Work shadowing - A personal lens on Michael Gove's UK Education Reforms

Today, to equal fanfare and wailing, saw Michael Gove (UK Education Secretary) launch a series of educational reforms designed to better prepare the children of the UK for the workforce of the next decade.  This is of course a deeply contentious subject but one that is of real interest to me as both an employer and a parent of a teenager.   Interestingly, the challenges that Michael Gove is trying to wrestle with come into a wonderful and sharp focus in the arena of "workshadowing".  The very moment that many of the modern day pupils are given their first glimpse of the world of work.  

Below is a very personal view of what happens when the world of work and the world of school collide. 

Recently I proudly hosted my 14 year old son in the office.  He was “work shadowing” me.   For the uninitiated that means he accompanied me to work for a single day to watch and observe me as I make my way through a typical day at the office.  The theoretical idea is that he sees what the world of work is actually like and starts to form some views as to what he would like to do with his life.

What I was thinking beforehand was...

This’ll be a good day – it’ll give my boy a chance to meet some of the people I mention over the dinner table at home and give him a really good insight into what it’s like to actually go out to work.  I secretly hope that’ll he be a bit proud of me.

What he was thinking beforehand was...

This has a lot of potential for being a really dull day - I can’t believe I have to get up so early, I wonder what Dad eats for lunch and I can’t wait to go to Thorpe Park with the rest of the class tomorrow.

What actually happened was...

That I successfully illustrated to him that his Father’s working life does in fact consist of getting up early, commuting and then hopping from one meeting to the next until it’s home time.  He dutifully trailed me around, did his school “workshadow” report in the quiet moments between meetings, got suitably bored and fell asleep on the train home.

What he learnt was...

Commuting is tiring and Dad’s job is actually duller than I thought – now for Thorpe Park

What I learnt was...

That my son looks better in a suit than I do.  That the experience our children have at school is a million miles away from the way we work in the modern office environment.   That it’s really difficult to impress a 13 year old by typing at a PC whilst sitting at a desk,  that I need to do a bit more planning and preparation before he comes back to try and do “work experience” for a week at the grand old age of 15.

What all this tells us about education reform...

Clearly more can be done to better prepare our children for the world of work.  However, given that many of my adult friends spend really quite some time reminiscing about their school days and in particular their own "Thorpe Park" moments I would urge caution before we run headlong into creating a school experience that perfectly mirrors the workplace.  In hindsight, if we are looking for convergence, perhaps we should be looking to make the workplace experience more like the one many of us enjoyed at school - to be fair there are quite a few workplaces that I have visited that would undoubtedly benefit from having a day out at Thorpe Park too.

The Digital Workforce – The biggest HR challenge for the next 5 years

For those of us who are just a little older in the tooth than the fresh faced, tech savvy, Gen Y hordes that are currently joining the UK workforce it does not seem like very long ago that it was actually in the workplace, rather than the home that we could lay our hands on the cool gadgets and cutting edge tech.  As individuals we couldn’t afford the funky goods on our own salaries and were delighted and excited to go on the training courses that the workplace provided to validate us as experts on a particular device or software programme so we could proudly use the sexy tech in our workplace.   Fast forward what is probably only 10 years and the world has transformed.  Boom, within a decade it is now the average employees who have access to a vast array of very cool kit that is often not freely available in the workplace.  This omnipresent kit is now providing us, as consumers, with a very rich user experience that has transformed and raised our expectations of what tech can do for us and what we can do with tech.   

Unsurprisingly, as employees, we are keen to be able to not only match our “home” tech experience but surpass it in the “workplace” – our expectations are high.  So when these expectations are not met by an employer who is struggling to get a handle on how the new digital technologies have transformed the employee experience it sets up a cognitive dissonance that will not end well for those who are trying desperately to attract and retain the tech savvy Digirati* employees that are in particular demand today.

So, amidst the clamour from employees for smartphones, tablets and cool kit, what is the option for the large, traditional cash-strapped organisations that are saddled with legacy infrastructure and complex security requirements - particularly when pretty much all the spare investment cash is going on regulatory, compliance or digital marketing initiatives?

The business case for transforming the employee experience through digital technology has been a low priority.   In addition, whilst the marketing and finance departments have both eloquently made the case for “digitising” their capabilities – using social media, bespoke cloud solutions and cool big data and analytics solutions – the HRD and COO have been focused on the cost-cutting agenda foisted upon them by a stalled economy and have had to shelve the digital upgrade demands of a workforce that has been grateful to have a job. 

Given this background one option is of course to continue to ignore the employee expectations and requests and press on with further cost-cutting.  However, as the economy turns and the need for digitally literate staff continues to grow exponentially this “let them eat cake” approach is unlikely to be a smart move in anything other than the extreme short term.  Failure to address the digital challenge will simply make it increasingly difficult to attract and retain the required talent who would much rather work for an employer who “gets” digital and can provide an engaging digital employee experience.  A second option is to do what a number of businesses have done to date – i.e. experiment with a relatively disconnected set of potential digital solutions aimed at improving employee productivity – often relating to “employee collaboration tools” e.g. Yammer and sharepoint.  Whilst this “Fashionista*” behaviour seems on the face of it to be a worthwhile move and a step in the right direction, anecdotal evidence suggests that initiatives viewed as piecemeal by the workforce can actually create a negative response from employees who are frustrated at the low level dabbling and the perceived poorer quality interfaces that a number of the “corporate” digital solutions have traditionally provided.  In essence it drives the same outcome in terms of retention and attraction as the first option.  The third option is to realise that it is no longer tenable to ignore the employee experience and begin the serious work required to design a digitally transformed employee experience, capable of attracting, managing and retaining the right talent, enabling low-cost, high productivity working, enabling employee flexibility and mobility and delivering a new level of employee engagement.

It is the organisation that is prepared to rethink how it constructs and delivers a digital employee experience that will win the battle for the hearts, minds and talents of the digital employees.  To do this an organisation must tackle the challenge as a true transformation project and deliver the kind of employee experience currently being created by the Digirati for their workforces. 

Apologies for the advert but it is worth noting that at Capgemini we are currently working with a number of progressive organisations who are boldly redesigning the employee experience in an attempt to define and deliver a “Connected Organisation**”.   What is fascinating is that whilst the focus has been primarily on creating better employee engagement through digital transformation, as the businesses explore the implications of a connected organisation they are also opening up numerous real opportunities to drive cost saving and improve productivity.  If you want to know more do get in touch.

*Digirati & Fashionista are terms defined in the Capgemini/MIT research into Digital Transformation – for details follow the link - http://www.capgemini-consulting.com/digital-transformation-a-road-map-for-billion-dollar-organizations

**Connected Organisation is a term used by Capgemini to describe the modus operandi of the digitally enabled workforce of the Digirati

The Professionalisation of Innovation - Jumpers for Goalposts or the Chamions League

OK so this is the last in my recent mini-series of blogs about why organisations are struggling with Innovation.  So far I’ve debunked the idea that innovation is a solo pursuit and knocked on the head the idea that Innovation will magically occur in your organisation courtesy of Harry Potter.  In this blog I’m hoping to debunk the myth that consistent and high quality Innovation can be effectively delivered by a well meaning and disparate bunch of unorganised and ill equipped amateurs.

So before I get too far in to the blog let me instantly acknowledge that history does sporadically regale us with tales of small bands of heroic amateurs who for a brief moment in time defied the odds and made something amazing happen (e.g. the Dunkirk Evacuation flotilla, Paul the Football World Cup Octopus and the winners of Britain’s Got Talent).  However, these are almost undoubtedly rare and often short lived moments of genius (and in Paul’s case actually completely random).

The strange thing is that when businesses start to “get to grips” with Innovation they invariably try to harness the amateur innovation abilities of their own workforce.  Can you imagine any other aspect of corporate life where a CXO would willingly hand over the responsibility of delivering a consistent outcome to a random self-selecting subset of his organisation.   Imagine if property management were left in the hands of Brian from accounts who happened to be quite keen on DIY and had a “feel” for soft furnishings, imagine if sales management was left in the hands of Polly, that terribly nice lady from the call centre, who did a tremendous job of selling tickets for last year’s Xmas charity raffle and what if we left finance in the very capable hands of Bob from Operations who has taken out 4 ISA’s with 4 different banks in the last two years and has a small portfolio of shares.

And yet... when it comes to Innovation the first action of many a hard pressed CXO is to send out a call to action for all the members of the business to get involved with delivering Innovation.   Are they mad?

I suspect the disconnect is again a mental one - everyone has the ability to be creative and understands roughly what having an idea is – much like most people understand the rudiments of football.  However, when it comes to football, I think most people would also acknowledge the tremendous gulf in class and outcome between me and my boys having a kick around in the local park using our jumpers for goalposts and the highly trained professionals competing in the Champion’s League.  To deliver effective, consistent, high quality Innovation requires a very professional approach.

In essence when the well meaning CXO asks for volunteers to get involved with Innovation they are not only entrusting one of the organisations most valuable processes to a band of happy amateurs they are almost guaranteeing that despite a temporary buzz of well being arising from the inclusive language used that they will inevitably be left with the poor quality disappointing results that untrained amateurs are likely to deliver when competing against the professional Innovation capabilities of competitors.

So please, please if you are a CXO tasked with driving Innovation in your business please resist the temptation to muddle through with some keen beans.   Take the responsibility very seriously and look to find the professionals with the capabilities required to ensure that the Innovation delivered is worthy of the name.

Having laid out my thoughts on this topic I’d be fascinated to know what people think – do drop me a line and let me know.

The management regrets to inform you that sadly Harry Potter is not available to deliver Innovation

If Harry Potter was the charismatic CEO of one of today’s leading businesses then Innovation would occur at the flick of a wrist and with the wave of a wand.   There would be no need to put in place an Innovation System (Governance, Process, Resource & Technology) – no such banalities required for Harry and gang – instead all that would be required to deliver Innovation would be for Harry or one of his small band of heroic companions to come up with a great idea and then magic it into reality.

Unfortunately, despite often being very capable and charismatic leaders, most CXO’s are not magicians, do not carry magic wands and are unable to bring Innovations to life at the flick of a wrist and Harry Potter just isn't available due to prior commitments.  Despite this fact it is still a matter of bafflement to me that the vast majority of leading businesses in the UK have no clearly defined, universal Innovation System in place.  Instead most leading businesses are “hoping” that Innovation will spontaneously occur or that their CEO or Exec Board will imagine a brilliant new concept/improvement/product and magic it into reality.

Here is a simple question – does your business want to make a profit?  If yes a supplementary question is this – does your business have in place a universal financial management system (Governance, Processes, Resources and Technology) that is essential for helping you to consistently deliver a profit?  I’m guessing that the answer is a qualified yes – and whilst the system may not be perfect and may be in need of improvement and overhaul you at least have one.

Here’s another simple question – does your business want to generate growth, improve efficiency and develop new products through Innovation?  If yes here’s a further supplementary question – does your business have in place a universal Innovation system that will consistently deliver you the required Innovation?  I’m guessing (for guessing read talking from experience) that for most CXOs the answer is a qualified no.  Unsurprisingly then most businesses have patchy, unpredictable, sub-scale and slow innovation capabilities.

INNOVATION IS NOT MAGIC – it only happens when you put in place the elements required to make it happen.

So why do businesses seem to have a blind spot when it comes to making the necessary investments to ensure they have a reliable and consistent quality and quantity of Innovations in their business.  Well the excuses are multiple and easily argued against but the most prevalent are the following:

1)      Investment in Innovation is really like gambling our profits – it’s too risky

2)      Innovation comes from employing a maverick genius (Harry Potter type) to do it for us

3)      We are already doing Innovation – we have staff suggestion boxes in all our buildings

These are of course nonsense.  So come on CXOs – get a grip and put down your pretend magic wands.  Innovation is not magic or rocket science.   It is now relatively simple to put in place an Innovation System that will deliver consistent, high quality innovations.   For details of how to do it do get in touch or at least read my previous blogs – the clues are all there. 

People Risk - How to get started on managing it

As regular readers of this blog you will know that a subject dear to my heart is the topic of People Risk.   To me it is the biggest iceberg in the corporate sea and very few people have any understanding of how to track and manage it let alone fully appreciate the damage it can cause.  Thankfully I have been working with Sandra Quinn on a new Point of View that really gets to grips with the issue.   It has just been published and you can view it and download it from the following link http://ebooks.capgemini-consulting.com/Your_People_POV_04mar_2013.pdf.

However, to give you a flavour of the PoV Sandra has penned this guest blog.  I hope you enjoy it and can sense the passion we have for this subject.

Every other news story these days seems to focus on some aspect of toxic cultures, systemic people failures, market rigging, or plain dodgy conduct. In part why are we surprised? It's axiomatic that people are at the root of everything we see, good and bad. 

Yet as the common denominator in all this, we struggle to deal with the risks and the opportunities that people present, both those they present and those which the organisation creates in them, especially in the way it performance manages, rewards and incentivises them.

Presented with an investment transaction you would analyse your risks and returns from every angle to make sure you were making a wise decision. 

People are among your most significant corporate investments. Not just in costs of package but in potential to influence and take key business decisions, committing the organisation to strategic and financial positions. Yet in most cases no comparable level of rigour is applied between that relating to a transaction and that relating to the choice,  recruitment and management of the people who will deliver and approve that transaction, let alone the way they conduct themselves and run the business.

When it goes wrong, the effects can be severe: banking culture, LIBOR, BP, the SFO, NHS and patient treatment, the relationship between press and police, drugs in sport. Indeed type 'toxic culture' into your search engine at the moment and you can read about the problems of the Australian swimming team.

The problem is that people - volatile, difficult things we all are - are tough to deal with and often present recurring and what can seem like insoluble problems, especially for managers and senior executives who are more technician than leadership, and HR functions focussing on process rather than outcomes. And in worlds driven by targets, risk indicators and metrics, those complex and persisting risks which span the organisation (such as People risk) are particularly difficult to find ownership for.  

But it's not insoluble. Start by bringing together your Risk, HR, Stakeholder or Investor Relations people - have them carry out the appropriate strategic planning and apply many of the principles you'd apply to regular operational risk. This is the first step to grappling with the issue. To support you Quinnity and Capgemini have been doing some cutting edge work together on both minimising the pain of people risk management and maximising the results. If you are interested you can read more at http://ebooks.capgemini-consulting.com/Your_People_POV_04mar_2013.pdf or contact us at Capgemini on 0870 238 8514

Why the idea of “The Innovator” is killing Innovation

Imagine a David Attenborough voiceover whilst you read the italics:

“Here, in the deepest of corporate jungles we catch a glimpse of the elusive Innovator – this rarest of species is not well adapted to surviving in an increasingly harsh corporate environment and as such, is on the verge of extinction.  To see one that is able to function at all in the concrete jungle is rare, to see one functioning well is an experience only few experience.  And yet, such is the allure of the Innovator and the beautiful Innovations they create that many a senior executive will not rest until they have successfully trapped a “department” of Innovators. 

Being able to “bag” an Innovator is, of course, a major trophy for a corporate big-shot and is highly prized.  However, once captive, many of these Innovators simply do not have the ability to adapt to the rigours of the corporate environment.

Many struggle to fashion the tools required to develop effective business cases, many fail to navigate the complicated stakeholder landscape, some do not have the social skills required to work with the other jungle beasts and most lack the plumage and voice to show off their ideas to senior executives.  Most spend their days coming up with new ideas that are simply left unacknowledged and undeveloped.  Unloved and unable to bring their ideas to fruition they return to their own caves to live out a solitary existence.”

OK – enough with the Attenborough voiceover – here’s the point.  Whilst we continue to believe that the secret to driving Innovation in a business is to hire Innovators we will continually fail.   From spending many years studying Innovation and Innovators I can now categorically state that effective Innovation is best driven by a multi-disciplinary team of people with following a process.   Whilst we continue to try to find a person or persons capable of successfully executing all the stages of the Innovation process we are missing out on the massive benefits Innovation can bring.  INNOVATION IS BEST DELIVERED BY A TEAM.

Here’s another metaphor.  In the UK there is a wonderful TV programme called Grand Designs (hosted by Kevin McCloud).  Each week Kevin introduces the viewers to a couple who are planning to build their dream house and we follow their progress as they wrestle with numerous architects, planners and builders.  We smile smugly as we watch their inevitable overspending and failure to complete the build on time.   We wince as they struggle to juggle families, jobs and the building project over many years – eventually to stand proudly in the front room of their new house reliving the traumas with Kevin.  At the end of the programme we feel a sense of admiration that “against all odds” the couple have triumphed and over the many years and months have brought their idea from the dream to the paper to the reality.  This is the Innovator as we so often picture them.   Compare and contrast with another (less glamorous) UK TV building programme called the Big Build (hosted by Nick Knowles).  Each week Nick introduces us to a family who are down on their luck and living in disastrously unsuitable accommodation.  In the space of two weeks, whilst the family are holed up in a local B&B, Nick and an army of designers, builders, plumbers, electricians, plasterers and decorators dismantle, rebuild and extend the family’s home.   The result is magical and despite a few minor melodramas, the TEAM has pulled off a minor miracle for which the family is inordinately grateful.   This is Innovation as it can be, as it should be – no fuss, no bother just the right people with the right skills following the right process delivering a phenomenal result.

So please, for those of you who want to drive Innovation – please stop looking to identify “the” Innovators in your business, it is counter-productive and distracts from the more effective way to deliver innovation – instead look to build the process and the team required to deliver Innovation. 

Having laid out my thoughts on this topic I’d be fascinated to know what people think – do drop me a line and let me know your thoughts.

The customer service revolution and the madness of "owning" the customer

The mindset that believes that “owning the customer” is a prerequisite of running a successful business is stuck in a time-warp.  There; I’ve said it.   Personally I think that the concept of owning the customer is an idiotic, dysfunctional, deeply anachronistic and patronising idea that is as misplaced and unwelcome in the 21^st century as slavery.  But wait – many of our leading businesses are still acting as if they believe that “owning the customer” is an “a priori” truth that must be adhered to.  This blog sets out to debunk the myth.

Over the last few decades most businesses have come to terms with the fact that they don’t necessarily need to “own” their own equipment and property (leasing/renting) or own their own workforce (outsourcing) and are now coming to terms with the fact that they don’t necessarily need to own their own IT (Cloudsourcing) but they are still struggling to come to terms with the concept of not owning the customer. 

For those of you who haven’t got your heads around this concept yet here’s where a “we need to own the customer” mindset comes from and here’s what it does.

Its roots are in corporate insecurity and fear and strongly linked to the desire for control.

Firstly if you don’t have full faith in your brand(s), product(s) or service(s) you will constantly be looking for ways to “capture” customers with gimmicks and offers that keep them loyal.  You will spend large amounts of money trying to create a loyalty that your services don’t naturally generate.   You will be very conscious of the price of customer acquisition and customer churn and will have big programmes in place to manage customer complaints.

Secondly you will be happy (and by happy I mean impelled) to sell to “your” customers products and services (e.g. PPI, Horsemeat etc) that are profitable in the short term but do not have your customers best interests at heart – this is of course justifiable as it is your right to make money out of your customers since you worked so hard to ensnare and own them in the first place. 

Thirdly you will be paranoid about your customers experiencing a “better experience” elsewhere so you will spend vast amounts of money to build and “own” an end-to-end experience that means that none but the most inquisitive and/or frustrated of your customers will bother to go elsewhere.

These actions will all provide you with an apathetic but relatively stable base of “punters, wallets, schmucks or muppets” that you can efficiently control and extract money from over a period of time and enjoy the fruits of your labours despite your inability to create a brand and product set that stands up for itself and serves the real needs of its customers.

Unfortunately, in the words of a paraphrased reprise from Scooby Doo, for a worryingly large number of UK Plc’s senior executives “It would all have been OK if it wasn’t for those pesky kids and that new fangled internet”.  Welcome to the 21^st century.  We the customers do not want to be owned and will, over the next few years, find new digital means to circumvent businesses increasingly expensive and desperate attempts to control and own us.

Yes, global connectivity, openness, social sharing and a bit of a financial crisis are turning the old world order upside down – whether it be politics (see Arab Spring & MPs expenses) or business (see Financial Services scandals, Press Scandals, Horsemeat etc) or even public services (see NHS death rates, police scandals etc).  We the customers can and will communicate, share and demand real change and higher behavioural standards.

So what should I do as a business leader when confronted by this new reality?

Unsurprisingly I’m going to recommend the following five heresies.

1.      Redirect spend away from schemes that “con” your unsuspecting database of contacts and customers into buying products and services they neither want nor will benefit from and instead spend money on creating a brand, product and service set that you can be truly proud of.

2.      Seek out new ways of “freeing your customers” from your own clutches.  Actively seek to showcase your services through shared delivery channels where you appear alongside your competitors and other service providers.  This will freak out your CMO but delight your liberated customers.

3.      Discourage the use of any internal language that seeks to diminish the personhood of your customers (e.g share of wallet, muppets (see Goldman Sachs)).  They really are people and want to be treated as such.

4.      Stop talking about how you are going to become more customer focused – nobody believes you anyway and they certainly don’t believe that a treatise on heightened customer focus has anything to do with altruism and real customer benefit but has quite a lot to do with your business making more money.

5.      Embrace corporate openness and the tools of the digital revolution and work to build corporations that honestly and openly provide their products and services to customers in a way that enables the customers to feel they are making a good and real choice.

And in the afternoon we could give world peace a go.  I can’t help myself – I’m still an idealist who believes that there are better ways of doing business that benefit all of us, our planet and the future generations.   After all we did decide slavery was a bad idea once upon a time.  So take what you will out of this.  There is a revolution in customer service coming and it will be fought on the battleground of who owns the customer.  My money’s on the customer winning.