The latest MBA: Management By App

One of things I’ve discovered since I started blogging and tweeting is how much I enjoy reading what other people have to say for themselves.  One of the sites I regularly visit is Inc. - it’s guaranteed to provide something of interest and I frequently tweet links to their articles.

For me, the best kind of article is not one that I necessarily agree with, but one that gets me all fired up, sending me off to jot down notes for a potential blog post of my own.  And that’s exactly what happened when I read 5 Brilliant People Management Tools.  The title itself was enough to make me curious, despite my growing weariness of posts with numbers in the title.  The opening sentence was also promising: ‘the formative years of any company have more to do with whom you hire and how you manage them than just about any other factor’. 

But then what happened?  There followed a list of the latest web tools designed to help you manage ‘essential HR and people management tasks’.  If how you manage people is so essential to the success of a new enterprise, somehow reducing it to a series of tasks that can be handled by the odd app or two doesn’t feel like you’ve really grasped how important it actually is. 

Now, I’m as much of a sucker for an elegant bit of software as the next person, and given that the author of this article writes about technical trends, his perspective is hardly surprising.  The problem I have has nothing to do with the use of web tools to manage certain processes – it’s about reducing people management to a series of processes in the first place. 

Process is important (it can for example help ensure compliance to employment legislation) but it is not the be all and end all.  As I’ve suggested before in one of my management clichés series, downgrading management to the administration of company process, policy and procedure can stifle a manager’s ability to motivate, inspire and engage people.  In the formative stages of any new enterprise, it is a manager’s leadership skills that will have the biggest impact on the performance of their people, not their ability to master the latest people management app.

Tim Schuler is a coach, facilitator and business partner. He specialises in bringing out the very best in managers, whether it’s their first management role or something they’ve been doing for a while. More information is available from www.tschuler.co.uk

While we’re binning appraisal systems, let’s shred the SMART objectives too

Over the years, a compelling case for abandoning the formal performance appraisal system has been established.  Fred Nickols for example argues that it ‘devours staggering amounts of time and energy, depresses and demotivates people, destroys trust and teamwork and, adding insult to injury, it delivers little demonstrable value at great cost’. 

Less has been said on the subject of SMART objectives.   The setting and reviewing objectives is central not just to most appraisal schemes, but also to the wider field of performance management.  For years, managers have been encouraged to make sure objectives are SMART, and yet many fail to do so in one way or another.   While a widespread inability to set SMART objectives is not necessarily a reason for abandoning them altogether, it does raise the question of whether their use is as vital as is often stated.

What was intended as a helpful mnemonic has over time become blurred, with people disagreeing over the numerous versions of what the five letters actually stand for.  The A seems to attract the most variants, including attainable, appropriate, achievable, agreed, assignable, actionable, ambitious, aligned and aspirational.  But even the M, which most people accept stands for measurable, has alternative versions in circulation, including meaningful, motivational and manageable.   Some people favour the longer form SMARTER, adding to the confusion with even more permutations of meaning.  If SMART in itself is open to such wide interpretation, it can hardly be a reliable measure against which to judge objectives.

Another major problem with using SMART is that while it may have some application for something relatively small and self-contained, work often involves a level of complexity that cannot be captured by applying a simple formula.  Where objectives are set as part of a formal appraisal process, there is a temptation to condense them into a single sentence in order to fit the space available in the documentation.  This in effect reduces the objective to little more than a sound bite, which is unlikely to be sufficiently detailed to ensure accountability.

Organisations today face constant change and require people to be increasingly flexible.  Employees need to be much more agile, frequently checking the shifting expectations of a range of interested parties.  The setting and reviewing of simplistic SMART objectives fails to reflect this, particularly when part of an annual ritual of performance appraisal. 

Tim Schuler is a coach, facilitator and business partner. He specialises in bringing out the very best in managers, whether it’s their first management role or something they’ve been doing for a while. More information is available from www.tschuler.co.uk

Like it or not, morality is a management consideration

Raising the question of morality in business is all very well as an academic discussion, or something that makes for an interesting feature on BBC Radio 4, but should the moral issues underpinning day-to-day management decisions be more frequently and openly discussed within organisations?

The morality of big business periodically claims the headlines, usually prompted by a notable case of fraud or institutional wrongdoing.  For some time now the focus has been on the financial sector, with growing worldwide protest against corporate greed.   

The recent publication of the St Paul’s Cathedral Institute report, Value and Values: Perceptions of Ethics in the City Today, seems remarkably timely given the uneasy relationship between the cathedral and the protesters camped on its doorstep.  The report gives a fascinating insight into ethical issues within the financial services sector.  Although these precise issues may not necessarily concern businesses in other sectors, there will nevertheless be ethical issues that managers at all levels need to consider.

Morality is often seen to be a matter of personal choice.  People for example have different views on acceptable levels of bending the truth, and in many circumstances it may be appropriate to leave individual employees to act in line with their own conscience.  It could also be argued that certain things go without saying, and it might seem patronising to spell these out.  Managers however need to consider at what stage they should intervene.  The impact of being caught telling fibs to a colleague may be just a little temporary personal embarrassment, but if it establishes a culture of mistrust, this can have a lasting effect on teamwork.   Managers also need to set the standard about whether it is acceptable to provide misleading or false information to customers, given the potential damage this can do to the company’s reputation.

A particular challenge arises when inappropriate behaviour is clearly linked to achieving results.  It can be tempting as manager to turn a blind eye and allow the behaviour of a star performer to go unchecked.  Although there is an argument that the ends justify the means, short-term profit needs to be considered in the wider context. 

Following the phone hacking allegations that forced the closure of the News of World, further claims are emerging about the newspaper’s regular use of covert surveillance of celebrities and their families.  The private detective at the centre of these new revelations justifies his action on the grounds that if he didn’t do it someone else would.  Like the ‘everyone does it’ argument, this is a common excuse for questionable business behaviour.   While individuals may have their own views about what they are and aren’t prepared to do, it is down to managers to set and maintain the organisation’s moral climate.

Tim Schuler is a coach, facilitator and business partner. He specialises in bringing out the very best in managers, whether it’s their first management role or something they’ve been doing for a while. More information is available from www.tschuler.co.uk

Why making it easier for companies to sack under-performing staff may be counterproductive

Following the government’s recent reduction in the qualifying period for employee protection against unfair dismissal from two years to one, a leaked Downing Street report has recommended abolishing the right to claim unfair dismissal altogether.   

The report, commissioned by the Prime Minister and written by  venture capitalist Adrian Beecroft, proposes a system that would allow employers to sack unproductive staff with basic redundancy pay and notice, enabling organisations to dismiss poorly performing staff and replace them with more capable ones.  Beecroft claims that ‘a proportion of employees, secure in the knowledge that their employer will be reluctant to dismiss them, work at a level well below their true capacity; they coast along’. 

The report recognises that employers could potentially abuse the proposed changes and get rid of staff simply because they did not like them.  ‘While this is sad’, Beecroft says, ‘I believe it is a price worth paying for all the benefits that would result from the change’.   

An additional flaw in the proposal is the assumption that organisations will easily be able to find more capable people to replace those they are dismissing.  Presumably at the time of hiring them, the employer considered these people to be capable.  This suggests there might be a flaw in the recruitment process, or something has happened subsequently to turn them into under-performers.  These are both serious management issues that need to be fully explored, otherwise there is a risk that the problem will just repeat itself.   

The law as it stands allows employers to dismiss staff where there are fair grounds for doing so; it also protects individuals from unfair treatment.  Making it easier to dismiss staff may provide a quick fix, but it doesn’t help organisations address the underlying problems.  Managing poor performance can be difficult, unpleasant and time consuming – it is however central to a manager’s role.  

Tim Schuler is a coach, facilitator and business partner. He specialises in bringing out the very best in managers, whether it’s their first management role or something they’ve been doing for a while. More information is available from www.tschuler.co.uk

Is retirement an effective approach to performance management?

The reaction to this month's abolition of the compulsory retirement age has highlighted some interesting issues for organisations of all sizes. Andrew Cave from the Federation of Small Businesses said "if you can't get rid of someone, you then have to go through the process of performance managing someone out of an organisation." He pointed out that, while large organisations may have the experience and HR back-up to manage this, "the average business in this country employs four people; the owner-manager doesn't necessarily have that expertise." 

Waiting for someone to retire doesn’t seem to be a great strategy for dealing with poor performance; what impact is their performance likely to have on the business before they go? If managers lack the skill to deal effectively with the poor performance of those approaching retirement, they’re probably equally ill-equipped to deal with the poor performance of younger staff. 

While it’s quite natural to want a problem to go away, getting rid of someone really should be the last resort. Improving their performance should always be fully explored first, and this is where the resources available to larger organisations can be an advantage. In my experience however, managers in large organisations quite often turn to HR expecting them to sort out the problem, preferably by getting rid of the individual, only to become frustrated when they realise they can’t totally absolve themselves of their responsibility for performance management. 

One of the challenges of being an owner-manager of a small business is that you are responsible for everything. If you lack the expertise to sell or to manage finances, you either have to learn these skills yourself, buy in expertise or face serious risks. The ability to manage poor performance is a similar essential skill.

Tim Schuler is a coach, facilitator and business partner. He specialises in bringing out the very best in managers, whether it’s their first management role or something they’ve been doing for a while. More information is available from www.tschuler.co.uk