I am often asked what the inspiration was for the development of MPG, Footprint’s exciting new people development process and supporting tool.  Whilst there are many sources of inspiration – personal experience, developing solutions to resolve specific client issues and frustration at current Learning & Development strategy amongst those worthy of a mention – I always remember a conversation I had some years ago with an extremely talented HR Manager I worked with at the time.

Lucy and I were reflecting on a meeting we had just had with a manager within the company.  Tom was a likeable employee who had been with the company a few years.  The problem Lucy had had to deal with was the fact that, whilst extremely personable, Tom had achieved a status and salary level in the company far beyond that which he could justify; unfortunately, the truth of the matter was that Tom was not very good at his job.  My role in the process had been to help discuss with Tom whether we could save his career with the company by finding him a role more appropriate to his abilities.

I was relieved the meeting was over as I had found it gruelling to say the least, given Tom’s emotional state.  The poor fellow was clearly devastated and quite clearly still in a state of shock.  Looking at Lucy, she was clearly finding the process stressful but I also sensed that there was something else.  In offering the opinion that I didn’t envy Lucy her role in the process, the gloves came flying off.

“Do you know what” said Lucy, “I love my job but this is the one part I really hate and what really gets my goat is that I wouldn’t find myself having to do things like this if other people did their jobs properly!” (expletives deleted).  “What do you mean?” I asked.

The response I received was thought provoking to say the least.

“I have just had to sit and watch a grown man crying in my office because I have just turned his world upside down” said Lucy.  “This guy has been sailing along in this business for years thinking he’s doing a good job simply because a succession of managers have not done theirs.  It’s obvious he’s never had proper feedback or coaching and, even worse, all that’s happened at his appraisals is he’s been patted on the back, told he’s a good guy and given a pay rise.  These aren’t worth the paper they’re written on” fumed Lucy, holding up a pile of annual appraisal forms.  “And what’s even worse”, she continued, “I have a healthy suspicion that on at least one occasion, rather than deal with problem, he’s been promoted and made someone else’s problem !!”

At this point, I could see where she was coming from as I could immediately recall situations where colleagues were on the receiving end when they’d made internal appointments because of the glowing references they had received from the line manager of the individual concerned only to find things were not quite as they appeared.

Turning back to Lucy, the reason she was such an invaluable member of the senior management team was because she was incredibly passionate about our business and saw herself as the quality guardian of our product – our people.  This episode had shaken her to the core because it had made her realise that, not only had managers shirked their responsibility and duty of care to Tom, in the process they had undermined the company’s ability to achieve its business goals.

Unfortunately, there are many reasons why managers fail to give proper feedback on a regular basis and then often compound the issue come annual appraisal time.  Sometimes it’s not their fault, they simply haven’t been adequately trained in how to manage the review process or give constructive feedback.  More often than not however, it is for other reasons such as heavy workloads, laziness and even fear of conflict.

This whole episode stuck with me when working on the concept that became MPG as it was obvious that the secret to avoiding situations like Tom’s was to develop a combined coaching and appraisal process that was hardwired into the business.  If individuals and managers are held jointly responsible for the individual’s development in a process that ensures progress is reviewed regularly, managers won’t be able to shirk their responsibilities, there will be no impact on workload as the business won’t grind to a halt come annual appraisal time and the easiest way to avoid conflict is for trained people to use an evidence based, properly documented process.

As my favourite TV personality Aleksandr Orlov says – “Simples”

PS.  Names have been changed for the purpose of anonymity