what more can there be? excellence factor presentation
DESCRIPTION
I presented at the Chartered Institute of Housing Excellence Factor Conferences in London and Manchester. Deligates asked for my presentation notes.TRANSCRIPT
Developing an approach to help
individuals, teams and organisations
achieve more.
Dave Bradley: Presentation notes
What more
can there
be?
P a g e | 1
Introduction
These are my presentation notes, they are written to be spoken, a
dialogue between me and you. As such they are not designed as a
written document which means the eagle eyed will find dialogical
grammar in places.
The aim of the presentation and these notes is to give food for
thought. These ideas are gleaned from my years of practical
experience. Implementation and realisation of each of the key
elements I describe is the subject of a completely different
discussion.
I hope, however, you find them an interesting reminder of my
presentation to the Excellence Factor 2012
Dave Bradley
April 2012
P a g e | 2
‘We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this
decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but
because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and
measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is
one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone,
and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.’
JFK made one of the greatest speeches of all time. One which
recognised the great achievements of the past but, at the same
time he threw down the gauntlet and challenged the USA and the
rest of the world to raise their ambitions and achieve more.
I’d like to start today with a short story if I may. It is about an incident I
saw reported on the main television news and which, if you like, was
my ‘Moon’ moment and has subsequently led to us working with
many individuals, teams and organisations to help them achieve
more.
JFK
Rice Stadium September 12th 1962
P a g e | 3
The incident which sparked the development of this approach
happened on 27th March 2008 when Terminal 5 (T5), the £4.3 billion
new terminal at Heathrow Airport, was opened to passengers for the
first time. Heralded as a brilliant technological project it quickly
turned into a passenger nightmare with the simple addition of
people.
They’d obviously spent a huge amount of time and effort getting the
technology and building right, possibly at the expense of fully
training the customer facing staff and support services.
As travellers joined ever lengthening queues and their luggage
disappeared into the bowels of the building, not to return for weeks,
one frustrated woman gave her reaction to a broadcaster. Her
analysis was short, incisive and insightful: “New tent, same circus”.
New tent, same circus.
What a brilliant phrase I thought, I need to think about that.
T5
Heathrow Airport London
P a g e | 4
An easy way of thinking about this is to recognise how often we
have been in a similar situation where we’ve been through often
painful organisational change, only to come out at the other end,
resplendent in our new whatever, look at each other, shrug and
carry on. Business as usual. It doesn’t have to be like this.
But, what more can there be?
P a g e | 5
Change happens. If we are going to change then surely it should
result in improvement, not new tent, same circus but new tent, new
circus, whatever that is. Since this incident I’ve used this wonderful
metaphor as a stimulus for developing my new approach to improve
customer service and help individuals, teams and organisations
achieve more.
‘Everything flows,
nothing stands still.’
Heraclitus
P a g e | 6
More for less
The driver for change these days seems to be the mantra ‘more for
less’. How many of you have had your bosses using the phrase:
‘more for less’?
You’re probably then all familiar with the predicament of a training
manger I was speaking to the other day other day, who had been
told by his boss they needed ‘more for less’:
More for less,
or did they mean
more or less
of what they already had,
but really less.
He now had less.
But the question remained,
what was more?
More of the same…
but less of it.
So in reality his boss meant,
more of less.
P a g e | 7
I don't know how many of you have heard about the work of
Ricardo Semler. He is the CEO of Brazilian company, Semco, who
have grown from being a pump manufacturer employing 100
people into one of Brazil’s most successful organisations. They
achieved a 27% growth each year for 25 years. Most importantly,
they have just a 1% per annum staff turnover rate. All this despite the
topsy-turvy state of the Brazilian economy over the last 25years.
Ricardo Semler’s ideas launched onto a world stage with an article
in Harvard Business review: ‘Managing without managers’. In which
he advocated a different way of managing organisations. His
approach has been sometimes been called ‘management by
omission’. In essence the workers choose their managers, the team
then chooses the people who they need to deliver whatever project
they are on, at whatever level of profit they choose.
Every six months it is a bit brutal because they have to decide who is
needed for the project, and if they don't need you, then you have to
put yourself forward to a different team.
Ricardo Semler
Think differently.
P a g e | 8
Put yourself in the rather scary position in your organisation where
every six months your team asks if it needs you to be part of
whatever they need to achieve.
Ricardo Semler at MIT link: http://video.mit.edu/watch/leading-by-
omission-9965/
P a g e | 9
Why? Why? Why?
They got to this way of working by continually questioning why they
do things in a particular way.
Why? Why? Why?
By asking the same question three times you are able to drill down to
uncover root causes. It might then become obvious that it may be
better to do things differently, or maybe, even not at all.
All that I’m talking about today is just as relevant to us as individuals,
as it is for teams and organisations. Just go through this thinking
process now:
What are the stupid things you do?
Test: why you doing these things?
How can you break from this design?
Stop pretending about what you are doing. (Stop defending
the indefensible.)
Think!
Do more of less!
Do more of the things that count.
The first elements of my approach:
1. More is a way of thinking.
2. People, Teams and Organisations need to be trained to think in
this way they won’t do it naturally. Why should they?
But this isn’t enough …
P a g e | 10
Is this possible? How could you do it? The challenge presented by Kirklees Neighbourhood Housing (KNH)
was to help a high performing team in a high performing
organisation become even more effective whilst saving cost. They
recognised further improvements could come from improved staff
wellbeing and reduced absence.
Taking a typical team like the Older People’s Service, the cost of
unplanned absence was around £19,000 per year; with additional
agency cover costing a further £30,000 per year.
The Team Leaders identified a further long list of hidden costs to the
provision of their service and the wellbeing of their customers;
inconsistent customer care, reduced staff morale and team
effectiveness, difficulty in recruiting the right people and in some
teams higher staff attrition.
Give 100% more
Kirklees Neighbourhood Housing Older People’s Service
P a g e | 11
Can a high performing team get even better? Let’s just examine
what they had to do.
• They had to believe there could be more (changed mindset)
• They had to accept that what they had been doing for 20years
could be changed (changed the rules)
Let’s not underestimate how hard this is.
Part of our approach was to get them to change perspective.
What do we need to do to improve wellbeing in this team? Rather
than; what do we need to do to manage absence more
effectively? After our work with team leader they showed that it was
possible to achieve a 100% improvement. They achieved
• Short term unplanned absence for one team has reduced in the
four month period from an average of 24 days to 0!
• Agency staff costs have been reduced from £30,000 per annum
to £0.
• The legacy of long-term sickness absence was managed
effectively resulting in a full complement of staff.
• Increase in the take up of wellbeing and support arrangements.
• Our attitudinal survey showed a remarkable shift from an already
high level of wellbeing factors to an even higher level.
• Increase in team-led improvements
It is possible.
For the full case study email [email protected]
Let’s add a third element to my approach:
3. Create a mindset where people are prepared to do something
different
P a g e | 12
Like Ricardo Semler I have to conclude that the workforce have the
answers. Go into any workplace and ask the workforce and they
can solve most of the problems you might have. I’ve looked long
and hard at organisations which want to make improvements. So
often there is a desire for more, but nothing much changes. Ideas
stay as ideas and don’t get adopted.
The centrepiece of our approach is to get them involved by asking
them for their input and letting them implement their improvements.
They are like the NASA engineers who found the way enable Neil
Armstrong to take ‘one small step’ on 21st July 1969. Now think: You
lead teams of rocket scientists who will solve our issues!
Our approach is to train managers to get their people involved.
Let’s add then two more elements:
4. Change the perspective to always be that of your customer
5. Improvement is driven from your workforce; after all they have
the answers
Engage your workforce
They have the answers
P a g e | 13
Our approach to training for improvement in customer service
centres on two questions; any programme we design needs to
address:
The tent: This is a metaphor for the rules we impose on our business
and our people.
Are you prepared to radically change the rules?
Our world is changing and the ‘old ways’ won’t allow us to deliver
‘more for less’ without reducing the quality of our service. Many of
our rules are self -imposed, just ask yourselves ‘what stupid things do
we do?’
The circus: This is a metaphor for your mindset.
Do your people have the right mindset?
The scourge of all change programmes is ‘MINDSET’. 60% of all
change activity fails because it does not effect a change in mindset.
We need participants to view their world differently and think
differently in order to create lasting change.
So what is a new tent, new circus?
P a g e | 14
Consider all those promises we make to ourselves: to lose weight, to
get fit, to read more, to write a book etc. We intellectually
rationalise what needs to be done and yet we often fail to make a
lasting change. We only achieve our goals when we reach a stage
whereby we intuitively think differently about what we do in order to
bring about new behaviours.
• Ask yourself what is your mindset? Is it useful or a hindrance? Can
you change your mindset? (Albeit with difficulty)
• How can we act differently? What will make us challenge the
practices that stop us considering a different approach?
Transformational improvement is delivered by a new tent, new
circus. It is defined by a change in mindset to one which is always
looking for improved service for your customers, accompanied by a
change in your rules so that this can be achieved.
So on 27th March 2008 a disgruntled customer likened her
experience of the opening of the sparkling new T5 at Heathrow
airport to a ‘new tent, same circus’. This simple phrase set us
wondering how we might achieve a new tent, new circus. It led us
to change what we were offering in order to formulate a new
approach to training, in particular towards improving customer
service. The key elements are:
1. More is a way of thinking.
2. People, Teams and Organisations need to be trained to think in
this way they won’t do it naturally. Why should they?
3. Create a mindset where people are prepared to do something
different
4. Change the perspective to always be that of your customer
5. Improvement is driven from your workforce; after all they have
the answers
P a g e | 15
As a member of the Paradigmantics Training Team we deliver programmes
written and designed by Paradigmantics or those designed by an in-house
team. Sometimes this might be a stand-alone programme or to supplement
the existing training team.
My practice has been independently certified by the Customer Service
Trainers Network. I am also a Certified On-line Facilitator having trained to
use Webex Training Centre. This means we can deliver live on-line training
from our studios. Increasingly, organisations want us to redesign existing
courses and modules to use this technology. I love working with all types of
learning, often using actors in training, team building and conferences.
At present I’m writing a book ‘What more can there be?’ It’s a philosophy
that guarantees there is more. The approach and associated techniques
and management reporting means individuals, teams and organisations
can ensure measurable improvements.
As I complete each section of ‘What more can there be?’ I will invite you to
attend online training / webinars so we can test the ideas and stimulate
discussion.
Our blog site: [email protected] also has pieces of
stimulation for the enquiring mind.
Dave Bradley
Trainer Speaker On-line facilitator Coach
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www.whatmorecantherebe.blogspot.com
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