One of the global stories that’s been impossible to ignore of course is North Korea’s missile testing and the escalating war of words between North Korea and other world leaders, including our own. It makes me think back to an interview with Dr. Keith Suter, Foreign Affairs Editor for Chanel 7 on this subject some months ago now. He said he firmly believes we’ve lost the art of agreeing to disagree, and that we’ve become increasingly combative as a society, citing a recent study from here at home where at least 20% of Australians said it was OK to use violence if there was a disagreement.

One of the other guests blamed our tribal culture, saying it was human nature – we’re a tribal people and we grow up with the strong beliefs and paradigms of our tribe. He said that when we encounter another tribe with very different paradigms, we cannot reconcile the two, it is not in our nature.

Yes, our beliefs are built in very early on in life, and are dependent on the type of upbringing we have, our education and the diversity of our experiences. But strongly held beliefs and paradigms shouldn’t stop us from practicing some open-mindedness. It’s not just about listening to the views of others but really seeking to understand. If we enter into all of our interactions and conversations with a true intent to actually understand and take on board a different opinion, then we might just learn something new and perhaps broaden our thinking. In doing so we’ve taken the time to, as the saying goes, ‘walk in someone else’s shoes’. This doesn’t mean we’ve had to change our opinions, just that we’ve demonstrated our humanity, and our emotional intelligence.

We practice this in the workplace every day, or at least we should be. Part of any positive organisational culture and any high-functioning team is conflict and effective resolution of that conflict, sometimes through agreeing to disagree. Conflict is handled differently in different cultures and we all see it differently as individuals. Depending on our personal style, some of us relish a good argument, whilst others would prefer to become invisible or be sucked into the earth around us rather than engage in any form of conflict. Regardless of how we feel about it, most of us have the skills to manage it effectively, more often than not we just need to acknowledge the emotion for what it is and get on with it. Easier said than done when we’re dealing with strongly held beliefs or matters close to the heart, but certainly not impossible.

Let’s hear it for agreeing to disagree, for open-mindedness and for showing our humanity this festive season.

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Succession planning is critical. It identifies future leaders, and recognises and develops promising candidates for positions within the organisation via a methodical evaluation process and strategic preparation and coaching.

In my opinion, succession planning establishes leadership continuity, it maintains and develops intellectual capital, and encourages individual growth and improvement. Ultimately, without a well-developed succession plan, the impact on organisational continuity can be damaging. Although succession planning has always appeared to be aimed towards top executives or high-level management, this should not be the case. In order for a business to succeed, all levels within an organisation or business should have a strategic succession planning process in place. This allows recognition of entry-level staff who have the talent to be great supervisors, and supervisors who have the potential to be exceptional department heads, contributing strong potential future leaders to the workforce.

Below are some key steps to consider when looking to the future and planning for unexpected changes in staffing:

• Establish and implement a strategic succession plan/process, ensuring reviews and updates are regularly undertaken;
• Build professional development plans and strengthen the importance of development for all employees – encourage staff to take an interest in duties and tasks beyond their normal scope and role;
• Reassess recruitment activities to ensure alignment with succession plans and processes;
• Mentor and coach identified staff in the succession plan in line with their development needs as outlined in the plans, ensuring adequate time is provided to prepare the talent; and
• Always keep in mind that succession plans are a unique reflection of your organisation or business, and they will vary and differ from each other as do the organisations and businesses for which they are developed.

By adopting a strategic succession planning process, you will set up an environment to respond to change more productively and ensure leadership continuity. It will contribute to the ongoing health and longevity of your organisation and finally, succession planning is a powerful process for recognising, developing and retaining top talent within your team.

So, why not make the time and take this opportunity to reflect on your role, pen a succession plan for your team, and encourage a workplace culture that embraces position change through learning, career development and effective succession planning?

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Taking that a step further, Randy Ottinger, Executive Vice President (EVP) of Kotter International believes it’s imperative for all organisations to strive for disruptive innovation. By achieving innovation that disrupts the market, you will force your competitors to deliver their own disruptive change strategies in response.

According to Ottinger, at this very moment, there is a high probability either your organisation is disrupting other companies, or you’re being disrupted yourself.

The research tells us, that for an organisation to meet these challenges, it needs its workforce to become agile and adopt agile thinking. But what does an agile workforce and agile thinking look like? How does a workforce become agile? Is there an authority on workforce agility?

Unfortunately it’s not that simple. Our recent review of workforce agility literature, found limited research, with most focusing on the speed and flexibility of workforce agility from an operations perspective.

How do you create agility?

The research available concludes that an agile workforce is adaptive, flexible, developmental, innovative, collaborative, competent, fast and informative in nature¹. A study, conducted in 2008, on how to improve workforce agility, identified the following management strategies²:

• Foster a workplace environment that encourages autonomy and empowers employees to seek their own solutions, make decisions and take calculated risks.
• Provide clear expectations and direction to encourage confidence, which is critical for the development of agility.
• Establish a collaborative culture and provide opportunities for collaboration amongst employees and external groups, such as suppliers and customers.
• Increase role scope to provide a variety of tasks and responsibilities, which can be achieved through implementing matrix organisational structures.

Another strategy I would add is to establish and facilitate innovation forums – setting up innovation/problem solving teams (or events) to address specific organisational challenges and/or opportunities, assigning targeted roles within those groups and facilitating short, sharp workshops where the challenge is solved or opportunity progressed quickly to approval and implementation.

Essentially, if our workforce has these traits, our organisation is potentially agile enough to effectively embrace disruptive change, and generate disruptive innovation.

The Pace of Disruption

The definition of agility is the ability to move quickly and easily. Therefore, it’s important to respond to disruptive change or a competitor’s disruptive innovation quickly and decisively.

The fact that disruption tends to develop gradually over time is one of the main reasons market incumbents often don’t perceive disrupters as a credible enough threat to warrant a response, and are overlooked.

An article in the Harvard Business Review discussing disruptive innovation details the example of Netflix and how it destroyed Blockbuster³. When Netflix launched in 1997, its initial service wasn’t appealing to the majority of Blockbuster’s customers, who typically rented movies (primarily new releases) on impulse. Netflix customers could only access services online, and movies they wanted to watch were mailed to them via the postal service. This delay was certainly one of the reasons Blockbuster chose to ignore their competitor.

As new technologies allowed Netflix to shift to streaming however, the company became far more appealing to Blockbuster’s customer base. Netflix offered unlimited streaming of movies and television shows, for a monthly cost of what approximately two overnight new release rentals were at Blockbuster. In 2015, approximately 42.5 billion hours of streamed content had been consumed by its customers. By the fourth quarter of 2016, Netflix had a global subscriber count of approximately 86.7 million people, 34 million of those are from non-US countries. Blockbuster went bankrupt in 2010 and by 2014, Netflix was worth $28 billion dollars, about ten times what Blockbuster was worth at its prime.

Finding the Balance

Ultimately, agile organisations manage change disruption and instigate disruption innovation at the same time.

In a recent book, published by Dr John Kotter, he describes this methodology as a “dual operating system”, which allows management to maintain structure and systems whilst simultaneously allowing the organisation ample opportunity to develop innovation opportunities.

Another Harvard Business Review article discusses disruptive change, and the importance of leaders being able to identify what an organisation is capable and incapable of handling⁴. Not all businesses will have the resources to both manage change disruption and instigate disruption at the same time. However, in order to keep up and thrive in today’s marketplace, it is imperative to find the delicate balance to achieve short-term financial results, and the agility to quickly seize new windows of opportunity. As Randy Ottinger explains⁵:

“If there is not enough management in the organisation, crucial breakdowns occur in the day-to-day operations. If there is not enough innovation, change do not occur quickly enough, your people can lose their passion, your products can become outdated – and worse, your business can become irrelevant.”

References

1. Muduli, A. (2013). Workforce Agility: A Review of Literature. IUP Journal of Management Research, Vol 7, No 3
2. Sherehiy, B. (2008). Relationships Between Agility Strategym Work Organisation and Workforce Agility. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. UMI Microform 3308333
3. Christensen, C., Raynor, M. & McDonald, R. (2015). What is Disruptive Innovation? Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from: https://hbr.org/2015/12/what-is-disruptive-innovation
4. Christensen, C. & Overdof, M. (2000). Meeting the Challenge of Disruptive Change. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from: https://hbr.org/2000/03/meeting-the-challenge-of-disruptive-change
5. Ottinger, R. (2013). Disrupt or Be Disrupted. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkotter/2013/04/03/how-to-lead-through-business-disruption/#4d0d413470b6

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To excel in this new world, it is critical for businesses to understand their customer’s motivations, needs and wants. With this detailed understanding comes the opportunity to design your engagement approach to best serve your customers. This isn’t an easy feat, and the idea of improving customer experience can be a great source of frustration, as businesses often struggle through trial and error until the winning formula is achieved.

Most customer journeys will require a number of engagement channels, and in order to optimise the customer experience, it is essential to identify these channels and integrate them into your operating model. This is generally known as Omnichannel Customer Engagement. To put it simply, this approach brings together the channels that your customers expect (and the business needs) into a coordinated environment creating a seamless and consistent customer experience.

When done well, this approach will be driven by the collection and analysis of data and using this data to keep customers fully engaged with your brand. The 2016 Australia Digital Experience Report, released by SAP, suggests that this capability will treble within the next two years.

The report also highlighted a number of other relevant trends and issues including:

• Significant gaps between the digital experiences Australian consumers want and the digital experiences they get.
• Consumers delighted with a digital experience are nearly five times more likely than those who are unsatisfied to remain loyal to a brand.
• Improved outcome-based, omni-channel customer experiences were the top driver of digital transformation strategies among Australian organisations.
• Organisations that perform best are those who unite their people and processes on a single system to deliver on their customers’ relentlessly increasing demands.
• Poor digital experiences can do more harm to a brand than a lost sale. Many love to share a bad experience, which can lead to multiple losses across multiple customers within a short timeframe, leading to increased growth of the ‘switching economy’.

This report also reflects that customers demand simple, secure, seamless and personalized experiences – anytime, anywhere and on any device.

Digital customer experience is only going to expand here on in and will be a very important factor in customer engagement in years to come. There are many key factors that impact a customer’s experience; these include convenience, consistency and relevance. But what goes into designing an engagement approach that customers prefer and appreciate?

In a time where technology can be some-what problematic and arduous because it is ever-changing, it is necessary to focus attention on the type of experience it takes for a customer to return for more. Consumers today have high expectations and are time-poor, therefore convenience is no longer a benefit, it’s a necessity. There is also an expectation for real-time interaction, highly personalized and tailored to buying preferences, and transaction history and user behaviour.

Establishing digital experiences is crucial for most businesses to remain relevant and productive. To achieve success, it is necessary to implement an approach that is well defined and focused on creating the ultimate digital experience (for your business).

Different businesses have different customers with different expectations. For most businesses, the best way to understand your customer’s expectations is to simply ask them. Give it a try with the next few customers you deal with and see how close to the mark your current approach is?

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Now I must admit that that heading into this trip I was apprehensive as to what to expect (a feeling only multiplied following a 14 hour flight with a toddler). I remembered the sights and sounds and crowds of Disneyland from my own experience there a good 30 years ago and wasn’t quite sure I had the skills necessary to navigate the environment without completely losing my mind. But as a family unit we made it through and when all of the dust had settled upon my return to work, I started to think about the experience from a business perspective.

Surviving Disneyland to my mind was similar to a successful change management process. It’s strange to equate the two, but allow me to break it down a little:

Planning is essential: As with any change management exercise, planning is key to survival in the happiest place on Earth. Much effort was made well before even boarding the flight to California to understand the layout of the park, the attractions on offer, the availability of rides/ experiences and the likelihood of achieving the highest rate of success for our desired outcome (that being the limitless smiles on our daughters faces). We needed to ensure that a comprehensive risk management plan was in place to mitigate probable elements of bad weather, attraction closures and crowd numbers and the overall planning was broken down into smaller, achievable actions on a day by day basis, keeping our goals realistic and highly impactful.

Embracing the change: Personally I found this element as the most essential in enjoying our time in Disneyland. Nothing can prepare you for the bustle, crowds, waiting times and overall sense enshrouding cacophony that greets you. For the initial few hours of our visit I felt lost, frustrated and angry at times. Then it happened. My approach just changed, like the flick of a switch. I leaned into it, embraced the environment I found myself in and immediately began to enjoy the challenges it presented. I embraced the chaos and accepted the requirements that came with it. Before long I was masterfully navigating a stroller through packed lines and throngs of mouse ear wearing fanatics, gleefully leading my daughters through the foreign environment to experience after experience of true Disney excitement. In a way I thought of myself as a champion of the change we found ourselves in and it freed me up to act as a guide to my young prodigies of excitement.

Learn Lessons Quickly: As with change management a visit to Disneyland will quickly derail if you continue to make the same mistakes or refuse to change your approach to dealing with obstacles. Day one in the park illuminated the most popular attractions and the ones which were most likely to break your spirit through astronomical waiting times. Likewise it provided insight into the seasonal attractions which were not available. This meant that in the following days my party of mouseketeers and I knew the rides to hit early and often, the attractions and experiences to sign up for and when to bite the bullet and purchase front of line tickets. For those who hesitate in adjusting their approach to experiencing Disneyland only find regret and frustration.

Learn to enjoy the small victories along the way: Whilst change management may be focused on achieving a larger outcome it is important to notice and enjoy the small wins along the journey. A trip to Disneyland is no different. Over our time there we found the best places to eat, drink, purchase merchandise, take photos and most importantly meet the characters. These small wins enabled us to continue to drive through the larger change experience in being in such a magical place whilst keeping us filled with a sense of accomplishment.

Much like a good change management process we achieved our end state in the time available to us and even took time along the way to appreciate the change environment for what it offered. The girls smiles were testament to that, I hope their memories of it all are the crowning achievement.

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As described by Luke Beveridge, the General Manager of Football had given him a copy of the book and he was surprised at how the book used a simple story to provide a powerful message around confronting your fears.

The book was used as a central plank of their language and culture, inspiring the team to get out of their comfort zone, face their fears and a bag record-breaking premiership. Fittingly, the final page of the book spoke about running into the fire, which was really what they had to do when facing their much-favoured opponents in the Sydney Swans on Grand Final Day.

While it’s been a long time since I’ve considered trying to write a children’s story, it does remind me of the work we do to help clients create big, powerful, repeatable stories to get them through their most wicked challenges. These stories are underpinned and expressed through things that you can make use of in a lot of different scenarios, such as value and vision statements, corporate objectives and employee value propositions. These elements provide a way to anchor your stories and link your cultural drivers to highly visible elements.

I have seen some stories used to good effect within teams where mantras like “Good to Great”, Looks good, works well” and “Think One Team” inspire a focus on quality, commitment and achieving that extra 1 per cent. Each of these Mantras typically had a set of actions, messages, images and objectives associated with it that helped it to become a meaningful set of concepts similar to what you see in a good story.

In some other companies I have seen the history of the company, the pride in the products and the richness, scale or the diversity of the business form a highly motivating story. Equally, the service provided to the customer and the meaning in the contribution to the bigger, aspirational picture – when replicated across a business, tells a powerful and highly relatable story. In time, this type of story, if cultivated by the right leader and used in the right way can shape a culture and in turn, underpin a strong and sustainable focus on performance.

On the flip side, the wrong stories can tear a team or a company apart. Stories of division, entitlement, confusion and criticism can ensure that the ability to inspire a group internally or externally is greatly reduced. The same can be said for stories that do not hit the mark because their elements are too complicated, disconnected and not created in a way that connects with the people.

So, how do you build and nurture a story that can deliver you your fairytale premiership? These four themes are a good place to start.

1. Simple

Simple stories can be easily recalled, repeated and applied to many different situations. This is the distinct advantage that the kid’s book had in that it is inherently simple, but within its simple content you can draw many parallels and use its learnings in many different situations. The more detailed you get and the more specific you get, the less broad appeal you have. It also almost goes without saying that it’s hard to memorize a complex story, let alone tell it correctly.

2. Human

Building on the idea of a simple story, the next steps is to make it really relatable. A good story needs to connect with people at across many levels and areas, authentically. This means less jargon, less corporate speak and more human, emotive and well-grounded statements. Human stories are boosted by human imagery like faces, in addition to open and honest discussion that demonstrates real empathy and where possible, vulnerability.

3. Inspiring

Stories in this context have a purpose and more often than not they are in place to support an improvement or a maintenance if a great standard. Many teams and companies talk about achieving that “extra one per cent” and statements like this need to be supported by stories to make them applicable to the everyday. Stories also need to be inspiring to ensure they are attractive. Attraction is an important part of getting your people to commit that space in their crowded attention span, in addition to their memory. In a corporate sense, it’s important to, make sure that your high level corporate objectives can be broken down into meaningful chunks that people can relate to in their role. These chunks form part of the story that gives their everyday effort meaning and connection to the bigger effort.

4. Visual

Giving a good story a strong visual representation helps people to understand and recall the key concepts without using reams of text. This can be achieved through both using the right descriptions (like a good novel) and using great graphics such as infographics explaining a journey, genuine (non-stock) photography and clever sketched images that give a unique feel to the composition.

Wrap up

So, just like the western bulldogs – keep your eyes open for the right combination of concepts to help your team do something amazing. Remember, to test it well with your people and the more you can get your leaders to embody the story, the better the result will be.

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It was great fun and very rewarding. I often reflect back on that time and consider what I learned during that time that I can apply today. Many of my clients were very accomplished business leaders and working closely with them and pushing them to their limits, safely, gives you great insights.

One of the clearest learnings I have from this time is the way each of these people knew their strengths and went out of their way to shape their work and working lives around them. They had each exploited significant opportunities and were doing well in business and in life. Seriously, you had to be doing very well to train at this studio.

The most simple of these decisions came from Mike. Mike was and is still a legend. Hard working, passionate and fiercely loyal. Mike would always tell you if you were not performing or if he was not hitting the goals he expected.

Mike also did not like to train in the morning.

I had always thought this excuse was a cop out, but to oblige me, one week he trained only in the morning and his body just did not want a bar of it. As much as Mike tried to bring his usual intensity, he fatigued unusually quickly and disengaged shortly after.

Once we changed his training back to evenings, Mike and I had a conversation about the merits of shaping our lives around our strengths, both for work and play. That discussion really resonated with me. As someone who always wanted to demonstrate my ability to work well in all situations, I understood that changing my own approach and recognising the opportunity to focus on strengths could make a huge difference.

The interesting thing to ponder is how this translates to a corporate environment. Many things in your working life are open to tweaking, but you have to be aware enough to know what they are and how to make them work better for you.

The workplace is changing and more and more there are opportunities for people to shape or at least influence how they interact with their working environment.

Whether you are working from home, in an office, travelling or working across a network of offices, both the physical surroundings and the way that you plan your schedule and interactions are potentially open to adjustment.

After decades of having the elements of the working environment dictated to us, it can actually come as a surprise to think that you can change the environment and the construction of your day to work better for you.

For me, there are four elements that, if manipulated to your own strengths, can make a huge difference to your working life.

1. Timing is everything

Just like Mike, we all have physical and mental attributes that mean we are better or worse at things depending on the time of day. This means, you need to think hard about what tasks are best to do throughout the day and equally, you can apply the same thinking to a typical week. Some of us take a whole day to warm up on Monday and by Friday we are flat out working hard for the weekend. With this in mind, mapping out your day based on your abilities can ensure that you have the right energy, composure and information to tackle your biggest priorities most effectively.

A good way to look at this is to keep a diary and note your abilities during your activities for a few weeks. Be careful to note the positives and negatives you encounter and start considering how they relate to the setting, your alertness, your own style and the sequence of events. Once you do this you may be able to have a creative look at your schedule and see what may be modified to give you more confidence based on your learnings.

One of my old bosses used to talk about getting the right rhythm as a team to deliver in busy times. She called it getting the right “Battle Rhythm”, which involved being able to meet the everyday demands of the project while having enough in reserve to deal with unplanned spikes.

The idea here is that if you can establish a reliable rhythm, you can plan around that and understand where the potential tipping points may be and where backup is required. If you can find a consistent tempo in the way you schedule your events and efforts, you may realise some confidence and results you did not know were possible.

The strange thing is that not everyone understands that there is a level of choice in how we work and while we can’t always change our meeting schedule or change what’s assigned to us, we can think about the best way to warm ourselves up for a task or schedule down time to clear our minds. Just like a track athlete doing some warm up runs before their main event at the Olympics, your brain may just need that warm up before you launch into your most important tasks.

2. Leveraging your style

Anyone who has done any level of personality profiling would understand how much this can improve the way you in engage with your people, environments or situations.

Understanding your innate traits and your likely response to situations and engagements, based on these traits can provide a vast amount of intelligence towards shaping the best work environment for you.

Style and your working space

Any reasonable analysis of your personal style will help you understand how your working environment is best constructed. Some people like to have some isolation to help them think, others like to be amongst the people as they thrive on contact, feedback and collaborative work. Others want a bit of both. The key element here is understanding what the best situation is and trying to shape your space around that.

For example, I know what works for me and I can see a real difference when I get it right. I love constant contact, I love to be around people, understand their challenges and contribute to solving their problems. I wouldn’t say I am an extrovert, but I always do better around people and hence my goal is to be well entrenched in a team situation as often as possible.

I know heaps of people that see this differently and they prefer to have space, they hate open-plan settings and they want everyone to go about their business in isolation. The important thing is to understand your best environment and how you can leverage this to make your day productive.

Style and your engagements

Having a strong awareness of both your own and your team’s engagement preferences will position you well to plan and execute high quality interactions. The elements to consider in an interaction include the type of language, speed or tempo, the structure and the level of detail. Some analytical and assertive colleagues will want to cut to the chase, focus on outcomes and key indicators and move quickly, whereas more intuitive people may feel more comfortable in speaking broadly first and taking logical steps towards an agreed outcome with an easy pace.

The most important thing to recognise is the differences between you and your colleagues and how these contrasts may cause unnecessary conflicts. Taking the time to prepare for key interactions or modify your own style to align to whoever you are engaging with can pay big dividends and again, make your work a bit more enjoyable and productive.

3. Connecting to value

We all know that we are driven by value, not just in a commercial sense, but also by tasks and outcomes that align to our own sense of what is right and what will make a difference. For example, I like to make a big contribution and I get a big kick out of helping others solve their problems.

If you look at the work of David Rock with his SCARF Model or Dr Marie Guzman and her work in Neuroscience and change, we know that for people to be able to make a change they must see value and that must serve as their motivator to follow through with the effort.

Change, as in working hard to make a difference and achieve an outcome, takes energy and our brains are wired in a way that maintains the status quo to avoid spikes in energy output and retain control. Seth Godin’s discussion of the “Lizard Brain” in the book “Linchpin” also identifies how our survival-focused behaviours driven by the pre-historic “Lizard-brain” will shoot down the innovative and artistic possibilities that we seek in favour of a known, reliable and repeatable action that requires less risk and uses less energy.

So, in a work sense, you need to understand what motivates you and how you can frequently connect with this throughout your day. Keeping yourself tuned into this value will help maintain the positive mindset that can make work more enjoyable as well as productive.

4. Picking your battles

As Seth Godin also says in “Linchpin”, there is great wisdom in understanding what you have the power to change versus what will be a poor use of your energy. Just like Mike, who knew he could not bring his physical A-game to the morning training sessions, recognising what can and can’t be changed can empower us to quickly focus on where we can kick the biggest and best goals.

Godin’s theory links this selection to an ability to “ship” (deliver an outcome) on time and on budget as the paramount part of your effort. He recommends “trashing” early to make the hard decisions about what is in and what’s out of the project and then shutting down the distractions and committing all energy to producing a great product and shipping it on time.

Wrap up

I am grateful to Mike for the lesson that he provided and I hope this perspective can help make a difference for you.

These four steps can help you build a foundation for improving your work setting and no doubt there will be many more that you can identify once you master using your awareness and analysis to shape your surroundings.

Like Neo in the move “The Matrix”, you will find that there are many forces that tend to try and maintain the status quo, but if you can figure out the tweaks that support your work strengths, you stand a better chance of achieving your goals and empowering your teams.

Want to know more? Want to challenge my thinking? Drop me a note on benjamins@stockwellbretton.com

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Projects, when conceived by many clients, provide a way to introduce a new system, process or way of working. Typically, all projects are started with the intent of making an organization more profitable or efficient and so in this mindset offer a positive and productive solution to the business problems.

However, as with many well intentioned ideas, some projects can also serve to exacerbate a problem or even create new ones. Now I need to be clear, I still believe that isolated pockets of work are essential in furthering an organizations capability and offering its employee’s the opportunity to diversify their experience, however, if not managed closely, these projects fail to meet their objectives.

From my experience there are five main reasons for a project to fail. That’s not to say that all projects fail, but in the main there are a group of underlying factors that have been proven to derail any project if not addressed, or at least understood.

The five factors for failure can be described as:

1. Scoping and envisioning the end state

“To the person who does not know where he wants to go there is no favorable wind.”- Seneca

This factor in particular can see a project fail and should be quite a simple exercise when developing the project plan. An organization must understand what they are trying to achieve through the delivery of a project and in order to realize the potential of a project; they must have a clear vision of what the end state will be.

Many times during a project I have seen organizations take a decision to make a change to a system, process or workforce for the betterment of the organization and its people only to dive in without really articulating what the end state will actually look like. There should be time taken to understand how the implementation or change will impact the current environment, paint a picture of the now, how it will transition to the future and how it will impact the current work practices.

A good tool in this sort of instance is to take the time to develop personas or targeted experiences. To do this you describe how an employee or user of a service operates today and then discuss what will change when the implementation is complete. Taking time to address the “what will be” question will ensure a project has the best chance of completion and articulates the future state for the project team to aim for.

2. Consistent focus

“Many people don’t focus enough on execution. If you make a commitment to get something done, you need to follow through on that commitment. “- Kenneth Chenault

So you have scoped and commenced a project with your organization and understand what the end state will look like upon completion. There are still many variances and external influences which could derail the work proposed.

Common to these are change of policy, loss of funding, change of priorities within the organization and some are “acts of God”, those being well out of the span of control of the projects ownership.

As an example I have been involved in a number of projects that have been, for want of a better term, hijacked to meet a completely unrelated requirement of an organizations leadership. A good example would be the need to reduce FTE or ‘right-size’ an organization. One minute you are designing a service delivery focused organizational structure with related service levels and agreements, the next you are asked to find FTE savings in the new structure without the diminishment of service to customers. It is a reality of today’s business, but without the ability to focus on what the organization and its customers really required the project to deliver, a project team will lose their momentum and ability to deliver a satisfying outcome.

3. The struggle between project and BAU

“It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires a great deal of strength to decide what to do.”- Elbert Hubbard

I think most people can relate to this issue. An organization commences a project and it is seen as an opportunity for its employees to become involved in more diverse and challenging work. However the reality is that in most cases these employees still have a “day job” to complete and generally a projects budget does not stretch to cover the BAU component of everyday business.

I have witnessed many occasions where the struggle between designing a new future and delivering what needs to be done today has resulted in a project being ground to a halt, or in some cases abandoned all together. As the saying goes “you cannot repair an aircraft whilst it is flying” and reality is that most functions are required to continue to deliver, regardless of what projects are required.

Many organizations are moving towards a more fluid “contingent” employee base. That is, all employees are essentially “floating” between projects and BAU and the resource model is developed to accommodate periods of high intensity project work as well as maintaining the status quo.

4. Communication

“Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing.” – Rollo May

As far as projects go, communication is king. Without effective communication you cannot achieve stakeholder buy in nor can you build a case for executive approval at the various gate processes.

Projects can and will fail without effective and persuasive communication. From stakeholders feeling alienated and railing against any proposed changes to leadership refusing to commit support to projects because they simply “do not know enough” about what is trying to be achieved.

Communication must win the hearts and minds of its intended audience and create a feeling of belonging, ensuring a project has a number of champions at various levels of the organization.

Through creating a “community” through effective and targeted communication, you can give your project the best chance to succeed.

5. Ownership

“Ownership: ‘A commitment of the head, heart, and hands to fix the problem and never again affix the blame.” John G Miller

This is perhaps the hardest factor to manage. Oft times there will be a lot of people who will want ownership of certain projects in an organization. What derails a project from an ownership perspective though, is the reasons behind why someone would want that ownership.

Any organization can be a political place. Never more evident than when a game changing project is on offer. The people who would see the implementation of a project as a way of furthering their career or winning political points often prove to be that projects downfall.

They can either refuse to engage fully in the project and rather just hold it as a trophy or engage too much and micro manage the project into extinction. The important thing about ownership is that the owner must have an understanding of what needs to be achieved and a passion to see it happen. They should also be of a level and experience that understands the internal hurdles a project needs to overcome.

As stated before, not all projects fail, yet I can guarantee you that of the ones that do the above five factors have most likely played a key role in its downfall.

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You have to feel for the ABS team. After their leaders had assured the nation they could handle the traffic, “a series of attacks” disabled the site and instantly earned the census a spotlighted seat in the gaze of a deservedly agitated nation.

Whether the issue could have been technically avoided, based on the type of attack (Denial of Service) and the level of traffic, is something that I am sure will be analysed in the fullness of time.

However, the bigger learning for me and no doubt for the ABS Communications Team is how to move quickly when the big risk you have identified becomes a reality.

Based on my experience, I am sure the prime challenge for them on the night was their ability to execute their Crisis Communications or Risk Management Strategy at the pace that it required.

If the detailed reporting of the night is accurate, there seemed to be a significant gap between the decision to shut down the online form for the night and the external announcement detailing this. To the ABS’ credit, there was some messaging on the site which managed some expectations but I can’t help but sympathize for their communications leaders having to deal with a situation that would have been very tricky to manage.

This reminds me of the challenges we see during these situations in terms of being able to accelerate our approval processes and rapidly release the right message to shape the situation.

With this in mind, here are five tips on how to manage a tricky and fast moving situation like this.

1. Be well prepared

When Cadel Evans won the Tour De France the one thing he said repeatedly when asked about how he felt during one of the world’s most challenging sporting events (where anything literally can and does happen), he said his team were “well prepared”. Even after he had won it, his main reflection was that they were well prepared – such was their (Team BMC) focus on being ready for anything.

As communicators, we cannot control nor influence everything, but we can prepare well in terms of mapping risks, preparing messages, coaching leaders and understanding potential challenges. We can then use this as a foundation and have a well-tested and well understood plan ready to address good or bad situations.

2. Agree acceleration processes ahead of time

The critical part of your fall back plan, or your crisis management plan is the ability to move quickly. We know that the most dangerous element during this time is information gaps and the emergence of rumour that fills those gaps and consequently, shapes the perceptions of our stakeholders.

We all know that large organisations don’t have the fastest approval processes and therefore an express path must be agreed. Think of it as a bullet train that only stops at one stop because it fulfils an agreed set of unusual characteristics. I have found the most success with this concept through creating a very simple graphic that demonstrates a normal versus a high speed path. For this to work, you must discuss and test it, ensure the threshold for use is agreed and typically you need a highly influential player to be a lynch pin to give the Minister (or Prime Minister in this instance), a sense of comfort that it will happen as agreed.

3. Don’t let information gaps form due to unknowns

I often see leaders not wanting to communicate because they don’t know everything, but, realistically, we just can’t know it all in an unfolding situation. In the critical period after a major event has occurred, the best you can do is rapidly communicate what you know and point to a future update. Shape expectations early through being on the front foot, but be honest about what you can’t define and demonstrate your best efforts in providing meaningful information when it comes to hand. This is where a talented spokesperson becomes hugely valuable, alongside a well-tested set of statements that paint a controlled, yet developing picture.

4. Put people first

All of your stakeholders will have a human interest in your situation and hence it is critical that you put the people story at the forefront of your messaging. Even if the issue is of a technical nature, people are the number one priority so whether it’s your people or your customers, speak to their needs and supporting activities first.

5. Stick to your values

Even though your situation has temporarily changed, your business is still the same and your actions need to reflect this. Much has already been done to earn your reputation, customer loyalty and wider perceptions of the value you bring. This is developed both through your actions and the stories you tell as an organisation about what is important to you.

Whatever you do, keep connecting back to this in your messaging, where you can. There will be constraints in terms of your immediate messaging but once you get into longer items such as interviews and releases, where the opportunity arises, make sure you re-connect with who you are as a business and how your values (which should be people and customer focused) are driving your efforts.

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The historical view

The emergence of Human Resources during the industrial era signaled a shift of focus to the basic rights and responsibilities employee’s held and executed. The administration of these functions fell to a new, yet undefined class of worker in the form of the ever so humble HR practitioner. The position and duties were created out of necessity and as such were never truly developed with the foundation of rigorous study and certification. This, over many decades, has resulted in the proliferation of individuals who have moved into the HR profession as a matter of course.

During my career I have met many HR Directors and General Managers who have attained the position after commencing their career in other professional areas. Engineers, lawyers, recruitment agents, chefs, military personnel have all “fallen into” Human Resources, and I might add, many of them are excellent at what they do.

Still a way to go

Gaining a real seat at the executive table was an issue 20 years ago, which should have been well and truly resolved. However it hasn’t been….still many organisations that believe they are using HR has a strategic function are not, so whilst HR may have a ‘seat at the exec table’, how meaningful is it and what is the real contribution?

To be recognized along with the other executive functions in an organization in legitimacy and impact is a wish that many HR Managers, Directors and GM’s have long held. In part this barrier is self-imposed due to the HR community’s reluctance to embrace opportunities to legitimise or professionalise their function.

Recent Australian research in the public sector demonstrates that, whilst many HR staff consider themselves to be HR Practitioners, their focus is not HR but personnel administration. This topic was considered as part of recent research undertaken by the APSC and delivered in the APS Workforce Contestability Report (“Unlocking Potential- APS workforce Management Contestability Review”) in which Sandra McPhee notes that “In order to remain relevant and continue to offer the best policy advice and service, the APS is transforming the way it does business.”

The report notes that whilst current advances in technology have allowed the HR function to move away from manual processing activities in order to play a stronger role in long term business strategies, many HR functions struggle to be recognized as strategic advisors. A survey completed as a part of the report found:

• 42% of companies surveyed reported that the impact of HR on organisational success is weak
• 85% of companies surveyed believed that HR needed to transform to meet new business priorities [1]

HR Certification

This idea that HR requires transformation and lacks significant impact on business success has led to a growing movement in our industry now which is calling for certification in Human Resources. Note I use the term certification rather than qualification for two reasons:

• Qualifications in human resources have existed for a long period of time and the term itself refers to the passing of examination or assessment in the field.
• Certification verifies a level of competency in the delivery of said function, as designated by a professional organisation.

Qualifications are critical however certification goes a step further. Through certifying the HR function and its individuals, it places legitimacy on the function for the organisation. Here is a measuring stick that highlights the fact that a HR Practitioner not only understands the function but can deliver the function to a high level of quality and expertise. Much in the same way solicitors and barristers, accountants and doctors must be certified.

Here in Australia there are a growing number of professional bodies’ and organisations looking to tackle this opportunity head on. The Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI) has recently released its certification pathways program which offers a clear pathway to certification for all levels of experience in the HR industry.

So how do we, as part of the Human Resources community, change the perception of our industry, influence gaining a “seat at the table” and legitimising our profession? Surely certification would be a giant step towards achieving this. Reach out to AHRI and other similarly minded organisations, seize the opportunity that is now being presented to us and bring a level of legitimacy to the HR function.

[1] Unlocking potential – APS workforce management contestability review; Sandra McPhee AM

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