Wouldn't It Be Better If.......?

By Philip Langford

Successful and effective management are critical to the well being and stable governance of organisations. However, all too frequently those in management positions are untrained, unqualified, unprofessional, stuck in a do as I say, or else, mentality and often seem incapable of making rational, logical judgements.
The author examines some high profile examples, sometimes with a little humour, but also some of the day to day ongoing mistakes which are made by those in management roles simply because of flawed, well established, entrenched and ineffective ways of behaving and going about things.
Philip Langford has spent twenty years working inside a wide range of organisations, across the globe as a management consultant and has found significant problems to the ways in which many organisations function.
His book describes many of the bizarre and extraordinary shortcomings over 21 topical sections and explains how most of these can be overcome with a shift in the thinking and behaviours of managers at all levels. This book is, at times, scathing in its criticisms.
It also challenges the peculiar notion that managers need to become leaders in order to have credibility and succeed. His contention is that organisations desperately need both effective management and quality leadership if they are to succeed in the fast paced, constantly changing, business world of the 21st century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Apr 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481791359

Philip Langford

Philip Langford spent twenty years in various line management roles, both in the public and private sectors. Subsequently, he spent the next twenty years as a specialist Consultant/Adviser and Director of Studies, helping organisations to improve effectiveness and maximise their potential and performance. This work took him to all corners of the United Kingdom, to Southern Africa, the USA, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary, Denmark, the Republic of Ireland and Germany. He provided consultancy to all Sectors, ranging from manufacturing to services. These included the Utilities, National Newspapers, Textile and Clothing companies, Hotel Groups, Banks, Detergent Producers, Investment Companies, Power, Car, Transport, Oil, ATM, Refrigeration, Medical Devices, Betting Chains, Brewers, Pharmaceutical, Construction, Broadcasters, Insurance, Nautical, Aerospace, Train, Food and Drink, Cosmetic Companies, Voluntary Organisations and many others. In the public sector Philip has worked for some of the biggest Government Departments, various NHS Trusts, PCT’s, Police Forces, Fire and Rescue Services, Local Councils, Universities, Colleges and Schools. His interests include gardening, DIY, travelling, antiques, quality rare guitars, cricket, golf, carpentry, music, reading and his family.

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Published by AuthorHouse 04/15/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-9135-9 (e)

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Wouldn’t it be better if.......

?

Philip Langford

About the Author

Philip Langford spent twenty years in various line management roles, both in the public and private sectors.

Subsequently, he spent the next twenty years as a specialist Consultant/Adviser and Director of Studies, helping organisations to improve effectiveness and maximise their potential and performance.

This work took him to all corners of the United Kingdom, to Southern Africa, the USA, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary, Denmark, the Republic of Ireland and Germany.

He provided consultancy to all Sectors, ranging from manufacturing to services. These included the Utilities, National Newspapers, Textile and Clothing companies, Hotel Groups, Banks, Detergent Producers, Investment Companies, Power, Car, Transport, Oil, ATM, Refrigeration, Medical Devices, Betting Chains, Brewers, Pharmaceutical, Construction, Broadcasters, Insurance, Nautical, Aerospace, Train, Food and Drink, Cosmetic Companies, Voluntary Organisations and many others.

In the public sector Philip has worked for some of the biggest Government Departments, various NHS Trusts, PCT’s, Police Forces, Fire and Rescue Services, Local Councils, Universities, Colleges and Schools.

His interests include gardening, DIY, travelling, antiques, quality rare guitars, cricket, golf, carpentry, music, reading and his family.

CONTENTS

About the Author

Foreword

Getting away with it

Selecting the Right People

The Senior Management Group

Why Teams?

Corporate speak, Gobbledegook, cliches and the language problem.

Employee relations/communications

We haven’t got time. We’re all too busy."

Coaching

Absenteeism.

Presenteeism

Managing Projects

All change

A Tolerance to Mistakes.

Being Assertive.

Meetings

APR’s. Appraisals.

Morale and Motivation

Influencing, Persuading and Negotiating

Negotiating

Consultations

Giving a Presentation

Manager or Leader?

Attributed material

Book Summary

Foreword

I seem to have been plagued by ineffective and just plain useless bosses for most of my working life, both as an employee and subsequently while working as a management consultant. I’ve often felt the frustration, the confusion and had to suffer the dire consequences of some of the quite ridiculous goings on by those in charge whom I’ve had the misfortune to have to deal with.

Many years ago, I had to endure a long, gruelling day working inside a government agency in which their decision making powers scored zero. A group of senior people gathered and discussed at great length an issue which seemed to me to require a simple decision before part of a project could be moved on. They squandered three hours in a stuffy meeting room, and earnestly talked themselves into avoiding making what I regarded as a straightforward decision, and did what I later learned on my travels to be normal practice in the civil service; they referred the matter upwards to their bosses.

So, as we were leaving the room I asked one of the principal speakers what the purpose of their meeting had been. He thought for a moment or two and said, good question. I don’t think I can honestly tell you.

I then suggested that perhaps they were required to take a decision otherwise the project would stall.

Oh no. I don’t think we’re empowered to take those decisions, he replied. So I asked who could take the decision.

Well, that would be the Project programme manager, I imagine, or someone more senior, he said.

Was the project manager present at the meeting? I enquired.

I don’t believe so, maybe, was his reply." Absolutely priceless.

Why then did you have the meeting? I asked again.

Because we need to be consulted, he answered.

But if you can’t take the vital decision, then what was the point? I pressed.

Because that’s the way it works, he replied.

Well I can only say that it didn’t work for me, on any level.

How extraordinarily bizarre. Heaven help us.

These intelligent people were in senior pay grades and I remember thinking that these so called managers would be unemployable in the private sector simply because of their cultural dithering, careless time wasting and averse ways to any sort of even minor risk taking. It occurred to me, and not for the first time, that their meeting was a pointless waste of time and money. I walked away mystified and bemused. Every single meeting has a price tag, but often that is conveniently overlooked.

It was then that I decided to keep notes so that I might possibly one day record some of these outrageous goings on for posterity.

And then out of the blue along came The Office. One of the principal reasons for the outstanding and thoroughly deserved success of this Ricky Gervais television series was his ingenious portrayal of the ridiculous David Brent. I gather that the US version was equally successful. I was in New York delivering some advisory work around the time and The Office was a hot topic of conversation where I was working. It caused cackles of laughter when they thought about some of their own bosses.

Was it the fact that so many of us could somehow recognise someone whom we felt we knew? Someone in our own organisations perhaps, equally egotistical, insensitive, self serving, so utterly pathetic and useless, so excruciatingly embarrassing and ineffectual?

I’ve met far too many David Brent types in the course of my work,- and worse, much worse.

That is what eventually persuaded me to write this somewhat critical evaluation of certain types of managers whom I met on my travels. That and the need to expose some of these charlatans, because I am all too frequently asking myself, why aren’t they doing....? Haven’t they thought of.....? Wouldn’t it be better if....? What on earth are you playing at? You cannot be serious. I believe that many organisations should be doing a great deal more to think and behave differently. Perhaps you’ve sometimes felt the same. Changing some of the adverse goings on would involve major shifts in the way that some of these so called bosses behave.

The banking crises of 2009/12 and their staggering ineptitude in failing to effectively manage the vast sums of money at their disposal and their constant pursuit of unrealistic short term mega profits, their failure to comprehend the scale of the fall out arising from the closure of Lehman Bros, followed by the PPI scandal, the expensive LIPO inter bank interest rate fixing debacle and the all too common succession of rogue traders running amok inadequately supervised, are the all too common newspaper headlines. What an absolute disgrace.

These are of course extreme examples of fundamental mismanagement. They are epic and on an industrial scale, but frankly. I wasn’t at all shocked when we began to learn the magnitude of the mess the big banks had gotten us all in to. Whatever next, money laundering at HSBC? And massive payouts to the US banking authorities because they failed to have in place controls to guard against laundering vast sums of money. Would you believe it?(!). Well, I would. Whatever next? Well, the next big problem they appear to have to deal with concerns tens of thousands of small firms having been what the national newspapers described as cruelly conned into taking out rip off loans. This is likely to cost the offending banks more £billions in compensation.

And what a very sad state of affairs that the three executives implicated and held responsible for the collapse of HBOS (Halifax, Bank of Scotland), didn’t possess a single banking qualification between them. So how on earth were they in such powerful executive banking positions in the first place? That’s a good question.

But I was impressed that one of the three protagonists, Sir James Crosby, the former Chief Executive of HBOS has decided to relinquish his knighthood and a give up a third of his pension entitlement, as an act of contrition. His public apology made a welcome change and should be applauded. Everyone admires someone with a moral conscience.

Doubtless there will be yet more revelations concerning the banks but I’ve learned not to be shocked at the antics of some of these people and many other senior management teams. While the big banks are having to spend millions on fines and compensation claims they can’t afford to increase their lending levels which is what is exactly what’s needed right now to promote growth in the economy and restore some confidence in the banking industry.

Memo to senior managers at the offending banks:

Dear Sirs. Please stay away from the financial gambling casinos using your bank customers money and get a grip. And miss selling to your customers is totally out of order.

Yours, a very unhappy taxpayer.

P.S. I hope you enjoy your traditional big fat bonuses this year. You probably believe you deserve it.

The banks have been told to massively increase the sums of money in their coffers for contingency funding. I wonder how they’re going to do that. Well, three guesses. We, their customers are almost certainly going to have to pay to help them achieve it, somehow. Hold tight!

Mismanagement, albeit on a much smaller scale, can be found in countless organisations across the globe. They rarely attract the sort of attention that the banks have had to face up to. Perhaps if they did they would simply have to change the ways in which they operate, as the banks are going to have to, however slowly and reluctantly.

Poor decision taking, poor assessment and judgement, failure to monitor and evaluate fundamentally critical parts of business activity are, of course, not uncommon. Someone or some group of people haven’t been managing things as they should and must surely be held accountable. All too frequently, they aren’t.

The scandal of the appalling lack of care at the North Stafford hospital, where it is alleged that hundreds of lives were lost unnecessarily partly because of fundamental clinical failings, is nothing short of breathtaking incompetence.

In February 2013 the Chief Exec says he’s not going to resign because, according to him, the problems arose because of system failures. Well okay, so who designed a system which contributes to the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of patients in their care? Did the Chief have nothing to do with creating this so called system or did they blindly adhere to an imposed system without ever challenging it, even when death rates were running at exceptional levels?

Didn’t the most senior team ever discuss patient care or death rates at their meetings? Didn’t anyone at the top notice that the patients weren’t receiving the imperative care that they were entitled to expect, by walking the job, or is that anathema to them? Where was their duty of care? Bureaucrats don’t walk around seeing things for themselves do they? It’s even being suggested that because of these so called system failures, no individuals are to be held accountable. Absolutely no one’s fault then. The system was to blame. Amazing. And don’t be surprised when the Chief gets a nice big pay rise every year from now on, and will travel first class everywhere as usual, because that’s the way it works; it’s their custom and practice, regardless. And we, the taxpayers will pick up the bill, of course.

In more than twenty years working as a Consultant I have encountered hundreds of people in line management roles in various countries in the world. Unfortunately, I have to say that in my experience, so many of them are devoid of what I regard as the essential, fundamental skills needed to be truly effective in the role of a manager/leader. They can drift along repeating the same old ineffective ways of operating and find it almost impossible to change anything, even when change is vital. It’s as if it’s in their DNA not to succeed. The old saying, - if you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got, perpetually springs to mind.

Don’t get me wrong. During the course of my work, I’ve met and worked with some exceptional managers and leaders at every level in organisations; men and women who displayed the drive, the interpersonal skills, the determination, the imagination, the enthusiasm, the empathy, the synergy and the behaviours which are vital to bring success. They instinctively know how to engage with others to achieve positive results. I usually found that these managers had been thoroughly well trained and their people refer to them as being a good boss. But they’re not to be found in abundance.

I’m