value – Vogel Wakefield

Not everything about chaos is miserable. We may be living through an epoch-defining collapse of the socio-economic settlement we have known for four decades. A reckoning with free-market, shareholder value capitalism is long overdue and it is happening in more disruptive ways than was needed. Things may look disturbing and confusing. But, as David Brooks reminds, out of chaos comes hope:

“There have been many moments in our history when old ideas and old arrangements stopped working and people chopped them up. Those transition moments were bumpy, and it was easy to lose hope, but then people figured it out. Never underestimate the power of human ingenuity.”

He doesn’t mean the kind of blind-faith, glib, muddling-through, bulldog-spirit, groundless hope that keeps churning out the same answers to new problems. He’s not British. He’s talking about the application of imagination to the invention of new paradigms; meeting a new reality with new strategies.

Continue reading “Grounds for optimism” →

Our influences

Abstract nouns are rarely the solution in organisations. But they could be.

By Martin Vogel

Some years ago, I was happy to make the acquaintance of Valerie Iles, a leadership consultant whose domain is healthcare. Like me, she brings an interest in mindfulness. But she has a great ability to draw on a diverse range of other ideas. This year, she held a seminar to hand over her body of thinking. I was already running with it. But, in the months since, I’ve enjoyed re-reading some of her articles.

One that stands out is Valerie’s admonishment against reaching for abstract nouns. This is not the usual tirade against meaningless management coinages but a philosophical challenge to how leaders conceive their strategies.

Continue reading “Abstract nouns are rarely the solution in organisations. But they could be.” →

Ideas

Who will get us out of this mess?

By Martin Vogel

jarrow

Two recent articles bring home – if you still doubt it – the redundancy of the shareholder value model of capitalism. It’s not just that it has proved an ineffective way to run companies. It’s actually undermined the long-term viability of the economy by creating inequality of such depth that the markets for the products of business are weakened.

Continue reading “Who will get us out of this mess?” →

Current events

Antony Jenkins and the FIFO test at Barclays

By Martin Vogel

Many a year ago, when I was working at BBC News, leadership by acronym was very much in vogue. One department head who favoured a flamboyantly macho style enjoyed satirising the culture by describing his approach as the FIFO model.

The Vogel Wakefield blog is too polite a space in which to spell out the meaning of FIFO. Suffice to say the manager’s broad intent was along the lines of, “Kindly toe the line or consider finding employment elsewhere.”

I was reminded of this on reading the email to Barclays’ staff sent by the bank’s chief executive, Antony Jenkins, redefining Barclays’ purpose and values.

Continue reading “Antony Jenkins and the FIFO test at Barclays” →

Our influences

It’s happiness, Stupid!

By Mark Wakefield

Happiness

As a postscript to Martin Vogel’s blogpost here last week about our shock at realising that we weren’t properly communicating to our clients the strength of our commitment to what we do, here’s a reflection on what led to this epiphany. I think this was a long time coming but, for me at least, our recent meeting with the very impressive but self-effacing Andy Street, CEO of John Lewis, had a lot to do with it. When preparing for the meeting I was puzzled to find that the John Lewis Partnership defines its chief purpose as “the happiness of all its members, through their worthwhile and satisfying employment in a successful business.”

Continue reading “It’s happiness, Stupid!” →

Our influences

For happiness and against toxicity

By Martin Vogel

At Vogel Wakefield HQ yesterday we were undertaking our annual strategic review and pondering our deep motivation for building our own business. We reached a startling conclusion: we don’t surface in how we present ourselves to clients our real passion for what we do. Instead, we neuter it by smothering it in business-friendly language. Our passion is to challenge the things that are toxic in organisations: to inspire people both to align themselves in their working lives more closely with their positive values and to push organisations into making a more positive contribution to society.

It’s not that all corporations are toxic nor that they make no contribution. But we have worked in organisations long enough to have developed a deep aversion to the negatives caused by internal politics, short-term perspectives, spin and the like. We have reached a stage in life where we can do more to mitigate these negative impacts on others, and to preserve our own welfare, by holding ourselves outside the organisation and working with those within.

Continue reading “For happiness and against toxicity” →

Leadership

Life affirmation courtesy of Camden Council

By Martin Vogel

Camden Festival — My son is in there somewhere.

I’ve experienced quite a number of concerts over the years at the Royal Albert Hall. But the one I had the privilege to attend on Monday night ranks possibly as the best. Let me declare an interest, I was the parent of one of the performers. But the same goes for nearly all the 3,500 other members of the audience.

For this was the Camden Music Festival, a bi-annual event which brings together schoolchildren aged between six and eighteen from across the London Borough of Camden in an extraordinary spectacle of collaborative music-making. It wasn’t simply parental pride that made this a heart warming event. It was an ambitious, entertaining and impressive performance of undeniable quality. And it exemplifies important characteristics of the value a local authority can deliver to its community even in a time of austerity.

Continue reading “Life affirmation courtesy of Camden Council” →

Current events

A master of the universe resigns

By Martin Vogel

Greg Smith had been working for Goldman Sachs for twelve years before he published the resignation letter yesterday which has caused a furore.

It presents a devastating portrait of a corporate culture that is entirely self-serving and betraying the interests of its clients:

“I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them. If you were an alien from Mars and sat in on one of these meetings, you would believe that a client’s success or progress was not part of the thought process at all.

“It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off. Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as “muppets,” sometimes over internal e-mail.”

Continue reading “A master of the universe resigns” →