Maverick Mastery®

There are a number of research projects that show that the more engaged employees are the bigger the productivity increase. Research also shows that there is around 20% of the workforce out performing their peers. So it can seem to be good economic sense to have the 20% as engaged as possible. Often this is the focus of succession plans and internal mentoring schemes. Many readers will have heard of the need to concentrate on ‘high potentials’ or ‘key talent’.

Whilst the intent is laudable often the implementation is not, with only a few exceptionable companies getting the results that they expected or receiving a good return on their investment. The consequence of getting this wrong is not just financial; it can also result in a lack of trust towards the company and the departure of the very people that the company wants to keep.

What is mentoring and does it differ from coaching?

Coaching begins with the premise that the answers are within the person being coached. The coach’s role is to help the individual understand that and via the use of encouraging and questioning techniques, helps elicit the solution. A coach is generally non directional and does not provide advice. Good companies with a strong empowerment culture tend to encourage its managers to have a coaching style and may even employ executive coaches for its top performers. Aspiring companies prefer to have internal coaches to improve the performance of its employees.

By contrast a mentor is an expert who provides guidance and advice within a more developmental relationship. Mentoring requires flexibility of the mentor and their ability to use a wide range of techniques to guide the mentee. Good mentors will apply coaching techniques where applicable and will be unafraid to provide detailed advice on what the mentees next steps are. Mentoring works best for senior executives and Directors – for these individuals coaching is less relevant and useful. This is especially true where it is specific ‘how to’ knowledge that is required rather than a reflective sounding board.

A lot of internal mentoring schemes subscribe to the myth that mentoring needs to be provided by an older more senior employee. This is no longer a truism, mentoring should be provided by a person that is able to provide knowledge and direction in an area that they are experts in. (Not withstanding having the right knowledge, skills, character and behavioural traits).

Often the mentor is a senior manager chosen not because of his skills or the fact that he is a role model but because he is in a senior position. This is problematic for a number of reasons:

• The senior manager does not wish to be a mentor

• The senior manager is very busy and cannot see the value of being a part of the Internal Mentoring Scheme

• The senior manager is a poor role mode

• The senior manager is not credible

Having the wrong mentor for the scheme can have a very adverse effect on the entire mentoring programme. Setting up an internal mentoring scheme without clearly defining and communicating the purpose can also be problematic. I was hired to run a workshop for a group of employees around how they felt they were treated and perceived by their managers and a discussion around why they felt they were being held back in their career. Most of the group felt that they needed an external mentor to help them learn the behaviours and skills that they needed to progress in their careers. I understood that there was an internal mentoring scheme so I queried why they were not using it. The message that came out loud and clear was that they did not trust the scheme. The perception was that it was being used to discover information to be used against them. Many employees quoted examples that they believed reinforced this idea.

The perception that internal mentoring schemes are set up for ill is more common for schemes that are devolved to all employees rather than schemes that are more ‘traditional’. This perception is however one of the reasons that corporate internal mentoring schemes or programmes does not work. There is a lack of trust in the system, especially when the organisational culture does not support the level of openness that a mentoring scheme needs to encourage.

Ill equipped mentors who have not been trained properly and who are unable to deal with the conflicts that will ensue from their role as a mentor, has the capacity not just to destroy the scheme but to irrevocably impact the trust in the organisation. It is important that mentors of internal schemes have an external supervising mentor who can provide guidance as and when appropriate.

Sometimes organisations send out mix messages about their mentoring scheme. For example not allowing the mentor and mentee sufficient time to meet to discuss issues, or by having appraisal systems that actually discourage the use of a mentor. Peer pressure can also discourage their usage as other employees see time spent with the mentor as ‘time off’ and dissuade their colleague for utilising the scheme.

Mentoring schemes are often appropriate ways to develop talented employees who need to understand the key activities that they require to achieve to complete a task, change behaviour or enhance their career. Companies need to understand the environment in which the schemes operate and ensure that there is sufficient trust engendered.

Most companies understand that enabling individuals to work in teams can be a sure fire way to improve the company’s performance. When an air of competition is allowed to permeate the culture it can become rapidly unhealthy leading to aggressive working practices that disable cooperation and productive and efficient work performance.

It is understandable, therefore, that companies want to ‘fix’ failing teams or find ways to improve the performance of teams following mergers or mass redundancies as soon as possible. Unfortunately, companies can often seek a ‘quick fix’ and by doing so determine that a team building exercise over a day or so will solve the problem.

Most people’s perception of a teambuilding day is something akin to a military intervention with either assault courses, with complex problems to solve or paintballing where you are encouraged to compete against fellow work colleagues. These type of events can pose concerns around being very male orientated, difficult for disabled employees to participate and can reinforce stereotypes.

Often these events are seen as a desperate attempt to improve motivation and morale and without good communication the event can be stalled prior to anyone’s attendance on the course. A lot of employees are fearful of what to expect at one of these events and are often reluctant to spend time with their colleagues. It is important to dispel an anxiety prior to their attendance.

Here are the most common reasons why team building events often do not work:

• There is often misunderstanding as to whether the company wants to build a team for a specific purpose or to engender a team working environment. This is an important distinction. When a company is considering teambuilding events they are usually hoping to create a lasting environment that enables employees to understand each other better and to improve their performance in the team. It is this goal that is often not factored into the team building event.

• The team building event is not aligned to the company’s objectives. For example these events concentrate on the attendees having fun and not on achieving set goals. They often do not look at the desired competences required by the company.

• The event may focus on competition over all else. Whilst in a hiring situation competition can provide a useful insight into someone’s character, within a teambuilding setting it can be divisive and destructive if appropriate care has not been taken. This is often because completion brings out the worse in people. It’s possible that having seen someone at their worse you no longer want to work with them!

• The team building event is a one off event without any changes to the company structure, mind set, culture or procedures. This is where organisations believe that a one off event (building bridges out of planks for example) will be the only solution to improving the performance of a failing team. The team becomes confused as to the purpose of the event.

• The team are very busy and would rather concentrate on clearing the outstanding work rather than ‘running through fields’ with their co-workers. They can see the team building event as another example of ‘the management’ not understanding the pressure that they are under.

Recently we were hired by a HR Director who wanted us to deliver a leadership training course that had a large team building component to it. When questioned it became clear that team building wasn’t the biggest issue that he was apprehensive about. He was concerned that the new management team, whilst technically competent were too used to working in silos and not as a consistent strategic team. The biggest issue with the management team was their inability to lead their teams and be able to consider the impact that their decisions were making on the rest of the company. The consequences that the company were facing was reducing market share, increasing employee turnover, poor morale and managers that felt uncomfortable with their enlarged management roles. This was having a significant impact on the profitability of the company and the managers’ poor leadership was having a ripple effect across the company and impacting on the once positive supplier relationship.

In order to enable the company to have more empowered, effective leaders and to reduce the downward trend and have an improved team we designed and delivered a leadership course that also had team building at its core. This meant that rather than having team building sections – we concentrated on increasing the leadership competencies of the team by ensuring that a team working atmosphere was fostered. Having an evening component as part of the course enabled the attendees to relax with each other, put into practice the behaviours that they had learnt and enabled the team to begin to grow together.

It is important to have effective and productive teams working within your organisation. Whenever you are considering running team building interventions to ‘fix’ problem or failing teams, you should consider whether your intervention will meet the strategic and operational of the business.

There are many reasons why a company decides to train their employees although it is not always because they believe it is the best way to improve the skill base of the workforce. This is often because many companies believe that generic training can solve a whole host of performance deficiencies – this is often an expensive mistake.

For example, when assessing company performance the senior team may see the following:

v A loss of market share

v Reducing customers

v Increased employee absences

v Poor customer service

v Bad morale and worker inefficiencies

The most common solution proposed to solve these things is employee training. On the face of it this appears to be an acceptable solution, after all if the employees were appropriately skilled they would enable the company to retain customers and innovate. Employees that receive training that they perceive they need are more motivated, have improved morale and are more likely to enjoy work, reducing their number of absences.

For companies that are profit or cash flow focused then they will radically cut training or cease it altogether. These types of company see training as either a luxury that they can no longer afford or a way to reward high performing employees.

The problem that I see is that businesses in difficult times appear to decide on two things when it comes to training:

v To reduce ‘non essential’ training

v To increase ‘technical’ or soft skills training

Reducing ‘non essential’ training usually means that the company does not implement the learning and development plans agreed with employees at their last performance review. Often how this is communicated to employees is by a mass message that says the company needs to reduce costs and will therefore be putting ‘non essential’ training on hold. It isn’t as common as it should be that this impersonal message is followed up by a personal conversation with the employee’s manager who can put this into context for the employee. This usually means that the employee feels undervalued by the company and is unlikely to trust the company’s future messages when they either relate to them personally (ie ‘next year we will definitely ensure that you get the training that we agreed or there is no money in the budget for a proper pay rise this year but next year we can address your performance properly’) or more generic messaging that ‘our employees are our biggest assets’.

Increasing technical training when reducing ‘employee centric’ training is often seen by the employee as another example of how poorly the company treats them. They can feel that the company is only ‘doing it for themselves’ which often means that there is reduced benefit of the employee attending as their learning isn’t maximised. When increasing soft skills training I see progressively more of a ‘sheep dip’ approach being utilised by companies. This is an expensive misstep as it often increases the costs to the business as the training is not tailored to their particular needs – but has the knock on effect of taking employees out of the business for a day or so to attend the course.

Now more than ever companies need to concentrate on the business and do the right training inventions that will work for them. Expensive gap analysis to determine training needs is often not necessary. An informed look at performance reviews, disciplinaries and grievances, customer complaints and strategic direction can be all that is necessary to determine training priorities. Competent HR practitioners can work with the Operations team to ensure that there is a good match between business need and employee fulfilment.

Training and HR practitioners should ensure that they never buy off the shelf training for their company. One size does not fit all, especially when you factor in company culture, risk awareness and industry setting. All training should be bespoked and delivered by credible trainers that who not only know their subject manner well, but are able to converse knowledgeable on the issues that the employees are facing. Attendees must be chosen carefully to ensure that the right people receive the right training for their needs.

Sometimes the best training intervention for particular employees will be either a coaching or mentoring solution, rather than attendance on a training course. Most companies initially believe that internal coaching or training programmes will deliver best value compared to using external providers. This only holds true in company cultures where the employers are trusted by the employees and that they have good systems in place that match the mentor/coach to mentee/coachee appropriately and where there is true learning and development. Often attendance onto a mentoring/coaching programme is by reward rather than need, which can affect the credibility of the scheme.

Where there are trust issues or competence issues with the company or mentor/coach then an external practitioner is a must. Often timely intervention in this way is more effective than attendance on a course. Where there is little trust the employee will not engage with their internal coach/mentor which means that a solution to their real issue is not found and that the company has wasted the valuable time of two employees.

In times of difficulty there is often a need to ensure that employees are skilled, competent and willing to learn to ensure that the company is one step ahead of the competition and are working within operational budgets. The best way to ensure that this takes place is to be innovative with training interventions ensuring that there is close alignment with the business objectives and training delivery.

Even good managers can find it difficult being effective team leaders, often their efforts can be thwarted by troublesome team members. These team members can have an adverse effect on how a team operates and performs and can present quite a challenge to overcome! Often you can divide troublesome team members into two camps, those that are wilfully independent, mavericks if you will, and those that are difficult because they enjoy causing trouble.

When your team is being affected by a troublesome team member it is important to decide which camp they belong to because how you manage them will be quite different. If the person is someone who enjoys causing trouble, perhaps because they have a grudge to settle or they just find it amusing to be the centre of attention, then you will find that ‘traditional’ management techniques will work well with them. Those that are willfully independent (mavericks), will need a different intervention because they are more likely to need more of your attention and are not motivated in the same way as the rest of the population.

One of the telling differences between these two groups of people is one of intention. Troublesome Talent®, wilfully independent mavericks, only want to do what their believe is right and will risk everything to deliver against that. Difficult people by their very nature, wishes to cause trouble regardless of whether they are right or not in their assumptions. These individuals are easier to manage!

Troublesome Talent® has a particular way in which they need to be managed to ensure that you get the best out of them and they improve the performance of the team rather than distracts and derails it. For best results you should:

• Be available. It is very important that you give Troublesome Talent® the attention that they need at the times that they want it. The worse thing that you can do is ignore them, this will just prompt them to be disruptive to the team and encourage them to undermine you at every opportunity.

• Recognise their expertise. All mavericks thrive on others recognising their expertise and their uniqueness. Do not fall into the trap of constantly praising them as they will not trust constant reinforcement of how good they are. It is more beneficial to look out for the moments when they do something particularly outstanding even for them – and then let them know that you were impressed.

• Be realistic in regards to the necessity of rules. Unlike other types of employees, they find it very difficult to work within rules that appear bureaucratic in nature and do not support the stated goal. Draw up guidelines that they work within rather than constraining rules.

• Give them a compelling reason to change. Let them know that their behaviour is unacceptable, at times when they have gone too far. Get this right and you will have their respect for ever. Remember, the way to do this is to influence them to change their behaviour – employing command and control tactics will make things worse.

• Let them create, even if that means they do this at odd times during the day. If they respect and believe in you, they will work tirelessly to ensure that your vision is implemented and is successful.

• Demonstrate belief in them. Trust is a great motivator and if your Troublesome Talent® senses that you don’t trust them they are likely to turn their talents elsewhere.

Troublesome Talent® is often your most productive member of your team and if managed properly can be a great influencer. Frequently they are described as charming or manipulative, often it is down to you on which behaviour they will exhibit!

Being more credible to the business is often the aspiration of many HR practitioners although they can frequently find this to be elusive. Often HR tends to focus on pushing best practice agendas rather than focusing on what the business actually needs. Many HR practitioners believe that the title HR Business Partner means taking a ‘centralised’ HR mindset and practices to the business rather than being seen by the business as an effective practitioner who can provide strong business advice to help them meet their objectives. HR is the practitioner’s specialism in the same way that finance or marketing is a specialism for other practitioners.

Get the basics right and practice what you preach

The business can expect you to get the HR basics right and that you have enough capability and integrity to ensure that you deliver higher competence levels than you expect from line managers. For example, a basic HR competency is ensuring that the HR Strategy is totally aligned with the business strategy. Always remain objective and holistic in your outlook, avoid group think and a silo mentality.

Spend some time outside of HR

To be credible it’s very important to have spent some time in your career working in other business areas so that you are able to understand and have experience in how business works (from a non HR perspective) and the difficulties that CEOs and the senior team face. Having solid operational experience enables you to have credibility and confidence when you proffer solutions to the business.

Learn to live in the grey – there is no black and white

Often there are no right or wrong answers only gradients of risk, so when you are advising the business be sure to recommend your preferred solution whilst notifying them of the risk or otherwise that they may be facing. Be sure to let them know that it is their decision not yours whilst being supportive and assertive if necessary. Live outside your ‘policy’ and where necessary rewrite it if it no longer suits the business.

Admit what you don’t know and pay attention

Never be afraid to admit what you don’t know and ask lots of questions to clarify the situation for you. One way to build understanding of the business is to do an ‘appreciation’ of it. This can mean spending time ‘on the shop floor’ understanding what it is like to work in that department as well as the particular components/needs of the department that is necessary for it to function well. For some functions/areas of the business you can get a good appreciation of it by asking pertinent and searching questions. Seek to find linkages so that you can build a holistic picture of how things work across the business. It is possible to see connections that are missed by ‘the line’ because they are solely focused on their on area of the business. It is here that you can add real value.

Focus on the outcome and not the process

One of the areas where credibility can be lost is when the process is being stuck to rigidly with scant regard to the achievement of the outcome that you are hoping to achieve. This can happen with any process not just HR ones, so be prepared to discuss with the business any concerns that you have that the processes in place are not designed to deliver the right outcome. A good example is bonus objectives that encourage managers to ignore good leadership principles in favour of attracting big bonuses.

Help the line achieve their objectives

Regularly ‘sit down’ with the line to understand what their objectives are, what are the drivers to their achievement and what obstacles that they face. Work together to find solutions that will enable the line to succeed in their endeavours.

Key points

v Ensure that you spend some time out of HR so that you can learn and understand business and be able to view things from a non HR perspective

v Live in the grey and understand that nothing is black or white – even HR policies!

v Focus on outcomes rather than processes