A Job Done Well - Making Work Better

Unlocking Leadership Development with Frank Devine

• Jimmy Barber, James Lawther and Frank Devine • Season 2 • Episode 32

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In this episode, James Lawther and Jimmy Barber are joined by leadership development guru Frank Devine. Frank shares insights about which methods of leadership development work and which don't. 

After a long and varied career within HR working with some of the best organisations, people and academic research, Frank shares what he has learnt testing different "best practices". 

His research led him to develop the Cathedral Model (check out this link or visit the episode web page to see a diagram). It emphasises skills like recognition, coaching, and constructive feedback. We also discuss the pitfalls of traditional reward systems and the importance of creating a culture from the bottom up.

Tune in for practical strategies to enhance your team's performance and drive organisational success. You can also hear James and Jimmy's latest successes... a daughter landing a job and a punter landing tickets for the FA Cup semi-final—no prizes for guessing which is which.

Hello, I'm James. Hi, I'm Jimmy and welcome to a Job Done Well, the podcast that helps you improve your performance enjoyment at work.

James:

Good afternoon. How you doing?

Jimmy (2):

I'm all right, James, how you doing?

James:

I'm doing very well. Thank you very much. So we have with us a guest today. We have got, Frank Devine with us. Good afternoon, Frank.

Frank:

Good afternoon, boys.

Jimmy (2):

Frank.

Frank:

Jimmy.

James:

I'm not sure how best to, introduce Frank. So how would you introduce yourself, Frank? Probably better if you do it, you'll do a much better job.

Frank:

I don't really ever introduce myself, James, I, I let my, what I say, introduce me I don't like

James:

Uh.

Frank:

of adverts at the beginning, so.

James:

it'll be like a, a magical mystery tour and people can make up their own.

Frank:

that's good. Is this guy talking rubbish or is it worth listening to him? That's the intrigue we want to create.

Jimmy (2):

Well, from what, what little I already know, Frank, you are definitely worth listening to, so, we'll,

Frank:

Thank you.

Jimmy (2):

the intrigue going a a little bit longer, what you've been up to though, James.

James:

Uh, well, it's been a big week in the law of the household.

Jimmy (2):

Yes,

James:

My, 22-year-old daughter, in finally at university has got a job. Woo woo woo. So I'm very excited about that. Yeah, so as of the 1st of September, she will be off my hands, so I'm there. There you go. It's quite excited.

Frank:

it for a minute.

James:

No.

Jimmy (2):

snow.

Frank:

Yeah.

Jimmy (2):

never off your hands. It just, it, it's just a different payment method.

Frank:

Yeah.

James:

The, the financial liability has decreased, so that's quite exciting.

Jimmy (2):

Well,

James:

about you?

Jimmy (2):

the, the big news in my household is that we secured our tickets for the, Cup semifinal at Wembley. So everyone is happy. We have got seats near the halfway line. We're overjoyed. Looking forward to that.

James:

Okay. Anyone interesting playing or.

Jimmy (2):

Oh, Jesus, man, I, I can't even talk to you about it, James, Forrester playing Man City in the FA Cup, semi-final. Geez. It's the most important game of the season.

James:

Very good. Unless of course you get through and then it'll be irrelevant, won't it?

Jimmy (2):

It'll be the second most important game

James:

Yeah, I agree.

Jimmy (2):

When we get to the final.

James:

Something to look forward to.

Jimmy (2):

Yes.

James:

Then let's move on before I get any football abuse.

Jimmy (2):

well, today we'll keep the intrigue going a little bit longer, but Frank is going to help us understand a little bit more about how you can really unlock the potential of people, Frank is a guru on all things leadership development. So Frank, what got you into, uh, leadership development?

Frank:

Well, when I was leaving university, I was looking for organizations that, Took leadership development seriously, and back then in the very early eighties, the top three, according to our careers advice were Shell, BP, and Unilever. I. So I applied for, I applied for them and I got a job with two of them. And so I got exposed to was what was regarded at the time. As the leading, organization in terms of developing their leaders. And, and we were exposed to, what we're regarded as the leading thought leaders. at the time we had people coming over from Harvard to teach us, et cetera, et cetera. And we had this kind of, advanced, almost guaranteed promotion and development, process whereby you might work for six months at maximum in one area. And then you were, no matter what was going on, you were moved to another one, To give you a whole view of the, organization, the corporate philosophy was. if you recruit the best graduates the best universities and you expose them to the best thinkers, and then you move them around the organization, so their learning speed was maximized. From that group, you would grow your future main board directors. That was the thinking. we were a kind of a privileged group in both Shell and Unilever. I expected that the guys I was with, the people I was with be universally, outstanding.'cause this was a theory that they would be, and what I found was there were some outstanding leaders. And I know James, you, you came through the Unilever

James:

I did,

Frank:

uh, process.

Jimmy (2):

of the outstanding ones clearly. I had to say that before you did James.

James:

gave me a job there you.

Frank:

no. Don't, don't say that. But I came across also some of the most narcissistic and the worst human beings I've ever worked with as well.

James:

I was interesting place actually. There were some really great, great people, but there were some king size egos to go with it. I would, um, have to.

Frank:

exactly. So I, I looked at this and, and it didn't make me popular. To question the model.'cause I was just saying to you had a system that produced such a variability and outputs in terms of the quality of leadership. If it was a mechanical system, if it was a a piece of equipment, you would not use that equipment. why, why were we persisting with it in terms of leadership development? So that started a, nearly 40 year search for what does actually work. So what I mean by that is increasing productivity, reducing absenteeism, increasing employee engagement, increasing quality, increasing customer satisfaction, increasing the amount of ideas and create all of that. and essentially the scientific approach. to try to apply what we knew academically or from so-called best practice and then create hypotheses saying that if this is correct, this is what we would expect to find. Working with real employees in real situations, in, in very large sample sizes over long periods of time.

James:

can I, cut across then, Frank? my understanding then of what you did, so you, uh, you became pretty senior, fairly senior HR director. But that gave you the opportunity to look at all of this HR stuff and test and see what worked and what didn't work. Yeah.

Frank:

Different cultures, different sectors, in other organizations as well. then seeing what actually happened. Did just constantly. Whatever worked, consolidate it. Then the bits that didn't work, what I return on investment in terms of leaders' time was greater than the benefit they got from doing it, then why are we doing it? So,

James:

Could you give us an example of one of these tests then, so people can understand it a wee bit better?

Frank:

example, very early on, junior manager, a factory. So I was the, well, I'd be uh, person responsible for dealing with the trade unions in a, in a automotive factory in the West Midlands. I wanted to experiment with, the idea behind autonomous teams. but the board was very, very reluctant to give any, um, degree of power to the shop floor.

James:

No autonomy. Whatever else you do. Yeah.

Frank:

And now, so the, we had to start very small. So just

James:

Yeah.

Frank:

um, small items that, that people use on a shop floor, you know, grease and things like that, that, that just, that's just provided by management. And I just just did an experiment in one area and I said to the guys, look, tell me you're frustrated that you have to get sign off to get this and you need it for your job, et what we're gonna do is we're gonna give you control of your budget.

James:

Yeah.

Frank:

it and see what happened. and happened was we actually reduced the expenditure on these items because the guys owned using these items. Um. responsible way. Now that's only a tiny little experiment

James:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Frank:

But then we were able to do broader things'cause you got the confidence of the board to try and do, um, more, um, you might call exciting experiments. The later on, as I became more senior, I used to do things like abolish the appraisal scheme and abolish recognition schemes and

Jimmy (2):

so, so, so Frank, sorry. Just so, so basically you spent your, you know, your whole

Frank:

Yeah. Testing.

Jimmy (2):

testing, what ways of, of leading and,

Frank:

Yeah.

Jimmy (2):

developing people get the best results out of your people.

Frank:

it's was the process all the time. Test create a hypothesis test against it. So predict. What you think should happen if the theory is correct, you know, see what actually happened, learn from that, consolidate what worked, and then test through hypothesis and testing different approaches and by.

James:

So you effectively, you effectively almost went through the sort of CIPD best practice manual and then decided, well, that's all right. People saying it's best practice, but does it work or not? And the stuff that works you kept and the stuff that you couldn't keep, see any evidence for you, um, stopped.

Frank:

not just narrowly and not just looking at CIPD stuff. So

James:

Yeah.

Frank:

looking at psychology, but also looking at social anthropology. Neuroscience, um,

James:

Yeah.

Frank:

looking at what we can learn from the arts, what we can learn from medicine, what we can learn from a, a very broad range of knowledge, if you like. One of the my area, I was the HR director. There's a lot of people who are not very numerate give you an example. How many times have you heard people being surveyed about working for, from home and saying of people working from home saying they're more productive? Well, what did they. Think people who want to stay working from home would say

James:

we're gonna say, yeah.

Frank:

were

James:

Yeah.

Frank:

this. kind of Mickey Mouse survey stuff is, um, drives me nuts to be honest. And,

Jimmy (2):

so we've got, you know, you've got like 40 years worth of testing this wide range of things in this wide range of circumstances of things that really move the dial in terms of

Frank:

Yeah.

Jimmy (2):

And If I put you on the spot and said, like, just talk to us about maybe the, uh, You would say that people should be thinking about if they really wanna move the dial on their performance and the people's performance around them, what would be the things then,

Frank:

first thing is not to see leadership as a random collection of specialist interventions. might have somebody who specializes on, um, on recognition. Now sometimes they mix it up with reward and that's not helpful'cause they're very different. But they, they specialize in that area. and someone else might specialize in constructive feedback. They differentiate from each other because they get interested in their own specialists in trouble is because of fear of missing out, which in business terms is a fear of the competition getting an edge on us. devour the stuff coming outta the universities and gets leveraged by consultancy firms with the next big thing. You know, the, branding of

James:

Yeah.

Frank:

same body of work, which businesses then implement stuff which has been developed and focused on. Um, narrow, whereas what we need in business is broad and

James:

Yeah, but that makes sense though, doesn't it, Frank?'cause actually, I mean, if I ask a recognition person, somebody who knows about recognition about an employee problem, they'll gimme a recognition solution. Whereas if I ask a, oh a, a reward person, assuming they're different, they gimme a reward, reward solution. So we tend to see the problems from our own sphere of expertise,

Frank:

lemme

James:

but that just narrows things down. That misses a point.

Jimmy (2):

Frank, is leadership as a more holistic concept rather

Frank:

Yeah. As a system

Jimmy (2):

within

Frank:

partic,

Jimmy (2):

a

Frank:

system. using systems thinking and that whole discipline. systems Yeah. and see it that way. So that's top end. Then in the specifics, three, what I call the core skills, recognition, coaching, constructive feedback. Make sure all your leaders are super about doing that, and don't send them on coaching programs on their own. So don't isolate coaching from recognition and constructive feedback. So.

James:

so, excuse my ignorance, but how would you define, coaching versus constructive feedback?

Frank:

essentially coaching should be aimed at your high performance, your P, employees with the right traits and the right values, who usually get very little coaching because they're doing such a good job. But the.

James:

Okay, so a lot of the coaching is negative coaching. Yeah. You are not where you need to be.

Frank:

below the red line.

James:

Yeah.

Frank:

remedial stuff. Obviously you can use coaching, but constructive feedback's much more powerful that.

James:

Yeah.

Jimmy (2):

I think that's an a, a massively important insight. Frank, and I've, you know, come across that once or twice in the past, but I bet you most people listening to this will have focused their efforts and their team's efforts on coaching for remedial action

Frank:

the.

Jimmy (2):

in terms of the performance. Everyone does it, but actually as, as you point out. You know, actually your best performers, I think does a few things. One. It gives them recognition and it creates that virtuous circle that you

Frank:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jimmy (2):

in terms of performance and and improvement. I think also you, the uplift you can get from improving your top performers is much greater than the uplift you can get from, improving your bottom performers. And thirdly, I think it also is. That people like actually like coaching. When you get into that sort of environment, when it's a positive thing and so then people want some of the coaching, whereas when it's, when it's seen as a remedial thing, it's almost like coaching's a punishment, so nobody wants it, you know?

Frank:

Well, I, I used, I used to set expectations on that. So whenever I took over a new team, new department, whatever it was,

Jimmy (2):

yeah.

Frank:

sit down with my team and I would say to them, look, I set an expectations of part of that. I'd say one of my objectives is to help you reach the maximum of your potential. And if some of you go higher in this organization, hierarchically than me, will be so proud of that achievement. But. But remember this, when you come to me and you want an answer and you want direction, and I decide that there's some learning here for you, there's some growth potential, and rather than giving you direction and telling you what to do, I invest some of my limited time. In a coaching conversation so that you can figure things out for yourself and often, by the way, come up with better answers than I would've come up with anyway. Um, remember that, remember why I'm doing it. So there is an element of, positioning, coaching in a very positive way

Jimmy (2):

Yeah.

Frank:

as well.

Jimmy (2):

so, this is the first thing, which is all about the elements of leadership and seeing them as a

Frank:

Yeah.

Jimmy (2):

What's the, what's

Frank:

So the second one is, make sure those three, make sure that your skill level is absolutely world class on recognition, coaching, and constructive feedback. the core.

James:

Sorry, Frank, sorry to cut. Can you just for me, just define those three things? What exactly do you mean by those?

Frank:

their, um, purpose. The

James:

Yeah.

Frank:

recognition is not giving people stuff, okay? That's tangible recognition. Now that's what they do in recognition schemes. What I mean by recognition is ensuring that everybody is nev is is never taken for granted. Very high bar that make sure no one's taken for granted. And that means the quality the conversations you have with that individual so that when you do give them recognition, they understand it fully and it lands. The right way. And, and that by the way, tech getting into the technical side is now that means the emotional content of it is driven higher than usual in businesses. Um, coaching is developing people to the maximum of their potential. That's what it's for. And constructive feedback is about dealing with things quickly.

James:

Yeah.

Frank:

the bud and correcting them quickly. So if you, I call GAP one, gap two problems a gap. One problem is a leader that's operating above the minimum requirement, but they've got the potential to be even higher above the minimum requirement that there's a big upside. That's a gap. One issue, gap

James:

Yeah.

Frank:

when somebody's operating below the minimal level. They're very different conversations

James:

Yeah.

Frank:

the problems why we have such low. Public sector productivity is the public sector deals with gap Two. Problems with gap one interventions.

James:

me entirely.

Frank:

intervention. We've got time. The person doesn't have to improve. They're already doing a good job. We we're not gonna be assertive about that. If they're happy with where they are, we can encourage them, but ultimately they're doing a good job. We can't force the issue.

James:

Yeah.

Frank:

Two. Damage has being caused here. problems.

James:

to be fixed. It needs to be fixed now.

Frank:

more robust. Robust,

James:

Uh, okay. just getting back myself back on track a wee bit. things I need to worry about. One is look at it systematically. The second thing is the whole, just how you integrate those three things, recognition, coaching, and constrictive feedback.

Frank:

are part of a wider model called the Cathedral model. Yeah.

James:

Yeah. Okay, so then we come on to then your cathedral model as a whole, and we'll put this on the website so people can see it. But go on, just talk us through the Cathedral model Then

Frank:

model was, the origins was, it was, I was wanted to develop something that overcame the soft shit problem. the soft shit problem is the way people who understand numbers and hard science. Often regarded the stuff coming outta the HR function or the learning and development function or whatever, so good stuff was thrown out. You because people couldn't see the science, they couldn't see the numbers, they couldn't see the validity. I of the ways in which you, you deal with any new concept, and this was a new concept, was if people are familiar with it in a kind of vague sense. So at the time, do you remember the early, uh, house of quality?

James:

Yeah. Yeah, I do.

Frank:

I wanted something that vaguely looked. Like the house of quality because a lot of that continuous improvement stuff was, was done that way and there was a lot of science behind that. So that's why

James:

Yes. So sorry, just to cut across, if people haven't seen the house of quality, it was almost like, The Parthenon or something like that. There were kind of three or four pillars and there was a triangle at the top and there was a base, and it was just this model about the how you get a quality organization. But you effectively took the same approach too,

Frank:

wanted

James:

HR stuff.

Frank:

think about barriers to entry, this is barriers to intellectual

James:

Yeah.

Frank:

I wanted to reduce the barriers that, in other words, if they were with seeing the value in that kind of diagram,

James:

diagram.

Frank:

to describe what we doing leadership

James:

So what you're saying, Frank, what you're saying is that people need a model to understand stuff. It makes'em feel comfortable and warm.

Jimmy (2):

certain, certainly one of us needs a

James:

Yeah. Okay.

Jimmy (2):

understand

Frank:

do differ.

James:

Standing joke. Standing joke. I need, I like a nice model. Right. Keep going. So you built this model to help people understand it.

Frank:

the very first version just had, um, a recognition coaching, constructive feedback with,

James:

Yeah.

Frank:

developed over the years because I found examples where if you only did the core skills. But you didn't set the expectations, for example, about what coaching is. Then the coaching suboptimize. So you need to be clear on the setting and interesting Gallup. um, data consistently on their 12 questions. You know, which, which question correlates most with very high levels of engagement is do I know exactly what's expected of me? So,

James:

Yeah.

Frank:

being very, very clear about how you set expectations and what they are is crucial. And the reason that's combined with managing overcommitment is when we set expectations is when those conversations are where we often overcommit people.

James:

I've got the joy of having this cathedral model in front of me. So let me just explain it a wee bit to people. So we're effectively want to do five pillars. The first one is setting expectations. managing over commitment. The second one's recognition. The third one is coaching and delegation. The fourth one is constructive feedback, and you've explained how those three things sort of loop around each other, but you can't really have that unless you've set the expectations in the first place. So I totally get that. But then you've got fifth column, which is escalation. Yeah. So what's that all about?

Frank:

is what you do when everything else hasn't worked or when something is so bad. You have to, like, terminate. So, so you are. Your disciplinary procedure, your capability procedure, they're, they're formal escalation process,

James:

Yeah.

Frank:

escalation also includes informal escalation, where two peers that one peer might escalate in a conversation with another about delivery across functions, for example. So escalation is where you go to everything to the left has not worked. You still have to make sure that, um, the service is delivered, the quality is delivered, or whatever.

James:

But that's really interesting, right?'cause I have worked for organizations who have their version of performance management and they really, you know, go round and round in that. But when you get to the point where somebody, frankly, it's not cutting it, their escalation process was just woeful. Whereas the bizarrely, I would argue the best. Place I ever worked. They had a, really, really robust escalation process. And if your name, if you face didn't fit, you were out. But it was used very, very rarely, but when you needed to use it, it was there. And I suppose, is that what you're saying? Is that the

Frank:

that to the civil service in the uk. Uh, the way they deal with escalation is to write very good reviews for the individual and get them a job in another department. And

James:

escalate them up somewhere? Yeah. Okay.

Frank:

The, but

James:

Right.

Frank:

practical terms, don't forget, some people are underperforming not capable of performing. So you also have to have a very empathetic and understanding and supportive mechanism for looking for what their strengths are and potentially finding'em another job.

James:

Yes.

Frank:

do that, it's not, it's not about being, you know, firing everybody kind of thing. It's about, um, finding the right slot and the bigger the organization is, the more opportunity you have to play to people's strength.'cause otherwise it sounds like it's just kind of. Just get people out and you, and in, in that kind of situation, you're gonna lose mavericks, you're gonna lose rough diamonds, you're gonna lose people who may not have had the same chances of other people.

James:

So coming back to the model then, so I've got setting expectations, recognition, coaching and delegation, constructive feedback, and an escalation process, which is either you are out or we'll find you the right job. Yeah. But you wouldn't aim to get there. It's not your intention to get there. Yeah. But then underneath that, you've got two other layers then. So just talk us through those two other layers.

Frank:

is about, um, bear in mind we are talking about a model for, um, creating a culture from the bottom up in the organization.

James:

Exactly. So what are.

Frank:

standards are how a workforce any group of people in an organization can create their own way of. Uh, working with each other, So give you a practical example.

James:

Yeah.

Frank:

Yeah. So many organizations talk about having a no blame culture. And

James:

Yeah.

Frank:

culture appears in a lot of value statements on the wall, et cetera, um, in one particular organization, was a quality issue, the operator would be taken off the line. And have to work their way back on, they'd have to prove they weren't the reason for the, so they were assumed

James:

the issue.

Frank:

and then had to prove they weren't. So can, you can imagine what that did to. Employees, um, willingness to own up to mistakes, to, to reveal mistakes early on so they, so they could be fixed. And, so when we did, when we did a process called rapid mass engagement, which is creating, in this case, a, A culture from the bottom up. Uh, um, this issue about how we deal with quality was up again and again, and again and again.

James:

Yeah.

Frank:

then had to resolve it So the first behavioral standard is when something goes wrong. ask what happened? Why did it happen? How do we make sure that doesn't happen again, and we don't ask. Who did it.

James:

Yeah.

Frank:

So you are a, if you are, a manager walking past a quality problem on the line and the frontline supervisor goes over and the supervisor goes, what did you do that for? Are they in line with the behavioral standard or not?

James:

No. No, no.

Frank:

supervisor goes and says, look, relax, son. Things happen sometimes in, in, you know, on production lines. It's okay. just see if we can find out what's going on here. that was one of the major changes in that location, which transform the quality performance of that site.

James:

it's about just being clear what the be behaviors are that are acceptable, and the corollary, what's not acceptable. And then, so just coming back to the model, your sort of final layer then is your accountability coaching process.

Frank:

coaching is maintaining standard once established, applies to anything. It, it doesn't just apply to the skills within the cathedral model. It applies to your quality standards, your financial standards, your health and safety standards, your anything, anything, anywhere where you've got a standard. It's important that the standard is maintained you like enforced. It's not programmatized, it's not made into a, any paperwork or bureaucracy, but it's a skill.

James:

Yeah. Okay.

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james_2_04-08-2025_151618:

So let me just summarize that model then Frank. So I've got. Along the bottom, I've got, you know, being very clear about behavioral standards and self-awareness values, things like that. Then I've got your accountability coaching process, which makes sure that everything happens the way it should do. Then I've got Five key pillars, which are setting expectations and managing over commitment recognition. Coaching and delegating, constrictive feedback and escalation. And then across the top of that, you've got this whole debate, about quality and quantity.'cause there's no point in doing these things unless you do them repeatedly and well.

Frank:

let's put it in context. In corporate life, when I used to have senior guys coming into me and saying, Frank, really get the quality of recognition stuff and it's working in my division. Look at the engagement scores I've got that I own. I know how, how all our leaders can give. Really high quality recognition to not just their staff, but to their colleagues and their bosses and everyone. in all directions and, fresh and always sincere. how to do that. That bit I'm fine with, but they'd say to me, and this happened quite frequently, I don't understand how you generate the quantity of recognition that I see you giving.

James:

Yeah.

Frank:

But let's think about this. So let's imagine I give you genuine, sincere recognition. So happens to you at self-image level?

James:

Oh my ego balloons.

Frank:

you

Jimmy (2):

Yeah.

Frank:

your self-image will go up

James:

Yeah. Yeah.

Frank:

increases, what happens to your confidence?

Jimmy (2):

That grows as well.

Frank:

As your confidence grows, what happens to your openness or receptivity to any kind of external

James:

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So you become more open to it because you're not less defensive. Yeah.

Frank:

are more open and receptive for any given input, what happens to the amount you can learn compared to if you weren't open?

James:

Oh, so you can then take much more.

Frank:

Now as you do that, so you, and

James:

Instead it becomes reinforcing.

Frank:

So you now go and either do something that you weren't doing before that's very good, or you do something you were doing before, but better. you do that, what happens to the, uh, natural, uh,, opportunity I have. Um, after the coaching to give you recognition because you've just done something you didn't do before that was really good, or you've done something that you were doing before better.

James:

So then that increases as well.

Frank:

the natural opportunity to give you

James:

Yeah.

Frank:

So as they give you recognition, what happens to you? Self image level, what happens to your so, so what you've got there is the driver of fresh recognition is not in the recognition box. It's the coaching conversation that generates the improvement in the person's performance, which then naturally pulls the recognition, which increases the quantity of recognition. So there's a dynamic system effect between the recognition and the coaching, and the specialists don't the dynamic systems interactions that that naturally exist in lead.

James:

Because they're only focused on their own little bit.

Frank:

yes. And that's why we have,

Jimmy (2):

and

Frank:

and that's why I abolish recognition schemes, because purely focusing on recognition schemes means you, your root. Cause identification is invalid. You need to drive up, you people need to know how to give recognition, but to get the quantity and to make sure it's fresh, people need to be doing lots of coaching conversations. And then on the back of the coaching conversation, naturally you don't need a scheme that's why I was able to abolish recognition scheme. By the way, I never told corporate I was abolishing them. there's other things like managing over commitment. What do we, what do we normally do in organizational life? We try and make our employees more resilient. There's nothing wrong with resilience, but that's working on a symptom of the issue. The root cause is the creation of overcommitment. How? Why do we overcommit our employees and why do we ourselves overcommit ourselves? That's the root cause. So if you can work on removing the remove co. Cause, you don't need to have your workforce being particularly resilient, and therefore, by the way, you can recruit more widely in the job market.

James:

Yeah.

james_2_04-08-2025_151618:

so another question for me then, Frank. So that's your model, but you looked at loads of other stuff. What didn't make the cut and why not?

frank_2_04-08-2025_151618:

it's interesting because obviously when I set up on this route, I expected the things I'd been taught in leadership development myself in Shell and Unilever, to, I expected to validate it, but I didn't. I, for example, there's nothing about reward, because although reward matters, don't.

james_2_04-08-2025_151618:

it only matters if you do it badly, would be my observation. Yeah.

frank_2_04-08-2025_151618:

and, and it also has lots of, unintended negative consequence. You could look

james_2_04-08-2025_151618:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

frank_2_04-08-2025_151618:

recession caused by, uh, partly by rewarding salespeople to sell inappropriate mortgages to people who shouldn't have mortgages.

james_2_04-08-2025_151618:

Don't talk to Jimmy about that. He caused the crisis in the UK single handedly.

jimmy_2_04-08-2025_151619:

Yeah, he might be overplaying that a little bit, James,

frank_2_04-08-2025_151618:

But

jimmy_2_04-08-2025_151619:

also reward has a very temporary impact as well.

frank_2_04-08-2025_151618:

yeah, now there's some evidence, there's some evidence on the certain circumstances, certain things. But when, when I'm talking about on a Pareto uh, uh, basis, so we're talking here about the Pareto break. So what you're doing is you're ranking. What's making the biggest impact, second,

james_2_04-08-2025_151618:

Yeah.

frank_2_04-08-2025_151618:

and you're looking for, um, where you get to a point where for sake of argument, number seven is much stronger than eight, and therefore if you do eight, you're actually displacing or diluting the power of sticking with the top seven. And so the, the model is what was above the kit, uh,

james_2_04-08-2025_151618:

Okay, so you're not getting into a, this doesn't work. What you're saying is I

jimmy_2_04-08-2025_151619:

It

james_2_04-08-2025_151618:

work as well.

frank_2_04-08-2025_151618:

So for

james_2_04-08-2025_151618:

Yeah. Okay.

frank_2_04-08-2025_151618:

appraisal systems can work in some circumstances. recognition systems are better than doing nothing about recognition, but they're massively less powerful than knew what I was describing earlier. Um,

james_2_04-08-2025_151618:

Yeah.

frank_2_04-08-2025_151618:

so what you, what you're saying is be aware of argument dilution and see. Remember the target audience is busy leaders

james_2_04-08-2025_151618:

All right.

frank_2_04-08-2025_151618:

them to do stuff, doesn't add more value than something else, the opportunity cost of doing it Stop doing it. And um, and, and that's why there's no reward in there. It doesn't mean you don't manage reward, it's just you don't focus on it.

james_2_04-08-2025_151618:

Yeah. Okay.

frank_2_04-08-2025_151618:

systems in there. There's nothing about resilience because.

james_2_04-08-2025_151618:

Right, but there isn't, sorry, there isn't an appraisal system in there because effectively, by doing that recognition, coaching, delegating, constriction for you, you're doing that all the time. So why would you do it as an annual?

frank_2_04-08-2025_151618:

yeah, you might have, um, you will have setting expectations for the year, but you won't have a whole bureaucracy around. Around appraisal and their rankings and stuff like that.'cause you're just going to manage low performance, manage high performance, make sure you don't have perverse incentives. So you do have to manage incentives and manage reward, um, it's not, not something you should focus on. Just manage it.

james_2_04-08-2025_151618:

Yeah. Okay. So no re oh, not no reward, but reward. You do, you do what you have to do, but you don't, it's not a strategic play for you. Yeah. Incentives not a strategic play for you. Um, recognition. Yeah. Recognition systems. Likewise not a strategic play.

frank_2_04-08-2025_151618:

But recognition is,

james_2_04-08-2025_151618:

Yeah. And then they all, the whole annual appraisal and forced distribution and all of that just,

frank_2_04-08-2025_151618:

Force. Anyone who understands statistics knows you can't apply force distribution to numbers like that. And it causes all the effects that you talked about earlier. The other simple thing is whoever put reward and recognition together in the same category, I wish you could find who it was and kill them. I don't mean literally, I'm not, I'm not threatening violence here. I'm just talking about levels of irritation, because they should not be in the same category because they're fundamentally different from each other.

james_2_04-08-2025_151618:

So if people want to find out more, Frank Where should they look? So you've got a book called?

frank_2_04-08-2025_151618:

Rapid mass Engagement,

james_2_04-08-2025_151618:

Yeah.

frank_2_04-08-2025_151618:

McGraw Hill. Um, so.

james_2_04-08-2025_151618:

Which is a good book. Although I have to say the book is better than the audible,

frank_2_04-08-2025_151618:

don't, don't

james_2_04-08-2025_151618:

the audio.

frank_2_04-08-2025_151618:

guys'cause No,

james_2_04-08-2025_151618:

Yeah. It's got some yank on it and it just, just You're flipping.

jimmy_2_04-08-2025_151619:

himself.

frank_2_04-08-2025_151618:

that's, that would've been much better, Jimmy. It's not an anti-American thing. It's a anti actors reading words. They don't understand thing. Yeah. There's

james_2_04-08-2025_151618:

Yeah. He started talking about Unilever. It started to do me head in and Warwick.

jimmy_2_04-08-2025_151619:

links to material and links to the

frank_2_04-08-2025_151618:

Yeah,

jimmy_2_04-08-2025_151619:

the, uh, in the, in the podcast description, can't we?

james_2_04-08-2025_151618:

Super. So thank you very much for taking us through that, Frank. all that information will, be on the website for anybody who wants it. And, thank you for joining

jimmy_2_04-08-2025_151619:

Thank you, Frank. I.

frank_2_04-08-2025_151618:

Thank you guys.

james_2_04-08-2025_151618:

Cheers now.

We cover a whole host of topics on this podcast from purpose to corporate jargon, but always focused on one thing, getting the job done well, easier said than done. So if you've got. Unhappy customers or employees, bosses or regulators breathing down your neck. If your backlogs are outta control and your costs are spiraling and that big IT transformation project that you've been promised, just keeps failing to deliver, we can help. If you need to improve your performance, your team's performance, or your organizations, get in touch at Jimmy at@jobdonewell.com orJames@jobdonewell.com.

People on this episode

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James Lawther

Co-host
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Jimmy Barber

Co-host
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Frank Devine

Guest