PUTTING A VALUE ON VALUE

We all joke about singing from the same hymn sheet or indeed even being in the same church.  But there’s a serious lesson here that some organisations have failed to learn to their cost.  And the key word here is ‘values’.

Humans are individuals with their own sets of values and beliefs. Businesses too, have organisational values and goals.  People join organisations because they like what they see.  They stay because their personal values match those of the organisation.   And they move on if they don’t.

Aligning these human and organisational values is the key to success in the modern business world where speed is vital and trust its key catalyst.

The simple truth is "me" becomes "we" and when an individual feels strongly that they are part of an organisation that affords them great benefit.  They become disempowered as individuals and much more empowered as a team. They feel stronger within and are therefore loathe to stand up for themselves against their peers.

We are taught in modern education to conform, to be right, to go with the majority. But right is often merely a matter of current opinion. Think back to when the world was flat, women could not vote, capital punishment was an acceptable result of serious criminality, tobacco was good for you, drink driving acceptable. All are now considered unacceptable behaviours within most modern Western societies.

The images of a South African taxi driver being dragged behind a police vehicle for illegal parking and news of his subsequent death in custody has shocked the world. Here we see an appalling example of a state organisation with a poor organisational culture that has become unacceptable to most South Africans.

Last October saw the killing of 44 people at a Marikana mine, the deadliest police action since the end of apartheid. More recently the police officer responsible for the prosecution evidence against Oscar Pistorious was publicly removed from the case as a result of his own pending murder charges. The question is: what type of culture exists within the South African police force. Why do good individuals who join an organisation to uphold the law, then behave this way?

The answer comes from the top.  Poor leadership allows values to slip and behaviour changes in groups to shift. Good leadership upholds values and deals with unacceptable behaviour by stopping it in its tracks.

Visualize a fire-fighter rushing into a building, or a Royal Naval ship venturing into dangerous seas. These acts of extreme bravery are an agreed-upon condition of an individual’s employment at the time of their joining. These are the same acts of commitment as our valiant soldiers undertake in fighting and risking life and limb in foreign wars. They each serve with pride, commitment and passion; their agreed-upon commitment. The power of this commitment becomes a personal promise to do the very best job possible.  What these brave souls deserve are good leaders.

Napoleon once stated "There are no bad soldiers, only bad officers" and I believe he was absolutely right. Individual incidents and mistakes will always happen but when organisations go seriously wrong it’s because of the leadership culture that exists within the organisation.  Invariably when an organisation is in trouble, things are going wrong in several areas.  It’s rarely a one-off incident.

Sampson Hall say:  know and publish your organisational values and you will recruit individuals that match them.   it is then up to the leadership to ensure that the behaviour within the organisation matches those values, however complex and difficult that may be.

BANKING AND THE MORAL MAZE

The Royal Bank of Scotland’s five billion pre tax loss – the fifth annual loss on the trot – is hard enough to swallow.  So how does the bank’s head Stephen Hester sell the idea of paying £215M to its investment bankers?

Not very well is the answer.  With public hostility to the banks showing no sign of abating, when are the banks going to start living by the morals and ethics that most of us in our business and private lives abide by?

Not any time soon, by the sound of it.  Even more interesting, unless RBS faces any further punitive charges, it will return to the same high operating profit of £3.5 billion that it made this year.  Unless more procedural failings emerge.  Lets not hold our breath on that one.   Nor any suggestion of a change in the culture of the banking hall.

In our modern world when does an organisation really need to stand up for the values it expounds? Acknowledging that truth comes before trust; how can the leaders who were the exponents of much of the wrongdoing now inflict a different less profit oriented culture on those who follow them? Particularly if they are still using their obscene, outdated and questionable reward system that does not fit the value sets of current social corporate practice

Why should the tax payer continue to support a self perpetuating antiquated money oriented system that is not fit for purpose? It is as close in terms of risk and reward to drug dealing although the associated rich rewards come without the personal risk. Is this sustainable whilst those within that society struggle to make ends meet.

Is it not time for a serious look at what banking is and what it stands for? What does it deliver to society and how does its current culture, values and ethics really match those of the society it serves.

The imbalance in the Banking, corporate conundrum made up of shareholder profit, customer value and societal expectations that exists is down to poor, unethical leadership. Leaders need to be far cleverer in balancing their delivery appropriately in each of the contributory areas. Those leaders will also need to live by the values they expound. The Banking industry is at a crossroad it is up to its leaders to rise to the considerable challenge of changing the culture and leading it into a new age.

SampsonHall

Good Leaders, Great Decisions

Sampsonhall.co.uk

LEADERS BEHAVING BADLY

What do Lord Rennard, former Barclays boss Bob Diamond and General Petraeus, former head of the CIA all have in common?

Answer – they all left their positions as a result of inappropriate behaviour.

All three were extremely clever and competent, able leaders, yet they all misbehaved in a way that cost them or at least contributed to their losing their leadership position.

It is interesting that moral courage, self discipline and trust are becoming more and more important in life as societal values change.  The common denominator in the News of the World phone hacking, the BBC and Jimmy Savill, the horse meat scandal, the Banks, the South African Police brutality stories is the same:  leaders are not being morally courageous in their behaviours and certainly not when it comes to exposing misbehaviour around them.

If leaders do not have the moral courage to do what is right organisational values mutate. Leaders need to have principles and stick to them they need to have the courage to do the right thing however unpalatable it may be. For to let one piece of misbehaviour go unchallenged is to lower their personal and organisational standards. And results, just judging by the cases above, have been typically disastrous.

A moral compass is essential at the top of an organisation as its leaders, once truly embedded in the organisation will control and influence what happens within the organisation. Once accepted a leader can take an organisation wherever they want with little challenge from within.  Whether they influence by word or deed they will be the ones who must be held responsible for their own behaviour and for the behaviour of those leaders around them.

When Lord Acton, expressed this opinion in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." he was absolutely right.  But now we have an insatiable media and the technology to match. Never more have society’s leaders needed that moral compass as the likelihood of being exposed for wrongdoing is so much greater.

In other words in today’s world, you’ve got far more chance of being found out.

SampsonHall

Good Leaders, Great Decisions

Sampsonhall.co.uk

RESPECT AND POWER IS THE FAIR LEADER RETURNING?

One of the key requisites of a modern day leader is fairness. However as humans we all have our favourites and generally they look, behave and think like us!  All very well until you remember that diversity is a great asset to any modern team. So leaders how do we get the best out of a diverse teams if diversity is such a strength in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world?

As Coach Boone said in that film Remember the Titans:  ”If we don’t come together right now on this hallowed ground, we too will be destroyed, just like they were. I don’t care if you like each other of not, but you will respect each other. And maybe… I don’t know, maybe we’ll learn to play this game like men.”  Respect is the key catalyst that brings with it a fairness that glues individuals and teams together.

Respect is key in any cohesive group for without it trust will dissipate and teams will become a collection of individuals who function only for self gratification. Without respect the intrinsic bond that is so key to super success will never be found as team leaders and members focus on extrinsic reward. Look at those organisations that have tried to buy their way to success and failed.

Power used to be a key tenet to successful leadership but I am now of the opinion that today’s world is more about win win collaboration rather than the zero sum conclusion. Collaboration and mutual benefit are symptoms of maturing societies rather than the historical imposition of power and authority. As leaders become more ethical in their words and deeds societies judge them on their ability to balance profit for their shareholders, value for their customers with their brand’s expectations from society.

Ethical leadership is not about power and authority it is more about influence and motivation hence it is about fairness and diversity, compromise rather than power and destruction.

WHICH LEADERSHIP MODEL NOW?

Given what I do for a living I found John Adair’s comments published in a recent ILM publication of particular interest. “The immense industry which has grown up around leadership is now estimated to be worth $50bn per year but has not actually produced many better leaders.” The truths of this statement are apparent in the various leadership scandals and failures currently dogging just about every part of our society and almost ever present in our daily news stories. Another day another leadership scandal or failure or, at least, an example of bad leadership and the consequences we have to bear as a result – dying to meet a target? So what kind of leadership or leadership model should we be investing in as we move forward?

Ethical leadership and authentic leadership are interesting to consider in context of the current spate of leadership debacles, though not as leadership styles because they are more than concepts of style. Being ethical is about being guided by moral principles and ethical leaders embody, exhibit and live their beliefs and values. Being authentic is about being real or true and authentic leadership is about being sincere, directing with integrity and taking full responsibility by being true. Doing things right is not the same as doing the right thing and reward for being good is not the same as being good for reward. Ethical and authentic leadership are about being good and doing the right thing to be good and true to self and others whilst accepting responsibility for actions and decisions.

My personal view of leadership, generally and specifically, is the most difficult element of leadership to deal with is behaviour; your own behaviour as a leader and that of those you lead. I believe it is the behavioural aspect of leadership which yields the greatest returns and yet most often breaks leaders and destroys leadership. With this in mind and considering the Ethical and Authentic leadership models are founded on values and behaviours, I suspect the appetite to be led by ethical and authentic leaders will be greater than the appetite of leaders to become such. Considering how to develop future leaders in the ethical and authentic ‘mould’ is a particular challenge given the apparent shortage of appropriate role models available to them and the obvious limitations of traditional training. How do we incentivise and give primacy to adopting good behaviour over achieving rewards? How much does knowing about behaviour inform behaviour and decision making? How does legislation affect leaders and leadership? Thinking of these questions called the following quote by Plato to mind.

“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly while bad people will find a way around the laws”

I cannot help but wonder how more stringent banking legislation or stronger whistle blowing laws will have any sustainable effect in addressing bad leadership?

MODERN ETHICAL LEADERSHIP

Not very long ago, only the good guys did ethical leadership. All very well but it didn’t make much difference to the bottom line apparently.  Well life and times in the UK are proving otherwise -  get the culture wrong and you could be facing the wall.

How the BBC, NHS, most high street banks and now some food producers must rue the day they decided it was all about profit, targets and bonuses.  Ignore the culture in your organization and you ignore it at your peril.

And all the retail brands who ignored their customer needs must regret doing some simple market research.

Lack of checks or possibly blatant disregard will be bringing down a number of food producers in the next couple of weeks.  The culture of not checking deliveries properly came from a culture of tacit acceptance, lack of communication and probably management bullying.  The culprits will undoubtedly be facing irreparable damage to their reputation and possibly a date in court.

Barclays announced today it’s closing its tax avoidance unit ‘in a bid to repair its battered reputation’.    How life could have been so different if they had thought about their brand and their customer first, rather than focus solely on profit.

Everyone knows that the Mid Staffs hospital scandal is merely the tip of the iceberg.  Stories such as we heard last week can be replicated in many other hospitals around the country.  We’ve all heard or experienced shocking levels of care – or rather lack of it.

The common denominator here is poor leadership.  Of course, business leaders have to make a profit.  But they need to value and give value to their customers  - and that includes listening to them.  And finally they need to think about their brand and their culture.  Get it right within the organization and you are someway down the road to getting it right for your customers.

So Sampson Hall say you should answer four simple questions about every business decision any leader makes.

Is it honest?

Is it fair?

Is it right for our brand?

Does it provide value for all involved?

If some of the above had addressed these issues, the current headlines would be very different

WHY THE WORLD AND ORGANISATIONS NEED MORE ETHICAL LEADERSHIP

The Evidence

You only have to open a newspaper or switch your television on these days to see another example of a failure in leadership, banks are repeatedly the culprits with LIBOR and IRSAs, newspapers with phone tapping were and now its supermarkets and horsemeat. Even leaders of large retail outlets such as Jessops, Blockbuster and Comet have been susceptible. So why do I blame it all on leadership? Surely some of it is down to the environmental and societal changes?

Absolutely right to a degree, but it is the leader’s duty to ensure that the organisation at least keeps up with the environment that sustains it. Leaders must always be in touch with what is going on around them.

The Problem

The modern business leader has to balance three conflicting issues: the first is the requirement to generate profit for the organisation and its stakeholders; the next is the requirement to give value to customers so that they become advocates of and indeed return to the organisation whenever possible; the third aspect is what I call brand and culture this concerns the public and indeed self image of the organisation. It is how we do things round here when no one is looking. It involves values and ethics that need to be maintained and sustained. I am not advocating rigid traditions here but a set of clearly understood values and standards that are regularly reviewed for their relevance.

The Need

Modern Business Leadership is a difficult balance between organisational needs- profit, customers’ needs- value and societal needs- trust if we look at all the recent issues in business they have arisen where one of these issues has dominated the leaders thinking too much and the balance has been lost. Mostly its profit with the banks and the Horse meat, sometimes its value with Jessops and Comet and then its trust which is the one that is most difficult to rectify for before trust must come the truth! As society moves on our values have changed and matured. No more is it a zero sum game, today's world is about win win for it is only then that an organisation has true longevity. A modern organisation has to balance its brand with its profit and its customer value.

Here are some questions a modern leader should always challenge a decision with prior to promulgating it.

Is it honest? Is it fair? Is it right for our brand? Does it provide value for all involved?