Recruit for skills and train for attitude.

In his comment on last week’s Random Ramble, Trevor Gay expressed the view that employers would be well served by recruiting for attitude and training for skills. In other words, put more emphasis on a ‘can do attitude’ and a willingness to learn, rather than on academic qualifications. Neither Trevor nor I would suggest that we should do anything to discourage academic study or gaining qualifications, but we are in agreement that a piece of paper to say that you have passed an exam doesn’t necessarily mean that you can apply that learning in the workplace.

When I look back over a long career at the people who have impressed me, they are fairly well spread across the range of academic achievement. The reason that they have impressed is that they have always been willing to have a go, they haven’t worried too much about whether it is strictly within their job remit or what the rules might dictate. In short, they have been flexible, helpful and easy to work with.

Sometimes to get things done it is necessary to make the request through senior people as those at a more junior level are unwilling to move without the right approval. But several times I have encountered the reverse. I can recall chairing project review meetings when I have heaved a sigh of relief that the senior person didn’t attend but sent a deputy instead. The deputy might have been young and/or inexperienced but I knew that they would deliver whatever might be required.

One of the pleasures of my career has been to see how young people have developed and blossomed. Of course, some arrive full of confidence and seemingly with no concern for their limitations. In fact the danger is that they don’t see those limitations and charge in regardless, which can have unfortunate consequences. But equally, some are extremely nervous or shy when asked to step onto the ‘big stage’. I can well remember a few meetings in my earlier career when I was asked to deputise for more senior colleagues. I also remember that the attitude of the meeting chairman made a significant difference to the enjoyment or otherwise of the experience.

On one occasion I was a deputy for a deputy - in other words, well out of my league in terms of seniority. The meeting was in the office of a very senior director. I took my place and introduced myself. The great man smiled and said, “Yes, I know who you are David.” I have no idea whether he did or not, but as you can imagine, I immediately felt much more comfortable and relaxed.

So in later years I always tried to make the young or inexperienced feel at ease and to try to ensure that they understood what was required of them. I believe that it is also important to understand the tensions and pressure within their particular departments and not to make unreasonable demands; if necessary offering to talk to their bosses to facilitate their task. I also believe that it is important to feed back to senior management if someone is doing a particularly good job. In large organisations, people you work with often have a much better idea of your strengths or weaknesses than your boss.

So yes, I agree that a good attitude to work and to learning is vitally important, but equally, those of us who are older and, hopefully, more experienced need to ensure that we provide encouragement and the right climate to allow the young and not so young people to flourish at school, at college or university and in the workplace.


David Wike


You can read Trevor Gay's blog at www.simplicityitk.blogspot.com/

Skills, motivation, relevance and the front line.

Yet another warning has been issued by the CBI (Confederation of British Industry) that the education system is not providing the right skills for the 21st century workplace. A short while ago the then education secretary, Ruth Kelly, commenting on the findings of the Tomlinson committee accepted that: "Too many young people are unattractive to employers, deficient in the basics of English and maths." Tomlinson said even those with apparently good GCSE grades in maths and English did not necessarily have "functional" abilities.

As a result the Government announced that the GCSEs would be revised to incorporate a test in functional skills. Without passing this, no-one in future would be able to achieve a grade C or above. However, the new versions will not be available for several years. As an immediate step, the school league tables were changed to show the proportion of pupils who achieve at least five good GCSEs or the equivalent including English and maths GCSEs.

Maybe I’ve missed something but I don’t see how changing the league tables helps. In fact I can’t help but wonder whether league tables and targets are half of the problem, whether they relate to schools or hospitals. They seem to encourage a focus on passing the exam or meeting the target regardless of the quality of the learning or quality of care.

My own recent forays into education (yes, the old dog is still trying to learn new tricks!) very much support this. In two entirely different fields, ‘ticking all the right boxes’ seemed to count higher than the usefulness for what was being taught. I have the same jaundiced view about the effectiveness of so called quality assurance schemes. From my previous involvement with them it seemed that having a book full of policies and procedures neatly filed was far more important than what actually went on in the business.

On Tuesday morning’s BBC breakfast news programme there was an item on a project whereby children were shown how to develop their own computer games, as opposed to playing with ones off-the-shelf. Essentially this was a day of lessons like any other. The difference of course was that the subject was of interest and the children were motivated to work hard to achieve something from the day. In other words, what they were doing was relevant to their area of interest.

This must be the challenge for education, to make the subjects taught seem relevant to the ‘real world’. And just before you question how computer games are relevant to the real world, it is a huge industry employing twenty odd thousand people in the UK alone apparently. So perhaps it’s time for the government, civil servants and educationalists in the Department for Education, or whatever daft name it has now been given,* to stop meddling and leave the front line to get on with it. The same goes for the NHS.

Maybe it is a character failing of those who go into government in whatever form, that there is an overwhelming desire to govern as opposed to providing leadership that supports rather than hinders the efforts of those on the front line.

David Wike

* Quote from the Government website: The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) is responsible for improving the focus on all aspects of policy affecting children and young people, as part of the Government’s aim to deliver educational excellence.

Spin and a crumbling infrastructure.

I ended last week’s Ramble by wondering if in the UK we have become too obsessed by labels, designer or otherwise. And suggesting that maybe labels are a variation on the theme of ‘spin’ or ‘substance’. FiRST Marketing’s Andy Scott responded by asking whether he is alone in defending spin and pointing out that marketing is all about presenting a product or service in a particular manner.

Maybe it’s semantics, but for me there is a difference. Until Messrs Blair and Campbell came on the scene, the only spin that entered into my consciousness was the kind delivered so effectively for England by Monty Panesar. Now I also take it to mean trying to present something so that it appears to be slightly different from reality – what the late Alan Clarke referred to as ‘economy with the actualité’.

I agree with Andy that marketing is all about presenting a product or service in a particular manner, but hopefully in an honest manner. I am not naïve enough to think that the marketing man will necessarily portray his client’s product ‘warts and all’, but for me, good marketing does two things. Obviously it’s primary function is to present the product or service in a favourable manner, but I believe that it should also help the customer to make the right choice.

Perhaps I am the one who is alone here, but I want information; facts that will help me to decide whether to buy A or B. I want transparency, honest comparisons that will let me make up my own mind. I get very frustrated with sales brochures that have ‘artistic’ pictures that make it impossible to see the details that I’m interested in, or flowing prose that might be more suited in a work of fiction.

Talking of flights of fantasy … or maybe nightmares, Heathrow has had its share of publicity in recent months. What doesn’t seem to have hit the headlines though is a growing movement amongst the business community to avoid the place at all costs.

Apparently the International Herald Tribune had an article entitled, “Trains, Planes and Tube: It’s a Right British Mess.” Tom Peters picked up on this in his 3rd August blog posting and commented that he agreed with the view that the British Economic Miracle is threatened by the broken infrastructure. He goes on to say how he refuses to fly to or via Heathrow because of the inevitable delays. I am starting to see other articles appearing in the same vein.

Healthy economies need a sound infrastructure – effective transport and communications, sewers that can cope with heavy rainfall, power and water supplies that are not threatened by floods.

Take transport as an example. Congestion charging is not the answer to traffic problems in cities: vastly improved public transport and more efficient use of roads is. What do I mean by efficient roads? Well, getting rid of traffic lights for a start. Every time they change there is a ‘dead’ period when nothing moves in any direction. Large roundabouts are nearly as bad. Their size means that traffic can travel round them so quickly that it is almost impossible for other traffic to enter them.

The Dutch have carried out experiments with road junction layouts that have dramatically improved the traffic flow while reducing the level of accidents. Can’t we do something imaginative here to improve the situation? And of course, stationary traffic still produces emissions – the most emission effective approach is to maintain a constant speed as far as possible.

Barcelona has a nine line metro system (and more under construction), trams and buses, all of which can be used with a common ticket, a new AVE high speed rail link to Madrid and a modern, three terminal airport with an efficient rail link into the city. And Birmingham has … er, well, it’s got some buses! OK, it’s not all bad, there is a good rail link to the airport, although it doesn’t have multiple metro lines feeding into New Street station. Still, Birmingham does have a world class concert hall with a world class orchestra to play in it. Now if only I could get there! It would take some prodigious spin to convince me that Birmingham had a better transport infrastructure than Barcelona.


David Wike

Food for thought, degree of risk, beyond the label.

In the last few days I’ve eaten out a couple of times, once in the evening, once at lunchtime. The evening meal was in a local restaurant that we’ve not visited for a good few years. The food was fine apart from one element of my starter. When the waitress asked was everything OK, I told her about the deficient element. She was very apologetic but afterwards I wondered if she had gone into the kitchen to tell the chef, and if so, what, if anything, he did to ensure that other diners didn’t have the same problem. There was certainly no feed-back to me.

The restaurant, although pleasant enough, somehow had the feeling that it hadn’t changed much over the years; to be honest it felt a little dated both in decor and the way the food was presented. There are so many contemporary restaurants around now that failure to move with the times is likely to lead to a loss of custom over time. Much the same applies to many other businesses.

By contrast, the lunchtime outing for a bar meal at an establishment no more than a couple of hundred yards from the first, was an altogether more positive experience. For a start the interior is contemporary and welcoming and the staff are smartly dressed in the modern idiom. Adjacent to us was a large table with a mix of adults, teens and a couple of babies. The babies were making quite a din and I was finding it quite hard to hear what my wife was saying. One of the waiters obviously spotted this and quietly asked if we would like to move to another table, which we did with his help. Full marks for observation and customer care.

The educational foundation Edge has warned of "academic snobbery" against vocational courses and, quite rightly points out that going on to study for a degree for its own sake is not always suitable for the careers that young people really want.

Edge claims that many parents are influenced by ingrained prejudices against vocational qualifications, and says, "… we know from employers that what is required from young people is real-world experience, practical skills and hard skills such as the ability to communicate and work in teams.”

That may be true but so many jobs are advertised as requiring a ‘degree or equivalent qualification’, which may lead to a superficial view that a degree is the only route to a ‘good job’. And just what is a good job? One that pays lots of money perhaps? Well yes, that’s quite handy but I think that many (most?) people would say that enjoying the job, job satisfaction, would rate higher. And if you enjoy your job you will almost certainly do it better. So there seems to be a real risk that employers and employees alike will miss out if academic qualifications are given undue weight when making decisions on recruitment and career paths respectively.

The proof that money is not all comes in the vast numbers of people involved in voluntary activities of one sort or another. The satisfaction of doing something worthwhile is the reward here, not financial gain. I am involved with the Prince’s Trust. The Trust has a slogan, ‘Look beyond the label’. In other words, look at the real person, who they are and what they can do rather than dismiss them at first sight because of their appearance, the way they speak or their qualifications, or apparent lack of.

Perhaps in the UK we have become too obsessed by labels, designer or otherwise. Maybe labels are a variation on the theme of ‘spin’ or ‘substance’.

David Wike

Blogs, websites and the march of progress

Today Random Ramblings moves into the world of the blog. No longer will I be able to wander around assorted subjects without fear of contradiction. From today you will be able to counter with cries of ‘Rubbish!’ or whatever comment you feel compelled to make. While this transition isn’t quite as important as the move from black and white to colour TV or the improvement of the PC over the typewriter, it is for me an opportunity to further improve my communication with the outside world.

In parallel with the arrival of the blog is the launch of a new website. Please have a look at it and read about the cast of characters who are willing to risk their reputations by working with me from time to time.

Last week I mentioned that I was going to be involved with a pilot for an initiative to bring enterprise and innovation into schools. This is in recognition that the needs of the 21st century workplace will be very different from those of the last century. Just looking at the manufacturing sector; a million jobs have disappeared from the UK in the last ten years and undoubtedly this trend will continue. The twin effects of process automation and re-sourcing manufacture to low cost economies has caused this decline.

The UK is changing to what has been referred to as the Knowledge Economy, that is one based on skills in science, technology, communications, business and finance. But these skills alone will not be enough, a ‘can do’ attitude and a willingness to be flexible and responsive to change will be essential to survive. And I might add, a recognition that looking after the customer is more important than ever before. The Internet enables us to shop anywhere in the world and it also allows us to shame the guilty and praise the good.

Recently my Broadband connection kept dropping on a random but increasingly frequent basis. The support from my service provider was by means of standard print-outs - ‘how to do this’, ‘how to check that’. As I worked through the possibilities and gradually eliminated them, I would communicate with their technical support team. Back would come more standard print outs, often telling me to do what I’d told them I’d already done. It was a very frustrating experience which, for anyone who might be suffering similar problems, was eventually resolved by installing a different modem.

In contrast, the construction of the David Wike Business Development website was an object lesson in customer service. It was built with software supplied by Web Studio (http://www.webstudio.com/) in San Diego, California. Any query fired over to them was answered overnight. Clearly they carefully read and understood the question, then sent back a very precise answer in straightforward English, free of IT technical jargon. It was a pleasure to deal with them.

And of course, this experience also demonstrates how developing technologies change the way we work. It isn’t so many years back that PCs were introduced into the work environment and as we became more skilled in their use, the need for secretarial support was greatly reduced. Then along came the Internet and we suddenly had a growth industry of website designers. Now for an investment of not too many dollars anyone with reasonable IT skills (and a good back-up team!) can build a professional website. Does this suggest that just as we need few typists these days, in the not too distant future we will need far fewer professional website designers?

My thanks go to my associates who have offered their views and encouragement along the way. A special thank you to ‘the technical back-up team’, Sharon at Web Studio in sunny San Diego and Charles Rapson of Rapson Advertising in less exotic Solihull for his expertise in on-line marketing. And, of course, to my ‘IT department’, aka my son Richard who, after a day’s ‘proper’ work, spent a good few hours sorting out the problems that I encountered along the way.

Stop Press!
Associate Trevor Gay of Simplicity has just emailed to say he’s had an article about the NHS published in a leading US business newsletter. You can read it at: http://thestevies.com/SmallBizNews/July2007.html

David Wike