Today’s guest blog is brought to you from Lucy Adams. Lucy is the best selling author of “HR Disrupted”, a former HR Director with a wealth of experience, and an HR thought leader.
We’re thrilled to be bringing you Lucy’s thoughts because they are so closely aligned with 羞羞视频’s core philosophy of putting people back at the centre of human resources. Anyone who has ever worked in the HR profession will recognise her honest and refreshing take on the issues!
We don’t trust our managers
You know you鈥檙e in trouble when the thinking behind your latest initiative is that 鈥渋f HR doesn鈥檛 manage it, THEY won鈥檛 do it properly鈥. The 鈥淭HEY鈥 in question is, of course, your managers; the people we trust enough to lead the business but not enough to lead our people.
I struggle to think of a time when a new strategy or tactic I introduced as an HR Director wasn鈥檛 shaped by a desire to compensate for poor leaders.
- THEY won鈥檛 have conversations with their team members? Let鈥檚 introduce a system that makes them sit down once a year to do it.
- THEY won鈥檛 tackle poor performance? Let鈥檚 make them allocate their performance ratings on the basis of a pre-determined distribution curve that forces them to put 10% at the bottom.
- THEY won鈥檛 reward their people fairly? Let鈥檚 design a bonus formula that has a number of different measures so they won鈥檛 have much room for manoeuvre.
- THEY won鈥檛 tell their people what鈥檚 happening in the organisation? Let鈥檚 produce a script and insist they cascade this through their teams by a certain date.
- THEY won鈥檛 onboard their people properly? Let鈥檚 take their new starters off them for a week and put them through a programme.
- THEY will hold onto their talented people? Let鈥檚 produce a 9 Box Grid so we know who they are and then make sure we鈥檙e tracking what happens to them.
- THEY won鈥檛 be able to recruit people without being discriminatory? Let鈥檚 have an HR person in every interview to stop it.
We’re often making things worse
Whilst our desire to compensate often stems from a positive intent 鈥 to protect and help employees or the organisation 鈥 the impact, I believe, is corrosive and damaging for three key reasons:
1. We often make things worse
Instead of achieving our aims of great conversations, fair rewards, effective communication and so on 鈥 the processes we make 鈥淭HEM鈥 carry out often deliver just the opposite.
“Sometimes doing nothing would be the better option”
Instead of great conversations we have produced cumbersome performance systems with complicated ratings and distribution curves that often make it impossible for managers to simply have a great conversation. Instead of rewards that surprise, delight and motivate our people, we have created bonus structures that dissatisfy and confuse. Instead of effective communication, managers end up parroting sterile scripts that they don鈥檛 own. Instead of allowing for differentiation based on personal style, the needs of that particular area of the business or the simple common sense requirement to use discretion, we push one-size-fits all processes that managers often box tick or try and find ways of ignoring. Occasionally my HR colleagues will tell me that 鈥渨e know it isn鈥檛 working very well, but it鈥檚 better than nothing鈥. I think sometimes 鈥渘othing鈥 would be better than the things we make them do.
2. We create a culture of co-dependency
By continuing to compensate for poor managers we create a co-dependency with HR that is both unhealthy and dangerous. Whilst we might enjoy the sense of being needed, by failing to address the doubts about their abilities to lead and manage their people, we remain necessary and fail to help them develop the judgement and skills they need to do it on their own.
“By remaining necessary we fail to help managers develop judgement”
In a world of pace and ambiguity, where the ability of managers to make the right decisions quickly is paramount, we keep them childlike and limit their potential.
3. It stops HR from doing what it needs to
Compensating for poor managers places HR in a kind of hybrid role of Chief Super-Nanny/Police/Monitor. Not only does this little for our credibility with the business, it also means that we devote hours to measuring who鈥檚 done what or doing it for them. If I had diverted just 50% of the time I invested in thinking up new ways to make managers do things into creating the conditions where they would do it themselves, I would have been a much better HR leader.
So how can we begin to change the focus for HR?
How do we聽support better managers?
Sadly, there are a lot of poor managers, but maybe fewer than we think if we changed our approach? I believe there are four ways in which we can begin to do this.
1. Don鈥檛 design around the lowest common denominator
If our starting point in HR is about how 鈥淭HEY鈥 won鈥檛 or can鈥檛 then our focus will remain on making them or doing it for them. An alternative approach is to use 鈥渁ppreciative inquiry鈥 and to look at what鈥檚 working well and re-focusing our energies on how it could be even better. Here鈥檚 a nice short video that explains the method in the abstract. In terms of our managers, this can involve looking at what your great managers are already doing and seeing what it is that makes them behave the way they do.
2. Play to their strengths
The leadership competency framework is beginning to look dated and lose its credibility. Instead of producing a list of behaviours that we expect managers to model, it can be helpful to focus on the unique strengths each manager has and helping them understand how they can lead, engage and develop their people in a way that works for them and feels authentic.
3. Focus on the impact
Instead of driving and measuring inputs (numbers of appraisal forms completed, numbers of people trained etc) we can set expectations about and measure what we want their people to feel and experience (ie: we want you to help your people perform at their best, we want you to help your people grow and learn, etc). If we focus on the impact we want them to have as managers but allow them the freedom to deliver it in ways that work for their people, their authentic leadership style, their business context, etc, then we both challenge them to develop and use their particular strengths.
4. Allow judgement
I remember introducing a discretionary 鈥渟pot reward鈥 scheme at the BBC to respond to managers鈥 complaints that the removal of bonuses had left them no ability to thank and recognise discretionary effort. We deliberately withheld creating complex rules for the scheme and said instead that there were only two 鈥 stay in budget and don鈥檛 give one person more than the top amount in any one year. The results were fascinating. The bulk of managers loved the autonomy and used it wisely. A few however, were very anxious about the lack of rules 鈥 primarily because it meant they would have to potentially explain the rationale for giving to one person and not another. (One manager even wrote his own 鈥渞ules鈥 for the scheme to help him manage it!)
We must avoid the urge to create more rules and learn to back off
We must avoid the urge to create more and more rules and instead learn to back-off. Whilst it can be tempting and reassuring to have everything nailed down so there鈥檚 no room for error, it also doesn鈥檛 allow for managers to use and build their judgement and so we are stuck in this cycle of co-dependency.
The sad truth is that HR cannot really compensate for poor leaders and managers. At best, we paper over the cracks and at worst, we can create conditions where the better managers struggle to do it well. If we spent more time making sure we chose better leaders in the first place and less time compensating we鈥檇 do everyone a favour.
You can find out more about Lucy .
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