Make time for a 2 minute leadership road-worthiness check…

As a leader:

• Can you lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse? (source: Adlai Stevenson)
• Can you expect anyone to willingly follow you if you don’t know where you’re going?

It’s very likely that you agree with the sentiment in both questions.

Now ask yourself this:

• Do you have a clear written vision that you articulate regularly with your team?

Be honest with yourself:

• How clear is your vision?
• Is it written down?
• Are you strongly motivated by your vision?
• Do you articulate it regularly with your team?
• And do you have their commitment to it?

We’re more likely to secure our team’s buy-in if they’ve been consulted and our vision connects with them emotionally and logically.

If 100 of us were standing up at the beginning of this piece and we sat down as soon as we answered ‘no’, how many of us are standing now?

5? 10? I’ll wager it’s fewer than 20. And more importantly, are you still standing?

If you’re not:

• What will you take from this?
• More importantly what will you do about it and when?
• What will be the outcomes?
• What will be the benefits for you, your team and your organisation?
• And what advantage will it give you over your competitors?

Post a reply. Let me know. It will be great to hear from you.

High performing Leaders avoid the damaging effects of the Peter Principle in their company. Do you?

At your next board or management meeting take a look at your colleagues and as soon as you can, take a long hard look at yourself in the mirror too.  Then ask yourself if you or any of your colleagues is a living embodiment of the Peter Principle?

In their satirical book published in 1969 “The Peter Principle: why things always go wrong” Dr Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull explain the Peter Principle. Its main tenets are:

• employees rise in the organisation to their level of incompetence
• they tend to be promoted or given more authority until they are no longer capable of working competently
• productive work is typically carried out by those who have not been promoted to their level of incompetence
• competent employees ‘manage upwards’ to limit the impact of those who have reached their level of incompetence.

So take another look at your colleagues and then yourself. What behaviours should you be on the look out for to guard against the Peter Principle taking hold and damaging your company?

One example would be a colleague or you showing signs of ‘Hypercaninophobia Complex’. Dr. Peter explains this complex as a fear evident in a ‘superior’ when a ‘subordinate’ demonstrates strong leadership potential! Think Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey Appleby in BBC’s Yes, Minister/Yes Prime Minister. A second example would be not taking responsibility and blaming others, particularly more junior members of the team. This will give you an idea of what to look for.

While there is a humorous angle to the Peter Principle, there is of course a more serious point here and that is prior to promoting a colleague, ensure that they have sufficiently demonstrated the behaviour or skill required to be promoted to the next level. For instance, avoid promoting your top sales person to sales manager until they have demonstrated the management potential, otherwise you’ll have lost your best sales person and you’ll have a manager who can’t manage others. Find some other way to reward and acknowledge your top sales person’s performance in their current role. You’ll be saving yourself and your company time and money in the long run, not to mention keeping your employees as productive and as engaged as possible.

What’s your experience of the Peter Principle? Post a reply. It will be great to hear from you.

 

 

 

The damaging impact of Parkinson’s Law of Triviality: does it affect your company?

In 1962 I found a very slim volume in my parents’ bookcase called “Parkinson’s Law”. I liked this book because it was short, had big print and was written in such a straightforward way that even a nine year old kid like me could understand it. It clearly has as much relevance today as in the 1950’s when it was written…

My client Emma is a head of buying for a food retailer with an annual budget exceeding £100m. Over the last few months Emma’s attempts to engage one extra member for her team have resulted in seemingly endless discussions and proposals, costing time and money: the board has blocked recruitment because of the company’s cost control culture introduced at the turn of the year as a result of the ongoing economic uncertainty.

When we met, Emma’s frustration was palpable: “I lead a team responsible for an annual buying budget of more than £100m. We place substantial contracts. We generate substantial profits too and if we get the buying wrong, it can cost the business millions. Yet it’s like a brick wall when it comes to recruiting an extra person for comparatively little – about 40k per annum. I just don’t get it!”

I thought for a moment and remembered that slim volume: “have you heard of Parkinson’s Law of Triviality or Bicycle Shed Problem as it’s sometimes called?” Emma said she hadn’t. I explained…

“Parkinson describes a committee’s discussion on a nuclear power plant, contrasting it with that of a bicycle shed: the time spent on any item on the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved. A nuclear reactor requires a huge financial investment and is too complicated for the average person or generalist to understand, so the assumption is made that those that work on it-the experts – understand it. But everyone can picture a bicycle shed, so planning one can result in endless discussions because everyone involved wants to comment and make a personal contribution to the outcome.”

“Does that seem familiar?” I added.

She visibly relaxed and smiled: “yes, that’s exactly it!”

Did this solve Emma’s recruitment challenge? Not right away, but it did raise her awareness and put it in context by giving her a model to explain it. She called me a couple of weeks later to say she’d bought copies of Parkinson’s book for herself and her colleagues. She believed that his pointed messages couched in ironic British humour had resonated and gave them a common language too.

Do you think that this volume – over 50 years old – has relevance for you and your leadership colleagues too? Post a reply and let me know. It will be great to hear from you.