Monthly Archives: April 2010

Earlier this week, we wrote about Malcolm McLaren, a man who was very much the product of an art school education. Though a believer in individual enterprise, and a vendor/creator of clothing, films and music, it’s debatable that he saw himself as a businessman or a manager – what McLaren seemed most interested in was in promoting ideas (and provocation and forment too). One of the many things that were striking about him – especially in a man who worked in tailoring, and who understood the power of metaphor – was his approach to handling relationships. Although he famously said of the Sex Pistols – his main vehicle to fame/notoriety – that they were “like my work of art. They were my canvas”, his almost abstracted interest in ‘the event’ left him blindsided on the consequences for the human capital of his enterprise. Described by a man hired to ghost his autobiography (never to be completed) as “the Brian Clough of pop who should’ve managed England”, his enthusiasm for ideas and maximising the intensity of the moment – despite the testimony of his friends since his death of a capability for great kindness – lead to some stark accusation from the raw materials of his work of art: the people.

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A line from a song, of course: The Sex Pistol’s “God Save The Queen”, still provocative all these years on. And a line written by John Lydon, although it was hard not to think of it watching the television coverage of the funeral of Malcolm McLaren, his former manager and the human catalyst that brought punk to the streets of London in the Queen’s Silver Jubilee year. For most people, that’s probably McLaren’s legacy in a nutshell: ripped t-shirts, Her Majesty with unusual nasal jewellery on a poster, and all the other little visual icons of that summer that you can still, remarkably, buy on postcards in many parts of London. But even at just a level of fashion, he left a bigger mark: describe someone as ‘punky looking’, as most of us have a pretty clear visual picture of what you mean. Not a bad achievement for a man with one little shop at the wrong end of the King’s Road. But there was more to McLaren than that: for good and bad, there are plenty of reasons to spend a few minutes looking back at his life now that it has ended.

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One of the challenges of any HR function is to be seen not as reactive, or dominated by a love of process and procedure (and of imposing them on other functions), but as a real player in the business that is there to deliver results. Even where HR functions have achieved this ‘modernisation’, the perception of the function elsewhere in the organisation may take some time to catch up and see this modified reality. Just as HR has a key role to play in developing the Employer Brand and the Employee Value Proposition (as we’ve discussed here, here and here), so it has the challenge of developing a learning brand that truly reflects – and projects – its real sense of its own purpose.

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We’ve recently received downloadable versions of a number of articles that members of the ASK team contributed to a variety of publications last year, covering topics that include transfer and application of learning, return on L&D investment, executive coaching and professionalism of service, employee engagement and the employee value proposition (EVP).

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Two contrasting stories from the wider world, one looking at an innovation in reward and recognition, the other looking through a glass (and rather darkly) at the implications for HR – and for organisations – of recruitment freezes. (The rest of our Crackers series is also available online.)

  • Dutch Companies Embrace Sustainability-Based Bonuses: the US-based This Is Good blog looks at the work of Netherlands-based paint and chemical company, AkzoNobel, who are awarding 50% of bonuses for traditional financial goals and 50% for contributions to sustainability. “So these bonuses aren’t just tied to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency upgrades, telecommuting, and other measures but they are also tied to eco-innovations. This allows the company to continue to spur creativity from their employees, which will, in turn, garner more attention from customers and even competitors.”
  • Brain freeze: The wonderfully titled My Hell is Other People is the blog of “British HR Director caught in a Sartrian nightmare and trying to see the philosophical side of life”. He or she may remain anonymous, but – like us in a recent post –  they are concerned about how public sector cuts in the UK will be implemented in practice, and how they can be as painful for those who remain as those who depart: “The idea of a recruitment freeze makes a number of assumptions, that all roles are equal, that all roles are interchangeable and that the right people will leave.  And that just doesn’t happen.  You either stick dogmatically to the freeze to the detriment of the service and the health and well-being of those that remain, or you have to exercise a degree of judgement.”

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As we are undergoing not just a turbulent economic time but a general elections campaign, it’s unsurprising that the air is thick with figures and statistics – and the conjecture of people attempting to draw conclusions from them. Here are some headline figures to be going along with from the forthcoming Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s (CIPD) 2010 Learning and Development Survey: only one in 10 employers (11%) expect training spend to increase in the year to come; funds for learning and development are decreasing in over half (52%) of UK organisations.

In an election campaign where all the major parties are campaigning on a platform of planned cuts (despite their terminological and accounting differences), ‘doing more with less’ is becoming a phrase du jour. (Were it more upbeat, I’d be tempted to call it a mantra …) I’m not about to insert any knowingly political comments, although I couldn’t help but notice that the CIPD press release also noted that “learning and training development departments’ headcounts have largely remained the same in the last year”. The responding organisations should be congratulated on the accuracy of their grasp of English grammar: the statement does suggest a potential lack of intention to ‘do more with fewer’ – although suppliers might be interested to note that 31% of respondents indicated that one of their major changes over the last year was “a reduction in external suppliers and a move to in-house provision”.

Back at the general election campaign, the possibility of a hung parliament is one of the major media topics that have emerged. I’m probably not the first to draw a comparison with conventional views on organisational leadership, but the prospect seems to divide commentators between those who are fearful of a world without a clear, single guiding vision (even one with what is, thanks to our electoral system, minority support) and those who are of the opinion that forcing our leaders to work together, overcome their disagreements and ‘lead together’.

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[This post is a guest contribution by ASK Associate, Barbara Hocking. You can read Barbara's biography on our Guests page, which also provides a link to her Personal Learning Profile.]

Is the time for ethical leadership really here? Has the global economic climate created conditions for a radical rethink in the way we do business? Will we see a different set of values being pursued by those in positions of influence in the major corporations around the world? Business schools across the globe are certainly questioning how they should be developing leaders of the future in the light of criticism from many quarters following the worldwide economic crisis.

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A phrase you’re probably familiar with from the Highway Code, of course. It’s good basic advice, that is designed not only to help us to avoid having accidents ourselves but also to help us avoid creating accidents that will affect others (possibly leaving us unscathed). Many accidents are caused when innocent parties are left with no option but to take dangerous evasive action without time to fully contemplate the consequences, or are simply left with no road to travel on except that already occupied by something – or someone – else. The Highway Code is a code of conduct, and its intentions are to keep our roads as safe places for everyone who uses them. (Hence that old chestnut fake test question “When is it acceptable to run over a pedestrian?”) It’s also arguable that the famous three stage memory jogger omits a stage – monitoring and evaluating the situation – but, in its own context, you can argue that that much is a given. Even so, without the evaluation process, ‘MSM’ is an abstract process where that final ‘M’ could just as easily stand for ‘Massacre’.

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Even a regular but cursory glance at the HR press or the ‘trade’ websites would probably have already told you as much, but we can only agree with Nita Clarke, Director of the Involvement and Participation Association (IPA), when she said that “Engagement’s time has come.” As Director of a body formerly (and rather splendidly) called the Labour Association for Promoting Co-operative Production based on the Co-partnership of the Workers, promoting engagement in the workplace is, after all, her job. As co-author of the McLeod Guidelines on promoting employee engagement to UK businesses, public and third sector organisations, her commitment could almost be taken as read – if the idea were not one with such significant potential (and as yet, often unrealised) benefits. The inner copy-editor might want, in a rather Lynne Truss-like manner, to nit pick and point out that the idea of engagement might be upon us (with the reality still to come), but laudable ideas deserve lauding. What surprised us, reading about the launch at HRZone were the comments of Lord Young, which left us wondering if he’d read the report:

Employment Relations Minister Lord Young told HRzone: “We hope it provides a really practical guide for business.” He explained how simple it was to go about engaging employees, saying: “You don’t need to go on a one week training course to do this.”

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[We were delighted to receive the following contribution to our blog, exploring leadership and engagement against the backdrop of an election campaign, which we are respectfully publishing anonymously.]

One normally isn’t to allowed to express an opinion, of course, but one is an intelligent woman of a certain age, who keeps keenly in touch with current events. As I believe people might write in letters of introduction to potential employers, one also has what one might call ‘a breadth and depth of experience in leadership roles’. So one can’t help but think sometimes. And that iPod one was given does make a useful storage device for one’s voicemail messages to oneself. One imagines there’d be quite a to do if one’s thoughts were to be more widely known – one can only hope one’s handbag is in safe hands – but it is a comfort to record them. If one’s upper lip were less stiff, for example, one might almost be currently forgiven for thinking ‘oh, here one goes again’.

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