Painting Over The Cracks

When I was a little girl I lived in Wimbledon.  We had a modern house with a wonderful garden.  My cousins and I spent hours building camps in the rough scrub and climbing the cedar tree – its branches were easy to scale, almost like a ladder, and wide enough to lie on (provided that you didn’t wriggle too much).  Nothing grew under the cedar, its aromatic scent filled the air and the ground was covered in its fine pine needles which produced a crumbly soil, easy to dig into.  One year, when my sisters were very young, a delightful Swiss au pair girl came to stay; she was with us to help my mother, whilst improving her English.   I liked her a lot - she was fun and caring and we soon developed a strong bond, playing hide and seek in the garden, making things together and I even helped her with the housework. 

Now, being a parent myself, I can sympathise with my mother, who was newly out of hospital after a particularly gruelling caesarean.  She was short tempered and easily roused to extremely vocal outbursts of anger and frustration.  Both the au pair and I were quite nervous of her.  My mother was (and is) a wonderful cook and she had a few unusual kitchen gadgets to help her.  One of these was a “cream maker” – a small hand-plunger operated device that re-amalgamated butter and milk to make cream.  It was made of sky blue and white plastic and my mother was very pleased with it.  After each use it had to be carefully dismantled and washed.  One piece, like a tiny white Enoki mushroom, acted as the lynch pin, connecting the pump handle to the main device.  After lunch one day, the au pair put all the cream maker pieces in a washing up bowl and, when she had finished cleaning them, she tipped the sudsy water down the drain.  It was only when she and I commenced reconstructing the appliance that we discovered that the vital connecting pin had been flushed away.  We were horrified and knew that my mother’s wrath would be fearful.  In panic we placed the remaining pieces in a plastic bag and buried them in the soft soil under the cedar tree. We hoped to buy ourselves some time to source a replacement piece, by ensuring that the Cream Maker was out of sight and hence hopefully out of mind.  We failed to secure a replacement (we had to buy a whole new one) and I suspect that the original cream maker is still in its shallow grave.  With hindsight, we could have created a replacement piece from a paperclip and hence not lost the ability to make cream.  Mind you, my mother would still have been angry, even if we had repaired the cream maker with an ingenious solution.

The au pair and my reactions were very human.  We wanted to avoid having a difficult conversation and we concealed the problem in an attempt to ensure calm.  At work people often adopt a similar approach, either ignoring or concealing undesirable occurrences and behaviours.  In a previous post, just after last year’s English riots, I talked about the impact of the “herd mentality” that discourages individuals from speaking out against the majority view (http://www.kategl.blogspot.co.uk/2011_08_01_archive.html).  I noted that the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster could have been avoided if some individuals had stood their ground against the commercial view.  People not speaking out usually occurs when people desire to conceal an issue that could impact on their own personal gain, despite having a moral duty to do so (as occurred in the Challenger incident and this is also one of the main themes of Arthur Miller’s play “All My Sons”) or out of a reluctance to share something that an individual fears will be ill-received (it took Darwin twenty years to publish “The Origin of Species” and some people say that this is due to a reluctance to upset his wife and/or to face ridicule and criticism from Society).  So called Doubting Thomases can thwart innovation – the inventor of photocopying, Chester Carlson, invented the process in his spare time in 1938, but it took him ten years to find a company prepared to turn his invention into a commercial product.  

Often over the course of the past week, I have contemplated how people respond to errors and things that we find unappealing.  I saw an excellent and moving production of “The Suit” at the Young Vic.  In the dusty heat of a 1950s South African township a husband finds his wife in bed with her lover.  The man escapes leaving behind his suit.  The husband then insists that the suit is treated as an honoured guest and member of their household.  The public humiliation of his wife, their sad attempts to maintain a normal marital facade and the husband’s final remorse, when it is too late to rectify things, is heartbreaking.  As was the backdrop and brutality of apartheid.  Despite the fact that we all learn from making initial mistakes and slowly improving – look at how we learn to walk or read - as we age we become less supportive of experiential learning and hence of potential innovation and resolution.

Earlier this week I took a friend to see the filmed version of National Theatre’s production of Frankenstein with Benedict Cumberbatch as the Creature and Jonny Lee Millar as the Doctor.  Prior to the actual film, there was an introduction in which Cumberbatch explained how he had studied stroke victims to learn how they regained the ability to walk, whilst Lee Miller had learned much from observing his young son becoming mobile and, sponge-like, absorbing information about the world around him.  Both were inspired to create their performances of the Creature’s birth and learning to move and the outcomes were amazing.  I had seen the staged version of Frankenstein at the National Theatre last year and I was nervous about whether it would translate to film – actually in many ways it provided the best from both media to maximise impact.  If you can, I urge you to see it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=axL7sKzrYtw

One of the themes in “Frankenstein” is the Creature’s desire for companionship and Frankenstein’s aspiration to improve on his prototype, because he is ashamed by the appearance of his Creature.  Why do many adults today, especially in Western society, seem unwilling to show and share something marvellous that they have created?  I suspect it is because they anticipate ridicule or worse, especially if their initial effort is functional but not attractive.  By being scared of disseminating fresh knowledge (and hence seeking to perpetuate the established ways of doing things) we lose out.  Often the initial iterance or the solution produced is quite ugly, but the thought and effort that has gone into its production should be lauded.

In Japan there is the practice of “Kintsugi” (golden joinery) – i.e. mending broken objects and deliberately making a feature of the damage by filling the cracks with gold.  There is a belief that when something has suffered and been damaged it has a history and hence it becomes more beautiful.  According to legend, the practice commenced in the fifteenth century when a shogun tried to repair a Chinese teapot. He wanted a more aesthetically pleasing effect than traditional repairs that tried to conceal what was perceived as unsightly cracks and chips.  The gold celebrates the effort that has gone into the repairs, makes a feature of the history and patterns and increases the value of what were once mundane objects.  We can all learn from this approach and should consider applying it in both our work and private lives – not just to enhance cracked plates but also to acknowledge people.

Back to the burial of the cream maker...we hid it because we were afraid of the reaction the loss of the little pin would provoke.  Much in the same way that employees will try to disguise mistakes when they work in a “fear and blame culture”.  If we had anticipated a different response from my mother it is probable that our behaviour would have been different, to the benefit of all.  She might have been understanding and have praised us for providing an innovative solution - the cream maker would have been that bit more valued in all of our eyes because, by mending it, we would have shown that we cared and that we knew how much she appreciated it.  Perhaps I should go and dig it up...

Pretty Little Heads

HR has been getting quite a bad press recently – mainly due to the Beecroft report (a report commissioned by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) in response to a UK government request for areas of red tape, such as employment law, to be simplified in order to encourage job creation and growth).  Other than stating that I am not convinced that the proposals will achieve the aim of stimulating growth and enabling increased employment, I am not going to go into the pros and cons of Beecroft’s proposals; others better than I have already written some excellent comments (see Laura Chamberlain’s summary for the CIPD in Personnel Today http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2012/05/22/58548/what-does-the-beecroft-report-mean-for-government-policy.html or the admirable amalgamation of observations produced by Michael Carty of xperthr http://www.xperthr.co.uk/blogs/employment-intelligence/2012/05/beecroft-report-was-inspired-b.html).  The thing that interests me is that Beecroft was allegedly inspired by a former HR Director, whom he fired from his venture capital business, who then raised a claim via the UK employment tribunal and received significant compensation for unfair dismissal.

It is often said that it is unwise to fire HR professionals as they, better than most, know employee rights as well as “where the bodies are buried” in the organisations that they work for and hence are well placed to fight their corner.  Certainly, it is HR’s role to understand employment legislation and to ensure that their employer conducts itself in an appropriate manner.  However, is that it?  What is HR’s role?  Is it simply a function to ensure good order?  Even in today’s challenging business environment, HR is viewed by many as a necessary overhead whose purpose is to monitor and control.  A number of senior leaders, primarily outside HR, believe that the function has little direct ability to contribute towards the bottom line and should not even try. 

Rather like a Georgian wife or a Southern Belle, senior leaders at times state that in effect HR should not “trouble it’s pretty little head with complex business issues, but should focus on maintaining order and discipline within the home”.  By this, presumably they mean the:

• production and maintaining of appropriate policies and procedures to protect and support the company;
• undertaking of efficient, cost effective recruitment;
• ensuring that remuneration is appropriate – sufficient to attract, retain and motivate without being overly generous; and
• communicating with employees to ensure that management’s objectives are achieved.  

It appears that HR is not viewed as capable of understanding the commercial aspects of business.

I had my knuckles rapped on Friday by a fellow Exec who felt that I was getting involved in areas that should not concern HR (the accurate production of business performance and productivity figures, by area and individual within each area).  In some ways he is right, I have more than enough challenges without unnecessarily taking more onto my plate and I should produce significant improvements in my area before wading into other people’s troughs.  It would be so easy simply to obey and get my snout out.  However, I am a firm believer that HR cannot support a business without genuinely understanding the commercial drivers.  I see HR as being responsible for enhancing business performance through the most effective use of people.  I also believe that HR is a crucial part of the business, and will remain so for as long as most organisations rely on individuals to enable their success.

HR is often the eyes and ears of a business, picking up on issues before they are commonly aired and is well placed to bring potential concerns to the table.  HR needs to be brave and feel comfortable speaking out when certain matters that could impede the business are brought to its attention.  Employees often turn to HR when they are concerned and a good HR professional should be able to sense when things are not quite as they should be.  I once took a phone call from a distressed relative whose son was in hospital.  She explained that he was near suicidal due to what had happened to him and wanted to know what we “his employer” were going to do to redress matters.  I knew that we did not have, nor had ever had, an employee with the name she gave me but, instead of simply telling her that she had the wrong number, I listened to her complaint.  It became clear that, even though her son was not an employee, he had significant knowledge about a number of our employees and the business.  Following the “there’s no smoke without a fire” principal, I undertook some investigations.  What came to light was a significant fraud involving a number of individuals.  Due to my ability to read between the lines in that initial telephone conversation, I exposed a multimillion pound embezzlement scam and managed both to prevent it and thereby to save my employer a significant sum of money.

Perhaps if more people had listened and been prepared to voice their concerns, many of the much worse issues and subsequent losses, due to the Global Economic Crisis of the past five years, could have been averted.  We have a similar situation within Europe at the moment.  Many of us have said for a while that it was only a matter of time before Spain would need financial assistance.  It was clear that, like in Ireland, huge sums of money had been borrowed to finance unnecessary construction projects and mad-cap ventures.  Even as a tourist visiting Spain I could see that there was unnecessary building developments – such as airports, housing and golf complexes – that would be impossible for local businesses and authorities to sustain.  What possessed the Spanish banks to lend money for these projects?  Presumably the same blind desire for profit that infected the Irish banking system.  People in Barcelona have spent the past three days demonstrating against the predatory practices of banks.

One of the best and funniest bits of this week’s topical listening was “The Now Show” on BBC Radio 4, commenting on the current Eurozone issues – it is an excellent, humorous parody, explaining what has gone wrong and why, as well as producing some witty thumbnail sketches of the main players in the drama.  If you missed it here is the podcast http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/fricomedy/fricomedy_20120608-1547a.mp3  the sketch I am referring to starts at 08.51 or else you can listen via iplayer, the URL is http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01jhp0f/The_Now_Show_Series_37_Episode_1/ but be warned – like  a James Bond briefing tape, the iplayer version will self destruct in six days.  We in Europe have clearly been making a meal of it!

Perhaps the waiter or the chef should have voiced concerns, before the diners had become too extravagant.  In the same way, perhaps HR should be encouraged to voice its unease.  We live in a complex and constantly changing world.  None of us has all the answers but if the “pretty heads” are comfortable speaking out, perhaps some future problems can be averted.

Diamonds Are Forever

As I sit at the computer this late Tuesday afternoon, typing these words for you, I can hear the rain drumming, like impatient fingers on a biscuit tin, on the roof outside.  As you are probably aware, the last four days have been a time of festivity in the UK and across the Commonwealth.  It is the Diamond Jubilee celebrations for Queen Elizabeth II.  Judging from my personal experiences, the long weekend has been a happy time with families, neighbours and friends getting together and numerous events organised to mark the occasion.  I am supposed to be attending a Jubilee Scottish dance in our church hall later this evening...a final fling before returning to work in the morning. 

There are lots of things that have amazed and amused over the past four days – the number and diversity of boats in the flotilla, the sight of a War Horse puppet rearing in salute above the National Theatre  (and the Queen’s evident delight), a water-borne belfry ringing a passage for the craft on the Thames as they made their way to Tower Bridge before being moved to its own resting place in St James’ church (“Wren’s Lantern”) at Garlickhythe in The City of London , the amazing line-up at the concert outside Buckingham Palace, Grace Jones wishing the Queen “happy birthday” after hula-hooping for what seemed an age, the people drawn from across the Commonwealth singing “Sing”, the sight of 70,000 concert attendees stretching along the Mall to Trafalgar Square, the amazing fireworks, Madness on the Palace roof with the brilliant animations projected onto the facade below them, the beacons, the carriage cavalcade, the historic flypast, the feu de joie (only the second time it has occurred in the UK) and the daftness of the busbies being raised in salute, the street parties, the fetes, the services and celebrations.   Few can do pomp and circumstance better than the British. 

However, one of the things that struck me most (must be because I’m British) was the weather.  After the luxurious heat wave of last weekend, the UK was predicted to suffer an almost constant deluge, with the worst of the weather centred on London.  Regardless of the threat, people carried on – admittedly, it was a little damp waiting on the riverbank for the flotilla, but, after a harsh downpour shortly before the start, it held off until The Spirit of Chartwell and the majority of the smaller boats had safely reached the end of their journey.  For all of the major events the weather seemed to hold off from giving us its worst - the concert evening was near perfect, the rain did not commence until after the carriage parade and flypast.  It is June in England and we as a nation would probably have been disappointed if there were no weather glitches, however it would have been worse if the weather forecasts had proved right.  Despite the threat the organisers carried out their plans and their efforts paid off.

One of the main learnings I have taken from this long weekend is that it is worth persevering and seeing things through.  Even when things look bleak, there is always hope and you should not give up.  The Queen herself has been exemplary in her determination in fulfilling her Public Duty.  I wouldn’t want her life, but there is no doubt that she has touched the lives of millions and, in her own way, has helped to make the world a better place.  Earlier today my family and I took time out to watch The Shawshank Redemption.  It is a powerful film about helping others and living life to the full.  Today is a brief post as I can hear the drone of bagpipes from the top of the road and need to draw this to a close.  I will leave you with a quote from the film that seems to summarise much of the past four days as well as recommending the best approach for the future:

“Get busy living or get busy dying”.

The choice is yours...

Boxing High Fliers

Sometimes life really doesn’t go according to plan – I feel a bit as though I’ve had one of those weeks.  I had intended to write this blog on Saturday: most of the family was out and, after getting the weekend chores out of the way, I had some time to myself to look forward to (a real luxury in my life).  As it was, I was sitting in the study, contemplating my tax return (that’s the exciting kind of woman I am) when suddenly the light dimmed and I looked out of the window – it resembled a scene from the Bible.  The sky was darkened by thousands of insects, like a plague on a Pharaoh; everywhere I looked there were bees, almost as if a cloud had descended over the garden.  At almost this time I received a panicked phone call from a neighbour two doors down, who had been sitting outside reading the newspaper, when she noticed an almost tangible hum and then the sky darkened, she called to say that she thought my bees had swarmed.

Almost as swiftly as the apocalypse-like gloom descended, the sky cleared. My neighbour called again, she had spotted a huge cluster of bees hanging from the branch of our mutual neighbour’s apple tree. She was right in her initial observations, the bees had swarmed.  Bees do it when their hive is thriving and the colony is strong enough to survive splitting, amoeba-like, into two groups.  A new queen stays in the original hive and the old queen departs, with a significant number of the hive, to establish a new colony.   I called my co-beekeeper and she dashed round.  We did not want our bees to inconvenience others, nor did we want to lose them.  The intermediate neighbour was away, but we needed to act swiftly.  Dressed in full bee-keeping outfits, we climbed over the wall between the two properties and, with the help of a step ladder, some pruning shears and a large cardboard box, commenced to catch the bees.  Swarms are surprisingly docile (probably because they are gorged on honey and have no brood that they need to protect).  Just as we were in the process of knocking the swarm into the box, actually easier than it sounds, the owners of the garden returned.  Their arrival surprised us (it was like a scene in a sitcom) and we had to make a couple of efforts to get all the swarm into the box.  It was with a degree of embarrassment that we explained what we were up to.  Fortunately they had even less interest than we did in the swarm taking up home in their tree – they have small children and prefer an insect-free environment.  We taped the bees into the box and then our troubles began...

We were not prepared for housing a new swarm.  We had much of the kit, but not enough to create a suitable new hive.  Leaving the bees gaffer-taped into their box, we set off on a wild dash around south London to get all the things that we needed.  Praise has to be given to Park Beekeeping Supplies (http://www.parkbeekeeping.com/index.php?s=11) who remained open for nearly an hour to enable us to come and collect some urgent kit.  Returning to my home, we built the new hive and then tipped the contents of the box into the cedar wood box.  The neighbour who had alerted me came and helped and when we had finished, (mid afternoon), we had a Georgian lunch of dressed crab, Jersey Royal new potatoes with garden mint and fresh salad to celebrate our achievements.

The following day was our local festival celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.  I am a member of our Residents’ Association Committee and months of planning had gone into arranging celebrations.   We had games for the children - an “Olympic” torch race, a pet show and an art competition – and a lunch for all in a closed off street, with stalls and traditional fete games such as Thwack the Rat and tombola.   People clustered like bees around the drink stall and I soon joined the team serving to help assuage the thirst of our neighbours.  It was fun – a great chance to catch up with old friends and to make new acquaintances.  It was almost dark by the time I returned home and I just had time to inspect the bees.  The old hive had a number of stragglers making their way home after a day in the sun (a bit like the attendees of the Stockwell Festival) but the new hive was suspiciously calm.

The following day was an early start – I was speaking at a Strategic HR Network conference on the enabling power of Technology.  It was a wonderful opportunity to catch up on how organisations are utilising technology to enhance their effectiveness.  I enjoyed learning more about the benefits of The Cloud (thank you Fergal from Rentokil) and agreeing with Karan Paige from Pearson that HR needs to be able to analyse data and make commercially grounded proposals based on evidence.   I was on a panel discussing Technology Trends along with the Head of Organisational effectiveness from Crossrail and Mike Thompson from Barclays.  It is striking to hear that Pingit was only conceived as an idea in February of this year but, with the right enabling support, the product went live in May.  The pace of Technology often leaves me speechless – only five years ago most of us did not have smart phone and yet now we take them and their apps for granted.  YouTube celebrated its seventh birthday this month – currently three days of video are uploaded per minute (an increase of  24 hours per minute compared to a year ago) and users are watching 3 billion hours of video each month (that’s 1,000 times greater than the amount users are uploading to the website) http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1112539602/youtube-users-upload-3-days-worth-of-video-every-minute/ .  I used YouTube as an example in my talk, increasingly Learning and Development in organisations is using social media techniques and technology to encourage employees to enhance their skills.  Immersive gaming is used from recruitment into customer facing roles in banks to learning how to pilot a fighter plane.  I told people about a leading white goods retailer that is encouraging staff to share knowledge and skills by creating videos of themselves which colleagues vote on for both entertainment value and ability to impart valuable knowledge.  Employee engagement can now be measured in real time (a software business in Australia enables employees to touch a red, amber or green face as they leave at the end of the day and the information is fed back to management to tell them if employees are enjoying their work or finding life stressful).  Colleagues no longer have to wait for an update after an off-site they were unable to attend – tweets on Twitter will probably have told them much of what they need to know and they can commence taking appropriate action to achieve objectives before the call to arms.

With my head buzzing with thoughts I returned home.  I arrived only to be greeted by a phone call from my neighbour – the bees had reassembled in the apple tree.  All credit to my eldest son who, until yesterday, had not as yet helped me with the bees.  He donned a suit and veil and helped me catch the pesky things for a second time in a box.  We sprinkled them with sugar – to give them something else to contemplate - while I re-established their home.  With the help of an experienced local bee keeper, we cut the branch on which they hung and transported them back to the hive in my garden.  Taking care to ensure that the queen was inside, we lined a number of pristine wax frames into the box – as he said, the bees must have thought they’d arrived in heaven. 

I had another early start this morning but went to look at the hives before I left at 6.30.  Again, the old hive was active but few if any bees emerged from the entrance to enjoy the early morning sunshine and inspect their new location.  On arrival at work I received a fresh text notifying me that a busy cluster of bees seemed to be reassembling in the apple tree.  My heart sank, but there was little I could do during the day.  Late afternoon, I participated in a round table discussion of UK HR Directors hosted by Changeboard (http://www.changeboard.com/).  We discussed the pros and cons of Social Media .  I didn’t get home until nearly sundown and I was bracing myself for a repetition of last night.  However, when I went to inspect the hives there was a healthy cluster of bees guarding the entrance to the new hive as well as the usual steady stream to and from the old one.

I have learned much from the past four days.  I’ve always known that life does not always go according to plan, but I now have a greater appreciation of the importance of perseverance and preparation.  If I had not got a new hive in readiness for occupation, last night would have been a much more troublesome affair.  Clearly, I did not do quite the right things on Saturday – I suspect that, when we were startled by my neighbours’ return we knocked the swarm and that in doing so we dislodged the queen.  Without a queen bees will not linger in a box, no matter how nicely prepared – the power of a good leader is greater than the superficial comforts of immediate surroundings.   I used Technology to help me to solve my problems – satnav on my phoned lead me to Park Beekeeping and advice via texts and twitter was very helpful.  However, it was the companionship and shared learning that really made the experiences memorable for me (as it was at the conference and the roundtable session).  It was good to celebrate this evening, knowing that the job had been well done – I shall have to make some mead in preparation for next time.

Strong Shoulders

How often do we stop and consider the things that have happened that enable us to be successful now and in the future?  I’ve had a busy week full of collecting data, collating analysis, contemplating how best to depict findings and, as the days passed, gaining an increasing appreciation of the experienced members of the team, who have provided me with a well-informed foundation of knowledge on which to base my observations.  As well as completing the annual appraisal analysis (both of business performance and individual contributions), I was fortunate in doing some great stuff outside work.  I saw some excellent contemporary dance, met up with contacts with whom I made plans for the future and I also was able to spend some time relaxing with my family.

In a strange way there were themes that wove between all these aspects of my week that, only now, I begin to appreciate, having had time to consider and reflect.

The dance I saw was at Sadler’s Wells; it comprised an evening of four pieces by the Rambert Dance Company, one of which was the iconic “L’Après-midi d’un faune”.  It was devised by Nijinsky and has been performed by Rambert since 1931.  Marie Rambert herself joined the Ballet Russes for a year in 1912 and saw Njinsky dance the title role.  Watching this week’s performance was like witnessing a Grecian urn coming to life, even down to the dancers’ feet remaining parallel to the stage’s edge so that they appeared as figures in profile, like an ancient Greek drawing.  The last piece of the night, “What Wild Ecstacy”, was commissioned to celebrate “L’Après-midi d’un faune”, which is in its centenary year.  The title of the new dance is derived from Keat’s poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn”:

                “What men or gods are these?  What maidens loth?

     What mad pursuit?  What struggle to escape?

     What pipes and timbrels?  What wild ecstacy?

            (John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, 1819)

It was interesting to observe a piece that had its roots in another, although a sensual and bacchanalian eroticism hangs over both dances, they are very different.

Despite being of different generations and sexes, my eldest son and I physically resemble one another.  You can imagine our surprise when, out sampling a local hostelry, a fellow diner came over to our table and congratulated my son on choosing an older girlfriend whom he could learn from.  I enjoy exploring new experiences with my son, but not in the way that our companion was thinking.  However, his words got me pondering.  I’m not sure we are very good at learning from our “elders and betters”.  Modern Western society is heavily based on the impact of the individual, without often taking into account the contribution of the team.  Our Media eulogises diva singers, footballers, “reality” stars and politicians and yet each of these people would not be able to achieve all they do without the entourage of individuals with whom they work.  Most of them, when asked at events such as award ceremonies, admit to having been inspired by someone in their youth and acknowledge the work of the people around them.  However the reports in the press the following day focus on the individual winners and the other names are forgotten.

Almost without exception Human achievements are built on the skills of others.  Many are uncomfortable in acknowledging that their successes are derivative, based on the knowledge of earlier contributors.   However, Sir Isaac Newton’s words on the side of the UK two pound coin hold true, we can credit our accomplishments to “standing on the shoulders of giants”.  We need the foundation of earlier capabilities on which to build our own input.  With this in mind, I worry at the current high levels of youth unemployment, not just in the UK but in many countries of the world.  The young need to learn from those who can teach them, otherwise skills will be lost.  Recent statistics published by the Organisation for economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) show that youth unemployment reached a rate of 17.1% in March of this year, more than twice the unemployment rate affecting the broader population.  More than one in five young people in the labour market are unemployed in Sweden, France, Poland, Ireland, Italy and the UK.

I can’t help but note that the countries with the highest unemployment figures, depicted in the above chart of May 2012 from MoneyGame, have all suffered civil wars within living memory.  As inflation continues to rise and living becomes more difficult, social unease is likely to increase.  The riots experienced in England last August could be indicative of what’s to come, as was argued by Michael Carty in the sobering XpertHR blog of 4 January this year: http://www.xperthr.co.uk/blogs/employment-intelligence/2012/01/will-tough-economic-times-lead.html

Although the prospect of society in turmoil is not something I relish, I am actually more concerned by the longer term impact of the situation we find ourselves in.  A couple of years ago I visited Laos.  It is an exquisite, land-locked country set between Vietnam, China, Burma, Thailand and Cambodia. 

Laos has the unfortunate notoriety of being, on a per capita basis, the most heavily bombed country in history (as a result of the Vietnam War-era bombings from 1964-1973).  Laos suffered its own civil war after the US involvement in Vietnam was over and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic was proclaimed in December 1975.  At this time non-communist papers were closed and there followed a significant purge of the police, civil service, army and certain sectors of the populace.  Thousands of people were dispatched to remote parts of the bomb-strewn country for “re-education”.  Large numbers of accomplished professionals and academics fled Laos and skilled craftsmen hid their talents, disposed of their tools and took up other employment, fearing reprisals for having provided “unnecessary luxuries”.  The drain of knowledge and the loss of traditional skills continue to impoverish the country today.  I spoke to a silver smith trying to restore some of the ancient treasures and artefacts in the temples at the Unesco World Heritage site of Luang Prabang.  He told me, with much sadness, that many of the skills and techniques that had been lost; the trained artisans had died before they could pass on their knowledge to the next generation.

We need to have both the young and the old in our organisations to ensure that knowledge and skills are developed. 

Many of the Hmong hill-tribe people in Laos still live in tightly knit remote communities.  They have been persecuted for their involvement with the US against the communists during the Vietnam War (http://www.wnd.com/1999/11/3871/ ) and hence have done their best to avoid contact with the authorities.  Their deliberate insularity and adherence to their traditional approaches has resulted in many cultural skills being maintained.  Elders are respected and they take care to ensure the transference of knowledge to the next generation.  They know that the future success and survival of their people depends on it.

We too need to nurture the new generations and value and use the knowledge of our elders.  We must ensure that effective succession planning is in place to preserve what has been achieved and to provide a strong platform for future growth.  In my opinion, one of the ways of achieving this would be through embracing proper apprenticeships as is done in countries such as Switzerland and Germany.  Many UK businesses have taken advantage of government funding available to support apprenticeships, but, rather than bringing in and training new employees, the money has been spent on enabling existing employees to acquire recognised qualifications.  I’m all in favour of learning and development (I should be in my line of work).  We are being short-sighted if we don’t nurture our future.  The young, the employees after we have gone, are the legacy we must enhance.  We need to offer strong shoulders on which they can stand.

Dancing to New Tunes

Belly dancing or perhaps whirling Dervishes are usually the first images to come to many people’s minds when Middle Eastern culture is mentioned.  Certainly, at Friday night’s Arabian Night in Wandsworth’s Town Hall, organised to raise money for the current Mayor’s charities (a local NHS hospital and a charity that supports the elderly), many were mesmerised by the sinuous rippling and shaking of the midriffs of lithe maidens.  But there was so much more to the evening.  It was arranged by an inspired collection of women, who did everything from decorating the Civic Centre so that it looked like a souk, to slaving all day in the Town Hall kitchens creating a banquet fit for ambassadors, friends and guests.  I was invited by my god daughter’s father – he is Jordanian and the majority of the people who attended were Arabic speakers.  Much to my shame, I can only speak a few phrases in Arabic (I must improve before my goddaughter grows much older).  It is not often that I am at an event where I feel like an outsider – the cultural nuances of dress, speech and mannerisms were, for the main part, lost on me.  However, it was wonderful to be enfolded within a different culture and I learned much by listening, sampling and observing.

I sat next to a cardiac surgeon from the hospital.  He and his family had fled Iraq after Saddam Hussein came to power.  It was interesting to hear his views on the inefficiencies in the National Health Service and the need for performance related reward.  Many of the attendees at our table had left countries in the Middle East and a surprisingly large proportion of people had spent time in Canada before moving to Europe.  At other tables sat a significant section of the Arabic speaking community of South West London – groups of friends and family laughing and eating together.  A mixture of religions, nationalities and people bound together by a cultural bond and a shared sense of purpose.  

It is a natural human tendency to seek to belong to a community.  This is as true at work as it is in our broader lives.  Since the UK’s local elections earlier this month, I have spent some time pondering why there was such a poor turnout to the polls.  It was the lowest for twelve years and fell to as little as 25% in some places.  I can only assume that people don’t see the relevance of voting or that they are uninspired by the candidates.  If there is no connection, and hence people feel disengaged, they are unlikely to make an effort to walk to the polling station to pencil a cross on a ballot paper.  I suspect that the majority of candidates failed to communicate effectively with the electorate and hence inspire people to make an effort.  Hard copy leaflets, council-produced newspapers and party fliers are seldom read.  In my opinion, they might even deter potential electors, as they can add to the impression that candidates are out-dated and out of touch.  I believe that, despite the concerns over secrecy and corruption, the time has come for on-line voting to enhance democracy.

Businesses often suffer from similar issues to those experienced by the poorly supported local councillors seeking election in the UK.  Processes are often out-dated and/or inappropriate for the environment in which we now operate.  Many still rely on traditional command and control approaches – this is out of keeping with the direction in which the world is moving.  In a remarkably short space of time the internet has changed the way that we do things and also how many of us think.  Those who have grown up “connected” have technology as a key and interwoven part of their lives; they (we?) don’t even give it any consideration.  It is how they meet their friends (often people they have never met in the flesh), socialise and enrich their lives with others who share their interests.  I have a son who seems to be turning nocturnal, as his interests (and hence friends) revolve around games and communities that originate in the States.

Many who grew up before the advent of the personal computer see Technology as a tool and a communication channel to be controlled and regulated.  My mother is a wonderful contrast to my son (despite some similarities in character and values) – she is uncomfortable even using an ATM; computers and smart phones bewilder her.  She has a mobile and, slowly, she is beginning to value it, but it takes time and, at first, she was quite hostile towards the device that I said she should always keep with her.  (She got stranded in her car in a remote field a few years back – having run down her feeble car’s battery listening to Radio 4, whilst waiting for a nightingale to sing.  Ever since then I have wanted her to be able to call for help if required.)  People are often afraid of things they cannot understand or manage. 

I can see a crunch point approaching many businesses, as a result of Technology, as organisations try to apply rules based on senior employees’ own knowledge and experiences, rather than keeping pace with the changes in Society.  There is a clear clash between the old and the new and the internet ably illustrates what I mean:

Traditional Corporate Approach:	Internet Modus Operandi:
Employee Handbooks, contracts and corporate policies, by definition, impose restrictions on people.	The internet is available to anyone who has a device to connect; individuals are primarily restricted by their own knowledge and capabilities.
To date organisations and employees have expected to know the parameters of roles (indeed in many countries it is a legal requirement) – job descriptions and “Lean” approaches rely on individuals doing exactly what is expected of them without deviation.  Adam Smith’s economic theory of the division of labour in “An Inquiry into the Nature and causes of the Wealth of Nations” depends on jobs, such as making pins, being subdivided into distinct tasks, each of which can be undertaken by separate workers with their combined efforts enabling speed and efficiency in total production.  Smith himself commented that this approach leads to a “mental mutilation” in workers who become ignorant and insular, as their working lives are confined to a single, repetitive task.  Technology is enabling bespoke creation of goods and hence may reduce the feasibility of replicated industrial production.	The internet can be changed and improved by anybody at anytime.  BitTorrent was created by Bram Cohen, because he had the initiative and skills required and it seemed the logical thing to do.  Facebook’s extraordinary market domination is due to people enjoying and seeing a value in using it, not because they were instructed to subscribe; apps were created to enhance the offering.  Technology is enabling people to make their own choices as to how and what they do.
In the past organisations have relied on consistency and constancy.  If a factory was built for a specific purpose then it was often deemed too expensive and/or difficult to change the product offering.  The same applied to HRIS and other methods for cataloguing employees.  Legacy systems – innovative at the time of acquisition but obsolete almost as soon as implemented have proved to be a millstone around the neck of many businesses. Employees had clear career paths with linear routes upwards through the corporate hierarchy.  Success has often been judged by an individual’s position within a business, rather than their contribution.	Cloud, collaboration and file sharing have changed the way in which technology is used.  There is choice and flexibility that reflects the desires and needs of users.

It is impossible to control the internet (although you can ban or partially restrict access and usage).  Those, like my mother, who fail to grasp the internet and the uses of technology enabled devices, try to comprehend it by applying their pre-existing knowledge and understanding from other spheres.  This is normal behaviour, but, by approaching something with flawed knowledge and understanding you increase the risk of making erroneous proposals and, as was seen with the UK voters earlier this month, proposed actions will be ignored.

It is the responsibility of those of us in leadership roles to ensure that our businesses operate efficiently.  We need to keep abreast of new thinking and take advantage of technology to enhance our operations.  The variety in the world in which we operate is immense and in order to survive we must be nimble and responsive.  To support others we must exemplify the desired attitudes and behaviours of our business and appreciate the diversity around us.  Every day I learn something new and I try to determine whether it has value in my working and home life.  I’m not sure that belly dancing and Dervish like spinning are in themselves appropriate at my office, but the attention to detail, control, dedication, resilience and timing of the dancers are skills that I can aspire to and encourage.