Good seed on bad ground

Years before he was a visiting professor, a global head of leadership, a top 20 HR thinker and a regular spokesperson on global news channels, Chris Roebuck was in the army. Specifically, he was a Sapper ­– a member of the Royal Engineers – tasked with the business of getting tanks across rivers and other obstacles.

Roebuck would consult with the General on the strategy, examine the terrain to establish optimal routes, work out where to hide the bridge tanks so they could be moved into the final location only at the last possible moment, and instruct his team of soldiers on the plan to deliver their tasks with speed and absolute precision and determination.

‘That’s where my understanding of good organisations comes from’, he says. ‘Particularly the need for a strong connection between strategy and operations.’

Roebuck, now Visiting Professor of Transformational Leadership at Cass Business School in London, no longer builds bridges of the non-metaphorical kind. But his speaking and writing is still largely concerned with the links between leadership and organisational performance.

His book on ‘engaging, entrepreneurial, ethical and effective’ leadership Lead to Succeed has been described as ‘an inspiring must read’.

He has ideas about HR that some might find controversial. Not least, he’s concerned by HR’s inability to translate strategy into effective action – and recognises that the failure is not necessarily HR’s fault.

Basics extinct

The problem is that excellent performance depends on an organisation having the correct ‘basics’ in place, says Roebuck – and many nowadays don’t.

‘The world has changed significantly in the last 40 years in terms of leadership,’ he says. ‘Organisations such as GE, Ford and ICI all had structured leadership programmes in place. It was perfectly clear to line management that they were responsible for their people and they were developed to do it.’

But as time went by and budgets collapsed, leadership training largely fell by the wayside. HR departments often tried to pick it up and make it work – but the results were patchwork at best.

The consequence of all this is that organisations are still failing at the basics when it comes to management and leadership. That being the case, HR needs to question the value of throwing sophisticated solutions at a workforce that’s not quite up-to-speed with elementary skills.

All of which puts us in mind of a lesser-known Mark Twain quote: ‘Don’t try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.’

But HR is not always aware of its organisations’ systemic shortfalls, however.

‘Sometimes, when I talk to mid-level HR people about good leadership, they’ll dismiss what I say and claim they’re doing it already,’ says Roebuck. ‘But when I talk to senior HR people, the response is different. They recognise bad leadership is the main reason why they’re unable to transform strategy into real action.’

He adds that HR should also understand that their unilateral initiatives are unlikely to succeed. HR must engage the organisation, starting at the very highest level and then at every level below.

Leadership must own leadership

‘HR needs to ensure that the board gets it. Remember, 80% of an employee’s emotional engagement is related to his or her boss. HR can’t take responsibility for leadership – leadership must take responsibility for it. HR gives them the tools, but leadership owns the delivery.’

But how can HR engage the board? ‘Talk their language. The HRD must go in to the board knowing what his or her plan is, what benefits that plan will accrue, when they will accrue, and articulate it all in fewer than four slides.’

Roebuck’s history, not least with UBS where he helped lead the transformation that became a Harvard Business Review case study, suggests an expertise in HR-board relationships.

One of his tips is that HR should relax the concept of best practice when talking with leaders. ‘Best practice is not necessarily what your organisation needs. If your CEO tells you he wants y, not x – well, he’s the CEO, so you should deliver y, get the brownie points and use them to deliver x next.

‘You can’t force HR best practice down someone’s throat. It’s a matter of realpolitik, and knowing how to get benefit from stuff that isn’t optimal.’

Ultimately, the goals for HR needn’t be too complex. Roebuck talks warmly of his work with Marcus Kramer, one-time marketing director of Aston Martin.

‘It’s about encouraging employees to care,’ says Roebuck. ‘At Aston Martin, you could see that once people cared, you had everything covered – customer focus, cost efficiency, risk management – all of it.

‘The big objective is to take people from ‘I don’t care’ to ‘I do care’. And in a way, that’s it. That’s all you have to do.’

About the author

Andrew Baird

Andrew is the CEO of HRville. He is also Employer Brand Director of Blackbridge Communications, Editorial Director of Professionals in Law and an associate of The Smarty Train. Previously, he was the MD of TCS Advertising.