McArthur's Rant - Human Resources, Organisations and HR 2.0

Looking to Improve Employee Engagement? Keynotes and Seminars That Will Help

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:03:00 +0000

I'm delighted to announce that Sculpture Consulting (my Company) and Delta 7 (the best strategic artists in the business) have teamed up to offer a number of talks/keynotes and seminars for 2012.

If you are looking for some inspiration, challenge, or to raise employee engagement levels in your organisation please get in touch. Our style is interactive, humorous, very visual and we promise that death by powerpoint is not an option!

Here are a selections of the topics available:

Creating instant rapport through the use of strategic art.
Relationship Management – how knowing your personal style can improve your effectiveness.
Developing Trust – how little steps can create big opportunities
Is Business Process Outsourcing good for your organisation, your people, your IT department or consultants selling solutions?
HRBPO - are we kidding ourselves?
Presentation techniques - back to the future - making your presentation work for your audience
10 myths about the brain and their impact on the workplace
Applying psychology to the workplace – from group size to personal traits , how understanding how we tick makes business sense.
The Secret of success in business – how enthusiasm can be developed and applied to your organisation
Time Travel Strategy - how organisations can create their future history
Putting Business into Social Media - shifting the paradigm for business professionals
3 Steps to Employee Engagement

If you would be interested in a discussion about how we might be able to help you please call Scott on +447807 646 508 or email scott@sculptureconsulting.com

Transformative HR - Evidence Based Change

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 10:40:00 +0000

Transformative HR by John Boudreau and Ravin Jesuthasan , shows how some organisations are redefining HR leadership by using evidence–based change to optimise efficiency, effectiveness, and strategic impact. They present a fascinating view on the impact of "mental models" on how HR's positioning. The authors go on to claim that there are five principles to the "new HR decision science":

Logic–driven analytics, segmentation, risk leverage, synergy and integration and optimization.

At this point that I have to press the pause button. What on earth does all that mean?

The authors go into each of the 5 principles and describe what they mean and how to implement them. The problem I have is - why on earth do such clearly intelligent HR thinkers have to resort to such horrid language and expect the reader to possess translation software to understand their point? I worry that the "mental model" being taken here is academically focused - this is fine but it also feels like it is attempting to give HR practitioners a new language that can can be used to impress their organisations and colleagues. The fact is – the more someone understand something the simpler the language they are able to use to describe it. In this context at least, I’m afraid the book fails to demonstrate much true understanding.

All-in-all I feel a little frustrated by this book, especially as it had some very useful ideas and interesting in–depth case studies of companies such as Coca–Cola, IBM, Royal Bank of Canada and Royal Bank of Scotland.

Come on chaps let’s have a shorter, clearer, follow up – we really are interested in your thoughts.

The Joy of Statistics - Hans Rosling's Brilliant Approach

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 10:57:00 +0000

I love how simple this video presentation is particularly like how Han's natural enthusiasm helps to make, what is obviously, a very complex story very engaging. Makes you wish your maths teachers could have been like Hans doesn't it?

Source: BBC

The Lies We Tell Ourselves - About the Brain - 1

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 10:15:00 +0000

At a recent lecture given by Jack Cohen , co-author of The Science of Discworld with Terry Pratchett and Ian Stewart. I was inspired by their notion of "the lies we tell children". They provide the following definition:

A lie-to-children is a statement that is false, but which nevertheless leads the child's mind towards a more accurate explanation, one that the child will only be able to appreciate if it has been primed with the lie

The authors acknowledge that some people might dispute the applicability of the term lie, while defending it on the grounds that

...it is for the best possible reasons, but it is still a lie...

This lead me to think about what we tell ourselves lies about with regards to how the brain works. The brain is very complex, and understanding how it works informs how we lead, manage and participate in the world. This series of posts attempts to tease out the truth behind some of the more colourful notions about “brain science”.

Number 1: We only use 10 percent of our brains

This one sounds so compelling—a precise number, repeated in pop culture for a century, implying that we have huge reserves of untapped mental powers.

But the supposedly unused 90 percent of the brain is not some vestigial appendix. Brains are expensive—it takes a lot of energy to build brains during foetal and childhood development and maintain them in adults. Evolutionarily, it would make no sense to carry around surplus brain tissue.

Experiments using PET or fMRI scans show that much of the brain is engaged even during simple tasks, and injury to even a small bit of brain can have profound consequences for language, sensory perception, movement or emotion.

True, we have some brain reserves. Post Mortem studies show that many people have physical signs of Alzheimer’s disease (such as amyloid plaques among neurons) in their brains even though they were not impaired. Apparently we can lose some brain tissue and still function pretty well. And people score higher on IQ tests if they’re highly motivated, suggesting that we don’t always exercise our minds at 100 percent capacity.

So we use most of our brains much of the time and we know that exercising it is a good thing. Next we consider our "flashbulb memories".

Source: The Smithonian

Are We Miserable? "Not Bad Thanks"

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 15:26:00 +0000

I heard the UK Prime Minister (David Cameron) on the radio yesterday talking about happiness. Now I am no big fan of Cameron or his party (Conservatives) but I really don't get all the abuse he seems to be getting on this particular issue. Ok the Conservatives are not famous for caring is people are happy or not but surely the fact that it is being discussed is a good thing? After all from an experienced Human Resource professional point of view we understand that happy people equals productive and creative people.

Following Cameron's statement last year that he wished to consider the Gross Domestic Happiness of the nation the Office of National Statistics (ONS) has been working on working out how to measure happiness. Earlier this month the ONS published their initial thoughts on what they call the 10 signs of happiness:

Are you satisfied with life?
Are you satisfied with your husband, wife or partner?
How satisfied are you with your mental and physical health?
Are you happy in your job?
Do you feel involved in your neighbourhood?
Are you happy with your personal income?
Are you satisfied with your education?
Data on how many voted and trust in Parliament will also be measured
Statistics on the economy will also be included
As will environmental factors, including greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants

These questions were developed from what I think is a pretty sound model of what well being is for individuals living in the UK:

Whilst I have some issues with government telling me to be happy, I must say I have even more of an issue with the general response to this initative. This all reminds me from a Scottish trait that can be rather annoying - when asked, "how are you today?" the stock response is more often than not "not bad thanks". So the steady state is bad is it?! OK so this may be political nonsense - but surely anything that raises awareness of "well being" is better than nothing? After all we all know what GDP stands for dont we?

HR Business Partnering - Focus on Reality - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:53:00 +0000

Working as an HR business Partner can be complex and, at times, frustrating often as a consequence of the ever evolving nature of the role. One of the key challenges is that theory does not always match up with practice with many HR professionals still operating in non-strategic areas of the business. The reality of "real" practice will therefore have a significant impact on how the function (and the individuals within it) are perceived by the organisation and on how successfull transformation will be - as I have said before; "HR is in perpetual beta".

Whilst I am sure none of this is especially surprising to any of us working in the profession, it remains important when considering the challenges of HR transformation. Over the next few weeks I plan to write a number of referenced articles aimed at helping practitioners think through, plan and execute change in their HR department.

As a starter for 10 I have revisited one of the fields "classics", HR Transformation by Dave Ulrich and others. This, highly regarded research, defines outcomes of good HR work in terms of organisation capabilities. It goes on to offer specific guidelines for transforming all elements of HR. These guidelines redesign, re-engineer, and upgrade the HR profession. Finally, it suggests specific roles for line managers, HR professionals, employees, and advisers to deliver on the desired outcomes of transformation. Ulrich describes his step by step approach in this short video:

Pretty much common sense and, whilst there is an ongoing debate on the focus for developing capability (Jon Ingham's challenge on Ulrich's view is especially eloquent and interesting), this forms a good starting point for thinking through transformation.

The Divided Brain – The Exciting Truth About the Human Brain

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 09:57:00 +0000

I have often written about how pop psychology characterises the workings of the human. Whilst the familiar left/right debate continues to cause ructions in the scientific community - it's use as a theoretical construct continues. There are a number of reasons for this, some commercial (MBTI, DISC etc), and others (including me) using it to help clients understand what is a massively complex subject. For me it's pretty simple, tell people the truth and set the right context and people will still gain useful insight into the human condition.

In this TED talk Iain McGilchrist adds some of his his considerable insights on the subject. Whilst the video is a bit quick at times I found it helpful and he does well in explaining some of the brains complexity.

Further examples of the animation technique used in this TED can be found on the RSA YouTube channel

Goodbye Steve

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 08:32:00 +0000

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Steve Jobs

Is the Left or Right Brain Best At Making Quick Decisions?

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 08:55:00 +0000

Common sense suggests that people who have a preference for making decisions in a logical, pragmatic and evidence based way (known in pop psychology as being "left brained") would be better at making quick decisions than those who tend to act based on their emotions and feelings ("right brained").

Psyblog reporting on research by Mikels et al. (2011) suggests that:

...trying to work out the details, using the emotions led to much better outcomes. In one of the studies the number of participants getting the right answer went up from only 26% in the detail-focused condition to 68% in the feeling-focused condition.

This is fascinating from an HR perspective. For example, what does it mean for talent managers and does it suggest that competency models should be changed for decision maker positions to seek out and develope right brained leaders? As ever with human interactions this is likely to be more compex in reality than it is in theory.

Whilst the evidence seems to be compelling, can you imagine trusting a right brained fighter pilot to make the right decisions in the heat of the moment or would you be happy with an emotion based trader dealing with your investments in a complex market? My gut reaction says NO - and this research seems to suggest that I'd be right!

How To Get Into Creative Advertising Jobs

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 12:19:00 +0000

The question, how do I find creative advertising jobs, is the wrong one. Instead, you should be asking yourself, do I have the passion for advertising? Passion not only generates enthusiasm, it also drives ambition and determination. And you'll need plenty of both just to get your foot in the door, let alone to succeed. For the world of advertising is a rough, tough business where only the best make any meaningful mark.

The route into advertising is pretty much sign posted. You'll almost certainly need a good degree, although this can be in just about any area. That's because diversity of thinking is key, as far as the advertising industry is concerned. There are also a number of universities now offering postgraduate degrees in creative advertising. Well worth checking out.

Do you find it easy to get on with people? Great interpersonal skills are a must, and being able to work as part of a team is also vital. You must also be able to communicate ideas in a clear and concise manner. A high level of literacy and numeracy is extremely important, as is strong IT skills.

Can you handle pressure? What about working to tight deadlines? You'll need to be able to plan and prioritise not only advertising campaigns, but also your day-to-day time. It's the sort of working environment some people really love. Often they are able to produce their best ideas under such pressure. Others simply crumble. Would you be able to cope?

Let's assume you've taken a hard look at yourself, considered carefully all the positives and negatives, and you're still determined to go for a career in creative advertising. Good for you! Now comes the next step, a professional-looking CV.

You'll need one just to give yourself even half a chance of getting a foot in the door. And when you send it off, you can be sure your CV will be one of many to land in the in-tray of the prospective employer, so it's got to stand out. The CV will also require a great covering letter, too. Here are a few CV dos and don’ts. Pay close attention!

The point of a CV is to sell... you! It's got to convince an employer to at least give you a face-to-face interview, then hopefully a job. Therefore, attention to detail is extremely important. Check the CV for spelling mistakes and typos. Then check it a second time. If necessary, give the CV to someone else to check.

Keep the CV to a couple of pages, no more, and don't fill it with unnecessary information. Make sure there's plenty of white space and use a standard font of a reasonable size. Keep everything short, sharp and to the point. Less really is more. And don't use jargon because employers really hate that.

The CV should have as a minimum your contact details at the top of each page, information about current/previous jobs, and of course your qualifications.

It's much the same for the covering letter. The opening paragraph should state the job you're applying for. Following paragraphs should list your main qualifications and point out how useful you might be to the employer.

How To Manage Performance & Get The Best From Your Employees

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 21:19:00 +0000

The ultimate goal of any employer or manager is to get the best from their employees. High performing employees are what make or break a business. To have high performing employees, they need to 1) be motivated and 2) rewarded for their hard work. Rewards must be both intrinsic and extrinsic. What’s more, each employee should be assessed individually to pinpoint their strengths and see where there is room for improvement.

Here we’ll look at ways leaders can get the best from their employees and manage performance effectively. The term performance was first coined in the late 1970s by Dr. Aubrey Daniels.This term refers to the management of staff behavior and the results that occur.

Image Source: http://www.pubarticles.com/article-top-7-things-great-leaders-do-1244599839.html

Creating A Mission, Together - Before getting into the actual management of staff members, it is important to make sure everyone is familiar with the organization’s mission statement. Based on that statement, individual departments should also have their own mission statements which coincide with the organization’s ultimate goals. A good exercise would be to have various departments or small committees work on mission statements.

When individuals take part in the setting of goals they are more accountable to them as well.

Set Goals - After the mission statements are developed, look at and discuss goals and how these fit into the overall mission statement. The goals of the management may certainly vary from those of individual employees.

These goals can then be utilized to monitor the performance and growth of employees.

Measure Performance - Goals need to be specific and measurable. To ensure that progress is being made, the use of a performance appraisal template from Halogen which helps align company goals with business priorities and improve employee engagement.

This template is sure to bring to light new discoveries that may never have been brought up otherwise.

Have Frequent Progress Updates - Finally, having frequent staff or department meetings can help address any concerns and ensure that all employees are meeting their performance quotas. Progress update should be done on a regular basis.

Some organizations may need to have a morning meeting every day while others may only need to meet every week. These meetings should be structured so as to stay on target with what you and the employee have set out to achieve.

Performance management can be utilized with any size of business and is extremely successful when it comes to getting the most out of employees.

Article written by Halogen Software

Is Gamification the Next Step for Employee Engagement?

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 08:24:00 +0000

Using gaming theory is something that we've all come across in the development space. Games like the "Beer Distribution" game and the lean "envelope" are staples of the creative change programme. The word "gamification" is becoming more common in the literature, where technology driven games are seen as potential answers to employee engagement, customer intimacy and business transformation.

In this presentation, focused on game based marketing, we are introduced to the concept and given some clues as to were social media and gamification may take us. I find this to be quite fascinating and I'd really like to see developers building web based games that help employee engage in corporate strategy.

Game Changers for Presenters/Pitchers

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 08:40:00 +0000

You would have thought that by now most people would understand that if you are pitching or presenting the quality of your performance is massively impacted by the amount of rehearsal that you do. In this excellent reminder presentation by @PresentorMentor is built around this great quote

All the world’s a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed - Sean O’Casey

4 Game-changers for Presentations

View more presentations from Fortify Services

Critical Questions and Solutions For HR Professionals

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 10:45:00 +0000

Ever wondered how to get the conversation going about how your HR department is doing? This very short presentation will help you ask those difficult questions of yourself and others as well as offering some potential solutions.

To view the presentation it's best to maximise the view by clicking the wee symbol on the bottom right hand side.

View more presentations from Scott McArthur

Never Forget the Hill on Sales Leadership

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 13:58:00 +0000

In his classic book, "Think and Grow Rich", Napoleon Hill discussed the eleven secrets of leadership. Recently, whilst designing a retreat for sales executives, it occurred to me that the attributes of strong leadership and effective selling have a tremendous amount in common. After all, to be successful in sales, you need to be a leader, both within your own organization, as well as to your clients and customers.

To paraphrase management guru Peter Drucker, a leader is someone who not only does things right, but who also does the right things, while helping others do the same. The same holds true in sales: how better to serve your clients than to really know and understand what they do, and to truly help them do it better?

With that in mind, here are Mr. Hill's eleven secrets to leadership, as they apply to leadership in selling:

1. "Unwavering Courage": Selling successfully requires courage; taking a risk where the odds may seem stacked against you; courage to make that extra call, to deal with the tough client or prospect, and to not let anything deter you. As Hill says, courage is "based upon knowledge of self and one's occupation.

2. "Self-Control": The ability to set a course for yourself and take disciplined action each day is a key attribute of all successful salespeople.

3. "A Keen Sense of Justice": Knowing right from wrong - understanding what is fair and just - allows you to make, wise informed decisions.

4. "Definiteness of Decision": Deciding on what you want to achieve, and then doing whatever it takes to get there, even in the face of obstacles and setbacks, is crucial to your success. For those who don't quite make it, failure can usually be traced back to a lack of decisiveness about what they really want.

5. "Definiteness of Plans": In Hill's words, "the successful leader must plan his work, and work his plan. Truer words were never spoken when it comes to selling. Plan your time, and then take action on your plan each and every day.

6. "The Habit of Doing More Than Paid For": Want to sell more? Go the extra mile for your clients. Want to get the respect, admiration, and cooperation from your internal "clients" - the people you need to rely on to implement or help you close sales? Go the distance for them as well.

7. "A Pleasing Personality": Is selling a popularity contest? No, but would you buy something from someone who was nasty and rude?

8. "Sympathy and Understanding": Selling is about understanding what people DO, and then helping them do it better. Plain and simple.

9. "Mastery of Detail": Ah, yes... The devil, as they say, is in the details. Ever work really hard to close a sale, only to have it fall apart because of some small detail that falls through the cracks? What may seem like a small detail to you can be a crucial one, maybe even a deal-breaker, to your prospect, customer, or client.

10. "Willingness to Assume Full Responsibility": No matter how much customer support your company provides, you are the prime representative of your organization. If you try to pass the buck to someone else, you lose respect and credibility. "But it really wasn't my fault that the shipment was delayed in customs and then the delivery truck was attacked a pack of wild dogs..." Doesn't matter; accept the responsibility for any problem and all details, and then do whatever needs to be done to make things right. Your clients need to know that you are their advocate.

11. "Cooperation": You can't do it alone. Sales is a collaborative effort. Your prospects need to collaborate with you; you need the cooperation and assistance of others both inside and outside your organization to make things happen. The best salespeople are those who can work well with others, and with whom other people want to work.

Think about these eleven areas of leadership, and ask yourself how you do on each of these items. Find areas where you can make improvements and chart your course to work on improving what you do each day; incremental improvements each day become exponential over time.

Source: Sales Leadership

Employers Still Not Listening

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 10:41:00 +0000

A new report, by Monster, shows only a quarter of employees feel their opinions matter at work; others have their opinions rejected or just not taken into account.

Just over a quarter of respondents (27%) said their opinions are listened to and seriously considered, 33% felt their opinions were often ignored and 32% said they were never listened to. A third of respondents feel sometimes their opinions are listened to but often ignored and another third feel their opinions are not heard at all.

The situation is worse for UK respondents: nearly half (48%) feel that their opinions are not listened to. This contrasts sharply with China, where only one in five (19%) feel this way, and one third feel their opinions are seriously considered. European respondents are the most opinionated - 97% will share work-related opinions - with the UK particularly willing to share their work-related opinions (98%). In contrast, respondents in China are the most reluctant to share work-related opinions, with over one in ten (13%) who either do not have opinions to share or do not speak up.

A spokesman for Monster, said:

It's important for businesses to listen to opinions from all members of staff to ensure they feel valued, motivated and engaged in the company. Opinions and ideas from all levels of the business will often bring valid points to light and raise issues possibly not picked up by more senior employees and management. Also, ensuring that employees are happy in their roles will ultimately maximise productivity and benefit both individual and company.

Turning Your Group Into a Team

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 18:55:00 +0000

Perhaps the most common question I am asked by my clients is, "how do we increase productivity?". There are numerous answers to this (leaning processes, technologu enabelemt etc) but for me the critical answer is all about the social dynamics in the group and are they such that the group is working as a team?

According to HBR:

...a team is a group of people who do collective work and are mutually committed to a common team purpose and challenging goals related to that purpose

Collective work and mutual commitment are the key characteristics. By going beyond mere cooperation and coordination, collective work produces more innovative and productive outcomes that exceed the simple sum of individual efforts. Mutual commitment means members hold themselves and each other jointly accountable for the team's performance. They not only think and act collectively, but the social and emotional bonds among them are compelling. They share a genuine conviction that "we" — the potent concept behind every team — will succeed or fail together, and that no individual can succeed while the team fails.

The powerful ties among members of this social structure spring, first, from purpose and goals. A common, worthwhile purpose creates a sense of doing something important together, and specific, challenging team goals based on that purpose create a sense of going someplace important together. Without purpose and goals, no group will become a team.

But they're not enough. Team members also need clarity; about roles, about how the work is done, and about how members interact. When all of these crucial elements are in place, groups become teams: communities that exert strong influence on members' attitudes and behaviors. That's why the ability to transform a group of people into a true team can make you a more influential and effective manager.

HBR goes on the ask a critical question. Have you made your people a real team bound by a genuine sense of "we"? If not, ask yourself — and your group members — these questions to understand what more you must do:

Are we mutually committed to a compelling and worthwhile purpose? Do we know not just which task we must perform, but who will benefit from our work? Do we believe that if we disappeared today, the world would be different tomorrow?
Are we pursuing clear goals based on that purpose, and do we have plans in place for reaching them?
Does everyone know how the team does its work? Does everyone understand their roles and responsibilities? Are work processes clear? Do we share a set of values and beliefs about what we expect of each other and how we treat each other? Does everyone know how we're doing, both as a group and individually?

Finally (and paradoxically) don't ignore team members as individuals. It's human nature that we all want to belong to a group and we want to be recognized for our distinct contributions. Get to know and deal with each member uniquely — but always in the context of the team and its work.

Source HBR

Do Not Leave Success of Downsizing to Chance

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 11:06:00 +0000

I’ve spent much of the past six months working with the British National Health Service (the NHS). Our activity has been focused on workforce and process efficiency, that being the downsizing of numbers of management grades and the “leaning” of flows through the healthcare economy. This is, without question, a tough time to be working in the NHS and people throughout the system are feeling the pressure.

In other sectors when such change has occurred it has felt a bit like the characters depicted in the picture above.

The good news, for the NHS at least, is that today there has been an announcement regarding the creation of a National Leadership Academy for NHS staff. The Academy aims to provide the uniform high standard of leadership and management that the NHS needs to survive and succeed at this time of radical change in the health sector.

Let us hope that this goes at least part of the way to help avoid the problems highlighted in the picture and that they take the advice given about empowerment previously highlighted.

Image by Delta 7

Lack of Empowerment - "The" Employee Engagement Waste?

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 14:04:00 +0000

I was reflecting on why one of my client organisations seems to stand out from the rest this morning. Turns out there are a number of reasons, but one thing is dramatically different about how they operate. They have, in place, real empowerment where mid to lower ranking managers and staff have the delegated authority to get things done without having to continuously check with the boss if they are doing the right things. I asked how this had come about and was told by an HR Business Partner:

...well if we don’t trust the people in our business to help us be successful who can we trust?

Richard Noble, entrepreneur and land speed record project manager sums this point up brilliantly in an article on published in HR Magazine:

Leadership is risk! It is a quality corporations try to avoid like the plague. But risk is good; it's very, very good. Everyone in my company is empowered to the point where they could cause the failure of the company. That's exciting.

Now that's what I call Employee Engagement!

What Happens When the Brakes Fall Off?

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 23:07:00 +0000

I had an interesting meeting with one of the board members of the British Bobsleigh team today (Scott Allaway, Commercial Director). We were chewing the fat about the art of the possible and got round to talking about how we deal with failure in our respective professions.

Working for a large organisation, my answer was typically about performance management. Scott on the other hand had a much more interesting story to tell.

Back in 2002 Scott raced motorbikes (GP 250s). He was in a race at Brands Hatch and was coming in to a corner on the course at Graham Hill at 150 mph. He applied the brakes and - nothing. Scott proceeded to crash into the barriers. It transpired that the mechanic responsible for the brakes on his bike had forgotten to tighten the nuts that held the brake pads onto the bike.

Despite calls for the mechanic to be sacked and even prosecuted for attempted murder Scott had another view:

...he should keep his job but from now on I want him to be responsible for my brakes all the time...

The mechanic and Scott lived to tell the tale. Quite a story and one which really inspired me.

HR Still Failing in the Performance Game

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 08:36:00 +0000

New research suggests that HR is still failing when it comes to meeting the performance management challenges consequent to demands for growth from CEOs in the UK.

According to HR Magazine UK CEOs have set bullish growth targets for 2011, and are demanding significant increases in workforce productivity to meet them. Reporting on a study by Hay they claim that UK firms are targeting an average 5% growth for 2011. This outstrips the latest IMF growth forecast for the UK economy of just 1.7%.

Two thirds of UK business leaders admit this is a significant challenge - which will demand an unprecedented productivity uplift from already stretched workforces - but that they lack the effective performance management required to deliver this.

The study also states that almost half (46%) employees are already too stretched to deliver current business objectives. 83% of business leaders agree that individual performance management is an important driver of overall business performance. Surprisingly only 39% believe performance management makes a difference to the bottom line.

But less than a quarter (22%) of firms align their performance management approach to company strategy, whilst more than a third (36%) of business leaders describe their performance management process as a mere 'tick-box exercise'. Only 17% tailor performance management to both strategy and culture.

This a a very strong and somewhat disturbing indicator of the state of HR's influence in the UK Boardroom. It sounds like there is work to do here...there must surely be some exemplars that the profession could learn from out there?

The Magnificent Seven Personality Traits of Successful Sales People

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 13:09:00 +0000

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of my role as a business consultant is selling. Generally the difficulty comes from achieving a balance between quality and quantity i.e. it isn't too difficult to sell yourself if you have a particular brand but when it comes to selling others as you have to do if engaged by a corporate consultancy, selling becomes a another challenge all together.

I've been researching this aspect of business as part of a development event I'm developing and came across the following factors in a piece in Harvard Business Review by Steve W. Martin. I find this research fascinating as not only is it counter intuitive but it is also counter experience. What follows describes the key personality attributes of top salespeople and the impact of the trait on their selling style.

1. Modesty. Contrary to conventional stereotypes that successful salespeople are pushy and egotistical, 91 percent of top salespeople had medium to high scores of modesty and humility. Furthermore, the results suggest that ostentatious salespeople who are full of bravado alienate far more customers than they win over.

Selling Style Impact: Team Orientation. As opposed to establishing themselves as the focal point of the purchase decision, top salespeople position the team (presales technical engineers, consulting, and management) that will help them win the account as the centerpiece.

2. Conscientiousness. Eighty-five percent of top salespeople had high levels of conscientiousness, whereby they could be described as having a strong sense of duty and being responsible and reliable. These salespeople take their jobs very seriously and feel deeply responsible for the results.

Selling Style Impact: Account Control. The worst position for salespeople to be in is to have relinquished account control and to be operating at the direction of the customer, or worse yet, a competitor. Conversely, top salespeople take command of the sales cycle process in order to control their own destiny.

3. Achievement Orientation. Eighty-four percent of the top performers tested scored very high in achievement orientation. They are fixated on achieving goals and continuously measure their performance in comparison to their goals.

Selling Style Impact: Political Orientation. During sales cycles, top sales, performers seek to understand the politics of customer decision-making. Their goal orientation instinctively drives them to meet with key decision-makers. Therefore, they strategize about the people they are selling to and how the products they're selling fit into the organization instead of focusing on the functionality of the products themselves.

4. Curiosity. Curiosity can be described as a person's hunger for knowledge and information. Eighty-two percent of top salespeople scored extremely high curiosity levels. Top salespeople are naturally more curious than their lesser performing counterparts.

Selling Style Impact: Inquisitiveness. A high level of inquisitiveness correlates to an active presence during sales calls. An active presence drives the salesperson to ask customers difficult and uncomfortable questions in order to close gaps in information. Top salespeople want to know if they can win the business, and they want to know the truth as soon as possible.

5. Lack of Gregariousness. One of the most surprising differences between top salespeople and those ranking in the bottom one-third of performance is their level of gregariousness (preference for being with people and friendliness). Overall, top performers averaged 30 percent lower gregariousness than below average performers.

Selling Style Impact: Dominance. Dominance is the ability to gain the willing obedience of customers such that the salesperson's recommendations and advice are followed. The results indicate that overly friendly salespeople are too close to their customers and have difficulty establishing dominance.

6. Lack of Discouragement. Less than 10 percent of top salespeople were classified as having high levels of discouragement and being frequently overwhelmed with sadness. Conversely, 90 percent were categorized as experiencing infrequent or only occasional sadness.

Selling Style Impact: Competitiveness. In casual surveys I have conducted throughout the years, I have found that a very high percentage of top performers played organized sports in high school. There seems to be a correlation between sports and sales success as top performers are able to handle emotional disappointments, bounce back from losses, and mentally prepare themselves for the next opportunity to compete.

7. Lack of Self-Consciousness. Self-consciousness is the measurement of how easily someone is embarrassed. The byproduct of a high level of self-consciousness is bashfulness and inhibition. Less than five percent of top performers had high levels of self-consciousness.

Selling Style Impact: Aggressiveness. Top salespeople are comfortable fighting for their cause and are not afraid of rankling customers in the process. They are action-oriented and unafraid to call high in their accounts or courageously cold call new prospects.

Not All Heros Are Tainted

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 09:10:00 +0000

Every now and again I get pretty annoyed with people in the spotlight acting like twits. Whether it's taking drugs, cheating or spending what is equivalent to another persons annual salary on hair implants, the news seems full of such transgressions. The problem is bad news travels much quicker than good news with the media being instrumental in overlooking positive stories for the latest smut or embarrassing mistake my whatever sportsperson. Just this morning I was reading about one of my heros, Craig Thompson, who has been convicted of two charges of lewd, libidinous and indecent behaviour over the internet, towards girls aged 12 and 14. Craig plays for the team I support and I have admired him for years. Hearts have given Craig a second chance and we can only hope that the two young girls are ok and that they are left alone and allowed to grow up safe from such ridiculous behaviour.

This whole event reminded me of a British runner called Derek Redmond who showed, in defeat, just what it is to be a hero. If you have never seen this before make sure you have some tissues handy.

How To Tie A Shoe Lace

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 14:12:00 +0000

A delegate of mine sent me this brilliant TED talk that really makes the point - you are never too old to learn something new. Brilliant

Brainwriting - The Effective Alternative to Brainstorming?

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McArthur) — Mon, 30 May 2011 11:02:00 +0000

It's been recognised for a number of years, despite its popularity, that brainstorming isn't the best way to create ideas. Business psychologist Peter Heslin has come up with the idea of Brainwriting which it is claimed is much more effective.

Brainwriting encourage group members to engage with each others' ideas. Briefly, it involves four group members writing ideas on slips of paper in silence. Group members pass the slips of paper between each other, reading others' ideas and inserting their own. Ink colour indicates who owns which ideas and when a paper slip has four ideas on it, it is placed in the centre of the table for all to see. This is repeated up to 25 times. The second stage involves group members withdrawing to the corners of the room and recalling as many of the ideas generated so far as possible - the rationale being that this encourages attention to the ideas generated. The final stage involves group members working alone for 15 minutes in an attempt to generate yet more ideas.

I tried this technology last week with a group of 20 senior managers. The group were a little resistant at first - however to their credit they were able to suspend their disbelief and had a go at making it work. The results were, to quote one of the group "tremendous". The room did feel energised during the process and the outcomes more than met the expectations set at the star of the day. I'm not sure this proves that Brainwriting is the best way to create ideas however it did work for the group in question and I plan to use it again as soon as the opportunity arises.

Source: British Psychological Society