People & Strategy Winter 2015 Vol. 38 Issue 1 - 53

THOUGHTLEADERS
and stuff of that nature, are important. And
mutual support: I don't feel like my team
members are trying to stab me in the back. I
feel quite the opposite, that they've got my
back!
Culture is the overall context for climate. Our
culture is always in the background, and climate is in the foreground. You can have an
effect on climate in 24 hours. If people feel
tomorrow much clearer about what's expected of them and they do it today, that's you
perfecting climate. So, that's this part of the
system, thinking where the major effort needs
to be made.

MB: Are there system-level effects that can
constrain or enable a climate? I recall a global company where managers were famous
internally for deflecting blame upwards. For
example, during the annual performance and
salary review cycle, your manager would convince you that you, personally, were gold. But
management had tied his or her hands with
a forced distribution on performance scores
and a tiny allocation for increases and bonuses. That found its way into upward feedback
survey results where the message at every job
role level was, "I love my manager but I hate
management." Taking that as an example of
a system-level constraint, what does senior
management need to be thinking about in
terms of making the organization healthier?

The healthy organization is one where the chief
executive officer and the chief human resource officer
get along and work together.

WWB: The reward system is a good example.
It is the most important because people do
what they are rewarded for doing and that's
one of only two or three truths in psychology!
I think though that too many managers, too
many executives think that reward has to do
with money and so it's the financial incentive
that drives the way of thinking about rewards
rather than helping a person to change their
job to another job that's more challenging,
one they would see as fun, that would take
more advantage of their skills, and so forth.
That can be extremely rewarding.
There is just too much emphasis on the dollars and not enough emphasis on helping
people enjoy their work life better and enjoying their work life better would mean having
just a very interesting job and having opportunities for movement in the organization to
other jobs that are interesting and exciting,
without necessarily it being a promotion.
That's a gap as far as I'm concerned with
respect to how people think about rewards.

I'm amazed at how people in the corporate
world don't consider a brief sabbatical as a
reward and how we in academia do-that's
one of the reasons we stay in academia.

MB: Is it still one sabbatical every seven
years?
WWB: Yes, that's right. It's very biblical; it's
every seventh year. An old colleague and
friend of mine used to say there are four wonderful things about being a professor:
sabbaticals, and June, July, and August! In
other words, time is precious, and giving
people a little more flexibility with respect to
how they use their time and providing time
for reflection and learning can go a very long
way with respect to building a healthier organization in general, and providing flexibility
with respect to a reward process. In corporations, a sabbatical can be one month-and
that makes a difference. I have talked to
people about what a difference it makes.
The other thing I would want to emphasize
is-and this has to do with a broader concept
than rewards but it can be very, very rewarding-the need to operate more and more on
a team basis so that people are not in isolated
positions in terms of their daily jobs, but are
perceived that what they are doing is a part
of a group effort. The reward process of that
can be, "I'm part of something that's bigger
than I am and more important than just what
I do," and it's related to six other people that
have offices close by, for example.
It is pretty clear now that the way to determine the effectiveness of a person in a position
of leadership is not so much what that person
does on a daily basis but what that person's
followers accomplish. So, leadership, in my
judgment, should be measured much more in
terms of what the leader's people do, not so
much in terms of what the leader does.
You pay attention to what the leader does, of
course, but the major objective with respect
to making decisions about selecting a reward
VOLUME 38/ISSUE 1 - 2015

People & Strategy Winter 2015 Vol. 38 Issue 1

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of People & Strategy Winter 2015 Vol. 38 Issue 1