HR Transformer Blog

Why England Lose - Talent Management Insights from Football

For England fans the World Cup is sadly over, our ears have recovered from the din of Vuvuzelas, and once again the England team has fallen from its precipice of unrealistic expectations.

The question of the day is “Why do England lose?”

To answer this, rather than ask the usual football pundits, we look to our ‘dismal’ friends the economists. Usually found researching and thinking about stagflation, economic stimulus and other boring stuff, when they turn their inquisitive minds to football, we discovered some interesting insights. From their findings we have identified some broader talent management lessons.

“Why England Lose: And other curious phenomena explained” is a book by Simon Kuper who writes a weekly sports column in the Financial Times and Stefan Szymanski, a Professor of Economics and MBA Dean at Cass Business School in London. The book draws on geography, economics, statistics and psychology.

The answer to the question of why England lose at football, is of course - they don’t. The authors did some number crunching on historical data of football games and using regression analysis determined how much of a given outcome (winning football games) can be related to a other factors (wealth, population size, footballing experience, home advantage). The authors suggest that England are in fact over-performing.

The authors came up with some interesting findings about football, which we think poses some interesting lessons for management and in particular talent management. Sport played at the highest level really hones management techniques as every win and loss is played out in public. Getting the most out of your people is crucial, with small differences in individual performance making or breaking a season (and of course a towns’ collective heart).

The authors also looked to case studies of teams that have had great success, they looked for structural reasons rather than individual greatness or prowess.

Some lessons come from Olympique Lyon, who have progressed from a relatively obscure provincial club to rule French football, winners of Ligue 1 from 2001/2 until 2007/8. In England in 1979/1980, this occured with Nottingham Forest (before then even less known in football terms than Lyon) who won consecutive European Cups with the footballing management duo Bryan Clough and Peter Taylor. More recently there are lessons from another modern French thinker of football, Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal Manager.

The authors highlighted 12 main secrets of the football transfer market, and from these we have pulled out 8 broader talent management lessons for you :-

1 - A new manager wastes money. Typically the new manager wants to make their mark by buying and selling players. This is usually disruptive to the team, with the manager unlikely to stay around long enough for this tactic to pay dividends. Would you let your new Executive ‘hire and fire’ and bring in their own team in the first few weeks? Or get them to utilise the existing resources, understand their strengths and weaknesses before filling capability gaps to match your strategy?

2 - Stars of recent World Cups are overvalued. You can pick the player who dazzles for their country in the big tournament, playing for their national pride, but will they deliver on a cold, wet evening in Blackburn in November? A new recruit is “only as good as their last project” this cliché is simply not true. Don’t be dazzled by the last project – look for a consistent pattern of performance.

3 - Centre-Forwards are overvalued – goalkeepers are undervalued. Do you have to pay more for some roles because you are told you have to pay more for that particular ‘in demand’ new skill? Isn’t it more important to get the best people who delivery the core elements and pay them appropriately? Don’t be blinded by the flashy or those who ‘talk a good game’ – you might find it’s the goalkeeper who really keeps the company moving forward (and stops those painful own goals!)

4 - Use the wisdom of crowds. When Olympique Lyon think about signing a player, a broad group debate the transfer. In England it’s usually the manager. The more collaborative system has proved to be successful and tends to avoid the typical mistakes in the transfer market. How can you benefit from the wisdom of crowds in recruitment, and implement a process where different views are taken into account?

5 - Gentleman prefer blondes. At least one big British football club noticed that their scouts recommended more blonde players – apparently in a field of 22 similar looking players, the blondes tend to stand out. The club in question began to take this distortion into account when judging scouting reports. Sport is all about improving performance - there is no point in excluding a section of the population if they give your team advantages. An example quoted by the authors is a decline in racism against black footballers since the 1970s. So you may have a diversity policy and track demographic data religiously – but are you missing out on the breadth of talent that can help your organisation really shine? Identify and abandon your organisation ‘sight-based prejudices’ and look for systematic failures – rather than individual mistakes.

6 - Replace your best players even before you sell them. Do you wait for your trusty Finance Director to decide that it’s now time to spend more time in the garden or with the grand children? Have a succession management plan in place, so when the big day comes (and retirement is the nicest option here), you have someone who can fill the boots of the star players.

7 - Buy players with personal problems, and then help them deal with their problems. Brian Clough and Peter Taylor were great football thinkers, they had their vices and this possibly gave them particular empathy with troubled players. Once they identified a ‘more challenging’ player’s issue, they helped that player manage it. Their motivation might have been altruistic, but the outcome was they got much better value out of the transfer market and better results. In football the attitude has been “we pay you a lot of money now get on with it” – as if mental illness, addictions, or homesickness should not exist above a certain level of income. The modern attitude of Arsene Wenger also helped Tony Adams through his own recover from alcoholism, see Adam's charity, Sporting Chance. We are not suggesting you make “personal problems” one of your recruitment selection criteria, but this is a real issue in maintaining a healthy workplace. According to the 2001 World Health Organisation, one person in four will suffer from a mental health problem at some point in their life. There is an ethical and strong business case for helping employees who are having a hard time. See the CIPD Factsheet - Mental Health at Work.

8 - Help your players relocate. Why spend £24 million on a new member of staff and then let them fend for themselves in a Hotel in a new country. Clough and Taylor found that many transfers failed because of problems off the pitch. Use relocation consultants or find some way of integrating new joiners into their new role in your organisation. Didier Drogba spent months in a hotel looking for somewhere to live after training with Chelsea, how much faster would he have assumed his current form if his move, six years ago, had been better managed?

Before we blow the final whistle, here is our final thought – if we can learn something from football management, what can football management learn from talent management practices in other businesses?

Top 10 HR Transformation Articles in May

May brought a new coalition government in the UK – will this bring in a new era of collaboration and compromise? And if it does, how will the next generation of social media tools enable us to reach out to a broader and more diverse group of individuals ? Our first link below includes two videos which address this.

With painful cuts being made to many industry sectors, cost effective recruiting is important. Which poses the question, if you only had one recruiting tool to use, which would it be? Speaking of questions, one of favourite HR Bloggers, Sharlyn Lauby, aka HR Bartender, recently interviewed one of our favourite academics, Professor David Ulrich. Sharlyn asks Professor Ulrich what his favourite tipple is, with a refreshing response. What question would you ask the guru of HR Transformation? From academics to the HR bloggers, we’ve listed the best for you, and also cover the rapidly changing HR Outsourcing industry, keeping down the costs of ERP implementation, some career management tips and finally some much needed humour.

We hope you enjoy the articles, and get in touch with any Top 10 articles ideas @AndySpence on Twitter.

1. Two superb videos charting social change next generation social media - from Andy Headworth, Sirona Says Blog

Social Media is important in transforming HR and people management. This article has two superb videos on next Generation Media, from an excellent blog. Andy always has a finger on the pulse of new developments in social media and recruitment.

2. Interview with David Ulrich - from Sharlyn Lauby, HR Bartender

It is great to see Professor David Ulrich using social media with an online Q&A with Sharlyn at the HR Bartender blog. David is promoting his new book written with his wife, Wendy, called the “Why of Work”.

“We almost all seek meaning in one way or another. It is a universal need to have a life worth living. An abundant organization is where meaning is created for the individual, value is created for those the organization serves, and hope is offered to humanity.”

We now have the ultimate HR Transformer to follow on Twitter @Dave_Ulrich (and have updated our lists detailed on HR Transformers on Twitter)

3. If you only had one source to find candidates - from Boolean Black Belt

The question is “if you were limited to only 1 method/specific source for identifying candidates to contact, engage and recruit, which would you choose, and why? “ Follow the link to find out the responses which say a lot about how social media is transforming People Management.

4. Go Lean: Minimize customizations and reduce overall TCO in Oracle ERP implementation (Part 1) - from Infosys Oracle Blog

IT project implementations do not have a good record of delivering on time and to budget. Here are some good tips about minimising ERP customisations and reducing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). This team are Oracle experts, but the lessons apply to other applications. Also of interest, check out our Top 5 Reasons HR Projects Fail.

5. HRO Market update - from Linda Merritt, HRO Insights - Nelson Hall

Here is a good overview of the HR Outsourcing market from Nelson Hall’s blog, HRO Insights. “The HRO provider financials reporting season for the first quarter of 2010 ended kind of flat”. As predicted on the HR Transformer Blog, we have had more consolidation in the HRO industry, see the link for the latest acquisition, ACS (now combined with Xerox) buys Excellerate HRO from HP. HP lost their appetite for this market, a shame as the industry could do with HP’s experience of ‘commoditizing’ HR services. It will be interesting to see how ACS develops Excellerate HROs technology platform in the future.

6. New SaaS/HRO service from Caliber Point - from Information Week

A new SaaS/HRO Service has been launched by the techies at Caliber Point. Rupublic is a multi-tenanted HR Platform, available as Software as a Service (SaaS), based on the latest Oracle HR Software, with a HR Outsourcing service. For some organisations this could be a dream solution – no technology maintenance overheads or systems administrators plus variable costing. Contact us if you want a more detailed view of the pros and cons of this new service.

7. Top 50 HR Blogs to watch in 2010 - from Evan Carmichael
For those who have read the HR Transformer Blog and still want to read more interesting articles on HR and Talent, we add two links to recent Top HR Bloggers lists, put together by Fistful of Talent and Evan Carmichael – some good reads here including links to our favourite bloggers. Spot any HR Transformers?

8. Managing Tomorrow Today - from Mary Ann Downey at i4cp

“The Future ain’t what it used to be”. The trend-watchers at i4cp reviewed one of their original articles from 2000 on the role of futurism in business strategy, in particular HR. Here they note the progress made over the last 10 years, with some useful recommendations.

9. 10 career management tips in the age of job fear - from Lance Haun, Rehaul
Here are 10 Career Management Tips from Lance’s Rehaul blog, it’s always worth reflecting on where we are heading in any economic environment. This includes the intriguing advice "Don’t be a lurker or a slug"

10. One FTE
And finally - we have to end on a funny one which brightened up our day, thanks to Laurie @PunkRockHR for this tip on Twitter. 1.00 FTE - a very dry look at corporate life, check out their Top 10.

Top 10 HR Transformation Articles in April

April has been a bumper month for a good selection of HR Transformation related articles, from using 6 Sigma in recruitment, optimising your HR Shared Services, to how the iPad can help HR.
Here is a a leading question, 'Are Performance Management appraisals the Great Evil?' Election fever is gripping the UK and the main political parties are locking horns in a final show down. The last three articles here deal with UK Government policies including a comparison of the main parties manifestos on skills and training.

1. 6 Sigma Recruiting - from Jason Buss, The Talent Buzz

6-Sigma can work in HR when used in the right context, with the right skills. It works really well with higher volume for repeatable processes like recruitment. In the right hands, the results are dramatic and can pay for your Black Belt many times over. This article also includes a useful slide deck.

2. HR Shared Services Optimisation: Attaining the full potential of HR Shared Services - from Outsourcing World

This is a good post about how to get the most out of HR Shared Services. You have gone through the blood, sweat and tears of getting the model working, so what do you do next? Here are 10 excellent ideas and suggested initiatives. Find out more about “leaner, not meaner HR” and “HR orphans”.

3. 5 ways to torpedo your next HR sale - from Mark Stelzner, Inflexion Advisors
We often facilitate vendor evaluations for HR Services and we've seen lots of pitches over the years ranging from the incredible to the incredulous, to the downright dreadful. This is a candid post which outlines the ways HR vendors can “fail spectacularly”.   Do you recognise any of these “torpedos” ? We do too.

4. Workday and the unspoken benefits of SaaS - from Phil Wainewright, ZDNet
This is a good article about Software as a Service (SaaS).

“Our estimate is Workday is at least 25%, perhaps 50% cheaper than on-premise competitors Oracle or SAP, mainly due to the simpler implementation and process configuration of the Workday solution.” according to Aviva.

Cost is one of many issues when considering future HR Tech options, but the above statement is a powerful claim. What does your IT Director think about SaaS ?

5. How the iPad Can Change HR - from Jason Corsello, KI OnDemand
Is an iPad a big iPod or a laptop with a big screen? I am not sure because I am still waiting for my evaluation copy. (subtle hint to Apple)

Large proportions of the workforce in retail & manufacturing industries have limited access to PCs. In the design of HR Operating models a big challenge is how to get these employees to access HR service channels, including self-service HR applications and tools to manage vacancies, book courses and update personal info.

We need to use all the ‘pull factors’ we can to get employees to use HR services and providing a few iPads could be worth considering for certain groups of. Jason outlines examples from streamlining mundane and repetitive forms, interactive training, performance management and perhaps the area with most potential ‘mobilising HR’.

6. Performance Evaluations: "The Great Evil"? - from Mike Haberman, HR Observations Blog
Is Performance Management The Great Evil? Systems Thinkers think so and it would seem that many employees think so too. Does the effort pay off and should HR focus their efforts on other initiatives to improve employee performance?

"This corporate sham is one of the most insidious, most damaging, and yet most ubiquitous of corporate activities. Everybody does it, and almost everyone who's evaluated hates it. It's a pretentious, bogus practice that produces absolutely nothing that any thinking executive should call a corporate plus." Quoted in the article from authors Samual A. Culbert and Lawerence Rout.

Strong words indeed, but a thought provoking article and interesting discussion which represents different views on the subject.

7. If eLearning is still not seen as effective – how will social learning take off?- from Martin Couzins, XpertHR
eLearning has proven to be a cost-effective way to deliver training in certain areas and the potential for Social Learning is great given the tools, connectivity and knowledge we now have at our fingertips.

However a recent survey by CIPD, on UK Training methods, found that eLearning was floundering at the bottom of the pile on 12% (it was 7% in 2009). Martin asks a really good question, if eLearning is still not seen as effective – how will social learning take off?
Another question for us is :- if eLearning is a cost-effective way to deliver training, why isn't it used more by organisations?

8. Election 2010 Briefing – skills and training - from CIPD
The UK election is on May 6th, but when choosing which party to vote for, how important are their policies on Skills and Training?

To grow the economy, enabling the workforce with the right skills and training is absolutely key.   This is a useful three page summary of the main parties manifestos on skills and training. It includes apprenticeships, youth unemployment and internships.

9. Don’t bank on efficiency savings - from Flip Chart Fairy Tales
The Conservatives say they can get £12 billion more efficiency savings out of the UK public sector than the government has claimed.    “Back-office efficiencies” are proposed by all politicians to reduce the deficit to a more manageable level. Rick points out the problem with efficiency savings is that they are "probably unachievable". Developing a realistic business case is difficult work but Rick suggsts the politicians need a reality check. For more on HR efficiencies in the public sector, see our article about Government Benchmarks – a Government Health Warning.

10. HR Transformation in Local Government - from Nicola Grimshaw, director at Digby Morgan writing in Changeboard
This is a good article about HR Transformation trends in UK Local Government. It picks up on trends in collaborative working, headcount freezes and outsourcing. Nicola reckons that 75% of all local authorities are in the process of adopting an Ulrich style HR Operating Model.

We hope you enjoyed our latest and greatest HR Transformation Articles for April.

Many thanks for the feedback for our Top 10 HR Transformation Articles from March, as always we would welcome any suggested articles, or follow us on Twitter @AndySpence.