Because employees can’t be trusted!

I read a recent article by Liz Ryan published in Bloomberg Businessweek (see http://buswk.co/YyfkXp for the original article) which had the title “because employees can’t be trusted”. It highlighted how ludicrous the command and control techniques are that companies use to prevent their employees from, as they see it, “taking advantage”.

It made me think about how we focus on the problems caused by the minority so that we treat our employees in a reverse Pareto way. If you’re not familiar with it, Pareto observed that in most relationships approximately 80% of the effect of activities comes from 20% of those activities. An often quoted example of this is that around 80% of the profit in most businesses are generated by 20% of their sales.

I don’t know if anyone has ever looked at this for employees, but my bet is that 80% of the problems come from 20% of the employees, and this distorts our view of the general workforce. We devise complex and costly procedures to try to control their wayward behaviour, and completely ignore the effect that these controls have on the majority. In doing so we send a message to those employees, no matter how diligent and hard-working you are, we have no respect for you and we know that you will take advantage of us at the first opportunity. If you have ever been on the receiving end of this type of message you will know how damaging this is.

I recall a classic example from early in my career when our personnel system required a “back to work interview” for every employee who had more than a week off work due to illness. There was no discretion allowed, because it was believed that managers would take the easy way out and find a reason not to undertake the interview. In other words they didn’t trust us either! The employee in this case was a supervisor with 20 years service who had been off sick following an operation. This employee had not had a day off in 15 years, and was one of the most reliable and conscientious employees in the factory. You can imagine her reaction when she was treated like a naughty schoolgirl. Despite my best diplomatic efforts to sugar the pill, she was incandescent. I doubt that the company ever got any discretionary effort from her after that, and it certainly destroyed the previously good relationship we had.

I often see questions like “How do I motivate….” being asked on internet and LinkedIn forums. The answer is easy, stop doing this sort of thing! Focus less on the rotten apples and concentrate on the 80% of employees who don’t cause any problems. If you start to create an environment where that 80% feel that they are part of the solution and not part of the problem, you will find that they will fully justify your faith in them. Not only will their performance take off but they will start to take responsibility for controlling the wayward 20%, because they don’t want their hard work spoilt, and the peer pressure they will exert will be far more effective than anything your system can deliver.

A prime example of this was given to me during a tour of the Jaguar Land Rover factory on Merseyside. This had once been a Ford plant with a poor reputation for quality and employee relations. It had all the usual multinational controls which had absolutely no effect on the poor quality, high absenteeism etc. etc. When it was decided that the factory should be converted to manufacture the new Jaguar range, following the acquisition of Jaguar by Ford some years ago, a great deal of effort was put into changing the culture of the plant into one which would produce high quality vehicles. The hard work paid off, and this plant is now highly successful, with largely the same workforce previously employed to make the old Fords. Several things struck me about this tour. One was that the person leading the tour was not a manager, but someone drawn from the shop floor, another was his obvious pride in the work they were doing, and third was his comment that some of the old workforce couldn’t make the transition and had decided to leave. Rather than being forced out by some management process, peer pressure had resulted in their decision.

I am sure that like any organisation there were still things that could be done better, but it is still a great example of what happens when you get the employees on side, and the success can be seen in the fact that sales of cars from this plant are growing rapidly, despite the economic situation, and they are expanding capacity and taking on additional staff.

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Customer service – the potential value of employee engagement

Having  posted some time ago on the subject of poor customer service, breakfast television this morning had a feature on a survey which showed the financial benefits of good customer service. Apparently a customer receiving good customer service spends up to 39% more than those receiving poor service.

I understood that the survey related to the retail environment, but I believe that the point is equally valid in a business to business (b2b) situation. In fact probably more so, in that many, if not most, b2b transactions are part of a long-term supplier relationship which has long-term value far greater than the immediate sale.

An interesting point made in the report was that businesses, both retail and b2b, spend considerable amounts on marketing and promotion to get customers to the point of purchase.  At the same time they often spend very little on ensuring that the experience at the point of purchase, and the after sales service, ensures that the customer feels valued, resulting perhaps in them spending more as the survey suggests, but more importantly becomes a fan who will both promote the supplier to their contacts and come back themselves and spend more in the future.

Many businesses who have picked up on the importance of customer service have tried to address the problem by training. However, in my opinion, although raising awareness among the staff, and providing them with a range of options with which to respond to customers, are part of the solution, it will only work where the staff attitudes are right. This is the difficult bit, and it isn’t solved by encouraging the employees to force a smile and parrot “have a nice day”.

First of all it must come from the top with consistent policies and actions that show that the customer really is the most important person in the business. Get that wrong, by acting in ways which conflict with the message, will just breed cynicism in the staff and make matters worse.

Then, most important of all, is that the employees are treated as valuable members of the team that delivers these policies. After all they are the people who are the first, and sometimes the only point of contact, not the management, and this is where employee engagement is key.

It is a fact that most front line staff are not the most highly paid in any business, but evidence shows that pay alone is not a motivator. It can be a demotivator if the pay levels are inadequate, but paying more once pay levels are at what is understood as the norm for the job, and preferably a bit above, won’t help solve the problem of poor attitude which is at the heart of most poor customer service. If  however the business and its management have a consistent policy of treating their front line staff with respect, providing them with the tools they need to do the job and leaving them to get on and do it, they will very quickly develop a response from these staff which will transform their customer service and a lot of other areas of the business as well.

This is obviously a simplification of what is required, but in essence the solution is simple, however that doesn’t mean it is easy! While this blog is not the place to expand on the subject of employee engagement, getting it right will have a profound and substantial effect on business performance and if the survey that prompted this post is right then an increase in sales of up to 39% is not a bad start.

For more information on employee engagement, and examples of how it benefits businesses in all sectors go to http://www.btmengagesemployees.com.

View Trevor Edwards profile

Employee Share Ownership – a nice thought but does it deliver?

In a recent presentation to members of the City of London business community the UK deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, advocated that more companies offered shares to their employees citing the example of the John Lewis partnership. As an incentive he said that the government would cut red tape and reform the tax system to make this easier.

In his comments he equated employee share ownership with an engaged workforce which would deliver better performance across the organisation. Now I have no doubt that an engaged workforce will produce all the benefits he stated, but I do not believe that share ownership alone will deliver this. Ownership of a small number of shares will not change the way an employee feels about his or her employer. They will still be powerless to influence the way the business is run and have their voice heard, unless the business is run in a way that permits it. Bad management practice is as prevalent in companies where employees own shares as any other, and it is this that needs to change in order to develop an engaged workforce not the ownership of a piece of paper.

If companies don’t operate in a way that produces an engaged workforce, and want to access the benefits that an engaged workforce can deliver, then they have to change the way they manage to a much more participative model. This is not a short term initiative but a consistent long term approach which delivers performance beyond what most businesses would believe possible. This is not a just a theory. I and my colleagues have applied this approach in real businesses and have seen the results it produces  (a ten fold increase in profit from £300k to £4m+ in six years is documented in my earlier blog “a workforce set free”).

So by all means give your employees shares or some other incentive but don’t expect it to produce an engaged workforce. If that is your aim then there is a methodology which will deliver the changes needed to deliver it called Breaking the Mould, and a group of practitioners who can work with your company to make it happen. If you want to know more I can be contacted at trevor@uniqueconsulting.co.uk.

A business lesson in the power of engagement – from a football team?

A business lesson in the power of engagement from a football team.

I am not that interested in football (soccer for non UK readers), but a recent result on the breakfast news caught my attention, or more precisely the circumstances that surrounded this particular result.

The club involved was a relatively minor player in the Scottish premier division called Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Now the team at the bottom of this division would not normally be that newsworthy on the main UK news channel, even though they had won their match the day before by 6 goals to 3. However the events which led up to this result were.

This team, having achieved promotion to the premier division the previous season, were struggling, and after 13 games were firmly anchored at the foot of the division. They had won only 2 games, drawn 3 and lost 8, and had scored only 13 goals while having 25 scored against them. Things were going from bad to worse and, according to the coach, on the Friday before the match they had the worst training session ever.

What seemed to have turned things around was that, in desperation, the coach got the team together, and they jointly agreed the strategy and tactics for the game. As the 6-3 win showed, this had a dramatic effect on performance. I believe that this was because it was now their strategy and tactics, not those imposed on them, and they moved heaven and earth to deliver.

Since this story had piqued my interest I have monitored their progress over several weeks just to see if this was a flash in the pan. Their first test came the following week when they played Glasgow Celtic, one of the two top teams in Scotland and one with huge financial resources and international class players. Predictably they lost but were not disgraced, and in subsequent games have slowly pulled away from the bottom of the league. As a club from a small city with limited resources, with the best will in the world they are not going to win the league when you compare them with the top teams. However they are certainly punching above their weight, having won four games since they first came to my attention and scoring 16 goals while only conceding 15. A significant improvement on their early season form!

This is just another example of how people respond when they are allowed to create their own solution, rather than having one imposed on them, and the power that taking ownership of the solution can release even in a poorly performing team, whether that be in football or in a business environment. Their challenge now is to make the change sustained, or now that things have begun to improve will the coach feel that it’s time to take charge again and destroy all the progress made? Only time will tell, but for the moment things seem to be looking up and I for one will be looking out for them when the match results are announced each week.

Employee Engagement – nothing changes!

I was doing some background reading in advance of the first Breaking the Mould employee engagement training course in North America, and in the process I came across an article from 2004. The theme of this article was that as the economy came out of recession (those were the days), a key concern for business leaders was the lack of responsiveness in their organisations with fewer than 10% of them reporting success with their change initiatives.

I then came across a more recent article from about six months ago, and lo and behold the same issues were being raised. In this more recent article the emphasis was particularly on engagement, or rather the disengagement of the UK workforce and the detrimental effect that this was having on the profitability of businesses. According to research by the Hay Group, revenue growth was 4.5 times greater in the organisations seen to perform best in terms of their engagement and enablement. (Enablement being defined as the processes, procedures, and other tools and resources, which allow staff to perform effectively).

In the article it was claimed that 82% of senior executives regarded a disengaged workforce as one of the major threats facing their business, although only half claimed to discuss it frequently at senior level. Perhaps the figure quoted above should make them focus on it a bit more?

While it is good to know that employee engagement is rising up the agenda, since the earlier article little has changed in terms of actual activity. Most of the published works focus on analysis of the problem, demonstrating its impact or how to measure this thing now called engagement, formerly known as empowerment, motivation etc. It seems to me that the problem is one of looking for a magic bullet, which must be complicated and difficult, and therefore we overlook the simple obvious solutions.

In my experience the activities required to produce employee engagement are simple, the problem is that they are not easy. This is largely because they require a major rethink in the way we manage people, with a complete move away from the old command and control methodologies developed in the days of a large and uneducated manual workforce. Old habits die hard, and if you have never seen it work, it takes a brave manager to stick his neck out and try something new.

I am not alone in thinking that the answer is for leaders to become facilitators rather than drivers, and a number of books on the subject have been written by others more erudite than me, but I have long felt that a leader’s job is to create an environment in which things happen, not to attempt to be the centre of all activity, and tried to act on it. I’ll let others be the judge of the extent to which I have been successful. Giving up that perceived control is a tough one for many leaders, me included, but once you have seen the results it is well worth the effort.

So if you are prepared to make the changes needed to engage your workforce and stop the same article being written in another six or seven years, what are some of the steps required?

First and foremost, stop seeing your employees as the problem and start seeing them as part of the solution.

Find out what it is that stops them doing a good job, and then remove the obstacles.

Be prepared to find out that you may be part of the problem.

Remember to show appreciation and give feedback when ideas for improvement are made, wherever they come from. You’ll be surprised at the number and quality of the ideas that come up once you open up the lines of communication.

And finally be consistent. Nothing destroys engagement faster than falling back on the old ways of managing when things get a bit tough. As I said above, it’s simple but it isn’t easy, but as I am sure your granny, or some other family sage would have told you, nothing really worth having comes easy, and the results of a really engaged workforce are really worth having, trust me.

And of course if you are really interested in finding out about the Breaking the Mould process, which will deliver sustainable workforce engagement and all the benefits that delivers to company performance short and long-term, then get in touch.

Monetary incentives are not the answer

The title of this post is perhaps a rather extreme statement but I recently came across a study carried out by MIT which concluded exactly this. The study confirmed the management theory postulated by Maslow many years ago that money is a satisficer i.e. you need to pay enough to enable your staff  to meet their needs for the necessities of life but past that point using money to try to motivate people just doesn’t work.

The essence of the study, which by the way was funded by that socialist leaning organisation the Federal Reserve Bank of the USA, was to study a group of students who were given financial rewards to excel at a range of tasks. These included tasks which involved purely mechanical skills and others which required some thought (cognitive skills). They received a small reward for performance which was OK, a medium level of reward for good performance and the highest reward for excellent performance. The results showed consistently that paying for performance for purely mechanical tasks did in fact improve performance, but as soon as even a modest amount of cognitive skill was required larger rewards produced poorer performance.

Of course this could be put down to the fact that the rewards were not adequate to motivate a student who could afford to study at MIT. However when the experiment was repeated in India with poorly paid workers where the rewards were 2 weeks salary for OK performance, one months salary for good performance and two months salary for excellent performance the results were exactly the same. Where the tasks required even basic levels of cognitive skill the lower and medium reward level produced similar levels of performance and the higher level of reward produced poorer performance.

So here we have clear evidence that the main incentive offered by most businesses for improved performance only works where the task is repetitive and requires no thought whatsoever, and since most of those tasks have long been outsourced to low labour cost economies it would seem obvious that we should be focussing our efforts elsewhere. Not only do they not work but there is a great deal of evidence of the destructive power of financial incentives. You only need to look at the results of huge bonuses in the banking sector driving reckless activity and risk taking to confirm that. On a more mundane level I have yet to see a sales performance target that isn’t manipulated to maximise payments by using often very ingenious methods which have nothing to do with delivering the objectives of the business.

As I said above this is not new, I was being taught Maslow’s theory  over 30 years ago, although I have seen little evidence of it being adopted in the interim period, and similar things were being said by other widely read and taught  academics like Hetzberg, Deming etc. The essence of their proposition is that what motivates people to perform is in fact things like the level of autonomy they exert over their work and the sheer pleasure they get from getting better at doing things.

So now there is experimental evidence to support what some of us have long known intuitively, or  from personal experience, that money incentives are not the answer. The problem is that the  money incentives are so much part of “the way we do things round here” that they are seldom if ever challenged, and of course taking away something that has become an expectation would be a disincentive. Being cynical you could say that throwing money at a problem is easier than the thought and effort it requires to develop more imaginative ways of managing that release the potential in the workforce.

While there is much talk about engagement and its measurement, the changes to management practices required to produce it in a sustainable way are not widely understood or used. Until that changes it looks like monetary incentives will remain the widely accepted method of trying to improve performance despite evidence that they do not produce the required results.

Workforce engagement is key to creativity, and creativity = profit

One definition of creativity is the capacity to develop ideas, solve problems and exploit opportunities. Isn’t that just what is needed in organisations to create success out of the recent downturn? Certainly chief executives in a Boston Consulting Group survey thought so, because creativity was a their number one strategic objective for seven out of the last eight years ( in 2008/9 not surprisingly it was survival).

Creative businesses and their people are more productive in every way. Whether it is their efficiency,  their creative approach to cost cutting, the development of new product ideas or in a myriad of other ways, creativity equals profit, so it’s hardly surprising that the survey results came out as they did.

So what has all this got to do with workforce engagement? More on that later, but first why do we employ people at all, now that so much of the repetitive work can be automated?

The answer is of course to deal with the non repetitive tasks. Developing new products, new and better ways of doing things, and even producing the equipment that automates the repetitive tasks. In other words for their creativity.

Human beings are inherently creative, a fact that is perhaps best demonstrated by looking at small children. Just give a small child a cardboard box and it becomes anything from a tank to a house, in fact anything their imagination can conceive. Unfortunately as we grow up we become more constrained. Experience teaches us to restrict our imagination, or at least keep its products to ourselves, and with work in many organisations still being organised in the restrictive and controlling ways more suitable for the days when  most work was manual and repetitive,  any creativity we might exhibit is crushed at birth.

So how do we change this situation. In my view the only way to release this inherent creativity to the benefit of the organisation is to change the workplace environment, to make it a place where the workforce are allowed to use the creativity they are born with in positive ways. If you don’t you will continue to get one of two responses, at best apathy, and at worst active disruption and rejection of the organisation’s objectives. Just one example of how destructive and expensive this latter response can be  comes from an organisation I worked for some years ago. Here a group of the warehouse staff demonstrated their creative talent by developing a very elaborate, ingenious , and unfortunately very successful,  scheme to steal products on quite a large scale. How much better if we had been able to harness that ingenuity for the benefit of the organisation.

So my thesis is that creativity does not have to be created, it is there already but suppressed. It has first to  be released, and then nurtured, and yes, you can train people to be more creative, but unless you create an environment which supports and encourages creativity, the money spent on the training is completely wasted.

This is where workforce engagement comes into play, because properly done, it develops a work environment where everyone in the workforce can contribute, and is most importantly is valued for their contribution, irrespective of their job title. In these circumstances you will be amazed by the flow of ideas that is generated across the organisation, some will be new but many will have been around for a long while, but not discussed because ” it’s not my job to think”. Well in this new environment it is everybody’s job to think, and amazingly they can, and they do, and what’s more they feed off one another’s ideas making them bigger and better.

This is not a magic wand, providing a quick fix, although properly implemented using a consistent process it’s amazing how quickly things begin to change. What it is,  is a long-term self-sustaining solution to the lack of creativity seen in many organisations. After all taking this approach you are now utilising the ideas of everyone, rather than  the few who were previously charged with the responsibility to be creative, and if each one only contributes a single good idea you will have difficulty keeping up with implementing them all.

So before trying to train creativity into your organisation, start by creating the environment to release the hidden creativity in a resource you already pay for, your staff. Of course  the benefits of workforce engagement are not restricted just to improving creativity, but I’ve discussed these in previous posts, so if you are interested have a look at them, and of course if you are interested in how to create the engagement in your workforce I would be happy to discuss this with you.

Workforce engagement isn’t in the pay packet

A number of twitter feeds over the past few days were quoting an article which included the statement “There is a direct relationship between an engaged and motivated workforce and company productivity”

Well that is not a statement that I can argue with, in fact it is one I would strongly endorse. What concerned me was the conclusion in the same article that there had been a 17 percentage point drop in employee engagement in the UK since 2006, and that this was due to companies under rating the importance of base pay, job security etc. while over-emphasising bonuses and career development.

This conclusion seems to me to have missed entirely what actually causes engagement or disengagement. For many years it has been well established that what motivates people is not pay rates etc. They have to be fair and reasonable, and supply the need for food and shelter etc. otherwise they become a cause of dissatisfaction and disengagement, but more money and bonuses motivate only for a very short period. You soon get used to the new rate of pay and look for more, and if it is not forthcoming you rapidly become demotivated. If you want a glaring example of this just look at the howls of protest when the bonuses of top bank employees are threatened. Being used to multi-million payouts means if you are only getting a million you feel seriously hard done by!

In my experience engagement comes from feeling valued in an organisation. If you don’t feel valued because of the way you are treated, then the only measure you have is the amount in your wage packet and for many of the workforce that says you are not valued very much. The best example of this is the apocryphal story of the floor cleaner at NASA, who when asked what he was doing by a visiting dignitary said “I am working to put a man on the moon” His contribution may have been small, like his pay packet, but he was proud of it and you can bet that he was the best damn cleaner he could be.

Similarly I don’t see job security as a motivator or key to engagement. Again it is demotivator if you don’t have it  and you will be less likely to engage, but a motivator? I don’t think so.

The other parameter mentioned, career development, however will be important to some high fliers, but for many if not most employees this is not part of their mind-set. They have a job, and we need the foot soldiers as well as, if not more than, the generals to win the war.

So you are left with the value thing. In a previous blog I proposed a return to simplicity and the power of  two words – “Thank you” Another article I read today reinforced my view on this. It related to the television programme “Under Cover Boss” and was written by the producer of the show. If you have seen the show you will have seen that bosses are routinely amazed at the abilities demonstrated by their workers every day, and the effect on those workers when the boss reveals himself and thanks them for their efforts.

His experiences on the show have changed the way the company is managed. The producer now places great emphasis on appreciating all the team members. This allows them to attract and retain the best people who do much more than just come to work each day, and that is what drives the success of the business, and not a mention of bonuses and promotion in sight.

Back to basics – a simple tool for engagement

A lot of words are expended on the subject of engagement,and a lot of money is spent on programmes to measure it. Some of that money is sometimes even spent on doing something about improving it, and occasionally it has an effect.

It is interesting that as a species we seem to seek complexity when simplicity is the answer. So rather than getting the basics right we develop complex programmes, and so it is with engagement.

As managers we often don’t get the basics right because of their simplicity, despite the fact that they are based on basic human interactions which have been around probably as long as we have had language. It seems that as the use of technology has increased exponentially we actively seek out complexity as the answer to every problem.

A recent study in the Journal of Social psychology showed that a certain simple activity improved well-being, physical health, strengthened social relationships, produces positive emotional states and helps cope with stressful times. So what is this activity with such almost magical properties? If I were selling this, and was charging an enormous price, based on those results there would be a queue a mile long with cheque books in hand. In fact this activity is free and consists of saying two words “Thank You”.

Unfortunately many bosses seem to think it is unnecessary. After all the employees are paid to do the work aren’t they? Well yes they are, but they would do it a whole lot better if those two small words were used occasionally, but you do have to say it with conviction and for some managers I have known that would really be a big ask. Get it right and it can be one of the most powerful things you can do, because for the recipient it is an acknowledgement of their existence in what can sometimes be an impersonal organisation, and it recognises the contribution they make to the organisation and to those they work with.

This is not just a theory but was backed up in the study by experimental results which showed that being thanked doubled the likelihood of help being offered in the future. The interesting fact that came out of the research was that the act of being thanked reassured the recipient that their help was valued and motivates them to provide more.

So this is not altruism but enlightened self-interest. So if you are interested in generating an engaged workforce get some basics in place, because without creating the firm foundations any later fancy programme, no matter how well-intentioned and well-funded, is likely to fail. Use the free tools first. If you are a manager, supervisor, owner, no matter how elevated your position, start by being a human being and  appreciating the efforts of those that work for you. Say “thank you” and mean it, and you will be amazed the effect it will have. I can guarantee that it will not demean you in the eyes of your staff, although they might take a little while to get used to this new boss.

I seem to recall a song “Sorry is the hardest word” For many managers it seems to be “thank you”. Although it doesn’t hurt to say “sorry” when you get it wrong, and that won’t demean you either.

A workforce unchained delivers the results

Several of my recent blogs have been about workforce engagement, and the benefits that derive from it. The underlying hypothesis of the approach I take is that employee apathy is largely a result of the ability of many, if not most, organisations to suppress the latent abilities of their workforce.

I recently attended a seminar which reinforced this view in spades. The presenter was Rod Aldridge who  founded, and over a period of 25 years or so, from a standing start, developed Capita plc  into the UK’s largest outsourcing business with a £2.7 billion turnover. Rod is now retired and uses his money to fund his own charitable foundation, but it is what he had to say about Capita which interested me.

In the UK, and probably in most countries, public sector employees do not have the greatest reputation. They are seen as indifferent and unhelpful to the public, and unaccountable. I too am guilty of this broad brush generalisation,  although I do think it the stultifying effect of the organisation, rather than the people, that is inherently at fault. I try to remember this when faced with the infuriating apathy of some members of this group, but it is hard.

Interestingly Capita was, and is,  largely involved in providing outsourced services to public sector organisations, and in the process of taking on these services they also took on the workforce. Thus a large proportion of their workforce was made up of these apparently indifferent and unhelpful staff.

So how did these ugly ducklings become transformed into the swans that generated huge revenues and profits from businesses which struggled when in public sector ownership?

The answer is that they were allowed to blossom. The organisational constraints that had established their attitudes which said “there is no point in caring about my job because nobody notices” were removed. People were encouraged to bring forward their ideas for improvement, supported to implement them, and the results speak for themselves.

This is, of course, a vast simplification of what happens in a complex organisation, but the underlying message is clear, it is the organisation which produces poor performance from its workforce, and no matter how poor that workforce appears to be, it contains the seeds of real potential which can be released in the right environment.

However, apparently all is not lost in the public sector. Just today I heard the chief executive of a local council speak about the challenges of the coming reductions in public spending. He stated that to meet the challenge, new approaches would be required, and gave the following example:

Apparently it was calculated that someone looking for help from the social services department went through a 37 stage process before their needs were met, and of course each stage involved cost. Unbidden, a number of junior staff got together and devised a completely new streamlined system, saving potentially huge amounts of time and cost. This is being trialled and if successful will be rolled out.That is a great start in developing engagement.

Even more encouraging, this was a result of a message to staff from the chief executive that they were allowed to take risks, and think outside current procedures. A brave man, but one with a vision of how the public sector might work in the future and one that I would heartily endorse.