Human Resources Issues for Senior Management
Issue link: https://digital.hrreporter.com/i/605961
20/CANADIAN HR STRATEGY PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK rations. The U.S. set that up, they put a cap of something like $1 million, so (employers) instituted bonuses and went right around it. So there's all kinds of ways to beat that. But within the company, if somebody says, "Within our company, nobody's going to get paid more than eight times what workers get paid…" imagine if they said that at Wal-Mart. Somebody's get- ting $8 an hour, and I'm the chief executive so I'm going to get $64 an hour. That would encourage him to pay people better. HRS: What are your thoughts on the push for atter, more egalitarian organizational structures with less of a manage- ment hierarchy? M: I push for a more egalitarian human society — not just orga- nizations. You know, we need managers, we need senior manag- ers, we need people to pull things together. But I think the best ones minimize the effects of that rather than emphasizing the effects of that. HRS: You're written about the rise of social media and big data and how it's not necessarily the answer to everything. Could you tell us more about that? M: I'd bet there's a correlation between time spent in front of the screen and losing touch with the organization — not know- ing what's going on and so on — because you're getting a very limited amount of data through the screen. You're getting num- bers and you're getting words… but when you walk around, you're seeing things with your own eyes, you're trying things, you're testing things. A famous chief executive in a supermarket chain used to go shopping every Saturday morning in his own stores to nd out what's going on, to see how the products were displayed, to speak to customers. That's how you nd out what's going on. HRS: In your writing on "rebalancing society," you talk about how the plural sector is the key to achieving bal- ance. What is plural sector, and how will it help? M: Most people know it by other names — they call it the third sector or they call it civil society, the refer to NGOs — non-gov- ernment organizations — or not-for-pro ts; they have all kinds of names. Basically, the plural sector is every organization or association that's neither public nor private. It's not owned by government, and it's not owned by private investors. And that includes co-ops, which are owned by their members, and lots of organizations that are owned by no one. No one owns McGill (University), no one owns Harvard. No one owns most of our hospitals in Canada. I don't think government's going to solve our problems be- cause government has been to co-opted by business… And in business itself, there's so much corporate irresponsibility that corporate social responsibility won't make up for it. I applaud it, but it won't make up for all the irresponsibility. So what we need are associations of people who care what's going on in the world. Follow Henry Minteberg at www.Mintzberg.org/blog or on Twitter @ Mintzberg141. HRS: Are there any organizations or leaders out there right now that you really admire for the way they are fostering a sense of community-ship? M: I always say that you have to be inside the organization to really know what's going on. But I'll venture one prominent example, which is the Pope. If you want to point to someone who's exhibiting all the proper ideas of leadership in a sense of his courage, his ability to break with past things that don't work, his fostering of a sense of community in the Catholic church — everything he's doing sort of epitomizes the kinds of things I'm talking about. HRS: Speaking of leadership, you've said that being "the best" isn't the standard we should be aiming for — we should only be competing against ourselves, not others. M: I was on a plane coming into London early in the morning — jet-lagged — and was interviewed by a guy who's writing a book on gurus, and he said, "It's a very competitive thing" and I said, "Well, I've never felt any competition at all" — and I just blurted it out. I said, "I never set out to be the best, it's too low a standard. I set out to be good." And it may sound arrogant — I didn't mean it to be arrogant, I meant that you have to do your best, you have to be as good as you possibly can. And holding your nger up to the wind to see who's better or who's doing what is not always the way to do things. HRS: What are some of the greatest leadership mistakes you're seeing in organizations today? M: We can start with (former prime minister Stephen) Harper and micromanaging… we could talk about Volkswagen — and not that the chief executive necessarily knew what was going on, but that he was driving an organization and pressuring for a false goal — to be the biggest in the world — and that put pres- sure on people to play games. And as someone said, he reveled in this for two months. Volkswagen was number one for two months, and they'll probably never regain (the top spot) again. These stories are everywhere, absolutely everywhere. Peo- ple forget that Toyota went through the same thing about 10 years ago where (the CEO) was driving to be number one, and he got into huge problems with the workers, with the suppli- ers… everything Toyota was famous for, he killed. HRS: Do you have any thoughts on the concept of pay ratios or limits for CEO compensation? M: That's something that's better done within particular corpo-