Then I read a research report today which linked management behaviours to productivity. The report essentially links management behaviour high performance over a variety of areas. The research also showed that of those firms surveyed around 60% had low performance in all areas. What does that say about the management behaviours in those firms?

What do we expect of our managers? I believe people managers to look out for them, to treat them with respect and dignity, as human beings and to engage them in the daily processes. I believe also they expect their managers to fight for their future. Afterall in most instances only those in a management role have access to all the information that informs a decision.

How many times have employees in general felt their management team gave up; that it was easier for management to sacrifice workers than it was to get up and fight?

A management team that gives up is morally corrupt. As a team they have abdicated their responsibilities to those they are supposed to support and nurture. Likely in the case of public companies they have also abdicated their responsibilities to stakeholders.

The research suggests those poor performing organisations are the ones most likely to go belly up. Which means we continue to recycle poor managers and impose their mediocrity upon the workforce all over again.

Is there a solution? Yes there is. Firstly recruit people into management roles based upon leadership characteristics and behaviours as much as technical knowledge. Then reduce the number of managers by having management focus upon developing others to be the best they can be; to take personal responsibility for their own outcomes.

One really effective manager will achieve a great deal more than five or six ineffective managers. It is time to get rid of all those middle managers and senior executives that lack leadership behaviours.

Those are my thoughts for the day.

Let The Journey Continue

John Coxon

I don’t have a problem with the advice. Its like all self help advice, it will likely work if you do the things you need to do. What about those that cannot get past their fear?

Firstly we have to make  a couple of choices. Is it a fear we must face or one we simply don’t want to face? Our stress is created by not making a choice.

If we decide our fear must be faced – then there is no alternative but to just do it. Face it and go full on. Better to face the fear than have it sneak up behind you and take you by surprise.

On the other hand, if it isn’t necessary to face your fear, then don’t. Make a decision to not bother with it and to not be bothered by it.

Not every fear need be faced. There are often alternatives. At another time, facing the fear might become necessary but for the moment, walk away and do something else.

A lot of our fear arises from our concern about being out of control. If we take this action we dont actually know what will happen. We become fearful of the unknown. The solution here is to accept you cannot control everything; however you are an intelligent person and you will always be able to work through whatever happens.

If you are a bit anal and need to be in control then perhaps you need to walk away and do something else. Persisting with an activity that generates fear will simply increase your stress and often result in negative behaviour.

Consider bringing someone else in to work with you. If you have to do something fearful and you can’t walk away, then ask yourself who else might help you. Having someone to walk alongside you can help reduce the stress. For example, if you are fearful of walking into a room full of strangers, consider asking a colleague to accompany you.

You can also change how you do things. Returning to our room full of strangers. Perhaps you could make an effort to be the first person there. By changing how we behave we may also reduce the level of fear and stress.

Those are my thoughts for the day.

Let The Journey Continue

John Coxon

What is needed to get through the day in the majority of management roles? The word endurance comes to mind. For many people involved in management their day is filled with dealing with the minuete of work life – not grand decisions, more like working through issues such as who didnt enter the correct number into the security system when leaving work last night, or who didnt order a new supply of toilet paper for the staff bathroom, who why A doesnt want to work with B today.

In these environments managers need patience and persistence. It helps if you prioritise issues based upon their impact and consequences. Strange as it may appear, a lack of toilet paper may be more important than whether A and B want to work together. In this way you will attend to those issues most likely to cause ongoing grief.

Ordinary managers just do ordinary things. One of the most ordinary things you can do every day is facilitate conversations with people. Actually that would be extraordinary as a good number of managers actually fail to do this. By facilitating conversations I mean, avoid telling people what to do or what to think; instead ask questions and enable people to explore ideas and contribute their wisdom and knowledge.

A small handful of managers operate in the rarified arena of grand decision making. Most simply spend their day dealing with a myriad of common issues. At all times remember you are a human being, working with other human beings. How you treat others will guide them in how you want them to treat you.

As the saying goes, when we bend over to pull up our pants, we are all fairly much the same!

Those are my thoughts for the day.

Let the journey continue

John Coxon

A challenge for many working in the funded nonprofit sector can be that they fail to utilise entrepreneurial thinking. It’s not that people lack creativity. They lack the ability to shift their mindset from being told what to do – this often comes with the funded environment, where others set the agenda on how services will be delivered.

The world is full of people in need. There are about 8 different ways a nonprofit organisation may generate revenue. Fee for service is one of those ways and it is often overlooked when people look to diversify revenue sources. Why is this? Partly it is because people involved in social service delivery consider it anethema to make a buck from their knowledge. This type of thinking holds back organisations.

What was my advice to the people I met with this morning? To follow the Nike advt and ‘just do it.’ Do something, get the ball rolling. Doing nothing is a bad option. It is better for your headstone to read, ‘s(he) died trying’ rather than to read, ‘s(he) waited to die.’

Think of the personal satisfaction involved in doing something positive and constructive. Think of the leadership skills you will develop as you gather a group of supporters around you. Think of the collective wisdom and knowledge you will tap into from those supporters. Think about what might be.

There is no right or wrong time to do something. Yes, it involves taking a risk. Yes, you might get it wrong and become the object of ridicule and criticism. There is no guarantee of failure; just as there is no gaurantee of success. The only thing you can be sure off is this. If you do nothing you will have nothing.

So what if it results in you moving to another employer. I know that I was hiring I would look for the resume that says, I tried and failed, rather than the resume that says I failed to try!

Those are my thoughts for the day.

Let the journey continue.

John Coxon

The world is changing. Where did you hear that before? The environment we work in is changing. This is getting very profound! While many of us continue to work in hierarchial environments (even when we’re told that is not so), the nature of power is also changing.

Gone are the days when your title ensures others would listen and do as you told them. Gone are the days when those below you would cower and simply follow instructions. In the modern, emerging workplace it is not what you know, but who you know that helps you to build and exercise power.

Now some of you might be thinking, it’s always been about who you know. I’m not talking about the arse-kissing type of relationship of the past, I’m talking about the ‘what’s in it for both of us’ type of relationship that is emerging. All around the world levels of management are being dismantled. There are fewer management roles and there are less opportunities for climbing a corporate ladder based upon titles.

Workplace effectiveness and management success is now measured in what you achieve and to maximise your effectiveness you need to build relationships that help you achieve something and in turn be prepared to help others achieve what it is they need to be seen to be effective.

There are numerous stakeholders with an interest in your effectiveness and success. You must have an understanding of who these stakeholders are, what is their interest and what factors push their buttons. Build your relationship with each stakeholder over time – before you will ever need their help. Build your relationship by being prepared to give before you need to take. Build your relationship by attending to the other person’s needs rather than your own.

Power is about influencing other people. Power is having the ability to marshall support and resources without having to resort to coercion. At the centre of building powerful relationships is ensuring you give other people credit for their contribution and for their part in helping you achieve your success. You cannot be effective or successful on your own. You must know have the knowledge to know what to do and the relationships that enable you to get it done.

Building your power base is not about being nice to people; yet it’s not about being horrible either. By all means be true to yourself, be guided by your values, while at the same time understanding that having power to exercise means sometimes you will be required to make hard decisions, you will have to adapt constantly to changing circumstances and you may need to build relationships with people you dislike or even despise.

Power is not something to be avoided if you want to be seen as being effective. Seeking to be effective means taking a risk. It means confronting the possibility of being wrong or making an ineffective decision. Avoiding risk means you avoid building the relationships you need to be effective.

Being effective involves you in building relationships on multiple fronts. You may not be working on all those relationships at the same time. Work on those where you can make progress. Use that progress to create a reason for those less productive relationships to engage with you. Look for ways to make those that oppose you a part of your team or ways they can gather a stake in the outcomes. If all else fails, look for ways to remove an opponent. This could involve working around them, going above them, building a relationship with someone able to influence them, or even moving them someplace else.

Effective people learn which battles are worth fighting. The learn to live to fight another day. They are persistent and they never give up, not matter how long it takes. They understand that often the most important person to build a relationship with is not the person with the title but those that surround that person and influence decisions.

Those are my thoughts for the day

John Coxon

www.johncoxon.com.au

This process of ‘sensing’ the external environment is critical to the sustainability of any organisation. The challenge for many nonprofits can be that due to their funding model, they become complacent. At both the governance and executive level they fail to look outside the window – or they leave off doing so till it is almost too late.

The Tipu Ake model highlights this sensing component when it draws an analogy between organisations and a forest. In the forest trees sense the external environment, their leaves and in some instances the bark adapt to accommodate the elements, they sense where the sources of energy, water, sunlight are and how best to take advantage of the emerging environment. It is those trees that best sense and adapt to external factors that grow to become tall and old.

Clearly not every tree survives to become a towering giant, just as very few organisations grow and become truely sustainable. Only those able to sense both internal and external factors and plan accordingly are likely to become a force to be reckoned with.

In our organisations there is a further benefit from sensing – it encourages sharing and discourages silo’s from forming. It creates an environment of learning and continuous improvement. Only a handful of trees survive to become monsters of forest however they didnt get there on their own, their survival was assured by the way in which they formed a symbiotic part of the forest. Look around the bottom of a giant tree. You will see other plants that have been able to thrive because of the protection provided by the taller tree.

The downside of not sensing the emerging environment is that things sneak up on us – we don’t see them coming and even when we do our senses are not sufficiently developed to recognise any inherent threat – which then prevents us from putting place proactive strategies or defences. When this happens our first instance is to point to the ‘emerging factor’ and say, it’s all their fault.

It is nobody elses fault, other than our own. We have choices and we have options. We choose to be insular and look inside, to take notice only of our own ‘press releases’, to fail to sense and spot incoming threats, or the opportunities these emerging events invariably present.

Can we change the way we do things? Of course we can. It is a cultural change, a movement towards sensing and becoming proactive. This is a change that must be lead from the top, by the board and by the executive team. When that takes place, miracles can occur.

Those are my thoughts for the day
John Coxon
www.johncoxon.com.au

Those are my thoughts for the day
John Coxon

I’m glad Kerry referred to reinvention as a ‘buzzword’. I can recall attending a job interview back in 1998 where some spotty faced graduate said to me in a squeaky voice, ‘so you are reinventing yourself.’

Kramer, Porter and Hamel from MiX are correct in suggesting that we need to collaborate more, however there is nothing new in their thinking – management commentators have been talking about collaboration for the past 30 years, and we are no closer to achieving that holy grail. Crickey, most organisations are terrible at internal collaboration, I have no idea how we would get entire sectors to collaborate with each other. Unless, we took the time to learn what it is each needs and were prepared to work together towards a common dream or vision, while accepting we each will not get everything we want. How difficult can it be? A part of the problem might be that we don’t trust ourselves or anyone else.

We don’t need to reinvent ourselves. We have everything we need to achieve anything we want to achieve. We have the ability to dream up creative solutions, to have positive conversations, to share and to learn from each other. We have the tools – we just fail to learn how to use them. We need to rediscover the pleasure of working together towards a common dream. We need to share our understanding of society so that we come up with solutions that address the root cause of problems in our society.

Let’s forget the buzzwords and get back to basics. Let’s form communities of interest where people come together just to share ideas (because we can). Then let’s take those ideas and ask what can we do, rather than ask, what can we not do? What will follow would be known as collaboration and reinvention, back in the days before the Internet, Social Media and online forums!

Those are my thoughts for the day
John Coxon
www.johncoxon.com.au

Losing 6 out of 10 nurses for stress related reasons doesn’t make any sense. These are nurses that would likely have remained in the sector. In particular any churn of young nurses entering the profession will have a profound impact as older nurses retire through generational change. The loss of knowledge and experience may have a critical impact upon future wellbeing of patients and efficient operation of hospitals.

Nurses are important. Hospital care would be a miserable experience without them. My experience is that they are the only people likely to give you a straight answer and fill the gap left by physicans with challenged communication skills. Nurses undertake a myriad of tasks that make any patient comfortable and they are underappreciated.

There is little evidence to suggest the situation in nursing will improve. Its a tough gig and it will get tougher. The days of 1-1 patient care are long gone, if they ever existed and nurses are expected to provide care for a greater number of patients during their shift, often with increasingly complex needs. As labour shortages continue to impact upon healthcare, nursing staff will be expected to do more with less.

There are a number of self-help strategies nurses can put into place to help get them through the day, including shifting their focus to the things they have control over, talking through issues with others in a positive manner, focusing on generating solutions rather than promoting problems, taking breaks, eating well, drinking water, avoiding coffee, taking a walk in fresh air and not smoking. None of these things need additional funding or even additional nurses. All of them will make you feel better and more able to face any dilemmas.

Hospital managers also have a role to play. Especially those nurse managers who have risen to the ranks of management. Nursing is not the same today as it was when you were on the floor. Be wary of falling into the trap of thinking that because you survived then everyone else should be able to also.

In every hospital there exist a number of organisational barriers that contribute to workplace stress. As the manager, it is your responsibility to make it easy for nurses to get their job done in the most stress free manner. Every minute you devote to identifying and removing barriers to effectivenss becomes your most valuable contribution to your staff. Start by stepping outside of your office and walking around the less desirable parts of the hospital. What do you see that contributes to nursing stress? What can be changed? Look at hospital/ward activities in a holistic manner to create a barrier free environment. At a personal development level, engage in coaching and mentoring to help develop effective practices for facilitating conversations, resolving conflicts and mentoring other people. Do these things well and you will become a powerful stress-busting manager, highly respected by your peers and staff.

While it is possible more staff would eliminate some, but not all ethical issues, and would certainly relieve some workplace pressure, there simply isnt enough people coming into the workforce to meet the demand, even if they wanted to be nurses. In addition the demand for healthcare services continues to increase. Increasing demand and reducing supply of nurses suggests a need to change how we meet the needs of patients. The way nursing roles and jobs are designed will need to change in the future. This will require creative thinking by Government, unions and hospital management teams. In the meantime, nurses and nurse managers need to use what they have at their disposal to minimise workplace stress.

Those are my thoughts for the day.
John Coxon
www.johncoxon.com.au

Management of public healthcare in Victoria is co-managed between the Victorian State Government (funder) and an independent Board of Governance for each hospital (control of expenditure). The auditors report suggests a part of the issue is that the Victorian Government allocates funding for capital expenditure on a strategic basis across the sector, rather than on as needed basis for each hospital. Hospital management are then left with the enviable task of financing ongoing operations. The audit shows that most manage this with some difficulty, while around 30 management teams fail to manage expenditure at all.

There has to be some sympathy for those on boards and management teams of hospitals funded in this manner. The State Governments funding practice doesn’t do the management teams any favours. On the other hand, it is a reasonable expectation that management teams will focus upon those things they have control over. That’s what they get paid the big bucks for! (I can see some of the CEO’s I know quietly choking on their coffee at that assumption)

What is it management teams have control over? They have control over how they collect data. Information is at the heart of decision making. Managing in a hospital is no different to managing a household, there are just a few more zero’s involved in the cashflow. The principal is the same; to make informed decisions you must know where money is being spent, what it is being spent upon and how expenditure creates value. The assumption of a ‘letter of comfort’ being available may serve to discourage Boards and management teams from taking responsibility for fiscal responsibility.

Let’s start with budgeting. In many instances budgeting is a senior executive activity. Maybe there is some input into the preparation by junior managers, primarily engaged in providing historical data. The new budget is then imposed upon all other staff. The problem here is that budgets are based upon historical data without any analysis of value or alternatives. Junior staff have no ownership of the budget process, it means little to them, they have no training in analysis of cost, spending patterns, impact and consequences. Most don’t even know how to prepare a simple cash flow chart. Instead of asking at the time of purchase whether an expense is appropriate, the expenditure simply takes place and is then reported back to senior management as a fait accompli; historical data. Where again, little, if any analysis of need or relevance is conducted. You cannot put the money back into the bank after it has been spent. In any business unable to rely upon a ‘letter of comfort’ this would be a recipe for disaster.

Hospital management teams must implement robust budgeting and cash flow management processes that are devolved down to junior management levels and where every manager is held accountable for their contribution. If Government wants to stem long term financial issues in healthcare then it is time to invest in hiring the right people to put in place the best processes.

Those are my thoughts for the day
John Coxon