Benefits of the Rapid Evolution We've All Endured (Podcast Highlights)

May 27, 2020 • Features • Royal Mail • The Field Service Podcast • Covid-19 • Leadership and Strategy • Kevin Green

In this highlight form the Field Service Podcast, Kevin Green, former CEO of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation and Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News focus on the potential upside of the crisis we've all faced together...

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode One 'Kevin Green on Leadership, Strategy and the Economic Impact of Lockdown' for the full episode...

The Galvanising Effect of Rapid Evolution at times of Crisis

There is no doubt the pressure of global lockdowns has forced organisations to change. There simply wasn’t adoption for most businesses to ‘stay calm and carry-on’ as the popular British meme suggests.

Business survival as the world went on temporary hiatus was more in line with dynamic Darwinian concepts than steadfast stoicism. It was not the largest organisations that found themselves at safe enough distance from harm, just look at the aviation sector for evidence that the pandemic has taken its toll among industry heavyweights and minnows alike, it is those who were able to adapt the fastest.

Yet, dare we say it in the light of such a wide reaching tragedy that has touched the lives of almost everyone on the planet in some way shape and form, but there is equally an opportunity presented here for organisations that have the innate ability to adapt enclosed within their corporate DNA.

In fact, it is perhaps the responsibility of those organisations capable of doing so to thrive now as we plot a path back towards whatever it is that will be our ‘new-normal’. We need them to do so for the sake of kick-starting floundering economies. We need them to do so because this whole saga is in desperate need for a silver lining.

Green certainly sees that there are opportunities to establish more dynamic cultures within our organisations and that those who do so will flourish. However, those who fail to do so may face a future of extinction rather than evolution.

“The way most organisations change is when they're in crisis,” he explains.

"One of the great things about change is that if your backs are against the wall, it's easier to make big calls than if you're trying to change in an organisation in a more evolutionary, type of way, in a more incremental manner...”

“As we've seen in the recent health crisis, lots of organisations have made very quick decisions and changed at pace because they've had to, there was absolutely no choice, but what you find is most organisations don't change. When I was at the Royal Mail as HR director, we were losing a million and a half pounds a day. So we had to change, we had to change at pace. That galvanises people and they make choices that would have never been choices and decisions that wouldn't have been made in normal circumstances.

So, one of the great things about change is that if your backs are against the wall, it's easier to make big calls than if you're trying to change in an organisation in a more evolutionary, type of way, in a more incremental manner,” Green adds.

However, while the onset of Covid-19 has forced rapid change within many organisations, for those companies with a more rigid leadership structure, Green warns that evolving into a more dynamic organisation can take time, something some companies may find scarce.

“If you're a new leadership team and you've inherited an organisation which is very, very mechanistic and top down, then it [establishing a culture change] takes time. It is not an easy thing to change your culture. It is about involving people. It's about engaging people. It's about trying to manage people, but in a different way.

“It's about creating, but also some of it will be about dismantling systems and processes. You need to take apart ways of working, that have been in place for many years. Changing a culture is something that has to be deliberate, thoughtful, and well executed. It's not something you can just swap overnight and expect everyone to behave differently. In fact, if you do that, you’ll end up in chaos.”

What is certain though is even if your organisation leadership is based in a top-down, mechanistic style of approach – there has never been a more pressing time to address this and begin introducing more modern, dynamic approaches to leadership within you organisation then right now.

The Importance of Consistent Values In Leadership (Podcast Highlights)

May 22, 2020 • Features • Royal Mail • The Field Service Podcast • Covid-19 • Leadership and Strategy • Kevin Green

In this highlight form the Field Service Podcast, Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News talks to Kevin Green, former HR Director of the Royal Mail and author of the best selling book Competitive People Strategy about how we identify the...

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode One 'Kevin Green on Leadership, Strategy and the Economic Impact of Lockdown' for the full episode...

Leadership Values should be lived not put up on a wall

One of the things that has been evident amongst many organisations who have adapted best to the challenging operating conditions of the last few months is that there has been a genuine in the trenches approach to how we're all getting through this together.

One of the things that has really come to the fore in terms of good leadership has been a leadership method that has strengthened this message. The common mantra of many a leadership communication at this time is that so we're all pulling together, we're all moving in the same direction together and to achieve recovery we must embrace a very collegial approach.

As Green outlined in Season Five, Episode One of The Field Service Podcast the ability to not only convey such a message, but to actively live it, is something that is embedded in strong leadership.

“We talk a lot about behaviours and values within organisations,” he begins as we touch on the topic. “When organisations are tested, they're put under pressure, then it's how you behave that your people will remember. They won’t remember what's written down on a piece of paper or the value stuff up on a wall. They remember when there are tough decisions to be made, how our leaders made those decisions - did they live by their values?

“The obvious one is has the organisation tried to keep as many people employed as possible and get as many people to the other side?” He adds.

"When recovery comes and people have a choice about who they work for, will people will want to stay and work for your organisation?"

This consideration is something that has been echoed across much of the content here on Field Service News and beyond. The way an organisation acts towards their staff during crisis could have a significant impact on their ability to retain skilled field workers when the economies begin to reopen. Remember, many field service organisations will be seeking to catch up on capacity lost during the crisis and as such the field service engineer is likely to be a role very much in demand.

Green touched in this in the wider business context as he continued; “Staff don't forget, there's a long corporate memory within most organisations,” he explains.

“So leaders have got to think about the decisions they're making with a lens as to how does this play out to my people now, but as you mentioned, when recovery comes and people have a choice about who they work for, will people will want to stay and work for your organisation? A lot of that will be dependent on how the leadership behaved when the organisation was under huge pressure, and whether they did the right thing by the people.

“Now, that isn't to say that organisations don't make to make need to cut costs and make some people redundant because I think in this environment, some have had to do that. But it's also about how you communicate that and how do you engage your people?

“One Chief Executive I was talking to recently phoned every single member of staff that was made redundant, and had an individual conversation with them, and then said at the end of that conversation to every single one, and there were about 60 or 70 people, ‘this isn't your fault, and when we get back, then I'm going to prioritise and re employing you people. I really don't want to do this, but I had no choice’ and he explained the circumstances on a personal one to one level.

“Now, that is leadership. [He] still made the tough decision, but actually [he] implemented it in a way which means those people most probably will go back and work for him when the roles do become available again.”

Identifying Organisational Culture in Business (Podcast Highlights)

May 22, 2020 • Features • Royal Mail • The Field Service Podcast • Covid-19 • Leadership and Strategy • Kevin Green

Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News and Kevin Green, former HR Director of Royal Mail and the best selling author of Competitive People Strategy discuss what culture is within an organisation and how to identify whether a corporate...

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode One 'Kevin Green on Leadership, Strategy and the Economic Impact of Lockdown' for the full episode...

Does your leadership team understand the Value of Nurturing culture within the business?

In the few short months since the Covid-19 pandemic spread around the world and we went into a global lockdown everything has changed.

As Kevin Green explained in Season Five, Epsiode, One of the Field Service Podcast, it is as if a meteorite has hit us and the world of industry went into temporary shutdown operating at minimum capacity. There is talk that in terms of economics, we could potentially bounce back as sharply as we fell, although the majority of analysts are now predicting a longer more sustained road to recovery

However, the truth remains that we are collectively waking up into a different world than that which existed pre-pandemic and that will be the case no matter how quickly we get to the recovery.

There are fundamental things that will have changed, particularly in some of the service industries which have been hardest hit such as the hospitality sector. Yet similarly we have seen a massive boost to the digital transformation projects that were dots on the horizon for many companies just a few months earlier which have become mission-critical necessities today.

Equally we have seen businesses become adaptive, with those leading the way pivoting in some of the most remarkable way to help battle the pandemic but also to keep their teams in work and the revenue flowing even in these most challenging of years.

But how do we create an adaptive culture? How we make sure that our team are able to continue evolving throughout the recovery processes, we move beyond into a post COVID-19 world?

"The issue for me is whether the organisation has really spent time thinking about it [the corporate culture] and understanding it and do the leaders get that developing, enhancing and reinforcing a culture is what gets great results?"

“Every organisation has a culture, whether it's a well-articulated and something that's been designed or created over a period of time, or whether it's just how people behave within the business,” explained Green.

“One of the good examples I always use when I talk about culture is how do people behave when the manager is not there? Do they still work incredibly hard and do they still give discretionary effort? Or actually when the manager is not around, they just muck around, and not work hard? That will describe your culture, how people feel about the organisation.

“The other great example is when you meet someone that works for an organisation in a social setting and you ask them, what's it like to work there? What do they say? That's when you can, that's a real articulation of your culture,” Green adds.

For Green though the value of culture within an organisation goes far, far beyond coping within crisis – it is where the inherent value of the business lies and is something that absolutely needs to be nurtured by the leadership team.

“The issue for me is whether the organisation has really spent time thinking about it [the corporate culture] and understanding it and do the leaders get that developing, enhancing and reinforcing a culture is what gets great results?

“My belief is that most value in today's economy comes from human beings. It used to be about access to capital and machinery. But now it's about you know, and if you look at the PwC survey of Chief Execs globally, the number one issue is talent. Have I got the talent? Have I got more talent than my competitors? Can I find it? And can I retain it?

“To do that, you've got to have a culture where people want to work, where they can turn up and do good work, you and that's the fundamental thing about having an adaptive culture, you must articulate your purpose. Why does the organisation exist?”

As we continue to grow into a post Covid world, it is likely that it is those companies that understand what it is to establish and adaptable culture that are likely to thrive in the ‘new-normal’.

Leadership in a Post-Pandemic World (Podcast Highlights)

May 20, 2020 • Features • Royal Mail • The Field Service Podcast • Covid-19 • Leadership and Strategy • Kevin Green

Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News talks to Kevin Green, former CEO Recruitment and Employment Confederation and the best selling author of Competitive People Strategy about what leadership looks like in the face of the Covid-19...

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode One 'Kevin Green on Leadership, Strategy and the Economic Impact of Lockdown' for the full episode...

The Importance of Trust Within leadership

The role of leadership has perhaps never been under the microscope more than it is today.

It is in times of crisis that we see strong leadership come to the fore but is there a different type of leadership required for managing an organisation through a crisis. Winston Churchill for example, regarded by many as one of the world’s great leaders was able to galvanise the British during the second world war to somehow bring to a halt the apparently unstoppable might of the Nazi war machine. Yet, in the first election of peacetime in 1945 he led the Conservatives to a shocking landslide defeat at the hands of Clement Attlee’s Labour Party.

As we read, listen and watch about the impact of Covid-19 the war-time analogies continue to flow, it is hard for us to draw any other parallels as none really exist within living memory.

So, are the leadership traits that we're seeing emerge now different to what will be required after the pandemic? Or is it just that there is a magnifying glass on good leadership at the moment and what we are paying attention to is best practice in terms of leadership?

“I think the businesses that have responded most positively and have been the most agile and responsive in in the face of something which is a pretty extreme and very rare event are the organisations who have very clear ideas about how organisations should be run,” Kevin Green, commented on The Field Service Podcast, Season Five, Epiosde One.

"The centre of the organisation is responsible for strategy, long term thinking and some guiding principles and then they devolve decision making to people to in the appropriate place in the organisation to respond to customers wants and needs."

One of the common areas that Green has identified amongst such organisations is that there is an understanding that trust must be embedded across the organisation rather than the absolute approach of a more authoritarian leadership style.

“It's not command and control from the top,” he explains “it's not everything rises to the top but [these companies are applying] very dissipated decision making. Here the centre of the organisation is responsible for strategy, long term thinking and some guiding principles and then they devolve decision making to people to in the appropriate place in the organisation to respond to customers wants and needs.

“Those organisations that have already got that type of leadership, mentality and culture are the ones that have responded most quickly and most effectively. If you’ve got a command and control structure it's very, very difficult for one group of people, that don't have all the facts, [who] aren't in control of everything ,to make decisions on every data point,” he adds.

However, it is not just an efficiency challenge that Green sees in a command and control approach. There is also the heavy weight of burden that this can carry on the leadership team and this can have a significant impact on their own performance as well if left unchecked.

As Green explains; “You get swamped and the pressure becomes quite profound. [To avoid this] the centre of the organisation needs to create direction, clarity and communication for their people and then allow leaders at a local level to make decisions about how best to implement them.

“What this [Covid-19] has highlighted is that good leadership, where people trust their people and trust their managers to make the right decisions in 90% of circumstances and have got the benefit [of that approach] while those are perhaps a little bit more old fashioned [in their leadership structure] have struggled.”

A Challenge Greater Than Anything We've Known (Podcast Highlights)

May 18, 2020 • Features • Royal Mail • The Field Service Podcast • Covid-19 • Leadership and Strategy • Kevin Green

While the hope of a V-shaped dip in the economy is still a possibility, we cannot underestimate the sheer magnitude of the economic impact of the global lockdowns as Kevin Green explained in a episode of the Field Service Podcast...

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode One 'Kevin Green on Leadership, Strategy and the Economic Impact of Lockdown' for the full episode...

Understanding the True Economic Impact of Covid-19

Talking to Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News during episode one of season five of the Field Service Podcast, Kevin Green outlined just why the challenge we face now is different from anything that has come before.

"I suppose the starting point, is recognising the difference from an economic perspective the Covid-19 health crisis has created in comparison to previous recessions," Green began.

Going on to draw on his own experience both as Chief executive of the Recruitment and Employment Federation, as well as former HR Director for the UK's Royal Mail, Green continued "the recruitment industry always rises to the economic waves quite well. In that, it goes into recession early, but it also comes out early.

"I can remember in 2008, and that was a pretty unprecedented economic downturn, six quarters of contraction where our industry lost 30% of its revenue. However, in 2008 there was a period before we went into that recession. There was a debate going on, as to whether a recession was coming or not. So, most businesses had six to nine months to prepare for the downturn. The difference with COVID-19 is it happened within a week.

"The government first decided it was going to start asking people to self-isolate and close down parts of the economy. But actually, when we then entered lockdown, in reality with like an asteroid hit the planet, effectively we were switching off 70% of the economic activity of the country. What that has done to our economy is created a huge shock. We've not got any preparation. People weren't prepared at all, and we've just gone headlong into a recession, which will be pretty significant."

"Liquidity has become everything. It's not so much about profitability, or your P&L and your balance sheet. Now, it's more about how I got the cash to get the business and as many people as possible to the other side..."

The point Green makes is crucial for how we are to make the necessary adjustments as we prepare a road towards recovery. We cannot under-estimate the sheer magnitude of the impact of Covid-19 on the global economy and how that will have an ongoing effect on the business chains our organisations exist within.

As Green continues; "So [this recession] is clearly more severe than previous recessions and much faster. I suppose the obvious way to compare is if you think about unemployment. Within the first two weeks of the this crisis, we have had a million people [within the UK] register for Universal Credit. In the last recession, it took us nearly three years to get a million more people unemployed. So that gives you an indication of how rapid the changes be."

This is an eye-opening statistic. It does well to outline how the current scenario is not comparable to the global economic downturn in 2008, where we had a more generic, slower build into a recession. Something that allowed companies to make advance decisions around not hiring and cutting back on investment.

Green went on to describe the situation in 2020 as one where "businesses were, all of a sudden on a precipice, deciding whether they could survive. [They were] taking costs out having to make very draconian and hard decisions very, very quickly, just to survive.

"Liquidity has become everything. It's not so much about profitability, or your P&L and your balance sheet. Now, it's more about how I got the cash to get the business and as many people as possible to the other side."

It has been a period of testing times for all of us, and those in leadership roles have had hard, hard decisions to make. Green is closely connected to many involved in such conversations in his role as a serial entrepreneur.

"It's been a time of crisis, and it's been incredibly difficult for leaders and leadership teams," Green explains. "it's taken its toll in terms of stress, anxiety, and lots of sleepless nights as businesses have had to take really tough decisions."

Yet, despite being in the heat of 'battle' on many fronts and having a comprehensive viewpoint on how the challenges we face today are genuinely unprecedented, Green still sees a glimmer of optimism in the future.

"Hopefully there is some good news in that we can come out of recessions as quickly as we entered it. As soon as soon the government starts lifting some of the self-isolating and people having to work from home, then parts of the economy can and will switch back on again. I think what we all have to hope is that, while we've gone into recession very, very quickly, we will come out pretty fast on the other side as well."

ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘the-field-service-podcast’ CATEGORY

Benefits of the Rapid Evolution We've All Endured (Podcast Highlights)

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode One 'Kevin Green on Leadership, Strategy and the Economic Impact of Lockdown' for the full episode...

The Galvanising Effect of Rapid Evolution at times of Crisis

Further Reading:

The Importance of Consistent Values In Leadership (Podcast Highlights)

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode One 'Kevin Green on Leadership, Strategy and the Economic Impact of Lockdown' for the full episode...

Leadership Values should be lived not put up on a wall

Further Reading:

Identifying Organisational Culture in Business (Podcast Highlights)

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode One 'Kevin Green on Leadership, Strategy and the Economic Impact of Lockdown' for the full episode...

Does your leadership team understand the Value of Nurturing culture within the business?

Further Reading:

Leadership in a Post-Pandemic World (Podcast Highlights)

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode One 'Kevin Green on Leadership, Strategy and the Economic Impact of Lockdown' for the full episode...

The Importance of Trust Within leadership

Further Reading:

A Challenge Greater Than Anything We've Known (Podcast Highlights)

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode One 'Kevin Green on Leadership, Strategy and the Economic Impact of Lockdown' for the full episode...

Understanding the True Economic Impact of Covid-19

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