Room At The Top

This morning I had a brief discussion with a friend who is a senior HR manager in Cairo.  She is brave and knowledgeable, with the ability to understand Western best practice (having grown up in the USA, as well as having held senior roles covering the Middle East for one of the world’s leading global brands) and she also values and appreciates the nuances of Islamic and Arabic life (she is a devout, Arabic speaking Moslem and proud of her Egyptian heritage).  She knows when to apply conventional international HR approaches and when to adapt to accommodate local and cultural requirements.  Understandably, she is concerned by the current conflict in Egypt (in many ways it is worse than prior to the overthrow of Mubarak), her family home is near the presidential palace, where there are fierce demonstrations (to date six people have died and over seven hundred been injured); the recrimination and bitterness in Egyptian society is almost tangible.

Anti Mursi protesters outside palace in Cairo - Reuters

The issues in Egypt seem to be rooted in disagreements over governance, the same could be said of Syria – where the problems are deepening and the potential ramifications (such as the use of chemical weapons) are terrifying.  It is believed that Syria has significant stocks of sarin – a foul chemical, used by Saddam Hussein against the Kurds and by the doomsday cult in Japan to kill innocent people on the Tokyo subway in 1995; it attacks nerves and paralyses muscles around the lungs causing people to suffocate.  Something, given my recent medical experiences, I understand a little about and I can imagine how dreadful a way it would be to die.  http://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-comments/past-issues/volume-18-2012/august/unease-grows-over-syrias-chemical-weapons/ Should these chemicals get into the wrong hands the impact could be devastating.  If President Assad is persuaded to leave Syria, in an attempt to create peace, this could leave a power vacuum, which might result in ongoing civil unrest (as has occurred in Egypt and Lebanon).  Good governance is crucial at all levels in society, just as it is in business.

 

Earlier this week I participated in an interesting meeting between HR directors and academics, to look at the issues of governance within organisations (and most specifically the role of board members).  We heard a great case study in which a CEO needed to be replaced at very short notice.  It reminded me of a time when I was in a business where the CEO was asked to step down, an interim CEO (a senior executive from within the business) held the reins until the new CEO was appointed and commenced.  Individuals who had joined because of the chemistry and rapport between the former CEO and themselves found the new regime very challenging and business was adversely impacted, whilst employees’ focus was on internal matters, rather than customers and revenue.  Some senior executives chose to leave the organisation and the company was not pleased to see all of them go.  It’s not always rats that leave the ship.  Better communication prior and during the period of unrest probably would have helped to retain good people, but it was a patriarchal business that felt that information should only be provided “on a needs to know basis” and most of us were not deemed worthy of needing to know.  Times of change are, understandably, potentially destabilising for those involved, even when they have been well briefed, and can have a significantly adverse impact on performance and public reaction to a brand.  However, the reverse can also be true, if change is handled well a brand and business can benefit. 

According to Sir Win Bischoff (Chairman of Lloyds TSB) and Edward Speed (the Chairman of the eminent global search firm, Spencer Stuart), both of whom spoke at a recent live event hosted by the Financial Times, less than 20% of interim CEOs are appointed to the permanent role (so press speculation that Paul Dempsey is unlikely to become the full time CEO of BBC Worldwide is likley to be true).  Traditionally interim CEOs have came from inside the business (the argument being that they are familiar with the organisation and its people).  Given the probale brevity of their tenure, it is not surprising that many interim heads of organisations usually are loathe to introduce any radical policies or approaches that might need to be overhauled by the permanent appointee.  Yet, the reason for the original CEO’s departure might be because of the need for appropriate action to be taken swiftly to stem a problem (such as occurred in the recent situations at both the BBC and some subsidiaries of News International).  To better facilitae these times of change, a growing market for professional “interim CEOs” has developed.  They can offer the unusual skill set required to manage a crisis situation, as opposed to having solely the day-to-day operations of the company.  It is infrequent that an interim head meets the requirements for the role going forward – it can be done, witness Colonel Richard Harrold OBE, who stepped up to steer the Tower of London through a difficult period after his former boss, The Governor, was asked to leave following adverse coverage in the media and internal ructions.

 

Although organisations usually find a way to cope when disaster strikes, it is prudent to avoid the need for an emergency replacement for a CEO and/or at the least, to have a known and understood plan for interim governance.  A plan should exist to enable a smooth transition if, for example a CEO’s to be taken ill (as occurred at Lloyds TSB in 2011, when Antonio Mota de Sousa Horta was signed off with stress).  It is not usual for a Chairman to make it common knowledge as to whom he has lined up as the CEO’s successor.  When John F. Welsh announced his intended retirement, GE was rumoured to have commenced a rigorous internal search for a new chief executive.  Reportedly, it was a three-horse race and all there individuals knew that they were contenders.  When Jeffrey Immelt’s selection was made public he commenced a year of working closely with Welsh, so that he understood the requirements of the role – an effective induction to ensure continuity and stability.  However, GE lost two good employees (namely Robert Nardelli and James McNerny) when they found that they were not the chosen one.  Senior leaders are ambitions and can easily feel slighted if they are seen to come second.  What’s more, the head-hunters will circle like sharks if they know that good employees are feeling disgruntled and can therefore be enticed into considering external opportunities.

 

A good relationship and mutual understanding is required for a Board to be truly effective.  Clearly the rapport between the Chairman and CEO is crucial, however it must not be too “chummy” – the Chairman needs to feel comfortable challenging the chief executive and the CEO must appreciate that he and the other executive directors are under scrutiny.  Increasingly Boards as a whole are undergoing psychometric and other forms of assessment, to ensure enhanced awareness of their strengths and capabilities of the team as well as to improve the way in which individuals interact with each other.  At times this is taken further – I am aware of one instance where a subsidiary wished to make a representation to the Board for a significant amount of funding.  The Board had been quite open about the Myers Briggs types within the team.  The subsidiary’s leadership team decided to trial the planned presentation on individuals whom they knew were similar in type to the main board members - this enabled them to anticipate the issues that might be of interest or concern and have prepared responses.

Summary Of Myers Briggs personality types

 

Being well prepared goes a long way towards winning the battle.

Boy Scout Badge

 

Forked Tongues

“Liar, liar, your pants are on fire” – so goes the childhood chant and, if the words are true, there must be a few bankers, pharmacists, journalists and politicians with hot posteriors at the moment.  Deception does seem to be a predominant theme in many of the current big stories in the media.  I am not going to wade into the rights and wrongs of bankers’ behaviour, nor the honesty and integrity displayed by News International journalists, nor even the conduct of persuasive representatives of GlaxoSmithKline.  Given that the majority of public eyes seem to be focussed on the woes of Spain and the Euro Zone, I must confess that I was tempted to write about the current issues in the Middle East, especially between Syria and Turkey – all is not necessarily as it seems.  The internet is rife with articles speculating as to why a Turkish plane was in Syrian airspace and the possible agendas of various countries with interests in the region. (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31766.htm is particularly interesting, as it is one of the first to be published by a leading Turkish academic and raises some provocative hypotheses as to what various countries are hoping to achieve through conflict and regime change in the Middle East – the sentences “Other agendas are easy to see.  Saudi Arabia wanted the US to attack Iran during the George W. Bush presidency and ‘cut the head off the snake’” set me thinking – in modern times, why is the snake so often the bad guy?)

Snakes have played an important role in myths and legends from the ancient stories of Hercules strangling serpents whilst still in his cradle to Harry Potter – I suspect that the inspiration for Harry’s ability to speak and understand reptilian language originates from Bulgarian folklore.  There is a story that when a young shepherd saved the daughter of the Snake King (a creature “as big as a century old pine with wings and an enormous head”) the king gave the youth a magical ring, that the serpentine monarch had stored under his tongue, which could fulfil desires and enable humans to understand the language of the animals. 

In Bulgaria snakes were viewed as dangerous and unnatural creatures that lived in a huge cave “in the lower world”.  According to tradition, they would crawl out of their holes on the Day of Annunciation (March 25) and hide again on the Day of the Transfiguration and the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in August.  Spring cleaning is a tradition in many parts of the world, but in Bulgaria there is an extra twist – the refuse produced during the ritual cleaning is piled up and set on fire.  All the family are encouraged to jump over the flames – for health and as a protection against snake bites.  It was believed that snakes would try to bite a victim in the heel and hence, by jumping over the smouldering garbage, an individual could smoke their heels, thereby making them harder to bite.  Snakes weren’t always viewed as bringers of harm – if a snake was killed on the day of The Annunciation and its head successfully used as a buried fertilizer for basil or garlic, it was believed that the gardener would gain almost miraculous powers of healing using these herbs. In addition, each home had its own Guardian Snake which the household actually cared for in return for its protection.

Clearly, snakes are not always viewed as evil – many early legends grant them the power of forming life and even making the earth itself – this idea perhaps originating from the snake’s ability to appear to be reborn after sloughing off its old skin.  Tribes in both Africa and Australia have creation myths about a Rainbow Snake that was mother to the creatures on Earth or the provider of water.  In Chinese mythology the woman-headed snake, Nüwa, made the first humans out of clay.  Her initial creations, constructed with care, became the high-class populace from whom the royal line, scholars and aristocracy were descended, as she began to tire; she conserved her energy by simply flicking clay with her tail to form lower-class people.  Ancient Egyptians believed that, before the world as we know it was created, there was a many-coiled serpent named Amduat from whom arose Ra the Sun God to form the world.  Like many ancient people, the Egyptians revered snakes for their healing properties; there are hymns recorded from workmen in Thebes in honour of Mertseger, the snake goddess, thanking her for curing illnesses.  Similarly in Sumerian culture the healing god Ninazu’s son is depicted with a serpent and staff (the image of a snake entwined around a pole, known as the Rod of Asclepius, is still used today as the symbol for a large number of medical organisations including the British Medical Association, the Pakistan Medical Corps and the American Medical Association.  A similar staff is also described in The Bible in The Book of Numbers, chapter 21, verses 6-9, when Moses is instructed to create a rod with a fiery serpent wrapped round it to use to cure the Israelites dying from snake bites).  The Rod of Asclepius, the representation of the ancient Greek God of Healing’s staff, is not to be confused with The Caduceus, the rod carried by Hermes, the messenger of the gods.  Hermes’ baton is represented as having two snakes twined round it and is surmounted with a pair of wings.  Hermes was responsible for commerce and travel, famous for his silver-tongued eloquence and powers of negotiation...perhaps a symbol more appropriate for a purveyor of snake oil than a medical practitioner.

Sadly lies and deception are a recurring aspect of the human condition – from Eve succumbing to the sweet-talked words of the subtle serpent, encouraging her to give Adam the apple in the Garden of Eden, to us in our daily domestic lives.  How many of us haven’t occasionally grunted to indicate that we heard what someone said, when our minds are in fact on other things?  I did it on Sunday afternoon when asked a question during the Andy Murray vs. Roger Federer final at Wimbledon. We tell lies to “make life easier”, but easier for who?  Genuine relationships need to be based on trust and it is hard to trust someone who continually lies to you.  Shakespeare’s words in Macbeth about people not being what they seem springs to mind:

“Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under't”

The world seems to be full of people making false or misleading claims.  Often those whom we trust most are exposed as being “snakes in the grass” – hence the public outrage at the recent scandals we have witnessed concerning the media, the police, and our politicians.  Things are often little better within the corporate environment.  The traditional “command and control” approach has relied on a “need to know” mentality, where only a select few are privy to certain information.  This often works upwards as well as downwards – Bob Diamond, as CEO at Barclays, was in a position where he could expect to be privy to all data pertaining to the Bank’s performance, but it is probable that individuals lower in the trading hierarchy felt that there was no need for him to be bothered with the intricate details of their teams’ day-to-day transactions.  Part of the frustration that the self-named 99% have with Big Business is that they are not party to information and feel dominated by the controlling but secretive corporates. 

The world is often easier in the longer term if people cooperate and share information before problems occur.  I spotted a possible problem yesterday when thinking about snakes for this post.  There is a sinuous and attractive lake, named the Serpentine, located in one of Central London’s major parks.  Following its being granted a clean bill of health – well almost, it’s waters were deemed “good and sufficient” as opposed to “excellent” by the European Environment Agency - The Serpentine was announced as the venue for the London Olympic Triathlon swimming, with a slight proviso that this rating could be adversely impacted by severe weather and heavy rain in the lead up to events (The Serpentine is fed by water from the Thames, the main river that runs through London)  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/23/london-olympics-watercourses-bill-health. 

I am sure that most people in the UK are aware of the current weather, as will be those of you who have been following the tennis; it has been foul with many areas suffering severe flooding.  I checked the ten day forecast and it does not bode well for The Serpentine, and hence perhaps for the Triathlon... 

10 Day Details

Date	Temperature	Conditions		UV Index	Precipitation	Wind
09 July	N/A /13°		Showers Early	7	40%	From West South West at 16 kmph
10 July	18° /12°		Showers	6	60%	From West South West at 16 kmph
11 July	18° /11°		Showers	7	50%	From West at 23 kmph
12 July	16° /11°		Showers	4	60%	From Southwest at 24 kmph
13 July	17° /13°		Showers	4	60%	From West South West at 18 kmph
14 July	17° /12°		Showers	6	60%	From West at 18 kmph
15 July	18° /12°		Cloudy	6	20%	From West South West at 18 kmph
16 July	18° /12°		Partly Cloudy	7	20%	From West South West at 21 kmph
17 July	19° /14°		Cloudy	6	20%	From West South West at 18 kmph
18 July	19° /14°		Few Showers	6	30%	From Southwest at 19 kmph

I hope that my sharing of this information is not viewed in a negative light.  On the subject of light, I was fortunate to be invited to a wonderful party in The Gherkin last Thursday – it was full of people from global businesses and it was a pleasure to be able to chat with some of them and to gain their news and views.  It is amazing what people will tell you if you ask them nicely.  Thursday was also the night of the official opening of The Shard (a massive Arab investment towering above the British capital.  At 310 meters, The Shard is Western Europe’s tallest sky scraper).  The event was celebrated with dramatic music and laser light shows.  As I made my way home over London Bridge, I could not but smile at the placard carried by James Bridle.  In many ways it says so much...

Secrecy and the withholding of potentially powerful information is a common theme in both fiction and the real world.  It is regrettable that in many businesses there are still interdepartmental rivalries, where specific data is deliberately withheld from others elsewhere in the organisation.  I worked once in a business where individuals in one part of the firm were banned by their head of department from even setting foot on the floor where a “rival” team were based – this resulted in a significant loss of business and opportunities, to the detriment of all.  HR and Finance are often cited as examples of divisions that should not get along, as, supposedly, one is focused on verifying current performance against forecasted figures and hence is backwards looking and numbers driven, whereas the other is focused on the future, devising what can be done to enhance performance, using tools such as Learning and Development, which are not exact sciences (the tangible prediction of anticipated returns on training and L&D investments are hard to quantify). With such different outlooks, it is easy to see why misunderstandings and even suspicion can arise.  In my own employer I work hard to ensure that there is cross-divisional comprehension and support.  At my team's recent offsite in London, I deliberately included representatives from various departments and areas across the Group, thereby encouraging better understanding and cooperation.  We had a wonderful day, with help from http://www.changecontinuum.com/, http://stirringthesource.com/ and http://trainerskitbag.com/. Photographic evidence below: 

 

It is impossible in the modern world to be all-seeing; we need to work together to enable mutual success.