The Progressive Service and re-imagining the organization

There are lots of fantastic aspects of being a college student - the parties, the football games, the almost complete lack of real responsibility when compared to what often comes next - the corporate world, the 9-to-5 grind, and trying reasonably hard not to screw up, (after all, all that fun in college came with a price tag, probably in the form of tens of thousands of student loans to pay off).

But besides all the obvious fun and cool elements of student life, there is at least one other - the chance to work on projects, develop ideas, and present provocative concepts all safe in the knowledge that these ideas will usually be evaluated mostly on their creativity and inspiration, and not out in the real world where at most organizations they are likely to be met with 'That's not how we do things here' or 'That will never work' or 'Who are you again?'

And out in the real world massive, transformational organizational re-designs almost never actually happen (and work). There is so much legacy baggage, locked-in contracts and structures, and often a substantial level of resistance to change that the change that anyone tries to make to an entrenched institution is usually incremental and small in nature.  All change is hard. Big change is just about impossible to pull off.

With all that in mind, I recommend taking a look at a student project that focuses on the kind of massive change that is normally only talked about in the detached, theoretical setting of academia. The below presentation is titled United States Postal Service Thesis, and was created by Tom Calabrese for a Masters program. The deck, which presents some ideas and kind of radical concepts for the US Postal Service of the future, is below, and I'll have a quick comment/challenge after the break.

United States Postal Service Thesis from Tom Calabrese

Did you click through the deck? What did you think?

A couple of things stood out to me. One, that providing, for a price, the ability to refine and tailor your own mail delivery preferences is an idea worth pursuing. And two, the more radical idea about somehow connecting the Postal Service social graph to other, more higher value add services and products.

But the real reason why I decided to post about this was not any of the specific proposals for the USPS, but rather as it was a great reminder that we almost never spend any time thinking about re-imagining our own organizations in a similar manner. Now certainly most of our organizations don't face the same number and type of daunting problems the USPS faces, but it's also certain that we underestimate the problems, (maybe ones that have not yet even manifested), that face our organizations.

So the challenge is this - what if you could (or had to), completely re-imagine your workplace?

What if you were to start from a blank sheet, or close to it, and start over?

What would you keep? What would you let go? What are you doing simply because of inertia and tradition and internal resistance to change?

What would the 'new' organization look like?

Have a great week all!

Committing a felony is against team policy, and other things we shouldn't have to say

Is is quite possible that after the National Basketball Association, my next favorite league/sport to watch and follow is soccer's English Premier League. It is a fantastic sport to watch, and the top level of English teams like Manchester United, Arsenal, and Chelsea are some of the most valuable and popular sports teams in the entire world.

The Premier League club I support is Liverpool, (for reasons too boring to re-tell), and while I am not a super hardcore supporter, I do try and keep up with the off-season player transfers and signings by the club and other elements of club-related news.

But this bit of Liverpool team news that was reported earlier in the week, Liverpool issue list of 'unacceptable' words to fight discrimination made me pause for a moment, as it is once again, in classic 8 Man Rotation style, the worlds of sports and HR colliding.Click to enlarge

Rather than try to summarize the entire piece, I will just lift quote from the Guardian piece referenced above: 

Liverpool have issued members of staff with a list of "unacceptable" words and phrases in their efforts to combat all forms of discrimination at Anfield. (a pic of the leaked list of 'words you better not say is at right)

The guide, part of a wider education programme run by the club, details terms that employees should deem offensive under the headings of race/religion, sexual orientation, gender and disability. Most are self-explanatory and the guide advises that it is "important to understand the context of what's being said", as in the use, under gender for example, of "princess" or "don't be a woman" on the Anfield terraces next season.

Liverpool's list of what is "usually offensive and the club considers unacceptable" has been given to all full-time and casual members of staff who have contact with the public on matchdays or on a daily basis. The club were widely criticised for their support of Luis Suárez when the striker was found guilty in December 2011 of having used racially abusive language towards Patrice Evra but view their education programme as one of several proactive measures taken to combat discrimination.

That is fantastic, (sarcasm on). A list, organized by type of slur, of the things that you probably ought not to say at work, heck, you probably ought not to say anywhere.

I can only imagine the day the HR or Operations folks (or whomever crafted this list) sat around the conference table saying things like, 'There has to be more ways to offend gay people. C'mon - let's think darn it!'.

I get why Liverpool specifically, and football/soccer more generally take the issue of discrimination seriously enough to want to be extremely precise and particular about the standards of behavior and discourse that are expected, and what, again specifically, is unacceptable. There continues to be ugly incident after ugly incident of incredibly offensive and even violent actions that are in one way or another tied back to the sport. They can't pretend that is not the reality and recent history in their industry.

But then again, creating and distributing a printed list of these (mostly), obviously offensive words seems a little strange too. Did they really think their employees don't realize the N-word is offensive and it should not be used in the workplace?

A bunch of years back when he was the head football coach at Oklahoma University, Barry Switzer was asked during a press conference to try and explain the reasons for a recent spate of player run-ins with the law, including a couple of pretty serious charges like car theft and assault. After trying to talk about the team expectations and support structures in place to try and prevent such incidents an exasperated Switzer finally said, 'I didn't think I had to put a sign on the locker room wall saying that 'Commiting a felony is against team policy.'

That story is what I recalled when reading about the Liverpool 'list of things we shouldn't have to tell you not to say, but we can't figure out why enough people don't realize that so we had to make this list to be sure'.

People can be really disappointing sometimes I guess.

25 slides on recruiting, no pictures, lots of bullet points, read it anyway

If you are having problems explaining the recruiting process, process step participants and owners, the overall goals of the recruiting program, and even the desired outcomes to your team, your hiring managers, or even your leaders - then I think you would do a lot worse than to share and walk them through this simple, 25-slide deck from legendary Silicon Vallley VC Daniel Portillo. (the slides are embedded below as well, email and RSS (are there any of those left?), will need to click through).

Recruiting: Good to Great from Daniel Portillo

The money lines from my point of view (assuming you are way too busy to look at 25 slides) with some SMB comments after each point

Slide 5 - The goal of recruiting is more than just a repeatable process, it is about crafting an overall experience.

SB - Definitely needed, and definitely requires that you have the time to take a step back and be really thoughtful and mindful of the overall process/experience. This is more than 'we should treat rejected candidates well', in fact it is probably more about how to treat highly desired and hard to find candidates in a way that respects their time and career aspirations.

Slide 7 - When 'setting up' the candidate, make sure you understand what will the person work on the first 3, 6, 12 months? Why is it interesting?

SB - If you can't 'sell' what is interesting about the job, no one with a decent other option, (including staying at the job they have now), will give you a second thought. If the job isn't inherently interesting, then there had better be some other compelling factors you can push to the center of the table, (insane comp, telework, lots of stock, etc.).

Slide 9 - Who are the decision makers? Parents, wife, kids, etc…

SB - Does anyone, I mean anyone, take a new job without at least talking it over with someone close to them? Do you factor that in at all? You probably should.

Slide 15 - When in the 'evaluation' stage - Make sure you ask:  'When have you gone out of your way to do something or learn a skill that wasn’t required?'

SB - Probably my favorite line of the deck. Speaks to curiosity, ambition, engagement  - all the things we say are important to organizations today.

Slide 17 - 'Don't hire someone to be the weakest person on the team.'

SB - I like this one too, and have never seen it before. But you have to think about any new hires impact and effect on your existing team before bringing someone new on board. Being the new guy/gal is hard enough - if the team figures out that the new hire is also not all that talented then you have a flame out waiting to happen.

Slide 22 - On what kills the candidate experience? One thing is 'People who don't know what the hell they are talking about.'

SB - This one cuts right to the candidate feeling that their time is being wasted. Everyone you put in front of the candidate should understand the process, the role, and why this candidate in particular is being considered. This is a by-product of companies simply including too many people in the process in what is usually a CYA move set up by someone.

Slide 25  On compensation for tech talent that have lots of options - 'Companies are essentially paying 2 years ahead of current experience.'

SB - This one is really simple, but bears repeating especially for 'non-tech' companies that do need to bring in engineers and developers from time to time. You have no shot at competing for the 'top' talent if you don't raise the comp to what everyone in your shop will consider is overpaying. That is just the way this market works right now.

Ok, that's it from me on this. Take a look at the deck if you are interested and let me know what you think. 

I'm just happy to see a simple, plain, boring deck full of words and bullet points still be so interesting and compelling that it didn't matter how simple and boring it was.

Happy Wednesday.

The three people needed for a successful revolution

Over the weekend I caught this interesting piece on the Kottke.org site titled, The three types of specialist, and I think it is worth taking a look at if either you are at interesting in starting your own revolution, or just want to build better teams in your organization - ones that are more likely to be successful pulling off major change initiatives. And it doesn't hurt that this week here in the US we celebrate Independence Day - our most famous revolution.

The piece quotes from a Kurt Vonnegut book I'd not heard of or read titled Bluebeard, and the key passage describes one character's assessment of the kinds of people that are needed in order to open up people's minds to new ideas and get them to actually consider embracing change.  Rather than simply 'smart people, 'influential people' or 'powerful people', Vonnegut offers up just a bit more detail of the skills, background, and capabilities of the three critical kinds of people needed to drive change.

Simply put, it breaks down like this:

First - You need a true, or authentic genius. This is someone capable of generating original ideas that have not been considered previously. This is, perhaps not surprisingly, the hardest person to find.

Second - A member of the community or organization, who is respected and has some authority (either directly via position, or indirectly via more subtle and social means), such that he or she can validate, defend, and promote the possibly crazy geniuses ideas. This person makes the genius seem less scary, and begins to create an environment where it is safe for others to signal approval or agreement with the idea or proposal for change.

Third - The technician or implementer. This person has to have expertise in the specific technical, operational, or procedural area of the change, and the respect of the front-line people in that discipline whose live and jobs will be most impacted by the change. The technician needs to be able to translate the genius' plan and vocabulary into concepts and language that the organization can understand, and feels more comfortable with. 

And that's it.

Genius --> Respected advocate --> Technician.

It is pretty easy to see where the absence of any of these critical roles would derail any substantial change in an entrenched organization of any kind.

Without the genius and his/her ideas, well all you have are potentially incremental and insignificant changes to existing processes and products. You know, like the 'New and Improved!' laundry detergent that is simply the same old formula in a slightly larger jug.

Without the respected advocate, the genius' ideas are not likely to get enough or lasting traction with what is almost always a skeptical and scared organization. The genius remains safely marginalized as a nut.

And without the technician you lose in a couple of areas. You might not be able to effectively take what are often abstract genius ideas and make them actionable. Plus, the true front-line people in the organization might not now the genius and might not think the respected advocate really understands their jobs and processes enough to tell them how they should be changed. The technician bridges the gap between idea and execution.

Genius --> Respected advocate --> Technician.

A pretty simple formula for building a team that can actually conceive and convince people to change.

And according to Vonnegut anyway, it's the only way to have any chance of actually pulling it off.

Is it a business strategy or a talent strategy?

Last year when the annual 'Culture Eats Strategy' discussion flared up, (Reminder: You are supposed to repeat the phrase 'Culture eats Strategy' for variously breakfast/lunch/dinner/the 3:00AM run to Taco Bell over and over again, even if you don't actually know what it means and have no real way of proving it), I offered a slightly alternative take - that 'Talent', or better and less jargony, 'People' might trump both Cullture and Strategy.

After all, 'people', (remember them?), formulate the business strategy, and shape the culture with their behaviors, actions, interactions, etc. Last year I sort of felt that the silly debate about whether culture was more important that strategy mostly missed the point - without a really dialed-in people or talent pipeline (or factory), it really would not matter how great the culture was/is or how on-point the business strategy seemed on paper.Rue de Banlieue, Maurice Utrillo

But it's more fun, especially in blogs and in social media to keep on talking about culture, I get that. So rather than try and make the 'talent' argument again, I wanted to point out (another) recent example of how all things talent - recruiting, development, succession, even something as HR wonkish as the company dress code, are all coming into play as an entire industy, in this case Financial Services, attempts to reinvent itself in the modern age.

Check this excerpt from a recent piece from Business Insider (via Reuters), Banks are Hiring a Bunch of IT Experts, And It's Going to Reshape Wall Street on how the business strategy (moving to a lot more custom-developed IT products and services) is and has to be shaped by a series of HR/Talent programs:

The investment banking industry is heading into a digital revolution that could redraw not only its business model but also the traditional image of its staff.

Stuck with dwindling profits in an era of poor returns and heavy regulation, the likes of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and HSBC are battling to hire the best software programmers, systems engineers and data analysts, to help them get ahead via new technology and cost-cutting.

With IT expertise now a must for the boardroom, banks' conservative workplaces are likely to undergo cultural change as they welcome ambitious, differently-minded people. "Traditionally, banks have been a lot more narrow in their (hiring) focus. Now collectively they have realized the need to be more creative," said Jeffrey Wallis, managing partner at SunGard Consulting Services, specializing in financial firms.

But the latest wave of technology hires has come about because banks are aiming more specifically to grow revenues by developing tailor-made products and mobile applications based on clients' trading patterns. To do that, they need to attract the top quantitative analysts and software developers - which may mean allowing some of them to work in shorts and tee-shirts from Palo Alto, California, rather than in suit and tie from a skyscraper in London's Canary Wharf.

There's more of the same in the piece, particularly on how some recent and high-profile external executive hires into the financial services industry have what are best described as 'traditional' IT backgrounds, rather than a twenty year career in banking or finance. Addtionally, the financial services firms need to 'seek out' this new kind of talent is highlighted - and how it is even driving decisions around company office locations - with Palo Alto, Tel Aviv, and Singapore just some of the tech centers where they are opening up shop to chase tech talent.

The point of all this, and dredging up the tiresome Culture v. Strategy meme?

It's that the culture argument continually neglects the role that talent plays in organizational success - in executing the business strategy and then in turn creating the type of culture that will attact and allow the right talent to achieve that success.  The story about how the financial services industry is attempting to move laterally to embrace new technology and the types of people that can create these technologies is only partially one about culture. 

It is mostly about identifying the talent needed to execute on the strategy, and developing HR/Talent strategies to deliver that talent.