Are we deluding ourselves? Are we supposed to be happy at work?

I highly recommend Alain De Botton’s thought provoking (and a touch heavy) article in Management Today.

 Many people traipse to work, feeling despondent and wondering how they can feel more fulfilled and happy in their day jobs.  We are constantly being told that work should be meaningful and a form of self-expression and, when our jobs become ho-hum, we feel we are missing something to which we are entitled.

 Are our expectations unrealistic?  Maybe work itself is not causing us problems, maybe it is the attitudes and expectations we have of it that are making us long for something better. De Botton believes that our expectations are often delusional and out of touch with what reality can provide.

But in an economic crisis, the gloves come off and power is more cleanly revealed again. So one of the benefits of the crisis is that it enables us to lower our expectations as to what work can deliver. Some of the greater existential questions disappear. Simply holding down an ordinary job and surviving comes to seem like reward enough. We should perhaps temper our sadness in these troubled times by remembering that work is often more bearable when we don’t expect it always to deliver happiness in addition to money.

 What are your thoughts? 

You can read the article below (I have highlighted the good bits in bold) or follow the link to the article in Management Today

… Continue Reading

   Send article as PDF to

Learn how to make an impact by writing well

Do you ever write reports, marketing pitches or sales proposals?  Have you ever experienced writer’s block, where you stare at a blank screen and wonder where to start?  I have.

I wish I had read ‘Bird by Bird’ by Anne Lamott earlier in my career.  It would have made writing, especially the dry business kind, so much easier.  ‘Bird by Bird’ is a highly-rated, easy reading book about how to write well.  It focuses on fiction writing but also applies to any type.

Here are 3 useful tips from the book that sound obvious yet, when you are really busy at work, you can lose sight of the basics:

… Continue Reading

   Send article as PDF to

Susan’s Got Talent – Find your song too

I have watched the Susan Boyle on ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ video clip about 10 times today.  It is very inspiring but it also makes me feel a little sad.  She is 47 years old and does not appear to have tapped into her hidden talent until now.  Better late than never, I suppose.

I wonder how many people are sitting on some hidden talent but have just not created the opportunity or been given the chance to express it?  Ability is sometimes nothing without opportunity.

Author Henry Thoreau said that, ‘Most people lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with their song still in them.’

What is your song?

   Send article as PDF to

Talent – Manage it by measuring it

My husband is gets really annoyed that I don’t put clothes back in my cupboard after I have worn them.  I tend to pile them up on the table in our bedroom until I create a high pyramid of creased outfits.  I have struggled to change this habit so, as a last resort, my husband playfully implemented a fining system.  If he sees clothes on the table, he fines me 50p.

I have started changing my behaviour because it is now being measured.  Dumping clothes now has a monetary value and it’s starting to hurt my pocket in a big way.

The moral of the story is this – sometimes the best way to encourage a certain focus or behavior in an organisation, is to measure it and attach a value to it.

Companies want to make money and increase the bottom line.  Organisations are also gradually realising that, in today’s global economy, talented people can give them their competitive edge.  Very few companies have married these two concepts.  How do you use your talent to make more money for your organisation?

One of the effective way to create wealth from people and entrench talent development into the fabric of the organisation is to measure it.  Use metrics that make people accountable for it.  But, how?

Lowell Bryan and Claudia Joyce from McKinsey have an interesting proposition in their book ‘Mobilizing Minds’.  Their idea, which will take time to implement, is the best way to measure return on talent that I have come across so far.

… Continue Reading

   Send article as PDF to

Smart people + Good tools = Amazing things

The American journalist Charlie Rose has recently interviewed a series of influential people in the technology industry.  They include Eric Schmidt (CEO of Google), Marc Andreesson (Founder of Netscape), Jeff Bezos (CEO of Amazon), Evan Williams (co-founder of Twitter), Reid Hoffman (co-founder of LinkedIn) and Marissa Mayer (VP of Search and User Experience at Google).

They are fascinating conversations about the future of technology and the rise of social/business networking.

I found Marissa Mayer’s conversation with Charlie particularly intriguing.  Marissa Mayer is 33 years old and is already the Vice President of Search Product and User Experience at Google. She is the very powerful a gatekeeper who she determines when or whether a particular Google product should be released to users.

Google gives all employees 1 day a week to explore their own ideas.  People have carte blanche and can investigate whatever technologically-related ideas fascinate them and there is no interference by the company.  It turns out that over 50% of Google’s new products have come from that 20% free-for-all time.  Marissa Mayer said, ‘When you take really smart people and give them really good tools, they build amazing things.’

   Send article as PDF to

How finding your passion changes everything

Sir Ken Robinson is an expert on creativity and innovation.  I highly recommend that you watch his excellent talk on ForaTv, especially if you don’t have time to read his book called The Element: How finding your passion changes everything.  The talk is about 90 minutes and it basically summarises the book.

In these times of unpredictability and uncertainty, we need to think and work differently.  It is becoming clear that old, linear ways of working and thinking are collapsing.  Those people and businesses that prize flexibility, creativity, adaptability, self-assurance, collaboration and entrepreneurship will win in the future.  An essential ingredient in creating a vibrant and healthy economy is to help people discover their ‘element’.

Sir Ken believes it is essential that we find ‘our element’ in order to live a balanced and fulfilled life.  Your element is the place where what you are good at and what you love to do comes together.  It is an expression of your most authentic self and is the point where you connect with your deep sense of identity, purpose and well being.  When you have found your element, you are likely to be more productive, self confident, creative and adaptable. 

Few people know what their true talents are and what they are capable of achieving. Many people plod along with no deep sense of fulfillment and meaning.  Most people spend time in jobs that don’t really light their fire.  We tend to define ourselves by the jobs we do even though this work often does not express who we feel we really are.

Sir Ken believes we all have natural capacities that we lose touch with as we spend more time in the world.  In many of his interviews, he tells the story of when he asked a class of adults to put up their hand if they believed they were creative.  Very few people raised their hands.  He asked the same question to a group of children and everyone put up their hands.  Children seem to have a confidence in their imagination that adults don’t.  We are all born with enormous natural capacities but we lose touch with them along the way. 

… Continue Reading

   Send article as PDF to

Some humour from Dilbert …

I would imagine the AIG execs are now flying coach?

   Send article as PDF to

Wisdom from Katherine the Great

Katherine Garrett-Cox sounds like superwoman.  She is one of London’s highest profile fund managers, earning about £1 million a year when she was at Morley Fund Management.  She is currently CEO of the FTSE 100 company, Alliance Trust.  She is 40 years old and has 4 children under the age of 8.  The media in the UK have dubbed her ‘Katherine the Great’ because she seems to have it all. 

I have been researching some of the common traits of high achieving women in the UK and I came across this YouTube clip of a presentation Katherine gave at the World Economic Forum in January.

She believes that ‘people who feel valued, motivated and engaged perform better.’ The clip is 5 minutes long and the topic is ‘How do we get the most out of the people that work in our organizations?’  I liked the emotive pictures in the background and it’s refreshing that she didn’t use any bullet points! 

   Send article as PDF to

The hiring dilemma – Entrance vs excellence criteria

Two things happened this week that prompted me to write this particular blog:

1.  I watched a YouTube clip of author Malcolm Gladwell where he made an interesting point about the selection process at elite universities.
2. An acquaintance of mine described his recent experience while applying for a position at a global consulting firm.  He uploaded his CV on to the web site and then had to complete a personality-profiling test.  Two minutes later, he received a computer generated email saying his application would proceed no further because his personality did not match the entrance criteria.  How bizarre - he is one of the few people I have met who has the elusive x-factor!

Malcolm Gladwell believes that the way in which people are selected to attend top-notch universities and business schools is nonsensical.  His premise applies to the selection process at many companies as well.

The criteria on which you are judged to become part of a university, company or team are often very different to the factors that will make you good at the particular discipline or task for which you are being selected.

… Continue Reading

   Send article as PDF to

5 essential leadership skills

As we all know, 2009 will be an unpredictable, volatile year.  Being a good leader is going to be more challenging than ever.

I was recommended a book called The Leadership Code by Dave Ulrich.  I haven’t read it yet but I got a good summary diagram off the book’s promotion website. 

There are 5 skills that a good leader must master.  Some of these skills are focused on tangible organizational aspects while others are focused on the intangible people aspects.  Some have long term rewards while the benefits of others may be visible in the shorter term.

A good leader must focus on these 5 crucial rules or skills:

1. Be a strategist – Shape your future
2. Be an executor – Make things happen
3. Be a talent manager – Engage today’s talent
4. Be a human capital developer – Build the next generation
5. Develop your personal proficiency – Invest in yourself

The core of leadership is to continue to invest in yourself and maintain your personal proficiency that makes you a better strategist, executor, talent manager and human capital developer.

   Send article as PDF to

Facebook, relationships and dream teams

Focused, friendly, inspired, collaborative, outputs-driven, warm, respectful, innovative, wise, reasonable risk-takers, in synch, complementary, assertive, successful, cutting edge, high performance, visionary

 I attended a leadership course on Monday evening and we had to brainstorm a ‘dream team’.  The words above are a small sample of the ideas I copied off the flipchart.  The point of the exercise was to illustrate how many of the qualities of a dream team are based on meaningful relationships.

Judging from the success of networking tools such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace, it seems we crave interactions with and connections to other people.  Then why is it that there are so few dream teams around?  Why is it, that in a world that is obsessed with connectivity, we find it so difficult to build the relationships that are the foundations of visionary teams?

Apparently the average middle manager gets at least 80 email messages per day. Instant messages demand instant responses. Our costs of interacting have been reduced to almost zero but the volume of our interactions is heading towards infinity. There is no time to anticipate the future – people are too busy reacting to demands of the present.  The quantity of communication has increased but the quality has decreased.  There is no time to think.  Creativity lies dormant because everything else is more urgent.

Today we can connect better with Alaska and Outer Mongolia.  But, do we still connect with the same quality with the people who work on the floor below us?  Facebook, mobile phones and email have given us breadth not depth.  We are spread too thinly.  We have quantity, not quality.

… Continue Reading

   Send article as PDF to

How to avoid death by Powerpoint

It is very rare to find a truly captivating presenter.  It is very easy to come across cringe-inducing ones though.

How should you design a good presentation?  How can you get your message across?  How can you develop power, presence and confidence when public speaking?

Watch this excellent talk by Garr Reynolds (author of PresentationZen).  It is 60 minutes long but the time will fly by, as any engaging presentation should.

 Link to the talk on YouTube.

   Send article as PDF to

Rules, mediocrity and practical wisdom

I highly recommend psychologist Barry Schwartz’s recent presentation at the TED 2009 conference.  It is a 20 minute talk on how our bureaucracy-obsessed society should nurture practical wisdom. 

He discusses how when things go wrong, we scramble for two tools – better incentives and more rules.

He says rules and standardized processes and procedures are insurance policies against disaster and they are often successful in preventing it.  But, while rules can be useful, they are not enough.  The more rules you have, the less practical wisdom you will have.  The reality is that real world problems are ambiguous and rigid rules can remove opportunities for improvisation and prevent people from inventing combinations that are appropriate for the situation and people at hand.  Rules are often implemented at the cost of initiative, creativity and passion – yet these are vital to organizational success.  Rigid rules can perpetuate mediocrity because ‘that’s just the way things are done around here’.  People start saying things like ‘Don’t look at me – I just work here’.

I can personally relate to what Schwartz is saying.  After the Enron, Worldcom debacle, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed.  This act was great for accounting firms because it provided them with a conveyer belt of guaranteed, hefty income.  Part of the act required management to test, document and then assess the adequacy of their internal controls/rules over financial reporting.  While this legislation may have produced fewer future Enrons, it injected despondency, endless monotony and career doubts into most staff members and auditors (including me) who had to test, document or audit a company’s controls/rules.  I saw how it drained people of qualities such as vitality and ingenuity – the very qualities that make us human.

I wonder what regulations will be passed after the current financial crisis.  In interviews on the topic of practical wisdom, Schwartz has highlighted how business was about doing what was profitable and legal.  Now it is important to do what is profitable and right.   How do you nurture in people the desire to do the right thing?  How do you give them the tools so that they’ll know what the right thing is?  How do you implement rules but also leave room for creative improvisation and personal judgment?

   Send article as PDF to

Move beyond simply maximising shareholder wealth

It is no longer ‘cool’ to say your company’s mission is to make money and maximize shareholder wealth. Although many companies pretend that they have a more noble purpose, their actions, processes, controls, hierarchy, behaviour of management and treatment of their employees reveals that maximizing returns is actually still their number 1 priority. 

In his recent article in the Harvard Business Review, Gary Hamel passionately believes that any company, whose primary mission is to make money and enhance the bottom line, is misunderstanding the role and responsibility of business in the 21^st century.

Hamel says:

 Most companies strive to maximize shareholder wealth—a goal that is inadequate in many respects. As an emotional catalyst, wealth maximization lacks the power to fully mobilize human energies. It’s an insufficient defense when people question the legitimacy of corporate power. And it’s not specific or compelling enough to spur renewal. For these reasons, tomorrow’s management practices must focus on the achievement of socially significant and noble goals.

Many companies have jumped on the social responsibility bandwagon and attached green, sustainability statements to their mission.  They monitor their carbon footprint and make a fuss of donations and good deeds for charities.  That is a good start but it is not enough.  Companies need to embed citizenship and community into the fabric of their vision.  What is your company’s mission aside from making money?  How do you make a difference to the customers you serve?  My husband works at a global professional services firm and does not know what their vision is aside from making cash.  That is probably one of the main reasons why they struggle to differentiate and manage talent.

Southwest Airlines, Starbucks, Google, Disney and Amazon have a vision beyond making money and their employees can articulate it.  These employees feel as if they are making a difference – they know they are more than robotic cogs in a vast money making machine.  That is why these companies are often used as case studies for customer and employee engagement. If banks had a socially responsible vision beyond making money, we probably would not be in the pickle we currently find ourselves. 

We put so much pressure on politicians to solve community problems but often forget that corporations have an inherent advantage over elected public servants.  CEOs and their companies have a capacity to do good that often outweighs that of national politicians.

… Continue Reading

   Send article as PDF to

Online news in 1981

This video clip is a news report from 1981.  It covers the once “far fetched” concept of reading news on your home computer.  It is amazing to see how far we have come!  My favourite part of the clip is where a man is interviewed because he is one of the rare few that owns a home computer.

Link to 1981 news report on YouTube

   Send article as PDF to

Meaty people – Graded, boxed and ranked

I have just been forwarded an email from a friend who works at a reputable, global company.  This company is widely quoted as saying that talent management is a priority and people are their greatest asset.   

The email was sent by HR to all managers within a department and was informing them of their new promotion practices.  This is a sentence from the email:

‘Our approach to considering candidates will still be peer group coach meetings to grade, box and rank all of those that wish to be considered for promotion.’

Grade, box and rank?  How does this make highly qualified, super talented and ambitious employees feel?  My eggs, minced beef and chicken drumsticks in the fridge are graded, boxed and ranked.

Companies must be so careful to practice what they preach.  If I were to be graded, boxed and ranked, I would not feel like a valued, appreciated human being.  In fact, I wouldn’t really bother about being promoted anymore – I would look to leave.  I think this company’s talent management strategy needs some fine-tuning.

   Send article as PDF to

Big challenges for management

In May 2008, a group of world-renowned academics and progressive business leaders, led by Gary Hamel, debated the future of management during the next 100 years. They all believe that the current management model is outdated and should be reinvented for the future.  They came up with a list of 25 management challenges that could create organizations fit for the 21st century.  They believe that if leaders do not focus on these issues, companies will not cope in tomorrow’s unpredictable world.

Out of the 25 challenges, these are the ones that fascinated me the most: 

* Ensure that the work of management serves a higher purpose.
* Fully embed the ideas of community and citizenship in management systems
* Eliminate the pathologies of formal hierarchy
* Reinvent the means of control
* Redefine the work of leadership
* Expand the scope of employees’ autonomy
* Further unleash human imagination
* Enable communities of passion
* Humanise the language and practice of business

You can read Gary Hamel’s article in the February 2009 Harvard Business Review.

   Send article as PDF to

TomorrowToday and the Periodic Table of Talent

Deloitte has developed a Periodic Table of Talent that covers most of the elements in the talent management area.  It is divided into four parts – strategy, solutions, infrastructure and catalysts.

There are two types of talent elements – core and differentiating.  Core factors support the traditional employee lifecycle. Differentiating factors have higher potential to drive competitive advantage.  If you look at the table below, you will see the differentiating factors are represented by a square with the top left corner chopped off.  

In the 21^st century, differentiating is more difficult than it used to be.  Companies sell the same products, offer the same services, to the same customers, at similar prices, deliver through the same channels and advertise in the same media using the same techniques.  So how do companies differentiate? 

One of the best ways is to focus on your people strategy and the environment in which your employees work.  Don’t feel too daunted and overwhelmed – TomorrowToday has expertise, insight and frameworks that cater for most of the differentiating areas!  I highlighted those with a black star. 

   Send article as PDF to

Recruiting good people is like catching butterflies

Last week, TomorrowToday did a presentation at Investec in London.  In the 2 hours I was there, I could clearly see that they take their people seriously.  As an Investec customer, I was impressed and if they look after their people so well, I have confidence that they will look after my money too.

I have facilitated many training courses and I have noticed that free food for attendees is always a big incentive and thrill.  I raised my eyebrows when I heard a Big 4 accounting firm in London has recently cancelled all food on training courses in order to save cash.  Big mistake!  I guarantee their staff will be fed up and bitter about that.  And bitter, unhappy people are not very productive people …

The ambience that Investec created on Friday was a cut above any company I have ever been to.  There were fancy breakfast hordevores, quality Starbucks filter coffee, salmon and cream cheese sandwiches, mini mueslis and smoothies.  Everything was arranged in a very artistic and fancy way. 

Based on the food Investec served their staff, I suspect they know how to manage talent.  The environment they created proves to their staff that management takes them seriously.

All the employees I spoke to passionately agreed that Investec is one of the best places to work and the food at training courses is an indication of that.  They know Investec values their contribution.  Their people are worth investing in so they still serve really good food, despite the tough economic climate.  It is the small things that count.

… Continue Reading

   Send article as PDF to

Pleased to meet you. What do you do for a living?

When you meet new people at a function, what is one of the first things they ask you?  Every time I am introduced to new people, we generally say ‘hello’ and ‘pleased to meet you’.  Then, we ask each other, ‘what do you do for a living?’

I can understand why people ask this because it breaks the ice and keeps the conversation moving.  It is assumed that the question ‘what do you do for a living’ will reveal something about who you are and then encourage more discussion.

I am an accountant.  This has been my most succinct response to the ‘what do you do for a living’ question.  The problem is that this short answer gave people a false impression of the real me. The field I studied is no longer congruent with the dreams and aspirations I have for my life.  I have never fitted the stereotypical accountant profile so I always wanted to qualify the statement and say ‘I am an accountant BUT…’ Sometimes a BBQ, wedding or light-hearted cocktail party is not the place to get too philosophical and intense.  So, I generally left my response as a brief ‘I am an accountant’ but felt something was missing from my answer, just like I felt something was missing in my career in general.

I have always wondered whether other people feel the same way as me.  Do people’s jobs and the companies they work for define who they really are? – ‘I am a doctor’, ‘I work for IBM’, ‘I am in the oil industry’, ‘I am an engineer’, ‘I am in project management’.  Recently, I have made it my mission at functions to subtly probe whether people’s jobs are congruent with their passion and who they feel they really are. 

… Continue Reading

   Send article as PDF to