Helen Brown, CFO, sat in Sally’s office, yawning widely as if lazily determined to capture every last air molecule. ‘So: ready to turn us all into corporate drones, then?’
Sally smiled. ‘Why, is that what you want?’ ‘Well, I’m not saying we’re all perfect…’
‘You like working here, Helen?’
Helen Brown thinks, then shrugs. ‘It’s an easy life. I know the numbers inside out, and that’s my job. I’m not so naïve as to think I could change anything about the company. Not having to indulge in my own naivety means I can get on with my job.’
That seemed something of a pointed remark. Sally, in turn, pointedly ignored it. ‘But surely we could work together better as a management team – to the extent that your numbers would improve?’
‘You really think there’s the will for that here?’
Sally took a deep breath, and plunged in. ‘I think there’s almost always a will to improve things. It’s just that sometimes, it gets frustrated, and disappears on a kind of extended leave. We have to work out a way of tempting it back into the building.’
Helen’s eyes narrowed. ‘Uh-huh…’
‘I also think there’s more of an individual will to improve stuff than there is collectively. It’s almost become inappropriate in those Management Team meetings to actually manage, and to challenge, and to change.’
Helen shrugged again, her signature gesture. ‘Sure.’
‘Which is why I want you to help me.’
Helen started. ‘Me? I’m the resident cynic. I’m the last person you need.’
Sally smiled. ‘There is a view that resident cynics are just frustrated idealists. Are you telling me that if we started to push the big wobbly rock of culture change up the Global Blancmange mountain, you wouldn’t give it the occasional shove too?’
‘Well, if you put it like that…’
‘I do put it like that. Though maybe we should start with a few pebbles first, so it’ll hurt less if they roll back down on top of us. So, Helen, let me ask you this: what two things about the organisation, and how it’s managed, would you change right now?’ Next Friday: Inching Pebbles of Culture Change up the Corporate Mountain
@BinglebyinHR
Bingleby was confiding in Richard Goff
A step at a time...really important:-)
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