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In praise of mentoring across the generations

by admin on March 4, 2009

LSE event for F-Laws 017 I haven’t posted for a couple of weeks as I have been finishing writing my latest book.

This is the second book I have written in close collaboration with someone from another generation. The first, ‘Management F/Laws’ was a book I co-authored with Russ Ackoff in 2006 when he was 87 years old. Anyone who has studied organisations and how they work will know Russ’s distinguished work. I was fortunate to work with him on the book and on a mini-lecture tour of the UK.

When the publisher suggested that the book became a ‘dialogue’ between the generations Russ welcomed the idea. Many men his age might have been indignant at the idea that a woman less than half his age take up half the book responding to and, at times, disagreeing with his views. Not Russ. He is a man who is up for lively debate and dialogue. And he is the best kind of mentor – challenging, questioning, interested and interesting, Apart from being a privilege and a lot of fun, it was one of the best learning experiences I have had in a long time. Working with an American man of his generation and wisdom taught me so much about lots of things including about organisations and what is possible (he has done some incredibly inspiring consultancy work in all sorts of contexts)and about really listening to  and understanding other perspectives. Russ is very generous with his wisdom and was a fantastic role model of what a mentor can be.

So, when I began to write my latest book about Generation Y (sorry no link available yet) I thought it would be great to repeat the experience of cross-generational collaboration. I asked one of my Gen Y mentors if he would review the book and write the preface. What a humbling experience. Sure he was supportive, generous with his feedback and encouraging. However, he also challenged me hard on some of my thinking, he pointed out my prejudices and made me realise that at times I fell into the very trap that I help my clients not to fall into – one of stereotyping and making assumptions. Agggh! I found myself wondering if Russ had ever flinched as I did sometimes upon hearing my young colleague’s feedback!

One of the reasons I love writing is because it is a chance to really immerse myself in and reflect upon a subject. I am sure that I learned so much more writing these two books because of the presence of Russ and Ed respectively. Apart from that, it was more enjoyable too. Both books are  definitely better for having two generations involved.

So, whatever your work, if you are thinking about finding yourself a mentor from another generation – go for it!

Sally

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Tweeting

by admin on February 20, 2009

twitter I have had quite a few conversations with clients recently about Twitter. As you can imagine, lots of questions and concerns come up. “What’s the point of it?”, “Isn’t it just a stupid waste of time?”, “How can it help our business?” etc etc.

This is a really good and useful read and answers all those questions.

Personally I am just getting into Twitter myself and am still exploring with an open mind. So far I have found it useful because I get to listen to what others are paying attention to. It depends what your areas of interest are but I follow a few people who I know will draw my attention to stuff that I will find useful. Obviously I try and do the same for others. But – to my 25 followers, bear with me, I am getting the hang of it and hopefully you’ll get more out of following me as time goes on!

Sally

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Performance management

by admin on February 15, 2009

Biggest strength

A friend was telling me that the HR department in the organisation where he works advertised a workshop called ‘Managing Performance’. He manages a team of bright, talented designers and thought this sounded like a great workshop to help him to help his team be the best they can be.

He went along to the workshop expecting to learn how to bring out the best in people. He told me that what he actually learned was “how to manage poor performance”.

This story stopped me in my tracks. I had never thought of it before but the term ‘performance management’ does have connotations of managing poor performance. At best it smacks of getting people to do what they are supposed to do, But it doesn’t conjure up in my mind what it conjured up in my friend’s mind.

Shouldn’t performance management really be about helping people to realise their full potential by playing to their strengths, supporting them and motivating them? Of course it should. I think that deficit thinking and ‘good enough’ thinking dominates the management mind set. Even high-potential programmes are dogged by a focus on fixing weaknesses and deficits. People would do far better if managers went around thinking what my friend thinks – “how can I help my people be the best they can be”, and helping people to play to their strengths – which is after all what the best performers do. And HR professionals would do well to rethink what they mean by performance management and the expectations and culture that that label creates.

Sally

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An opportunity for the leaders of the world

by admin on February 3, 2009

At Davos this week there has been a lot of talk about Philanthrocapitalism – a mouthful of a word which basically refers to the good companies can do whilst still turning a profit. Bill Gates has led the way in this by setting up the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This year he has increased the annual giving to 10% to a massive $3.8billion.

Business leaders could certainly do with improving their image – according to the 2009 Edelman Annual Trust Barometer only 17% of those surveyed said they trust information from a company’s CEO. Trust in business has been sliding since the collapse of Enron. Back in 2004 when I researched and co-wrote ‘A Question of Trust’ it felt like we were at crisis point then. It is now much worse. And I don’t see leaders’ behaviour changing very much. We all appreciate honesty and transparency and get very cross when leaders don’t come clean and take personal responsibility. I liked the suggestion that Matthew Bishop made in his recent blog post:

… I made a modest proposal at Davos: that the chief executives of the world’s 500 biggest firms demonstrate their contrition for their role in the crisis, and their commitment to help society recover, by each giving $2m (or, better still, one year’s base salary) to a new fund to support social entrepreneurs. This sort of billion-dollar collective sacrificial leadership could transform public attitudes towards business and business-thinking, and get the age of philanthrocapitalism off to a great start.

I can’t see it happening but the fact that there is more and more call for CEOs to take more accountability has to be good. Great leaders have values and they live them out. Bill Gate’s foundation is an obvious example of values in action. When I first graduated I looked up to my bosses and expected them to have values and integrity. Young people today still have the same expectations but sadly, and understandably, they are more cynical about those running businesses. This global economic crisis, is in some ways an opportunity for business leaders to show they care and to demonstrate excellent leadership. They need to go back to the basics of good human relationships – honesty, trust and integrity. And, as Matthew says, a bit of sacrificial leadership right now wouldn’t go amiss.

Sally

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Cross generational team work – a matter of safety

by admin on January 13, 2009

Cockpit Over Christmas I caught up with an airline pilot friend. We were discussing the issue that Korea Airlines and Japan Airlines used to suffer from – that of younger/junior air crew feeling unable to challenge decisions of the captain and senior pilots. Malcolm Gladwell in his recent book ‘Outliers’ reports that more air crashes occur when the captain is flying the plane, not when the co-pilot is flying. This seems counter-intuitive because the captain has more flying hours and is more experienced. The reason, Gladwell says, is deference. The captain would have no problem challenging the co-pilot when he/she is flying the plane but the opposite is not true.

Gladwell cites Geert Hofstede’s “power distance index”, a concept designed to express the strength of hierarchies in the workplace. The five countries with the strongest hierarchies are Brazil, South Korea, Morocco, Mexico and the Philippines; the least hierarchical are the US, Ireland, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. This index, says Gladwell, very closely matches the ranking of plane crash frequency by country.

He illustrates this with a riveting “black box” recording of a notorious Korean Air crash in 1997, where the anxious first officer could not bring himself to do more than hint: “Captain, the weather radar has helped us a lot.” He could have seized the controls, said crash investigators, but deference inhibited him.

My friend has recently experienced this phenomena in a hospital when a junior doctor challenged a consultant’s decision. The junior doctor was given short shrift in front of the patient and visiting relatives. It turned out she was right but it makes you wonder how likely she is to challenge someone more senior in the future. Not being able to freely challenge, in this environment at least, becomes a serious safety issue.

Of course this power/distance equation exists in other sectors too. I take comfort in the fact that Gen Y are less likely to be deferential to authority and more likely to speak up if they believe something is wrong. But of course that is no good if their senior colleagues won’t listen. Or indeed if the more junior person does it in a way that gets peoples’ backs up and comes across as disrespectful.

Add the power/distance occasion to a healthy dose of cross-generational differences and, depending on your industry, at worst you could have serious safety issues, at best a fractious relationship.

I am arguing for serious attention to be paid to developing cross generational teams. For each generation to take a step back and start to understand each other more. To understand their own prejudices about one another. To understand this power/distance issue and its consequences. To learn to listen and communicate effectively. This is great teamwork. And great teamwork does save lives (if you are in the airline industry or NHS) as well as allows amazing work to be done in all sectors!

Sally

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