The question for managers to answer

“What do you want your people to do?”.

That’s the question I often ask when I’m helping managers with their accountability to lead their people (not optional by the way):

I usually get pretty good answers of the activity variety – the various things that solid employees would be seen doing as they go about their work.  Things like “liaise with customers, build relationships, deliver sales, plan projects”, and the old chestnuts of “deliver a framework” or “develop a strategy”.  Which is why I then ask this question:

“And if they do a fantastic job, what does the company get?”. Read more…

Pay grades – how to make them work

ASO4, APS2, PSO3…and countless other classifications are all around the world, denoting the different gradings that determine what someone is paid.  Government is a common spot where this is found, but in no way is government alone.

The concept itself is fine.  The original work of organisational scientist Elliott Jaques studied pay levels and the findings were clear that it was believed to be fair that those doing more complex work receive higher levels of pay..

So why is it the case that government departments have the reputation for bureaucracy, frustration and an inability to deliver? Read more…

Improving processes? This first…

Processes in your business are what makes a customer requirement a non-surprising event – your people know what to do to hit the expectations that you’ve put out into the market.  They know what comes first, what comes next, who does what, what they use, and it all flows like a swift-moving happy river to the sea no matter what.

Right?

Right.

I know a couple of outstanding improvement specialists who have never come across a business process where they didn’t create significant ROI for their clients, and when I ask them how they do it, the answer is “we look”. Read more…

Behaviours, competencies and all that

I’m often asked about competencies, usually in the context of putting together clear role descriptions to create a work system that will deliver what is needed.

Competencies are to role descriptions what the mission statement is to organisational purpose – a well-intentioned beginning that has become a bland wishlist of generic points that will neither offend nor inspire anyone.

We need to be serve our people better than this.  Here’s a way to do it that makes life easier for everyone, using categories that are direct, actionable and treat people like adults

Put together roles that cover the below:

1) Unique Value-Add or Purpose – 1-3 sentences on what the role exists to do, including what level of work. Read more…

The right spot for personality tests

When personality tests and cultural surveys come up with clients, they often say a little apologetically “I know you don’t think much of these, but…”. I feel bad when I hear this, because I don’t automatically think they are bad.

Far from it.

I rate things such as Myers-Briggs, the various LSI, OCI, CSI permutations, Facet 5 and all various  letters, spiderwebs and colours as great tools for  raising the performance of teams that already know what they’re doing. Read more…

Stop the battles: Using authorities to set up cross-functional work

There is a way to create a culture of working together and stopping cross-functional work being the bane of your people’s working life, and it does not start with sending everyone away to learn how to handle conflict, find out their personality type or get 360 feedback.

Instead, it involves addressing the issue at its source by managers clarifying what they are each accountable for, confirming with their cross-over manager, then setting up role relationships for their people by integrating accountabilities and authorities.

Elliott Jaques provides  seven different types of authority to match with accountability Read more…

The simple step to improving cross-functional relationships

Something actually quite strange, but common, are Finance areas taking ownership of profitability for an organisation.  You will hear comments like “March should be a big month, which will make Jim (CFO) happy”, and you’ll hear Jim saying things like “my money” and “that’s good for my bottom line”.

We see the exact same thing when HR departments take ownership of culture or employee engagement.

This comes from a good place, from Read more…

Why Mick Malthouse is having fun

I think Mick Malthouse is having fun.  Mick is the coach of  Carlton, a team in the Australian Football League which is the top competition in the land.  He took on the job this season and I think overall he is having a good time due to two structural reasons that are useful for us to pay attention to.

The first is clarity of accountability.  I doubt Mick has Read more…

Feedback – answer the questions

A younger friend of mine has recently made the elite professional level of his sport; there is no higher level besides international representation in his game.  Very impressive as he had the courage to leave his hometown and try to reach something in which there was a genuine chance of failure (when was the last time you did something with that condition?).

I asked how is he finding things at the top level, and his answer was about feedback.  He said that any mistake gets punished on the field by the other team, so there is heaps of pressure, and along with it heaps of feedback Read more…

Different Level…Different Bang for Buck

There’s an easy way to distinguish the different work at successive levels in the organisation.   Look at the bang for buck each level is expected to contribute, not just in terms of ‘what about’, but ‘by when’.   Including a timeframe allows us to set up middle and executive management that can add real value, while allowing the frontline to get on with their work.

It works like this for the first three levels in the organisation, which are all about delivering:

1a) Frontline: Deliver bang for buck today, or in a matter of weeks. Read more…