Attitude, paperwork ...

... and leadership.

In my 29th August Ramble I discussed business associate Trevor Gay’s 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. Therefore, it is interesting to note comments from the Federation of Small Businesses “that those managing a small company are not generally 'hung up' on education and are more interested in hiring people who have the basic necessary skills and who will fit in.”

A spokesman for the FSB said, "For an employer, once you get past the key stages of a potential employee being well presented, on time and having good communication skills and a good basic knowledge of reading and writing, adding up, that kind of thing, what they are looking for is people that will fit into their business.” Interestingly he goes on to point out that many small business owners are not well qualified in an academic sense and therefore take a more open attitude to job application candidates.

I wonder how many large organisations miss the opportunity to recruit really capable people because of an insistence on degree level qualifications or the ability to pass a set of ‘aptitude’ tests. By applying these standards they would have denied themselves such talents as Richard Branson, Alan Sugar, Duncan Bannatyne and John Major. Quite simply, qualifications prove an ability to pass exams. They give little indication as to suitability and capability to do a particular job.

I am sure that we all agree that we need to keep on improving, to keep driving standards upwards. But extra pieces of paper do not achieve that. If we take education and health, the government has ploughed in record amounts of investment over the last ten years. They have raised target and put in new targets where none existed. There is no doubt that there have been improvements. But ten years on we have hospitals that are positively dangerous places to visit and students leaving school who, by the government’s own admission, are not adequately prepared to meet the challenges of the modern economy.

So being a simple soul, without spending years researching it, I conclude that paperwork, be it in the form of certificates for this that and the other, or new targets and policies, or even lots of crispy twenty pound notes, do not make a positive difference. The only thing that makes a difference is People. Leadership is about encouraging, motivating, inspiring; it is about trusting people to use common sense and use their own judgement. It is about making them responsible for themselves, making a real contribution and not being ‘passengers’.


David Wike