Osiris Training

Sometimes it’s not about theft, abuse or accessing pornography, it’s just sheer bloody mindedness.

I am a senior manager and I chair disciplinary hearings.  People either deny doing anything wrong or deny that what they did was wrong.  “I didn’t slap that elderly resident despite what the witnesses say” or “I don’t think these pictures are offensive my friends thought they were a laugh”.

It’s not unusual for an individual who feels they have been done an injustice like being over looked for a promotion to interpret all subsequent actions by their manager as further evidence that they are being treated unfairly. A seemingly trivial dispute about moving a desk closer to a window becomes a matter of a battle of wills.  In some cases this progresses from challenging a management decision to refusing to acknowledge the manager’s authority.

In this particular case it started with a filing cabinet.  Whose was it?  What was in it?  Why were they refusing to open it? The filing cabinet was in the office but it did not belong to the department. Some files were missing, the office had been searched the manager wanted to look inside the filing cabinet. The individual who had brought it claimed it contained only their personal items and refuse to open it.

The manager had the filing cabinet removed.  In response the individual reported the “theft” to the police.  After repeated requests for the key the manager forced open the cabinet and found the missing files.  An investigation followed.  The individual refused to answer any questions.  Why where the files in the cabinet?  Who put them there?  Why did they refuse to open the cabinet?

They were references to a management conspiracy; management wrong doing was implied around inappropriate, unauthorised purchases, even hints at sexual misdemeanours.

A new allegation emerged that the individual had been telephoning colleagues whilst suspended from work despite being instructed to have no contact.

The first disciplinary hearing was postponed at the request of the individual who claimed they were suffering from stress and not fit to attend.  The day before the rearranged disciplinary hearing the individual again requested a postponement via their union rep.  Although the individual complained they continue to be unwell they were unable to produce a sicknote from their GP.  The hearing went ahead in their absence.

They instructed their union rep not to contest the allegations but to offer an apology for any inconvenience or distress their behaviour had caused.   There was no written apology, no character references and no explanations.

Management produced a stream of witnesses to evidence a history of obstruction and antagonism. A portrait was draw of an argumentative, uncooperative, and inflexible member of staff who routinely challenged their manager’s authority. But who could be pleasant and helpful to colleagues.  Management was adamant that the trust between employee and manager had been irretrievably broken. Management maintained they could no longer have confidence in someone who refused to carry out a reasonable management request and who refused to cooperate with managers.

If you were chairing the disciplinary hearing what would your decision be?

Blair McPherson

The harsh financial climate in the public sector means we will have to do more with less. But what does doing more with less mean? Is it another way of saying be more efficient? Is it part of the myth that there are some painless options for reducing spending with out cutting services or reducing staff? Is it  a belief that technology will save us if we just embrace it? Is it based on an  assumption that if you have less managers they will concentrate more on what’s important? Does it reflect the view that the best way to improve a service is cut its budget and in so doing focus minds and force people to be innovative.

It’s difficult to argue that any organisation couldn’t be more efficient but if the price is to be less effective is that acceptable in public services?  Should the NHS use cheaper but less effective drugs? The NHS spends millions on drugs. Primary Care Trust want GPs to use cheaper generic drugs but GPs want the right to prescribe branded drugs if they think they will be more effective.

In the public sector costs are mostly about staffing, the number of people employed.  So efficiencies are about getting staff to work harder, longer, pay them less or get someone else to do it cheaper. Alternatively you can replace some teaching posts with cheaper teaching assistant posts and not pay them for school holidays. Instead of using expensive supply teachers to cover for absent teachers you can user cheaper teaching assistants. Of course this may impact on quality. The NHS is often criticised for using expensive agency nurses but if a hospital bans the use of such staff it may find it has to close a ward due to staffing shortages with the result that waiting list for operations increase.

Another way of doing more with less is to use economies of scale in procurement. That is get together with others and negotiate a discount for bulk purchasing. This can work with office furniture or computers but it’s difficult to see how this would work in buying residential care for older people where block contracts are to be replaced with people having the money to buy their own care.

Accommodation for all these staff is expensive so if we can get more staff into fewer buildings we will be more efficient. Hence the fashion for hot desking, mobile working and home working.  This is also an example of making use of technology like blackberries and laptops to enable people to work away from the office.  Another example of embracing new technology and reducing admin costs is electronic filing.  Do you know how much it costs just to rent the floor space for all those filing cabinets?  Of course everyone should do their own typing.  The typing pool is a thing of the past, no-one has their own PA any more but on the down side how many hours a day does a manager spend wading through e-mails?

Reducing the number of managers without having an adverse affect on frontline services sounds attractive and would appear to constitute doing the same with less. However, increasing an individual manager’s span of control and responsibility or removing a tier of management essentially means someone doing the job of two people.  As this is not achievable within the working week decisions have to be made about what won’t be done that used to be done.

Partnership working is often given as an example of how duplication could be removed and how, if people would only just look at the bigger picture, take a whole systems approach then they would see it was in their interests to work together to achieve common goals.  The only problem is that managers tend to be judged against their performance in areas specific to their organisation and their responsibility. The NHS might see the value in tackling homelessness, poor housing or long term unemployment in improving people health but hospital managers are focused on waiting lists.  There is also a tendency when budgets are tight and services are being cut for organisations to retreat to core business and shunt costs to partners. So hospitals seek to discharge elderly patients from expensive acute beds as quickly as possible forcing some people to go into expensive residential care paid for by some one else. A jointly funded health and social care rehabilitation service would allow for speedy hospital discharge and prevent unnecessary admissions to care but why should the NHS contribute to funding if it can get the Local Authority to pay for it?

Back office savings are often presented as a painless way of reducing costs to deliver the same service and therefore if not doing more then doing the same with less.  An example of this in local authorities is the centralisation of the human resource function.  Why do departments need their own HR staff?  Bring them all together in one smaller team and save on management costs.  Why not also outsource the majority of the work which is around administration, for example placing job adverts, sending out job application forms, arranging interviews, sending out letters of appointment etc.  Whilst retaining the expertise around employment legislation. The risk is that some of the work that was carried out by HR is now left to managers to do which may not the best use of their time and of course as a result of reducing management posts they are already doing more and with less help following the reduction in admin posts.

It is possible to do more with less, but the risk is ending up doing less and doing it less well.

Blair McPherson

Can you claim to value staff and cut their pay?

Can you maintain a position off openness and honest when you are going to make people redundant?

Can you afford to be sensitive and caring when you are going to cut services to vulnerable people?

Can you be committed to partners who want to protect their own budgets at your expense?

Does a recession need a different type of leader? One who is feared rather than loved?

Do these difficult economic times require a different type of manager and are you cut out to be that type of manager?

We all want recognition, we all want to be considered successful and a little bit of power wouldn’t hurt, but how far are you prepared to go?  Is it ok even inevitable to step on a few toes on your way up?  Do you feel comfortable pushing yourself to the front of the crowd? Do you think you should be “spotted” or do you think you have to get yourself noticed?  Do you think it is ok to be openly ambitious or is it something you find a little vulgar?  Do you mind if colleagues see your enthusiasm to please the boss, to demonstrate your commitment by staying late or volunteering for projects as what the Americans refer to as “brown nosing”.  Do you think it is who you know rather than what you know?  If your boss was singing your praises about a piece of work that was mostly the result of the efforts of some one else, would you own up or keep quiet?  If the current mess was down to one of your colleagues would you drop them in it or would you accept collective responsibility? Do you think an effective manager needs a hint of menace to go with the charm? Do you think it is better to be feared than loved?

Or do you think effective managers if not loved are respected. If the economic situation puts a strain on partnerships isn’t this when we most need senior managers with relationship building skills. When budgets are cut and we are required to do more with less then we need managers who are innovative. When efficiencies require services to be delivered in different ways and working practices to be changed we need managers with leadership skills who can inspire staff. When people face a cut in real wages and are worried about future employment we need managers with good people skills because you can be valued whilst not being financially well rewarded.

It is in difficult times that we most need inspirational leaders people we trust, people with integrity. Most of all we need managers with leadership qualities and good people management skills. It is when partnerships are strained that we most need managers skilled in relationship building people who can see beyond the immediate budget problem.

This is not a time for Machiavellian managers.

Blair McPherson

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the financial crisis will dramatically change the way the public sector looks in the future. Many outside the public sector and some inside consider that management structures built in the good times are bloated, unaffordable and unsustainable. Slimmer structures are predicated with fewer tiers and greater spans of responsibility. This will inevitably mean redundancies and redeployments. The survivors will be those who can demonstrate transferable skills, the ability to work across traditional service boundaries and the ability to manager without knowing the detail.

This will come as shock to some colleagues.

Recently a shoe shop manager was appointed to a management post in the Registrars service much to the disapproval of some colleagues who felt the individual’s lack of a professional back ground in the service should have disqualified them. “What will they know about the service and the procedures?” It was apparent that these colleagues did not give as much value to experience of, hitting income targets, managing a large staff group, operating a seven day a week service, dealing with customer complaints, and dealing with building maintenance and security as did the interview panel.

As a result of financial pressures many of us will find ourselves doing the work of two people. This will require us to look at how we are spending our time. Which meetings are essential? Am I doing this because of who’s asked me to do it, because I enjoy it or because it’s crucial to the business?

Fewer managers’ means greater spans of control, working across client groups and across service areas, being responsible for service you do not have a background in. It means knowing less about more and more since the more services you are responsible for the less you will be familiar with what going on in these services. You will be more reliant on your managers telling you what you need to know. You will worry more about what you don’t know which some will find stressful. Keeping yourself informed will require regular one to one’s. With twice as many managers directly reporting to you it will be essential to plan these one to one’s. Rather than saying your door is always open dates will need to be booked in diaries. The informal catch up will need to be replaced by a more structured approach with an agenda agreed in advance providing progress reports and alerting you to any emerging issues or politically sensitive situations. This means these meetings will need to take place at least four weekly if you are not to be inundated with back side covering emails and overwhelmed with “for information” briefing notes.

The traditional weekly team meeting will be seen as a luxury. In any case the team meeting will no longer be relevant as your managers represent such a diverse range of services there is little by way of a common agenda. Corporate briefs can be provided electronically.

Not so much a brave new world for managers as a scary new world. A world which focuses a lot more on management skills and a lot less on professional knowledge. A world where you are responsible for more but know less. A world where you need to empower managers because you haven’t the capacity to micro manage. A world where you need to encourage managers to be innovative in order to do more with less. All of which means you’re less in control- scary.

Blair McPherson is a senior manager for a large local authority and author of UnLearning management- short stories on modern management published by www.russellhoues.co.uk

This is a good time to be talking about managers people management skills. The predicted financial crises in the Public Sector means the message is going out management post will be cut, hierarchies will be flattened, more will have to be don with less, and services will have to be delivered in different ways. Whilst your organisation may continue to function with fewer managers are you confident that the remaining managers can inspire staff when services are being cut and staff made redundant? Do your managers have the negotiating and influencing skills to get people to work in different ways? Delivering more with less will require innovation are your managers innovative? Partnerships will be threatened as budgets are tightened can your managers maintain good relationships when partners retreat to core business? Flatter management structures will mean greater spans of management control can your managers manage across traditional service boundaries, can they manage services they don’t have a professional back ground in, and can they cope with not knowing the detail?

To deliver in this climate all managers will need good people management skills that is the ability to inspire people, a willingness to take responsibility, the ability to challenge appropriately and the confidence to let people get on with it.

This is not the time to cut back on management training and development however tempting that might appear. It may however be the time to review management development to do more with less and ensure you are equipping managers with the skills and experiences that will benefit the organisation.

Traditional management development is expensive. Frequently these courses are developed with local universities allowing them to be tailored to an organisations needs with an emphasis on work related situations in return for a guaranteed supply of students. Managers enjoy the fact that they can bring in their work experience but their real popularity with managers is that the resulting qualification looks good on the CV. Few employers can justify this level of expenditure on a small proportion of their managers when budgets are under sever pressure. Nor is this the most effective way of growing the type of manager specific to your organisation needs.

What organisations increasingly need is a cost effective way of developing the leadership skills of large numbers of managers in a way that moulds them in to the type of manager best suited to the organisations’ needs. Preferably without taking them away from their day jobs.  Ideally through an approach that allows them to dip in and out when time and opportunity permits.

In Lancashire we have built just such a management development programme based on executive coaching, management learning sets, 360 degree feed back, mentoring and management surgeries plus posting discussion material on the intranet. The aim is to give managers insight into how their behaviour affects others and to provide opportunities to share and reflect on their experience. The programme starts with 360 degree feedback from colleagues and direct reports and then either one to one executive coaching or membership of a management learning set.

Executive coaching was provided to all 30 senior managers. This involved observing managers in a range of management situations such as board meetings, presentations to multi agency groups, addressing a large staff group or conducting negotiations with a key partner agency. Senior managers rarely get such direct feed back on their performance but despite some initial apprehension those involved felt the material generated offered some genuine insights.

The feedback was well received even though some of the messages were blunt e.g. “talks too much”, “needs to listen more”, “needs to recognise the need to move at the pace of the slowest ship in the convoy”, “can come over as demanding and impatient”.  This was balanced by plenty of positive feedback around individuals being supportive and making their expectations clear.

The rolling out of executive coaching to all senior managers promoted considerable discussion about what type of manager and what type of management behaviour the organisation wanted to promote.  If all managers were to be good at people management then all managers needed opportunities to gain insight into how their behaviour affected others and how they might adapt their management style.  Ideally all managers would have access to executive coaching but this was impracticable and too expensive.  A simplified 360 degree questionnaire was produced specific to assessing an individuals people management skills which could be interpreted without a computer software package or skilled technician.  Management learning sets were set up with 15 managers in each.  The learning sets were originally lead by the management consultants but as more sets were established they became co facilitated with senior managers. The aim was to give middle managers and then all managers an opportunity to explore how their behaviour affected others.  The emphasis was on discussing the type of management situations they routinely came across and to share their experience in dealing with these.

It became clear that learning sets were identifying within middle managers the need for more and ongoing support.  In response to this the idea of management surgeries was developed.  Four days were put in the calendar over the following twelve months when the management consultants would be available for an hour’s slot booked in advance to discuss any issue any manager wanted to raise.  It was also agreed that all managers would be offered a mentor starting with those who had been in a management learning set.  This was seen as a way of building on the work already started with individuals whilst recognising that management development was not a one off exercise.

Blair McPherson

Managers talk a lot, in meetings, to small groups, to large audiences, at conferences and in committees but it is when they have to have difficult conversations that they show their management skills.  These are usually one to one conversations.  These conversations are difficult because of the subject and the likely response of the individual.  The topics range from concerns about absence levels, relationships with colleagues and quality of work.

These conversations are difficult because often the individual either lacks insight into how their behaviour affects others or simply refuses to acknowledge there is a problem.  “I can’t help being off sick” is a frequent response to a manager bringing up an individuals attendance record.  The management issue here is not to question whether someone in genuinely ill but to point out the level of absence, the facts and establish if there is an underlying reason for this?  It could be that the individual was not in fact ill but is struggling to care for a disabled relative or a change in family circumstances has caused problems with childcare arrangements.  If it is a health problem then the usual course of action is a referral to the occupational health service for advice. Either way you have made clear your expectations and your intension to investigate poor attendance.

Problems with relationships between colleagues in the same office are surprisingly common.  Surprising because you would have thought that adults would behave better.  The issues can be anything from leaving their unwashed cups around the place, gossiping about colleagues, being excessively untidy, or arguing about who sits where.  The problem often seems to focus around one disruptive individual although sometimes the response of their colleagues lacks maturity, courtesy, and tolerance.

The individual will often see themselves as the victim.  The management issue here is not to take sides or resolve individual disputes but insist on a standard of behaviour where people are polite and courteous to each other.  They don’t have to be friends but they do have to be professional.  If firm management action is not taken to challenge group behaviour, as well as that of the individual, then formal grievance and harassment complaints will start flying around.  This will take up a disproportionate amount of management time before concluding that people need to be more tolerant and nicer to each other.

A conversation with an individual about the quality of their work is often difficult unless there are specifics like frequent failure to meet deadlines, tasks not undertaken or careless mistakes.  A manager needs to be prepared to address issues of work loads and priorities.  As a manager you need to be sure you are not being unreasonable in your expectations and demands.  It is perfectly reasonable for someone to ask which tasks are a priority and even if you think they all are you need to be more helpful and say what you want doing first.  Deadlines should be negotiated not imposed however everyone needs to recognise that sometimes they are externally set and so beyond the control of the manager.

Sometimes poor quality work is not down to lack of ability but lack of motivation this is often characterised by uneven work, a brilliant piece of work can be followed by a careless poorly thought out piece of work.  In which case it may be that the individual is not being stretched enough they are bored and frustrated and possibly using their skills in a negative and unhelpful way.  The solution is to recognise the ability and set more interesting and demanding tasks.

Some people are just not competent to do the job either promoted beyond their limited ability or always unsuited to the work but allowed to get away with it by poor management.

The general message for managers is don’t avoid difficult conversations.  Do rehearse what you are going to say.  Do stick to the facts and do take advice beforehand from HR.

Blair McPherson