There seems to be something in the national psyche that means we are too ready to denigrate ourselves. Why are we a glass half empty nation? Asks Penny Tamkin, Associate Director Institute for Employment Studies.
Before the Olympics started this national pastime was fully absorbed with the press (and presumably their readership) gleefully waiting for a truly British cock up. However it all went off rather well and we now have to turn our attention to the next possible catastrophe to whet our gloomy appetites. Long before the Olympics provided a high profile focus for our habitual angst, we have fretted about our leadership and management capability for decades. Typically, this scrutiny has not translated into a positive effect on our performance but rather seems to have been used to regularly confirm our ‘could do better’, lacklustre status.
The latest iteration is a report that has just been published by BIS – Leadership and Management in the UK – The Key to Sustainable Growth. This paper has been developed by the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills’ Leadership and Management Network Group (LMNG) and is aimed at business intermediaries and representative bodies that offer business support and advice. It presents the evidence not only on the UK’s relative performance but also makes very clear what is at stake here. In a global economy that is increasingly unforgiving of average performance, and in the grip of recession, any competitive advantage needs to be seized. The evidence is that management and leadership capability is not just a minor player, but a significant potential lever in producing better performance.
The paper first explains the business benefits of good leadership and management and presents an analysis of the UK’s current leadership and management performance. The tale is familiar; we sit behind many of our key competitor nations in terms of leadership and management capability, which is undermining our productivity compared to those competitors. The evidence is that this is having a direct and detrimental impact on UK business profits, sales, growth and survival. So far so normal, we could carry on doing this for another 20 or 30 years and still be comfortably complaining. But maybe, just maybe, this time we might use the information to make a difference. There are a few things that give cause for hope.
Firstly this paper comes from an unusual partnership of organisations, some who might normally be expected to compete rather than collaborate to be heard. Having a collective voice raises the volume and means we can reach out to those who can take the message to organisations and help them make sense of it in their own environment. Secondly, the evidence is assembled into one easy to read and digestible document that should provide power to the elbows of all those who need the evidence to make a difference. It’s harder to ignore an uncomfortable fact when it is so neatly laid out in front of you.
Thirdly, the paper doesn’t just outline the problem but looks at how to make a difference. It explores what organisations and government can do to start the journey to better, wherever they are already. Fourthly and critically, the paper helps explain why we have collectively failed to act to date. There is evidence that managers and leaders are hopeless at self-assessing. Regardless of nationality, they tend to ‘big up’ their capabilities, but the degree to which they over-assess seems to be inversely correlated with their actual capability. The result is blindingly obvious, if government and others keep banging on about poor management and leadership skills, the ones that most need to hear the message will safely assume that it is not about them. The evidence is also a real wake up call. One sobering finding is there are relatively poor management and leadership skills in the developing nations (India, China and Brazil). It might be tempting to assume that, as the fortunes of these countries is on the rise, leadership and management cannot be so important in the scheme of things. However, dig a little deeper and you see that in every nation, those organisations with good leadership and management outperform those with poorer. The fact that these developing nations are doing well despite their relatively poor leadership and management capability, should be a sobering call to action for all of us. Be grateful that for the time being at least, they lag behind us in this at least.
What this paper helps make clear is that it is no longer a time to bemoan and do nothing. We need to turn our passion for scrutiny into a passion for improvement, to focus less on correcting poor management and leadership and more on creating a desire to be better. This paper provides the timely possibility of a nudge to collective action rather than the opportunity for a good collective whinge – radical indeed!
Institute for Employment Studies
www.employment-studies.co.uk
