Things I wish I had known when starting out

Geoff Roberts change, choice, focus, leadership, procrastination, selection, time management

Turn UpAdvice for new starters to the world of work.It is a long time now since I started work, 46 years to be precise, and it was a very different world back in 1968 when I first pulled on a lab coat and started shaking test tubes for a living. I was musing the other day on what might have changed and what hasn’t altered in those years. Here are a few of those thoughts, especially about what has not changed. I rather wish that I had known some of these things when i first started out.

  • The Pareto principle
  • The boss is not always right and the boss is (nearly) always right
  • Have a go at the hard stuff
  • People matter
  • Know when to stamp your foot
  • It is amazing what you can achieve if it doesn’t matter who gets the credit
  • When you set a deadline, mean it
  • Choose your battles carefully

Over the next couple of weeks I will be writing a short piece about each of them, but let me start with the most important of them all “Turn up”.

So what do I men by “Turn Up“?

Well we are paid to turn up for work, but I mean much more than that. Have you ever found yourself not really wanting to go, but feel that you have to? Have you ever found yourself distracted during the day (Facebook, Twitter, Shopping List, that attractive young guy/girl along the corridor) only to find that your attention to what you are doing has drifted? Have you ever wandered off to the copier or stationery store as a distraction from what you were doing? Answer ‘Yes’ to any of these and you were not Turning Up.

For me, Turning Up means giving my total attention to whatever it is that I am doing at the time – be that saying hello to my co-workers, writing a report, researching some data, whatever. Multitasking is a myth – the best we can do is switch between different tasks and every time you do that you lose a bit of time ‘shutting down’ what you were doing and ‘starting up’ what you are going to do – wasted time and a brain that can’t quite figure out what it should be working on.

So, when you are at work, BE at work. When you are with someone BE WITH them. When you are working alone WORK alone. And finally, when you have finished for the day GO HOME and be at home.

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Making sense of accountability, responsibility, politics, matrix

Geoff Roberts change, flexibility, leadership, Organisational Politics

Matrix management I once had a role where I was responsible to one person for ‘pay and rations’ and most of my job, his boss for a small but significant and that person’s boss for another very significant part of my role. You might imagine the complexity of relationships involved in this and the challenges that I faced.

I wish that I had known about some of the stuff in this  Training Journal article june 2015

Most of us spend our lives in hierarchies where the (formal) power structures are clear and understandable, however the increasing prevalence of other organisational forms, not least the ‘matrix’ often used in consultancies of one sort or another, lead to challenges in understanding how to make them work.

My friend Dave Bancroft-Turner has spent many years understanding how to make non-traditional organisational structures work. This article from Training Journal gives and insight. If you want to know more then contact either me or Dave at The Academy for Political Intelligence

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Entropy

Geoff Roberts change, choice, Coaching, flexibility, focus, leadership, metaphor, selection

tumble weedIn this article, I want to explore one of the most fundamental aspects of our universe – entropy. Entropy can be described in equation form:

entropy

But please stay with me, because I am more interested in the everyday understanding of the term, sometimes defined as:

“…a measure of disorder in the universe…”

In physics, the Law of Entropy essentially says that all systems, if left unattended, will run down. Unless new energy is supplied, every organism deteriorates. Things tend towards the lowest energy state – iron rusts, organic material rots, the pile of leaves in the garden (that you have so carefully raked together) redistributes itself widely, offices and homes become more and more untidy… unless energy is committed to maintaining or ‘improving’ the status quo.

So what has this got to do with you? Well, if you look at the concept in a different way, the same law applies to individuals and both personal and professional relationships.

How many of us have friends or colleagues who just seem to have drifted off our ‘live’ circle? Unless we put some effort into the important relationships in our life they will inevitable decay, sometimes terminally.

Likewise, unless I put effort into myself I will end up drifting along being buffeted like that tumbleweed in the old Western films. Albert Schweitzer once wrote that some people “harm their souls… without being exposed to great temptations. They simply let their souls wither, not realising that thoughts which meant a great deal to them in their youth, have turned into meaningless sounds.”

My challenge today is to spend some time thinking about, and then acting upon, how you are going to nourish yourself and those you hold to be important to you. Maybe, as a start, you could construct a relationship map. Relationship mapping is a way of pictorially representing the key elements and issues in your team:

  • Write your name in a circle at the centre of the page
  • Also circle the names of your team members, your boss(es), colleague(s), key external contact(s) and other individuals with whom you have regular contact
    • Put arrows to and from each individually, and indicate:
    • the current strength of the relationship with the thickness of the line
    • the importance (to you and your role) of the relationship with the length of the line
    • what you need from them and what they need from you in brief bullet points next to each arrow
  • You may wish to use other colours/symbols to represent other aspects of the relationship.
  • You might also want to highlight any relationships between the others on the map.

Slide1

Remember that if YOU want something out of a relationship, then it is up to YOU to do something about it – otherwise it will wither and die.

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An interesting question – what is the best leadership book?

Geoff Roberts Book Review, change, Coaching, leadership, opportunity, perception, selection

I was just paying my bill after a rather nice lunch, whilst at the same time reading Tools And Techniques Of Leadership And Management by Ralph Stacey.

Stacey “That looks interesting, do you know anything about leadership?” said the young guy serving me.

I explained that I had offered to review the book and was finding it so interesting that I was reading it in detail rather than the broader skim that reviewing normally requires. I will be posting a review of the book in due course, suffice it to say that I am finding it extremely stimulating, relevant and ‘on the mark’ as regards leadership today and effecting change in organisations.

We had a bit of an interchange and then this guy asked “So what do you think is the best leadership book?” “Well” I said “give me a minute to have a think about that” and so he went away.

Now it is of course a totally unanswerable question, not only because of the tens of thousands of leadership books out there but also because of the best depends not only on my own judgement but his own needs. So when he came back we had a brief conversation about the difference between leadership and management (yet another blog will be exploring whether this distinction really exists) and how, in my view, leadership is partly about what you do and even more about who and how you are. I have a proposition that the way to become more effective leader is to become a bigger and better me – role models may be useful, but they are all different and if you do manage to isolate the common attributes of Margaret Thatcher, Gandhi, Richard Branson, Hitler, Jesus etc. then you end up with a minimum entry requirements to leadership rather than the difference that makes the difference.

So in the end I recommended two titles, books that have had a great impact on me. The first was Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People and the second JS Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

7 Habits  JLS

Two very different books and yet books that I know from my own personal experience have helped me become a better me.

I would be interested to know how you would response to a similar question.

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Dealing with crises – a book review

Geoff Roberts Book Review, change, choice, focus, leadership, opportunity, strategy

Bolt from the BlueBolt from the Blue    by Mike Pullen and John Brodie Donald

This book explores approaches to crisis management.

Find out how balancing a broomstick on the end of your finger is relevant to crisis management, explore how the horsemeat in beefburger scandal is essentially the same as the CDO scandal that triggered the economic crisis and learn about how Donald Rumsfeld perhaps knew more than we think about the relationship between those classic Greek actors Scylla and Charybdis
The authors subtitle “Navigating the New World of Corporate Crises’ is relevant insofar as communications media and processes are more or less instant these days and so crises can erupt unexpectedly from the strangest of quarters– very different from when it took weeks to let Queen Victoria know that we had beaten the Boers. These instant communications channels offer/create challenges that are new to most companies, as is amply demonstrated in the host of case studies (perhaps a few too many, or explored in too much detail, for the practicing manager, who wants to know about ACTION) presented in support of the authors’ prescriptions:

  • Five key principles of crisis management
        • Don’t deny anything before you know all the facts
        • Your response time must be faster than the speed of the story
        • When the crisis hits bring in external consultants
        • Change the culture not just the policies
        • Be patient, recovery takes time

The bulk of the book explores, through extensive use of case studies, how crises can arise as a result of:

      • Six potential instigators of crises
        • Suppliers
        • Regulators
        • NGOs
        • Customers
        • Competitors
        • Employees

The book started as an easy and interesting read, but seemed to peter out about half way through when it became more descriptive than prescriptive. It would offer some useful insights to internal PR professionals and to the most senior management in any company although reading the Introduction and Chapter 1 alone would offer the most advice, the rest is a series of illustrations of how crises can arise.

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Selfishness?

Geoff Roberts change, choice, focus, paradox, selection, stress, time management

The-Selfish-SpectrumI have faced a couple of situations in the last week or so that led me to take decisions that were almost entirely in my own self interest. This left me wondering about the concept of selfishness, the extent to which those decisions were selfish and indeed how that concept plays out in our daily lives.

I understand that there are psychologists who argue that every decision we make is ultimately selfish in that it meets with some inner need. So for example, someone who spends their days ‘selflessly’ helping others would actually be doing so because that is how they find their inner satisfaction.

I also wonder if I’m getting more selfish as I get older and I start to understand what I really need. Both of the situations I mentioned above related to what, in my view, were distinctly unsubtle application of organisational politics. Now I like to think that I am as good as any, and perhaps even better than most, at organisational politics yet on both of these occasions I explicitly chose not to play the game. Both of these were volunteer roles and yet there are other volunteer roles in which I continue to willingly play some fairly delicate political games. So what is the difference?

Certainly in one case I was becoming increasingly disillusioned as a very small cog on the periphery of a very large organisation  and maybe that is not a role that I like to play. I am happy to admit to myself that the follower roles that I prefer is one where I still have significant influence and I will happily play a number two, or even three or four, role when I am at least listened to and at best taken seriously. Indeed as I write, I start to realise that was possibly behind my order opting-out. Specifically, that my advice and expertise was being ignored and overruled and the explicit delegations made to me were being unilaterally removed for no apparent reason.

So is it about control? I don’t think I’m too ashamed to say that to some extent it probably is. After a life of bending and twisting, as well as helping others to bend and twist, to help deliver the greater good there is a part of me that keeps saying that “it is about time I got what I need and stuff the rest of them”.

So yes I guess this is selfish and no I am not guilty about it. I will argue that in our lives there needs to be space for ‘me time’ as well as ‘us time’ and perhaps I have just created some of the former.

What about you? To what extent do you think you act selfishly?

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Systemic Coaching

Geoff Roberts change, choice, Coaching, flexibility, focus, metaphor, perception

Systemic CoachingAt the September EMCC meeting I was part of a small group discussing ‘systemic coaching’. The three of us discussing the topic were really trying to find out what it was all about and this note is my own brief summary of John Whittington’s book “Systemic coaching and constellations” which prompted the enquiry.

The basic proposition is that when coaching an individual the coach needs to explicitly recognise that their client sits within a broader system of relationships and that by coaching the clients we are essentially coaching the system. He goes beyond that to suggest that the coach themselves now becomes part of that system and needs to be hyper-vigilant about their own behaviour and responses.

Extending the idea, he suggests that any individual’s position in the system might be described on the basis of the three criteria – Time, Place and Exchange. Time indicating the actual, or perhaps perceptual, time for which the individual has been part of the system. Place indicating not just the hierarchical position in the system but also the location in the shadow organisation (although he does not talk about shadow organisations specifically – I have interpreted Whittington’s comment on the basis of my understanding of Ed Schein’s concepts). Finally, Exchange relates to what the various players in the system give to and/or take from each other.

His idea of ‘constellations’ is to actively and physically map out these relationships within a system and to have the client explore the implications of changes in those relationships and how those changes might be stimulated. He suggests using physical objects (which of course he can sell you) to represent the players or spatially mapping them on the floor of a room using pieces of paper with individual’s names on them.

The rest of the book goes on to describe a series of case studies and possible approaches to issues or incongruities appearing within the system map.

It is probably worth a read, although for me what I think he was doing with systematising some existing ideas in my current practice. For instance he is fairly explicit in comparing his approach to that of perceptual positions typically associated with NLP. Likewise when he suggests exploring where each individual’s focus of attention is directed, I am reminded of issues to do with personal, team or organisational objectives – not least the implications of that orientation in terms of organisational politics.

It would be interesting to know what other coaches, perhaps particularly those who recognise or use this explicit methodology, have to say.

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Followership – what makes a good follower?

Geoff Roberts change, choice, flexibility, focus, leadership, opportunity, paradox, selection, strategy, time management

Followership LeadershipThere are millions of pages read about how to be a good leader – just type both into Google and you are likely to get around 288,000,000 hits for Leadership and ‘only’ 472,000 for Followership. Moreover, from a cursory look at the topic, it seems that much of what is written is designed to inform Leaders about how they can garner better/more followers!

So, I am interested in how I can be the best follower I can be – given the leader I have (and I recognise that ‘my leader’ may change from moment to moment, task to task, environment to environment etc).

As an input to an enquiry at Roffey Park, where I am an Associate, I wrote a ramble on the topic. I repeat it below and welcome your thoughts, additions, criticisms, whatever – just say what comes into your mind as you read it…

You asked what I might like to contribute on the topic of followership. Truth is that I do not have any ‘theoretical’ inputs to offer and, as I said when I originally expressed an interest, this is one of those areas in which I have had a passing interest the many years without the opportunity to develop that interest into something more structured. Hence the willingness to participate in the group that you lead.

When I think about it, I find it extremely difficult to disentangle what it means to be a good leader from what it means to be a good follower. Perhaps this might be addressed by looking at, on the one hand, what a follower expects from their leader and, on the other, at what a leader expects of their followers. This might seem like a classic statement of the bleeding obvious but in my experience it has been rather rare to find a leader who expounds, either privately or publicly, what they expect of their followers; likewise, it is probably a very brave follower who advises their leader what they expect of them!

Whilst I might like to stay away from leadership, it is perhaps rather difficult in this context and so the following points are necessarily an incomplete expounding of my thoughts-incomplete in terms not only of the list of topics but also the explanation of that list.

Firstly, and perhaps above all, I expect a good leader to communicate effectively and I guess that puts an obligation on the followers to let of their leader know, in one way or another, when they are not being communicated with. I vividly remember a time when, in retrospect, I had the priorities of my job out of sync with the immediate needs of my staff. I was spending an increasing amount of time away from the office on strategically important stuff and came home one day to find a post-it stuck to my desk simply saying “Geoff you are no longer available”. This brought home to me more than any textbook or classroom exercise the importance of availability and communication when the followers needed it. Fortunately the relationship I had with my team was such that not only did they feel able to leave this message but they also knew that I would take it in the spirit intended.

I expect my leader to be open and honest with me, even if that occasionally means saying the equivalent of “I’m sorry but I can’t talk about that at the moment”. As a follower I must accept that there are occasions when my leader might be involved in delicate or confidential conversations which it would be inappropriate to disclose at the time. For me, the followership version of openness and honesty centres around not hiding the bad news from my leader as well as disclosing my feelings as well as thoughts about what is going on. I cannot expect them to lead effectively if they do not have the full picture.

This whole communications game has a feeling of being a dance, in which each party has to find out what the other party needs to know and passes such information along appropriately. Which brings me to another aspect of leadership and followership-communication style. As a follower I think there is an onus on me to find out not only what my leader needs to know but also how he wants to find it out. Does he want detailed written weekly reports or is he happy with a quick chat on the phone every Friday afternoon? My own style, generally discursive and flowery, caused some considerable tension between me and one of my bosses until I realised that his approach was very terse and factual-after which I changed my style and things became much easier.

Where there is a legitimate difference of opinions I expect my leader to represent that difference to other parties, rather than simply putting their own view forward. In return, I must commit as a follower to the principle of corporate responsibility and not undermine decisions taken by my own and other leaders.

The next thought that comes to mind relates to trust. As a follower I want to be left alone to get on with my own work knowing that my leader is there if necessary for help and advice. Reciprocity suggests that as a follower I must trust that my leader is doing his work on my behalf.

“I think there is an important area in followership to do with learning when to give up a particular battle. This could they simply because you recognise that the battle you are currently engaged in is simply not winnable, or it could be because of a recognition that giving up on the current battle releases resources to fight on more strategic fronts. The effective leader can guide the followers in this, but ultimately it is for each follower to make their own decision about where to put their resources.

I think I might also argue that an effective follower recognises that on occasions the boss might need help, even when the boss themselves might not have made such a recognition. I used to have a follower who was very good at taking things off me once they got past the initiation and into production phase-they did this because they knew where my strengths lay (not in production mode) and how theirs could complement me. Another aspect of this that might not be recognised very often is the loneliness of being a leader. I would not know whether to label it mentoring, coaching, counselling or what, but I am certain that an effective follower knows when their boss needs some form of support and is prepared and able to offer that support.

A good follower knows and respects the leader’s short, medium and long-term priorities and does not pester them with issues outside that envelope unless the follower can demonstrate the strategic importance of their issue.”

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Straggly lavender

Geoff Roberts change, choice, flexibility, metaphor, opportunity, perception, selection

change leadershipThey greeted us as we first drove in. Two stands of straggly lavender, woody from the ground for the first 45 cm and crowned by a barely adequate display of silver grey leaves and fragrant flowers. What had gone wrong? This, here in the south-west of France, is ideal climate for lavender yet these specimens have been allowed (there is a clue) to deteriorate almost beyond repair. With careful and prolonged attention they could be regenerated back to their youthful flush – all they needed was to carefully prune a third of the wood almost to the ground for each of the next three years and to nurture and cultivate them. I was reminded of one of the metaphors I use in my work as a change agent.

I often suggest that change is quite a lot like gardening, indeed the first name I ever had for the work I do was the Freemind Gardening Institute. As a gardener, you acquire a patch of ground (an organisation?) often not knowing the ground conditions and how variable they are (culture?); as you explore you discover a range, sometimes wide and sometimes narrow, of plants (employees?) which may or may not be suited to the conditions in which they are placed (recruitment and retention?) and which may or may not have been looked after properly in the past (training, development, appraisal?). You find that even though this is quite a large garden, there are no instructions for cultivation (business processes?). Or perhaps you wonder why that rambling, weedy-looking almost uncontrolled rambling meadow-like patch in the corner (research and development?) is important, indeed actually vital to the future of the whole garden. And here are you, the new gardener (change agent) who can see things that the previous managers and leaders could not; who can ask questions about the structure and planting that would not have occurred to the previous occupants because they just liked things as they were or had neither the skills nor the energy to change. Your new man can challenge the very assumptions that underpin how you go about your organisational work (“I know that you think you can’t grow rhododendrons in your soil, but did you know that there are now varieties that thrive in neutral and even alkaline soils?”) and by challenging those assumptions can open up new possibilities.

Your gardener knows that sometimes it is necessary to remove dead wood, or even the whole plant, in order to create the space and conditions for new growth. He knows that there are many ways to create a riot of colour, some of which are quicker than others, yet potentially more expensive in the long-term. He knows that sometimes you just have to try things out to see if, or how, they will work (you run pilot programs) and that not all of them will work. He knows that the first flush of spring and the glorious summer (quick wins) will deteriorate into a brown, wet, dark, dreary autumn and winter unless the overall plan includes (new initiatives) autumn colour, winter and early spring bulbs and flowers to carry the enthusiasm through until the next green shoots appear. He knows what to fertilise, with what and when. And he can advise on whether to strip the existing garden to the ground and start again (administration/closure and corporate re-birth).

So, any organisational change is a process that is both subtle and brutal when necessary, that follows a path almost inevitably strewn with failed experiments en route to a final destination that may be somewhat different to that first envisaged, that needs constant and dedicated attention not only to the business processes but to the people who design and run those processes and (I would say this wouldn’t I?) needs an external eye/brain/hand because even the best gardeners are constantly reading about their craft and visiting other gardeners to see what they can learn.lavender

The choice is yours – if you really want those lush green lavender patches flowering every year then you can spend three years renewing the existing plants or a few quid on new plants. Of course, the clever gardener can have both by using his old plants as a source of cuttings that will quickly grow into lush new lavender patches.

(P.S. I would love to come and have a look at your garden, or your organisation. Either give me a ring or e-mail me.)

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Asking difficult questions for a living…

Geoff Roberts change, choice, flexibility, focus, opportunity, paradox, perception, Risk, selection, strategy, time management

asking difficult questions“So Geoff, what do you do for a living?” is one of those questions I get asked so often. It  begs either a full answer or, more often, a one-liner designed to either satisfy the craving of some contact who is not really interested or provoke someone who really wants to know into asking more. Hopefully the one-liner might be good enough to provoke the former type of enquirer as well!

So here is my answer

I ask difficult questions

I have to admit that I rather hope that when I make this response you in turn will ask me something along the lines of “Can you explain a in little more detail what you mean by that and how it will make a difference?” So here goes.

I want to start from proposition that we are all deluded about the world in which we operate. Each of us carries around in our head a map of the world, not a geographic map (although that will be part of it) but a ‘map’ of how the world works. But Alfred Korzybski is alleged to have said that “A map is not the territory”. So my map of the world, built up from my own experiences, learning, values, beliefs etc is uniquely mine and contains all those beliefs, biases and assumptions that have helped me function effectively in the world so far. But I’m sure you have already spotted the problem with my map – your experiences, learnings, values, beliefs etc are different to mine and so your map of the world is uniquely yours. They are both right and they are both wrong

The only basis upon which I can act is my own map of the world and because that map is both inaccurate and incomplete my choices are necessarily limited. They are limited by those implicit assumptions that allow me to function efficiently. I pull up at a red traffic light and assume that before very long it will turn to green so I’m happy to sit and wait; but after 5 min, 6 min, 10 min it has not changed green, do I hold my assumption that it will in due course change or do I revise my assumption to one that says the light is broken and drive through it? Perhaps a somewhat prosaic example but let’s have a look at how this might work in your organisation. As someone who works in organisations and helps others facilitate change, I so often come across a refrain along the lines of “Oh, we don’t do it that way round here” or “It can’t be done” or “Well, I will have to ask permission from xxxxx before I can do that”. Each of these responses illustrates one or more assumptions about how the organisation works. There are rules and processes and procedures and cultural norms and imperatives of all of which conspire to inhibit the possibility of change. At the simplest level, I could simply ask “What would happen if you just did it?”, although I usually need to delve deeper into the answer to that question asking, for example, “When was the last time somebody got sacked for failing to follow the procedure or taking their own initiative?” (Usually the answer is never – actually some people in my ex-employer often quote a specific individual, but he was actually sacked for covering up and lying about his mistake not for the mistake itself, a very big difference).

One of my favourite sayings, and I will claim it for myself unless and until someone can show me an original source, is “It is easier to ask forgiveness than permission” and, by the way, you are more likely to get it.

This surfacing and challenging of the assumptions is, of course, at the heart of any coaching process and it is perhaps no surprise that as part of my work on organisational change I end up coaching individuals, helping them find new ways of seeing the world (new maps) and hence new approaches to the personal or organisational challenges that they face.Simply responding the the question “What do you do for a living?” with “I am a coach” seems both insufficient and not really distinctive.

So please, next time you meet me and I respond “I ask difficult questions”, please ask me a difficult question in return.

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