Money, money, money

Money has somehow obsessed us all for months (for some, years). Now, as news emerges that the recession will soon end but that the public sector will be squeezed for years, it does little to light the fire.

It will call for a new skill set for senior decision-makers.

1. The ability to say "no". We'll be called upon to say it in many ways. The challenge will be in getting people to feel good about hearing it. It will require tact and diplomacy, no doubt. But it will need to be laced with that sense of regret and sorrow that enables those we deal with to feel that there was literally nothing we could do to hep them.

2. The ability to get others to say "yes". We will have to get fewer people to do less. The fewer people is an almost inevitable consequence of dealing with the squeeze (sounds so much better than "crunch" doesn't it). We'll need to ramp up discretionary effort. It will require emotional leadership. If you hear yourself saying, "just do it" you may well be looking for a change of career.

3. The ability to give nothing away. It's not always easy to hide emotions. Most of us manage it under tricky circumstances. I think we may well benefit from conveying emotionlessness all of the time. It will be one way of creating private space in which we may live as the madness ensues.

4. The need to be clear about why we're here. We may well have come into this business to "make a difference" but the nature of that difference may well be, well, quite different. Learning to downsize will probably be more important than building. Still, it's a living.

5. The ability to paint big pictures. Change causes people to focus on their bit of the picture - or even their pigment in the picture. Holding minds on that which is greater will matter. It will provide certainty in uncertain times. Now, at last, visions will not be there to fill a space in the strategic document. They'll need to mean something.

And, oh yes, money. Well, there's never ever enough of that. So some things don't change.

The meaning of life (in local government)

I have spent the week pondering my existence, particularly in the light of the approaching black hole aka public sector finances. 

Times have been good. But no more. 

We will have to get used to a new way of thinking. If the big drivers for organisational leaders are about "making a difference" (in some sort of tangible, non-inspection-driven way) and creating a legacy, this may be the time to ponder a career change. 

There will be opportunities to make a difference but maybe there will be less to shout about. It's one thing to build - quite another to dismantle. And if the best we can say that we dismantled in a sensitive way (not a bad outcome in real terms) it may make the time when we receive the gold watch/clock/shoes a little light on amusing anecdotes and proud nods. 

As for legacy, if all we can do is look behind at the scorched earth that was once a thriving organisation that approached each day with a spring in the step but no more, then maybe we all ought to take up sculpture or some such physical endeavour. If you build it, at least when they come they'll have something to look at for five minutes. 

Looking ahead, I think I'll need to see things differently. 

I will have to be adept at making silk purses out of sows ears (and the rest of the rotting remains). 

I will have to spend as much time managing down expectations as I used to spend managing people. 

I will have to accept that the market may be the only way to get things done since nobody else will have the money and the voluntary sector will long since have burned out. 

I will have to accept that consultation will be about the when rather than the what,  a like it or lump it approach to public services. 

I will not have to go quietly amongst the noise and haste since there will be fewer of the noisy and no haste other than getting on with it. 

I will know that the unthinkable ideas we used to smirk about (knowing they would never happen) will now be the unstoppable forces that will shape our destiny. 

I will know that the tough times were really the good times and that history is, in this case, not so likely to repeat itself. 

And I will have to get back to work and stop fiddling with the inevitable. 

The dust is settling

Changes at the top. One prepared but one is never really prepared. People see you differently when they are in opposition. "I never really trusted you" the new man said when I met him on Monday. "But now I can see that you have potential - you're someone I think (his italics) we can work with."

Isn't such everywhere. 

Colleagues have been on the phone all week. One called to say that he'd been summoned upstairs for a chat. Turned out to be something different altogether. "I know we're not meant to work this way but I feel that it's time for a parting of the ways. Clearly, we need to talk money. I will, of course, say that you have made a massive contribution to our organisation, that you've taken it to places we never dreamed possible and I'll leave plenty of blanks so that you can blah-blah to your hearts content. Bottom line: your cardboard box is over there."

But it isn't like that here - thankfully. I still have a mortgage "and so much I want to do". 

So we've met on and off all week. Tell me Leader what you want me to do, just tell me...

Control the story...or it will control you

Like everyone else, I've been riveted to the row over MPs' expenses. Day by day, the respect that the public holds for our system of democracy is being eroded away. No question. 

How to stop the salami-slicing of democracy: manage the story or it will manage you. 

1. Look at the worst. If there was a disc that The Telegraph now has then the information will be available inside the Palace of Westminster, one assumes. I don't work there so I don't know. Get the information and look at how bad it is. One doesn't doubt that it will be bad, if the last 9 days are anything to go by. 

2. Decide what action you will take against those who may be working "within the rules" but who may not look good in the bright lights of the public gaze. Remember, the public think in common sense not in legal frameworks. 

3. Set up a press conference - get a live feed onto the web and seek to persuade one of the networks to carry it as it happens. 

4. Apologise. Tell everyone watching that those in the system have demonstrated errors of judgement, that actions will be taken against those who have transgressed the law and reprimands, warnings and harder actions will be set out for the rest. 

5. Make all of the information available on the web. 

6. Take action. 

7. Restore confidence. 

8. Move on. 

Do what it says on the tin

Disturbing that despite millions and millions of pounds spent on council comms the "brand" is suffering. It's not the lack of communications people or the lack of investment in services. 

It's time to be smarter about how the message is sold. Here's a starter for ten. 

1. Tell them what you will do for them - not just once a year in the A-Z but every time they come into contact. Front line staff should "know the product" (as they say in the commercial world) and be able to talk to customers about "the other things we do". 

2. Tell them what you don't do. There are people out there who think that you run buses, the electricity companies, the rail network - even the weather. Disabuse them. Otherwise you will get the blame. 

3. Be clear about your service standards. Keep them simple. Understate if possible and ALWAYS deliver. If you don't, deal with it. Don't ignore failure. It's not just what you do - it's how you do it. 

4. Apologise when you get it wrong. Don't make people wrench the words from your clenched jaws. Do it at the start - when people expect it and when they are listening.  

5. Keep your staff in the loop on everything. Don't force them to read the bad news in the local press. Trust them and build advocacy. 

6. Simplify your language. There are way too many "strategies" and "portfolios" out there. Add in all that enabling, empowering, partnering, scoping and you quickly see eyes glaze. If they don't understand you, it's harder for people to trust you. 

7. Deal with the negative stories early. Councils are getting maligned over the misuse of extra surveillance powers. If you don't do it, don't take the blame for what others do. If you do, explain why.

8. Sell the benefits of your services. Describe what you do in terms of the difference you make to people's lives.

 

9. Involve people. Listen to what they say, look for better ideas, tell them what you will do as a result of what they have said. 

10. Do an annual report. Every year show people what you gave them for their cash, what went well, what could have gone better and what you will do to fix the things that matter to them. 

...food for thought anyway.  

Get them to expect less but deliver more

I'm always struck by how easily people are disappointed by things. We all are. I fear that public policy is at times driven by announcementism: we're keen to tell everyone now what we're going to be doing for them. This is a bit like hire purchase - people want the product now but invariably get disappointed in it as the monthly payments leave the bank account. Everything loses its lustre over time. 

We need to cut back on our "we wills" and up our quota of "we haves". We need to train ourselves in not allowing the hype to overtake us. Enjoying life is so much about the relationship between what we expect and what we actually get rather than just what we get.

The trouble is that we all expect more and more. We expect our public sector experience to feel as good as it might in the private sector. It won't always. That's because the private sector differentiates at the point of consumption (or experience) in order to win market share and new customers. (It often goes downhill pretty quickly after that). 

The sad truth is that if we try to live up to expectations, then people will always be disappointed. Anyone with children will know that we all learn to want more very early on. We need to promise less and deliver more. If waited until we had delivered before we promised, local authority stock would probably be rocketing. 

Unfortunately, whilst there are news columns to fill and profiles to raise, there's a tendency to go for the sugar rush now. 

More for an exceptional candidate

The Leader wants to advertise for a new head of strategic programmes. "Go all out" he said. "There'll be more for an exceptional candidate." Cash he means - not work (that's standard). 

I'm worried. It's not a message I want to send out. Either we get the right person or we don't, in which case we don't appoint. If we signal we're prepared to put up with someone who is not quite right, not the full shilling, then we're sending out some pretty strange messages about our standards. 

And what about the poor candidates? They can't really settle for anything less than the "exceptional" salary. If they do, they'll always be second best. They'll always know - as will everyone else (people have a habit of finding such details out) - that there was someone better out there but we settled for them. They'd be on the back foot before they got out of their car on day one. 

Add into the mix that nobody else in the building gets anything other than their agreed terms and conditions - no matter how hard they work (and some do) - and it feels to me like the wrong message altogether to send out. 

So I will be advising that we play it straight. Situation vacant: apply within. 

Beware assassins with silver bullets

The first shots are being fired - senior staff salaries are in the crosshairs. To which problem is this a solution? None is immediately obvious. 

Will it deliver massive savings from the public purse? In a word: no. 

Will it show the public sector that the government understands the financial dilemma that it faces? No, it over-simplifies - and everyone knows it. 

Will it enhance the standing of senior executives? Sadly, no. It will put public sector leadership in the spotlight in a way that will make it harder for those people to do their jobs. 

The only thing this suggestion has going for it is that it's easy to grasp. So when the tabloids are scrapping around looking for people to blame for the inevitable restructuring of public services in the light of the trillions of pounds that will need to be found, they will now have them - those public sector fat cats. 

It would not surprise me if there wasn't a press pack available with the attack - comparative salaries (how much the PM earns, how many teachers/social workers/classroom assistants you can by for one CX), the cars most senior staff drive (pictures available), their addresses so that we can marvel at the opulence of their lifestyles, pap-sourced images of them supping wine and eating fancy food (downloadable from easy to access websites)...

But is this any more than turning firm friends into unwilling enemies?

There are some serious challenges ahead. Responding to the growing needs of local communities will not be easy - particularly as those needs will be growing. Prioritising the needy over the very, very needy is another problem for which they will not be lauded. And taking councils through the potential impact of all of that - local government will not be the same in ten years as it is today. 

Hard enough. But will they be able to lead on these challenges, undistracted? Unlikely. All the while at every debate, every staff session, every partnership meeting, every public event one thing will pre-occupy and dominate the minds of those who face change: how much senior executives earn. Resentment, envy, churlishness will obscure the real value of strong leaders who have consistently delivered excellence in the face of turmoil and escalating demand. 

A plea to the government. 

Do not contribute to this illusion. There are no silver bullets. The challenges ahead are tough. Senior executives will drive through the massive changes that will be needed. They will ensure business resilience. They will keep the show on the road - as they always have. Systemic and cultural change is complex - but they'll manage it.  

Please don't start shooting at the people who will help deliver what's needed. They'll have more than their fare share of bullets to dodge without this. 

Sick things and illness

Tis a pity the CBI has chosen to attack the public sector over sickness rates. One wonders why? Motives are almost always as interesting as the substance of what people/organisations actually say. Let's, for the moment, give them the benefit of the doubt and take at face value their interest in the health and well-being of the public sector. 

Strange then that they failed to mention that the research on sickness rates in both the public and private sector are much the same when you get to organisations above 1,000 employees. The reason appears to be that when one is a member of a big organisation then, should the dreaded "duvet moment" occur then one is more likely to think that someone else will pick up the problem. Not so in small organisations. When we think that our colleagues - that small band of people with whom we work - are going to be under the cosh, then we are much less likely to throw a sickie. 

Absence management is guilt management, in a sense. 

Of course, the majority of the private sector comprise SMEs and the majority of them are relatively small. There is a danger that the CBI is comparing lorries and elephants - they both look the same from a distance - but that's where it ends. 

It won't escape anyone's notice that profit drives the private sector. Absence equals money, they will argue. If people had the same motivation, they would say (I would suspect) then they would attend. But private sector staff no more benefit from the potential profit than they do in the public sector. Few employees are on a profit share scheme. But when the cold wind of economic change blows, it's not motivation that gets them to work - it's fear. It gets staff through the door but doesn't necessarily make for a happy workforce. Happiness is in short supply enough these days without taking away the mirth that remains. Surely the CBI is not advocating fear as a motivator. 

Fear and guilt may be great motivators to get people through the door (they work pretty well for society in general) but applying them systematically would be perverse. When people are ill - particularly with contagious illnesses - the last thing you want is for them to be coughing and sneezing all over people. Surely, we want them to exercise good judgement, to recognise that there is no merit in spreading their bugs to their colleagues and to stay home in bed. 

The trouble with fear and guilt is that they together can make us do things that really ought to be against our better judgement. That's probably the sickest thing of all. 

Survive and thrive 1

Chief executives could become an even more endangered species in the years and months ahead. Already the life expectancy is closer to the lesser spotted newt than one would like. But it need not be so. Get a plan and make the most of all that comes your way. 

Be clear about what you are promising - set out your stall. You may have problems if you have already promised much and delivered little. You may be able to deleverage (as they say in some circles) your promises. Circumstances have changed after all. But don't allow undeliverable promises to be the means by which others judge you. 

Look at the opportunities - there are upsides to downsizing. Shifting poorly performing staff and removing services that deliver little (or recommending etc), can be done when the heat is on. 

Require more - it's easier to make the case for more effort from your top team when the pressure is on. And that's not just more time in the building, but more from the time you get. The same applies throughout the organisation. More for less is the mantra. 

Grow the long grass - some things you may simply have to park. Allow the grass to grow to and provide a shelter when it's necessary. 

Manage the small things - don't change your car (unless you're going for a smaller one), be in the office early, leave late, be visible, support key people, listen more, look confident (don't behave like a victim or you may become one). 

Have a plan B - know what you would do should you have to depart these shores. Keep it under review and always negotiate from a position of strength. 

Feels like it's time to take the gloves off

I heard this morning that it could be 2018 before we get a balanced budget again. And that's with a fair wind and clamping down totally on the use of paper, paper clips and paper cups - which will save the trees at least. I think many people must be thinking that a move to France would be in order. Sticking in at school would have helped - the vocab needed to get through two weeks in the Dordogne probably won't be enough to guarantee gainful employment in anything other than offering traffic directions to passing Brits. 

Given that, we're going to have to get on with it - and there's no point in tinkering. Fiddling at the edges will get us nowhere. 

Maybe we need to apply two simple tests to everything we do: would we notice if we didn't have it? And could we manage without it?

A straightforward example might help readers get the feel of this. I would notice if I didn't have a car (there would be more space at the front of our house and the garage could be converted into something much more useful). Could I manage with out it - of course. There are buses, taxis, the net, the phone and all manner of possible adjustments. 

So it feels to me like it's time to take the gloves off. All of the things we would have wanted to have guaranteed for ourselves into our dotage will simply have to go. Needs must. This is about tough decisions. Do we really want to mortgage our future? I'm not really convinced we can afford it. 

Expect it to be tough. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas. But then we only have turkey once a year and can, if we have to, manage perfectly well without it. 

Core skills for CXs 1 - managing expectations

The sun may or may not  be out today but woe betide the person who promises it will be. Even the weather people hedge their bets. We live in a world where there are more potential hostages to fortune in captivity than there were in Beirut at the height of their troubles. 

We must be careful about what we say. It will be set down in writing, sent back to you by email, blind carbon copied to the world and then forwarded to anyone who might not have seen it the first time. 

It's not delivery that kills us, it's delivery against expectations. 

Say little, promise what you have delivered and learn to nod, mirror and empathise. 

Today's message? 

We will be cautious about the recovery. We are making tentative steps. We must not over promise. We must see how things go. It would be wrong to create false hope. Whilst we would (genuinely with breathy emphasis) want to talk specific numbers, it would not be right - too much rests on our every utterance. 

Embrace opacity. The future will be bright - but we would be loathe to confirm one way or the other. Luminosity is simply not our field of expertise. 

The art of obfuscation 1

The ability to get people looking the other way is never to be underestimated. Increasingly, it's the must-have skill - the one that will mark you out from your other CX colleagues. Never mind the ability to manage complexity, to inspire, to motivate, to drive forward change, drive up productivity or drive down costs. It's all for nought when measured against the ability to say, convincingly, "look over there" at just the right moment. And when the unsuspecting are peering into the distance, along comes something that would certainly have got their attention had they been able to see it. 

It's nothing less than the ability to produce fog at will. But this is a special kind of fog - it's sculpted, shaped and paraded for all to wonder about. 

In a world which values the merits of plain English there is much to be said for the ability to weave opacity and yet extol transparency. Things are getting worse but at a slower rate and so, in truth, things are getting better. One of my school science teachers was a keen fisherman. Anything on the subject of trout was enough.

Some skills never leave you. 

The council pension is a juicy plum

Whenever people are on the look out for savings, they look for juicy plums. Management types call them "low hanging fruits" - the sort of things that grabbing shouldn't hurt since it would be just a question of time before they fell of their own accord. And so the pressure will be laid on - bit by bit - so that council pensions fall from the tree. 

It will happen this way. First, it will be both hinted at and rejected. The possibility will emerge in the public sphere and ministers will jump to the defense of pensions. "No", they will say. "Never". Etc, etc. 

That will be enough, though, for the right wing press to get the bit between their collective teeth. Numbers will emerge. How many pensions, how much, how much every week, what the money could be spent on and so on. No-one will rise to defend them because doing so would trigger a reaction similar to that experienced in the Fred the Shred case. At some point, ostensibly to take off some of the emerging public pressure, some insider will confirm that pensions are being looked at - but only inasmuch as all options are being looked at. Unions will then be obliged to get into the argument and staunchly defend them. But the briefers will allow all sorts of stories of public sector profligacy to emerge, the implication being that pensions are just another one of those things. 

In time, an options paper will be published - a gun to the head paper - either you work until you drop or we change your pensions. The soft messages will be: we all have to make sacrifices, the greater good, the public sector shouldn't be exempt etc. 

Ministers will continue to deny vehemently right up to the point where they reach up, eyes glinting in the sunshine, and grab the juiciest plum you ever did see.