mike west

Kodak's moment of truth

Filed under culture , customer research

It's a great shame that Kodak joins household names such as Saab, Woolworth's, Readers Digest, Ferranti, Sinclair and giants of British motorcycle industry. Kodak and "Kodak moments" have been an integral part of my life and the lives of millions of others.

Their film has recorded triumphs and tragedies, laughter and tears; it has captured the very best and the worst of humanity, providing an important archive for generations to come.

As an eight year old child, I started taking photographs with a box camera, carefully loaded with rolls of Kodak black and white film and then processed on their paper. I graduated to a Kodak Instamatic camera and after that a succession of SLRs, all of which had Kodak film at their heart.

The Kodak brand dates back to the eighteenth century. With such long established corporations, it is not uncommon for a culture of arrogance or perhaps even complacency to become embedded. While the company experimented with digital imaging in the nineties, they spectacularly failed to recognise the revolution taking place around them.

It's a marketing aphorism that customer needs don't change but the ways of satisfying those needs do. How true this is in the case of Kodak.

Where was the market research? What were their customer surveys telling them? How could they allow their organisational culture to be come so complacent?

This is a salutary warning for companies of all sizes.

Leadership development; innovations in academia

Filed under leadership development

I've been working with the Zurich University of Applied Sciences for some months now on a Leadership Development programme for their International Executive MBA programme. It's designed to enable students to realise more from their studies and further their careers by developing executive competencies.

The programme includes a combination of coaching and assessment so that students can measure the development of their individual executive competencies while the university can track progress of the intake as a whole.

Students will gain insights into their individual behaviours using world class personality tests such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and 16PF. Mike will be providing one-to-one interpretation and feedback so that students can prepare personal development plans. Particular emphasis is placed on team working and communication.

In addition, Management Scenarios are being used to assess their ability to make effective decisions based on real-life situations. By comparing results at the start and conclusion of the course, progress can be evaluated and managerial judgment can be compared with a relevant benchmark.

The University has placed a strong emphasis on leadership skills with this new programme. By achieving a balance between theoretical knowledge, practical learning and leadership development, students will be much better equipped to cope with the complexities and uncertainties of today’s international business environment.

It’s a real privilege to contribute to such an innovative programme.

Why customer engagement needs to be more than a strapline

Filed under culture

I have no idea how much money Lloyds Bank have spent on their "For the Journey" advertising campaign but I am sure that it's a lot. I have never really understood the campaign but apparently it's intended to build a relationship – or emotional engagement - with customers. Personally, I would rather have a relationship with Myra Hindley than my bank - but that's beside the point.

More to the point is that the messages of these campaigns need to be consistent with the day-to-day activities of the bank. Every customer interaction is a moment of truth which can enhance or destroy that relationship.

Back to Lloyds Bank, with whom I have had an account for 39 years. A couple of weeks ago I wrote to them requesting that a savings account be closed down and that the balance be transferred to a higher interest account. Their reply to me said that they had no record of my signature on their database and that I would have to prove my identity or else they would ignore my request.

39 years and they don't know who I am? 39 years and they have no record of my signature? Think about that for a moment. All of those signed cheques which have presumably passed through their hands un-checked. And what about the money-laundering implications?

I suspect that the reality of this situation is a suspension of initiative and common sense. Or perhaps it is another short term example of cost-cutting at the expense of customer service.

Avoiding a leadership and culture breakdown

Filed under culture , leadership development

Could something like this happen to us? Is it starting to happen already? That question must be engaging Boardrooms up and down the land following recent revelations from News International, the Metropolitan Police and the Press Complaints Commission.

For all of the high profile failures such as these, BP and NASA there are many more low profile failures which are still enormously damaging. They can result in chronic underperformance, loss of shareholder value and a failure to realise human potential.

Here are some simple suggestions for guarding against a leadership and culture breakdown in your organisation. They involve regularly holding a mirror up to the organisation and being prepared to act on what is discovered – at whatever level it is discovered.

1. Check out the culture. Understanding the behaviours which are currently driving and shaping organisational culture can be a revelation.
2. Do an anonymous staff survey to find out what is going on and what staff are really thinking.
3. Commit to 360s for the leaders and put in a development programme around those.
4. From the top down, the entire company needs to be prepared to take a good look at itself in the mirror and commit to act upon what it sees. No excuses, no attempts at justification.

Managing organisational culture has to be the responsibility of the leadership team and it must be seen as real work – not just a "fluffy bunny" activity to fill a page in the annual report.

Simply issuing an edict about standards of conduct is not good enough. After all News Corporation did that.

The human and financial cost of misaligned leadership

Filed under leadership development , culture

News Corporation's Standards of Business Conduct document reads well. It sets out the high ethical standards required of all members of staff, covering areas such as trust, honesty, data privacy, bribery and safeguarding the company reputation.

Today's statement by James Murdoch announcing the surprise closure of the News of the World appeared to be a mea culpa at first reading.  It was actually an attempt to detach himself and the management team from responsibility; use of the passive voice is marked throughout in phrases such as "the News of the World and News International wrongly maintained that these issues were confined to one reporter".

The problem with this is that the phone hacking and other crimes were not perpetrated by the newspaper, but by people at the newspaper. I cannot believe that management would not have known what was going on – especially with the recent admission of the problem being more widespread than originally claimed.

The consequences of these crimes are profound; the misery caused by phone hacking to Milly Dowler's parents, grieving soldiers' parents and war widows; the loss of jobs; the destruction of a 168 year old brand and the associated financial consequences.

So how could things have been allowed to go so terribly wrong? Blaming a small number of "rotten apples" is a smokescreen; it's just too easy. The company knew how it ought to behave because it was spelt out in their Standards of Business Conduct. While all members of staff have a personal responsibility for their conduct, the leadership team are even more accountable.  It's their job to ensure alignment of the culture and company values.  It is clear that they failed to do that.

The ensuing public inquiries will no doubt attribute the criminality to a number of causes but I am certain that organisational culture and poor leadership will be high up the list. Just as it was for BP in the Gulf of Mexico.

Fortunately, on this occasion, nobody died as a direct consequence of these failures.

Why we need a range of personality tests

Filed under selection and development

As a keen amateur photographer, I have come to value how lenses and filters enable different perspectives to be obtained.  For example, to make clouds more distinct, I might use a polarising filter. In a different context, the same filter can reduce reflections but would serve little or no purpose capturing a night sky.

Careful selection of lenses and filters makes it possible to see things which might otherwise be lost, ignored or be taken for granted. Choosing the correct equipment requires skill and experience but can involve a degree of trial and error.

Personality tests are snapshots. They enable an individual to see themselves in different lights - in ways they might not have seen themselves before. Some focus on traits while others are based around personal preferences. Some are self-reports while others require the feedback of colleagues.

Just as the professional photographer requires a selection of lenses and filters, so we need a range of personality tests for different applications. I've posted previously about Maslow's hammer so please check out why validity is an important consideration when it comes to selecting the most appropriate personality test.

It is wisdom to know others; it is enlightenment to know one's self

Filed under leadership development

Lao-Tzu, the ancient Chinese mystic philosopher, wrote that in the 6th century BC. Modern-day authors might say something along the lines of "effective leadership starts with knowing yourself".

The corollary of these quotes might read that "lack of self knowledge is unenlightened and can result in poor leadership".

I know from personal experience, running leadership workshops, that most people can reel off a list of past bosses who have disenfranchised and demotivated all and sundry.

For many, the soft skills of leadership and team working just do not come naturally. Often, individuals are mortified when they discover the negative impact they are having on others. Fortunately, there are routes to enlightenment and it is generally accepted that soft skills can be taught.

A good place to start can be the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, which uses behavioural preferences as a way of describing an individual's personality.  Other psychometrics such as the 16pf explain personality in terms of observable behaviours while 360s provide feedback from peers, reports and your boss.

All of thee tools can be a small step on the road to enlightenment.

Using scenario tests to assess managerial and executive judgement

Filed under selection and development

The problem with judgement is that it's subjective - rarely black and white and generally complicated by several shades of grey. Yet good judgement is often an essential job requirement, particularly for more senior roles where decisions tend to be less rule-based.

The traditional options for assessing an individual's judgement ability leave a bit to be desired:

• The hunch – high risk and it can go horribly wrong
• Throw 'em in at the deep end - drowning is a nasty business for all involved
• Asking scenario-based questions – a good start but it doesn't provide the full picture as responses are not differentiated meaningfully, objectively and fairly

Scenario tests provide a powerful measure of situational judgement in areas such as managing objectives, people management and corporate management. They measure an individual's ability to weigh up real life managerial situations, then decide on appropriate and effective ways of handling them.

The fact that these tests are "normed" means that scores can be compared with others who have taken the test. The better tests included a number of different norm groups such as graduates, managers and executives.

Scenario tests have a wide range of applications beyond recruitment and selection, including succession planning, coaching and personal development plans.

By way of a footnote, scenario tests are not the same as psychometric tests, which measure reasoning ability or personality.  However they are often used alongside them.

Maslow's hammer and psychometric tests

Filed under leadership development

If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  Abraham Maslow*

It’s a great quote, which is especially appropriate to personality and ability testing.

You see, reliability and validity really matter when deciding which psychometric test to use. 

Poor reliability is a bit like having bathroom scales which give different readings each time under the same conditions.  They are random and you can’t trust them to be accurate.

Validity, in simple terms, is about relevance – whether a test looks right, feels right and really measures what it claims to measure.  Or perhaps what it is claimed that it will measure.

And that’s why it is really important to consider a range of psychometric tests for areas such as leadership development  – because if you only have the one tool at your disposal then everything starts to look like a nail.

* Also attributed to Mark Twain and Abraham Kaplan – go figure!

20% off Candidate Profiles during April

Filed under selection and development

For the remainder of April, we are offering customised candidate reports for just £195 plus vat - that's a 20% reduction on the normal price.  Our reports include:

• pen portrait
• competencies profile
• interview prompts

By using psychometrics as part of a recruitment process, much more can be discovered about the job/person fit than by just using interviews.

More information about this service can be found on our recruitment and selection webpage.