The best production manager I ever met.

Over the years I have met many production managers, some of them have been exceptional but for me one stands out, and I don’t even know his name.

Starting A career in HR ? Walk the Floor!!!

So you are a junior HR person and you are looking to step up the ladder. But how, and where to start. Well after a number of years and a multitude of experiences I thought I would share a key insight.

HR is not a field for dummies. Although the admittance criteria for HR studies at universities are in large lower than other professional fields, if you are studying HR because it is an easy track, stop now. It almost never is like this. This is not a field for amateurs. The real knowledge needed to be effective in the field is immense. You are starting a life long journey of learning and as soon as you stop learning, you put the breaks on to your career.

Do you really know your way around the labour law. This is the base assumption which the non HR manager expects of you. I recently appointed a junior HR officer, only to my horror to realize that she had no idea where or which law to consult on, on basic aspects of the employment relationship. This is just simply not acceptable.

Early in your career you are likely to work in one of the varied field of HR practice. Irrespective of the field you are in, you need to be learning the core knowledge, trends and developments underpinning it.

If you are in Admin, you need to master the It systems, personal tax law and the wide range of regulations governing benefit funds. If you are in IR along with the basic law you need to be on top of the key developments in case law. law is not static but continuously evolving. You will need to be on top of bargaining structure, developments in unions, the social issues impacting on your work force etc. I assume you have the picture.

Importantly on top of your professional HR knowledge you also need to quickly get to understand your organization. If you cannot intelligently engage in discussions around organization drivers and key aspects of the buisness, line leaders are only going to look for input from you on a very narrow range of issues pertaining to HR. How dull.

Companies differ signicantly in terms of the value they see in HR. Most often low perceived value is a result of week HR. While we can seldom just choose who we work for, we can choose who we use as mentors. If you are new to this field, you need a pool of mentors. HR people and buisness people. This is up to you.

MOST IMPORTANTLY  – I have a standard ” legal” instruction for any HR person working for me, before you switch on your computer or answer any mails in the morning, walk the floor. If line leaders see you take a regular interest in an organization they will develop a relationship and a level of trust with you. I recently applied this to a plant HR person and after his first day I asked him how did it go ” the workers were surprised to see me”. The  next week he responded –  “”it seems to be getting better. they are even asking my advice on stuff.” Imagine how it will be in a month. In production they call it a Gamba walk, but for HR this has a different dimension. First it says I care, It also sais I am approachable, it also says I am interested. But most important it says I am in touch. Nothing builds HR credibility more.

MANDELA LEADERSHIP

Leading like Mandela

Wow what a Xmas gift, we have a secret Santa, tradition in our floor of the Eveready Head Office. Of course because of the topicality, and because of how perceptive my PA is, I was given by “Secret Santa” this stunning short book Leading Like Mandela.

Well, having watched the massive grief around the “body in State” of Mandela, I started to ready this book of stories of Mandela, of his humility, his connectedness to all, how he never tried to humiliate anyone, how he gave credit to simple people, I found myself emotional. I was made very aware of how at the route of great leadership lies humility. Not insecurity or lack of confidence but just a authentic understanding that everyone is human and everyone is equal in their own right, and that no one is more important than anyone else, but just filling a role.

Having lived through the SA transition and having been in a small way actively been a part of it, I am in no doubt that the presence and spirit of Mandela was a key element in the process, and without him being behind the scenes, we would have suffered greatly as South Africans

Hamba Kahle Tata .

Are Leaders born, or can you train leadership. The answer is in your DNA

I recently presented my take on HR roles and Leadership Brand at the HR Africa Conference. It was a stunning privilege to be there and to present on a topic I feel really passionate about. After my presentation, one of the participants asked me a question. Can you train leadership or are leaders born. Now I know that this is an old, much debated question and I could see by the glint in his eye that actually he was testing me.

Often you give an off the cuff answer and later thinking about it, you conclude that I could have done better.  On that morning I was on my game. I first pleaded the fifth amendment, then having thought about it for a second I explained it this way.

Your question can be read in different ways.

1. If your question is can you teach leaders to be better leaders the answer must be yes.

2. If the question is whether there is one best practice leadership model the answer is  no, different people are more effective in different leadership roles.

3. But if your question is can you teach anyone to lead at any level, here I am absolutely clear. We have each been given, in our DNA an intellectual capability, and this is not something you can effect through leadership development. So no you cannot teach or train someone to function at a higher level of complexity than you are intellectually capable of. We know this from experience because the best teacher is not always the best school principal, the best nurse the best matron nor the best manager, the best CEO.

If you don’t assess capability and particular the capability to manage complexity, leadership appointment will be a hit and miss affair.

Stratified Systems Theory, the work of Elliotte Jaques , Jillian Stamp and the Bioss organisation  give clear measures of complexity capability. The tool Carrier Path appreciation assessment has a significantly high level of reliability in  accessing capability.  

Strategy – Future we build to day we will determine our tomorrow

It is really creepy when a theme comes up repeatedly . This theme has come up in at least 4 articles I have read this week. This opens up a significant leadership reality and obligation. Future we build today will determine our tomorrow

The reverse of this thinking looks like this. The reality we experience today, we planned yesterday and we can only significantly impact the future if this makes sense and to me it does. It will mean that the companies who will be successful into the future are those who are putting the future vision in place now.

Given that surviving the current realities is taking up a huge amount  of leadership time, building the future is not instinctive. The danger is that this becomes a Covey level 2 priority, important but not urgent and the important but not urgent get pushed out. The risk is that we will never get to the long term strategy stuff, or give it the focus we need, given the crises of our current reality.The traditional graph shows that management at senior levels should be spending significant time at the strategy level vs operational levels,  but in times of crises, even senior managers get drawn down to day to day issues and even micro management.

It may be that organizations are not forward thinking, or will not be able to be so, due to the current crises. This may require that we force in time to get back to laying the foundations for the future.

We need to move the future into Covey block 1

Counseling 101

I am currently suffering through the final stages of my thesis before submission. I took a days leave to get it done. To make the process more palatable I set up office in a local coffee shop for 6 hours. ( I know that most people can’t work with noise around them, I can).  Besides getting a huge amount of work done, I had an insight into something unexpected.

While I knew that people use coffee shops for counseling and mentoring, I did not realize how much. Around me there were career guidance counseling,  marriage counseling, christian counseling and mentor ship  – at least 8 different pairs during the time I was there.

While I have no idea what was being discussed in each of the different intimate session, and had no interest, and could not hear clearly,  I did however often get the feeling that some of the stuff was very personal.

Without really listening, I did however notice two really interesting things.  First: private stuff is private – what we discuss in coaching sessions in coffee shops should not be discussed there but in private. Or at least the privacy should be respected and you need to keep your voice down and not try to shout down the background music.

The other insight is more important. The one dominant impression I got was that the in each case the coach was doing all the talking, largely making suggestions and imparting personal wisdom with great confidence. The person being coached was more an “audience” than someone who was being listened to. The same mistake was made over and over. No matter how well intended, this is the first mistake you can make when coaching. This is also the major cause of lack of success in real coaching or counselling.

I know that in coaching “one on one” listening is the key. Your role as coach is not to tell, but to listen. To gently prod “the person needing help” through the use of careful questions. If this process is effectively used,  the person being counselled comes to the conclusions they need to whatever the issue, by ‘themselves’. When this happens it has been proven over and over, that there is a much greater possibility of success, change or comfort.

This  morning however I learnt that this is not the natural human instinct and not the default position of people in counselling, ministry, and coaching. We seem to feel like we are only effective if we are imparting some great wisdom based on our past experience or learning.

We all need to be constantly reminded that LISTENING is the most important role we can play and effective questioning the most important tool we have. 

Are the days of the traditional recruitment agency over???

Focus in times of crisis

Having watched the South African Cricket Team choke again a week ago, this leadership lesson, was particularly relevant.

Our MD is an Indian, and like many Indians he is cricket mad. Today he addressed our workforce and made a stunning analogy about how in times of crisis we all need to focus on what we are good at.

He said, “Imagine I am a batsman, I can’t choose the pitch, the field position, the bowler, the umpire or even the weather. All I can do is bat, my team needs me to focus, play each ball on its merit and play to the best of my ability.

It is the same in business, we can’t choose the market, the economy, the customer or the competition. All we can do is do what we do best, read the market and be smart. The rest is not in our control.

I am sure that the employees he addressed will soon forget all the graphs and the bullet points on his PowerPoint, but all will remember this analogy.

Not only is the story powerful itself, but the lesson of using well chosen analogies as a means of securing a principle is profound. A lot of what good leadership is about is getting people to align with a specific concept or direction. The use of an analogy or story, is possibly the most powerful tool to achieve this. Power point slides and graphs, at best make a point, but a story can focus people on a direction.

Change Management – Kotter on Steriods

Kotters change-management formula has almost become the standard. Without question even his Penguins Island change management analogy has been widely used.

No question we probably need a burning platform and a guiding coalition. Small wins also have their place, but there is a dynamic which I think is missing. Too often we are talking about old hands, people who are so dug in that they believe that the  change you are proposing is sacrilegious. And what if there is no burning platform, we just need to do things better. Most change is a long term process which will require focus and passion.