Highlights – 13 August

Management wisdom says you should surround yourself with people who are better than you, or at least every bit as good. But that can raise some interesting quandaries. In her latest column for The Times, Ann Francke OBE CMgr CCMI, CMI’s chief executive, responded to a reader asking how to manage an ambitious director who seemed to be after their job. 

“I don’t want to just roll over, nor do I want to come over as a control freak,” they’d written. Ann suggested creating an “effective double-act” by working together towards shared goals. 

Ann was also quick to stress that it is in the interests of your business to hire people who are as talented as possible. At a recent live-streamed CMI event, ‘Attracting green talent: Building high-performing teams’, our expert panel explored how to stand out in the race to hire people with the skills needed to thrive in the sustainable transition, as it rapidly gathers pace. 

You can read our key takeaways from that event in this week’s newsletter. You can also enjoy an extract from Personalities Remixed by Lewis Senior, Mark Wilkinson and Paul Grant, about how people’s diverse personalities can boost collaboration, inclusion and performance. On a related note, we also explore new research by the Diversity Project that reveals the power of disparate ideas and perspectives – if you know how to manage it all.

Treating people right

To hold on to your talented people, it’s important to treat them right. That may mean introducing special leave for significant life events. An article by the Labour Research Department cited CMI research that found only 19% of managers worked for organisations with a formal policy in that regard. 

It may be that you need to support people returning to work after an extended absence. In a letter to The Sunday Times responding to comments from Sir Charlie Mayfield, Petra Wilton, CMI’s director of policy and external affairs, highlighted CMI data showing that half of bosses have struggled to do so. 

“No wonder, when so many have had no management training,” she wrote. 

These days, people may find themselves working longer careers, something that requires consideration too. 

“A country that asks citizens to work longer must be a country that values their experience and supports them,” Ann was quoted as saying in the Daily Mail. 

Hiding in plain sight

Of course, finding the right talent in the first place may be a challenge. The Times recently cited CMI data that found only 3% of managers believe graduates are ready for the workplace.

“Employers want to see what are, in essence, core management skills,” Petra was quoted as saying in response. Those skills? “Resilience, self-awareness and the ability to collaborate, communicate clearly and adapt quickly to new challenges.”

It may be that the right talent is simply hiding in unexpected places. Meet Yvonne Devereux CMgr MCMI, last week’s Chartered Manager of the Week, who honed her management skills over more than a decade in fashion retail – and now puts them to work for Derbyshire Fire & Rescue Service.

Yvonne’s example shows how an outsider’s perspective can be very powerful, as she has added vital emotional intelligence to the service’s traditional command-and-control management style. Elsewhere in this week’s newsletter, Jo Owen CMgr CCMI shares his experience of managing social enterprises, where it’s not always the recognised experts, but outsiders with the right mindset, who end up changing the world.

Here’s to keeping our minds open.

Best,

Matt Roberts CMgr FCMI

Director of membership and professional development, CMI

Image: CMI