The Web Changes (nearly) Everything…and what to do about it…

The web has changed (nearly) everything.

Bloggers, Tweeters, Patient Opinion, Fill That Hole and so on…the web is full of people’s opinions, experiences, ideas and beliefs about you, your organisation and your products and services.

It is far more likely that we will read about what you do in a piece written on the web by our peers than a piece written by your Press Office or PR agent on your website.

We have learned to recognise and respond to authentic voices that want to converse.  We are increasingly immune to your sales pitches….

In this one day workshop we will explore exactly what has changed because of the web and how.

This will not be a day for technologists and web geeks, but for communications professionals, service managers, business developers, strategists and others who are wondering how to manage perceptions on the web and use them to build a better business.

We will not be looking in any detail at the specifics of particular social media platforms or web sites but we will be examining how the new information that it surfaces can either kill or cure an organisation.

We will then look at practical actions and strategies that will help to re-position you effectively in the web enabled world.

Remember:  your customers and service users know more about your products and services right now than you do.

And whether their experience is good or bad, increasingly they will use the web to tell people about it.  The only question is, once you accept and understand this, how do you respond?

Who Should Attend?

This workshop will be useful to anyone who is coming to terms with how the web is shaping their business and how they need to re-think strategy and communications as a consequence.

Whether you work on the delivery and management of a public service or in the private or ‘third sector’ our promise is that  this workshop will provide yo with practical ideas about how to make the most of the new web2 world.

What we will cover:

• Why people listen to the web, and how you can too…
• When a story breaks – how should we respond?
• Why SHOUTING on the web won’t work – how to engage in polite yet powerful conversation
• Finding your voice and speaking your truth
• Moving from online to offline – what to do when you actually meet the online community
• Dozens of ways in which the web changes everything and how you might respond as a result

Workshop Leaders

The sessions will by led by some of Leeds most influential and experienced bloggers, tweeters and social marketers.  By people who care passionately about the web, good business and civic society.

So far the list includes Mike Chitty and Phil Kirby – but is likely to grow!

If you fancy lending a hand in the design and delivery of the workshop rather than coming along as  participant, or if you have any questions then please do get in touch.

Workshop Costs

£200 per person plus VAT and booking fee.

Just 10 early bird tickets are available at £150 per person plus VAT and booking fee.  Early bird ticket sales end when all 10 have gone or on 31st September.

Grab an early bird ticket while you still can: http://webchangeseverything.eventbrite.com/

If you would love to attend but can’t afford to then drop me a comment and I will see what we can do….

Progress School in Leeds

Just about to embark on a new venture in Leeds called Progress School, providing pay what you can professional and personal development.  Progress School offers:

• A confidential and supportive environment in which to plan your personal and professional development
• Time to develop a vision for the ‘ideal you’ and to learn more about the ‘real you’ – how you are perceived by others
• Recognition of strengths and gaps – those potentials that you have not yet fully realised
• A learning agenda – identify what you need to learn and how you are going to learn it to bridge the gap between ‘real’ and ‘ideal’
• Access to a network of fellow Progress School members who will commit to helping you learn
• A chance to experiment – to try out new behaviours and skills – to see if they work for you
• Develop new practices that help you make progress

Progress School is designed to offer you a flexible process to support your development.  The more you attend the more you are likely to get from it – but there is no curriculum to follow – just a process of reflection and action to engage with.

Interested?  Book Your Place…Now

Prices start from free….

Anger Does Pay – Big Time

They usually write a lot of sense over at management issues, which is why I was a little surprised to read an article called Anger Doesn’t Pay.

In my book it is perhaps the most important driver for change and innovation. Anger serves a  surprising purpose .  It gives us a clue, a sign that there is something here that we can have the energy and creativity to make better.  Anger pays much more than indifference which at time seems ubiquitous.

What does not pay of course is losing your temper.  Shouting and displaying your anger in ways that alienate people rather than recruit them to your cause.

So value your anger, cultivate it, harness it and make progress.  Just don’t let it ignite your temper!

I help accidental managers become outstanding managers – if I can help you give me a call – 0113 815 3765 (UK)

Value our People More or Social Enterprise will be Lost

This is the title of an interesting post by Adrian Ashton over at Social Enterprise.

Adrian cites major problems with both pay and prospects with 60% of those working in the sector expecting to leave it within the next 5 years.

there are various strategies and policies around how social enterprise is going to save the world, but in all the hype and excitement we must be careful to remember that it can only do so if our people feel valued in doing so and we can retain them for the journey.

So social enterprises must join the ‘War for Talent‘.

At the heart of talent acquisition and retention is a single, simple question.  What is our winning Employee Value Proposition (EVP)?  What value can we offer employees that means they will join us, stay and develop their impact?

And this is where the social enterprise sector has a potential significant advantage over many for profits.  But an advantage that many social enterprises squander.

A social enterprise can offer meaning, purpose, authenticity (the chance to do what I am ‘meant’ to be doing, to express who I really am through my contribution – to do ‘good’ work) and impact.  It is not about pursuing profits but pursuing social justice.  About building a better world.  Make sure that you build this into your EVP and there will be no problem retaining top people – even if you are not paying top dollar.

But I see many social enterprises lose sight of their purpose.  They become more interested in writing finding applications than in the pursuit of social justice.  They will do whatever the funders ask them to – even if this makes them dependent and compliant.   Working in the best interests of the funder rather than in the best interests of those whom they are meant to serve.

If social enterprise is to have a future then managers and leaders in the sector must learn how to:

• put the mission above managerialism
• establish a balance between the demands of funders and the best interests of those whom they serve
• give EVERY employee the chance to talk openly, honestly and regularly about what matters to them and how their role can be made more fulfilling

They need to become Progressive Managers.

Some thoughts on the Front Line

• Front liners are capable of taking on far more responsibility than the boxes the system puts them in.

• Front liners are very modest about their own abilities and skills.

• Front liners want to do a great job for patients.

• Managers must learn to let go of more of the power they have thus allowing front liners to get on with the job.

• Managers must be there for support when front liners need it – they are well capable of judging when they need help.

Sensible reflections from Trevor Gay’s Simplicity blog

I am sure that you will agree with much of it.
But do you ACT on it?
Or do you let ‘the system’ get in the way?

Managing for Autonomy

If we want engagement, and the mediocrity busting results it produces, we have to make sure people have autonomy over the four most important aspects of their work:

1. Task – What they do
2. Time – When they do it
3. Technique – How they do it
4. Team – Whom they do it with.

After a decade of truly spectacular underachievement, what we need now is less management and more freedom – fewer individual automatons and more autonomous individuals.

Daniel H. Pink

Want to learn how to manage for autonomy?  Get in touch.

Are You This Innovative?

Do you need to be?

Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose – the PMN Way

This TED video by Dan Pink provides some lovely support for the PMN approach to management.  18 minutes or so.

Motivation, Power and Self Interest

Leeds Photo by Barnaby Alldrick

Carmine Coyote has written a provocative post which explores the fundamental dishonesty of motivation.

But I think Carmine has given motivation a bum rap!

What has been called ‘motivation’ is really ‘manipulation’.  Manipulation to get people to do something that the manager wants them to do.

Now I don’t think any manager can ‘motivate’ anyone beyond the short term fix of the pep talk.  (I think that we should set trading standards onto speakers who claim to be ‘motivational’.  The good ones might educate about motivation – but in my experience the motivational, as opposed to the educational, impact of their presentations tails off within a few hours of their closing remarks.)

What managers can do is to help each employee to get really clear on their (the employees) self interest and how working towards organisational objectives serves it.  Once this is done motivation will follow as sure as night follows day.  Or the employee will leave to find a place where they can pursue their self interest more effectively.  And this really forces employers to look at the value proposition that offer to their employees.  Why should good, compassionate, competent people choose to spend their working hours with us?  If it is just for the money then “Houston, we have  problem!”

Self interest, rightly understood, properly negotiated with others and then pursued with vigour and power leads to remarkable results and one of its many by-products is ‘motivation’.  Others are inspiration, creativity, innovation, passion, energy, vigour, strength.  But the proper negotiation with others is critical.  Blending self interests, weaving them together,  ensuring that they reinforce rather than undermine each other, lies at the root of all high performing teams.  And this is the real craft of the progressive manager.

The trouble is most of us feel uncomfortable about pursuing self interest.  We are uncomfortable talking about it.  We don’t even like to give ourselves the time to think about it.  We have been socialised to suppress our self interest and look for opportunities to serve others.  And VERY few managers build the kind of relationships where self interest (of all parties) can be clarified and negotiated fully to the benefit of all.

Carmine’s point about the fundamental dishonesty of motivation, that it is about getting people to ‘do more work for less reward’ is, I believe, a misrepresentation.  Employees who create value deserve a proportionate share of that value and this depends on the proper negotiation of self interest.  If the negotiation is not proper, but unfair, then self interest is not fully served and as a result motivation erodes.

Increasingly the nature of the reward is more than simply financial.  Employees are looking for a diverse and intensely personal cocktail of rewards with ingredients that include fulfilment, challenge, flexibility, creativity and personal and professional development.  These are essential components of self interest for most of us and help to keep people motivated at least as much as money, which is just a hygiene factor.

Appreciation also needs to be part of the mix.  It absolutely is part of the package of ‘rewards’ that most of us look for at work.  And it is a part of the job that many managers struggle with as they tend to leave things alone until they go wrong.

And perhaps we (professional management educators) need to do more with managers on ‘motivation’ as an emergent property – the preconditions for which require a full and proper negotiation of self interest(s) and the development of the employees power to pursue it with vigour.

And while I don’t think that people are any different in the third sector, I do think that the cocktail of self interest often needs to be much more carefully balanced.  And many third sector managers forget this at their peril.  Few of us join social enterprises to be overt vehicles for the delivery of government policy.  We join social enterprises to promote social justice.  And the ‘self interests’ of politicians and the promotion of social justice are rarely properly negotiated.

Your thoughts….

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Holding Difficult Conversations at Work

Much of my work is about providing managers with safe and effective ways to have conversations that they would instinctively prefer to avoid.  Conversations about behaviours and approaches that don’t contribute towards excellent performance.

If they do choose to address the issue most managers have to force themselves to say things, to use words and phrases that are not (yet), a part of their everyday management vocabulary.

There is a great post here by Steve Roesler that offers some useful and practical insights into getting these difficult conversations right.

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