Osiris Training

The announcement that Steve Jobs is to step down as chief executive of Apple for health reasons had an immediate impact on share prices and has prompted discussion about whether it is good for a company to be so identified with one individual. The so called cult of the chief executive is also recognised in the public sector. These are individuals who are credited with turning around failing organisations or for making mediocre organisations great. Some come in at a point of crisis work their magic and go on to bigger and greater things others build over a many years and go only reluctantly when retirement beckons. Whichever type they are they present the problem of what happens when they leave. 

I am sure even Steve Jobs, credited as he is for making Apple a globally successful company, has a very competent team of senior managers backing him up and that Apple has some of the brightest and most innovative people in the industry working for them. So why is the stock exchange so nervous? Put another way why does any successful organisation, service or team worry about the impact of a high profile leader leaving unless they think what has been achieved is all  down to that individual. Some of this can be explained by natural anxiety along the lines of what if the replacement isn’t any good or wants to change everything? There may be a concern that some of the most able and experienced managers will see this as the time to go, their loyalty was to the individual not the organisation. New chief Executives like new senior managers want to surround themselves with their own appointments, people who think like them and don’t keep referring to how things were done under the predecessor. So some closely associated with the old order may be encouraged to go. There may be concern that these changes of key personnel will adversely affect the organisation all be it in the short term.

It could be that this high profile highly regarded charismatic leaders achievements were down to their sheer force of personality, people at all levels in the organisation believed in this person and were prepared to go along with their vision and their decisions because they liked and respected them. Nothing wrong with that you say we want and need leaders who inspire their staff. Well in my view we don’t. This type of leadership may be very effective in a crisis but this” cult of the leader” is very damaging for an organisation in the longer term. To use a sporting analogy this would be the difference between a great team and a great club. A great team goes a whole season without losing, a great club is one that has a succession of successful teams even though the individuals change the philosophy behind the way the club is run doesn’t. In organisational terms the culture is not follow the leader the culture is based on a shared set of values, a shared vision of the future and an agreed way of doing things. This will not change even if the leader does.

Blair McPherson author of Equipping Managers for an Uncertain Future published by www.russellhouse.co.uk

I am on a panel that offers advice to staff working in housing. Due to my experience in recruitment and selection I get a lot of questions are about how to get a job or how to get on. Essentially people are asking for career advice and some of this advice applies whatever the area of work.

Giving career advice based on so little knowledge of the individual reminds me of that Monty Pythons comedy sketch where they do a spoof on the Children’s program Blue Peter. The presenters explain how to learn to play a musical instrument -put your figures over the wholes and blow and how to cure all known diseases- study medicine, become a doctor and invent a cure for all known diseases. I will try and be helpful without over simplifying to the point of being ridiculous.

 I always say the most important thing when it comes to career planning is to know what you want to do and to recognise how ambitious you are and therefore what you are prepared to do to get there. You have some experience in Housing and you want a career in a housing related area. You’re prepared to study to get more qualifications. Are you ready to go into management? Do you think you could take on some responsibilities for inducting a new member of staff? Do you feel confident that you know what good practice is in working with clients/residents? Are you prepared to challenge bad practice even if it is by a member of staff who has been there longer than you? Would you feel comfortable drawing up the staff rota and allocating unpopular shifts? Are you willing to go on some essential but rather dull short courses on Health and safety, budget management and recruitment and selection? Are you prepared to take responsibility rather than pass things up the line even if this means you can’t always leave work when your shift finishes or that people contact you when you’re off duty? If your current place of work doesn’t offer you the opportunity to do these things are you prepared to work somewhere else? Even if this would involve a lot longer journey to work and initially at least no more pay?

Of course not everyone is suited to management and not everyone wants the hassle if it’s not for you then better to recognise this early and pursue another career path.

Blair McPherson www.blairmcpherson.co.uk  author of Equipping managers for an uncertain future and People management in a harsh financial climate both published by www.russellhouse.co.uk  .

There are two types of manager those who tell people what to think and those who want to make people think. Now that all managers are expected to be leaders, to inspire their staff and take responsibility for making things happen it is all too easy to claim to be the latter but perceived to be the former. When you address staff your passion and enthusiasm, your dismissal of the sceptics and cynics, your conviction that this is the right way can be heard as lecturing and sound like your telling people what to think.

 Are you going to concentrate on changing behaviour or influencing thinking? Organisations often claim to want to change the culture but in focusing on the way things are done they end up with new policies and procedures but no new mind set. Staff know what they are supposed to do but they don’t necessarily think it is right. You can give the staff the “have a nice day script” but that doesn’t guarantee they will be customer friendly.

If you want to make people think you don’t simply tell them your vision and what you believe in, that can come over as preaching. You tell stories, you quote some challenging statistics and you ask questions. You give people the opportunity and space to think about the issues and you create a safe environment to challenge and be challenged. Naturally this involves a lot more risk.

Apply these two approaches to the challenge of employing more staff with a disability would involve different initiatives. You can change behaviour by introducing an interview guaranteed scheme for all applicants registered as disabled. You can set recruitment targets, you can change the wording on application forms and job adverts to make it explicit that the organisation positively welcomes applications from people with a disability but this is unlikely to challenge the stereotypes and myths of those on the interview panel or make work colleagues think about disability. The most effective way I have experienced of getting people to think about disability was when a young person with a learning disability was placed in the admin team supporting the senior management team. This was more than work experience, some hours were taken from an existing vacancy to create a part time posts for someone with a learning disability as part of meeting a recruitment target but also to identify and overcome any problems real or perceived in employing someone with a learning disability. The result was a lot more thinking, debate and shift in views than would happen through any exhortation to equality or training course because of course this was no longer about people with a disability this was about Mark.

Of course this was risky and involved lot more management input which is why so many managers resort to telling staff what to think, it’s easier!

Blair McPherson author of Equipping managers for an uncertain future and An elephant in the room an equality and diversity training manual both published by www.russellhouse.co.uk

Morale is low but staff are not leaving the public sector. That is the findings of research by recruitment consultants Badenoch and Clark. It is hardly surprising that morale in general is low given job losses, redeployments, pay cuts and increased workloads. But moral is also determined by your relationship with your boss, how well you get on with colleagues and in the public sector you are still getting a sense of worth through doing a job that makes a difference.

Whilst those who could go on voluntary redundancy and early retirement have gone the remaining staff do not have a great desire to go elsewhere. The research found this was particularly true of staff who had been in post some considerable time. The private sector may be even less attractive due to poorer pensions, less holidays and increased job insecurity but most telling was the view that working for a profit mean a loss of a sense of purpose or that feeling of doing something worthwhile.

It is not hard to imagine that this sense of doing something worthwhile might be stronger in some areas of service like social care but perhaps we underestimate the strength of feeling in other areas of the public sector.

The option of transferring into a social enterprise organisation hasn’t materialised for most staff and cuts to funding of the voluntary sector make for even greater job insecurity.

From the research it would appear that 64% of staff who say they were planning to sit tight in their current post had taken the view better the devil you know. This message is reinforced by the fact that only 31% are happy in their job. This finding should not be taken by employers as evidence that they don’t need to worry about staff leaving due to low morale. They should be worried about staff who have no intension of going anywhere but are unhappy in their jobs. It should also be a concern that so many staff were content doing the same jobs because transforming public sector organisations don’t want or need them to do the same jobs.

What is clear is that employers can build on the sense of commitments the service, reward the expertise that exists and recognise the importance of relationships at a team level.

Blair McPherson author of Equipping managers for an uncertain future and People management in a harsh financial climate both published by www.russellhouse.co.uk

According to research undertaken by the Salisbury Foundation Trust bullying doesn’t bother most staff. A survey of 300 nursing staff to identify the work issues that most concern them put excessive workloads and abusive patients at the top of the list, leading to a rather misleading headline in the Health Service Journal (HSJ) that Bullying doesn’t bother staff.

 In the same on line issue of the HSJ there was reference to another report highlighting the continued high levels of absenteeism in the NHS. I am sure I am not the only one to recognise the link between absenteeism, heavy workloads, management bullying and abusive patients.

A previous survey commissioned by the Royal College of Nursing reported exhausted nurses being pressurised by managers to work over and do extra shifts to cover for absent colleagues and vacant posts. Staffing shortages have an impact on patient care. If staff are rushing round trying to do two peoples jobs then some patients will have to wait longer than they think they should to get the attention they need. Some will respond by being abusive.

Staff should not have to put up with abusive patients, management bullying or excessive workloads. But they do and it has an impact on their wellbeing and their attendance.

Asking staff what bothers them most and them listing their concerns in the order they cause most distress fails to recognise the vicious circle. A circle that senior managers need to break. And I don’t mean sacking staff who are off sick. I mean establishing adequate staffing levels, ensuring vacancies are filled quickly, supporting staff who are subject of abuse not viewing it as just part of the job and employing managers who can see beyond the immediate budget issue and short term performance targets.

Blair McPherson author of Equipping managers for an uncertain future and People management in a harsh financial climate both published by www.russellhouse.co.uk

It may seem unfair but your boss doesn’t care how hard you work. The fact that you come in early, stay late and take work home counts for nothing. Your effort may or may not be noted but it won’t be rewarded. The promotion and pay rise goes to those who deliver. As a manager and leader you are not paid for your sweat but for your knowledge, skills and ability to deliver.

Imagine an industrialist whose production line inexplicitly keeps breaking down costing millions in lost output. An expert is brought in to sort the problem and with the turn of one screw solves it. The factory owner is presented with a bill for £10,000. Affronted he demands an itemised bill. The expert is happy to oblige.”For the turning of one screw £1 for knowing which screw to turn £9,999”.

This story illustrates that it is not time and effort that we are paying for but results. It should also alert us to the fact that those footing the bill don’t want us to make it look too easy and do expect some sweat for their money. The smart expert will explain all the things that could be causing the problem, that they will need time to investigate but will provide regular progress reports and of course will over estimate how long it will take to fix the problem.

The same is true for managers in this performance driven culture you don’t just have to deliver you have look like you working hard to get the results.

Blair McPherson author of Equipping managers for an uncertain future published by www.russellhouse.co.uk

It may have been copy cat criminality, opportunism and thrill seeking but to dismiss it as weak parenting and soft policing is to fail to recognise the real challenge the rioters present. So far half of those appearing before the courts have been juveniles. You can’t send a 12 year old to prison. What a 12 year old doesn’t understand and what the average teenager doesn’t yet recognise is that you don’t become house proud until you have a home of your own, you don’t get the work ethic until you have a career and you don’t become responsible until you have someone else to be responsible for. So what do we do while we are waiting for young people to grow up? Taking them away from their weak parents and allowing the police to administer rough justice on the streets is not going to make young people grow up quicker or make them responsible citizens it will just fuel resentment. For most young people it will be university, work and a girlfriend/boyfriend that gives them stability and an invested interest in society. But for a small but significant minority higher education isn’t an option, lengthy period of unemployment seem the most likely prospect, poor housing seems inevitable and a stable family life may be difficult to achieve. These are not new problems every generation has minority groups who are at risk of exclusion but in times of economic hard ship and high unemployment their numbers are swollen.

 We do have the answers, local youth projects, schemes designed to equip young people with the skills and confidence to improve their job prospects, steer them away from criminality and help them find somewhere to live. The trouble is that local authority funding and grants to voluntary groups who carry out this work have been cut in the current harsh financial climate. The response of the media, politicians and the general public to scenes of violence and looting is to demand Robocop policing and harsh prison sentences not increased grants to youth organisations. We are more likely to see funding restored to police forces than to voluntary groups.

Blair McPherson www.blairmcpherson.co.uk is a former Director of Community Services for a large local authority and author of books on management in the public sector.

Your ideal job would be a development officer in a Housing Association or a fund raiser for a children’s charity or a marketing manager for a large voluntary organisation. Maybe you have always wanted to be a Youth Worker.

 Whatever your ideal job the posts just don’t seem to be advertised in the current economic climate. Maybe organisations are just not recruiting, maybe they are looking to fill posts internally or maybe they have cut their advertising budget and are only advertise locally. Is it worth approaching organisations direct or would you just be wasting your time and their time?

Simply sending your CV to all the Housing Associations in your locality is unlikely to get you very far. You need to do some home work. After college I worked in a residential Home but soon realised that the career opportunities were very limited. I decided I needed to get a social work qualification if I was to get on. I was fortunate to have a conversation with a fried of a friend at a party who told me about trainee schemes that some social service departments had. I wrote to the head of training at every the large social service departments in the country asking if they ran a social work trainee scheme and if they did how I could apply. I received only one reply but this included details and an application form. I was incredibly lucky with the timing of my enquiry. I tell you this to offer some encouragement. If you want to improve your chances you need get the names and contact details of people in the HA who might be able to advice you. You are asking who is responsible for housing development in the HA you are interested in? Are there any vacancies at the moment or any likely to come up in the near future? Where do they advertise vacancies when they arise? What skills, experience and qualifications would they be looking for in some one applying for a housing development post. Ideally what you want to do is make a personal contact find someone will to give you half an hour to talk to you about their job in housing development and then build on that. Perseverance will pay off but be prepared for lots of non responses and be flexible you may have to get your foot in the door first and do jobs to gain the type of experience that will make you a strong candidate for that vacancy in housing development when it comes up. 

Blair McPherson author of Equipping managers for an uncertain future and People management in a harsh financial climate both published by www.russellhouse.co.uk

It has never been easier to get your opinions out there. At one time you would have been restricted to a letter to the editor or an article in the professional press. Now you can blog, tweet and add your comments on line. Yet those who have the most interesting things to tell us remain silent.

The public sector is very news worthy, Local Authority budget cuts, NHS reforms, Welfare rights changes, University fees and school admissions. The journalists are busy, the experts free with their quotes but even the professional press seems devoid of any real insights. Many of the articles are written by people working for think tanks or management consultants reporting on their recent survey which surprise, surprise indicates that more use should be made of management consultancies!

What we need is articles written by senior managers giving us the inside story on coming to terms with the Governments radical agenda for the public sector whilst meeting the challenge of increased demand, rising expectations and big budget cuts.

The chief executive may still be writing a blog for staff although the ghost writers have probably taken over by now as there is not much new to say about the budget, everyone knows about their passion for their football team, it’s hard to make Health and Safety interesting and its tiring having to repeatedly defend charging staff for car parking.   

When an article does appear written by a senior manager it is usually a thinly disguised piece of PR, how we are making Call Centres work, how we did a brilliant deal with BT which will save us millions (at least 2 million) over the next 100 years.

Since we all face the same challenges we are all genuinely interested if someone has found a way of doing more with less, making efficiency savings without adversely affecting front line services or spinning straw into gold.

We would like to know how the political process was managed. What wheeling and dealing went on behind the scenes? How were changes in working practises sold to the Trade Unions? Did politicians front up media interviews or was it left to officers? How was the public consultation organised to avoid a Judicial Review yet come up with the right answer? What compromises or u turns were made on the way? What pressures were you subjected to from treasures, the Audit Commission or the Care Quality Commission and how did you resist this? Oh and is it true you have a new job?

Blair McPherson author of People management in a harsh financial climate and Equipping managers for an uncertain future both published by www.russellhouse.co.uk