February 2, 2025 • 34 mins
Out on my morning dog walk (yes, the one where I have to put the flashing collar on my black dog ‘Flo’ so we can be seen in the dark!), I found myself reflecting on what I call the "eighth waste" in organisations - the waste of human potential.
Drawing on Toyota's management principles, I explore why so many of us in workforce development struggle to make our case to leadership, despite knowing just how vital our work is.
If you're working in coaching, workforce development, or people development roles and sometimes feel your impact isn't fully understood by those above you, I think you'll find both practical insights here and, importantly, a reminder that you're not alone. I'll share my thoughts on how we can bridge the gap between development professionals and leadership, turning our frustrations into productive action.
I'll also tell you about two communities I've created where you can connect with others facing similar challenges: the Guild of Pedagogical Explorers and our new initiative, The Cobbler's Children. Because sometimes, the best solutions come from supporting each other.
Duration: 45 minutes
Tags: #WorkforceDevelopment #LeadershipDevelopment #SportsDevelopment #ProfessionalDevelopment
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-talent-equation-podcast--2186775/support.
Drawing on Toyota's management principles, I explore why so many of us in workforce development struggle to make our case to leadership, despite knowing just how vital our work is.
If you're working in coaching, workforce development, or people development roles and sometimes feel your impact isn't fully understood by those above you, I think you'll find both practical insights here and, importantly, a reminder that you're not alone. I'll share my thoughts on how we can bridge the gap between development professionals and leadership, turning our frustrations into productive action.
I'll also tell you about two communities I've created where you can connect with others facing similar challenges: the Guild of Pedagogical Explorers and our new initiative, The Cobbler's Children. Because sometimes, the best solutions come from supporting each other.
Duration: 45 minutes
Tags: #WorkforceDevelopment #LeadershipDevelopment #SportsDevelopment #ProfessionalDevelopment
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-talent-equation-podcast--2186775/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Good morning, dog walk Diary. Early starts just getting light,
words are chirping. I have to put the flashing collar
on Flo because it's a black dog and you don't
see her in the dark. Albeit it's it's not too
bad anyway, some thoughts. I a couple of conversations recently
(00:32):
with people in KAH workforce development roles or roles, let's say,
roles that have you know, an important aspect of workforce
development within them, coach development within them. Most roles do
(00:53):
to be fair, whether people think that will not know
whether it's explicit or not. Most roles do you know
unless your most of the stuff that you do is
going to be done, you know, through process or machine,
(01:13):
which is possible to Most roles involve people, and most
roles involve people supporting other people in developing other people
a one way or another, and therefore it's important that
you know, so they do have that kind of a
function within them. So but one of that specifically though,
(01:37):
people tasked specifically with developing people workforce development, developing the
people who make up the support workforce, sport physical activity workforce,
you know, the people who provide physical activity experiences in
(01:57):
another industry, they'd be called, you know, the service livery.
You know. So these are the people who interface directly
with the people who are having an experience, you know,
whether they're turning up through greef exercise class or they're
going to you know, have a coaching session because they're
on a talent development journey or whatever it might be.
(02:19):
There is somebody who is guiding that journey one where another,
and there's a human on human interaction and a lot
of discussion around ways that we could do that better.
The recognition that providing the basics in the form of
(02:41):
qualifications really is substandard and not enough and necessary but
not sufficient, as they often say, and what that involves
and how we go about it now. One of the
(03:02):
biggest challenges that many of these people face, and the
kinds of conversations I'm having with them nearly always stem
from the fact that the people who lead them really
don't have very much appreciation for what it is that
they do. That comes with all sorts of problems. Often
(03:27):
they're under resource and if you look at coach education
or coach development or workforce development teams within most organizations,
you will usually see that they are a relatively small
proportion of the overall you know, kind of body of
(03:48):
an organization, and that's obviously quite challenging and difficult. Equally
so human resource and resource, financial resource under resource. Just
look at some budget profiles of organizations and see how
much as allocated towards UH coach development, workforce development. Usually
(04:09):
quite a small amount, very often nothing. In some cases,
let's start from a deficit, and the idea is that
you know that particular function needs to make money and
generate revenue in order to get back to a mill point,
which is a very very odd way of working through
a budget. But you know there are some models to it.
(04:32):
I'm not an accountant or a finance person, so I
wouldn't necessarily know. They might do some rassi alfer that,
but anyway, still the allocation given limited to UH limited
human resource, limited finances, and limited support. And this is
probably the most important one. And I refer to this
(04:56):
as this is the eighth waste H So friend of mine, well,
I sent friend of mine to took me onto this
went to work for Toyota, and Toyota are famous for
having their management principles, and Bruce spent hours talking about
this stuff and fascinated by it. It's since gone on
(05:20):
to become a likely and coaching consultant and talks about,
you know, waste reduction because Toyota are obsessed with waste
production and toot to have a well, it's a principle
within Japanese society, I think, but so To in particular
have adopted it which is about waste, and they often
(05:41):
refer to it as muda. There are different forms of waste, murda, mouri,
and mura. I don't know what they all necessarily mean,
but one of the things I know about about muda
as a as a form of wat is has often
referred to seven wastes. I'm definitely not going to be
at a list of all, but the kinds of things that
(06:03):
come under the waist are things like overproduction, inventory, having
things sat on shells, taking up space. That's wasteful. You
want it to come in and go out and come
in and be used as when it's required in a
just in time kind of way. Travel, you know, stuff
being transported, Transportation transported from one place to a next
(06:27):
is wasteful. Under production, not having things ready on time,
holding things back, all that sort of stuff. So it's
all very processing in very machinery based and sort of
manufacturing driven, but they often refer to an eighth waist,
and the eighth waist is the potentular people, and in
(06:51):
many ways, within the sort of sort of total production
system and total management system, the eighth waist is seen
as the big waste because the potential of people is
seen as limitless, and as a result, one of the
things that people talk about is like, you know, if
(07:14):
you do not enable your people to achieve their maximum,
then that becomes a major problem. Now, of course, this
is all within the boundaries of you know, kind of
possibility and resources and all those sorts of things, but nonetheless,
you know, it's very wasteful not to enable the people
(07:36):
who are essentially essential to the functioning of an organization.
Let's think of it. An organization is just a collective
of people, and not enabling those people to operate at
their optimal is a huge level of waste and something
that is you know, unconscionable really, you know, shouldn't be
(07:56):
really allowed, and to do our level best to ensure
that we reduce it. Now, when I talk about waste
in these terms, i'm talking about waste from the perspective
of well, when I talk about potential is I'm not
necessarily talking about athlete in this context, although that is
(08:18):
still important. Money I'm talking about muh sorry, sorry, and
so uh yeah. So when I'm talking about waste, I'm
talking about people not being able or having like limitations
(08:47):
placed on them by virtue of systems and processes and
inadequate support and development. That means that they can only do,
you know, a quarter of what they could do or
something similar. And this applies to workforce leads, so people
(09:10):
who are given a role within an organization two develop people.
So this could be somebody doing learning and developments. This
could be somebody doing you know, in a different kind
of organization. This could be somebody you know doing education,
coach education training. It could be you know, any member
(09:32):
of the workforce training and this, that and the other.
And the problem they often have is is that you know,
they would we tend to go because we're limited by
resources and limited in terms of our imagination. We tend
to go for things that are like sort of efficient
over things that are effective. And I think it was
(09:56):
piece of Drucker, the famous management consultant, said that I
think is more wasteful than doing something really efficiently that
should never have been done in the first place. So,
in the context of waste, sometimes our drive for things
doing things that are efficient efficients are at the expense
(10:16):
of doing things that are effective. And to somebody in
a workforce role, that's really important to know, you know,
because you need to articulate for resources in the finite.
In the world of finite resources, you know, you need
to sort of compete with others for resources, and you
(10:37):
need to make the case that you know, an investment
in your space is going to yield better results. Of course,
is if you think in a very kind of neoliberal
way about human development, which a lot of organizations and
leaders of organizations do. Sadly, they're either thinking about the
(10:59):
bottom line and actually or they're thinking about the bottom
line from a you know, a numbers perspective participation numbers,
which is linked to funding very often, or they're thinking
about the bottom line in terms of medals, you know.
And so this articulation that we often make in work
(11:19):
force roles is that you know, we're going to do
it better. We're going to develop people who are developing people,
and we're going to do it better. And the question
is often how, how are you going to do it better?
And what difference is it going to make it? And
what we often do in answers to that question is
(11:40):
we delve into the how and the why. It's really
important to us that you understand how, because like the
how is then when you get the how, the the
what becomes and the why, but the what becomes obvious.
Like so when somebody articulates that, you know, what we're
(12:03):
not going to do is we're not going to just
do like a load of qualifications that you know, are
really giving to colons the basics and then leave them
to their own devices and not let them understand what
it is they need to do and you know, and
how they're going to have an impact and all those
sorts of things and deal with the complexity that you know,
we don't we're not doing that. We're gonna do something
else which is gonna be much more engaging and supportive.
(12:25):
We're going to provide people to be in situ and
they're going to guide them on the journey and it's
going to make a big difference. And we sort of
just explain all that and go, yeah, so that can
be way better in it, you get all these plank
faces think what, why don't you get that? They're obvious,
like you understand we're going to do that and how
(12:48):
we're going to do it with you know, people in
situ and because of everyone just goes, yeah, what, I
don't get it? And it is so dispiriting, it's so
demotivating when people don't understand that doing it differently it's
going to lead to transformation. It's like it's obvious, it's
(13:11):
self evident, but it isn't. Because if you live in
a world, if you're a leader, and you live in
a world where you're very very constrained in what you're thinking,
and also you're constrained in terms of what you what
(13:36):
you think you can achieve, then you'll find yourself in
a situation where you find yourself in a situation where
you know you're not necessarily thinking you haven't got time
to think about the how, you know you haven't got
time to think about that. And also when you look
(13:58):
at it, you think, well, actually, that's gonna be way
more costly. You're not going to be able to do
it at scale. You know, yes, it's going to be
deeper and richer and these people's experiences are going to
be far better, and you know, and you know, lots
of like, really, what difference will that make over and
above doing what we need to do we're doing now.
Plus importantly, it sounds like it's going to be a
(14:19):
lot of money at the expense of the income stream
that we've got from the inefficient yet necessary qualification stuff
we're doing. So why don't we just keep doing the
call stuff, you know, which has got the income stream
against it. And their thinking is so narrow, but that's
(14:41):
fine because that's their job. The job is to think
about the organization in terms of outputs largely, you know,
and I've said when I've been working with these people,
if you think about it in those terms and think
about the way that people are is they're really focus
from pretty much two things. I'm probably over sympathizing it,
(15:03):
but it probably is. It's not far from this is,
you know, what is going to drive the performance outcomes
of the organization, the outputs. And this is even the
most forward thinking and progressive leaders unfortunately are driven to
this because it's the nature of the environment that they
(15:27):
operate with in so, you know, so this is not
an attack on the people themselves. This is a criticism
and a critique of the environments that they operate within.
And there is a big question as the weather sport
should be subjected to the ideals or the concepts of neoliberalism.
(15:51):
But unfortunately, neoliberalists, neoliberalist ideas around economics, you know, which
is about growth production, you know, to be exclusion often
of the resources of the planet and the resources of
the people within it are is very still, very very ubilitous.
We can have a bigger debate one day about what
we think about that kind of idea, but nonetheless, capitalist
(16:15):
ideas and neoliberal ideas around growth are very very endemic
within the sports world, and so the leaders who are
operate in those spaces, who are there making decisions about
how they alephic resources, will make decisions based on those things.
And you know, there either thinking, right, what is this
(16:37):
going to do in terms of outputs? You know, is
it going to increase participation in numbers? Is it going
to increase memberships, is it going to increase income? Or
on the other side of things, and it's becoming more important,
is it going to stop me going to jail? Now
what I mean by that is, are you going to
do something that is going to be to prevent of
(17:01):
harm happening, which would then reduce the likelihood of you know,
adverse acts taking place, safeguarding issues and being in place
all those sorts of things which would then lead to
you know, a governance breakdown and that individual either losing
their job or maybe being taken to court and all
those sorts of things. You know, so broadly, if you
(17:23):
want to really summarize those few things, you know, is
any of this going to satisfy the board of the
organization that I'm doing a good job, or if it's
somebody's likely lower down, you know, is this going to
satisfy the CEO who is thinking about what the board
is thinking? And the board's primary responsibility is to ensure
(17:48):
that the organization, you know, the does not having a
reputational damage and is it runs in a appropriate way
so that it's you know, it doesn't transgress laws and
legislation and works sort of ethically and within its boundaries.
And also is you know, financially sustainable for already speaking,
(18:08):
what cards do and that's what CEOs are appointed to do.
And ceo don't do that, then they get up or
you know, if in the case of something really quite egregious,
sometimes they find themselves in legal hot water. So when
you think about an individual in the leadership role who
is very often constrained by those kinds of ideas, then
(18:35):
it's becomes very challenging, isn't it. When you're somebody who believes,
you know, you think on a human level, and actually
you're thinking you very passionately about the people that are,
you know, providing experiences, and their experience really matters to you,
(18:56):
and providing them with better support experience means that they're
going to have a better experiencehich will lead to better
experiences for the for the part, for the end, for
the participants. That really matters to us. It really does,
And when people don't get that, it's really dispiriting. We
can't fathom why people wouldn't get that. We can't fathom.
(19:18):
But actually we want those people to care about what
we care about because we believe it to be like
the most fundamental and important thing. We believe it to
be that. And I still think it is true, and
I still think leaders in organizations need to see that
because most of the problems that they face. If they
(19:40):
were to look at their corporate risk register or their
profit and loss statements would be down to people one
way or another. And I know, and I've been in
organizations where the leaders look at the people purely as
a cost center. You know, we're not making enough money.
We've got to get rid of some people because they're
(20:01):
a cost. We never look at the people as what
it is that they produce and what it is they're
capable of and could they be capable of more So,
instead of looking at the bottom line and going, we're
not making as much money as we were, we need
to reduce a cost. Since they're turning around and saying,
what is it that we're doing that is meaning that
our people are underproducing or not delivering in that way
(20:27):
as well as they could be. Is there something we
could do by investing in them that would get better production?
If this is the way that you want to think,
you know, and in a sporting context, you know that
might be why aren't we winning medals, for example, or
why aren't we seeing better caliber athletes come into our
talent pathway? Or why aren't we seeing participation growth? Right well?
(20:50):
With memberships have dropped, right, We've got to reduce our
cost base so let's saying that what is it about
what's happening within our people in our system that we
could do that would increase our membership, grow it, invest
rather than cut. And these are debates that often happen,
and these are questions that are raised regularly about which
is the best way to go. And you know, sometimes
(21:11):
you've got to reduce costs in order to sometimes you've
got to reduce costs and all that sort of stuff.
But this is just the nature of our corporate commercial
operators work. And this is the life of a leader.
And you know, there's many organizations I work with where
I'm either sitting on the boards or I'm actually working
with the executive teams. And that is just a fact
of life and a reality and there's no two ways
around it. But rarely do I think and do I
(21:33):
see organizations who see beyond some of that stuff and
really start to think about it. And I believe we,
as worked force leads have a responsibility and we need
to think differently. And the reason we need to do
this is because if this is how people are thinking,
for us to say to them, you need to think
(21:53):
more like us. Well, A we're dreaming. It's not going
to happen. The constraints that those people are operating within
will not allow them to think like this. And secondly,
it's arrogant. That's what they tay us for. We we
get you know, we get paid to think about the
people side of things, yes, and be experts in it
(22:16):
and do that thinking, But we don't necessarily get paid
to get the other people to do the thing the
same thinking. That's not the wife I would take need us.
But also like, why would they necessarily do that. They
don't spend their days thinking like us. That's not how
they work. And so what we need to do is
(22:40):
work with work with these people, right and and talk
in their language. So instead of talking about how we're
going to do something, talk about what it will what
it will produce. So, for example, instead of me saying, oh,
(23:00):
I'm going to provide this, you know, kind of this
much more integrated training model and learning and development model
which will have sort of you know, multi modeal opportunities
for development. You know, a combination of technology driven e learning,
a combination of support, a combination of physical support webinars,
(23:25):
creating this entire support community that will enable our people
to really thrive and operate and all those sorts of things.
And I'm also going to provide a better assessment framework
so that we know who's doing what and what they're
capable of doing. And that's the sestiment framework going to
be really dynamic because it's going to enable people to
be identified to work with specific audience groups, and we'll
(23:46):
be able to sort of do a matching service so
that we get the right people coaching the right people
in the right place at the right time to do
any of that. Not interested blah blah blah, noise noise, noise,
white noise, don't care. The way we come with that
is to say, I have an education, I have a
(24:07):
proposal in place that will reduce the amount of inbound
complaints coming in to the organization by parents and stakeholders
and other things that are about the actions of people
who are within the coaching workforce, who are qualified and
trained by us, and therefore those people perceive that we
(24:30):
are responsible for their combat and word usually about fifty percent. Now,
I know organizations out there that their complaints handling process
now is costing them millions millions, and you know, in
danger of bankrupting the organizations in many cases and so actually,
if you could say I'm going to reduce that by
(24:52):
half by any resources to do so, wow, you've got
an amazing change. You've got You've got somebody interested on.
Or if you were to say, I have a proposal
on the table that will increase the income from our
workforce development initiatives generated by let's say another fifty whatever
(25:18):
it is, will increase the income and deliver a way
more effective workforce experience for the people in our community,
which will reduce complaints. Now you're interested, and in some
respects if I was a study, I'll go, okay, I
(25:38):
trusted topicker. Come back to me in the year and
show where you got to what you need. But again
it might ask ask to ask a few more questions.
You know, it's okay, tell me more, tell me more.
I mean, one of the reasons I'm desperate, you know,
I'm desperate to get to support people in these roles
(25:58):
is because I want to help them be able to
make this case. I want to see what difference it
can make. You know, I have done it. I've done
it in my own environment and I've done it with
other people, just to you know, test the water to
a certain extent, and I've had those conversations with executive
teams myself, and that's the kind of opening gamble and
everybody stands up and goes, okay, tell me more. Now
(26:20):
I'm interested, right because you've set it up, You've set
up that, you've set up what the goal is, you
know what's going to be achieved. Then people are interested
in that house. And I've made this mistake hundreds of
times because I'm somebody who loves contexts, you know, I'm
it's the nature of the way my brain is wired that,
(26:41):
you know, I want to tell everybody the big story
about everything you know that's going on and everything else,
because I said me, that's the most important piece. And
I do this all the time. So probably found it
in my podcast rambles that you get to the points
view and it's just the way my mind with I
(27:02):
get really frustrated sometimes when I do it the other
way around, and you know, you've put something up in
front and people go, well, that won't work, Well why
not because of biness? Almost Well, if you'd let me
explain the context, do you, then you know, if you
do understand that we've thought about But anyway, so be
it is what it is anyway. The what I'm trying
(27:26):
to say is so the eighth waste, the the lack
of the sorry, the potential of people, wasting the potential
of people. Everywhere I love we waste the potential of people.
But none so not not as not none so there
(27:49):
in nowhere do I see it more than in the
people in roles to build systems and build leadership roles.
Our in leadership roles are around workforce developments within organizations
who have given very little support to do so and
are told, you know, just deliver an outcome. Deliver an outcome.
(28:12):
And my job is to enable them to not only
make the case, but also to help and support them
on that developmental journey and to be the ear, to
be the thinking partner, to be the wayfinder to a
certain extent, to be the person who cares, to be
(28:32):
the person who actually they can talk to and they
can actually say and ye know, I want to do this,
and I'm thinking about that, and I go, oh, that's
a really good idea. I think that's great. And you
know what, if we need this right, we could maybe
even make it even better. That's what I exist to do.
That's what I love to do. Now. Often that happens
(28:52):
because I start working on projects and then the people
come to me and we start to develop a relationship.
Then this is where the conversations go. And if that
how it works, no problem. You know, we can do
it that way. But you know, I don't mind it
that way. But that's fundamentally whenever I do this kind
of work, it always ends up with me working with people,
(29:15):
supporting those people, guiding those people, and giving them the
support they probably don't get from their leadership. But some
of that is partly because I say to them, let's
just give the people what they need so that they
can make the decisions that they need to make without
given lots of the context, and satisfy ourselves with our
work and satisfy ourselves with the fact that we have
(29:36):
done our job in order to serve the people that
we care about morning and that's very great satisfaction. Not
because and this is where the dispiriting and the most
fripping thing is is that I've longed in my career
to work for somebody who's got it. It's happened very,
very very rarely, but it work for someone who really
values what you do and understands what you do and
(29:58):
the impact it can have. And when you don't work,
when you don't work for somebody who values what you do,
it becomes really demotivating because it's really bloody hard. But
let's also understand that they don't have the capability or
the capacity to be able to understand what we do.
(30:20):
So satisfy ourselves that we're doing our best job by
ensuring that our leaders can get the bits that they need,
serve them what they need, so that we can serve
the people that we serve, and then they can and
then we can enhance their capability and their potential. So
not easy, Definitely not easy. And it's taken me a
(30:43):
long time to learn how to do this, lots of
pain and anguish and again, so this is one of
the reasons I set up this agency is so that
you know, I can help others who are suffering and
in need and find, you know, find it differ to
be able to make progress in this way, and if
(31:05):
I can help them, then that's what I seek to do. Anyway,
there you go, and you know this might apply in
lots of different contexts, but they go, that's my morning rambles.
Hope some of this makes some sense for you and resonates.
If it does, I really appreciate it if you could
(31:27):
share it with anybody who think might be of interest,
anybody in the network you know, share it publicly, share
it privately, share it publicly, share it privately, you know,
whatever way you want to go. If you know there's
somebody out there who think can do with some help,
I'd really appreciate it if you were to share it
with them and get in touch. You can hit up
(31:48):
on my website and you can you can book a
free consultation on the website. I've got a thirty minute consultation.
You can just book it. Find time on my diary.
We can have a chat. You can find out a bit
more about you know, what's going on, and if I
can't help, I'll probably know someone who can, and I'll
be open about that. You know, not everything, so I've
got I've got everything in my skill set, you know,
(32:11):
and like wife, please please share and promote the podcast
because it's, you know, an important lifeline I think for
a lot of people. I get a lot of emails
from people you know saying that it's having a positive
effect and it's supporting them helping them make sense themselves
because you know they work through some of these challenges
on a daily basis. So yeah, please please share it
(32:33):
with people, subscribe if if you'd like, that would be
great as well, because obviously viewership grows. Actually, if you
want to spend some time with me learning, then there
are two groups to join. One is a Practitioners group,
which is the Guild of Ecological Explorers, people from all
(32:55):
over the globe and range of different sports and physical
activity settings coming together to learn from each other and
with me, and I bring guests on from time to
time and we generally kind of work together on the
problems that we face and co create solutions. And then
there's another group that I'm establishing, and I'd be really
interested if you're interested in joining, please let me know
(33:17):
because it's still a concept at the moment, which is
called I'm calling it the Cobbler's Children, which is a
reference to the cobbler who've made the finest shoes, but
the children weren't therefore spending all his time helping others,
and he never looked after him and his own And
that's a metaphor for the people in these roles helping
(33:38):
everybody else and not looking after each other. So the
idea behind the group is that it's the learning group
for people in these kinds of roles to be able
to share experiences and come together, support each other and
maybe find some solutions or other people who might be
capable of finding sometions. So there you go. That's me done,
(34:05):
have a great week, Speak soon, m mm hmm.
Good morning, dog walk Diary. Early starts just getting light,
words are chirping. I have to put the flashing collar
on Flo because it's a black dog and you don't
see her in the dark. Albeit it's it's not too
bad anyway, some thoughts. I a couple of conversations recently
(00:32):
with people in KAH workforce development roles or roles, let's say,
roles that have you know, an important aspect of workforce
development within them, coach development within them. Most roles do
(00:53):
to be fair, whether people think that will not know
whether it's explicit or not. Most roles do you know
unless your most of the stuff that you do is
going to be done, you know, through process or machine,
(01:13):
which is possible to Most roles involve people, and most
roles involve people supporting other people in developing other people
a one way or another, and therefore it's important that
you know, so they do have that kind of a
function within them. So but one of that specifically though,
(01:37):
people tasked specifically with developing people workforce development, developing the
people who make up the support workforce, sport physical activity workforce,
you know, the people who provide physical activity experiences in
(01:57):
another industry, they'd be called, you know, the service livery.
You know. So these are the people who interface directly
with the people who are having an experience, you know,
whether they're turning up through greef exercise class or they're
going to you know, have a coaching session because they're
on a talent development journey or whatever it might be.
(02:19):
There is somebody who is guiding that journey one where another,
and there's a human on human interaction and a lot
of discussion around ways that we could do that better.
The recognition that providing the basics in the form of
(02:41):
qualifications really is substandard and not enough and necessary but
not sufficient, as they often say, and what that involves
and how we go about it now. One of the
(03:02):
biggest challenges that many of these people face, and the
kinds of conversations I'm having with them nearly always stem
from the fact that the people who lead them really
don't have very much appreciation for what it is that
they do. That comes with all sorts of problems. Often
(03:27):
they're under resource and if you look at coach education
or coach development or workforce development teams within most organizations,
you will usually see that they are a relatively small
proportion of the overall you know, kind of body of
(03:48):
an organization, and that's obviously quite challenging and difficult. Equally
so human resource and resource, financial resource under resource. Just
look at some budget profiles of organizations and see how
much as allocated towards UH coach development, workforce development. Usually
(04:09):
quite a small amount, very often nothing. In some cases,
let's start from a deficit, and the idea is that
you know that particular function needs to make money and
generate revenue in order to get back to a mill point,
which is a very very odd way of working through
a budget. But you know there are some models to it.
(04:32):
I'm not an accountant or a finance person, so I
wouldn't necessarily know. They might do some rassi alfer that,
but anyway, still the allocation given limited to UH limited
human resource, limited finances, and limited support. And this is
probably the most important one. And I refer to this
(04:56):
as this is the eighth waste H So friend of mine, well,
I sent friend of mine to took me onto this
went to work for Toyota, and Toyota are famous for
having their management principles, and Bruce spent hours talking about
this stuff and fascinated by it. It's since gone on
(05:20):
to become a likely and coaching consultant and talks about,
you know, waste reduction because Toyota are obsessed with waste
production and toot to have a well, it's a principle
within Japanese society, I think, but so To in particular
have adopted it which is about waste, and they often
(05:41):
refer to it as muda. There are different forms of waste, murda, mouri,
and mura. I don't know what they all necessarily mean,
but one of the things I know about about muda
as a as a form of wat is has often
referred to seven wastes. I'm definitely not going to be
at a list of all, but the kinds of things that
(06:03):
come under the waist are things like overproduction, inventory, having
things sat on shells, taking up space. That's wasteful. You
want it to come in and go out and come
in and be used as when it's required in a
just in time kind of way. Travel, you know, stuff
being transported, Transportation transported from one place to a next
(06:27):
is wasteful. Under production, not having things ready on time,
holding things back, all that sort of stuff. So it's
all very processing in very machinery based and sort of
manufacturing driven, but they often refer to an eighth waist,
and the eighth waist is the potentular people, and in
(06:51):
many ways, within the sort of sort of total production
system and total management system, the eighth waist is seen
as the big waste because the potential of people is
seen as limitless, and as a result, one of the
things that people talk about is like, you know, if
(07:14):
you do not enable your people to achieve their maximum,
then that becomes a major problem. Now, of course, this
is all within the boundaries of you know, kind of
possibility and resources and all those sorts of things, but nonetheless,
you know, it's very wasteful not to enable the people
(07:36):
who are essentially essential to the functioning of an organization.
Let's think of it. An organization is just a collective
of people, and not enabling those people to operate at
their optimal is a huge level of waste and something
that is you know, unconscionable really, you know, shouldn't be
(07:56):
really allowed, and to do our level best to ensure
that we reduce it. Now, when I talk about waste
in these terms, i'm talking about waste from the perspective
of well, when I talk about potential is I'm not
necessarily talking about athlete in this context, although that is
(08:18):
still important. Money I'm talking about muh sorry, sorry, and
so uh yeah. So when I'm talking about waste, I'm
talking about people not being able or having like limitations
(08:47):
placed on them by virtue of systems and processes and
inadequate support and development. That means that they can only do,
you know, a quarter of what they could do or
something similar. And this applies to workforce leads, so people
(09:10):
who are given a role within an organization two develop people.
So this could be somebody doing learning and developments. This
could be somebody doing you know, in a different kind
of organization. This could be somebody you know doing education,
coach education training. It could be you know, any member
(09:32):
of the workforce training and this, that and the other.
And the problem they often have is is that you know,
they would we tend to go because we're limited by
resources and limited in terms of our imagination. We tend
to go for things that are like sort of efficient
over things that are effective. And I think it was
(09:56):
piece of Drucker, the famous management consultant, said that I
think is more wasteful than doing something really efficiently that
should never have been done in the first place. So,
in the context of waste, sometimes our drive for things
doing things that are efficient efficients are at the expense
(10:16):
of doing things that are effective. And to somebody in
a workforce role, that's really important to know, you know,
because you need to articulate for resources in the finite.
In the world of finite resources, you know, you need
to sort of compete with others for resources, and you
(10:37):
need to make the case that you know, an investment
in your space is going to yield better results. Of course,
is if you think in a very kind of neoliberal
way about human development, which a lot of organizations and
leaders of organizations do. Sadly, they're either thinking about the
(10:59):
bottom line and actually or they're thinking about the bottom
line from a you know, a numbers perspective participation numbers,
which is linked to funding very often, or they're thinking
about the bottom line in terms of medals, you know.
And so this articulation that we often make in work
(11:19):
force roles is that you know, we're going to do
it better. We're going to develop people who are developing people,
and we're going to do it better. And the question
is often how, how are you going to do it better?
And what difference is it going to make it? And
what we often do in answers to that question is
(11:40):
we delve into the how and the why. It's really
important to us that you understand how, because like the
how is then when you get the how, the the
what becomes and the why, but the what becomes obvious.
Like so when somebody articulates that, you know, what we're
(12:03):
not going to do is we're not going to just
do like a load of qualifications that you know, are
really giving to colons the basics and then leave them
to their own devices and not let them understand what
it is they need to do and you know, and
how they're going to have an impact and all those
sorts of things and deal with the complexity that you know,
we don't we're not doing that. We're gonna do something
else which is gonna be much more engaging and supportive.
(12:25):
We're going to provide people to be in situ and
they're going to guide them on the journey and it's
going to make a big difference. And we sort of
just explain all that and go, yeah, so that can
be way better in it, you get all these plank
faces think what, why don't you get that? They're obvious,
like you understand we're going to do that and how
(12:48):
we're going to do it with you know, people in
situ and because of everyone just goes, yeah, what, I
don't get it? And it is so dispiriting, it's so
demotivating when people don't understand that doing it differently it's
going to lead to transformation. It's like it's obvious, it's
(13:11):
self evident, but it isn't. Because if you live in
a world, if you're a leader, and you live in
a world where you're very very constrained in what you're thinking,
and also you're constrained in terms of what you what
(13:36):
you think you can achieve, then you'll find yourself in
a situation where you find yourself in a situation where
you know you're not necessarily thinking you haven't got time
to think about the how, you know you haven't got
time to think about that. And also when you look
(13:58):
at it, you think, well, actually, that's gonna be way
more costly. You're not going to be able to do
it at scale. You know, yes, it's going to be
deeper and richer and these people's experiences are going to
be far better, and you know, and you know, lots
of like, really, what difference will that make over and
above doing what we need to do we're doing now.
Plus importantly, it sounds like it's going to be a
(14:19):
lot of money at the expense of the income stream
that we've got from the inefficient yet necessary qualification stuff
we're doing. So why don't we just keep doing the
call stuff, you know, which has got the income stream
against it. And their thinking is so narrow, but that's
(14:41):
fine because that's their job. The job is to think
about the organization in terms of outputs largely, you know,
and I've said when I've been working with these people,
if you think about it in those terms and think
about the way that people are is they're really focus
from pretty much two things. I'm probably over sympathizing it,
(15:03):
but it probably is. It's not far from this is,
you know, what is going to drive the performance outcomes
of the organization, the outputs. And this is even the
most forward thinking and progressive leaders unfortunately are driven to
this because it's the nature of the environment that they
(15:27):
operate with in so, you know, so this is not
an attack on the people themselves. This is a criticism
and a critique of the environments that they operate within.
And there is a big question as the weather sport
should be subjected to the ideals or the concepts of neoliberalism.
(15:51):
But unfortunately, neoliberalists, neoliberalist ideas around economics, you know, which
is about growth production, you know, to be exclusion often
of the resources of the planet and the resources of
the people within it are is very still, very very ubilitous.
We can have a bigger debate one day about what
we think about that kind of idea, but nonetheless, capitalist
(16:15):
ideas and neoliberal ideas around growth are very very endemic
within the sports world, and so the leaders who are
operate in those spaces, who are there making decisions about
how they alephic resources, will make decisions based on those things.
And you know, there either thinking, right, what is this
(16:37):
going to do in terms of outputs? You know, is
it going to increase participation in numbers? Is it going
to increase memberships, is it going to increase income? Or
on the other side of things, and it's becoming more important,
is it going to stop me going to jail? Now
what I mean by that is, are you going to
do something that is going to be to prevent of
(17:01):
harm happening, which would then reduce the likelihood of you know,
adverse acts taking place, safeguarding issues and being in place
all those sorts of things which would then lead to
you know, a governance breakdown and that individual either losing
their job or maybe being taken to court and all
those sorts of things. You know, so broadly, if you
(17:23):
want to really summarize those few things, you know, is
any of this going to satisfy the board of the
organization that I'm doing a good job, or if it's
somebody's likely lower down, you know, is this going to
satisfy the CEO who is thinking about what the board
is thinking? And the board's primary responsibility is to ensure
(17:48):
that the organization, you know, the does not having a
reputational damage and is it runs in a appropriate way
so that it's you know, it doesn't transgress laws and
legislation and works sort of ethically and within its boundaries.
And also is you know, financially sustainable for already speaking,
(18:08):
what cards do and that's what CEOs are appointed to do.
And ceo don't do that, then they get up or
you know, if in the case of something really quite egregious,
sometimes they find themselves in legal hot water. So when
you think about an individual in the leadership role who
is very often constrained by those kinds of ideas, then
(18:35):
it's becomes very challenging, isn't it. When you're somebody who believes,
you know, you think on a human level, and actually
you're thinking you very passionately about the people that are,
you know, providing experiences, and their experience really matters to you,
(18:56):
and providing them with better support experience means that they're
going to have a better experiencehich will lead to better
experiences for the for the part, for the end, for
the participants. That really matters to us. It really does,
And when people don't get that, it's really dispiriting. We
can't fathom why people wouldn't get that. We can't fathom.
(19:18):
But actually we want those people to care about what
we care about because we believe it to be like
the most fundamental and important thing. We believe it to
be that. And I still think it is true, and
I still think leaders in organizations need to see that
because most of the problems that they face. If they
(19:40):
were to look at their corporate risk register or their
profit and loss statements would be down to people one
way or another. And I know, and I've been in
organizations where the leaders look at the people purely as
a cost center. You know, we're not making enough money.
We've got to get rid of some people because they're
(20:01):
a cost. We never look at the people as what
it is that they produce and what it is they're
capable of and could they be capable of more So,
instead of looking at the bottom line and going, we're
not making as much money as we were, we need
to reduce a cost. Since they're turning around and saying,
what is it that we're doing that is meaning that
our people are underproducing or not delivering in that way
(20:27):
as well as they could be. Is there something we
could do by investing in them that would get better production?
If this is the way that you want to think,
you know, and in a sporting context, you know that
might be why aren't we winning medals, for example, or
why aren't we seeing better caliber athletes come into our
talent pathway? Or why aren't we seeing participation growth? Right well?
(20:50):
With memberships have dropped, right, We've got to reduce our
cost base so let's saying that what is it about
what's happening within our people in our system that we
could do that would increase our membership, grow it, invest
rather than cut. And these are debates that often happen,
and these are questions that are raised regularly about which
is the best way to go. And you know, sometimes
(21:11):
you've got to reduce costs in order to sometimes you've
got to reduce costs and all that sort of stuff.
But this is just the nature of our corporate commercial
operators work. And this is the life of a leader.
And you know, there's many organizations I work with where
I'm either sitting on the boards or I'm actually working
with the executive teams. And that is just a fact
of life and a reality and there's no two ways
around it. But rarely do I think and do I
(21:33):
see organizations who see beyond some of that stuff and
really start to think about it. And I believe we,
as worked force leads have a responsibility and we need
to think differently. And the reason we need to do
this is because if this is how people are thinking,
for us to say to them, you need to think
(21:53):
more like us. Well, A we're dreaming. It's not going
to happen. The constraints that those people are operating within
will not allow them to think like this. And secondly,
it's arrogant. That's what they tay us for. We we
get you know, we get paid to think about the
people side of things, yes, and be experts in it
(22:16):
and do that thinking, But we don't necessarily get paid
to get the other people to do the thing the
same thinking. That's not the wife I would take need us.
But also like, why would they necessarily do that. They
don't spend their days thinking like us. That's not how
they work. And so what we need to do is
(22:40):
work with work with these people, right and and talk
in their language. So instead of talking about how we're
going to do something, talk about what it will what
it will produce. So, for example, instead of me saying, oh,
(23:00):
I'm going to provide this, you know, kind of this
much more integrated training model and learning and development model
which will have sort of you know, multi modeal opportunities
for development. You know, a combination of technology driven e learning,
a combination of support, a combination of physical support webinars,
(23:25):
creating this entire support community that will enable our people
to really thrive and operate and all those sorts of things.
And I'm also going to provide a better assessment framework
so that we know who's doing what and what they're
capable of doing. And that's the sestiment framework going to
be really dynamic because it's going to enable people to
be identified to work with specific audience groups, and we'll
(23:46):
be able to sort of do a matching service so
that we get the right people coaching the right people
in the right place at the right time to do
any of that. Not interested blah blah blah, noise noise, noise,
white noise, don't care. The way we come with that
is to say, I have an education, I have a
(24:07):
proposal in place that will reduce the amount of inbound
complaints coming in to the organization by parents and stakeholders
and other things that are about the actions of people
who are within the coaching workforce, who are qualified and
trained by us, and therefore those people perceive that we
(24:30):
are responsible for their combat and word usually about fifty percent. Now,
I know organizations out there that their complaints handling process
now is costing them millions millions, and you know, in
danger of bankrupting the organizations in many cases and so actually,
if you could say I'm going to reduce that by
(24:52):
half by any resources to do so, wow, you've got
an amazing change. You've got You've got somebody interested on.
Or if you were to say, I have a proposal
on the table that will increase the income from our
workforce development initiatives generated by let's say another fifty whatever
(25:18):
it is, will increase the income and deliver a way
more effective workforce experience for the people in our community,
which will reduce complaints. Now you're interested, and in some
respects if I was a study, I'll go, okay, I
(25:38):
trusted topicker. Come back to me in the year and
show where you got to what you need. But again
it might ask ask to ask a few more questions.
You know, it's okay, tell me more, tell me more.
I mean, one of the reasons I'm desperate, you know,
I'm desperate to get to support people in these roles
(25:58):
is because I want to help them be able to
make this case. I want to see what difference it
can make. You know, I have done it. I've done
it in my own environment and I've done it with
other people, just to you know, test the water to
a certain extent, and I've had those conversations with executive
teams myself, and that's the kind of opening gamble and
everybody stands up and goes, okay, tell me more. Now
(26:20):
I'm interested, right because you've set it up, You've set
up that, you've set up what the goal is, you
know what's going to be achieved. Then people are interested
in that house. And I've made this mistake hundreds of
times because I'm somebody who loves contexts, you know, I'm
it's the nature of the way my brain is wired that,
(26:41):
you know, I want to tell everybody the big story
about everything you know that's going on and everything else,
because I said me, that's the most important piece. And
I do this all the time. So probably found it
in my podcast rambles that you get to the points
view and it's just the way my mind with I
(27:02):
get really frustrated sometimes when I do it the other
way around, and you know, you've put something up in
front and people go, well, that won't work, Well why
not because of biness? Almost Well, if you'd let me
explain the context, do you, then you know, if you
do understand that we've thought about But anyway, so be
it is what it is anyway. The what I'm trying
(27:26):
to say is so the eighth waste, the the lack
of the sorry, the potential of people, wasting the potential
of people. Everywhere I love we waste the potential of people.
But none so not not as not none so there
(27:49):
in nowhere do I see it more than in the
people in roles to build systems and build leadership roles.
Our in leadership roles are around workforce developments within organizations
who have given very little support to do so and
are told, you know, just deliver an outcome. Deliver an outcome.
(28:12):
And my job is to enable them to not only
make the case, but also to help and support them
on that developmental journey and to be the ear, to
be the thinking partner, to be the wayfinder to a
certain extent, to be the person who cares, to be
(28:32):
the person who actually they can talk to and they
can actually say and ye know, I want to do this,
and I'm thinking about that, and I go, oh, that's
a really good idea. I think that's great. And you
know what, if we need this right, we could maybe
even make it even better. That's what I exist to do.
That's what I love to do. Now. Often that happens
(28:52):
because I start working on projects and then the people
come to me and we start to develop a relationship.
Then this is where the conversations go. And if that
how it works, no problem. You know, we can do
it that way. But you know, I don't mind it
that way. But that's fundamentally whenever I do this kind
of work, it always ends up with me working with people,
(29:15):
supporting those people, guiding those people, and giving them the
support they probably don't get from their leadership. But some
of that is partly because I say to them, let's
just give the people what they need so that they
can make the decisions that they need to make without
given lots of the context, and satisfy ourselves with our
work and satisfy ourselves with the fact that we have
(29:36):
done our job in order to serve the people that
we care about morning and that's very great satisfaction. Not
because and this is where the dispiriting and the most
fripping thing is is that I've longed in my career
to work for somebody who's got it. It's happened very,
very very rarely, but it work for someone who really
values what you do and understands what you do and
(29:58):
the impact it can have. And when you don't work,
when you don't work for somebody who values what you do,
it becomes really demotivating because it's really bloody hard. But
let's also understand that they don't have the capability or
the capacity to be able to understand what we do.
(30:20):
So satisfy ourselves that we're doing our best job by
ensuring that our leaders can get the bits that they need,
serve them what they need, so that we can serve
the people that we serve, and then they can and
then we can enhance their capability and their potential. So
not easy, Definitely not easy. And it's taken me a
(30:43):
long time to learn how to do this, lots of
pain and anguish and again, so this is one of
the reasons I set up this agency is so that
you know, I can help others who are suffering and
in need and find, you know, find it differ to
be able to make progress in this way, and if
(31:05):
I can help them, then that's what I seek to do. Anyway,
there you go, and you know this might apply in
lots of different contexts, but they go, that's my morning rambles.
Hope some of this makes some sense for you and resonates.
If it does, I really appreciate it if you could
(31:27):
share it with anybody who think might be of interest,
anybody in the network you know, share it publicly, share
it privately, share it publicly, share it privately, you know,
whatever way you want to go. If you know there's
somebody out there who think can do with some help,
I'd really appreciate it if you were to share it
with them and get in touch. You can hit up
(31:48):
on my website and you can you can book a
free consultation on the website. I've got a thirty minute consultation.
You can just book it. Find time on my diary.
We can have a chat. You can find out a bit
more about you know, what's going on, and if I
can't help, I'll probably know someone who can, and I'll
be open about that. You know, not everything, so I've
got I've got everything in my skill set, you know,
(32:11):
and like wife, please please share and promote the podcast
because it's, you know, an important lifeline I think for
a lot of people. I get a lot of emails
from people you know saying that it's having a positive
effect and it's supporting them helping them make sense themselves
because you know they work through some of these challenges
on a daily basis. So yeah, please please share it
(32:33):
with people, subscribe if if you'd like, that would be
great as well, because obviously viewership grows. Actually, if you
want to spend some time with me learning, then there
are two groups to join. One is a Practitioners group,
which is the Guild of Ecological Explorers, people from all
(32:55):
over the globe and range of different sports and physical
activity settings coming together to learn from each other and
with me, and I bring guests on from time to
time and we generally kind of work together on the
problems that we face and co create solutions. And then
there's another group that I'm establishing, and I'd be really
interested if you're interested in joining, please let me know
(33:17):
because it's still a concept at the moment, which is
called I'm calling it the Cobbler's Children, which is a
reference to the cobbler who've made the finest shoes, but
the children weren't therefore spending all his time helping others,
and he never looked after him and his own And
that's a metaphor for the people in these roles helping
(33:38):
everybody else and not looking after each other. So the
idea behind the group is that it's the learning group
for people in these kinds of roles to be able
to share experiences and come together, support each other and
maybe find some solutions or other people who might be
capable of finding sometions. So there you go. That's me done,
(34:05):
have a great week, Speak soon, m mm hmm.
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