Have you been confronted by a Black Belt recently?  Unless you are into martial arts, this has most likely happened at work, when you have been hit by a Lean Six Sigma (6Σ) initiative (or possibly operative if you got in the way).  I am using 6Σ here to encompass both the Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma concepts, particularly as many organisations tend to use a hybrid of the two.  What started off as a way for manufacturers to actually work out how to build something that didn't disintegrate/explode/maim unexpectedly as soon as the punter got the product home (or in the case of British Leyland before you got home), has turned into a quasi-religious movement that comes complete with its own zealots and sacred texts.

This quality initiative was all good sensible work, but hardly rocket science (NASA excepted).  Getting consistent, repeatable widgets coming off your production line, at a reasonable cost, is what manufacturing is all about.  If you can't do this, you should go into a job with padded cells and no sharp edges; become a life coach or a 'diversity and equality co-ordinator' (don't get me started on ridiculous public sector jobs).

So why has 6Σ appeared in the many office environments recently as the saviour to all known problems?  There is a touch of the Type 2s here (see my previous blog, 'Blue Sky Thinking'), where experts with a solution that works for one problem, apply it to all other problems. 

Admittedly some of the 6Σ techniques are useful in identifying systematic waste and some process design and implementation issues.  I particularly like the concept of Poka-Yoke, or fail-proofing.  The idea here is to design the process or product to be as idiot-proof as possible.  For example, the CD/DVD design is not Poka-Yoke, as it is easy to put the disk in upside down, particularly in a vertical slot.  However, the old 3.5" diskette had a notch placed on one corner making it impossible to put it in the wrong way.  How many business processes do you know that were consciously designed to avoid mistakes by its users?

Some of the accompanying terminology and self-importance of the 6Σ faithful is a bit off-putting.  Why on earth do they keep using the Karate belt analogy?  I don't know about you, but if a Six Sigma Black Belt started telling me what to do, I'd be tempted to counter with some 'Ecky Thump.  I'd back a seasoned black pudding against a Lean guru any day.  The use of belts, and other assorted exotic (normally Japanese) terms, hinders rather than helps the understanding and adoption of 6Σ by normal folk.  Add to this the increasing impenetrable statistical techniques being used, and the inflated importance given to the Master Black Belts (used to keep their oversized trousers up), I have not been surprised by the large number of disaffected victims, sorry recipients, of 6Σ I have come across recently.

At one large, traditional British industrial giant (we still have a few), I uncovered a dog's breakfast of a failed attempt to introduce 6Σ to their sales and marketing function.  Such was the gulf between the Black Belts and the sales team, that I think they narrowly avoided coming to blows and ended up completely ignoring each other until the project was canned.

Once again, the application of some common sense would have helped to identify which procedural aspects of their work may have been improved with Six Sigma, and which bits (typically the relationship and knowledge management areas) to leave well alone.  Unfortunately, the people aspects of change fall lamentably behind the systems and process side, and fail to deliver real benefit.

So if you see some bandana-ed fighters covered in Greek squiggles and spouting Japanese phrases coming for your area of the business, make sure they stick to what they are good at, and don't mess up your business processes.

John "Reversible Belt" Moe

This week's article is brought to you by the letter P.  This would usually mean me launching into my usual people and process rant, but today I would like to look at politics.  No, don't click off!  This is politics with a small "p", so no jokes like: Don't vote - it only encourages them.  Except for that one.

Little politics is about how everyday life is fraught with family, friends and colleagues jockeying for position and favours behind your back, while smiling to your face.  I will just talk about the work situation, as the other two are too nasty to bring up in mixed company.

We have all come across the ambitious colleague (I use the term loosely), invariably described as young and thrusting.  Their every conversation and action is calculated to advance their position and status in the organisation, preferably at your expense.  Then there is your manager taking credit for your achievements, and blaming you for their mistakes.

For many people there are two main courses of action.  The first is to get your own back by playing the game.  If you are good at politics, you will eventually turn into the person you despise.  If you are not, then you will be humiliated.  We've all seen what happened to David Brent.  The other course (known as the ostrich manoeuvre) is to haughtily ignore all this noise and just get on with your job.  But, unless your colleague implodes and fails, you will probably end up working for them; with all the joy that will bring.

However, like all good politicians (patron saint, St Tony of Blair), there is a third way, which I call anti-politics.  The main principle of anti-politics is to speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  But, I hear you cry, I am an honest person; I don't fib (much), and anyway, even if I did, it would only be a white lie. But saying nothing when you know something to be at least a distortion is not the best strategy.

Anti-politics is about confronting half-truths, insinuations, unfair credit/blame, and other misinformation; usually conveyed in parseltongue.  This has timing and completeness implications to make it work properly.  You need to speak your mind (as long as you are in control of it) at the right time, to the right people.  For the uninitiated this can be a terrifying prospect.  Confrontation can seem daunting, but if you are clear in what you have to say, your statement undeniable, and you hold your nerve, you will be pleasantly surprised by how your so-called colleague will invariably back down.  The timeliness element means that you have to do this as soon as you discover the misinformation.  The completeness is to ensure that anyone who has been infected by the lie is told.

Once you get over the embarrassment of fingering a colleague or making a public statement, you will find that life changes for you.  The bullying colleague will leave you out of their scheming, because they now know you can hurt them; or in fact allow them to hurt themselves.  Your stress levels will miraculously decrease, as you find that you are now in better control of the chaos happening around you.

However, people will initially treat you as a bit odd, as this is not typical accepted behaviour for an office worker.  Remember that they will, on the whole, be envious of you.  You will start to be included in meaningful conversations with people seeking your opinion.  Less poison arrows will come your way and you will be treated with respect.  Doesn't that sound like a better life?

John "Call a Spade a Spade" Moe

I thought I would try a highly topical rant which may be totally unintelligible in a few months; as opposed to my normal few seconds of reading.  It combines swine flu, naughty politicians and Star Trek.  The title, of course, is from a Muppet serial from many years ago, which, like "Snakes on a Plane", followed the Cuprinol maxim - 'It does what it says on the tin,' for those looking blank.

Anyway, the point about swine flu is that it follows in a long line of pseudo-scientific hysteria, where normally sensible folk are panicked by some woeful bad science reporting.  One 'expert' helpfully estimated that 750,000 people could die in the UK alone of this plague pandemic.  This turned any sniffler into Typhoid Mary and anyone with a cold was given the, er, cold shoulder.  Unfortunately, once a belief has taken root, it is incredibly difficult to shift, even if the proper evidence does eventually trickle out.  People in this situation suspend their common sense and judgement to fit in with the crowd.

In the current MPs' expenses debacle (which also has a pig analogy I wasn't going to mention), seemingly intelligent, or at least street-wise, politicians have somehow failed to foresee how claiming expenses on a breathtaking scale would not come back to haunt them.  Again there has been a suspension of common sense and judgement, although you could make a case that anyone entering politics must lack one or both of those traits.

Regarding Star Trek, you would obviously have to suspend both common sense and judgement to enjoy such an outrageous film.  It is neither logical nor believable (Simon Pegg as Scotty!?), but by putting your brain into neutral you can definitely get pleasure from it.

Have you spotted the common theme here?  Well the point I'm trying to make is that everyone's belief system is highly personal and also, at times, highly flawed.  These beliefs affect individual and group behaviour, making attempts to institute major change or transformation programmes incredibly difficult.  Most sensible people are as prone to these aberrations as much as the outer fringes of your organisation, or society as a whole.  If you don't understand or take account of these belief systems, you won't be able to influence their behaviour, or therefore get them to change their ways of working.

Of course, if you're smart, you can use this 'headology' to influence and guide your sheep, or should I say colleagues, into doing what you want without them knowing.  Be careful, as this can lead you to the Dark Side, or, as I call it, NLP.  I'll go into Neuro-Linguistic Programming more in a future blog.  And you may or may not spot it...

John "You are in My Power" Moe

It can be somewhat surprising to find out that the most widely adopted methodology for Service Management comes from that bastion of service excellence, namely Her Majesty's Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.  For those of us who have been subjected to the indifference and incompetence of some, but I stress not all, of our public services, it is indeed puzzling.

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) was commissioned and managed by the Central Communications and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) in the late 80s after some high profile public sector IT project failures.  Obviously it has made little difference in preventing Government IT howlers since, although there are many other contributory factors, such as poor leadership, weak programme management, feeble contract management, and poor scope definition and management.  Now controlled by the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), it has been adopted by just about anyone wrestling with defining and managing the provision of IT services to the ungrateful business customers we all have.

However, it is worth reflecting on the fact that ITIL is a non-prescriptive framework that provides guidelines on what an idealised set of service management processes might look like.  It is analogous to SOA and BPM in that it sells you a dream and sniggers in the background, while you try unsuccessfully to actually deliver any real value; except to the consultants and product vendors on whom you will have spent a fortune finding this out.  You can buy the books (about twelve inches of shelf space), take the training (half a wall of certificates), pay for assessments, roadmaps, strategies, designs, service process models, and a surprisingly inventive set of other toys, which the consultants have ingeniously developed by playing Bullsh*t Bingo with the ITIL terms.  However, don't expect this to deliver world class service management.

I consider that the successful adoption of high quality service management disciplines in your organisation is all about getting the right people to do the right things for the right reasons; which they understand and own.  ITIL and the other related frameworks (ITSM, CoBIT, CMMi, ISO20000, etc.) are all useful bibles, in the sense that you can gain inspiration, guidance and faith from them, but not in the 'world was created in 4004 BC and Darwin was the anti-Christ' literal sense.  Although, thinking about it, the threat of eternal damnation, judicious smiting, and a few miracles wouldn't go amiss...

John "Hand of God" Moe

A few years ago you couldn't endure a PowerPoint presentation without the obligatory fuzzy, unreadable Dilbert comic cropping up, either to badly illustrate a point, or to inject some irrelevant humor, sorry humour, into a dull pitch from the unimaginative cretin in front of you.  At times, reader, that cretin was me.

Having just about weaned myself off of this lazy habit, I thought I would steal one of Scott Adams' book titles instead for this diatribe, which is all about the leadership of change.  Or at least it started out that way.  It struck me that if you separate leadership of change from the day to day running of a business, then you're missing what change is all about.  In fact if you're not leading change all the time, you're screwed.  Why?  Let me start with Peter Drucker's pat definition of the difference between a manager and a leader: a Manager "does the thing right" and a Leader "does the right thing".  While a number of you may be stroking your beards and nodding sagely at this, let me just deconstruct this a little.

In traditional organisational structures, managers did indeed manage, and bosses did lead (or at least bossed).  But this is no longer good enough for the current state of flux that most organisations are in now.  It is difficult to do things right, if the thing frequently changes; careering from John Carpenter's The Thing, to the Addams Family's Thing.  Even the leader will struggle to do the right thing, when there are no rules or clarity on what to do; we live in a grey spectrum, which has infinite gradations from right to wrong.

Leadership of change is now a full time job, but don't make the mistake of appointing Change Managers or Transformational Leaders as the owners of change.  The only true leaders of change are the line managers, who need to deliver real business value to your customers through customer-focussed processes.  They need to be mentally equipped to find that slightly whiter shade of pale, within the options that present themselves so fleetingly, and to grasp the opportunity and bring their team along with them, as they exploit the 'thing' for the short time it will be profitable.  They will then need to be tough enough to stop doing the 'thing' and find the next chance, when the 'thing' has lost its value.

As Paul Weller snarled: "This is the modern world, we don't need no one to tell us what's right or wrong".  Read the rest of the lyrics to this Jam song, as it provides a much better life guide than any number of management books could.

John "Say what you like 'cause I don't care" Moe

The philosopher, George Santayana, wrote: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."  This is commonly misquoted as: "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it."  The reason I bring this up, besides showing off my philosophical pretentions, is that I am still coming across people - well consultants anyway, so quite low down in the food chain - who think we don't need to worry why things are what they are, and that we should just concentrate on the future.  Invariably their drivel will at some stage include the phrases 'blue sky thinking', 'best practice' and 'who moved my "Who Moved My Cheese?" book?'  On the last point, it was probably me - when I was binning their cod philosophy pamphlets, as I slapped them for every management cliché they spouted.

My cynicism here is not based on a worry about competition (anyone who falls for their spiel deserves all the help they won't get), but on half a lifetime of having to deal with their type, or, more specifically, both their types.

Type 1s are the bright, young MBAs in their twenties, working for the prestigious (i.e. expensive) management consultancies.  They have had the best education (Oxbridge, Cranford, Harvard, etc.), have been brainwashed by their companies to believe they are Masters of the Universe, and are treated as such due to the frightening fees charged for them.  They have picked up the theories and the catchphrases of their profession and communicate it with the confidence of youth.  However, through lack of experience, all they can talk about are the idealised states of being that few companies ever achieve, let alone maintain.  I have had the pleasure of getting rid of a number of these Androids - if you were around in the early 90s, you'll know who I mean - at organisations who were too bewildered to question what they were saying.  The look of disbelief on their faces was a joy all of its own.  In some cases this turned to anger, and they would surprise me with their use of old English vernacular.

The Type 1s are both intimidating and exhausting with their boundless energy and enthusiasm, often coupled with a frightening intellect.  However, being smart is not just about knowing things.  Somebody once said that the difference between knowledge and wisdom is this:  Knowledge is the understanding that a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is the understanding that you don't put tomatoes in fruit salads.

The Type 2s are completely different.  They do have wisdom, but in limited quantity.  A typical type two has grey hair (what's left of it), has been around the block a few times, and has a stock of answers for all situations.  Again they are confident, based on past success, but tend to be more laid back - possibly involving afternoon naps.  They are very experienced, but the range of their experience tends to be quite narrow.  They have had success in solving specific problems and are now touting their solution for a wide range of business ills.  If you have the same specific problem, for the same reasons and in the same market conditions, then these Type 2s could well provide a proven solution for you.  However, they will probably not succeed, as they forego the required due diligence to ensure this is the case.  Remember the old proverb: "When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail".

The Type 2s can be more difficult to counter, as they will have picked up some life smarts in their long careers.  They are also less threatening, so are difficult to dislike; a bit like your aging relative who overstays their welcome at Christmas.  However, they can be just as dangerous as the Type 1s, if they lead you down the wrong path.  Getting rid of them, though, feels like sending your granny to the old folks' home.

The common thread for these two species is their lack of appreciation or interest in why you are where you are.  Looking at the reasons for your current performance will ensure you identify the real triggers and causes, and prevent you making erroneous assumptions for the future state.  This is not a contemplative navel-gazing exercise, but a rigorous examination of the current weaknesses with people, processes, systems and strategy in your organisation.  In most companies the answers to the problems can come from within, at a much lower risk than someone else's 'Best Practice'.  You will also find that the buy-in and take-up of internally derived future states is both higher and more productive.

The only problem with this approach is you don't have anyone else to blame if it doesn't work.  However, you will find that if it's your own approach, it usually succeeds.  Funny that...

John 'Bullsh*t Detector' Moe

I'm sure you've noticed that all of the IT vendors you've had the misfortune to deal with in the past, and who you occasionally throw a bone to, to keep them alive but lean, are desperate to be your 'Partner'.

In the old days, you had customers at one end of your business, and suppliers at the other end.  Your job was (and still is) to stiff the customer and screw the supplier (or vice versa; I was never sure which).  Life was pretty straightforward and everyone knew their place.

Over the last few years the vendors have embraced Strategic Selling methodologies that encourage them to:  a) try to talk to your boss instead of you, and b) want to 'partner' with you.

The reason they want to talk to your boss, is not that they think you're a waste of space (well, not always), but because they have been told that if they get to a 'decision-maker', they can close a bigger/faster/better deal.  Now, if you are the decision-maker, this is intensely irritating.  If you are not, this behaviour is likely to result in you plotting their downfall and finding another vendor who will talk to you - until they get their Strategic Selling training...

The partner approach is more beguiling, as it suggests that they will be reasonable and accommodating.  Besides this sounding like a fantasy marriage (although in fact, it doesn't sound like marriage at all), it is probably not the sort of relationship you envisaged with the sweaty, shiny salesman in front of you.  The key message is that you can avoid an 'us and them' situation, with everyone pulling together for the common good.

Don't be fooled.  Their objective is to extract as much money from you as is possible.  This is always easier if you are happy or blissfully unaware of what is happening.  The 'just sign here and we will take care of your problems' carrot can be difficult to resist, particularly when you're under time pressure to deliver.  Caveat Emptor!  I have yet to see a supplier's contract that truly embraces the concept of partnership.  The gotcha and get-out clauses will protect them at the first sign of real trouble, and although they may nod sympathetically, they will dutifully point at the small print and shrug their shoulders.

The best business relationships I have seen are where both parties are very clear on their respective responsibilities and obligations, which are supported by specific metrics, and there is a rigorous measurement and auditing function to ensure compliance.  This is governed by a comprehensive contract, and managed by regular meetings between joint teams at all levels of the engagement - director, manager, project, delivery, etc.  These meetings will foster trust through engagement and regular communication on the good, bad and ugly parts of the service you are receiving.  If these are done honestly, the issues can be resolved quickly - without resorting to the lawyers.

This relationship is not a partnership: you and the supplier have clear roles of client and vendor, but an effective working relationship can be built that will survive the inevitable shocks and challenges that all engagements suffer.  This relationship will lead to behaviour that is ultimately to the benefit of both parties, because their interests are aligned and the communication is sufficiently frequent and robust that small issues don't become fatal problems.

Bear this in mind, too, when you're schmoozing your customers.  If you catch yourself using the P-word, imagine yourself with them in the honeymoon suite the morning after, and ask yourself how accommodating you would really be.

John 'Silver Wedding Anniversary' Moe

I've mentioned the necessity of understanding the people side of change before, but I'd like to pick up a key process challenge affecting a number of projects I have seen recently - behaviour.

Human behaviour is driven by two things - reward and emotion.  Reward can be either positive (carrot) or negative (stick).  However, the impact of reward is typically overstated in how it affects behaviour.  A common view is that if you pay people more, they will perform better.  Or if you measure them and penalise poor performance, they will respond by improving.  I have tried variations of these methods on a number of poor unfortunates who have worked for me over the years - most are now out of therapy.  The results have been disappointing in that the correlation between reward and performance for normal people is minimal.  The few who do respond are either salesmen or city traders; and you would have to question the value that these specimens deliver.  Also, and this may seem counter-intuitive, monitoring staff tends to have a negative impact on their individual performance - like the Observer Effect for those Quantum Physicists in the audience.  You may pick out the total deadbeats, but everyone else will just play the game and underperform in the areas you aren't measuring - typically the quality measures.

So this leaves emotion as a better indicator and driver of behaviour.  But how do you use this to improve attitudes and performance?  Well Step 1 is to accept that emotion does have a significant impact on performance.  Very few managers I talk to understand this, let alone act on it.  Many of the best managers are doing this intuitively but unconsciously. 

A lot of what you hear about great leadership is actually the ability to affect the emotional state of your staff through inspiration, praise or clarity of vision.   People work best when they understand exactly what they have to do and why, and are supported and praised for doing their job.  This leaves them in a calm and happy state, which will allow them to work to the best of their abilities.

If it sounds easy, don't be fooled - being nice to your staff only works if you are genuine.  Giving them the proper context for what they are doing, protecting them from the high level of noise and static that will distract them, and praising them for doing their jobs is very time-consuming.  The best managers know that this is what their job is, not filling in spreadsheets in their offices with the door closed.  So when your staff use the C-word about you, make sure that it stands for Communicator.

John "You're Fired" Moe

There is the assumption that the behaviour of people involved in a business process is predictable and consistent.  Too many business analysts (mainly Dark Knights - see earlier blog) still expect a manual process step to be carried out by staff in the same way, over the same period of time, with the same outcome; regardless of the context in which they are working.  I'm not talking about process constraints or business rules here, I'm talking about some of the irritating human foibles that blight the best laid plans of (computer) mice and men.

For instance, imagine you are a call centre agent (don't mock, this could be you too, soon) faced with a new 'improved' customer service screen to enter your phone call actions.  Last week you had a nice green 3270 character-based screen, where you could type and tab through each screen in less time than it took to make the call.  But today, your shiny new screen has been WIMPed (Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointers), so now you click on the relevant field directly and take your pick from a predetermined list of outcomes 'to make your job easier'.  As Any Fule Kno - i.e. anyone who has done data entry - a good typist will fly through the green screen faster than you can say: "computer says no".  Point and click screens require advanced spacial awareness to master (something the sat-nav generation never picked up), and they make life difficult by restricting choices to a scrolling drop down list that never quite fits what you want to say.

Surprisingly, staff are expected to produce the same output as quickly as (or even quicker than) before.  In practice the time increases, or the quality goes down, or - more likely - both.  This doesn't seem logical to the Vulcans who have designed this new process, but to the humans who use it, it's patently obvious.

Sadly, there is still far too little user input during requirements gathering for the process and system changes that take place.  Even in the highly vaunted Six Sigma and Lean Management methods and practice, there is still an (unspoken) assumption that the staff are just automatons who don't need to worry their pretty heads about how the process should work, because the Black Belts know better and will condescend to show them best practice.

Typically the requirements are agreed with the departmental manager, who has only the vaguest idea about how the work is actually done.  Managers may understand inputs and outputs for their part of the process, but they probably don't know about Doris ringing accounts hourly to ensure another badly keyed order gets processed.

So don't look surprised if you're met with less than total enthusiasm, when you tell your staff about the marvellous new system that you're putting in to help them.  You are not helping them; you are just changing one unsuitable system (for which they had figured out the workarounds) for another unsuitable system (that is broken in different ways and which will take them weeks to work around).

The V-signs you are getting behind your back are not for Victory...

John "Robbie the Robot" Moe

In these days of belt-tightening, one of the first budgets to disappear is the mythical training budget.  I call it mythical because, in most organisations I have known, it has always been "without foundation in fact; imaginary; fictitious".  You may find that the costs are put into the annual budget to meet HR box-ticking, but the chances of you actually receiving some meaningful, paid knowledge transfer during the year are minimal.

During good times, you will almost certainly be busy and your manager will not be keen to release you if there are projects to be delivered.  They will flatter you by saying you will pick the skills up on the job; as you are so bright/intelligent/gullible* (*possibly not to your face for the last one).  You will be too busy to complain, so nothing much will happen.  At the end of the year, if the budget has to be seen to be spent, the managers will find some general, inane 'life skills' course and get you all to attend a tedious team building event that involves planks, rope and rain.

In tighter times, the budget will shrink or be forgotten.  If you're not busy, you will nervously look over your shoulder and pound on your keyboard for all you are worth to look as if the world depends on you.  The thought of raising your hand and asking for training would be seen as a 'sack me' signal, revealing that: a) you are not currently adding any value; and/or b) you are lacking in useful skills.  Managers, in turn, will be trying to show that they can manage budgets (because, let's face it, that is all they seem to do with their time) by not spending.

However, there are three very good reasons for continuing to invest in skills for you and your staff.

Motivation:  Being sent on an (at least partially relevant) course is a great motivator, in that it proves that you are seen as an asset by your company.  They are investing in you and saying that you have a future with them.  Being refused training has the opposite meaning; you can feel Alan Sugar starting to point at you.

Productivity:  Even the most experienced staff can benefit from updated knowledge, skills and motivation.  A good training course will make them more effective and this improvement will last for several months.  If you need to get more out of your staff (e.g. because you've sacked their colleagues), this will help ensure your key staff (i.e. the ones you've kept) are doing more, in less time, at lower cost.

Flexibility:  In a fast changing market, where the normal rules have broken down, you need your staff to be able to cope with whatever is thrown at them.  With the right education, training and mentoring support, you can ensure that they and your business become more agile, and able to track and manage these changes.

In a previous blog I talked about reducing waste and not cost.  You should consider training to be an investment to reduce waste.  However, make sure it is relevant, specific and tailored to the needs and ability of your staff.  Otherwise the training itself will be a waste.

Mentoring is the next step after training to ensure that the skills learned are best applied back in the workplace.  It differs from consultancy in that, rather than doing the work, the mentor advises, corrects and reinforces behaviour.  Sounds cushy, but all the leadership gurus consistently promote mentoring as the most effective way to improve performance of key staff.  Just make sure the mentor actually has the experience as well as the skills required.

And finally, I couldn't resist the old chestnut: What is the difference between education and training?

You probably don't react if your child comes home from school and says: "We had education about sex today."

You react differently if he says: "We had training in sex today!"

John "Obi Wan" Moe