LONDON — We’re crashing into Christmas. Like everyone else.  Lurking in shop doorways on Dec 24th and thinking “I said I’d never do this again.”

It’s been an odd and uncomfortable week amongst men in the UK though.  The dominant pagan religion of football has seen people talking about “goodwill toward men”, but in reverse.

What qualifies as “lacking goodwill” and what is “just part of a highly emotional, competitive game”?

The answers aren’t making anyone happy.  Teams and players who have been found to have been racially abusing people have been met with police investigations and eight game suspensions.  If you haven’t read about it, I wouldn’t recommend it.

The coverage and fan comments does no one proud.

And ill-prepared TV pundits have weighed in about how much they like ‘coloured people’.  It’s just hard to watch.

None of the people involved have a history of covering themselves in glory.

So it comes back to a question of what we will tolerate in our society and what we won’t.  And although I have heard lots of people say “it’s much better than it was 20 years ago” and “it’s just a bit of fun… you get used to it”, you don’t and you shouldn’t.

In the next few days football fans and football players, reporters, columnists, politicians and you and I have a chance to show some goodwill toward men.  Let’s do it.

Peace on earth in 2012.

I’m in.

/df

DOHA, QATAR — We’re working on four different ‘transformation programmes’ at the moment. Combined they are on three continents, in over 30 countries.

You would think that would provide some shocking contrasts.  But it does something quite different. It shows startling similarities.

Everything has superficial differences: language, geography, industry, structure…

Yes, those can seem superficial.

The issues in big business transformation generally fall into two buckets: human and process.

Human
When I worked in the airline industry we used to talk about “human factors in aviation”, and I thought that was very funny.  In that, without humans we would not need commercial aviation at all… so humans were a pretty key ingredient.

Transformations can be seen the same way.  Strategy teams and professional project managers can seem quite content to act as if humans are not involved.

And how many businesses exist without ‘human factors’?

Coordinating, informing, involving, managing, aligning, working with and working around humans is one of the hardest parts of any transformation.

Ask anyone with the scars of a big change programme, successful or not, and they’ll say communication and people are the two most under-appreciated areas.

Process
Businesses need a sense of direction.  Even restaurants must know what is important (filling tables) and what to do to try to fill more.

However most large businesses are more complex than that.  With function, regions, business units and many horizontal layers of people influencing or directing each others’ work.

To create and sustain a sense of direction you need processes.

There is no one set of words or no single way of talking to people.  You cannot expect a data specialist to need the same information as an assembly line worker.

In order to be clear on what you are saying, to create a core of content and to move and support the transformation you need to have a plan… several plans often… and many processes to follow to see that you are consistent, coordinated and coherent across all of your business.

And then you need to sustain that over time.

Easy. Right.

Same, same, not always different.

/df

BAHRAIN — This is my first time in Bahrain.  That leaves only really Oman in the area that I haven’t been to / worked in.

United Arab Emirates?
√ Check
Saudi Arabia?
√ Check
Kuwait?
√ Check
Qatar?
√ Check

It’s a part of the world that many people can’t (or choose not to) understand.

In the last three weeks I have flown over it 5 times.  Three of those times I have flown over Iraq.

Well, it’s on the way.

The other two times we diverted.  And flew over Syria instead.

But although areas of conflict may be the image and abiding sense that many people have of the Arab Gulf states, it’s not representative.  (No more than when I was a boy living in London and people always thought I’d be caught up in IRA bombs.)

‘The region’, as locals call it, is very diverse and very active in sport, culture and business.  The region is quietly taking on the world.

And that’s not a bad thing.

Change is good.  And planning and communicating change in this region is important.

The oil and natural gas revenues have allowed visionary leaders to invest heavily in construction and in businesses.  The foreign investment is well documented — both successes and failures.  What is less well documented is the local investment.  It’s immense.

And as a result the region is re-writing business laws.  Some of the smartest people working in business anywhere are working here.

It’s something to see.  Long may it last.

/df

WEST LONDON — There’s a hording around the big, refurbished church at Hammersmith flyover that says TRANSFORMATIONSPACE.  The hordings in the photo above are at the base of the new Shard of Glass building at London Bridge.

What are they on about?

The words ‘change’ and ‘transformation’ are starting to gain some currency in business circles these days.  Many, many large companies are going through Transformation programmes.  And ‘change management’ is a skill or capability that most industries are finding they need.

Transformation has perhaps just become a watch word for the speed and frequency with which big businesses have had to adapt.

Times change and businesses must too.

Today, of course, pressures are changing daily.  So you must as well.

What is amazing to watch about the business change programmes we are working on — and they include some of the biggest ones happening now — is that they are no less ambitious or transformative than London’s tallest skyscraper, or Hammersmith’s church under the highway.

That is: What was there before is totally transformed.

When you think about the complexities of business that’s an amazing thing: across divisions, functions, offices, regions, through the management line… affecting customers, suppliers, employees and plenty of other stakeholders.

Change can happen in big, complicated organisations.  they can be transformed.  But it is no easy task. 

And without proper change management and the engagement of key audiences it just won’t work.

That has been shown over and over again.

/df

FITZROVIA – Batman Syndrome* is when you have achieved all sorts of fame and fortune, and regular life holds no challenges, so you start to do anti-social, dangerous things.

In the case of Bruce Wayne it’s putting you knickers outside you tights and fighting crime.

In the cases of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dominique Strauss-Kahn it’s something else.

I don’t know if this is a real syndrome. I haven’t done the socio-psycho research to prove it. But it certainly helps explain a lot.

Both the head of the IMF and the former Governor of California had form.  They were known to have gotten into trouble before.  But they escaped censure. So it escalated.

And the point of interest for us mortals is to look out for when it might start to exhibit itself in the work place.

I can see, for example, shades of it what I call “first time as a Prefect” management style. This is when people get drunk on their new found responsibilities and start using their power in weird and unhelpful ways.

In the case of these two major political figures that’s quite an understatement.

Calling people on their bad behaviour has been a feature of politics forever.

It is starting to happen with journalists and CEOs too.

But it’s not yet common in most offices and workplaces.

Don’t think it’s not coming though.

The cape and tights didn’t help DSK and Arnie.  They shouldn’t help people in business either.

/df

* Not to be confused with this Batman Syndrome which is described as the inability to move one’s head without moving your whole torso.  Although…

CROMWELL ROAD — There was a little girl with her dad on the bus today.  She cried the whole trip.

“I don’t like the teachers…!  I don’t want to go…!  I want my MOMMY…!!” 

That kind of crying that is so deep and, after a while, so filled with mucus that breathing is affected.

The adults shifted uncomfortably.  Because half of you wanted to shout out:

“For the love of everything, pick her up and take her home! Let her play at home all day!”

And the other half of you thought: Man there are days when I want to cry like that too.

“I don’t want to go to work.  And you can’t make me…”

This morning the Gallup Management Journal published this gem as a way of trying to get you to read more:

“As Egypt and Tunisia have shown, persistent joblessness can contribute to momentous social upheaval. What’s more, Gallup’s global surveys confirm that people who have jobs rate their lives more highly than those who are unemployed.”

For which, I am sure, someone is due a Pulitzer or at least have a spot on Biography.

However, there is an interesting ying and yang in there. (Listen to me go all eastern.)

Even the lucky amongst us who genuinely love our jobs have days where we really don’t want to do it.  And we dream of the day when we can do nothing (which is harder to do than one imagines.)

And those who hate their jobs.  What do they do?  Sobbing on the bus isn’t really socially acceptable.

At the same time, a job is really what we are here for.

(You might argue that you don’t want to work: you want to be a philanthropist, or a famous intellectual, or an underwear model… But all of those are work.)

We do get pleasure and self-expression out of work.  And that’s what part of work has to be about.

So what can we do to make it better?  How can we improve it?

That’s probably what the rest of this blog is about.

/df

TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD — Or so says Andy Gill in today’s Independent review of new records.

And what a week it is.  A new Elbow album.  A new REM one too.  And a third from Noah and The Whale.

All well reviewed.

Any one of those would be good enough to make a week for me… But three!

Change and retrospection are good themes this week as well.  Not only professionally, but at this time of year and at this point in our economic history.

They sound like they should be melancholy. But neither change nor retrospection need to be sad affairs.  I find the ideas (and the music) to be life affirming.

Change brings renewal.  And without change we all end up getting a bit stale, and life goes stale with it. 

And retrospection (which I don’t think is a word) is a sign of wisdom.  To my eyes anyway.  We often find that self-awareness is a difficult thing.  Looking back makes you more assured in moving forward.

Maybe that’s a sign of age.

/df

WORLD’S END — I hadn’t realised how odd an address this is to be writing from.  But maybe it’s fitting.

30+ years ago I arrived at a boarding school in rural Ontario.  I had been living the previous two years in Paris and two years before that in Kenya.  While still a Canadian, I was a smart-ass, and a French-fueled nihilist.

The Cold War was on, and it was cool to smoke, wear big raincoats and assume the worst.

While on a bus tour with all the ‘new kids’ I was talking about where I had been the preceding years.  A large, younger kid poked his head over the bench and said to me:

“Wow, what does your dad do?”

“He assassinates Presidents,” I said dryly.

“Oh.”

“And he’s headed to Egypt next…”

I have no idea why I said that.  There must have been a reason.  But when a few days later the Globe and Mail newspaper arrived with banner headlines about the murder of Anwar Sadat, the kid from the bus approached me in awe…

It’s not a great story.  But at least it shows the bridge that Mubarak has spanned.  I was 15 when he came to power.

From 1981 to today.  A lot has happened in that time.  There’s been a lot to change.  And we like to pin it on men, and make every story a human story.  One person (male or female) actually has pretty low odds of changing the world.  1/6,000,000,000 anyone?

And yet we continue to put our faith and hope in individual leaders.  And we continue to lay the blame on individual villains.

Is one person really capable of so much?

I am not trying to let violent or tyrannical regimes off the hook.  But really?  Can the whole world be in the thrall of one man?

Surely our systems have changed.  The level of education in most countries has risen sharply in recent years.  Communications has expanded rapidly.  I was constantly amazed by the number of satellite dishes in Saudi Arabia… A country that does not have a free press, and yet most people were watching the Super Bowl and CNN live.

We like to think that one person is the source of power for our work issues as well.

“If only the CEO would get behind this programme (of mine) everything would be great.”

The truth is that change takes many, many people.  Systems have to change.  Processes have to change.  And people have to change.

This last one is the most important.  And often the most overlooked.  No one man will make everyone change.

It’s hard work for a lot of people.  But it can be done.

/df

OXFORD STREET — Okay you’re not running Egypt.  But imagine you were.   Or let’s be clearer.  You have been given a new project:

Get that Egypt thing sorted out.

Easy, right?  They made it through the frogs and locusts, etc.  No, okay. Seriously.  (And apologise in advance to the people who are working hard to bring change to that country.)  But what is it that the country faces?  And can some of our common change models give a clue as to where the difficulties may lie?

Burning platform?

Is there a ‘burning platform’?  In other words do people see a real and compelling need for change? 

[I noticed with a bit of the nervousness yesterday that the new Canadian head of Nokia was worrying about the burning platform at Nokia.  Not the first time they've questioned their own strategy and operations publicly... and probably because they still can't see where their many strengths are... but that's another blog.]

So this one’s easy: Is there a burning platform for change in Egypt?

Yes.  People in the streets for two weeks.  Government in panic.  Rock and multi-lingual posters flying to and fro.

That’s a yes.

Clear goals?

Do we know what we are changing into?

No. 

Do we have a shared idea? 

Well, it’s not this…

So that’s a no?

Hmm.  Maybe that’s a bit tougher.

We know what we DON’T want to be.  But there’s less clarity on what we do want to be.

So that’s a tricky one, but not beyond repair.  The difficulty will be to set and agree an achievable goal. 

Let’s start with what we don’t want to be and make goals for change that are achievable.  But in Egypt even that will be hard.  People don’t go into the street for ‘moderate, incremental change’.

Plan for change?

Yea.  No.

Aligned leadership?

Right, let’s break that down… define ‘leadership’?

Yea. No.

Stakeholder engagement?

Well, engaged is certainly true.  But that’s semantics.  There are lots of people inside and outside the country who are interested in knowing where this goes.  Who is talking to them?  What are they saying to them?  What are they hearing back?

Put that in a box marked: Dunno.

Sustainability of change?

For more than two weeks people have been coming out onto the street demanding change.  And they don’t seem keen to go home.

So what do we do?

/df

P.S. More to follow.  (Ideas and comments welcome.)

P.S.S. The photo is a ‘photo-illustration’. (It’s not real.)

GREAT PORTLAND STREET — I’ve got nothing new to add to the sexism discussion at Sky Sports… except for those who think the lads were just having a laugh, or boys will be boys, it is worth taking the sobering ”Sexism at work” test found in today’s Independent (sadly not available online).

What I am more interested in today is a little discussed part of the story. 

The story is that two football reporters have left Sky Sports after sexist remarks made off-air about a female line judge.  They were later backed up with other examples of bad behaviour.

Yesterday one of the two, Richard Keys, was on local talk radio station TalkSport, and said:

“Our prehistoric banter is not acceptable in a modern world, I accept that. We got it wrong. We failed to change while everything was changing about us but one of the reasons is that we liked to have what is described as prehistoric banter.”

“We [Sky] have grown up with nobody liking us. We are a little bit like Wimbledon – we have to upset people along the way to get noticed.”

And that is an interesting point, because very few outsiders with a knowledge of one of Britain’s biggest broadcaster (and it’s total lock on football and pay-television audiences) would see them as scrappy upstarts.  Last year British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) turned over more than £5 billion.  The business has been running as BSkyB for more than 20 years and is an integral part of British life.

Each company tells stories about itself that become the norm.  At one of my old firms it was about the CEO who played guitar every year at the Christmas party.  But the stories we tell about our companies often define and reflect the culture of an organisation. 

So a business that believes “nobody likes us”.  And then says “we have to upset people along the way to get noticed.”

That is going to make people behave in a certain way, isn’t it?

It implies a corporate motto of: “everybody hates us, but we don’t care…”

And there is no way that you can lay the blame for that culture solely at the feet of the two men in the frame.

Corporate culture is driven by some very clear and simple things.  At Sky Sports — like many other businesses — they haven’t paid enough attention to the organisational culture… and “the way we do things around here” has caused them all this pain.

/df