Micromanaging and box ticking at the Probation Service

The Justice Select Committee has just published a report about the probation service. The service is described as having a ‘tick-box, bean-counting culture’ and they say that probation staff spend just a quarter of their time face to face with offenders, MPs said.

Is filling in forms bad?

The rest of the time is spent filling in forms, sending emails, and complying with official targets and dictats.

Is this a bad thing? From what has been said so far it would seem that there might be some inappropriate and time-consuming measures that probation officers have to comply with. And this means that they don’t spend the time needed with their clients.

The trouble is it is very easy to underestimate the amount of time it takes to do all the admin compared to the ‘real job’.

A chef

Let’s take the example of a chef. In order for the chef to be able to cook wonderful meals here are some of the other tasks that need to be completed:

• Buying the food
• Furnishing the restaurant
• Keeping the place clean
• The washing-up
• Replacing broken and old equipment
• Hiring staff
• Marketing the restaurant
• Serving the customers
• Planning the menus
• Doing the laundry
• Dealing with any staff issues
• Doing the accounts and book-keeping
• Redecorating
• Training the staff
• Designing and keeping up to date the website
• Answering emails

In a well-run restaurant you would like to think that the chef spent most of his or her time cooking the food. But you would also like him or her to have a say in the menu, the food that is bought, the wine, hiring and training staff, dealing with customers, what equipment is needed in the restaurant to cook and prepare the food

How much time do you spend on your job?

Pretty soon, your chef is not spending anything like 100% of his or her time preparing food.
The true measure of the skill of the chef is the taste and quality of the food, but that doesn’t mean he or she spends every minute cooking it.

So it is with the probation officers. Any manager should be making sure that his or her team are able to produce the results required to the level of quality required and needs to be taking away obstacles in their way.

Badly set objectives

Badly set objectives around how much time you spend on particular tasks do not help. It’s very easy to assume that the amount of time spent on a task is what’s important. But that’s not the way to measure it.

It would probably be better to have 10 minutes with an exceptional probation officer than two hours with one who does not know the job.

Alcoholism

Sheila Hancock tells of John Thaw, who for part of his life suffered an addiction to alcohol. Somehow she found an expert who saw him for six sessions over a week. He never drank again.

I would love to know what he did during that time.

I imagine quite a lot of his time was spent honing his skills.

I mention this because a customer of the probation service was interviewed today and explained how his probation officer had helped him recover from his addiction to alcohol.

Probation objectives

In researching this article I tried to find the objectives of the Probation Service. The closest I could get was this – from Ireland.

The Probation Service works with offenders and others to reduce offending and to make communities safer places. We work closely with the Courts Service, the Irish Prisons Service, An Garda Síochána and many organisations in the community to achieve those aims.

The more I looked into it, the more it seemed that much of the job of the probation officer is about preparing reports, making assessments and dealing with the courts. If this is the case, it’s not surprising that they spend apparently so little time with their clients.

The job of a good manager is to ensure their team is able to achieve their objectives and do whatever they can to remove all the unnecessary stuff from them – but the trouble is there’s always someone creating more of that unnecessary stuff (often the government) and very often the objectives for it are unclear though it seems reasonable at the time.

You need to review and update objectives and measures and make sure they are SMART quite frequently, or you end up in this kind of situation very easily.

The question is – what are they really there for? Once this is clear then you can decide how to measure it.

How to spot a liar

It’s a hundred years since the polygraph was invented, the machine that is supposed to be able to tell if someone is telling lies or not.

It would seem that it’s not very good at telling. In fact, with a little training, you could do the job more accurately yourself.

What’s interesting about lying is that it is a vital part of the society we live in. When someone asks you “How are you?” it’s not the done thing to say how bad things are, even if they are. The correct, polite response is to say that you are fine. Sometimes that’s a lie.

So we all do it.

Who is best at lying?

It’s the charming smooth-talkers. This is contrary to what you might think. Perhaps it’s why people get taken in.

How can you tell if someone is lying?

It’s hard. But one good way to determine the truth is through careful questioning. Not the kind of Sweeney-type shouting and threatening:
“It was you that killed him, wasn’t it?”

One of the most effective techniques is to get people to tell you what happened in reverse order. That’s because it’s so much harder to get all the details right when you are having to make them up backwards.

Lying is quite a difficult process and demands quite a level of skill.

Being nervous

This is not a good indication of lying – truth-tellers also get nervous.

Training

Training can help you to become better at spotting lies.  There are clues, according to the research of Stephen Porter’s Forensic Psychology Lab at Dalhousie University.

There are some muscles in your face that you can’t control and those are the ones that give you away.

It seems that small flashes of your true emotions break through, though sometimes not for very long, so being able to watch a video recording of the answers can help a lot. If you haven’t got one handy, use questions about what happened.

Are you distracted by the wrong problems?

This week our government seems completely transfixed by the phone hacking scandal. And I do think it’s a scandal I am completely against this kind of behaviour.

But I also think that there are other serious problems that the government should be focussing on at the moment. Like the economy.

Of course, the media don’t help. This is a problem with the media itself, so it’s bound to be of more interest to them than other issues.

It’s easy to be distracted

The trouble is, when there are very serious problems to be tackled it’s very easy to get distracted by things that aren’t as serious. This is because you lose your ability to prioritise.

Prioritisation is a vital skill that you generally need more of when there are many problems to be solved.

How to prioritise

The first thing is to make sure you have a clear, SMART objective or goal. Once you have this, ask yourself what will enable you to achieve it.

Draw up a plan

It’s always good to have a plan. Even if you change it later, it’s still a good thing to start with one. It helps you to keep focussed on the right things rather than lurching from one thing to another all the time.

Reassess you plan

Lastly, keep checking the plan and update it if you need to. Often new problems crop up that cause extra work or simply divert you from your goals. Make sure you keep your plan up to date so you are always working on the things that will help you the most.

Is this a fair question?

"Are you corrupt?"

Is this a fair question? It’s one that was asked of Assistant Metropolitan Police Commissioner John Yates by MPs in the Select Committee yesterday in the Wilson Room at Portcullis House.

It may be a fair question, but is it any use?

Not really. It’s hard to imagine that anyone would answer this question with a “Yes.”

The purpose of the question

We need to know what the purpose of this question was. It almost sounds as though the questioner was trying to make a statement rather than ask a question.

The right questions

If you want to know if someone is corrupt, then you need to ask different questions. You need to identify what they did and compare that with the behaviour of an honest person.

Strangely quite a few people who we would consider to be corrupt often don’t seem to think they have done anything wrong (you may recall questioning of the directors of Enron and the looks of disbelief of those questioning them).

Another question, “Are you incompetent?” is of similar value.
The trouble with these questions is that they tell you more about the competence of the questioner than the person who is being questioned.

Get more information on how to ask questions here.

Phone hacking - should the managers have know?

Should the editor of the News of the World have known what was going on and that many stories were being sourced through illegal phone hacking? Is it possible for an editor to know all the details of what is going on in his or her paper?

You can’t know everything

It’s simply not possible for the editor to know what everyone is doing and how every story has made it to the paper. Just as it is not possible for the CEO of any company to know every detail of what goes on in the business.

You can still make sure it’s legal

However, people at the top are paid not just to get results but also to make sure that they are achieved without breaking any laws.

The old excuse

It is completely unacceptable for senior managers to give the excuse that they ‘didn’t know’ what was going on.  What this means is either they did know and are lying or they did not have the proper systems in place to make sure the company was being run legally.

In either case, they have failed in their duties.

Systems

You need to have systems that ensure and encourage people to behave properly and meet the required standards. If the systems are designed well, it will be easy for employees to behave properly and meet the standards.
And if they don’t meet the required standards, they either need help or to be penalised.

If the BBC behaved like this, they could lose their license. But there is no such penalty for a newspaper. So there is no reason for them to behave within the law.

System failures

System failures need to be dealt with by installing new systems that work properly. Managers who do not have the skills or inclination to set up these systems should not be in the job.

For more on how to manage effectively go to our website

Training programs - Keys to success

At the weekend I went to the reunion of a company I worked with long ago. It was one of the first big projects I ran for a client.

In those days we called it Total Quality Management (TQM). TQM predates and led to Six Sigma.

The goal of the project was mainly to stay in business.

What the project achieved

We succeeded. In fact, while all their competitors laid staff off and lost business, my client increased their market share. One of the most pleasing results was that, whilst increasing sales, they reduced the level of complaints by 50%.

How the results were achieved
Looking back there were two distinguishing features of that project.

Everyone was involved

One of the key steps that Barry, the MD of the company, insisted on was that everyone was involved. And he really did mean everyone.

We ran a series of workshops and a director attended each one. The people were mixed up so that there were representatives from each department and each level in every group.

This alone led to improved understanding in the company.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen this done so well in any other client. It wasn’t just lip service. They were there in person.

Personal introduction

The other key aspect was that Barry himself introduced the project. He introduced the start of each series of workshops and he himself attended in one of the groups and certainly contributed a great deal to it.

The difference

It wasn’t always easy, but his personal approach meant that the project was championed right at the top, people knew he really meant it and things happened quickly.

Excuses

Since then I have heard many excuses from senior people as to why they can’t attend workshops like this. Often the HR people have said it’s not even worth asking them. And I’m sure they think they have much more important things to do.

I’m not sure that’s true.

Does this offend you?

Are there any songs that you find offensive? I heard part of a fascinating radio programme about this (“Taboo be Doo” on BBC Radio 4) today.

What was so interesting was that there are some very old songs that, had they been written today, would be banned and not played on the radio.

However, it would seem that because they are old, it’s OK.

Some of these turned out to be some of my favourite records from my murky past.

Not listening

What was also interesting was that there were a few songs that, if you weren’t listening, might be offensive, but if you took the trouble to hear the words properly, told a very different story.

Are you listening?

This is such a common problem. You hear, or partly hear, what someone has said and just assume the rest of it. Or you hear it and interpret it in a way that is not what the speaker had in mind.

This was particularly true of a song called “I’m Not All There” by Harry Carlton in which the person who is apparently “not all there” gets the last laugh, in spite (and possibly because) of what others may think of him.

It’s very easily done, and it’s the way your brain works to save time. It sees part of a pattern and just fills in the rest. This is how your memory works, which is why it’s not always reliable.

In the main it’s very useful, but it can be dangerous in some situations. It can lead to all kinds of unnecessary arguments and problems.

Dangerous situations

So the key is: how do you tell the difference between these situations? How do you know which are the ones where you can get away with making assumptions and which are the ones where you need to pay more attention and ask some questions?

How to tell the difference

Here’s a simple rule of thumb. If you find something offensive, pay more attention and ask some questions before you take offence. 

Free learning

Are you making the most of free learning?

I ran into a dear friend today at the market. She had, somewhat reluctantly, taken a new job a few weeks back. Her first stories about it were a bit worrying. It sounded ghastly.

But not today. Today she was full of the stories of a wonderful and skilled colleague she had met and is now working closely with. Her eyes were sparkling with life and she could hardly stop singing his praises.

“I’m learning such a lot.” She said.

I was put in mind of an old colleague of mine. I was so impressed with her communication skills that I got onto a project with her, just so I could observe what she was doing and find out how it worked.

That was the start of a long road that I am still travelling. My question to you is: are you making the most of the free opportunities for learning that surround you?

So many people waste these free opportunities, but they are everywhere, if you know what to look for.

Lessons to look for

Focus on spotting people who do something well. They don’t have to do everything well, just one thing. Then try copying what they do and see if it works for you. I guarantee, the more you look, the more you will find.

The other side of the learning coin

And remember that there are also things you don’t want to copy. That’s useful to learn too. It’s a bit like the old saying I once saw on a doormat:

All our visitors make us happy; some when they arrive, others when they leave.

Go here for more about how to keep yourself learning – and how to look after your brain.
Go here to check out the questions you could be using to help yourself.