Slopey shoulders

Practicing accountability is one of 13 behaviours identified in Stephen MR Covey's book, The Speed of Trust, that is needed to develop and maintain relationship trust. The other 12 behaviours were included in my blog post on Trust last week, with Straight talking being covered last week.

Accountability is about taking responsibility or ownership for an issue. The above jigsaw piece was one of 96 pieces issued with our procurement team's objectives engraved on them, and handed out to each team member. One of the aims of doing this was to foster accountability and taking responsibility within the team. 

What we get when people avoid taking accountability or responsibility is "slopey shoulder syndrome"! 

My rant the other week was aimed at those with slopey shoulders when faced with bullying, dishonesty and other unacceptable business behaviours. 

Today I'd like to address slopey shouldered behaviour when it's simply "not my job guv." After all I suspect many of the horror stories of procurement gone wrong arose from slopey shouldered syndrome. 

A friend and I were discussing our tendency to see the bigger picture, and to do what needs to be done to solve a problem for a customer/client. Despite others we work with suggesting its either not our job, or such commitment will be a rod for our own back and we're best not to go the extra mile. 

We came up with a number of excuses given:

• "It's not my job" - unless you can tell me whose it is and that they know about the problem then it will simply continue to be a problem 
• "It's not in my objectives" - I've never yet worked anywhere where everything needing to be done in the year is known when the objectives are set. That said a culture where many managers hide behind this excuse, when giving poor performance at appraisal time etc, can foster such behaviours 
• "It's the responsibility of someone more senior" - do they know?
• "It's the responsibility of someone more junior" - do they know?
• "It's not my responsibility to tell anyone there's a problem" - so whose is it?
• "No one showed me what to do" - have you raised this with anyone?
• "It's been like this for months/years" - have you raised this with anyone?
• "If we do a good job now they'll take advantage in the future"
• "If we do good job now they'll expect the same in the future"
• Any others you can think of? 

Of course we never believe ourselves to be slopey shouldered - I'm certainly writing this feeling I'm somehow exempt, and I wonder if you're feeling the same?

The likelihood is that there will be things we all get slopey shouldered about especially when managing others or working in a team. Self awareness is about understanding if we are developing such a tendency, then deciding whether that's acceptable, or unpicking the reasons for doing it in this situation. This will ensure we don't become Mr or Miss Slopey shoulder for ever and continue to take responsibility for sorting out problems. 

I think this is such a key component to developing trust. If someone goes out of their way to get something done, irrespective of whose job it is, then they will be trusted to do the same in the future. You're hardly likely to want to trust someone with a task if evidence points to them dropping it at the first sign of trouble, and/or pointing their finger at others saying "it was their fault not mine", just like we did as children.

Alison Smith

Inspiring change inside and out - when what you're doing isn't working

The meaning of the communication is the response that you get

One of my all time favourite NLP presuppositions (beliefs it's useful to try on) is "the meaning of the communication is the response that you get." 

It's a favourite because it's got me out of so many holes with others and has done so time and time again. Why? Because, if someone isn't understanding what I'm saying, it shifts any responsibility from those on the receiving end of my communication back to me. Which is great because it then means I can do something about it. So long as I'm blaming the other person for being for example slow, awkward, tired, arrogant, or any other judgement I'd like to make about their inability to understand what I'm saying, then I can't do anything about changing the situation. If I accept this presupposition then in order for this person, or in the picture above - the whole room, to understand what I'm saying I'm going to have to change what I'm doing because it's clearly not working. 

I often use the example of wanting to open a closed door - I can keep pushing on it to open, I can shout at it to open but until I realise I need to pull it to open it I'll be getting nowhere. It's the same with people - you just have to find out how their door opens.

 

Next time you're having problems communicating to someone remember it's your responsibility to change what you're saying to improve their understanding. Other posts in this series on NLP will provide more clues on what changes you might wish to consider.

Alison Smith

The Purchasing Coach

Sowing the seeds for effective communication in purchasing teams

This post is part of a series introducing some NLP tools and techniques that can significantly improve your stakeholder engagement, communication and team working.

Bored team picture source: managingamericans.com via Alison on Pinterest

Door pushing/pulling picture source: media-cache2.pinterest.com via Alison on Pinterest

The recent issue at RBS isn’t their fault it’s ours

Everyone is very quick to point the finger at others, as I wrote in a blog some time ago when we had the last media witch hunt. It’s IT’s fault, it’s the decision to outsource, it’s outsourcing, it’s the CEO, it’s all banks, it’s India etc etc. I’m sure the analysis of all the contributory factors will take some time to come out.

The fact remains it is likely there will have been hundreds of different points along the way where someone raised an issue with what was happening. Someone said:

• This won’t work
• There’s a problem
• Slow down
• We’re not ready
• We need to do something different
• There are risks
• If we do that this will happen
• We don’t have the right skills

The biggest problem is that these statements weren’t taken seriously. They weren’t taken seriously and action wasn't taken by:

• The person thinking the thoughts and not articulating them
• The person saying them
• The team hearing them
• The project manager
• The manager
• The auditor
• The risk manager
• The executive
• The CEO

Why, of course, is the million dollar, or in this case the multimillion dollar, question. I'm sure we’ll all have different answers – mine to add to the mix would include:

• The speed we’re all working
• Ego’s needing to be heard and not listening – see previous blog
• Culture of “Yes” and not “No”
• Lack of taking responsibility
• Unrealistic expectations – within and out with the company
• Lack of effective communication
• Fear of repercussions
• Ineffective management of the process, people and suppliers

And these are certainly not only happening just in RBS.

What behaviours in business do you think are contributing to these types of issues and what can you change to ensure you’re part of the solution not the problem? Because if we've ever kept quiet when we knew we needed to say something we're no different than all those within RBS who contributed to this latest fiasco.

Alison Smith
The Purchasing Coach
Sowing the seeds for effective communication in procurement

It's your fault picture source: dotnetnukefool.com via Alison on Pinterest