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I don’t recommend getting the sack as a way to advance your career. But if you have never failed, never been out of step with colleagues and never refused to compromise then you probably don’t have what it takes to get to the top. Of course being seen as opinionated, abrasive and intolerant of those less able and less committed than yourself will not endear you to your colleagues. Whether you are sidelined as an awkward personality or ear marked as a rising star will depend on your ability to carry the staff with you and get the job done.

In the current climate where senior managers are treated like football managers and organisations are judge on their position in a league table you will inevitably be faced with an ambitious set of performance indicators, expected to deliver efficiencies and find new sources of income. Sometimes you will be able to deliver on these demanding expectations but inevitably you will fail at some point. How you deal with these setbacks will determine how far you go. Rising stars need bounce back ability.

Remember every management star who makes it to the top has been sacked at least once in their career.

Blair McPherson author of UnLearning management and Equipping managers for an uncertain future both published by Russell House follow Blair on Twitter @blairmcpherson1

If I had to say what my bosses management motto was I would say “don’t let them feel comfortable”.  A new boss can make people feel a little uneasy with talk about things needing to change until you’re clear what changes. The initial team meetings were uncomfortable because he didn’t say anything. I assumed this was just part of getting to know the organisation by sitting and listening. In some ways this was quiet refreshing here was someone who wanted to learn about the organisation rather than just jump in with a new set of priorities. As time when on and there were no clues to what he was thinking people were forced to second guess where he stood? The policy unit would nervously present a paper to the senior management team and he would go round the table asking each director for their response. You might assume that was to encourage discuss and debate but you would be wrong. The best example of this approach was at a recent meeting with a large cross section of mangers when asked what the organisation position was he turned to me and said perhaps you could explain that to everyone. He caught me by surprise I could either make somthing up on the spot and hope he agreed but if he didn’t then he would publicly correct me in front of my own staff. I choice to own up and say “Actually I don’t know what our position is “. Of course this made me look at best out of the loop and at worst incompetent. After the coffee break he introduced the session on the budget by saying to a senior manager in the audience we need to get through this session so there is no time for questions is that understood Brian?

It is now clear that discussion is discouraged, debate is viewed as unnecessary and criticism is considered to be disloyal.

 In her new book “Delivering public services that work” Charlotte Dell gives case example after case example of public sector organisations that have found a better way of doing something only to find that instead of being more widely adopted they are ignored in favour of more politically fashionable but unproven solutions. In a recent article in the professional press (Public Servant Magazine May 2012) professor Seddon vents his frustration at the lack of evidence based policy. He characterises government minister’s approach when shown evidence of what works as “that’s very interesting but I have an unproven idea that I believe will be better”

Whitehall he complains only accepts evidence that fits with the story already being told. Fiona Millar in the Guardian (8 May 2012) makes the same point in an analysis of a string of government education policy initiatives which ignore inconvenient research evidence.

It isn’t just Whitehall where policy is driven by party political ideology it is also a feature of local government.

Whether it is a government minister or the leader of the local council, whether the message is spoken out loud or simply understood the effect is the same. Currently this message from the Tory faithful is, “find ways to use choice and competition to make public services better”. This is very different to saying ” I understand tenants want repairs don more quickly or claimants want welfare benefits process more promptly what do we know will do this?”

It has always been like this and always will be when you work in a political environment. The task facing every local government senior manager is how to negotiate a way through. 

 I worked in a traditional Labour authority where mangers were tasked to come up with a strategy for the future of in-house residential care which would address the fact the authority did not have the capital to bring it’s buildings up to standard and a bed in the private sector could be purchased for two thirds of the cost of one in-house. The evidence was clear an increased investment in domicile services would both reduce the demand for beds and provide service users with help in the way they wanted it. The business case for closing all of the authority’s homes and reinvesting the money in domicile care was undeniable but politically unacceptable. The unspoken message was we want to carry on being a direct provider of residential care because we don’t believe that good care is compatible with the profit motive. We want to continue to be a large employer because we believe that is the best way to encourage others to be good employers.  

In these situations the officers have to find a solution. In the case of residential homes it came down to how many should close and where were they located. The remaining homes would offer specialist services justifying their higher costs.

Sometimes it is just about knowing which ideological buttons to press. A colleague in HR moved from a labour authority with a high ethnic minority population and a strong political commitment to equal opportunities to a conservative authority with a very small ethnic minority where” human rights” were considered an example of daft political correctness. I asked how they could do their job in such an environment the response was well I do exactly the same as I did at the last place only I never refer to equal opportunities I always phrase it in terms of good customer care because that’s what they are into.

It is true politicians of all parties are selective when it comes to the evidence so what should officers do beat them over the head with it or do what they have always don find a way forward.

Blair McPherson author of Unlearning management and Equipping managers for an uncertain future both published by Russell House. Follow Blair on Twitter @blairmcpherson1

First the good news things aren’t as bad as some predicted. Now the not so good news as there is less services to cut and fewer efficiencies to be made it becomes harder to protect services to the most vulnerable. This is the message coming from local authority chief executives and heads of finance as we enter another year of austerity.

 In a recent survey of 50 local authorities by the RCA a third reported achieving budget savings by cutting a little from every budget where as the majority were cutting costs by setting up shared services and contracting out services. On top of this over a quarter of authorities had been forced to cut discretionary services such as grants to voluntary organisations. Chief executives were now expressing concerns about internal support services, children services and adult social care.

Only one in five local authorities thought engaging with the voluntary sector would enable them to plug the service gaps.

 Whilst authorities have met their short term budget reduction targets they are finding it increasingly difficult to soften the blow of spending cuts.

 Public consultation has been a feature of delivering service cuts but any cuts to front line services are controversial as seen by the experience of proposals to close libraries, day centres and residential homes.

The longer term challenge facing local authorities is to scale down their operations to live within a smaller budget. This isn’t just a case of doing a little less of everything it involves stopping some services altogether, out sourcing services where this is cheaper and combing with other organisations to gain economies of scale.

 Despite the fact that other surveys have shown that many chief executives are not convinced that the private sector is more efficient or is an appropriate partner for a public sector organisation this looks increasingly like the way forward especially as they is no confidence in the voluntary sectors ability to fill the gaps.

RSA in partnership with the Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) are producing a series of reports to share what local authorities are doing to plug the gaps, how services and service delivery is being re shaped and how authorities are attempting to soften the blow of spending cuts.

It is of course extremely useful to have best practise pulled together in one place and able to be shared but who is going to come up with these new ways of doing things? Many of the experienced operational mangers, policy officers and project managers who might have been tasked to do so have been sacrificed in restructurings to achieve short term budget savings. Those left in the new slimmer and flatter structures are fully occupied managing a broader range of service, hitting ambitious performance targets and delivering ever demanding efficiency targets. In addition to which these major changes have to be delivered in a political environment where unpopular decisions can cost you in the ballot box something that will be on the minds of many local politicians as they digest the result of the recent local elections. 

Blair McPherson author of UnLearning management published by Russell House. Follow Blair on Twitter @blairmcpherson1

Managers need to take a hard look in the mirror to see themselves as others see them. That’s according to a new report by the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development. The report arises out of CIPD quarterly “Employee Outlook” survey which identifies a significant gap between managers’ image of themselves and the experience of those they manage. The report provides evidence of the size of the gap but does not offer much insight into the reason for it existence. 

I regularly experienced this “reality gap” as a senior manager. The policy was clear every manager should provide one to one meetings with their staff once a month. All managers claimed to do this yet staff surveys, feedback from training courses and disciplinary hearings all provided evidence to the contrary.

When pursued most managers genuinely thought they provided regular one to one sessions with a few disclaimers for annual leave, sickness and the occasional double booking. The reality as evidenced by the supervision records was some what different. The gap was in the difference between sessions booked and those that happened. Managers were surprised at how many sessions failed to take place because one or other was on holiday or something else came up at the last minute. Once cancelled sessions weren’t rearranged often because there was another in what was already a crowed diary.

The same difference in perceptions was found when exploring what was covered in these meetings. Managers were clear that they provided feedback, encouragement and discussed personal development. Employees said sessions were routinely used to allocate work, chase missed deadlines and occasionally sign a training form which they didn’t consider constituted discussing professional development. 

Some managers when challenged were even less conscientious saying that they didn’t think the policy on one to one supervision applied to all groups of staff giving admin as an example and saying experienced staff didn’t need that level of support. Or simply that they had too many staff to provide all of them with regular sessions.

Some managers have good intensions but are just too busy, some know what’s expected and just ignore it as unrealistic and some think it is a waste of time. The research makes the point that good managers make the time to support their staff. 360 degree feedback might help managers see how their staff view them but even then some mangers would find it difficult to square the feedback with their perception of themselves.

 From my experience the most effective way to develop managers self awareness and people skills is through coaching were the coach observes the individual in a variety of management situations like a team meeting or a one to one session and provides detailed feedback.

Blair McPherson is author of Equipping managers for an uncertain future which contains a detailed case study on the use of mentoring and coaching as part of a management development programme and is published by Russell House. 

They say the bigger the liepublic sector  the more people will believe it. Lies don’t come much bigger than the private sector is more efficient than the public sector but you try telling that to the Daily Mail. It is assumed that because a private sector company has to make a profit it will cut overheads to a minimum, have a lean management structure and keep a very tight control on costs. Likewise organisation because they are cushioned from the harsh realities of the market have bloated management structures and old fashioned ways of working that fit the convenience of staff rather than the needs of customers. Private sector organisations can make a profit without being well managed especially if they can enter into a favourable contract with a less savvy public sector partner and they don’t have to be more efficient to be cheaper than the public sector they just have to pay their staff the minim wage.

According to a recent survey by the management consultancy Hay Group whilst public sector leaders predict an increase in public –private “collaboration” they oppose and even resent the trend. In their report “Relationship Counselling” senior managers refute claims that the private sector can deliver public services more efficiently. There is a strong feeling in some parts of the public sector that contracting out of services is being forced on them simply because it is cheaper. Those who have worked their way up through the public sector are very uncomfortable about doing deals with the private sector. Past experience has left many senior managers feeling that slick private sector operators have taken advantage of public sector organisations, that coucilors have been seduced by glossy presentations and the promise of painless budget savings and officers have been out manoeuvred by cleaver sales techniques and smart lawyers.

That Private Finance Initiative that looked attractive at the time turned into a deal that means the money will keep rolling to the private company for decades? Out sourcing IT appeared to solve the problem of finding the capital to updating the organisations IT systems but it turned out that we were who sold a Rolls Royce when all we needed was a mini, that deal to provide all our HR, finance, admin and legal support was a master stroke in reducing over heads until we wanted to adjust the contract and discovered the punitive get out clause.

It is not inevitable that the predatory private sector will rip off the naive public sector but neither does it follow that the private sector will offer better value for money in the long term.

Most local authorities no longer have their own residential care homes for older people or have closed most of them retaining only a token hold in the local market. The reason for this is that a care bed in a private home can be bought for a lot less a lot less. The biggest over head in the care business is staffing costs. The private sector is cheaper because it pay the majority of care staff the minimum wage with no enhancement for working evenings and weekends.  Local Authorities view themselves as model employers with favourable pay and conditions and opportunities for staff development.

 The same is true of the home care market where the local authority home helps have most been replaced by dozens of small to medium size businesses employing hundreds of staff on rock bottom wages offering work but not a career. Not surprisingly they find it hard to hang on to their staff who leave as soon as something better comes along even if that is stacking selves in the super market. And what are the two biggest complaints from service users/ customers- that the high turnover of staff and the lack of experience of staff results in personal care being provided by a succession of inexperienced strangers. Cheaper but not necessarily more efficient and certainly not better.

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

They were working late again on Friday and then all in on Saturday and Sunday. The inspectors were due on Tuesday. All this frantic last minute preparation makes you wonder how bad the school is.

It wasn’t like this in Social Services. Yes we did all that we could to show ourselves in the best possible light- made sure the case recording was up to date, that any actions agreed at previous inspections had been carried out, were able to tell a good story about our performance figures, highlight any innovative projects and ensure staff were full briefed without appearing to have been given a script. From experience we realised the importance of providing a “minder”, someone to ferry the inspectors around make sure they got to the varies locations and meetings on time, see what they saw, hear what they heard and give us direct feedback on how it was going. As the Director I was available at the end of each day for a coffee, the opportunity to answer an questions that might have arose during meetings with staff or service users and an opportunity to correct any false impressions them may have gained. All very relaxed really and well worth the expense of having a small project team working on the preparations for a few months in advance.

Blair McPherson  author of UnLearning management. Follow Blair on Twitter @blairmcpherson1

A recent opinion piece in the top people news paper The Times suggested that we should feel bad for our bosses because it’s tough at the top. The writer went on to explain that these days people did not deferrer to their superiors as we no longer automatically accepted that they knew best and that in the age of the internet “unelected commentators, blog bullies, gossips and even comedians”  felt they had a right to have a go.

If you have a high profile job then your decisions and performance is going to draw comment. Whether you are the England football manager, the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Chancellor of the Exchequer criticism goes with the territory. Football is all about opinions, if you make a statement about homosexuality or abortions you are courting controversy and all politicians are fair game since they claim to have all the answers. I would add to this group anyone who votes themselves a massive bonus in a time of austerity, job losses and wage freezes.

But there is a serious issue behind the obvious fun to be had at the expense of the pious, the greedy and the self important. If we blame those in charge when something doesn’t work out simply because they are in charge then we risk creating a climate where the best will simply remove themselves from the firing line. This is particularly true of the public sector where the media seem to take the view that standards of accountability should be higher and that if something goes wrong someone must be to blame. The classic case is when a child known to social services dies due to the neglect or abuse of their parents. The tragedy is often over simplified in an attempt to allocate blame when several agencies and a number of individuals are involved. The result is to call for the head of the Director even though they had no direct involvement and were relying on the professional competence of their managers and staff. A resent example were the calls for the resignation of the head of the Care Quality Commission following the failure to pick up on abuse in a home that had previously been inspected and failure to meet an ambitious target for carrying out inspections. This despite the disruption of two imposed reorganisations and a major cut in budget.

It benefits no one to treat public sector bosses like football mangers or politicians and whilst they may have a vision for a better place and may be keen to promote a set of values they are not the Archbishop of Canterbury.  Of course this doesn’t mean you can’t have a pop at the boss if they ask for feedback on the latest plans to charge you for parking your car at work, introducing hot desking or removing all the chairs from the conference room as a way of cutting down on the time spent in meetings.

Blair McPherson author of UnLearning management and People management in a harsh financial climate both published by Russell House. Follow Blair on Twitter @blairmcpherson1    

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I think I have just seen the first indications that the battle has been lost. All that remains are some brave words. A few pockets of resistance will hold out for as long as possible, the fanatics will redouble their efforts as fanatics do when their cause is lost but the words of the new President of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) give the game away. Sarah Pickup in her first interview on taking up her new post is quoted as saying there is still a role for qualified social workers working with adults. By saying” still” she concedes that it is no longer assumed that older people or people with a disability should be entitled to the same degree of professional support as children and young people. She confirms this interpretation by saying that in Hertfordshire she reduced the number of social workers working with older and disabled people.

 I am being a little unfair because what she actually said was there is still a big role for qualified social workers working with adults. But then she is the president of the Adult directors of social services and so is presumably the biggest defender of professional standards of social work with older people and people with a disability. If I wasn’t being generous I might interpret what she was saying as there is a diminished role for qualified social work with older people, people with a learning disability and people with a physical disability but still a need for qualified social workers to work with those with mental health problems.

 It may be that she did not intend to indicate that certain client groups were less in need of qualified social work support but that certain tasks weren’t. If so then I think she has already spent too much time sitting round tables with government advisors because that is not how it works on the front line. The corner stone of social work with adults is the assessment from this all else follows. When you receive a referral you can’t tell what the outcome of the assessment will be. The original request might be fairly low level phrased in terms of day care, help in the home or a hand rail and stair lift only when a skilled assessor gets to work would other more serious concerns come to light.

I am not saying there isn’t a role for social work assistants. I am not saying that everyone who works with older people or people with a learning disability should be qualified any more than I would say every one working with children should be a qualified social worker. But as a profession we have been here before. In the days of generic social work and generic social work teams the qualified social workers were allocated the child care and mental health cases and most of the work with older people and people with a disability was carried out by social work assistants and students on placement. The result was that despite some very able, experienced and committed social work assistants the status of this work reflected the fact that it was carried out by unqualified staff. As a result there were fewer resources to help people say in their own homes and it was harder to challenge other professionals like ward sisters and GP’s who were more concerned with the risks than the rights of the individual.

So let no one claim that the reduction of qualified social workers working with adults is anything other than a cost cutting measure and that includes the new president of the ADASS.

Blair McPherson former director of community services and author of Equipping managers for an uncertain future and People management in a harsh financial climate both published by Russell House. Follow Blair on Twitter @blairmcpherson1

A recent report expressed concern about the number of hospital patients discharged in the middle of the night. How things have changed. When I qualified as a social worker ward staff would conspire with hospital social workers to ensure elderly vulnerable patients were not discharged on a Friday. The ward staff would hold onto a patient over the weekend due to the difficulties of organising support services on a Friday afternoon.

In those days there was no Day Care on Saturdays and Sundays, the meals on wheels weekend service had a waiting list and home helps worked Monday to Friday anything else was considered a special favour. The consultant who was so inconsiderate as to pronounce a patient ready for discharge on a Friday ward round would not be in at the weekend so what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt. They probably did know but in those days they were less inclined to support hospital managers.

Services are now available at the weekend, well a 15 minutes home care “pop in “ service enough time to make a sandwich a cup of tea and ensure the person takes their tablets. They will probably spend the weekend in bed and be padded up if they can’t make it to the bedside commode. Still better than being discharged in the early hours to an empty flat or to the care of an equally frail partner with the promise that social services will be in contact.

Blair McPherson author of UnLearning management and People management in a harsh financial climate both published by Russell House. Follow Blair on twitter @blairmcpherson1