Be careful what you believe

The other week I was talking with a consultant who works in a large-ish consultancy. He had only been working in the Public sector for two years and said he was surprised by what he found. His description astounded me. He said, "Public sector managers and staff are not very smart. The quality is poor and actually they are quite thick really". He continued that in his experience they found it difficult to take on ideas and as a result they had to do much more as a consultancy to get things implemented.

My reply was to say that I had found the opposite. My experience has been that public sector employees and managers are actually very bright, committed and enthusiastic people. The problem is that they have been beaten down by the system that stops them delivering the services that they care about.

He replied, that that could be a little bit true, but that it was not his experience.

Of course, it does not matter who is true here. (Of course I believe that what I believe is right in this case - but that does not matter for this discussion). What matters is the consequence of the belief. If you believe that all public sector people are a bit thick then you will act that way, treat them as if they are slow, and design consultancy that requires lots of consultancy effort to compensate for the fact that "they don't get it".

On the other hand if you believe that they are just as intelligent and committed as any other private sector people, but that the system is constraining them, then you act quite differently. You look for ways to unlock their potential, take away the shackles and allow them to perform. (Of course it you then find out that they are not up to the job there are several options available such as training, moving and the like - but that comes later.)

The other piece that worried me here is that if you start with the belief that they are a bit thick, then you will look for information that reinforces that belief. Of course if you believe they are intelligent you will also look for evidence to back it up. In both cases they are self fulfilling prophesies. However the belief that they are intelligent and it is the system that causes the problem is, I believe more useful again.

Also you have to ask the question, if they are having trouble taking on his ideas, is it possible that it is the way he is communicating them? I let him work that one out for himself.

This shows how much what we believe affects how we behave and how much it becomes a self fulfilling prophesy. It also shows how different approaches to consultancy affect the types of consultancy you provide and the sort of solutions you are looking for. Me i would prefer to unlock people's potential and solve the bigger problem than assume that I am dealing with thick people. It is much more useful and interesting.

So be aware of what you believe and notice how it affects how you act, what you look for and how you address problems. Interesting eh?

Phil Jones
Strategy & Performance Specialist
Excitant Ltd
http://www.excitant.co.uk/

Seeing what you look for:
The blindness of performance management

In the last blog we moved from using just one eye, to talking about how that limits your perspective. In the same way limited measurement systems limit your perspective of the business.

Last night I was introduced to some fascinating research from the University of Illinois, visual cognition Lab that throws further light on the implications of what we measure.

In this research groups of people are shown a video. The video contains a group of people - some in black shirts and others in white shirts. Both groups move around each other passing basket balls to each other. The white shirted ones to other white shirted people. The black shirted one to other black shirted people.

The question you are asked, is "How many times do the white shirted people pass the ball to one another." The observers had to press a key when they saw a pass.

You can watch this video on http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/grafs/demos/15.html

(It does take a while to load and you need to press the green button to start it).

Watch the video otherwise the next piece will ruin it.

After watching the video, you are asked, how many passes there were? You are also asked, was there anything unusual about the video?

Actually these was something unusual. A colleague saw this video amongst a group of sixty people. Afterwards only one person spotted the unusual thing. A man dressed as a gorilla wanders into the picture, bangs his chest and wanders out.

Isn't that fascinating. By directing our attention to the detailed task of counting the passes which are quite intricate with both groups passing the ball amongst themselves, we completely miss the gorilla.

When told this story I was immediately struck by how this is similar to the sort of detailed analysis of measures that some organisations undertake. They are so focused they miss the other occurrences. Other events that might be very important. They call this "Inattention blindness" because they are not watching for it they can't see it.

Does that ring any bells? Have you noticed this in your organisation?

You can find out more about their research into inattention blindness at http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/djs_lab/IB.html

On the other hand you could pay more attention to what you or others may be missing in your organisation, couldn't you.

Phil Jones
Strategy & Performance Specialist
http://www.excitant.co.uk/

Alliance and Partnership Balanced Scorecards
Lessons from the ASAP European Conference

At the end of April I was invited to talk at the ASAP European Conference on the subject of Balanced Scorecards in alliances and partnerships. So I chose the title, "How not to screw up your alliance".

What was wonderful about the conference was the way that the participants demonstrated the alliances and partnership culture in the way they shared information, presented and discussed topics and issues. There were representatives from companies as diverse as BT, HP, SAP, Phillips, Glaxo, Reckitt Benckiser, AMEC, BASF, proctor & Gamble, Rolls Royce, and many more.

Mike Nevin of Alliance Best Practice provided some fascinating examples of how the characteristics of aan alliance can be "benchmarked" so as to provide a basis for improvement. Improvements that immediately leads to revenue from alliances. There were also many examples of how alliances can work in different ways, from partnerships of equals to niche players teaming up with bigger players.

Professor Art-Pieter deMan from Eindhoven university presented research into alliance competencies and what makes them succeed. In if he listed five competencies that distinguished successful alliances from unsuccessful ones. There are:

1. Individual evaluation and learning from the Alliance
   
2. Joint evaluation and learning from the Alliance
3. Alliance Metrics (Scorecards)
4. Cross Alliance evaluation (Across the portfolio)

successful alliances had more than 60% of these characteristics in place. Unsuccessful ones had less than 40% in place. It is fascinating to note how the learning and metrics are mixed together in these research findings. I presented at the end of the second day. The tropic was called, How not to screw up your alliance, and covered the Organisational learning model of learning, balanced scorecards, strategy maps for alliances and alliance portfolio management as well as how power and influence affect strategy and choice. OK that is a lot in 45 minutes, but it provided a useful rounding off of the conference themes. Several things were clear from the Alliance Balanced Scorecard discussion

1. Its all about revenue - without that, alliances are a waste of time
2. You can measure alliance performance in a variety of ways, but choosing the right measures that suit the competencies and state of development of your alliance at that time has to be more careful.
3. It is about managing the portfolio and choosing the right alliances as much as managing the individual alliances.
   

From the strategy discussion it was obvious how power and influence in the market affected choice. It raised questions such as:

1. What power and influence do you have - and do you want to have?
2. How does power influence your choice of strategy (and revenues)?
3. What choices position you for more power and influence?
4. Choice of alliance partner comes before managing an alliance well.
   

A recording of the presentation is available, to ASAP members as are the slides. Better still I am happy to repeat the presentation and talk through the issues with clients. Both Mike Nevin and I are available to talk on the subject of Alliance strategy, best practice and performance measurement. Simply contact Phil on phil.jones@excitant.co.uk or Mike Nevin on mike.nevin@alliancebestpractice.com

Phil Jones
Strategy & Performance Specialist
Excitant Ltd