It’s been some twelve months. Almost everyone I have talked to over the last two weeks or so has said something like, ‘this year of all years, I need a proper break’. I feel the same.
December 2009 certainly feels a very different place to be than December 2008. Twelve months ago we were in the eye of the storm. Northern Rock, Lehman Brothers and Bank of America were in the very recent past. There was a general view going into Christmas that there was worse to come – although no consensus about what that would actually look like for a business like ours.
Twelve months on, we have lived through a very challenging twelve months in business. This has also been the first recession in Lane4’s lifetime, and we leave 2009 a wiser business than we entered it. The uncertainty still exists of course (are we over the worst, or likely to see another dip?) however we have reasons to remain optimistic but not complacemtn. However, it doesn’t feel anything like as uncertain as this time last year. I was thinking when running this morning about what my top 3 lessons would be from this year. This would be:
- Leading a professional services firm in a bear market is very different to a growing one. Balancing optimism with realism is not always an easy thing to do, but over-playing either is very dangerous. As a running coach told me last week, ‘Your head needs to be far enough up that that your bodyweight is carrying you forward. However it can’t be held so high that you trip on something straight in front of you. Your chin needs to be up and your eyes fixed a few metres forward’. That feels spot on to me.
- I have also needed to challenge the way I manage. This has probably meant less breadth, more depth. I have tried to focus on the elements that we can control, and delivering against them. As Sir Keith Mills said at our conference, ‘’There are hundreds of dials in a cockpit, but you can fly a plan with just six if you know how’’. I’ve been lucky enough to borrow the brains of some fantastically insightful external to Lane4 who have helped me firstly confirm that I am using the right six instruments, and then interpret their readouts correctly.
- Finally – this year was proof that tougher times are an opportunity, not a threat. An opportunity for the talent in your business to stretch themselves quicker than they might otherwise do. An opportunity to gain advantage in a market which will be changing faster than before. An opportunity to catch the wave of the upturn. An opportunity to learn which of your own team will dig in and fight when the going gets tough. I never learnt a thing about the collective character of my football team when 3-0 up at home against the bottom of the league.
It’s always tiring learning a new skill – whether trying to learn to run with just a little bit of technique, flying a plane or leading and managing a business. No athlete trains without down-time to let the muscles recover, and a break is definitely a good thing.
It’s been the first three months of this blog. I hope you’ve occasionally found something interesting or thought provoking. I’d certainly welcome any feedback. Have a great Christmas and New Year.
Cheers
Matt
The Daily Telegraph carries ‘exclusive’ news today that Greg Searle is returning to competitive rowing. He is aiming to compete at London 2012. He would be 40 years of age at the time of the rowing finals. There is also a strong chance that the final could be 20 years to the day since he won gold at Barcelona.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/rowing/6818615/Greg-Searle-on-comeback-trail-to-date-with-destiny-at-London-2012-Olympics.html
This is not quite as ‘exclusive’ news within Lane4. We have known Greg was getting back in top class shape ever since Greg romped home to victory out of the blue at the Lane4 Grand National – our 5 quarterly mile handicap running race. There is still a long way to go of course, but we know Greg well enough to know he will leave no stone unturned.
Happily Greg will continue to work at Lane4 and with his clients as he moves along his journey – just as our Paralympian Clare Strange does. I have had the pleasure of being with Greg when he has shared his news in confidence with groups from two London 2012 sponsors. It has been fascinating to see their reactions. Although several of the individuals in the room work in and around the Olympic Games every day, the personal connection this news has created in the room was really compelling. Greg and London 2012 are already part of these organisations’ everyday working lives – Greg’s journey will bring these two elements together on a very personal level.
Sport meets business elsewhere in today’s Daily Telegraph. The header in the Business section has a shot of Tiger Woods, and reads, ‘With Friends Like Accenture…Tiger finds out the Hard Way’. The article criticises Accenture’s decision to pull out of their relationship with Tiger on the back of recent press revelations. It suggests Accenture’s investment has been spurious, and yet also that Tiger does not now deserve to be deserted. Whatever you make of the recent news, this is lazy and naive journalism. Accenture’s investment in Tiger to date has reaped Accenture massive dividends, but they are smart enough in a competitive market-place not to shout about it. They also have a brand to protect. They were right to be in the deal, and they are now right to pull out.
Modern sport at its best and worst in one edition of the Daily Telegraph. Good luck Greg - but don’t expect the same handicap in the Grand National next time mate!
Last night I attended a HR Magazine Leaders Club event somewhat provocatively titled ‘Is the Marketing Director the new HR Director?’. It was an excellent event.
Those who have visited this blog before will know this is a subject close to my heart. It is also bubbling up as a hot topic. Ironically I was facilitating a session not more than two months ago for the European Sponsorship Association where the discussion turned to whether the ‘HR Director is the new Marketing Director’. There’s clearly a little insecurity both sides of the fence!
Navjot Singh, Global Marketing Manager, Recruitment and Global Communications Manager at Shell talked compellingly about how marketing know-how had been integrated into Shell’s recruitment strategy to take them from also-ran to leader in high potential recruitment among their competitors. He shared how the use of behaviour models (as marketers would use every day to model customer activity) were used at Shell to predict the behaviour of job applicants through the process. Shell can not only predict the potential revenue that any new recruit would bring into the organisation, but also predict each individual’s performance once in the organisation.
On one level, yes, these are tools which are now beloved of the bigger marketing departments. For ‘job applicants’ in HR’s world, read ‘potential customers’ in marketing’s. For ‘performance once in the organisation’ in HR speak, read ‘lifetime customer value’ in marketing. However, on another level none of these skills are purely the preserve of HR, or marketing, or both. They are exactly the same techniques one might use valuing a business for acquisition, or deciding whether to spend money on a new factory or product launch. They are simply good business practice in a lean, less indulgent business environment.
For those of you who were good enough to read my last post, you may feel there is an inherent contradiction in this view given my criticism of the ‘commodity trading’ I witnessed at the CIPD Fair. I do not mean to criticise the process of using data to make decisions (quite the opposite in fact). I mean to criticise the laziness of organisations who use the data as not just as the rationale, but also the principle means of communication. To cite an example given last night, the organisation that recruits online, but never sends a tailored, thought-through rejection letter to the unsuccessful candidate with some insightful feedback. I was party to another conversation last week with a friend, where restructuring decisions had been communicated only within the context of total headcount reduction figures. No rationale for the change, or compelling thoughts about what the future might hold.
In my view, good business management practice is the insightful use of data to reach a conclusion. Good business leadership equates to be able to share the story behind those conclusions in a credible and authentic way with each and every stakeholder group - whether the leadership comes from HR or marketing.
Navjot painted a picture of a world in the future where companies are applying to prospective high potential employees for their service, rather than the other way around. We are definitely seeing that the HR and Marketing communities need each other like never before. The biggest challenge, however, is that both these groups need access to a third set of skills – that of world class 21st century business management. Neither HR nor marketing will lead until they can manage – otherwise each simply offers a world of empty promises.
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