Are any of you good enough to be working here?

‘Bingleby…!’

I awoke from my mid-morning power nap with a start to find Sally Gulliver standing over me with an expectant look on her face. ‘Mmmwaaa….?’

‘We have to create the new people vision for the company today, remember?’

I yawned, invisibly. ‘Excellent. And there was I imagining we lacked a reason to live.’

‘Listen, you over-rated Triffid, Global Blancmange is one of the least engaged organisations I’ve ever seen. D’you know what Martin Simmonds told everyone last Thursday at his ‘Straight Talking with the CEO’ meeting?’

A fly was strolling down the window behind me. I could have sworn I heard it whistling. ‘No, what?’

‘“You’re all very lucky to have a job. Are any of you good enough to be working here, anyway?”’

‘Well, to be fair, that is straight talking….’  

 “That’s not what ‘Straight Talking with the CEO’ is supposed to mean, Bingleby. Listen, if we get a new people vision right, it could invigorate the whole company. It could change the way we do business.’ 

‘Hmf. Granted. And if we get it wrong…?’

Sally sighed. ‘Nobody’ll notice anyway. We’ll be damned by indifference.’

By now, the fly had moved off the window and was performing some rather nimble balancing tricks on my outer leaves. ‘Ah. So where would you like to start?’

Sally produced what looked like a bus ticket with some words scribbled on them. ‘Well, it would be madness to start with a bunch of words. We’d just end up with a load of promises we couldn’t keep…’

‘Quite right too! That would be entirely foolish. Only an idiot would do such a thing.’

‘…but in this case,’ Sally continued, ‘With nothing for people to believe in, and no flag for HR to follow, I’m going to make an exception. I’m going to set out a bold, positive mission statement for how we manage people, and then enthuse everyone, and everything, behind it.’  

I boggled at her. The fly boggled too. ‘That is something of a risky strategy, Sally Gulliver…’

‘It’s not as risky as doing nothing. At least setting out our stall might provoke some change.’
      
It certainly might; they might change their Head of HR, for one thing.

Sally cleared her throat and read from the bus ticket. ‘Our people vision is to have the best people in the best places doing the best things - and the best thing - for both the organisation, and the societies in which they thrive.’  
 
I thought for a moment. Secretly, I rather liked it. It was short, defiantly positive and had foundation stones on which we could build more detailed promises, to both organisation and employee, around resourcing, leadership behaviour, corporate ethics and effective working.   

But it is not my position to go around liking everything Sally Gulliver does; she’ll never learn that way. Some light sarcasm seemed in order.

‘Let me put it this way, Sally Gulliver. Your wallpaper is very pretty. But you have no house.’
 
‘Bingleby…!’

Next Friday: Mission Statement Impossible 

@BinglebyinHR

  
Bingleby was confiding in Richard Goff