Why Do I Have To Retire?

I was listening to a radio programme yesterday about plans to extend the mandatory retirement age in the UK. The idea is to allow people to work beyond the current limit of 65 (won’t many of us have to anyway, with the dismal predictions of pension funds?).

Whenever I hear politicians and business leaders speak on this topic I get an overwhelming sense of being patronized. We are to be ‘allowed’ to carry on working. Not enough people are looking at the flip side of this subject. Why are we not more concerned with the waste in human capability that comes from imposing an arbitrary retirement age? Many people of high-level capability are still maturing at this age before they hit their real peak (as Jaques’ research into the maturation of cognitive capability found) and yet organizations are prepared to lose them when they still have so much more to contribute. There are, of course, some employers who have spotted this missed opportunity and who seek deliberately to recruit older employees to adjust gaps in their talent pool and to import the wisdom and experience that can be harnessed for the purposes of mentoring younger employees, particularly new starters. However, such organizations still appear to be in the minority.

There needs to be more flexibility. Employers should be aware of each employee’s Current and Future Potential Level of Cognitive Capability so that they can avoid wasting their talent either through inappropriate matches to work roles or through losing them too early. Employees’ wishes should also play a key role in the decision-making process.

If ‘60 is the new 40’ (who was it who coined that phrase, by the way?) then why are some of us still clinging to outdated ideas and practices about manpower planning and retirement age?

Appraisals time again?

It's that time of year again, when managers in many organizations are planning mid-year Performance Reviews. The chances are they produced some ambitious plans at the beginning of the year for each member of their team and now they are faced with the first formal 'how-are-we-doing-midway'meeting. Some of them may be dreading the interview almost as much as their subordinates. Conducting appraisal interviews is right up there with public speaking for stress levels. You know you'll feel better when it's all over and you know it's important for you to do it well - but you'd rather not do it at all.

Next month I'll be launching my new e-book 'Taking the Stress Out of Appraisals". If you go to the top of this blog and register, you can pre-order your copy now and save 20% off the normal price of $29.

Time, not money

I have been reading about yet another child-rearing expert bemoaning the fact that so many parents are buying off their children with gadgets in lieu of spending time with them. The children are not fooled. They are reported as feeling increasingly isolated and exhibiting poor behaviour, despite these inducements.

I don’t want to get into the child-rearing debate here – as a working parent I know what it’s like to juggle priorities – but it doesn’t take much effort to make the mental link with how we manage people at work. The explosion of well-intentioned ‘initiatives’ from line managers and HR functions to retain and motivate employees makes me wonder whether, sometimes, they are trying to compensate for the lack of basic managerial leadership practices.

So, what is happening? Like the parents who, for a variety of reasons, struggle to find quality time to spend with their children are managers facing the same quandary? They are told repeatedly to spend more time communicating, coaching and appraising but often complain that their schedules leave them little room to do so. So, what are their objections? Let me give you some examples from my experience:

‘There are too many meetings I have to attend already.’
‘My staff know what I want anyway – why I do need to spend more time on this?’
‘We do appraisals every 6 months – that’s quite enough, isn’t it?’
‘I’ve never been coached and it didn’t do me any harm.’
‘Coaching is a luxury.’
‘It’s up to the HR function to create ideas for staff retention and motivation – let’s just pay people more.’

You can empathize quite easily, right? Everyone can come up with reasons not to do something. Generally, I find these fall into one or more of the following categories:

1. Managers don’t know what they’re supposed to do.
Every organization has a different definition of managerial roles and their accountabilities. We need some common ground here. I see people being promoted to their first managerial role without systematic preparation. They make up their own version of reality or simply follow their boss’s behaviour as an example (risky).
2. Managers don’t want to manage.
It’s far more prevalent than you may imagine. Technical experts are often promoted because of their knowledge and skills, not because they are deemed the right people to manage others. They are not always aware of the seismic shift that comes when you have to work through others to get the work done. If they don’t value the role, if they don’t enjoy being accountable for others then stress and underperformance will kick in. Training won’t fix this problem.
3. Managers can’t manage because they’re too busy doing their subordinates’ work.
Really? Yes. For a whole host of reasons (they don’t want to leave their specialist role behind or they were not ready for this managerial role in terms of their Level of Capability or perhaps they have to compensate for insufficient capability or resources in their team) their precious time and energy are being eaten away.

Everyone loses as a result.

If you’d like to know more about how to resolve (or prevent) these kinds of problems you can register your interest at the top of this blog to receive free articles or contact me direct for an initial no-obligation consultation.

Why Is My Boss Breathing Down My Neck?

(No, this is not a case of sexual harassment, merely a common problem of micro-management.)

We’ve all been there, haven't we? We think we’re doing well in our work but our boss just won’t let us get on with things. He or she is always double-checking everything, questioning our decisions, even trying to take work away from us. What’s going on?

In my White Paper “Who Is My Real Boss?” (Go to www.requisite-development.co.uk/contact/index.htm to register for free downloads of all my articles) I talk about the problems which arise when people are mismatched to their roles and how to resolve them. Quite often the root cause is that the boss’s Current Level of Cognitive Capability is lower than that required by their role (my White Paper on Capability explains this point and all the terminology in more detail). For example, if someone is working in a role which requires Level 4 (Parallel Processing) but their Current Level of Capability is Level 3 (Serial Processing), or even lower, then they will struggle. Their instinctive reaction is to try to bring the work down to a lower level of complexity. Not only does this mean that they are not adding value to their own role but also that they are, in effect, bumping against their subordinates whose own role requires Level 3. Hence there are clashes between them. The subordinates feel suffocated. It feels as if their boss doesn’t trust them. Such clashes may be termed as personality differences or power struggles but the cause is more likely to be systemic. If we create organizations with too many layers we inhibit the flow of work, creativity and decision-making. If we then populate the roles with the wrong people we multiply the intensity of the problem.

It’s so unfair when good people feel undervalued and are restricted in this way. We may lose their talent to other organizations or, if they stay, experience their de-motivation through underperformance and interpersonal tensions.

The good news is that it’s easy to identify the problem’s causes. It’s also avoidable. If we design our organizations well and identify, manage and develop our talent pool these problems won’t occur. The best news is that you can learn how to do all this for yourself in a relatively short period of time through intensive coaching sessions.

Enabling leadership

I tend to receive a lot of enquiries for leadership courses. With so many popular ‘packages’ available on the market I can understand how organizations assume that a standalone programme is what they need.

However, recent research has concluded that individual initiatives like these are the least sustainable in terms of performance improvement. There seems to me to be little point in investing time, energy and money into packaged programmes (however good their content) unless, in parallel, there are organizational interventions which ensure that the outcomes of such programmes can be implemented in an appropriate context.

What do I mean by this?

Let me give you an example. A major financial services organization spent a king’s ransom on leadership development courses for all its managers – cascading the courses down the levels from senior to first-line managers. The content was of a high-quality and participants were motivated to attend by the promise that these development initiatives would pave the way for organizational transformation.

When delegates returned to their jobs after each programme they were enthused to take action in their individual teams.

What major improvements were achieved? Very few.

Political in-fighting continued. Head Office functions continued to work in non-cooperative silos. Bureaucracy did not disappear. HR processes remained as cumbersome as ever.

Why?

The programme focused on managers as individuals, talking about their behaviour and personal working styles as the keys to change. What it ignored is: the organizational systems needed to change in order to support those individuals. The infrastructure was disregarded as a possible cause to performance problems. The organization had too many layers and business functions were not aligned correctly to collaborate with each other. Managers were not being held accountable. Roles, authority levels and role relationships were often ill-defined. There were no accurate methods for identifying how well the managers’ capabilities matched the requirements of their roles (indeed, a large number of them were in the wrong role for their level of capability).

But it is easy and tempting to take the short cut when you are in trouble. Organizational interventions do take time and require huge commitment to sustain them. Training programmes are therefore still seen as a quick and relatively cheap route to performance improvements. Not enough, I think, is done in terms of measuring their long-term impact.

Managers, I think, can only perform when the organizational context enables them. It’s hard to fight a system – indeed, why should you be expected to do so? I know of many people who invested huge amounts of time and emotional energy to improve their part of the organization only to be driven back by systems which disenfranchised them.
What have been your experiences?

Toxic management cultures

A friend rang me last week to say that he had moved to another organization. Although the salary was lower he felt passionate about the work he would be doing and the role was more complex, which suited his maturing mental capability (go to Free Articles To Download at the top of this blog to receive my White Paper on Capability and how it matures with age). In addition the management culture in his previous workplace had become extremely frustrating. Managers were working in isolation from their staff and ignoring ideas and contributions to improve performance.

Whilst I was pleased to hear he was moving on in his career development I was saddened by what was happening in his previous company which I knew well from a project I undertook for them some years ago. They had lost some valuable talented people since that time and yet were seemingly blind to their contribution to the problem.

Why does this happen? It's fairly commonplace - many of you will be able to think of similar personal experiences. It's easy to hypothesise based on limited information but we can make some educated guesses which could be explored further:

1. Did the managers really not care about the brain drain and loss of motivation? Few managers deliberately set out to lose staff. More likely, they are unaware of the impact of their behaviour. They may well blame other factors before looking inwardly (it also depends on their level of self-awareness).
2. Did they feel threatened by these people? Possibly. A manager who is struggling because their Current Level of Capability is below that which is required by the role will often see other's capability as a threat and may choose to isolate themselves or act aggressively.
3. Were there personality clashes in the team? It's also possible. However, I have often found that problems in organizational infrastructure (e.g. misunderstanding about roles and role relationships, overlaps between roles, etc) are more likely causes of dysfunctional behaviour.
4. What was the CEO doing about it? Good question. How aware were they? Were they prepared to tackle problems or was it easier for them to let others do the infighting? If so, it's a lamentable case of lack of accountability.

What have been your experiences?

Confusing style with capability

I feel I should preface this post with the declaration that I don’t intend to cover political issues in my blog. However, the background of the current UK political climate gives me a setting for my thoughts on capability and leadership, and how external appearances can be deceptive.

Like many of you I have been watching the televised debates by the 3 main political party leaders and it occurred to me how easily the eye can deceive. We look for signs of confidence and good presentation skills, we may comment on dress sense and consider how well each individual controls their temper when put under pressure during the debate. We may be worried that one participant seems to be joining in the debate less than their counterparts. And yet, and yet…..

It’s so tempting – so human – to place a high value on appearances and externally-focussed behaviours. In the Kennedy-Nixon televised debate of 1960, Kennedy seemed to be the most convincing (their contrasting looks didn’t hurt him, either). Yet those people who listened to the radio broadcast believed that Nixon won the debate.

If I make the link to people assessment processes – something which is a common factor in my work with organizations – I see something similar happening very frequently. The candidate who is socially-adept, the extraverts and the well-rehearsed can often sway a manager’s judgment. In group exercises, it is easier to comment on those who are the most vocal over the quiet thoughtful ones who often, and unfairly, lose out during these assessments.

In my free White Paper (see Free Articles To Download at the top of this blog) on ‘Capability - What Is Your Potential?’ I cover these points in more detail. Yes, we want managerial and political leaders who inspire us to follow them but, as ever, the devil is in the detail. Are they fully capable, in terms of cognitive capacity, knowledge and skills? Do their values and ethics synergize with what the work role and the organizational context require? Buzz words and statements are easy to mimic. We need to dig deeper to uncover their true capability. We owe that to our organizations – and our country too.