workplace and how it might change I was
involved in a thing called the working
together of you for the Scottish
government back in 2014 I learned a lot
then I learned a lot that I should have
learned many years ago it’s not a bit
too late for me I’ve got to say but it’s
not too late for me to share some of the
ideas that came out of it some of the
ideas I think we’re really very powerful
because even people like Karl Marx were
looking for a better way of doing things
they were looking for joyous hearts in
the workplace willing hands ready minds
etc the tragedy has been however the
experiments of the 20th century
including communism what hamburg british
leyland with amateur management and
militant unions neoliberalism have
failed we’ve got some enlightened
exceptions I’m going to tell you about
today but communism failed british
leyland model feels neoliberalism I
would argue has totally failed and could
well be catastrophic but there are
delaying exceptions so bear with me and
I will get to those in laying the
exceptions the key thing that we found
in a working together review was that
what was happening in many workplaces
with something like a kind of imbalance
two legged walk you know a very strong
leg of management and capital able to
dictate outsourcing and downsizing and
offshoring and zeroes contracts and rot
in terms of conditions etc and a very
weak leg of unions and workers being
dragged along behind and that just by
definition folks is suboptimal get an
explanation I’ve seen for this is
William and Kane Harper talking about
America being strong between 1870 in
1970 because of John Winthrop who came
from Plymouth in 1630 with the Puritan
vision of how do we create heaven on
earth how do we work together how do we
involve everyone in that process and how
do we join the dots to prove that
everything is getting better and we are
lifting all the bullets and the tragedy
of their report says that it was spoiled
the cancer started running but in 1911
and Frederick Taylor came up with taemin
motion studies the stopwatch
breaking the morale of working people
breaking the the gap of trust between
workers and management creating the
fantasy of scientific management you
could go from engineering to retail to
banking without deep domain knowledge
encouraging short-termism
who have now got that big time no with
neoliberalism and the financialization
of pretty much everything etcetera so we
saw this imbalance really materially
there and we saw so an explanation for
that what seemed to be happening was
that in the workplace the metaphor that
more of a most of us have of the
workplace being a family and management
being the parental figure we had
excessive strict piant the nurturing
p.m. had gone missing it was your show
me the results show me the money etc
build your capability or produce or
depart let cetera really really really
really harsh really really hard and I
think the big driver for that to me for
me has been greed you know people have
been trying to be short telomers to
optimize return to cash in the shear
options to be in the Bahamas when the
the markets the fan etc and David Hume
here and Ed burr in 1776 was pretty much
kneeling this David Hume talked about
greed being the worst vice ever and why
is it the worst vice is the wash face
because unbridled it will destroy the
greedy and utterly unbridled it will
destroy society so we have got to face
this down and there’s a big lane in
politics that says pose a big issue in
politics until you start talking about
it well so agreed we need to stop
talking about it
so psychopathy we need to stop talking
about a lot of psychopaths in business
etc so I’m arguing for win-win dynamics
and in this interconnected world no we
no longer can have win-win-win Lou’s
dynamics show that the loser is not
going to be a source of repeat business
not positive referral you might end up
having to discount your products to sell
etc when win is what has to be done we
have to have deals that everyone wins
etcetera I think organizations benefit
with with less waste like more staff
retention higher customer retention
cetera individuals benefit by way of
fulfillment of relationships they build
a real intrinsic motivation
Society has benefit more people and more
people paying tax more people
self-sufficient and not requiring to
depend on public services etc and I
think the the neat example of win-win
comes from aviation in 1977 United
Airlines said the good idea if we had
more safe planes and blessed people died
in crashes you know so they adopted a
thing called crew resource management
which was essentially to overcome the
toxicity of the gray-head of the captain
to bring people into the room to teach
them how to listen to each other to
respect each other to to advocate when
necessary to inquire when necessary to
be assertive when necessary that was the
captain the second officer the flight
crew is said to all be part of a
conjoined nervous system hugely
effective they can do that on an ever
changing flight deck and we can’t do in
many of our steady state organizations
but here’s a guy called Rajendra Sisodia
who’s identified those organizations
that do exactly that that look after the
interests of the shareholder of course
but also the customer the employee the
supplier the host community the taxpayer
the environment shortchanges none of
them limits the salary of the chief
executive to some modest multiple of
average workers wage and involve staff
in problem-solving product development
service development strategy development
etc and then when it comes to the cut
and you start looking at the results of
those companies Toyota Honda JetBlue
Southwest Airlines Costco Timberland
harley-davidson and you make a portfolio
of these companies and look at
performance 96 to 2011 2012 they
outperformed the market by ten point
five times ten point five times the
material gains are there and they are
huge so it forced a lot of thinking on
my part it’s given me the idea of that
the ideal what place metaphor is the
railroad handcar the railroad handcar
and why is that because I’ve got on one
side of management and capital I said
I’ve got unions and and workers etc and
if we get the
the situation changing and handling the
situation the right time if we balance
conflicting balances we actually make
progress together if one side wins is a
disaster we go nowhere if one side
decides to to go to sleep or on issues
we go nowhere etc so this is my metaphor
that the ideal handcar for me is one
where we’ve got a very strong platform
we’ve got a clear purpose we had a clear
unifying what is the purpose that’s been
articulated by and with the staff rather
than brought down from the mountain but
by some managerial Moses
we’ve got autonomy we’re giving people
the space to fulfill their rules to
fulfill themselves to be all they can be
etc we’re recruiting on competence and
committing ourselves to building
competence in perpetuity forever we’re
creating the connections and the
relationships and an organization where
people can make things happen because
they know the people to call they’ve got
the warm relationship to make things
happen because people trust them in the
process
and we’re all working within a just and
fair culture where the rewards are fair
and we’re only going to be hung out to
drive we’ve been Cavalier unprofessional
dishonest etc and in that claim it we’ve
got this lovely position where the
extremes meet that’s what we can manage
because they’ll always be extremes human
damage this lovely Scottish phrase he
talks about I always be where the
extremes meet it’s the only place I know
to dodge the Greek conceit of being
right that dams a vast majority of men
so the hell it being right what we need
to do is to on issues like straight
piano champion get the balance right and
not have it utterly imbalance in in
perpetuity
and are you going to say that there are
lots of polarities like this there’s the
strict and nurturing pimp polarity but
there’s also the polarity of do we stay
as we are or do we change that there has
to be a polarity there to be managed
there’s a polarity around or do we
centralized or decentralized there’s a
polarity there to be optimized and again
in changing circumstances the
environment will change
fiscal conditions will change the
economy will change etc other polarities
could be do we just go for action and
get things done
or do we pause and consider that we
reflect and take a lot for view about it
not one of them are right there’s a
balance to be struck and my final one
there is collaboration and competition I
love what Dee Hawk says about
collaboration competition he says if you
go on a one-legged walk of collaboration
you says it looks as though you’ve
wounded into a hippie commune your
political correct correctness dominates
we apply a quality minutes inappropriate
we end up with something like slavery to
hold control together etc and we end up
with something that is utterly
disastrous Paul Potts back in charge
from Cambodia etc if we’ve got a
one-legged walk of competition then its
repeat competitive tendering
a race to the bottom chaos layoffs
penury disaster societal disaster it’s a
two-legged walk he says and he says look
at any one of you a function of being
not at all not chat at school not just
through college university may be
entered the first job but you to compete
with siblings that hold me to compete in
the playground you can Pete in the
classroom you to compete on rate to get
that job and hold it down and what I
like about this is the advocates are
solid-body Johnson’s worth looking at
because she’s the guy that really opens
up my mind and politey management cuz
most pilates the the Stila school folks
see the strength of the stage school and
the weakness of the opposition and the
the crusader see their strengths and the
weakness of the scene is cool but they
don’t see all four quadrants we need to
see all four quadrants Ballet Johnson
helps us do that Mary Parker Follett
1868 to 1953 never worked in the private
sector knows what the voltage sector
genius she says 80 great ideas doing and
you believe black-tailed on appeal and
believes white that the wrong ask why is
white right for you integrate the ideas
she says value differences integrate
ideas form new groups wonderful form a
new group in the workplace wonderful
still and George Soros he’s the one
that’s whispering in the ear of both
people on either side of the handcart
which says
the one thing I can tell you for certain
about what you’re doing particularly in
retrospect is that it’s wrong the best
you can hope for you’re walking on a
fairy tale fallacy now my argument is
you’ll be in a much more effective
fallacy if you’re getting the feedback
from that other side of the platform and
managing it forward and finally I would
say look at the art of hosting that
swept Denmark and Austria and Sweden and
Canada and the states and it snow here
in Scotland where we’re bringing people
together to have conversations that
matter to have conversations that
suffice the issues that really matter
that allows us to focus on that my big
dream is that we have art of hosting
approaches in the workplace and not just
the megaphone diplomacy of senior
management see now hear this from the
bridge of the management team so there’s
a real-world manifestation to this
rather than have you believed I’m just
in my latest ages looking at a kind of
blue horizon that may or may not exist
wonderful guide we came across on the
study called you’d keep you it says in
the future there’ll only be four kinds
of jobs this is the top one discretion
learning jobs Brenda’s got one clarity
of purpose
if tonally going to do his job the
competence to do it the relationships
need to make things happen and he’s also
got the the just and fair culture that
he works with it next level down lean
jobs where your job is pretty much
prescribed you’re exactly what you’re
supposed to do level beyond the
scaleless jobs named after Frederick
Taylor
don’t bother bringing your brain will
tell you what to do minute to minute
hour to hour your before you’ll be fine
and the bottom level of job traditional
jobs don’t even discuss change you’ll
get fired sidelined etc what is really
fascinating is when you look at the
numbers and this is what I put on a bit
of humility here because the UK average
is only the European averages is 38% the
UK on the score is 35% Scotland being
that bit more of a branch economy turkey
30% but look at these numbers the
Netherlands 64%
Denmark 60% Sweden 54%
now that to my mind is huge because what
that means is that there’s less pressure
on the social services there’s a bigger
tax take there’s more resilient people
there’s people bringing up kids and
houses that I’ve got your warm cozy food
in the fridge books in the table I T
available for the kids to develop
forward but from a business standpoint
that also comes up Tom Peters link here
Tom Peter says that that little blue
circle down there is the generic product
that any company’s still delivering so
the bad news is that yellow circles what
the customer expects the good news he
says is that there is an Augmented
product you can have and the really good
news is there’s a potential product that
is huge and what you see what I’m saying
is you will struggle evil to deliver the
generic product if you don’t have more
people and discretion learning jobs and
this should be a real real priority for
us so I think I remember watching
Bettany Hughes cover these three great
philosophers all born two and half
thousand years ago over them 100 years
of each other
Socrates Confucius in the Buddha all
coming to pretty much the same
conclusion which was when user still
down the proposition it’s essentially
the handcart but before the time and
it’s do the right thing do the right
thing by your people by your customers
but by your suppliers by your host
community by the taxpayer by the
environment not just to be a nice person
but to be indispensable to be successful
and move things forward so I think the
point I would make know is there’s an
obligation on use potential or current
employees to demand discretion learning
jobs there’s an obligation on employers
to create more discretionary jobs even
just for their own self-interest and
there are lessons to be learned from Raj
Sisodia and what he’s identified with
these firms of endearment companies
there’s lessons to be learned from the
Netherlands and if you go back to a
lovely lane from a French economist work
for the OECD at one point am jean pierre
cookie he said famously a failure to
converge is a failure to learn we mice love this thank you