Land of the long white flops

So England are on the plane home after another world cup failure this time in rugby as they fall to France in Auckland. And rather like the exit from the Soccer World Cup (and yes it is soccer) a couple of years ago it is both no surprise and to be honest a bit of a relief and, as before, there are lessons to be learned from the defeat.

In South Africa for me it was clear from very early on that they would not progress as it was quite apparent that this was not a team – it was a group of individuals. As if to underline the point it was exquisitely demonstrated by their reaction when a mistake by Rob Green the goal keeper led to a soft goal, not a single player took the time to go back and speak to him. They left him swinging in the wind, compounding and accentuating the scale of the error in a wholly destructive way. As my old Rules coach used to say (yes that’s Aussie Rules) “A champion team will always beat a team of champions.” Lack of leadership too - where is the captains example?

And so to Auckland. IMHO it has been apparent to me that this team has lost its ability to reflect, consider and to be self critical. They are self absorbed but that is not the same as being self critical. They have lost humility, they have lost a sense of responsibility and, let’s be frank, lost touch with reality. They are smug. How do I know this? Simply witness their reaction to the criticism levelled at them for their behaviour and “antics” in the last few weeks. They believe the criticism is unjustified, a storm in a tea cup, exaggerated, and their responses in interview have been chippy, smirky, the demeanour of schoolbullys.

Hmm? Well I think they have forgotten the privilege and responsibility bestowed on them. Well guys don’t forget there would be no criticism if you behaved yourselves and as for storm in a tea cup, the behaviour in the Dunedin hotel would see you very much departing most normal jobs these days so why should we tolerate it in national representatives? Get some perspective and learn some respect.

For those that say this is the way with modern sports men I say “Erm? not so!” and offer Sam Warburton of Wales as a much better example of behaviour attitude and, at this time, success.

But the most telling indicator is the penalty count. Now it really doesn’t matter if you agree with the interpretation of the referee or not. I have major issues with how the Southern hemisphere officials referee the game and yes I am a qualified Rugby Referee. However if you are shipping penalties it is no point saying you don’t agree, the guy with the whistle will keep blowing it and you need to adjust and adapt. This means taking a long hard look at what you do and admitting it’s not going right and adjust. England’s penalty count has been lamentable and costly and they simply haven’t LEARNED. Lack of leadership both on and off the field.

I take nothing away from France who were, as they can be, magnificent – believe me I know being married to a Kiwi! But the inability to be humble, lack the honesty and self awareness to be critical and examine performance will defeat you regardless of the opposition because you defeat yourself.

I don’t lament the defeat such moronic national representatives don’t deserve to wear the jersey, best to have them home. And as for the black jerseys and the state of the RFU – don’t get me started.

So why am I writing this apart from the need to get it off my chest?

Well the lessons are the same in business. I recall joining a consultancy firm and having “The Wisdom of Teams” Katzenbach and Smith – thrust into my hand as I walked into the first day induction, and it is a fine message, and fine text that has served me well.

The ability to be self critical is essential too. Review and adapt and learn. It is not an admission of failure it’s an acknowledgement that nothing we do is perfect but we should constantly strive for it. Coaching is of no value if you can’t learn – knowledge is a verb.

As for leadership - well that is a post on its own. Lets save it for another day.

Bannatyne, Budgets and Public Sector Bodies

Duncan Bannatyne (@DuncanBannatyne) started a bit of a Twitter trend today when he asked, in a sense of outrage, if Sir Andrew Cahn should repay £1million pounds to the tax payer. But I would say this Duncan, whilst I have sympathy with the sentiment the revelation that Cahn instructed staff to spend £1million because of a budget underspend at UK Trade and Investment comes as no surprise to anyone who has ever held budgetary responsibility in the public sector or has worked with the public sector. Its common practice.

I remember my astonishment at encountering this type of mind set when working with and for public sector bodies. The argument advanced is generally termed – use it or lose it – and you are generally regarded as completely bonkers for not spending every penny of an annual budget

Having private sector experience of budget building and management I had become accustomed to being given a pat on the back for underspending, smart procurement, driving down costs through innovation. Being informed that such things were not only unnecessary but actually unwelcome was a bit of a shock

It does make one wonder why this is the case.

Well I offer two fundamental problems that I believe underpin it. One is the typical budget building approach in many public sector bodies. In essence the starting point for your budget is essentially determined by what has gone before as a starting point. Hence the “use it or lose it” idea. There is almost an assumption that these costs are somehow fixed costs. A major failure of knowledge management in my view. Such rigid formulaic or unquestioning of assumptions demonstrate a lack of Knowledge Aware Management.

This can in part be addressed by introducing different budget strategies in an environment where trying different approaches is encouraged, where no numbers are sacrosanct and assumptions underpinning figures are reexamined. Zero Based Budgeting as some of my counting friends might have it. Of course Social Knowledge principles have a role to play here as drawing on the collective insight and wisdom of the organization and its partners can surface opportunities to innovate and reduce costs.

Another contributory factor is the culture that suggests size of budget is one of the most important benchmarks and confers status in an environment where status is of greatest import rather than effectiveness.

Of course this is challenging issue to overcome, but again Social Knowledge approaches have a role in helping to reveal the true metrics of success of the client group, and for exposing them to the organization as part of an effort to break that inwardly focused and rigid mindset.

However in the meantime should he repay it – of course – but he wont.

Knowledge Aware Management

I have had the good fortune to read 'Farmers – Your Store for 100 years' (ISBN 9781869507633) which is Ian Hunters book on the Farmers stores in New Zealand. Ian’s team at The University of Auckland’s Business School were commissioned to write the history of Farmers to celebrate the 100 years of trading since its founding in 1909, and whilst this might sound a little dry it is in fact a terrific read.

What is particularly striking is how the store grew rapidly through its adoption of what was then a very innovative retailing approach, and that is the catalogue based retailing model. It has many parallels with the online retailing phenomenon in that customers are remote, select items from a brochure and it is then despatched directly to them from a central store. The impact was as profound then as it has been in more recent times and Farmers grew to be a major retailer in New Zealand. It has gone through a number of incarnations and suffered through some poor strategic decisions in the late eighties which saw its ownership shift between groups that were often not New Zealand based. I have little doubt that much of the poor decision making would have come about from flawed thinking on the part of professional service firms happily advising that the firm follow management trends without ever thinking through the implications for the social capital and intangible knowledge based assets in the organisation, and basing judgement purely on balance sheet based rationales. Happily the firm is back in New Zealand ownership and under the guidance of David and Anne Norman and with 4000 staff and over 50 stores it is clearly on the up again.

What I found particularly striking and particularly encouraging were the words of these entrepreneurial owners. I quote from the book

“Over the past three or so decades, Anne and I have been fortunate to participate in the recovery of several iconic brands....In almost every situation we have found that the heritage within these organisation has produced a pool of talent that for some reason has been ignored by the previous owners who had tried to fix an organisation that was far from broken! What has been achieved in our short ownership period has not so much been through our own efforts but through empowering existing people within the organisation.”

If anyone wants to know what knowledge aware management is – that is a definition of it in practise.