Four Groups

Malcolm Gladwell has been over to London, talking about his new book, The Outliers. I haven’t read the book and I’ve only scanned the reviews, but the talent management component of the message seems to be that;

Outliers focuses more on the social and cultural context of individuals to explain their extraordinary success… Gladwell explains how success in the 21st century is less about sheer intelligence and more about collaboration and hard work

We’re always in favour of collaboration, although concerning Gladwell, the BPS blog linked to a wonderful interview with Gladwell and Katie Couric in which Couric asks Gladwell if he is stating the obvious. Gladwell’s reaction before answering is well worth the three minutes and preceding advert!

However you perceive Gladwell, it is wonderful to watch someone who has been so closely entwined with the zeitgeist for so long.

According to Stephen Green, chairman of HSBC Holdings;

Values go beyond ‘what you can get away with’ and that values are, in the end, critical to value – to sustainable value, that is

Green goes on to say;

“For companies, where does the responsibility for this begin? With their boards, of course. It is their job to promote a culture of ethical business throughout their organisation. It is true for banks at this time, but also true for all our businesses at all times.” Most of his industry colleagues wanted to do this and to be able to look at themselves in the mirror and know they were doing the right thing, he added.

Evidently, very relevant advice, if perhaps acknowledging that the horse has already bolted. That said, such sentiments go a long way to endorsing the opportunity and recognising the potential value that comes from successful leadership development.

Quotes via People Management

Nick McCormick very kindly sugested a podcast with himself on management tips. We had a good chat about some thoughts on leadership and spent about 10 minutes talking about;

• Self Awareness
• Relationships
• Systems
• Culture

I spoke a bit more about our own, Wilber inspired perspective on the topic. If you fancy a listen, the podcast is here.

Gary Cokins highlights some recent Dutch research that suggests;

overall enterprise performance is improved by defining accountability for sales turnover and profit and loss simultaneously over multiple dimensions (e.g., by product, region, account, market segment, industry). This “multidimensional” concept means that for each dimension, a separate manager is held accountable –and with consequences of reward or punishment

While a full appreciation of multidimensionality is for me at least, some way of, I am intrigued and interested to read that;

The Dutch study implies that reshaping an organization’s social structure with multidimensional principles is emerging as a trend. Implementing a performance management framework most certainly is an essential enabler to make such a vision a reality.

While Bob Sutton knows GM very well (research, speaker, existing contacts there), he can’t stop himself from feeling compelled to speak his mind. Here are some extracts from his piece;

I am ambivalent about whether the auto industry should receive the 25 billion dollars… I worry that it will be a waste because the industry has lost so much money and so many jobs in recent years that these firms are in a death spiral that is impossible to stop… I also believe it will be a waste because the leaders of these firms (at least GM, which I know best) are so backward and misguided that the thought of giving these bozos any of my tax money turns my stomach – which is pretty much the same point made by observers ranging from ultra-capitalist Mitt Romney to near-socialist documentary filmmaker Michael Moore.

Bob continues;

To me, a pair of root causes standout: Most of the senior executives — and many of the managers — are (1) clueless about what matters most and (2) suffer from a “no we can’t” mindset… the norm in meetings is that the highest status person in the room does all or most of the talking… more so than any organization I have ever dealt with, employees are expected to express agreement with their bosses… GM is a culture where subordinates are expected to shut-up and kiss-up when the boss is around… Do I believe that that the current crop of executives could transform the GM culture to include these and other practices that will increase their awareness of what is going in their company and in the marketplace? No… But this “can’t do” mentality is pervasive.

Perhaps the most salient example comes from the perks offered to executives…

Consider the case of the free GM cars. This isn’t a new problem. Many other observers have commented on it before me. I commented about it very forcefully about to some GM managers a few years back. I argued that they needed to abolish the program because it caused the whole top of the company to be out of touch with the car ownership experience. They answered that GM couldn’t possibly get rid of the program because they had negotiated such a great tax deal with the state of Michigan (much better than Ford, they bragged) and because it was one of the few perks left for white collar employees. I was not very nice, I argued that this mentality was one of the reasons that the company was in trouble and would get in more trouble. They treated me like I was insane.

If there were ever a case of a firm’s human and economic values being out of line, this must be one of them!