I'd like to thank...

It is extraordinary the effect that having to make an acceptance speech has on the world’s most polished performers. For people who make a living from promoting an image it is interesting how so many seem to miss the mark. From Morgan Freeman’s 32 second speech to Halle Berry’s 4 minute 30 second epic, Oscar acceptance speeches run the whole gamut from the good and the bad to the ugly. To be fair to these highly-paid thespians, it can’t be easy sitting there as the names of the other nominees is read out. They will have prepared an acceptance speech and are desperately trying to remember their lines whilst not letting their forced smile drop. They don’t want to come across as too needy or too grand or over-rehearsed. They want to be happy in a measured way and to remember to thank everyone who needs thanking. And then they hear their name and it all goes wrong.

Those who study Oscar speeches (and they do exist) tend to believe that what comes out of the mouths of the award winners is often a true reflection of what they feel at that moment. In other words, it is an authentic expression of the emotion that they’re experiencing. Well-delivered bon mots may have been prepared in advance but the release of all that excitement sees the words replaced with crying, screaming and punching the air.

It would of course be naïve to deny that getting an Oscar doesn’t have a financial impact on the careers of winners, but the way that they react shows just how important recognition can be. Everyone likes to be singled out for praise, especially in front of their peers. Winning is obviously important but the acknowledgement of having done a good job is what lasts.

HR professionals, and their advisers, place a big focus on reward and recognition. However, when it comes down to it the emphasis is more on reward and less on recognition. Financial incentives are created to reward the right behaviours, to align performance to business strategy, and to minimise resistance to change. Money is seen as the great motivator both for personal development and for enabling culture change. Recognition is often relegated to either in-house “Oscars” (oddly, these are rarely particularly successful) or to gift vouchers and a meal for two.

The shape of work is changing and we are seeing the decline in the effectiveness of hierarchical command and control structures and the emergence of more collaborative models. Aligning behaviours through reward schemes struggles in this approach. Behaviours do change, however, when supported by leaders who see their role less about being decision-makers in chief and more as team builders. True leadership is about creating the environment in which change can occur naturally. It is about encouraging and developing people and about role modelling the right behaviours. And the biggest impact can come from giving proper recognition to those who are making real contributions. Not just money or gift vouchers, but a real “well done” and “thank you”. After all, we all like to be recognised for having done a good job. And then, perhaps, like Jean Dujardin we too would say “formidable.”

Going through hoops

On this site we tend to favour rugby metaphors over basketball, particularly at this time of year. We have however been unable to overlook the rising stardom of new NBA phenomenon Jeremy Lin whose recent performances for the New York Knicks have made him a hot commercial property with an estimated value of some $14 million.

It appears that success for this Harvard grad comes after a less than an auspicious start to his career in other NBA teams and with such style that a serious business commentator such as Fortune's Eric Johnson are able to itemise no fewer than 10 ways in which young Lin can be an example to us all.

One of Johnson's learnings from Lin particularly appealed to us at Change Agency: "Don't overlook talent that might exist around you today." This is a sound conclusion and, although obvious, is a recurring issue even in very capable organisations.

Effective change means reappraising the talent available to us and using the best available techniques to understand how our people are wired and to make the most of their potential rather than focus purely on past record. It seems that Lin would still be playing in the minor leagues by now if left to the judgement of his former teams in Texas and California.

Successful change does come from within and it really helps to understand properly the potential that we already have within the business. Are our people coming up short because of their limitations? It's just as likely that we're playing them in the wrong positions or putting them unnecessary hoops to get things done.

Women on the board

There has been much debate recently about the lack of women on the boards of big companies. Senior politicians seem very keen on the subject, hosting various seminars and debates and generally giving off encouraging signals. They all seem to agree that having so few women on boards is a bad thing and that having more would be a good thing. Other than that there seems to be little consensus. Many suggestions, such as those of creating all-female shortlists, are open to criticisms from both sides of the gender politics debate.

One question to consider is whether company boards need in any way to reflect either the nature of their business or of society as a whole. Few would argue that any board would be richer for having a more diverse set of opinions available, but equally few would argue that the board needs to be proportionate in terms of race and gender to its constituency. As many organisations become more global in both outlook and operations it is important that those businesses are properly cognizant of different outlooks but it doesn’t necessarily follow that they need to be run by a certain percentage of people with backgrounds in those countries. Likewise, women may represent half of the population but it doesn’t follow that boards need to do the same merely for reasons of gender symmetry.

Another question may sound obvious, but do women bring a perspective to boardrooms not available to men? Most business people have at some time in their career been through personality tests. These are often fairly binary findings: for instance, extrovert or introvert, thinker or feeler. These tests are supposed to determine how someone will approach and deal with an issue. For whatever reason few tests differentiate between male and female. However, there is much consensus emerging amongst neuroscientists that there is in fact a biological difference between the male and female brain (formed in the early stages of pregnancy). The two brains are, it seems, different and are driven by distinct hormones. As a result they are not organised in the same way leading to the two sexes processing information differently.

The third question is to ask whether we are looking in the wrong direction. One of the reasons why there are so few female board directors is that there is a paucity of suitably qualified candidates. And the reason for that is that fewer women than men make it to the executive committee level in large organisations, effectively blocking the pipeline one level below. And so the answer to getting more women on to boards is not quotas or all-women shortlists; the answer is to get more women on to executive committees. And the solution to that problem is a cultural reformation of what we have come to accept as work.

It does seem curious that at a time in history when there are millions of people unemployed and when technology is bringing us more opportunities than previous generations could ever have imagined, more people than ever are complaining of working too hard. And not just working too hard, but spending too much of their time stuck on trains, buses, and cars getting to an office. For many, work is not something they do but a place where they go. A place full of processes and systems, and of emails and meetings. And a place with its own set of cultural norms. Getting in early and staying late is a sign of dedication. “Going the extra mile”, and other hateful HR-inspired exhortations, ring in people’s ears. Much of what goes on in many organisations, especially those with rigid hierarchies and a silo mentality, is inefficient and ineffective.

Cleverer organisations are using technology to let their people both work remotely more often and to be smarter and outcome focused. They see quality of work as being more important than quantity. It is these types of organisations that are at the forefront of changing the way we think about work and, as a result, breaking down the cultural norms that have seen so many women unable, for a variety of reasons, to break through to the top of organisations.

So perhaps rather than focus on artificial ways to get more women on to boards, the objective should be to help organisations to work smarter and more effectively. It would be more impactful and better in the long term for society if more women tried to change the way we work from the bottom up rather than by being on non-executive supervisory boards per se. As they say, the best change always comes from within.