Leadership and adaptability are very much to the fore this week, particularly across a range of sporting arenas. The cricket season is already off and running, nearly obscenely early. A certain Kevin Pietersen will be applying his undoubted talent as well as his rather more dubious charm on the cricket fields this season of both Delhi and Surrey, but not England. Dropped permanently and rather publically by the England management as well as the England captain, Alistair Cook, it was felt that Pietersen’s behaviour particularly during the disastrous tour of Australia, was unsupportive and unprofessional. Even a passing knowledge of the game is enough to suggest that England are not currently at a vertiginously high ebb on the cricket field and doing without one of our most talented players largely because he can be a royal pain seems either brave or foolhardy, depending on your viewpoint. However, the lack of leadership finesse in getting Pietersen onside seems a pyrrhic victory.
Contrast with the rather more adaptable and pragmatic approach of Brendan Rodgers, the Liverpool manager. Rodgers has been the architect of an impressive turnaround in the fortunes of the club. Once a towering presence in world football, Liverpool have spent the last 25 years generally underperforming. But not this year. They have more than a sniff of the title and have played some joyous attacking football over the course of the season. One of the main reasons for this has been Rodgers handling of Luis Suarez. Another talent who divides opinions. Over the course of the last two years, Suarez has been criticised for his diving or its modern euphemism, simulation, banned for racist comments and succeeded in trumping all this by biting, yes biting, a large, uncompromising but apparently tasty Chelsea defender in front of millions. Much pressure was put on Rodgers to banish Suarez and sell him to a number of interested parties. Rodgers was having nothing of this, however, and has stuck with the Uruguayan. His bravery and adaptability have been well rewarded. Suarez, always skilful, has been a revelation this season, is likely to be named player of the year and may well take his team from the foothills to the summit of English football.
Parallels in business and engagement? There is a lovely story this week about John Mackey, founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market and his idea of enhancing engagement by organising employee-based sleepovers involving management and employees. Much like Mr Suarez, this will suit some more than it does others. However, this is by no means the only work Mackey and his company does in the engagement space. His organisation is about delivering caring leadership and the involvement of all WFM people. New joiners, for example, are on two month probations within his stores. At the end of the period, the rest of that store’s employees vote in a secret ballot to see if the newbie gets to stay. Senior salaries are publically capped at no more than 19 times that of the lowest paid member of staff. And at the end of every WFM meeting, there are ‘appreciations’, vocal shout outs recognising great contributions from his people. The results? It has been listed as one of the ‘100 best places to work for’ in the US for the last 17 years and reported its best sales in its 35 year history in 2013.
Without knowing very many of the details, the success story of WFM might be contrasted right now with that of Tesco. The leadership abilities of Philip Clarke, CEO, have been very publically questioned by ex senior professionals of the retailer. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the situation, Tesco’s internal engagement and unity of purpose is unlikely to have been enhanced over the last week.
And adaptability within the workforce was the subject of a major piece of research from PWC and LinkedIn this week. A global study, the research sought to gauge the relative talent adaptability of workforces across the world in the face of potential future market shifts. The UK and London in particular fares well, ranking second only to Holland (with its impressive linguistic skills). The research puts a figure on the amount of money wasted within organisations as a result of employees being unable, unwilling or unmotivated enough to demonstrate workforce flexibility. Even in second place, UK plc is wasting £1bn as a result of not having the people to adapt to new opportunities and sectoral landscape shifts.
The sense of the UK missing out was given greater focus by Robert Walters last week. Whilst reporting strong figures, particular in its domestic market, issued a warning around skill shortages. Walters gave this an interesting slant – the reduction in graduate recruitment during the recession (and particularly that of accountants, lawyers and management consultants) means there is a sizeable hole, three to four years later in the cohort of early qualified talent.
Whilst slow to adapt leaders and skill shortages might be of quiet concern during an economic downturn, a growing groundswell of opinion suggests a wholly different scenario. The IMF this week forecast that UK GDP would increase by 2.9% in 2014, the fastest growing G7 economy, outpacing even Germany and the US. This month’s REC/KPMG report on jobs suggested that starting salaries for permanent jobs were rising at its sharpest rate since July 2007. The same report also suggested that permanent staff availability declined at its fastest rate since 2004. Not to be out-done, BDO’s Employment Index touched 104.3 in March – suggesting the UK businesses’ hiring expectations are at their highest since June 2008.
Darwin is often misquoted – it is not about the survival of the fittest or the strongest but the survival of those who can best manage change. Just as Brendan Rodgers is demonstrating adaptability and a comfort with change, so too are Whole Food Markets through the engagement focused efforts of John Mackey. It is hard not to come to the conclusion that engagement as well as engagement levels at both organisations are benefitting.
Getting to the heart of your employee mindset 