Management Insult 4: Talent Management Programmes

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For a while now, I've been building a series of definitions of 'management-speak' terms that insult human intelligence. One day I might even find a publisher and release them as a dictionary, but for now, I thought I'd share a few of them from time to time. I make no apologies for these being slightly tongue in cheek. My argument is that for a leader to be effective they need to be grounded in the real world and not delude themselves through their use of obfuscating language.

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Talent Management Programmes

An incredibly patronising way of trying to stop good people from leaving the company when we seem to lack the basic management skills to inspire and engage them.

An invention of HR directors, as a part of their 'retention strategy', whereby a programme of various vaguely linked tasks, assignments, courses and associated coaching, is constructed that will take the participants at least twelve months to complete. Often offered particularly in organisations where the majority of aspiring senior managers do not have many formal business qualifications and can be persuaded that the 'future leaders', 'accelerated leaders', 'high flyers', or similarly named programme is easily the equivalent of a Masters Degree. Some employers even go so far as to say that they are 'in negotiation' with a business school to 'accredit' the programme. Many describe the successful completion of the programme as a 'graduation', further reinforcing this delusion.

Some programmes have selection criteria such as completion of psychometric instruments - though there is rarely any evidence that the interpretation of these has any correlation with management progression within the organisation.

In practice, by hooking someone into the programme, it is a further consideration for them should they be tempted to leave. Individuals will often persuade themselves that having the 'qualification' is worthwhile and will delay leaving until they have finished it. Few other employers are actually impressed as they have their own programmes and know just what a con it is.

Of course, the carrot can be extended for some time by manipulative managers... The typical process for selling a scheme to an employee begins at their annual performance review and goes something like this:

At annual formal meeting with manager (M0): "I've decided to put you forward for consideration for the company 'future leaders' programme'."

Six months later (M6): "I'm delighted to say that, after a little negotiation with HR (as you were just outside the normal criteria), we are able to offer you a place on next year's 'future leaders' programme."

Six more months (M12): "I realise that a rate of inflation pay increase may not be quite what you expected, but once you have successfully completed the 'future leaders' programme, you will be up for accelerated promotion opportunities."

Six more months (M18): "I'm getting quite favourable reports of your progress on the 'future leaders' programme', and will be looking for suitable opportunities to use your new skills over the next few months."

A further six months (M24): "It's a shame your final assignment didn't quite yield the results we all expected. But, once the others have been given a crack of the whip in a new position, I'm sure that a great opportunity will come up for you to create the right impression to the powers that be."

Best wishes

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GRAHAM WILSON
London + Oxford - 07785 222380
Helping Organisations & People Achieve Things They Never Dreamt Were Possible
grahamwilson.org; inter-faith.net

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Management Insult 3: Due Diligence

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For a while now, I've been building a series of definitions of 'management-speak' terms that insult human intelligence. One day I might even find a publisher and release them as a dictionary, but for now, I thought I'd share a few of them from time to time. I make no apologies for these being slightly tongue in cheek. My argument is that for a leader to be effective they need to be grounded in the real world and not delude themselves through their use of obfuscating language.

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Due Diligence

A term that appeared in the popular press in the late 1990s to describe the investigative process that a business ought to go through prior to the acquisition of another business. Quickly began to drip from the lips of just about every 'knowledge worker' (qv) whenever they were doing a minor bit of research before making a decision - regardless of the situation.

May be used passive aggressively to accuse someone of having failed to do their homework: "Surely that would have emerged when you did due diligence?"

Similarly, a passive aggressive use of the term, to put down someone's excitement at being offered a great new job: "Well I suppose that you have done your due diligence and are comfortable with them as potential employers?"

Also used to make others aware of how you are now in the BIG league: "Of course, we had to peform due diligence, but once that was through we leapt at the opportunity." Which, roughly translated means: "It was an incredible opportunity, well beyond anything I would normally encounter, but I wanted to look cool before leaping at it."

The mysterious findings can be used to cover up for our own risk aversion: "Well, some things seem too good to be true, and when the results of our due diligence process were considered we could see that this was one of those where it simply wasn't true!" Which also means: "It was something way out of my league, and it terrified me, so I wanted a good reason to delay and then give me a way of explaining that I was not going to do anything about it."


Best wishes

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GRAHAM WILSON
London + Oxford - 07785 222380
Helping Organisations & People Achieve Things They Never Dreamt Were Possible
grahamwilson.org; inter-faith.net

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Management Insults 2: "Pro Bono"

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For a while now, I've been building a series of definitions of 'management-speak' terms that insult human intelligence. One day I might even find a publisher and release them as a dictionary, but for now, I thought I'd share a few of them from time to time. I make no apologies for these being slightly tongue in cheek. My argument is that for a leader to be effective they need to be grounded in the real world and not delude themselves through their use of obfuscating language.

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Pro Bono

A term of exceptional arrogance and condescension, used by people who think they are being very generous by giving a tiny amount of their time to a 'good cause' and want everyone to know how much it has cost them.

Increasingly heard from the lips of management consultants (and other 'knowledge workers'), and even reproduced in their literature, as part of the selling process, as in: "We encourage our staff to offer some of their time pro bono to worthy causes." Employed as a way of differentiating them from their competitors.

Patronisingly assumes that their gems of wisdom are to be valued above the contributions of full-time staff and those of highly committed, but less conceited, volunteers who have given their time unlauded for many years.

Best wishes

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GRAHAM WILSON
London + Oxford - 07785 222380
Helping Organisations & People Achieve Things They Never Dreamt Were Possible
grahamwilson.org; inter-faith.net

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Management Insult 1: "Intellectual Property"

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For a while now, I've been building a series of definitions of 'management-speak' terms that insult human intelligence. One day I might even find a publisher and release them as a dictionary, but for now, I thought I'd share a few of them from time to time. I make no apologies for these being slightly tongue in cheek. My argument is that for a leader to be effective they need to be grounded in the real world and not delude themselves through their use of obfuscating language.

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Intellectual Property (especially when abbreviated to IP)

Used to refer to an idea that someone had, that they think is very clever, and would like everyone to know they had. Generally fall into three types;

An idea that was so blindingly obvious that lots of people will have already had it.

An idea that is simply a regurgitation of age-old wisdom.

'Ideas' that are just ways of simplifying something.

Generally used by 'knowledge workers' to justify ludicrous fees or to bolster their own poor self-esteem.

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Best wishes

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GRAHAM WILSON
London + Oxford - 07785 222380
Helping Organisations & People Achieve Things They Never Dreamt Were Possible
grahamwilson.org; inter-faith.net

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Spiritual blessings, civil registrations and wedding celebrations

October and November are the busiest time of year for one of my areas of work - performing wedding bleesings. Not the blessings themselves - the peak for those is from May to September - but around now couples make contact and we begin the preparation process.

There's a lot of confusion about peoples' options in weddings and I get asked a lot of similar questions. Although my website (www.inter-faith.net) tries to answer these, I thought it might help to explain a little more and post this here where a few more people can find it.

In the UK, the only people who can legally register a marriage are a Civil Registrar or Anglican Priest. Some other Christian churches and other Faiths, which are referred to in the UK as "non-conformist" have someone from their congregation who trains as an "authorised person" and is licensed in a limited capacity to perform the Registration following a spiritual blessing in their particular place of worship.

It is important to separate in your mind the process of registering the marriage in the eyes of the law (which provides various legal benefits, not the least of which is a protocol for dealing with a person's affairs when they die and to give rights to both parties if they divorce), from the wedding blessing which is a ceremony in which the blessing of God (however God is defined) is sought on the relationship.

There is no specific qualification to perform a spiritual blessing ceremony. Fairly obviously, each Church and each Faith group has its own 'rules' as to who can perform them on their own premises and seek the blessing of their particular definition of God. In the Roman Catholic church, for example, this would be the local Parish priest and his seniors but probably not his peers unless they had special permission to do so.

Many denominations believe that while God can communicate with anyone, the Priest has a particular role as 'interlocutor' - interpreting and channelling God's will to the lay-person. (Only a few groups explicitly disagree with this philosophy - the Quakers being the most well known.) This is why, in most churches, only a Priest is considered 'qualified' to perform a blessing ceremony. I personally, feel considerable affinity with the Quakers in this respect - I cannot see why there needs to be someone between anyone and their sense of Spirit or God.

What is my qualification to perform spiritual blessing ceremonies? I trained five years ago as an Interfaith Minister, through what was then called the New Seminary, based in Oxford. It has subsequently been renamed the Interfaith Seminary and relocated to London. Our training lasted two years, in the first of which we study comparative theology (ie look at the different major Faiths (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc)) and then in the second year we focus on three dimensions of public service - spiritual counselling, celebration (incl weddings) and social change.

The idea behind 'interfaith' in the wedding context, is that over 90% of the population say they believe in something 'spiritual' (generally meaning a God of some kind), but 87% of them don't feel that they belong in a particular church or Faith group. Our job is to help them find a way of expressing what they DO believe in, and a celebration that allows them to seek spiritual support in their relationship and that allows their friends and families (who probably have a range of different beliefs too) to draw on their own sense of Spirit as well to bless the couple.

Because a spiritual blessing has no legal content, it can take any form. Most churches and Faith groups have an established "traditional" ceremony, that most couples will have performed for them. Clearly, a church that has carefully defined beliefs, and an established way of doing things, that reflect their particular concept of God, are not going to simply let anyone come in and have a blessing. Besides, if you didn't believe in their structure, why would you want to, and why would a civil registration not be sufficient?

On the other hand, an inter-faith blessing has no prescribed format, no rules over what can and can't be done, and no constraints over where it can be performed. In preparing a ceremony with a couple, I spend as much time as necessary getting to understand their beliefs and their needs (especially in a spiritual sense) and then helping them to find a creative way of enabling them to express them. We look at the kinds of people that will be among their guests and try to identify ways of allowing these people to be grounded, to prepare themselves to seek spiritual guidance, and to channel that towards the couple for the future.

I hope that's a helpful explanation, but am always happy to answer any specifics anyone has.

Best wishes

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GRAHAM WILSON
London + Oxford - 07785 222380
Helping Organisations & People Achieve Things They Never Dreamt Were Possible
grahamwilson.org; inter-faith.net

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How you can do a little bit for charity, without spending a penny (more)

Not a lot of people know this, but... there's a market out there for used postage stamps. All kinds of stamps get sold by the kilo. There are a number of charities that trade in them too. Their supporters collect used stamps, carefully cutting a 1/4 inch all round, and then send them to the charity. Dealers then buy the stamps by the kilo. The rate they pay depends on the credibility of the charity - for ensuring that the stamps don't have 1/2 inch around them, and for separating them into definitives and commemorative stamps. Fairly obviously the latter command a much higher price as they are generally available for a shorter time and therefore rarer.

While you can't force your friends, relatives and business clients to collect them, someone somewhere might do, so the more commemoratives in circulation at any time the more money can trickle back to a charity.

So, next time you are buying loose stamps, why not simply ask for commemoratives rather than the standard plain old ones? If you are doing a mailshot (such as a Christmas card) how about using special stamps then?

Those of you into marketing, might like to know that people tend to examine post that carries a commemorative stamp longer than they do letters with regular stamps.

And how's this for a clever little trick - get a calendar from the Post Office with the dates of release of those commemoratives and time your mailshot to that day... Then take the letters to one of the designated special 'philatelic' post offices and they will post them with a posh "First Day of Issue" franking mark! Guaranteed to get a better response than just a blanket shot, sent any old day, with a crummy second class stamp on it!

Best wishes

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GRAHAM WILSON
London + Oxford - 07785 222380
Helping Organisations & People Achieve Things They Never Dreamt Were Possible
grahamwilson.org; inter-faith.net

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The Royal Mail Online Postage Scam

Last month, I had some parcels I needed to send. It was Saturday afternoon and, while the High Street was abuzz with keen shoppers thronging to the doors of countless retailers, the Post Office was closed. I was off on holiday on Sunday evening, and a neighbour kindly offered to drop them off at the Post Office, but I felt it was too much to ask him to get them franked etc.

"No worries" I thought. The Post Office has recently launched an online postage buying facility, called "Smart Stamp" - I heard about it on Radio 4. So I head home, make a coffee and get the laptop up and running. I browse the Royal Mail site, and find two links to their online service. Clicking one, I'm led to a registration space. Essentially, I have to register (for a fee), then pay a deposit, then give my credit card details and commit to buying stamps this way for six months. Desperate, I go through the process and 10 minutes later I am taken to a link that allows me to download the necessary software. I begin to do this, only to have the internet connection fail several times on me. An hour later, the software is downloaded and I begin to install it. After a couple more minutes a pop-up appears to tell me that this software has been 'upgraded' and I have to wait for the necessary CD to arrive by post before I can use the service.

Now, I don't personally consider that an acceptable approach: it took ages, didn't work, and involved a ridiculous commitment.

As I backed out of the webspace, I noticed that the second link on the website led to a differently named product - "Online Postage". Even more desperate by now, I followed this route. It too required credit card details, but this time there was no fee to use the service, no software to download, and no deposit required. A half hour later my parcels were all labelled and ready to drop off with my neighbour who had kindly said he'd hand them over at the Post Office on Monday. The only downside of the service was that it didn't make it clear that you could hold on to a stamp until you were clear it had printed properly - and unfortunately, I had to pay twice for one of the parcels.

Now, I got back home after my holiday and decided to ask for my money back on the first fiasco. It took two calls to find the right office, but the staff there were sympathetic and provided that I wrote in and grovelled they would do what they could. (Hmm?! So much for the Lands End "Guaranteed Period" approach or even your statutory rights.) When I queried this seemingly un-customer friendly approach, I was told it was to counter fraud. I appreciate that the Post Office does suffer from a lot of fraud. But is my paltry £5 deposit really that big a risk? Ah well. Eventually, two weeks later a credit has appeared in my bank account for the £25 fee. Not, mark you, for the £5 deposit on postage. That is lost and gone forever!

Back in the 1980s, Tom Peters and many others reported how organisations who REALLY took customer service seriously thrived, while those that didn't floundered. Well perhaps now I see why the Post Office gets such bad press and why Adam Crozier is always on the radio defending the institution! Sadly, I suspect that Peters and co were a little optimistic if they thought that consumer-choice would determine organisational success or longevity.

Best wishes

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GRAHAM WILSON
London + Oxford - 07785 222380
Helping Organisations & People Achieve Things They Never Dreamt Were Possible
grahamwilson.org; inter-faith.net

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Angry young men

Why are some people SO angry with the world around them? Was their childhood and adolescence SO cruel? Were they really SO misunderstood? Did they really feel SO unloved? And why anger? Is their emotional vocabulary so limited? Do they have no 'grey' scale? Is this why angry young men seem to become incredibly young fathers?

The answer, so the psychotherapist in me says, is "yes" to most of those in a way. A parent doesn't have to be an alcoholic, negligent, cruel, or abusive. The parents don't have to have had a messy divorce. And the child doesn't have to have been neglected along the way. What is important is how the child as it grows up perceives its relationship to the world around it.

If they don't feel that they experienced many different kinds of emotion; if they only witnessed the 'volatile' side of their parents' relationship (and not the loving one) and so on, then it isn't surprising that they become polarised in their responses.

They know their violence or anger is extreme; they know that other people don't entirely approve of how they respond; but largely they don't have the repertoire or the skills to handle a situation that provokes them differently.

We now know that the human brain is still maturing well into the 20s. This explains why Erikson and others recognised a stage of development (still not full adulthood) until a person was well into their 20s.

I was speaking at a leadership conference a few days ago and described the coping strategies that we use in day-to-day life. The other name for these is defence mechanisms. On the one hand they are ways of us protecting our ego from attack. In another, they are ways of stopping ourselves from expressing extreme sexual and aggressive needs in situations that wouldn't be socially acceptable. Among the most common ones are:

• Denial - the conscious refusal to accept the reality of our behaviour
• Repression – pushing unacceptable feelings into our unconscious
• Projection – attributing our own feelings to other people
• Displacement – directing responses to others
• Reaction formation – converting one feeling into another
• Regression – retreating back to earlier behaviour
• Rationalisation – inventing reasons
• Sublimation – converting sexual/aggressive energy into socially valued behaviour

While "angry young men" are an easily identifiable group, these tendencies are to be found among us all, and therefore, of course, in the world of work. I'll probably post more about this later, but examples include the tendency for some managers to be abrupt with staff, to force excessive targets on individuals, to use performance appraisals as a kind of jousting, to pose sexually with female members of staff, to seek sexual outlets in the workplace, to use agressive/sexual metaphors to describe their work, to make some people redundant when they preserve the roles of others, and so on.

No answers - an evolving stream of reflection, but let's start by observing what we and others are up to.

Best wishes

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GRAHAM WILSON
London + Oxford - 07785 222380
Helping People Achieve Things They Never Dreamt Were Possible
grahamwilson.org & inter-faith.net

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