Editor’s Comment: Will the last one out please turn off the lights?

Annie Hayes

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Editor’s Comment: Will the last one out please turn off the lights?

By Annie Hayes

Dodging criticisms of his leadership while ricocheting between various insults, Charles Kennedy leader of the Liberal Democrat party, for now, has expended most of his energy in pursuit of survival; Editor’s Comment examines why it is that hierarchy rather than shared-responsibility persists in being our answer to structure.

We’d forgive the man for heading straight to the nearest bar, after a week of unrelenting persecution that would make Jesus blush he is certainly deserving of an intimate moment with a Jack Daniels and coke.

For him survival is the name of the game. Early in his speech at the Liberal Democrat Conference this week he set to put the record straight and quoted by the Times said that for him good leadership meant getting big decisions right, taking his party with him and knowing when to listen rather than act.

So forgive me but isn’t this all rather fickle? Early on in the election battle, when the Lib Dems banged the drum of being the ‘real opposition’ party there was a buoyed up sense of bonhomie for the red-haired, a belief that he might just do it.

And now with the party funds sunk and a warmed seat on the opposition bench that back-slapping and sliming-up has all but disappeared with the last of the champagne and like rats deserting a sinking ship the party followers have turned upon their leader.

It seems that we can’t get it out of our heads that the boss, chief whip and captain of the ship are the be all and end all of getting us from A to B. Take Sir Terry Leahy, Tesco’s Chief Executive who has stomped home ahead of the competition yet again, returning a mouth-watering 18.7% rise in first half profits this week.

But is the success all to do with Leahy’s careful steerage? Does the Lib Dem failure to tip toe across the doorstep of number 10, lie with Kennedy?

No – I don’t think so. What happened to collective responsibility?

As famous for its hip employment practices as the breathable water-resistant fabric it manufacturers for an extensive range of outdoors wear, W L Gore were crowned once again as the best company to work for in the Times top 100 this year and can provide a useful comparator to structures based on leaders.

And it’s easy to see why. There are no employees at W L Gore. Instead there is a network of 6,000 associates who share ownership of the business. There are no managers, and pay and position are partly governed by colleagues, who rate individual contribution on a scale of one to six.

Quoted in the list, John Kennedy, head of the UK associates said: “Sometimes it’s a tough environment if you don’t have any frames of reference. But if you do any basic fundamental research into management, you know if you can get people to also think [what you’re suggesting] is a good idea you’re going to get things to happen a lot better and stick a lot longer.”

Kennedy adds: “That’s not rocket science. It’s pretty simple stuff, but it’s amazing how many companies can’t get their heads round that.”

Two Kennedy’s, two very different ways of thinking.

Demos, the think tank have also cottoned onto this idea. In a report by them earlier this year, Paul Miller and Paul Skidmore urged organisations to ‘loosen up’ in order to feel less like organisations to their employees.

“That is what we mean by ‘disorganisation’. People want to work in organisations that feel a bit more human, and offer greater flexibility and autonomy. They want to work for organisations that respect and reflect their values; they want to define their work rather than have work define their identity.”

The research indicates that many people want more flexibility and autonomy in their jobs. Business leaders expect to have to respond to this demand, and in numerous companies many already have.

However a second survey commissioned from MORI by Demos and Orange for the report suggests that traditional hierarchies are still operating in many organisations. One in five people in work (20%) say they speak to their boss’s boss less than once a year according to a representative survey of the British people.

“It is increasingly important that an organisation meets the needs of its people in order to meet the broader demands of business, shareholders and customers,” says Mike Newnham, vice president of Business Solutions at Orange UK (when the report was authored). “If not, the employees and the intellectual capital they possess will walk out the door, taking an irreplaceable part of the organisation with them.”

In a hierarchy it is all too easy to lay blame at the door of the leader, allowing employees to scurry away free of the shackles of failure and underperformance, where this is the case. Where employees are given a climate in which their values correspond with those of the organisation and where genuine responsibility for their actions is recognised you’ll find greater aspirations to do well – which must surely reflect in the businesses bottom line, glorification for a job well done and pennies in the bank.

Clearly, political parties should have an appointed leader but should we always be so willing to put our energies into a structure that sets our leaders and its employees up for a fall? Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure the utopia that WL Gore suggests it has, is not all rose petals and smiley faces and in some organisations it may just not be possible. But give anyone some slack and an excuse to pass the buck and the temptation is all too easy. After all shirking responsibility and hiding behind the leader never did anyone any good.

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