The last thing I want to do is rain on someone’s parade. But the
media coverage surrounding Standard Bank South Africa’s CEO
Jacko Maree, riding on the back of the organization’s excellent
half-year financial results, bears a little tempering. There’s a
global shift away from regarding and treating staff as
expendable commodities. I fear, based on the CEO’s media
comments that this trend has not yet struck a chord in the heart
(if that isn’t an oxymoron) of Standard Bank leadership.
The intended retrenchment, due to be implemented in December
2005, of some 360 workers from the bank’s retail distribution
network has largely slipped off the media radar. The bank gives
as its rationale for the cuts: the predicted downturn in the
market following what has been described as a ‘lending boom’
fuelled by the lowest interest rates in a quarter of a century.
In a Financial Mail profile on and interview with CEO Maree, he
is quoted as saying that his guiding principle is, ‘You have to
do what’s right for shareholders, not what’s right for an
individual.’ Ouch. That’s in my view outdated and inappropriate
thinking. It’s the kind of cut-slash-and-burn approach that
produces a quick good bottom line. It’s the style of over-rated
pseudo leaders such as Jack Welch of General Electric. Such
hatchet men author books on ‘leadership’ which are then devoured
by the undiscerning. It’s the antithesis of the values and
respect for people espoused by companies with phenomenal and
sustained (decade and longer) results, in Jim Collin’s ‘Good to
Great’ writings. It’s also out of kilter with a global shift
toward people being valued, genuinely, as the most important
assets of an organization.
The idea of taking on people when business booms and then
ditching them when leaner times are on the horizon was and in
some cases still is, a feature of the advertising industry. Win
a big account and you beef up the headcount. Lose the account
and the people have to go walkies. The unique nature of that
sector provides at least some justification for the modus
operandi. But 360 people in the grand scheme of the thousands
employed by the Standard Bank? That’s circumcising mosquitoes,
surely?
When you hear your CEO speak about you in language that quite
clearly labels you as an expendable commodity, it can’t do much
to inspire drive, commitment or loyalty. So when the
Barclays-Absa headhunters start prowling in South Africa, it may
just be payback time for such an attitude.
If you really want people to operate on the poorly trafficked
‘extra mile’, they need to have a sense of ownership. Not
necessarily in equity terms but at least in terms of having a
voice in the organization and ‘counting for something.’ They
need to know that their ‘leaders’ have a genuine respect for
them and for the diversity they represent. They need to see
those leaders walking the talk and verbalising the appropriate
talk. A former colleague of Maree’s presciently says, ‘He hasn’t
been tested in a downturn.’ Since he’s already halfway through
the ten years he feels is a good tenure for a CEO, maybe we’ll
never truly know. But in the interim he might well want to
revisit the language he uses when describing his people
perspectives.
Clive Simpkins is a marketing and communications strategist. His
forte is helping people and organizations make sustainable
change. www.imbizo.com
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