Yesterday I was talking to four university students majoring in Engineering. An essential skill if the UK is to pull itself out of the downturn we are entering. No, I did say entering because I believe that with future bank and national failures things are going to get worse for students finding a job after gaining their degree rather than better. But that’s another discussion!

The four comoplained to me that their three-year degree course could be reduced to two because the first year was so basic that they had covered most topics during their last year as secondary school. They also questioned the value of having just two lectures a week available to attend and no tutorials. They were obviously unhappy about the quality of the course.

I can understand that if education is free then one might be reluctant to complain about the frequency of lectures and tutorials but if I were paying £9000 a year then I would battering the doors down for better quality lecturers, more frequency of attention to my future. I might make myself unpopular but then I would hope that “he who pays the piper…”

How in future will students demonstrate their financial power to make their courses more effective to source the best jobs? And how long will it take univerities to listen?

I have watched with some amusement the mess that the UK’s coalition Government have found themselves in over their announcements to “Housing benefit” changes. We’ve been told that this will be capped at £400 per week. It reminds me of the situation that many business leaders and executives in a new job find themselves when introducing a “Quick win”. The reason is that to often “Quick wins” fail to deliver the expected results.

Let’s consider the UK’s proposal to cap housing benefit to reflect average earnings. On the surface it would seem sensible and would certainly reduce costs. But the (hopefully exaggerated) image of hundreds of thousands of families and children, particularly in London, being made homeless and trudging up the the road with their belongings as they are forced out of their homes to find cheaper accommodation has generated claims of “Social cleansing” from Mayor Boris Johnson and concern from many MPs.

Too often  a new team leader or senior executive in a business will introduce a “quick win” because they understand that they have little time to prove themselves and want to demonstrate that they are “hitting the ground running”. It’s also seen as a useful tool to create a positive reputation for being a forward thinker or innovator.

The change that’s generally selected has often worked for the individual in the past. However, what the new leader fails to consider is the new team, new culture and new management style. In communicating the “quick win” great emphasis will be placed on instant results (saving money) without analysis of the long-term consequences in other departments of areas of the business.

This often causes a storm of protest, the executive is wrong footed and either has to revise their plans with the consequence of “loss of face” and reputation or stick to their guns and be accused of being unfeeling, autocratic or worse. The problem is that a “Reputation” has been made and it’s a negative one and that reputation is often difficult to change.

I judge that we can expect some “Good news” from the coalition Government within the next few days

In this current economic situation a huge number of teams are being restructured. This either means that the team will take on additional work, team membership will be changed or there may even be new leadership.

Each of these brings with it a risk of failure and after speaking to so many senior executives this last month I thought I would share some of the advice that I’ve been giving them.

How to avoid team failure

The UK Government announces it’s long awaited budget cuts next week. The result is that over the next few years thousands of civil service teams will be restructured. This will inevitably be felt by private sector companies that supply the Civil Service and companies that supply them. The domino effect of the budget cuts is likely to mean that most business teams in the UK will need restructuring over the next two years.

The problem is that every time a team is restructures three scarce business resources are put at risk. There are time, money and opportunities. Put at risk because statistics show that 40% of restructured teams fail to deliver what is expected.

Risks of Team Restrucure

Honda’s decision to shut down production during two months of 2009 but retain all their talented people for a future upturn is a smart decision.

For some time I have been advocating that to shed staff to save money saves one asset, money, but it reduces another asset, the talent contained within the people.

In the last downturn both Hershey and Pilsbury adopted similar tactics and came out of the downturn faster and stronger than their competitors.

I wonder how many other companies might look at this tactic and copy it?

I was asked a few days ago what I felt were the the “mission critical strategies” that a business should employ for survival during the downturn.

The first piece of advice that I gave was not to be panicked into knee jerk reactions. Panic inevitably results in poor decision making and poor decisions inevitably leads to long term regret.

The answer was then expanded into six key areas:

1) Plan for a long downturn. It’s likely that things will be slow for between one year and five. (in Japan their last recession lasted a decade)

2) Focus on productivity.(Both individual and team delivery)

3) Retain the best talent and continue to develop it. (Historically, talent tends to leave when it believes it is not learning)

4) Encourage innovation

5) Ensure robust succession planning so that if people do leave there is continuation of productivity.

6) Reduce expenditure as far as possible on non-productive items

During past financial downturns companies would rush to lay off staff as a means of saving money. As a result the time taken to recover was longer because of the need to re-recruit talent. Most businesses seem to be avoiding this mistake in the current financial climate.

However the question must be in people’s minds, “At what point will unemployment be the final option for survival?”.