The
future of the government’s Work Programme “hangs in the balance” as
research has revealed that 90 per cent of contracted Work Programme providers will miss their
targets to get people back into work.

“The
future of this vital employment scheme hangs in the balance,” said Ian
Mulheirn, Director of the SMF.  “The programme aims to get some of the
hardest to reach people off benefits and into work, but past performance
shows that providers will be unable to meet the criteria required of
them by the DWP. As reported in Management Today

The statistic raises a number of questions:

• Were the targets too high?
• Were the providers promising too much when they applied for the contract?
• Were the providers competent?
• Is the economic downturn so deep that the job situation makes delivery impossible?
• Are employers just not employing
  

I’ve no doubt that the answers, arguments and “justification” will depend upon being in Government, Providers.
 
Perhaps they’ll all blame the unemployed!

As you know I spend much of my time advising companies on why their team restructure “just isn’t working as planned”.

Good people are always attractive to the competition
Too often it’s because good people leave. Their companies, however, are often unaware that some key staff are unhappy and end up screaming “What a disaster” when they do leave. Blindness to the impending situation is no excuse because there are always clues. The other thing to consider is that especially in poor economic conditions, good salespeople, good managers and well connected executives are ALWAYS attractive to competitors.

INfrequently asked questions
The questions I think more businesses should regularly ask themselves are:

• What is negative (financial, morale, targets) impact on the business if _____ left?
• What is the risk of ____ leaving? (1-10)
• Have we identified a successor?
• Is that successor able to do the job at 100% effectiveness NOW?
• If not at 100% what % could they achieve?
• If not NOW then how many months will it be before they will be ready?
• What would happen in the meantime?

I’m currently offering a video SKYPE conversation to discuss team restructure and if you would like to take advantage of this then email me at stephen@assimilating-talent.com to arrange a convenient time.  
 

In the past few days I’ve heard of a sales team that’s finding things difficult after a restructure. The restructure slimmed the team, redistributed clients and rationalised the workload but they seem to be failing.

HOW *!* MUCH
Actually, that’s not unusual because my research and other statistics show that 42% of all restructured teams fail to deliver the anticipated results. The problem for the company is the cost in lost opportunities. Brad Smart in his book Topgrading estimated that failed teams cost between 8 and 24 times the salary.

Change needed for success can be very small
The change required to move from failure to success is, in my opinion, very small and a slight adjustment in in team actions could well change things around. But then that’s so often the case. As most of the team play golf they will understand that a slight adjustment in club face can be the difference to a great round and playing like a crab! Perhaps this clip of Tony Robbins explaining why he plays golf, badly, might help!

Tony Robbins – Tiny Changes Mean Huge Results

I was very interested to hear an item on the BBC World service last week on a proposal that the West should try to replicate the culture of Chinese Business within our own work environment in order to increase competitiveness.

Japanese “customer care“

It struck me that similar proposals had been made some twelve to fifteen years ago when so many businesses tried to copy the “Demming Productivity and Customer Care System” used in Japan immediately after the war in 1945. Certainly the Japanese business community thrived on the process and became one of the worlds economic powerhouses but improving “customer care” be emulating the Japanese method became a management fad.  

Companies spent huge resources trying to identify what worked in Japan and trying to implement similar systems and on on training courses. However, in most cases, the process was costly and produced marginal success. Partly because the West didn’t have to start a manufacturing processes from scratch, as did Japan in 1945. Secondly, because our business management is different. Over the last few years the Japanese economy has stagnated and emulating the “Japanese way of doing things” has become unfashionable.  

Lessons should be learned to avoid falling into another management fad. Trying to understand and emulate 2000 years of the Chinese way of doing things would be likely to follow a similat pattern to the Japanese and with similar results.  

Chinese Growth can’t be replicated

The West doesn’t follow, nor understand the teachings of Confucious or of Shen Dao,(mentioned in the BBC programme) who proposed that authority arises and is sustained due to the nature of actual circumstances and even Zhang Zai who said that facts can explain everything and more lately Deng Xiaoping who set the current Chinese economic growth and expansion in motion.

Business needs to understand how to sell into China

I accept that to work and sell into China it’s vital that western business studies culture, etiquette and even how Chinese business functions work but to try, as proposed by the BBC, to emulate and become more “like the Chinese” is bound to fail simply because the West has a different business culture.  

Certainly the Chinese and other Dragon Economies have begun to succeed because they understand how Western Business works but they have done this without taking on its methodology. 

Some months ago I was contacted by someone saying that a friend had given them my name and contact details and, after hearing all the positive things said about me, would love to meet me. Well what would you have done… Delighted, I said “of course”.

“Something’s come up…”
Meeting was a bit difficult as we lived over a three hour journey from each other and so a one hour SKYPE call was arranged. On the day scheduled for the call I received an email saying that “something had come up” and could we rearrange. Something coming up happens to the best people and naturally I agreed.

Second appointment
After I had juggled my diary a little bit we diarised a time for the second SKYPE appointment and another hour was set aside . Now, let’s agree that video conference meetings are appointments. Just that they are over the computer screen. Then a few hours before the time I received another email, “Sorry, I’m up to my eyes, can we reappoint. I’ll call you”

Would I be desperate to try to meet for a third time?
I was staggered by the arrogance that not once, but twice my time was seen as being unimportant, that her obvious inability to manage her time should inconvenience me and that I would be desperate to try a third time to meet with her! Since then I’ve received newsletters and various other updates about her business with offers to purchase products but no aplogy.

It ended very expensively
Yesterday I had a meeting in The City of London and her name came up in conversation. I related the story of the failed SKYPE Calls and within a flash, that even surprised me, her involvement in any future projects was rejected. It just shows that arrogant rudeness can end up being very expensive!

There can be few business events that have the potential to create chaos, lose key people and adversely affect morale than a merger and acquisition. Last week I became aware of a number of businesses as well as a couple of charities that are merging in order to reduce costs and create a better platform for survival.

Process of an M&A
The process can be viewed as a pre acquisition and post acquisition. Pre acquisition establishes a good business fit. Post acquistion comprises of making it work. The businesses seem to be on the right track whilst the charities, having argued for over twelve months, are likely to find the process depressingly difficult and expensive.

Key People will leave during the second phase
During the pre acquistion phase both organisations will have established where savings can be made and implementation starts post acquisition. Whilst some leavers will have been identified by the new company and be made redundant there will be a significant portion of the top talent that will decide to leave because they don’t like the new culture or management style.

My research shows that acquired companies lose almost 50% of their key people within twelve months. One insurance company that I know of lost 80% of the staff over a two year period. Those staff that leave first tend to be those described as “Key people”

Who’s in charge?
Many M&A’s start by trying to adopt the best practice from both companies in terms of culture and management style. This invariably results in a three humped camel with people being confused as to the “norms” expected of them. It’s better to adopt one set of rules and thus establish clear anticipated results.

To maintain productivity keep people informed
One of the charities I’m observing is telling its people that there will be no change to their work, benefits and prospects. In reality it’s aware that the senior partner in the merger is planning to reduce staffing levels and set different results criteria and because the staff don’t believe what they are being told productivity has all but ground to a halt.

It’s estimated that at least 360,000 hours of productivity can be lost during an acquisition of a company with just 1000 people*. They stop becasue they are establishing the new political agenda and determining influence groups and listening to the rumour factory working overtime.

During 2011 there is likely to be an increase in M&A’s and it’s worth considering that effort and planning has to be made to retain the key people that are needed to make the post M&A a success.

* The complete guide to M&A’s by Timothy Galpin and Mark Hendon 

I’m not a fan of Lord Sugar but one has to admire his ability to generate controversy. His article in the Daily Telegraph where he says that networking events are a waste of time and only profit the organisers has certainly stirred up a hornets nest of comment within my network.

Lord Sugar wrote:
“I am sick and tired of hearing people asking what to do, going to networking meetings and seminars expecting to glean some gems of wisdom. These events are money-making exercises and benefit one party and one party only: the organiser.

As usual he’s has managed to polarise opinion with networking organisers, thinking he’s talking nonsense and others who think that he’s right. For my part I feel both have a valid opinion. For my part and, this is where I agree with Sugar, I avoid networking groups that give a piss poor product, and unfortunately there are too many of them!

Too often people are invited to a networking meeting without any idea of who else is attending and with no one to manage introductions. Time is wasted listening to sponsors and the organiser promoting their own business and when the speaker does satnd up it’s an anticlimax of mediocrity. However a well run event will always stand out from the crowd.

The rest of Sugar’s article talks about being self-reliant and in this I hope that his fee for writing the article was huge because it’s had the desired affect of generating discussion.

I must admit to being fed up of attending a business meeting and to have to listen to a pimply faced executive that is out to impress colleagues whilst saying nothing that he can be blamed for.

For the most part the use of such phrases are pompous and meaningless. Examples that I’ve heard in this last week include: “Targeted cost initiatives”, “Client care identification programme” and “Positioned service excellence programme”.

Coupled with this is the language from the internet such as HMU (Hit me up) meaning text me or email me that Facebook has revealed is the most used terms alongside “World Cup” and the only person in the top ten list “Justin Beiber” (for the benefit of my older readers and those without young kids he’s a Canadian teen pop idol).

Actually I tend not to keep up with the language and just pretend to be stupid. At the end of the talk I raise my hand and ask for an explanation of how the “Service excellence programme” will work and how, exactly, it will be positioned” and what “data” was used to identify the need in the first place.

Generally the individual is so confused by the request that the information is repeated using clear, everyday language that everyone can understand.
 

A number of my friends in my network are asking me for tips on using social media to find jobs. Here’s the first

Increasing team productivity will be the mission critical task of most businesses over the next two years. See Here for more details on an event that you need to be attending.