People: organisational energy
A successful pub should be able to harness the energy of its staff. We find out more about 'organisational energy'.
Earlier this summer a small group of frontline bar and restaurant managers, all on the new Watershed two-year development programme devised by former Pitcher & Piano chief Stephen Waters, gathered in an upstairs room in London's Fitzrovia to find out about "organisational energy".
This is a concept every publican with staff is familiar with, but has probably never thought of giving a name to. Why is it that one day your people seem fired up and engaged with customers while the next they hardly seem to be on the same planet?
The difference is energy. Not only having it but channeling it in the right direction. You might think you've either got it or you haven't, but Stanton Marris, the firm that hosted the managers' meeting, believes that the person running the pub is the crucial factor and that they can learn how to maximise the impact of the energy in their organisation.
Here Rupert Symons, the partner at Stanton Marris who led the study day, reports on what came out of it and why it's relevant to your business.
Power to the people
What's the difference between a top-performing pub and the rest? The quality of the leaders in each location, in particular their ability to harness the energy in their teams, is the answer.
Energy matters. But it's a challenge for leaders to mobilise their people when the goalposts are constantly shifting and when staff turnover is high - the people who took part in the study day admitted that they struggled with this aspect of their role.
Organisational energy is defined as the extent to which an organisation has mobilised the full available effort of its people in pursuit of its goals. Leaders, by their every word and action, can either boost and focus or dampen and distort the energy of those around them. Surprisingly, however, those leaders are often unaware of the tremendous impact they have on their staff.
Nearly every day, something that might seem a trivial action or throwaway line creates seismic ripples throughout an organisation. Equally, certain words or actions at just the right moment can galvanise huge numbers of people.
New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani's simple statement just hours after the September 11 terrorist attacks - "The pain we feel is more than most of us can bear" - sealed his reputation as the natural leader in that crisis and got the people of the city solidly behind him.
During the study day, participants were asked to think of a time when they felt full of energy at work. When they described these experiences it was clear that the common underlying driver in most of them was their leader and what they said and did:
- where they directed their attention, measurement, rewards and control
- how they reacted to critical incidents
- how they used role-modelling and coaching to develop staff.
But if you ask leaders how they use their time, they typically spend 80 per cent on issues relating to other factors, such as systems and procedures and just 20 per cent of their time on the things that will really make a difference.
The primary task of leadership is the mobilisation of people in pursuit of the business's goals. But this is not the stuff you learn on the typical management course.
What leaders are really searching for are easier ways of understanding the untapped potential in their teams so they can manage it and focus it better.
In practice, the energy locked up in teams is likely to be crushed by complex bureaucracy. The "rules" frustrate, constrain and divert the energy. Policies and procedures, introduced to improve efficiency, become ends in themselves. People quickly lose sight of what they are there to do.
The strongest influence on setting the right tone is how leaders behave in a crisis. A crisis is an opportunity to send a signal, to demonstrate, in the glare of the spotlight, what's important to you. It is a powerful "moment of truth" for leaders.
Being in touch with customers and staff is also vital. It's the only way to pick up the faint, early radar signals of what is happening on the horizon. Are you getting genuine, regular information and feedback - from your employees, customers, partners, competitors and from the marketplace - to know when you must adapt quickly to meet changing needs?
Enlightened leaders don't operate in isolation. They seek input, feedback and guidance to help them through the organisational maze. With so many claims on personal time and energy, it is important to choose carefully where to invest effort for maximum impact.
Many leaders are hungry for data but they forget to take a frequent pulse-check of their own organisations, perhaps because they're frightened of what it will tell them.
How people feel about what's going on has an impact on the core sources of their energy - their degree of connection to organisational purpose, the content of their jobs, the support they get and the climate created by their leaders.
People seek meaning and purpose in their work beyond earning an income and using their skills.
Stanton Marris research into why talented people choose to stay with an organisation shows they stay while they feel they are making a difference. This might mean pleasing customers or raising performance. The key was a strong connection between the work they did and seeing the positive impact of it.
Leaders need to make that vital connection clear and keep it alive. They need to paint a picture of the future and talk about it at every opportunity.
Sometimes strategies are so dense they obscure the blue sky beyond. Organisations collect priorities like moss on a stone. Trying to address them all generates "initiative overload" - people don't know where to focus their energies. And for guidance they look to their leaders - often the very people who generated the tangle of priorities in the first place!
Successful organisations focus on a very few simple measures. How many businesses, in order to achieve a turnaround, have had to learn this lesson?
You also need to pay attention to the talented people in your organisation. Leaders bemoan the shortage of talent, even when they have done little to identify or develop it.
It is their job to spot potential leaders, get to know them, coach and mentor them and provide them with opportunities for rapid learning.
You should make time to mentor people with a high potential. Giving individual support, encouragement and recognition is a mark of a true leader. It is also the key to motivating and retaining top talent.
- For more information contact Rupert Symons on 020 7637 0290, email rupertsymons@stantonmarris.com or visit www.watershedschool.co.uk for details of the Watershed programme.
You can have an impact no matter how little time you have to spare. For example, all these ideas have worked at some point for participants in the study day:
- praise publicly. Be explicit - say what was good, make it a model for others. Recognition like this matters more to staff than anything else - even money!
- eat, serve and cook with the staff
- be seen out and about
- job shadow. Shadow people in frontline jobs and invite them to shadow you. Give each other feedback
- if you manage more than one pub, make your visits to the sites informal. Prepare well beforehand, then be relaxed and spontaneous on the day. Make sure you engage people in dialogue. Listening and learning has more value and impact than any presentation.
