Mirror mirror on the wall

Sandie is doing really well at work in the civil service. Actually living onsite where she works also means that I get to meet her team albeit in an informal capacity. It’s interesting to share ideas and hear about her experiences. I was always surprised when I compared my “Accenture education” in terms of how to lead teams, with the way the civil service have pushed her from individual contributor to manager of a team of 20 people with no formal or extended preparation. Thankfully she’s really enjoying it and they enjoy her natural management style. One of the other things that strikes me about work in the public sector (and in companies in the private sector that don’t place as much as an emphasis on people development as Accenture do (or did at the time)), and which is a painful lesson I had to go through personally, is that people rarely make a distinction between the person and the work that person produces. For me it was tremendously powerful to make this distinction. It actually changed the whole way in which I was able to measure and discuss peoples’ performance on an ongoing basis without every six monthly evaluation meeting becoming like a pitch battle and personal attack. Accenture measured people based on three key criteria – value creator, business operator and people developer. I have to say that I do miss that simplicity and the rigorous management of people’s development.