After much debate we have so far concluded that it is about openness, honesty and authenticity. Openness is about communication, honesty is about values and authenticity is about leadership. All of these combine to effect the culture of the organisation and whilst organisations talk about having a ‘performance culture’ do they define what that actually means? There is also the overriding question of ‘what’s in it for me’ (WIIFM)? Is a leader in the organisation encouraged to be open, honest and authentic or are they encouraged to keep things close to their chest, look after the values of the organisation rather than their own and put on a façade of everything being wonderful even when it isn’t?

The whole approach of ethical performance is what assists an organisation to navigate their way across their landscape, which is why we have included values in our unique balanced score card performance landscape programmes at www.performancelandscape.co.uk.

I am in the middle of writing an article about ethical performance and I am sure I will also get drawn in to discussing what demonstrates unethical performance, but we would like to hear your views.

In my article , ‘Public Services wealth warning’ I outlined why radical decisions are the only way that the public services will survive the new performance landscape. In this article, ‘Navigating across the new Performance Landscape’, I have explained why mature conversations need to take place between the public services and why this generation of middle and senior managers need to learn how to deal with the forthcoming cuts.

Our programme provides leaders, at all levels, with the practical knowledge and tools to maximise performance for themselves and their organisations. For the full picture go to www.performancelandscape.co.uk

I am now going to get my focus back on the blog and writing more about how organisations need to address the financial drought that is going to hit public services in the UK in 2011. Whilst this drought may be viewed negatively, it actually offers immense opportunities for the private and public sectors – if the leaders have the foresight to take them. The skill is going to be for the giraffes of the organisation to see the opportunity and then pass the responsibility for capturing it to those with the right competencies, which may be any of the other animals, such as the lion, the wildebeest, the zebra or even the crocodile. It’s how you use these skills that is going to decide how well you survive the changing landscape.

What did you see? The majority of people see the police officers ordering the suspect to put his gun down. When he is complying he is then shot.

If this is what you saw, then I have successfully highlighted exactly why people should not judge anyone’s performance based only on a short film clip, as in the G20 summit.

Returning to the incident in the video, watch it again and, this time, watch the suspect’s right hand while he places his weapon down with his left hand. What you may not have seen is the suspect pulling a handgun from the rear of his trousers. Once he’s on the ground you can see the weapon in his right hand. It’s a good job that the second police officer saw it, for both of their sakes!

Thankfully, Michael Winner has written a more balanced point of view about the policing of the G20 summit, pointing out that it is all too easy to be critical of the police without knowing the full facts. His full article can be read  here. He is correct when he states that the viewer cannot see what led up to these incidents or what is going on around the people concerned, whether the police or the public.

Of course there are elements of these reported incidents that cannot be condoned, such as the officers not wearing identification. However, this is a good example of when certain practices go unchallenged and become ‘the way we do things’ then they become part of the organisational culture. I’ve dealt with this more in my latest Ezine article “HMIC Review of Police Tactics Should Be HMIC Review of Police Leadership”

Overall though, the performance and strategy of the police at the G20 summit cannot be criticised. It’s the first such summit that hasn’t resulted in mass disorder for some time. Perhaps it is because there wasn’t much else to report that the media chose to focus on these incidents.

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To show how easy it is for the minds eye to be deceived here is a bit of fun that will do just that.

Both this picture and the apocalyptic street scene within the slide header on the home page are courtesy of Edgar Muller.  http://www.metanamorph.com

In a time of economic stability this strategy makes sense. However, over a period of time this also creates an organisational culture of ‘what gets measured gets done’ and I have worked with a number of organisations recently where the front line delivery staff feel that management have taken their eye off the customer.

History has shown us that during a time of recession the customer returns from exile and becomes king. Initially this is in terms of buying power and retailers attract their customers through the high street sales we have seen during the last few months. Walk down any high street now and nearly every shop is offering the same discounts, so even after such a short time sales do not determine where the customer goes.

Brighter organisations have already realised that the ‘differentiation factor’ is the level of customer service that’s provided. Engaging with customers now and getting their loyalty means that organisations are more likely to survive the recession and will continue to reap the benefits post-recession.

Just think about your own purchasing habits. The chances are that whether it’s a car, a television or a holiday most companies can offer you a competitive price. So the choice of who you go with probably depends upon who can offer you the best quality of service, together with the best after-sales service.

For me the question is not whether Sir Fred Goodwin should surrender some of his pension. The question is whether Sir Fred Goodwin should rescue the poor leadership displayed by the government at his own expense. Instead he has highlighted the failings of these individuals and I think he is going to enjoy his retirement whilst watching the fallout.

Leadership with integrity?

I have written before about the importance of senior leaders displaying leadership with integrity. I have also acknowledged the difficulty of this kind of leadership, as human beings are involved together with all of their failings. Unfortunately, it becomes all too apparent when ingenuous leadership is shown, especially in times of difficulty and as an example of this I am going to look at the way the government has dealt with the financial bailout of one of the major banks, together with the fallout from one of the Chief executives.

The brief facts are that in October last year it became apparent that the government would have to inject £37 billion of taxpayers’ money to support the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Lloyds TSB and Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS). £5 billion of this was going to RBS.

On 8th October 2008 it was announced that the Chief Executive, Sir Fred Goodwin, and Chairman, Sir Tom McKillop, were to leave the bank and be replaced by Stephen Hester and Sir Philip Hampton, respectively. Within weeks the amount of money being pumped into RBS had risen to £33 billion.

In February 2009 there was public condemnation of Sir Fred Goodwin for taking an enormous pension, reportedly in excess of £650,000 per annum. The government asked him to reduce the amount, in light of the amount of public money put into RBS and Sir Fred refused. In March the Prime Minister said that he was going to look in to whether the government could make a legal challenge to this pension.

Now let me look at the ingenuous leadership shown by senior members of the government, where a number of ‘clichés’ become relevant. The first is that a leader cannot run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. Clearly the government had to make a difficult decision to use public money to support the banks and this decision was never going to be popular with the public. Neither was it going to be popular with the boards and Chief Executives of the banks, who would have to acknowledge the failures of the banking system. So, there were tough words from Gordon Brown about how the government would make sure that the taxpayers got their money back, to appease the mass electorate (the hounds) and conciliatory discussions with the banking bosses (the hare) by the Treasury.

Treasury Minister, Lord Myners oversaw this bank bailout and seems to have forgotten the next cliché that he who pays the piper calls the tune. On 8th October 2008, at the same time that it was announced that Sir Fred would be leaving RBS it was reported that, “as part of the deal with Government, there will be a future cap on executive pay and shareholder dividends.”  Lord Myners could have quite legitimately discussed the contracts of these executives with them, although whether he could have lawfully amended them would depend on the terms of the bailout. He could have acknowledged that you cannot please all of the people all of the time, been honest and, if the contracts of these executives were watertight, he could have said so.

Later, when the amount of Sir Fred’s pension became known, Lord Myners asked him to return some of it, reportedly saying, “that the scale of his pension was something which people would find extraordinary in the circumstances of a company that had just reported such losses.”  After Sir Fred had declined Lord Myners allegedly put in a letter that this refusal was unfortunate and unacceptable. Has anyone considered who leaked the amount of Sir Fred’s pension to the media and why they leaked it? It’s not something that he is likely to have publicised personally.

Lord Myners has now put himself into a more difficult position. If Lord Myners did not look into the contracts of these executives then he appears incompetent and if he did know about them, then asking Sir Fred for some of it back, to save face, doesn’t seem to be fair. It is no good crying over spilt milk. This raises a question of whether Gordon Brown’s tough talk is a way of covering the fact that he didn’t know what his Treasury Minister was doing or whether he was complicit in the decisions too. Sir Fred Goodwin is not rushing to their aide and why should he?

Isn’t it noticeable how, during the good times, the government were happy to ally themselves to this banking system but were very quick to criticise it when things took a downturn. Never once has any member of government accepted any of the responsibility, through poor leadership. What they are doing now is displaying leadership that questions their integrity.

Daily Telegraph 8th October 2008
Wall Street Journal 28th February 2009

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