can. Again, this is necessary work. A strong Idealised Self enables us to give our best both to ourselves and to those around us.

Well-constructed Role and Idealised Selves are necessary. Yet they lead to the creation of a False Self that is revealed when we over-identify with the work we have done – when we become our role or our work. There is a simple test that enables us to know if we have fallen into that trap.

It comes when someone challenges the self we have constructed. If we find ourselves using all our

THE TRUE SELF NEEDS NO DEFENCE, BECAUSE IT IS ALWAYS IN THE FLOW

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energy to defend that self, then we can know it has become false.

This is a step and a journey that we have to take for ourselves, often unwillingly and involuntarily. Many get stuck here. Life will ping us into the painful death of the False Self. It could be redundancy, or another major life event, such as illness, the death of someone close or another ‘signal’. As you contemplate such a change, we think you may need some guides. Of the people we know, we would highly recommend practitioners such as Richard Rohr, Cynthia Bourgeault and Bill Plotkin; thinkers such as Thomas Keating, Ken Wilber and Thomas Merton; and the lyrical John O’Donohue to express what can be difficult to say.

Their work points to the second part of the journey, represented on the triangle by the apex, the point to which we hope to move. To paraphrase O’Donohue, this is the place where we have learned to trust in the surprise of the river’s unfolding, the flow that is our True Self.

The model we offer here does not claim to bring someone to an absolute answer. Indeed, the Buddha taught that the True Self is always changing, because the world we inhabit is in continual flux. We are backing the Greek philosopher Heraclitus (“You can’t step into the same river twice”) rather than his compatriot Plato here.

We can perhaps begin to see how the spiritual can offer a language somewhat beyond key performance indicators and competences. Indeed, as a particular language game, much of the value of ‘the spiritual’ is precisely that it allows us to talk about what it means to be fully human, and therefore say things that may otherwise be difficult to say, without it being ‘therapy’.

The True Self needs no defence, because it is always in the flow, always moving on, always open to and curious about what lies ahead, and so it does not need defending. And so, the task is not to knock down all that we have laboured hard to build, but to invite the naming of those selves that we have created; honour them, thank them for the work they have done for us thus far in life’s journey, and move on.

Past and current spiritual thinkers set out the challenge clearly: what does it mean to lead, and to be fully human? Are you ready to rise to the challenge?

Jeff Matthews has been a coach and developer of leaders for over 25 years. He has a passionate interest in supporting new ways of thinking and engaging with the leadership challenges we face. Rev Stephen Winter has held various responsibilities within the Church of England since 1988.

Since 2011 he has worked as a freelance priest, with a focus on accompanying people on their spiritual journey. The authors are developing retreats to explore the connection between spirituality and leadership. To find out more, contact jeff@the-madison-group.co.uk

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Self-belief

Fight the fear How can leaders manage their own self-doubt so that they motivate and inspire their teams?

Writing

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elf-belief and self-doubt are part of every adult’s experience. Yet, as young children, we don’t have either – we just do what we want, and if we fail, we try again. Our concept of ‘self’ starts to form as we develop a map of the world, along with an understanding of other people. That’s also when we start listening to others. Specifically, we listen to our parents and teachers when they tell us what we can and can’t do. “Go on, you can do it!” or “Get down from there before you fall off!” are expressions of our parents’ limitations and fears, not ours.

From them we learn boundaries that constrain our actions for the rest of our lives. The challenge, as

Paul Boross

THE ONLY WAY TO DEAL WITH FAILURE IS TO GET UP AND KEEP GOING

we get older and create our own lives, is to recognise and overcome those limitations. As adults, we are capable of anything. Actually, as children we were, too – but our parents were afraid to find out.

When you get up in the morning, do you feel confident? Do you brush your teeth with confidence? Do you make your breakfast with confidence? If not, what’s the first point in your day when you become aware of the issue of confidence?

I’m guessing it’s the moment when something happens to knock your confidence, and from that moment on, you begin to question yourself. Maybe you also feel less confident about doing things you’ve never done before, or things where there seems to be a higher risk of failure? If you stop and think about it, are these events somehow linked to

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CASE STUDY Lessons from School of Hard Knocks The Sky TV series, School of Hard Knocks, takes the game of rugby to disadvantaged young men all over the UK. In each series, the same patterns and stories play out – they were born on the wrong side of the tracks, dropped out of school, fell in with the wrong crowd and made too many mistakes to turn back.

Sammy Green is one of the young men who turned his life around through rugby. He says: “It’s not just rugby; it’s life. You can change whatever you want to do in your life. The amazing thing is how quickly you can change it, just like that, with the click of a finger. If you stay positive and stay strong, the future is bright.”

You might think you can’t change your approach because you don’t have the opportunity to do so, but successful leaders know that everyone has to create their own opportunities.

Mark Prince, a former boxing champion, tragically lost his son to knife crime, and became a campaigner for knife safety. He says: “Life can bang you up. What are you going to do? Are you going to throw in the towel? Are you going cut your wrists?

Are you going to drink yourself into a stupor? You need to remember that you’re still living, you’ve still got life. If I can do it, then anybody can.”

Rugby can teach a valuable lesson about self-worth

your childhood experiences? Do you find yourself avoiding the kinds of risks that would remind you of childhood embarrassments or failures?

Sky / SOHK Charity

The parent figure at work As a manager or leader, you are a parent figure to your teams. If you’re not careful, you will instil your fears in them, as your parents accidentally did with you, by making these sorts of comments: “Do you want someone more experienced to do the client pitch?”

“Don’t worry if you can’t finish the report, I know it’s complicated.”

“Let Fred change the printer cartridge; you might break it.”

You might cringe if you’ve ever said such things, but don’t worry. Your heart was probably in the right place, because you were trying to save your team members from their own potential failures. This is one of the greatest challenges you face as a leader, because in order to free your team to achieve their potential, you first have to accept your own potential. Self-help experts talk so much about unlocking your potential, you might think that’s a good thing, but to live outside your comfort zone is actually quite stressful. You’ve spent a lifetime knowing what’s safe, so the last thing you want is to be told that you can actually achieve anything

LEADING ON THE PITCH Scott Quinnell and Paul Boross (above) shared their insights on inspirational leadership in a webinar for the Institute of Leadership & Management. To hear the webinar, and the accompanying Q&A, visit: bit.ly/2iRdnly

In a game of rugby, it often looks like the players on opposing sides are out for blood. If players lack respect for their opposite numbers, however, they will fall into the trap of underestimating them, which gives their opponents a clear advantage. Always assume your opponents are better than you, and that playing them will give you an opportunity to improve. We can’t learn anything from playing within our comfort zone, and of course, I’m not just talking about rugby, I’m talking about any competitive situation in life. When you respect your opponents, you are respecting yourself.

you put your mind to. For a start, if you suddenly believed that, you’d no longer have any excuse for all the things you’ve been avoiding.

Successful leaders are not people who magically rise above these barriers and criticisms. They don’t have superhuman powers or a special gift that they were born with. Winners are regular people, just like you, who have learned the only way to deal with failure is to get up and keep going.

Like everyone, you have hopes for the future and you have great ideas. The only difference is whether you do anything with those ideas or not.

If you put time and energy into your hopes and dreams, you will fail, most of the time. Fear of failure will make you stop, go home and hide from the risks that could actually bring you everything you dream of. And as a leader, you won’t even be aware of how you are passing those fears on to your team. If you want to learn how to inspire and motivate them, the answer is simple: stop holding them back.

If there’s one thing that really makes someone a success, it’s this: no one said they could fail.

Paul Boross is The Pitch Doctor, an internationally recognised authority on communication, presentation, performance and ‘the art and science of persuasion’. He is resident team psychologist on the Sky TV series ‘School of Hard Knocks’ and a published author. His new book, ‘Leader On The Pitch’, is co-authored with rugby legend Scott Quinnell

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Leadership for beginners Some simple shortcuts can help you to prepare for a senior role Writing Eve Poole

A

s Unilever chief executive Paul Polman says, becoming a true leader is an acquired skill. That means leaders are made, not born. Their leadership is wrought in the fires of their experiences. They learn from real life, and the scars show, like the rings in a tree trunk. So what can we learn from the masters about how to get job-ready, to avoid having to learn leadership in the spotlight, when fate comes knocking?

In legend, the wizard Merlin prepares King Arthur for leadership by turning him into various animals, such as a fish and a hawk, to teach him lessons he will need for the future. Merlin, of course, already knows the future because he is living his life backwards.

Certainly, 20:20 foresight would make the business of leading rather more straightforward. So can we abstract this idea from mythology, and bring it to life for modern-day leaders?

Fishes and hawks At Ashridge, we asked board-level leaders what the modern-day business equivalents were of Merlin’s fishes

Job-readiness

and hawks. We asked them what they knew now about themselves as leaders that they wished they had known ten years ago. Their responses allowed us to identify the 17 ‘critical incidents’ that had most shaped them as leaders (see list, right).

Of course, events that will become the hallmarks of your leadership will take place in a context and intensity that are particular to your role and sector. But any leader who has mastered this list can feel confident. The incidents listed act a bit like the military’s ‘standard operating procedures’ – by practising the predictable, so that routine tasks become automatic, the leader buys themselves the spare mental capacity they need to deal with the unexpected.

It really is about practice, and we probably didn’t need Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘10,000 hours’ hypothesis to tell us that. But few leaders have this kind of time on their hands. So what are the shortcuts?

The first step is to assess yourself against the 17 critical incidents. Hand on heart, how many of these can you do with ease and confidence, both in business-as-usual situations and when the pressure is on? Or perhaps there are some that you have had good experience of in another context, but have yet to test in your current environment?

You could use a red-amber-green code to score yourself. From the list, identify two or three where more practice would make you feel more resourceful in the future.

Next, decide how to schedule in some practice. Usually, there will already be something in your diary that you are dreading because it involves one of these challenges. Deciding to use a regular diary entry as an opportunity to hone your craft will have the side-effect of making you feel more in control of your time, and make you more resourceful about using second-order activities as opportunities for valuable practice. For instance, the critical incident about ‘joining the dots’ relates to how well you understand the way various parts of your organisation fit together. Could you offer to deputise for your boss at a company-wide meeting? Could you arrange to job-shadow someone in another department for a day? Or could you volunteer for an internal project that means you have to work in inter-departmental teams?

Shutterstock

Get your heart racing Next: dial up the pressure. When we conducted a set of neurobiological experiments on people practising critical incidents at Ashridge, our data revealed a correlation between increased heart rate and increased learning. This is because the brain prioritises memories that are acquired under pressure: you literally learn faster and acquire deeper memories when your emotions get involved. But

CHANNEL SURFING One of the most common challenges leaders face is finding the time to listen well. But if you listen to staff, it makes them feel noticed. You can improve your skill and focus by listening on all three of these ‘channels’: 1 Facts – hoovering up the data and reflecting it back as accurately as you can, without notes.

2 Emotions – spotting tone, inflection and body language, and playing it back to test understanding.

3 Intuition – accessing your ‘sixth sense’ about what you’re hearing – images, notions, metaphors etc.

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THE 17 CRITICAL INCIDENTS

1

Stepping up

2

Taking key decisions

3

Coping with increasing change

4

Managing ambiguity

12

Delegating to, and empowering, staff

13

5 6

Listening to staff

7

Knowing when to seek help and advice

8

Giving and taking feedback

Taking a risk Accepting when you get it wrong Key board/stakeholder meeting

9

Joining the dots

THE BRAIN PRIORITISES MEMORIES THAT ARE ACQUIRED UNDER PRESSURE

11

Flexing style

Dealing with poor performance

Doing the maths

Try this in your next meeting. ‘Channel surfing’ will stop your mind from wandering. If you listen well, staff will feel that their opinions count, which boosts employee engagement.

10

Motivating and influencing others

14 15 16 17

Work-life balance

pressure can be risky, so calibrate carefully. Some people enjoy public speaking, while for others it brings on a panic attack. Choose the right pressure for you. Our research showed that feeling observed is often enough to raise your heart rate, and you can achieve this either by pre-arranging for a colleague to observe you and give feedback, or by recording yourself in action for subsequent review.

Finally, reflection. How did you do, and where is the next stretch for you? You may want to ask your own senior leaders what they wish they had known ten years ago, so you can tailor the list of critical incidents more exactly to your context.

In essence, the building blocks of leadership are really quite simple; the dragon you need to slay is your own deftness in deploying them well, particularly under pressure.

Whatever you choose to practise, it will help build your confidence to lead in the future.

Tomorrow, you don’t need to be perfect, just better.

Eve Poole is adjunct faculty at Ashridge Executive Education and author of ‘Leadersmithing: Revealing the Trade Secrets of Leadership’

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All aboard Being a charity trustee is an excellent opportunity for leadership development Writing Ian Joseph

Above: The Alinafe group in Malawi receives agricultural maize loans from MicroLoan. This helps them to improve their food security. Opposite: Enala Banda featured in the MicroLoan BBC Lifeline appeal in 2015, when she was a new client. Since then she has been able to move from selling just fish and tomatoes to also having a second-hand clothes stall, which helps her to provide for and feed her family

AROUND ONE IN FIVE CHARITIES HAS A TRUSTEE VACANCY

than in a commercial organisation, enabling individuals to fast-track their leadership development and enhance their employability.

Charities gain, too, from having professionals with commercial experience. This can improve their skills and competencies, strengthen their governance and broaden their networks.

A host of opportunities There are approximately 167,000 charities in the UK, and around one in five has a trustee vacancy – so there is no shortage of opportunities for would-be trustees.

In the past couple of years, we have seen a growing interest in board-level volunteering from corporates that want to offer existing and future leaders an alternative, relevant and engaging professional development programme.

In partnership with the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), we have developed Step on Board, a board-level volunteering programme that helps employees from the private sector to become trustees and non-executives in charities and organisations with a social or environmental mission.

The programme focuses on preparing individuals for trusteeship. It helps find them a placement, then gets them ‘board-ready’, so they can contribute from day one. Businesses including Barclays bank, tech giant Google and law firm Mishcon de Reya have participated in the programme, along with many others. To date, more than 140 trustees have been recruited through Step on Board.

MicroLoan

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eveloping future leaders is an ongoing challenge for most organisations, since the skills and competencies of their leaders must continually adapt to the ever-changing business and economic environment.

According to Deloitte’s 2017 Global Human Capital Trends survey, 42% of companies believe that leadership development is very important.

Deloitte also highlights that there has been a radical shift in leadership since its 2015 survey and that leadership today is less about the ‘art’ of leadership and more about the challenges leaders face.

Many organisations are looking at new ways to develop existing and future leaders. Deloitte found that the percentage of companies with strong experiential leadership programmes rose from 47% in 2015 to 64% in 2017. It also found that formal training is the least valued investment for leadership development.

One growing trend in leadership development is companies encouraging senior employees to become charity trustees – an experience that will expose them to different working models, new people and fresh learning opportunities.

This alternative approach to leadership development can also help companies to fulfil their corporate social responsibility commitments.

For individuals, becoming a charity trustee offers a unique way to acquire new skills, make connections and see up-close how an organisation is run. For aspiring leaders, it can be a way to gain board-level experience at an earlier career stage

Trusteeships

CASE STUDY Lawyer Dina Shiloh, a partner at law firm Gallant Maxwell, completed the Step on Board programme at her former employer, Mishcon de Reya.

She is now a trustee at the MicroLoan Foundation, a charity that helps women in sub-Saharan Africa break the cycle of poverty by providing loans, training and support to help them set up their own businesses.

MicroLoan wanted to find a trustee with strong media skills to help raise its profile. Shiloh was selected because of her media experience, since she had previously worked as a print and radio journalist, and television producer. While the charity wasn’t specifically looking for legal experience, the fact Shiloh could help with legal issues was also useful.

Shiloh believes the MicroLoan Foundation was the right fit for her skills, experience and interests. She says: “I was looking for a charity

that supported women. I admire the charity’s work – enabling women in Africa to be entrepreneurial, set up their own businesses and improve their financial security. I also had some knowledge about microloans and liked the concept.”

Within a few months of joining the foundation, Shiloh visited Malawi to see the charity’s work in action. She has also supported charity fundraising events and advised the charity on legal issues, including data protection.

“I would recommend Step on Board to any professional considering becoming a trustee, especially younger people. It provides a solid introduction and understanding of the requirements of the role a trustee will play,” says Shiloh. “I don’t know of any other way for people in their early thirties to gain board experience so early in their career. It’s also very good for personal development.”

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A recent independent review of the programme highlighted that organisations are using Step on Board as a way to provide their employees with personal learning, growth and career enrichment opportunities, and to support their corporate social responsibility goals.

Those organisations that have participated all anticipate improvements in their leadership and talent development, competency development and staff engagement as a result. One participant told us: “It’s a ‘win-win-win’, where personal, organisational and community wellbeing combine.”

That participant also said that the breadth of challenges and experiences offered to trustees can foster different thinking, introduce diverse ways of working and expose them to “a healthy dose of governance”.

For experienced senior managers with limited board experience, a trustee placement requires them to get to grips with a new environment that involves different colleagues and service users, as well as complex challenges.

Andy Challis, head of electronic distribution and strategic investments at Barclays Investment, was one of the first candidates to complete the Barclays Board Placement Programme.

He joined UK children’s charity Dreams Come True in 2015 and learned a great deal from becoming a trustee for the first time. He argues that it is easy to sit on a board in the commercial sector and issue challenges without offering a positive alternative. Being a trustee, however, means challenging in a very constructive way and offering an alternative contribution – i.e. putting in some intellectual property.

Another senior executive who completed the programme and joined the charity First Story is Jane Clark, ex-group head of graduate resourcing and development at Barclays. She said the programme gave her the confidence, support and insight she needed to succeed and is encouraging other people to take up trustee positions, too.

Conclusion Companies are under pressure to develop a pipeline of leaders with the relevant skills and experience to succeed in today’s business environment.

Many are seeking practical and innovative ways to do this.

Board-level volunteering programmes can offer employees an experiential learning opportunity.

These develop their leadership skills in a supportive and potentially less risky and challenging environment than their official workplace, while enabling them to contribute to society in a meaningful and sustainable way.

Ian Joseph is chief executive of Trustees Unlimited and managing director of Russam GMS

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MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE 53 The authentic self Charisma as a means of workforce engagement

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umerous studies have shown that organisations with engaged employees outperform the competition, enjoy better growth trends and recover more quickly from tough economic trading periods. Many leaders are aware of the importance of engagement and are prepared to invest in processes to support this. They are oblivious to a powerful resource at their fingertips, however.

Mention the word ‘charisma’ to many leaders and their eyes glaze over as the stereotype perception of a booming, maverick extrovert with a propensity to show off, springs to mind. Many leaders believe that charisma is a gift bestowed on the lucky few, and you can’t learn it. Yet charisma is the ultimate influencing attribute – the powerhouse of persuasion – the turbocharge behind explosive growth.

Charisma is a tantalising corporate ‘must have’ for building high levels of engagement.

Charismatic leaders are capable of altering workforce attitudes, beliefs and motivation, making changes that are not easily implemented through conventional leadership approaches alone. Research by academics David De Cremer and Daan van Knippenberg, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, used scenario experiments, cross-sectional surveys and laboratory studies to prove that charismatic leaders have a stronger effect on cooperation and engagement. Charisma is a compelling quality that affects others on an emotional, cellular and energetic level. Engagement is an emotional, heart-centric response, requiring an emotional, heart-centric stimulus. You can’t engage people purely by implementing and measuring processes.

54 In pursuit of praise Five ways to deal with a narcissist

The authentic self Charisma is the ultimate tool for workforce engagement By

Nikki Owen

TRUE CHARISMA CANNOT BE TAUGHT, BUT IT IS WITHIN EVERYONE

56 Quest for creativity Independent thinking starts with refusal

Charismatic leaders communicate simultaneously on an emotional and an intellectual frequency – they engage the hearts and minds of the workforce. Heartfelt communication triggers serotonin and oxytocin – hormones that naturally increase empathy, positivity and trust. Charismatic leaders place more importance on ‘heart count’ rather than ‘head count’. Only when leaders engage with their own emotions will they start to engage with their workforce.

Because of their ability to connect emotionally, charismatic leaders exude high levels of energy that entrains the energy of others into cooperative alignment. Charismatic leaders create deep connections with others that reduce silo thinking and contribute to a culture of collaboration.

When a leader engages with their emotions, they are better positioned to connect with their innate charisma. But outdated views around how leaders ‘need to appear’ present a challenge to personal authenticity. Leaders who wear a mask of superficial behaviours dilute their charisma and anaesthetise their emotional awareness.

True charisma cannot be taught. If leaders ‘try’ to emulate the behaviour of another charismatic leader, they compromise their authenticity. But charisma is an attribute within everyone. Life’s challenges put protective layers onto individuals, much like paint. Year after year, more layers are added until the real authentic person is deeply buried. Paint becomes brittle over time, causing employees to judge ‘the paint’ as cold and indifferent.

If a leader finds the courage to reveal their authentic self, they reveal an emotional and more sensitive persona. In this moment they become more charismatic and significantly more engaging.

Nikki Owen is charisma expert at The Charisma Connection at Full Potential Group

Making it Happen

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In pursuit of praise Five ways to deal with a narcissist Writing Susanne Braun

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eople have set characteristics in mind when they think of leaders – confidence, charisma and the ability to influence others are just some. At the same time, these are common characteristics found in narcissists. This is one reason why a significant proportion of these individuals hold leadership roles in organisations, despite not necessarily being good leaders. In fact, narcissists often push these desirable characteristics too far, straying into overconfidence, selfishness and dominance. Typically acting in their own best interest at the expense of others, narcissistic bosses can negatively affect their organisation’s development.

Given the right tasks and circumstances, narcissists can actually be effective, however. And since statistics indicate that narcissism may be particularly prominent in young adults today, it is more important than ever for businesses to understand how to work with and manage narcissists to best effect. But how does one manage a narcissist?

Through my research into leadership, narcissism and their effects on productivity, I have uncovered five ways in which organisations, and the professionals within them, can rein in their narcissistic leaders.

1

Play to a narcissist’s strengths

Studies suggest that narcissist leaders appeal to others in initial interactions, but struggle to build long-term positive relationships due to their overconfidence and bullish ways. Narcissists are therefore best put to use in new business opportunities, attracting new parties and starting negotiations on the right path.

Their narcissistic tendencies make them obsessed with personal success, which can drive team sales and performance, positively affecting the organisation as a result.

Within areas such as entrepreneurship and future forecasting, narcissist leaders can be beneficial to corporate success.

Through their skills and striving, narcissists are likely to drive

People Management

organisational performance when it comes to setting corporate visions, finding future investments and driving new business opportunities.

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roles to outsiders. Performance-related reward systems that only recognise leaders who strive for profits above everything else and do not take into account other aspects of a leaders’ practice do little to encourage better behaviour.

What can be done instead?

Performance-related reward systems should be adapted to take into account all aspects of a leader’s practices, placing greater emphasis on how business is conducted, not just a leader’s results. Within their appraisals with seniors, narcissists can often charm others with their charismatic attributes, disregarding objective information and relying on social interaction to smooth over any areas of concern. So if an organisation offers performance-related incentives or promotions, it is important to not only carry out interviews, but also to assess performance by gaining the perspectives of peers and supervisors, and reviewing their approach to ethical practice before awarding greater responsibility or salaries.

Give narcissists their ‘stage to shine’

Though narcissists are typically seen as charismatic and confident, they are often insecure in themselves and their abilities, and depend on external affirmation and recognition for their efforts to feel valued. Narcissists need their ego fulfilling constantly, whether that be by the public or colleagues. Positive recognition encourages them to strive even harder for results and to receive greater external validation and recognition.

Studies show that narcissists often self-select into roles and careers where they will regularly receive this praise, so it is important for decision-makers to give them these roles where possible. Positions such as leading new marketing projects or business strategies enable them to take ownership of an initiative, giving them a stage to share their efforts with the wider team, and receive positive feedback that bolsters their fragile selves.

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Review performance and promotion systems

Since narcissistic leaders are often successful in driving up an organisation’s profits, they can appear to be highly competent in their

Teach the power of humility

In an ideal world, organisations should not let success overshadow their leader’s responsibilities, and should ensure they are held accountable for their wrongdoings and failures, even if they are still successfully driving profit. In practice, this does not always happen. If leaders consistently produce large profits and are deemed crucial to an organisation’s growth, they are often not challenged on their work, and are rewarded nonetheless. This should not be acceptable.

It is important to create more responsible, accountable leaders with solid values. Preparation for this must start early, at business schools and universities, and through internships, so that it becomes ingrained as common business behaviour. At Durham University Business School, we educate and foster the personal development of our students in the areas of ethics, responsibility and sustainability, helping them to understand the value of, and power in, humility.

Create clear ethical guidelines

Typically, narcissists lack empathy, remorse and concern for others, which can make it difficult for them to work in collaboration. When it comes to ethical and sustainable business contexts, narcissists can cause problems due to their self-centredness and focus on profits, especially because they often ignore the values of others in the pursuit of success.

We live in an age where a business’s reputation means as much as the service it provides.

To counter this, organisations need to create and enforce rules and boundaries for professional conduct. They also need to outline how they expect employees to communicate and work with each other, as well as with external partners. These behaviour guidelines should be implemented as early as possible, preferably at the hiring stage, to ensure candidates understand and agree with the company’s standards of leadership. Regular training of managers can further encourage good conduct, as can the possibility of rewards and even promotions based on the demonstration of desirable behaviours.

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NARCISSISTS NEED THEIR EGO FULFILLING CONSTANTLY

Businesses that manage their narcissistic leaders by playing to their strengths, holding them accountable, fulfilling their egos and creating ethical boundaries, can minimise their drawbacks, and maximise their positives.

Susanne Braun is professor in leadership at Durham University Business School. She is particularly interested in the bright sides and dark sides of leadership and how they affect productivity and wellbeing in organisations.

Susanne recently published a review of leader narcissism and outcomes in organisations in ‘Frontiers in Psychology’, available via: bit.ly/2jUpKih

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So, I said to this duck…

Creative thinking starts with refusal Writing Ian Gilbert

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here are many articles that promise to share with readers the secret of creativity – that elusive spark that so many seek, yet so few find. What they all miss, though, is one word, a word without which their ‘ten steps’, ‘seven habits’ and ‘you, too, can think like Steve Jobs/Leonardo da Vinci/Leonardo DiCaprio and unleash your inner primate/warrior/cheese’ strategies are ultimately doomed to flounder.

That word is refusal.

Before you can start to think like someone else, someone new, someone better, you have to do

more than just decide to be creative. You have to assiduously and unremittingly refuse to think like everyone else. Ever.

I could have started this article with a quote.

Some god of sport, industry or Athens. This acts to send the message that my message is as good as their message. Most people do this and there is nothing wrong with it, but ‘most people do…’ is the marker that says ‘Refuse. Now.’

Tear up the rules The very first time I ran a training session, I spent ages writing the sort of presentation I would have expected to receive had I had been in the

Making it Happen

Creativity

audience instead of on the stage. Then I realised something important.

I didn’t have to.

There are no rules apart from the ones in your head – which you don’t even know you know, let alone adhere to.

I ripped up my presentation and wrote the first phrase that came into my head: “So, I said to this duck…” That was the opening line to a training day that went rather well and I can be fairly sure that no one in the history of professional development before or since has opened in quite that way. It sure knocks the pants off “Without further ado…”, which seems to launch most sessions.

My organisation, Independent Thinking, runs with few rules and fewer actual employees. We are 20 years old and doing our bit to help schools to help young people around the world. Our unofficial motto is: “Do things no one does or do things everyone does in a way no one does.” It keeps us on our toes. It keeps us creative. It’s that refusal to do what others would do or think what others would think. It’s the same when I work with new authors.

In the first edit, new writers write in the style of the books they have read, so I must first get them to refuse to do this. “Write the book no one else could have written” is the golden rule I share with them for their first book. “Never write the same book twice” is my golden rule for their second.

company, I decided I would find the answer on my way back from work. Suddenly, there in front of me was an old Del-Boy-style Reliant Robin – ‘Trotters Independent Trading Co’ and all that. It wasn’t a huge leap for me to get to Independent Thinking from there.

Another post-refusal kicking-off point is to borrow Richard Branson’s shoes, or Steve Jobs’, or Sheryl Sandberg’s, or Picasso’s, or Beyoncé’s, or the shoes of anyone you feel would make a better job of what you have to do than you would. As soon as you ask yourself how they would do it, you find ideas in your head that you wouldn’t have found if you had been looking for them wearing your own shoes.

Neurologically-speaking, in order to create new habits – ‘templates’, as the neuroscientists call them – we need both to create new connections between brain cells and kill off existing ones, something we do by refusing to use the old patterns while at the same time choosing consciously to forge new ones. Going beyond first answers helps.

If I ask you to name a grey animal and you say “elephant”, then we have a right answer but zilch creativity. ‘Right’ answers are the death of creative thought, after all. If I say, name ten grey animals in 50 seconds, then something different takes place in your head and we’ll discover many more ‘right’ answers and surprise us both in the process.

If you have been paying attention, you will notice that great questions are at the heart of the creative process. You won’t get to great answers without even greater questions, and some of the best questions (‘thunks’, as I call them) have no answers anyway. This is what makes them great.

These ‘thunks’ enable you to look at the world in new ways and start to think – deeply and for yourself – about ordinary things in extraordinary ways. Does a dog mind what you stroke it with?

Is a broken-down car parked? Is there a safe way to die? Is it OK to bully a bully? Can you wash a hole? Should stupid people be allowed to vote?

These are all questions with no ‘right’ answers, but they encourage argument, debate and independent thought. In the process, they will rattle your existing templates in a way that ensures your thinking won’t be the same again.

And it all starts by saying no.

Let your creativity out of its box

BY CHOOSING AN ORIGINAL SET-OFF POINT, YOU CAN GUARANTEE YOUR JOURNEY WILL BE ORIGINAL

Next time you have to give a presentation, first refuse whatever came into your head. Refuse the picture you have of the standing ovation you will receive as you flash up your 100th and final slide. Refuse to be the copy of the copy of the copy. Then, and only then, let your creativity out of its box.

You can do this by thinking, as I did, of the first phrase or image that comes into your head.

You still may have to end at the same place but, by choosing an original set-off point, you can guarantee your journey – and the audience’s journey – will be original.

If the first thought in your head is that there are no thoughts in your head, look out of the window, or in the fridge, or pick up a book or magazine at random. “Seek and ye shall find” is one of the rules of independent thinking, after all. When I was trying to work out what to call my fledgling

Ian Gilbert is an educational innovator, founder of Independent Thinking, and author of ‘The Compleat Thunks Book’. www.independentthinking.co.uk

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Beyond Borders

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INTERNATIONAL INSIGHT AND BEST PRACTICE 59 Time to collaborate Advice for leaders on working with others

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ollaboration is one of the most widely misunderstood concepts in business today.

Senior executives frequently speak of wanting their organisations to be more collaborative. But what exactly does this mean?

The decision to collaborate should be a conscious one, made because the activity is important enough to warrant the investment of time and effort to share information and seek the input of others. Leaders who issue broad directives encouraging ‘everyone’ to collaborate don’t understand the fundamental nature of this activity.

An even greater misunderstanding stems from confusion between the concept of self-sacrifice, and sublimating oneself for some greater good, and collaboration.

Viewed correctly, collaboration is a powerful win-win. It should be the optimum route to achieving an objective that is beneficial to both the individuals and the organisation.

Beyond properly aligning incentives, leaders have two important and specific roles.

Collaborative leadership has both a strategic component, determining where beneficial collaboration might occur, and an operational component, making it easy for people to work together when relevant.

First, leaders must identify who needs to share information with whom, and for what type of outcome. My research has identified ten specific ‘collaborative intents’ that are often present in an organisation’s goals: Connecting ideas Co-creating products, services and experiences Engaging others in processes Tapping expertise or other resources Coordinating in time and place Distributing work, costs or risk Sensing trends, opportunities and threats

60 A yearning for yuan Doing business in China

Time to collaborate One of the most misunderstood concepts in business is explained By

Tamara Erickson

64 Distance learning Coaching entrepreneurs in Bangladesh

Pooling judgments Polling to gather input or determine group-wide preferences Developing consensus from multiple views Second, leaders need to make it easy for people to connect. Think of it like wiring your organisation for unconstrained information flow. The four most important conditions for leaders to establish are networks of trustbased relationships; track records of aligned leadership decisions; efficient processes and practices; and a cultural philosophy based on a community of adults.

Leaders can help individuals within their organisation build trust-based relationships, either by introducing these individuals or providing forums in which they are likely to meet. Leaders can also engineer relationships through conscious decisions around career paths and departmental transfers.

Aligned leadership decisions must include those related to promotions, followed by decisions around hiring. My research shows that compensation decisions do not drive collaboration, although poorly conceived incentives can inhibit it. Since collaboration requires time and energy, people are more inclined to invest if they feel the organisation is not unfairly demanding. Leaders should therefore ensure that their organisations are not overly bureaucratic.

Finally, my research shows that organisations that are less paternalistic are more likely to have successful collaboration. Collaboration fundamentally depends on an individual’s discretionary judgment. If the organisation signals a lack of trust in individuals, they are less likely to exercise that judgment for a range of discretionary activities, including collaboration.

Tamara Erickson is a McKinsey Awardwinning author and an adjunct professor of organisational behaviour at London Business School. Contact her at terickson@london.edu

Beyond Borders

China

Lucky for some China is a land of opportunity that draws in Western entrepreneurs. But what are the challenges of doing business in the world’s second-largest economy?

Writing Keith Crane

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t’s a simple equation, and a persuasive proposition: “One yuan for every Chinese person, and I’ll be happy.”

This maxim has probably drawn tens of thousands of people from the West to the world’s most populous country as it has opened up over the last 35 years. But what does it really take to run a successful business in China?

Shenzhen, the southern boomtown city, was the first place to welcome foreign businesses, under the leadership of then-president Deng Xiaoping. He turned a small fishing village into a vast metropolis inhabited by some 15 to 20 million people. It is now home to some of the biggest Chinese brand names that are best known in the West, such as smartphone maker Huawei and electric vehicle maker BYD. Many Westerners also choose to start up in business here, because of its business-friendly openness, ready labour market and proximity to Hong Kong. Shenzhen’s northern suburbs, and neighbouring city, Dongguan, are home to the factories – mostly just dull, grey, square anonymous buildings – that churn out, around the clock, all the electronics and much more that we use in our daily lives.

The Great Firewall of China Shenzhen is where US citizen Michael Michelini is based. He first came to Asia in 2007 to source goods from Chinese factories. Today he runs the website globalfromasia.com, which oils the wheels of those entrepreneurs who seek to follow him.

Set up in October 2013, it started as a podcast on internet marketing. “Now we help people establish companies in Hong Kong and China, set up cross-border matchmaking events and broadcast interviews with top CEOs,” he explains.

While China’s past double-digit growth has now slowed as the demands of tackling environmental problems take their toll, Michelini warns that something more sinister and ominous is afoot for foreigners doing business in China. “Sure it wants and welcomes overseas investment,” he says. “But the online world is becoming evermore insular. It’s impossible to navigate. People are on WeChat [China’s equivalent to Facebook and Twitter] but you can’t see their profiles, which makes it hard to find the people you need to do business with.”

He adds: “Everything on the internet is blocked, and nothing is connected to the outside

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Beyond Borders

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world. The tools and systems are different, and Chinese people are all within those systems. In the West, people can look on Facebook and LinkedIn to find what or who they need, but here you really need to be introduced. Even then, it’s difficult to check if you’re buying from a factory, whether it is legitimate or if the person is a rogue employee.”

This disconnection from the outside world is a growing threat to Westerners entering or already in the country. Next year, for example, China will ban virtual private networks, or VPNs, which allow people to sidestep the so-called Great Firewall, and access blocked sites such as Google and Facebook.

Google itself was booted out of the country in 2010, an episode that Michelini recalls. “The government doesn’t seem to care [what impact it may have on business],” he observes. “It just wants to do things its way. It’s almost power over money.”

He continues: “More and more websites are being blocked. China got rich in the past, doing business with the West, but now it’s like an information war. These are our rules, this is how we’re going to operate, and we expect you to, as well.”

But while China’s close grip on the internet affects others, it benefits Michelini, whose business helps others to overcome the obstacles they face. “I don’t like it,” he says, “but because it makes it harder for others to do business, they need me as their middleman.”

While China clamps down on Western technology firms, Michelini says the future is brighter for food and entertainment companies.“It seems there’s no stopping Starbucks, McDonald’s and educational institutions,” he notes. “China wants the culture, just not Western information services.”

CHINA GOT RICH IN THE PAST, DOING BUSINESS WITH THE WEST, BUT NOW IT’S LIKE AN INFORMATION WAR Michael Michelini (right) globalfromasia.com

CHINA IN NUMBERS* 9.6 million km² in land area

1.4 billion people

Life expectancy is 76.34 years

It is the world’s second-largest economy, with estimated nominal GDP of $11.937 trillion in 2017 * Source: Wikipedia

56 distinct ethnic groups are recognised by the government

Crazy for craft beer John Herrington, who is originally from the US, is a demonstration of how it’s possible to do business with little interference from authorities.

He started his small craft brewery, Strong Ale Works, in the east-coast seaside resort of Qingdao, more famously known for its beer brand Tsingtao, in 2011. It was just as the craft beer boom was taking off in the country, and he hasn’t looked back since.

“I’d been teaching English and got bored with that,” Herrington says. “I wanted to do something else, in particular, brew beer. I did some free internships with other breweries around the country, which were just starting out, but they really didn’t have a clue what they were doing, so that gave me the confidence to try it for myself.”

Herrington initially built a 100-litre brewery, but “wasn’t sure it would turn into a business”.

His customers seemed to like what he was doing, however, so two or three years later he upscaled to a 200-litre one. “That’s now become a 500-litre brewery in Laoshan, which is just the right size, not too big or small, and really works as a business model,” he explains. “I supply six or seven bars and my one tap house, but I’d like to get away from wholesaling and ideally have two tap houses, which would be more profitable.”

As Herrington has financed the whole operation himself, he has not needed to turn to banks.

He even made the original brewing equipment himself. The process of doing business in China has also been fairly straightforward.

“I haven’t had too many problems,” he explains. “The food and drink administration did come round the brewery once, gave us a bit of a hard time and fined us, but I can’t really remember what it was about. That sort of thing happens all the time.”

China

He adds: “When I look back, I’m happy to think I’m the guy who built this from scratch.

The business has grown naturally with no outside investment or loans. We’ve done everything ourselves through marketing and good products.”

Hiring woes TJ Weber sees more fundamental problems at his company, Shenzhen Digital Exports Co. “China is a complicated environment for anyone who doesn’t speak Chinese,” he explains.

Shenzhen Digital Exports started as a small office with two staff in 2011. It took off two years later when it received a large order for digital products such as smartphone cables and chargers, USB drives and powerpacks. At the time, Weber was running offices in Chicago and Shenzhen but the order speeded up his investment in China, and he sold the US business.

“We were importing the products from different factories into the US,” recalls Weber.

“The problem was the time difference, so I formally set up my own factory in Shenzhen.” He then hired sales staff to sell his customisable products to other countries.

“We don’t innovate the products ourselves, we just assemble them, a bit like Foxconn assembling the iPhones that Apple designs,” explains Weber.

“Our vendors and customers give us their design collateral, for example, 3D PVC moulds or screenprinted logos. It’s an easy-to-control supply chain.”

Yet while his business model is straightforward, basic issues, such as hiring the right staff, affect Weber’s bottom line. “I hired a foreigner as a sales manager, but many foreigners in China come up with excuses to do anything but work,” he says.

“Often they have three or four other things that they are doing on the side.”

He has also been let down by some of the Chinese staff that he has employed. “They come to interviews with a reasonable grasp of the English language so you hire them. Then it turns out they have little common sense. This is down to a

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TOP TIPS FOR DOING BUSINESS IN CHINA

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First impressions count a lot in Chinese business culture. Dress smartly and conservatively. Bring business cards that are printed in both English and Mandarin.

Remember that Chinese people tend to enter a meeting in hierarchical order. Show an appropriate amount of deference to the senior Chinese people present.

Keep eye contact to a minimum, since this can be interpreted as a challenge to the person you are speaking to.

Be patient and willing to invest time in building relationships. The Chinese like to know who they are doing business with.

Avoid showing too much emotion during business meetings – in Chinese business culture, it is very important to save face. Failing to do so will be interpreted as a sign of weakness.

I’D BEEN TEACHING ENGLISH AND GOT BORED. I WANTED TO BREW BEER John Herrington (left) Strong Ale Works

problem with the education system, which doesn’t really prepare people for the outside world.

“For example, I gave an assistant a list of eight things that needed to be done for a trade show. A day before, I found half of them were missing and I hadn’t been told. Catalogues and samples were all missing or delayed and we had to start without them because I hadn’t been told. It can end up costing you more money than you make, but you don’t know until people start work.”

But Weber says he likes China’s political stability, which provides an ideal environment for doing business. “Unlike the US, China doesn’t elect a new president who just tears up everything that’s been put in place by the previous administration,” he notes. “There is continuity here.”

Another change he has seen in his ten years in Chinese business has been the corruption clean-up. “Paying bribes to get something done was commonplace five to ten years ago,” he observes. “It’s impossible now. That makes it a more level playing field for all companies.”

Weber’s advice for other entrepreneurs with dreams of breaking into the Chinese market is to “make sure you plan and get approvals”. He explains: “It’s not like Western countries, where you can dream up a company in a couple of days.

For example, if you’re doing something with chemicals, make sure it’s allowed where you want to do it. Talk to the police and fire departments if you want to open a restaurant, not just the building management company, which will be more than happy to take your money. You need approval at multiple levels. Plan in detail and research the market.”

Keith Crane is a professional journalist with 12 years’ experience of working in China

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Distance learning Coaching people from another culture can improve your interpersonal skills Writing Mark Neild

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any of us recognise the need for practical experience to properly embed leadership and interpersonal skills.

While the 70:20:10 model for learning and development (L&D) highlights the relative importance of experiential and social learning compared with formal education, L&D professionals often struggle to organise high-quality experiential learning. It is relatively straightforward to practise technical and business skills in the workplace – people skills, less so.

Practising people skills needs, well, people.

If we do want to practise people skills, we have two main options. Either we use role play, which is a safe environment for learning, but difficult to make truly authentic, or we practise in the workplace, which is authentic, but hardly safe. Think of the cringingly funny TV sitcom The Office. There is a third option, however, which my business, Grow Inspires, has recently piloted.

THIS WAS A PROGRAMME TO DIAGNOSE THE ISSUES AND PUT IN PLACE DEVELOPMENT PLANS

What if we were to develop our influencing skills by coaching people from another culture to become more successful? These may be individuals with the potential to do better, but who lack the resources to realise that potential on their own. This is not simply a question of doing ‘social good’; we also develop ourselves as leaders through the process of coaching people whom we don’t naturally identify with.

This was the reasoning behind a pilot project in which aspiring leaders from RollsRoyce were coached to help a group of young entrepreneurs from rural Bangladesh to grow their businesses.

Half of the people living in Rangpur District in northern Bangladesh are illiterate while a third live below the poverty line. Most survive on subsistence agriculture, using the same techniques they have used for centuries. Development and modern technology have largely passed them by. Rangpur district is very fertile – if anything, it suffers from too much water, rather than too little.

Heavy rain frequently disrupts local infrastructure

Bangladesh

and flooding claims many lives. Local people are well endowed with natural resources but lack the know-how to make full use of them.

Our partner, the international development charity Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), has an ambitious project to help the people of Rangpur make better use of available resources, helping them become more resilient to the setbacks that so often lead to poverty. VSO organised business planning and consultancy training for 12 entrepreneurs in Rangpur, including training to help them secure loans. But there was a problem – three months in, the entrepreneurs had not secured a single customer. So our Rolls-Royce team was tasked with helping to turn things around.

BEST OF ALL WERE THE INSIGHTS INTO HOW REAL PEOPLE TICK

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Time to GROW For an hour each fortnight, over a period of eight months, the Rolls-Royce consultants worked closely with their Bangladeshi clients over Skype to overcome personal challenges and inspire growth. Each fortnight we got together on a conference call and discussed their client interactions. What has been achieved? Where are the challenges? Has anybody had a breakthrough that somebody else could learn from? More than mentoring, this was a structured programme to properly diagnose the issues and put in place tailored development plans to ensure results.

We covered a fascinating range of topics during the course of the group coaching sessions. First up was listening rather than telling. How could a group of people from a firm that sells complex engineering solutions in predominantly advanced markets know about the challenges of rural Bangladesh? They can’t, but their clients can. Learning to solve problems in the context of the client’s environment is a great innovation skill.

In another call, we looked at motivation and the tools and techniques that can be used to influence people to change. We used the GROW (goal, reality, options, will) coaching model to help the clients see the gap between now and their potential, not only so that they could assess their options, but also to provide a motivating vision of how things might be. These models assume so much more life when they are populated by the circumstances of real people.

In another, we looked at the need to keep things simple in order to help the clients comply with their ‘homework tasks’. We discussed the barriers to change, the difference between ‘can’t change’ and ‘won’t change’ and the various techniques we could use for each.

We also looked at the challenges of working

Above: Bangladeshbased entrepreneurs, Jewel Rana (left) and Hossein Balal (right), listen closely to their coaches over Skype Opposite: Labourers in a brick field, Rangpur, Bangladesh

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with clients who come from a culture where people have a strong desire to please others since saying no would be considered impolite.

A win-win-win The Rolls-Royce team found the process challenging and, at times, frustrating. Rain, connectivity and travel problems all delayed progress. Nevertheless, it was fascinating for them to put some of the theories from their various development programmes into practice by working with the Bangladeshi entrepreneurs.

A big revelation was that it is fine not to know all the answers all of the time. Often a bit of shared experimentation is the best way to achieve the necessary breakthrough and is a great way to build engagement. Best of all, they gained valuable insights into how real people tick and what it takes to get them to perform.

The entrepreneur clients in Bangladesh also gained a lot. It was challenging for them to translate enterprise training from the classroom into the real world. Concepts that make perfect sense on a whiteboard get very daunting when you have to apply them for real. Although they had learned about business planning, for example, transferring the classroom techniques to their own context presented more of a challenge. But having a coach who was monitoring their progress made a difference because it helped them to stretch their comfort zones and motivated them to get out there and really engage with their customers.

Another big positive was that we learned some very important lessons about programme design from the project. Understandably, it is the goal of non-governmental organisations to maximise the impact of projects, but we must balance this desire for impact against the need for a learning environment that is suitable for corporate participants. After all, the more they learn, the better they can coach their clients to even higher performance.

Language and communications infrastructure play a significant part in the success of remote coaching and some locations are better suited to it than others. That said, corporate volunteering schemes that minimise workplace disruption while maximising experiential learning remain rare beasts.

Mark Neild is a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership & Management, an executive coach and the founder of Grow Inspires, a social venture that uses social justice interventions as tools for interpersonal and diversity skills development

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STRATEGIES FOR LONG-TERM SUCCESS 68 Virtual reality Bringing stories to life

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enjamin Franklin once famously said: “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

Business leaders understand this important principle, which is why we exercise our planning abilities annually when it comes to operations, profitability, and both short- and long-term visions for the company. But the key item that is often overlooked is a misstep that can crush even the mightiest of organisations: a plan for the workforce that is needed to accomplish corporate objectives.

As your business sits down to strategise what it will need moving forward, I implore you to build your workforce needs into your overall plan. Consider the following actions:

Match your workforce needs to your strategic plan Regardless of how your corporate strategy must be accomplished (manpower versus technology), individuals will still be required to achieve it. Sit down with your strategic plan and identify every conceivable skill needed to turn your dream into reality. Even robots need floor managers and maintenance staff; data warehouses require analysts, etc.

Consider every conceivable need.

Decide if you will make it or buy it There are only two means of gaining the talent bench you desire. You can either ‘make it’ by training existing individuals and/or redeploying talent, or ‘buy it’, which means hiring from the outside. Look at your current talent bench and discern where you can redeploy, retrain, advance or promote from within, and then assess where you must acquire skills from the outside.

70 Wellbeing tools The secret to a healthier workforce

72 Instant feedback Why annual appraisals are history

Tomorrow is coming

Find the talent before you need them

Strategic workforce planning is key to future success By

Rita Trehan

It is crucial to the success of any strategic workforce plan that you set your talent acquisition strategy before it’s necessary. Once you have an idea of what skills you will need, create a ‘dream bench’ of top industry names and hot candidates that you wish to attract.

Start looking for those individuals before you need to hire them and begin courting them before they become necessary to your plan.

Stay ahead of your hiring needs and you will never feel completely enslaved to them.

Build your internal training plan before training is needed Once you have identified resources inside the firm that can be trained, promoted and/ or redeployed, line up any resources that are needed to smoothly transition them to their next role. This may involve external training, online courses, organisational development coursework and education reimbursement.

Identify and gather these resources now.

Plan for the backfill Finally, once you have identified who is moving up, on, or out, you will need to plan to backfill open positions that will occur. Before you hire more of the same, ask if it is time to upgrade the roles.

Could you demand more of the replacement? Are newer, fresher skills required?

Don’t just hire more of the same; always do better. Look internally before you look externally, and repeat the same process as before.

Strategic workforce planning is key to future success with any strategic corporate plan. Make sure you do not fail to include it in your planning this year.

Rita Trehan is president of her own consultancy, and chief people officer at AGL

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The new tech kid in town Virtual reality is not a gimmick, but a powerful storytelling tool Writing Rob Kendal

L

ook over your shoulder and, in the not-too-distant past, a store’s website was likely to be a PDF of its weekly flyer.

Facebook ‘likes’ were coveted, but only very few people had an idea of how they might be useful. Later, companies set about proving they were technically savvy with a mobile app but, for most, the content included was meaningless, and no one downloaded it.

When companies find themselves behind the curve of new technology, there is an inherent instinct to rush to produce content and be part of the ‘movement’. They hope the medium will do the work for them and often don’t stop to consider how they can provide real value to a customer and a real return on investment for their organisation.

Virtual reality (VR) is the new tech kid in town.

That means the race is on to find how to make it a business fit. The winners? They will be the ones who take the time to truly understand the technology,

Virtual Reality

BRIEFING A VR PROJECT If you use images – such as brochures, online photo tours or models – to tell your story today, you can probably use VR to tell it better. Think about what you want the customer to feel at the end of the experience and build around that outcome. Write a brief for the project, just as you would any other campaign, without letting the fact that the project will be executed using VR overly influence you. When you have finished, check that VR meets the brief and that you are not trying to force a novelty into a project that’s better suited to another medium.

Creative briefs for VR are likely to include one of the following.

Building engagement VR lets you immerse prospects in a space, be it a factory, retail environment or the hospital you’re raising funds for. But it’s not just about spaces. You can immerse people in the use of your product. Merrell, the maker of hiking boots, produced a Trailscape VR experience where users could virtually traverse a crumbling rock ledge and cross a rickety bridge – an exhilarating experience that gets talked about.

Sharing experiences VR allows you to treat every customer like a VIP and share otherwise exclusive experiences. The Premier League has experimented with live football matches, and Topshop transported shoppers to front-row seats at London Fashion Week.

There are fantasy experiences too – Coca-Cola reimagined its long-standing

brand ties with Santa Claus when Polish customers could virtually take the reins on Santa’s sleigh. VR can democratise exclusive events and place people directly into experiences associated with your brand like no other medium.

True ‘try before you buy’ If a product has a long sales cycle, VR can help you to build trust and close deals faster with try-before-you-buy experiences.

Users can experience a venue before booking a wedding, try out finish options in a kitchen or bathroom, or experience travel destinations as though they had already taken the flight. Travel giant Thomas Cook produced a VR experience of walking through Manhattan for customers in London and enjoyed a 190% uplift in bookings to New York. Fundraisers have experienced the same, with donation rates as much as doubling when potential donors can truly see where, what and/or who their money is going to.

and, by doing so, set about creating compelling and purposeful VR experiences that speak to their customers in an entirely different way.

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An evolution in brand engagement If you’ve been waiting for VR to become mainstream, or get over the hump on its imagined hype cycle, stop waiting. Consumer sales of headsets have been slower than the juggernaut anticipated by analyst firms, and that has led to some compla-

THE KEY TO SUCCESS IS STICKING TO THE STRENGTHS OF THE MEDIUM

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cency among businesses. Make no mistake, however, the content and hardware investment an individual makes for their entertainment should in no way be seen as a guide to the power, effectiveness and value of VR as a business tool.

Business-ready VR is the next evolution in brand engagement. It is able to forge deep, emotional connections and move customers quickly to buying decisions. According to the 2015 Virtual Reality Consumer Report, more than 80% of people who try VR tell their friends about it.

Meanwhile, 2016 research by market intelligence firm Greenlight VR found that more than 53% of adults would buy from a brand that uses VR over one that doesn’t. It’s time for businesses to take notice.

VR experiences are an investment, so you want to get them right the first time. Just as with any technology, the key to success is sticking to the strengths of the medium. For VR, those strengths primarily lie in three different areas.

1

VR is great for showing something that doesn’t exist yet – think a new home or block of apartments, or how it might be to take a holiday on the moon. There are literally no limits.

2

VR can show off something that exists but is a long way away or somehow inaccessible – think standing within the heart of a major sporting event, visiting Paris when you have no travel budget, or hiking a remote trail even though you have mobility issues.

3

VR is perfect for modelling something that is too large, complex or expensive to model in the real world – think about the limitless permutations of features, options and colours when you buy a new car.

Not every proposed use case will work, so check your own ideas against these categories to make sure that you have a plausible use of VR. You need to offer your customers something compelling and inspire them into whatever action will matter to your organisation.

VR brand experiences are here, so thinking about how the technology fits with your brand, and what it can accomplish now, will set you up for a successful virtual future. With the right content, VR can be a practical and functional tool for both marketing and sales. Remember that VR should not be considered a novelty. It is a true storytelling tool with the power to forge emotional connections and create inspired customers who want to share their experiences.

Rob Kendal is managing director of Yulio Technologies in Toronto

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Back off, Big Brother Technology can cause unhealthy working practices, but it also supports employee wellbeing when used in an ethical way Writing Lorena Puica

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echnology is a double-edged sword in terms of the workplace. While computers and the internet allow us to achieve a huge amount during the course of our working day, they have also created a sedentary culture where it has become normal for people to stare at screens for hours on end. No wonder, then, that the workplace is shouldering its share of the blame for the current obesity epidemic.

In 2013, a Harris Interactive survey of more than 3,000 US workers, conducted for jobs website CareerBuilder, found that 41% of respondents had gained weight in their current jobs. The constant availability of technology is also increasing our anxiety and stress, by making us feel we should be ‘always on’ – answering queries from our employers and clients at night, at the weekend and even during our holidays.

During my own career in investment management I gained first-hand experience of both the upsides and the downsides of technology. Technological advances opened up the opportunity for me to work longer hours, gain additional qualifications – including five degrees over a decade – and publish a book on microfinance. But I allowed my health to take a back-seat to my career, and throughout this time I experienced a number of health issues, from anxiety and stress through to back pain. Finally, I was diagnosed with a serious thyroid condition. Sadly my situation is not uncommon – stress alone is the cause of 45% of working days lost due to ill health, according to the Health and Safety Executive.

Work can be good for you Although workplaces can be highly detrimental to the health of employees, they can also have a highly beneficial impact when the right interventions

Employee Health

are in place, which is good for both employees and their employers. Employees who are in good health at work tend to be happier, more creative and more productive than those who aren’t, and they deliver higher-quality work.

Of course, this does not mean that leaders should monitor and control every action their employees take, from how many calories they imbibe in their morning cappuccino to whether or not they go for a run at lunchtime. Neither does it mean simply offering cycle-to-work schemes, gym memberships and private healthcare – benefits that have surged in popularity over the past decade, despite struggling to show measurable improvements in employee health. No, leaders need to go deeper if they are to truly address the issue of workplace health, by applying the power of technology to solve the problems that technology itself created.

So how can this be done? An obvious way is by using employee benefits systems to offer personalised tools that empower people to make the right decisions about their own mental and physical wellbeing. Already there are technology platforms that can provide confidential and comprehensive health assessments to employees, with advice from therapists and health practitioners on how they can improve their health. Some platforms also offer personal health coaches and the opportunity for users to automatically transmit data about themselves using wearable technology such as smart watches.

Employers benefit from these tools since they can receive anonymised reports that measure the state of health across the organisation as a whole.

This allows them to act early if they see signs of deterioration in a specific area – for example,

THE ECONOMIC COST OF BAD HEALTH*

£29 billion The annual cost to UK businesses of sickness absence

6.6

Number of days the average worker takes off each year due to sickness

140 million Days lost to sickness absence in the UK every year

£250,000

The amount an average London business with 250 employees loses annually due to ill health

£8 billion

The annual productivity loss as a direct cost of cardiovascular disease alone * Source: Health at Work: Economic Evidence Report 2016, ERS

HEALTH TECHNOLOGY Key themes for employees

1 2 3

Personalisation and privacy – it is all about you, and for your eyes only.

Flexibility and accessibility – every day and lifelong.

Trust and efficacy – it is future-facing and does what it says.

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And for employers

1 2 3

Confidentiality of data (without this, employees will not engage).

Global availability 24/7 (everyone wants it all and they want it now).

Measurement and quality analytics (so employers can make informed decisions using quality data correlations).

THE FUTURE OF HEALTH IN THE WORKPLACE LIES IN HELPING EMPLOYEES TO HELP THEMSELVES

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stress-related illnesses. It also means they can directly measure the impact of their spending on employee benefits to make sure they are investing in the areas that will make the greatest difference to employees’ health and therefore the bottom line.

Health is a societal issue Of course, data that relates to individuals’ health is among the most sensitive personal data that exists. Although technology allows for everything and beyond when it comes to data collection and analysis, employees must believe that their employer and benefit provider are acting in good faith when providing a wellbeing programme, or they will not engage with it. Most of the reluctance to engage with corporate wellbeing programmes today stems from the assumption that personal data will be shared with the employer. It is therefore crucial that employees have full and complete ownership of their data from the word go. Also, employers should be aware that some vendors of technology health platforms might sell the health information they collect, which could expose them to legal liabilities.

Workplace health is certainly a minefield, but it will be an increasingly important issue over the coming decades. As people live longer and the pension age is pushed back, employees are likely to be working for longer, and employers will increasingly have to manage higher incidences of age-related illnesses such as Alzheimer’s, diabetes and osteoarthritis. It is also possible that politicians and regulators will expect employers to help reduce healthcare costs by addressing the occurrence of preventable illnesses that are linked to the workplace, such as back pain, depression and obesity.

Unhealthy working practices do not just affect certain individuals or groups. They also affect the economy and society more broadly. Fortunately, technology has a clear role to play in making employee health a personalised, engaging and accessible experience. It can also contribute to changing health outcomes by combining big health data, genetics and academic research.

The future of health in the workplace undoubtedly lies in helping employees to help themselves. Yet ethical considerations mean that any employer that wants to use a wellbeing tool must consider these two very important questions: how do we plan to use this tool and why are we using it in this way?

Lorena Puica is founder, CEO and chief visionary of iamYiam, a sustainable health platform that provides personalised daily advice for long-term wellbeing and performance

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Instant feedback A new world of work demands a new appraisal system Writing Kirsten Levermore

wildfire, and by the end of the 1940s, roughly 60% of US companies were actively using military-style appraisals in the workplace.

Although thought leaders began to identify the value of two-way discussion and career development during these sessions, the significance of accountability and concrete results remained the emphasis of the annual appraisal right up until the early 2000s.

The dawn of the ‘development’ and ‘progression’ elements of most modern annual appraisals came about in tandem with the exponential growth and widespread flattening of major corporations that marked the new millennium. With hierarchies and ladders assembled in every industry, employees were keen to progress and develop.

But too many staff members reporting to single managers meant the annual appraisal acquired its nasty association with reams of paperwork, the commitment of excessive time, and a reputation for being ‘useless’ – characteristics still associated with the process today.

What’s so bad about the annual appraisal?

It’s safe to say there aren’t many fans of the annual appraisal as it stands. According to a survey conducted in early 2017 by YouGov, in conjunction with MHR, just 14% of the UK workforce believes the appraisal process provides all the support they need to evaluate their work. Julie Lock, service development director at MHR, says: “With 52% of employees saying that appraisals are stressful or difficult, is there any real reason to continue with them?”

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development cites the following as key reasons why the annual appraisal is failing employees:

C

onsider the kind of ‘appraising’ that we experience today and an image of an ancient Roman emperor inspecting his troops might well spring to mind. Military connotations should not come as a surprise, however, since the traditional performance appraisal actually came about during World War I. The traditional appraisal evolved from the need to assess whether a soldier was willing and able to continue fighting, and whether or not he should be promoted to an officer role. It was short, entirely one-sided and existed purely to determine the employment situation of an individual.

Despite its flaws, it was an idea that caught like

Which words do you associate with the term ‘appraisal’?* Time-consuming 39% Stressful 29% Useful 26% * YouGov for MHR, August 2017

1 Appraisals are too infrequent.

2 The focus is on past performance, with little attention paid to future improvement, learning and development.

3 Feedback often comes from a single source (the line manager), which may not account for the experiences of peers, customers and the individuals themselves.

4 The amount of effort associated with paperwork and overseeing the process of appraisals is excessive.

Fundamentally, the idea of having a once-ayear meeting to assess someone’s efforts is an anomaly in our fast-moving age. “High-quality performance is required every day,” says Julie Lock, service development director at HR software company MHR. “It is not an annual event, so why treat it so?”

Annual Appraisals

Evaluations in the fast lane For companies with the facilities, it has never been easier to create a complete picture of an employee’s performance. Real-time analytics of a worker’s performance can be easily accessed, and feedback from stakeholders and colleagues can be gathered painlessly via mobile apps and digital surveys.

As work becomes increasingly project-based, however, taking a people-analytics approach could become a heavy burden if data from each project and interaction was processed and packed into a two-hour period once every year.

A similar problem occurs when companies employ 360-degree appraisals. Tim Baker, author of The End of the Performance Review, is a staunch supporter of 360-degree feedback.

“I see 360-degree feedback as a developmental tool, not an appraisal tool,” he says. “It’s a wonderful way to hold a mirror up to a person so they may understand how others perceive them in the workplace. Assuming they are open to this feedback, an employee can then go about modifying their behaviour and attitude to build upon the positive and negative feedback.”

One concern for Baker and other appraisal experts, however, is the ability of employees to firstly cope with the feedback they receive and then act upon it in a constructive way. Here, managers can play an important role in coaching employees to make sense of the feedback they get and consider how they can develop.

It is essential that employees who receive 360-degree feedback have the opportunity to follow up with a manager or HR professional down the line, Dawn Sillett writes in The Feedback Book. She also cautions that 360-degree feedback can easily feel “threatening”, highlighting the significance of employees’ reactions and the duty of the manager to present feedback in the correct way, with appropriate structures for response and action.

THE FUTURE OF APPRAISALS Traditional model One excessively large appraisal

New model Appraisals and reviews as and when they are needed

The ideal performance reviews will be regular, informal and brief

REVIEWS ON THE RUN Businesses that are abandoning annual appraisals 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Accenture Adobe Allen & Overy Deloitte Expedia General Electric Goldman Sachs Microsoft Netflix PwC

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What about employee development?

The career management and personal development elements of the annual performance review are the most time-consuming parts of most (good) appraisals. They evolved to instil motivation and purpose into employees. When they are done properly, it is well documented that attrition rates tumble and productivity rates soar.

To attain the full value of these conversations, however, a manager must have the right skills and mind-set. “The fundamental idea of a manager appraising an employee is an artefact of the command-and-control mindset of the last century,” says Baker. “We need to equip

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PERFORMANCE DEVELOPMENT IS AN ONGOING, NEVER-ENDING PROCESS

our leaders with the skills to be able to assist their team members to reflect on their own performance and support them in their development – to build on their strengths and minimise their weaknesses.”

The new and improved relevance of the performance appraisal Baker believes leaders need to distinguish ‘performance appraisals’ from ‘performance development reviews’. “They are very different concepts,” he states. “The appraisal is a measurement or critique of performance. Development, however, is about assisting the employee to develop their skill-set and thinking. Many in HR would argue that we ought to do both – but that’s not viable during the performance review.

“Performance development is an ongoing, never-ending process. It occurs from one conversation to the next; it can be based on projects, critical incidents and employee reflections. I think many managers don’t do this because they are saving it all up for the big performance review event. The performance review can be counterproductive to regular performance development conversations.”

So HR professionals and academics suggest that leaders replace the annual performance appraisal with regular – if not continuous – conversations between employee and line manager, with time allocated for project evaluation and career development. These informal, brief and regular reviews could be supported by one or two formal, more traditional appraisals per year.

Instant feedback. Instant rewards. Instant improvement of performance where needed. It’s a model for our dynamic, fast-moving world. And, with two-thirds of large companies and countless SMEs planning to rethink annual appraisal systems, this new model is on its way to you.

Kirsten Levermore is assistant editor of ‘Edge’

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75

MANAGING MENTAL, PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL WELLBEING AND DEVELOPMENT 76 Management Dilemma Bothered by an office affair

T

77 How to... deliver critical feedback Administering reprimands

here is an old cliché that management consultants borrow your watch to tell you the time.

Coaches, perhaps, get you to look at your own watch and then tell yourself the time. That may be a rather jaundiced commentary on the nature of the activity, since satisfied clients are likely to tell you that one of the aspects of coaching they come to appreciate is the sounding board it provides. The key component is being listened to. Really listened to. And one of the reasons why that is valued is because it is so rare. In our time-starved, screen-addicted, time-shifting world, having someone pay attention to you is a rare luxury.

Philosopher Nancy Kline, in her seminal book Time to Think, places ‘attention’ as the first of her ten conditions for creating a thinking environment. “Attention,” she states, “is the act of listening with palatable respect and fascination.”

Academic Otto Scharmer describes four levels of listening in his book, Theory U. Well, five if you include ‘ignoring’, and I’ve caught myself there more than once. Assuming you’ve turned up, the first proposed level is ‘download’, which is rooted in social convention and politeness, a habit rather than engagement. That starts at level two: ‘factual listening’, a feature of debate, where the other is an outsider and the style combative. ‘Creative listening’ begins at level three. This is empathic, where

78 Workplace bullying Advice on what to do if it happens to you

81 Inspiration Directory Your go-to development resource

The present of presence How to prepare for quality engagement By

Jeff Matthews

82 Book Club Edge reviews top leadership titles

genuine dialogue can take place. It’s at level four, ‘generative listening’, where the coach places him or herself in the other’s frame of reference. It is at this point that we can say we are truly present to the other, and the client experiences what philosopher Martin Buber describes as ‘I – thou’ (rather than ‘I – it’ or ‘I – you’): the creative space in which the genuinely innovative can emerge.

As the coach, how do you get yourself ready for that level of high-quality engagement? Each of us is different, so we need to find out what works for us as practitioners.

What seems a common feature is a metaphorical ‘air lock’ between the previous all-absorbing activity and the next coaching session – a period of quiet, featuring some form of mindfulness practice, lasting between five and 30 minutes. Views vary as to whether it is helpful to read records from previous sessions. Highly experienced coaches often eschew ‘planning the intervention’. Instead, they arrive with a curious fascination and no preconceived ideas, since that won’t interfere with being truly present. Solutions-focused therapy co-founder Steve de Shazer develops this further as the ‘one down’ or ‘not knowing’ position, where the client educates the practitioner as to their strengths, resources and strategies, not the other way around. Is this our greatest gift to our clients? The present of being genuinely present.

Jeff Matthews has been a coach for over 25 years.

He is working with the Institute of Leadership & Management on ways to help coaching members

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Live & Learn MANAGEMENT DILEMMA

Is an office affair any of my business?

A problem shared is a problem halved, so what did the Institute of Leadership & Management Fellows and Members have to say about a management dilemma?

The dilemma Two members of my team are having an affair. Both are married and the man’s wife also works for our organisation, but in a different department. The line report who told me about the affair is friends with the wife who is being cheated on. She says the affair is making her feel very uncomfortable and she is finding it hard to be in the office as a result. What should I do?

The affair does not appear to be affecting the work of the two people who are engaged in it. Is it my place to intervene?

How our Fellows and Members responded We don’t have the right to tell people how to live their lives, and the situation doesn’t appear to be affecting their work. But what is clear is that it is affecting others. I would speak to those having the affair to help them consider what might happen next.

If they think they will leave their spouses and the affair has a future, get them to think about handling this sooner rather than later. If that is not the outcome they expect, they need to consider who else the affair is affecting and the impact of their relationship on others.

Illustration by Janne Iivonen

Stella Chandler

As there is no fallout regarding productivity, then it is best to make sure that the parties who are likely to be affected are monitored so that changes can be dealt with early. It may burn itself out.

Kevin Smeaton

I would think twice about tackling this situation head-on. Even if there is proof, and even if you feel that you have a moral obligation to intervene, I would strongly recommend that you do not do so unless your team is being directly affected by the relationship. This, of course, assumes that your two team members are on an equal footing, that neither is in a position of authority over the other, and that both are consenting to the relationship. The person you may be able to help is the line report (the friend of the wife).

Perhaps you could coach her through considering the options she has.

Jackie Schwarz, MSc FInstLM CIPD

Unless company policy forbids ‘liaisons’ between co-workers, I would leave well alone. Otherwise you will start infringing on human rights.

Mark Stephens FIIRSM FInstLM FRSPH

I would invite the three affected parties to meet with you. Arrange the seating in a circle, without any tables or desks. Set out that the affair is leading people to feel uncomfortable, and the meeting is to discuss how this can be resolved. Everyone has their turn to speak, and they may only listen while another is speaking. Get them to use ‘affective’ statements, such as: “I am friends with your wife.

When I believe you are having an affair, it makes me feel awkward.” I would also let the friend of the wife know you were going to call this meeting, so that she can reflect on how sure she is that the affair is taking place.

Viv Buckland MA (Ed), FInstLM

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Live & Learn HOW TO...

How to… deliver critical feedback if you need to

S

ome people love to criticise. But most of us find it rather uncomfortable, especially if we respect or like the person we have to find fault with. But sometimes you do need to give a gentle reprimand to someone else, or put that person right on his or her performance.

So how can you do it well?

Observation It is only legitimate to criticise when you have evidence of poor performance. And the best way to do this is by observing. Even ‘hard data’ can arise in different ways, and reported actions put you on dangerous ground.

Consequences Your first priority is to raise awareness. Ask the person concerned to assess what they did and how they did it. And then invite them to project forward to the consequences. Sometimes this is all you need to do.

Behaviour Criticise the behaviour, not the person. I can change what I do, but not who I am. A sentence starting ‘What you did...’ is likely to be OK. One that starts ‘You are...’ or ‘You can’t...’ won’t be.

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Balance Don’t get so caught up in critical feedback that you fail to give due credit.

Before giving your feedback, think about the right balance of praise and criticism. Your goal is to help the person develop.

Specific Woolly and vague criticism won’t help them. And it risks looking like you are aiming at them, because you have no clear behaviour to address. The more specific you are, the easier they will find it to address the problem.

There is a technique to picking someone up on performance By Mike Clayton

Responsibility This goes two ways. You want to encourage them to take responsibility for their actions. But you also need to take responsibility for your feedback. Use the word ‘I’.

Timing This is crucial. The best time to give critical feedback is as near to the event as possible.

Memory has a habit of fogging events and that can trigger disputes. Two things militate against this, however. First, if a failure is too raw, feedback can feel like punishment. Or, at the least, rubbing their nose in the failure. And second, always give critical feedback in private. Don’t be in such a rush that you risk someone overhearing.

But This is all good advice, but... did you notice what happened in your brain just then? You got ready to throw out seven strong tips. That’s what ‘but’ does to us. It triggers a reflex to dump what we’ve just heard, and prepare for the truth. Use ‘but’ with extreme caution.

But... There is a big ‘but’ to all this advice. Is critical feedback the best way to get the results you want? If you have a competent performer, they will almost certainly know what went wrong. Why not let them tell you? Helping them figure out the chain of cause and effect will aid their learning far more than feedback.

The time to give corrective feedback is at the start of a learning journey. When someone doesn’t know enough to recognise their errors, they need your insights. Once they reach basic competence, it changes. Positive feedback becomes a far more effective development tool.

Mike Clayton is a speaker, author and management trainer. Find out more at MikeClayton.co.uk

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Live & Learn BULLYING

Killing them softly Bullies can have a devastating impact on your self-esteem, but there are ways to neutralise their bad behaviour Writing Mary McGuire

Janne Livonen

A

lthough bullying is an unfortunate fact of life, it can be a damaging ordeal for all of us who experience it.

Bullying does not start and end in the playground, since children who bully often turn into adults who bully.

Many workplaces have a zero tolerance policy on bullying, but that does not mean the phenomenon has been eradicated. It merely goes underground, turning into more subtle forms of manipulation and control.

The reasons why people bully are complex and multiple. Whatever their reasons, however, they can have a devastating effect. We cannot avoid bullies, but we can reduce their impact on our lives. In the workplace, we can learn to spot the signs that we are being bullied, and understand how to protect ourselves from its harmful effects.

My own experience of bullying began at a very young age. When I started primary school, I stood out as one of the ‘poorer’ children. I remember some of the girls crowding around me, poking me and telling me I looked ugly and dirty.

This behaviour continued into my first workplace, where I was bullied by a young woman, only a few years older than me, who felt it was her job to demean and belittle me. Over time, I learned how to cope with these situations and

became more confident about neutralising the impact of the bullies around me.

Why does bullying exist in our society?

OUR OUTER WORLD IS A REFLECTION OF OUR INNER WORLD, AND THE SAME IS TRUE FOR BULLIES

We live in an ego-driven culture. Power, status and control are seen as ways to distinguish ourselves.

These aspects of our culture drive fearful behaviour on one end of the spectrum and competitiveness on the other. We see that in the business world all the time, as well as the celebrity- and social media-obsessed culture in which we live.

Workplace culture can have a big influence on whether bullying is tolerated and sometimes even encouraged. Having worked in large corporations around the world, I have seen both extremes. An organisation that is confident about its success, and has an open and creative climate, is not a breeding ground for bullies. Yet organisations operating in mature markets with dwindling profits and high stakeholder expectations tend to be driven by leaders who feel less secure of their position. This can drive fearful and dominating behaviour in others.

At the heart of a bully’s behaviour lies the fear of not being good enough. From a very young age, they have often had experiences that have undermined their sense of worth and, as a way of masking this lack of self-worth, they have sought

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to project the same experiences on to others. Our outer world is a reflection of our inner world, and the same is true for bullies. In fact, one of the ways in which we can neutralise the ill effects of bullying is to show compassion and understanding for the underlying fear and insecurity that bullies carry with them.

How bullying manifests itself Bullying in the workplace can be quite subtle or quite overt. The key signs include: Putting you down for the quality of your work in front of others. Some bullies need an audience to

ONE WAY TO NEUTRALISE THE ILL EFFECTS OF BULLYING IS TO SHOW COMPASSION

feel they have the upper hand, and one of the ways they do this is to attempt to demean others. This can be very disconcerting if you have never experienced such behaviour before, and it can be difficult to know how to respond. But the lack of response can give the bully exactly what he or she wants – someone to be the outlet for their own feelings of inadequacy.

Taking credit for your work. Bullies often operate from a place of insecurity and, as a result, are unlikely to allow others on their team to outshine them. One of the ways that they can do this is to take credit for your work. This can be very undermining, which is why a clear email

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HOW TO DEAL WITH A WORKPLACE BULLY Bullying is a dynamic between the powerful and the powerless. It only works if each person plays the part. If you are being bullied in the workplace, you may be inadvertently falling into the role of victim, allowing the bully to continue to act as the perpetrator. Here are some simple techniques for standing up to bullies:

1

Adopt a power stance Our body language conveys about 80% of the information relating to our physical and emotional state. If we are feeling powerless, unconfident or weak, we tend to hold ourselves in a protective position, making body language small. To feel more powerful, we need to act more powerfully. You can practise the power pose daily by standing in front of a mirror with your feet hip-width apart, hands on hips, chest out and head up. Connect with your breath and notice the pattern of it coming in and out. Bring it right down into your tummy area to help you feel more grounded.

Look yourself in the eye and tell yourself several times: “I am powerful, I am whole, I am strong.” Even if you do not feel this way, keep telling it to yourself each and every day for two to three minutes before you leave for work. It will subtly change your body language and your attitude as well.

2

Smile This simple act has an immediate effect on our own sense of wellbeing and a positive impact on our relationships. You may need to choose your moment for this if you are dealing with a hotheaded bully, since a smile could be seen as provocation.

But for those who use insinuating or undermining tactics, a smile can be very disarming.

3

Widen your network A bully relies on isolating his or her victims. The best way to counteract this is to widen your network. Go out of your way to get to know colleagues in other departments. Reach out to your boss (or, if your boss is the bully, to your boss’s boss)

trail and a wider network of colleagues can really come into their own here.

Unexpected outbursts, anger and aggression towards you and others in the team. Some bullies can have a barely veiled grip on their seething anger. They were probably angry and aggressive in childhood, and while they know that the same kind of outbursts are not acceptable as an adult, their rage will boil to the surface when they are under pressure.

Being calm and taking a neutral tone can be your best approach when you face a bully’s anger.

BULLYING CAN ONLY WORK IF WE BOTH ACCEPT THE ROLES IN THE ROUTINE

to learn more about the company and how to do well there. Ask who you could contact to be your mentor as you are keen to progress. The more people you build up a trusting and supportive relationship with, the harder it is for the bully to isolate you.

4

Speak up Bullying only goes on so long because people refuse to speak up. The first place to start is with the actual bully. Adopting a firm and non-confrontational approach is best. Acknowledge their comments and then, if they are either inappropriate or have been delivered in an undermining way, tell them that you are open to feedback to help you to improve in your work, but you are not willing to accept comments that are personal and inappropriate. Keep a cool tone and a gentle smile to deliver this feedback in a way that is most likely to be heard. If that approach is not successful, go to your boss, or higher if necessary. Share your experiences of the bully’s behaviour and ask their advice on how to deal with it. Their response will tell you whether you have support, or whether bullying is something that is encouraged in the company. If it is the latter, you may need to think about moving on to a more positive workplace. Use HR to share concerns or, if your company has a welfare line, call it to get some advice about your situation.

It’s hard for someone to carry on raging against you if they see that it has little effect on your own disposition. Remember, bullying is like a dance.

It can only work if we both accept the respective roles in the routine. As soon as you step out of the dance, the harder it is for the bully to keep going in their role.

Use your own power and sense of self-respect to guide you if bullying is a difficulty that you have to contend with.

Mary McGuire is an international business consultant and author of the book ‘Coming Home to You’. Email mary@findyourjoyfullife.com

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Live & Learn INSPIRATION DIRECTORY

Inspiration Directory FOR YOUR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT NEEDS

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Live & Learn BOOK CLUB

WHICH BOOKS SHOULD BE KEEPING LEADERS AND MANAGERS AWAKE AT NIGHT? EDGE REVIEWS SOME OF THE MOST INTRIGUING TITLES AROUND

The Reputation Book Authors Guy Arnold & Russell Wood Price £9.99 LID Publishing

Reputation is everything. It’s time to supercharge yours Imagine finding a Moleskine diary of a prominent leader, crammed full of practical thoughts, with a handy page-marker ribbon and an elastic strap that lets you add your own stuff without losing it. That’s this book.

Former US president Theodore Roosevelt once remarked that “it takes a thousand good deeds to build a reputation, and just one to ruin it”.

Whether you’re at your career peak or starting out, this book will add value.

The Reputation Book sits well in a series of pocket books designed to provide a fast source of insight, inspiration and ideas to the busy professional. Hands up here: I’m a big fan of the Concise Ideas Lab series to which this book belongs.

The format is spot-on. Split into five neat parts, over 170 pages, it introduces the reader to the social revolution sweeping society today.

It systematically explores the importance of referrals, and how to gain them, before recapping key points and encouraging the creation of a personal action plan.

Each section spans just a couple of pages, making it easy to dip in and out, as time permits. I read the book in one sitting on a plane journey and then went back to it, scrawling across pages and setting out what I wanted to do. The design, layout and content of this book provoke thought and I found myself engaging with it in the way that one might take notes and set personal actions when listening to an authoritative speaker. Looking back as I write these words, I see pages covered in annotation.

This book is perfectly positioned for consultants who want to boost their profile. But, with an open mind, it also provides practical suggestions, tools and tips for managers and leaders keen to build their brand and become more customer-focused, regardless of their role or industry sector.

While most business books today are self-absorbed, with fancy artwork, sexy covers and pointless preambles, this book – remarkably, for less than a tenner – is peppered with nudges to self-reflect and take action (called ‘thinkabouts’), and provides a rich source of ideas, inspiration and encouragement. Read it if you think your ‘personal brand’ needs a refresh or if you’re keen to re-energise and build additional value into your relationships with key stakeholders.

I highly recommend it.

Reviewer Professor Andrew Sharman is an international strategy, culture and leadership consultant and author of several books on leadership and culture change

Mind Your Own Business Authors Andrew Sharman & Dame Judith Hackitt DBE Price £20 Maverick Eagle Press

Don’t just leave health and safety to the experts – take back control The book is a wake-up call for leaders to make safety culture part of business strategy. It highlights that safety leadership is not prominent, or even

Kill Bad Meetings Authors Kevan Hall & Alan Hall Price £20 Nicholas Brealey Publishing

You’re losing a day a week on bad meetings.

Here’s how to stop Imagine running a factory where you throw away 50% of everything you make as scrap. Now think about your current role. Do meetings take up a large proportion of what you do?

Research shows that for many leaders and managers today, up to two days

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Edge is looking for readers to review management and leadership books for Book Club. If you are interested, email sally.percy@lidpublishing.com

present, on most MBA courses and it needs to be. Good safety is good business and a core value in how you want the business to operate – not a ‘priority’ or a ‘current initiative’.

The book lays out a route map for action in changing your organisation’s safety culture, taking back control, being an effective safety leader, asking good questions, tackling unnecessary bureaucracy and overzealous practitioners, and having a different relationship with health and safety experts.

It explores health and safety myths, explains why we have handed health and safety over to experts, and investigates the rise of risk aversion and compensation culture. It also identifies what is getting in the way

of creating great safety leadership. To get the culture ‘just right’, you need to flip your perspective and become a leader who creates safety and handles failure equally well. Build a culture based on caring about how things are done, not putting a “cover-everything, rules-based system in place or over-bureaucratising with checklists and inspections”.

The book has some fantastic gems, but they are buried too deep at times. It did inform and engage me, because it was so right about some things, but it repeated things unnecessarily.

I wanted it to be sharper and more forceful in demanding leaders to wake up and change.

a week are consumed with meetings.

And 50% of these are a waste of time.

The over-arching premise of this book is that meetings have become mental death traps of presentation overload, meandering discussion and ill-informed and inadequate decision-making. Through five key steps and 16 short chapters, this well-structured book shows readers how to create fewer, better meetings; kill off unnecessary ones; build more productivity into those that remain; and embed changes that will make meetings worthwhile.

The book covers a range of meeting types, from face-to-face to virtual online meetings, as well as cross-cultural and global meetings.

There are several tools to help –

such as working out the ‘Outcomes, Process, Participation and Timing’ of your meetings and preparing ‘RACI’ (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) charts – and frequent, practical nudges to take action. The authors explain how to design meetings to encourage engagement and flow, and share their 11 principles of participation.

This book claims it will save you one day each week.

Will it? I’m not so sure, but its simple tools and ideas, and well-structured approach might just help you make meetings matter again.

Reviewer Julie Steel is a learning and development consultant

Reviewer Professor Andrew Sharman is an international strategy, culture and leadership consultant and author of several books on leadership and culture change

Smile Again Author Anna Pinkerton Price £9.99 CreateSpace

Recovery from breakdown is a seven-step process I was looking forward to reading this book and understanding the different levels of resilience humans have. Pinkerton provides a seven-step recovery process, which appealed to me, since it suggested a structure that I could use to help myself. The early part of the book struggles to stay on track, however. Pinkerton is clearly experienced, but I felt she used too many anecdotes, leaving me to re-read the text to try and understand what she wanted me to take away. The narrative begins with a lot of repetition, which, coupled with so many diverse examples, risks making the reader feel that their issues are nothing in comparison.

Each chapter does, however, have a clear summary, which I flicked to when I struggled to follow the content.

Pinkerton later settles down into a more reader-friendly style. Smile Again is packed with places from which to get help, offering a great safety net.

Reviewer Penny Whitelock FinstLM is a leadership coach at Crystal Clear Business Solutions

Leadership Legend

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Wrong kind of capitalism Low wages and poor treatment of suppliers are fuelling the UK’s productivity crisis

T

he UK has a productivity crisis. Productivity has been flatlining since 2008. We are now behind even Italy and way behind Germany, France, the Netherlands and Scandinavia. This is part of the crisis of capitalism. It is also part of the crisis of the agency theory in economics, which holds that employees, suppliers and other stakeholders are the mere agents of shareholders who own the corporation. This belief fosters gross inequality. Let us consider the vicious circle that results from this belief:

...managers are set profit targets, which shareholders demand...

...and the environment is used for waste disposal...

...which means less for employees, and less for their training and development...

...with suppliers paid late and their margins cut...

...while tax avoidance deprives government ...and customers sold of revenue... high-margin, low-value goods, leading to lags in demand and productivity...

Note that shareholders put themselves first, not just in pay-off but also in time. The fallacy of this thinking is that shareholders come last in any attempt to create wealth. It is not until employees have created, produced and innovated, until suppliers have done their best, and until customers have been satisfied, that there is any revenue for shareholders to receive. Customers are also employees, so if you keep wages low, the economy will lack demand. If you fail to train them, the economy will lack skills and human development.

By

Charles Hampden-Turner

What works, and is prominent in East Asia, Germany and Scandinavia, is stakeholder capitalism. Here employees and suppliers come first, then customers. Singapore calls this ‘EFCS’ (employees first – customers second). The model looks like this: ...select the best employees, pay and train them well and encourage them to innovate...

...so that shareholders get the residue to which they are entitled...

...we align ourselves with, not against, the natural environment...

...nurture your suppliers and pay them promptly...

People Planet Profit

...pay for 1 and 2 through higher productivity and use this to delight customers...

...so that the government can count on tax ...

‘People, planet and profit’ forms the basis of John Elkington’s Triple Bottom Line model, which regards all stakeholders as equals. A supplier of batteries or charging stations may be the making of your electric car, as might an innovative employee. Unless wages rise and suppliers expand, there will be insufficient demand to grow the economy and insufficient tax revenue. Note that economies emerging since 1990 use the Japanese economic model, which puts employees and other stakeholders ahead of shareholders. China, which is growing three times faster than the UK, gives little power to shareholders. The City has recovered from 2008 but wages, productivity and the real economy are stuck in a rut. We have the wrong kind of capitalism.

Charles Hampden-Turner is a British management philosopher, and was a senior research associate at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge

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