Use It or Lose it!
One thing I used to hear as a manager as we approached financial year end was a threat of sorts in relation to staff development budgets… ‘use it or lose it!’. What managers are basically told is that, if they haven’t spent the budget set aside for improving the culture or skills of their staff, then come June 30th that money would be lost forever in the world of financial management.
It’s not a problem I ever had, in fact, I had the opposite problem: I ran out of money too early. Now, you could justifiably say ‘well, what kind of management is that Colin? How could you possibly know what the team needs the deeper you get into the financial year?’. And I get that. It’s true to a point, but only if you have a mindset that assumes that no further money for development is available.
Yet, given the poor planning of my peers, I was often able to take it from them! Indeed I remember one year, when one of my peers wasn’t planning on spending any of his development budget (except on a conference for himself), I managed to get my hands on that budget at the start of the year! I know!
There was a reason for my early spend.
At the end of every financial year we ran (what we would now call) a retrospective, where we would not only look at our technical performance — did we have the skills to meet the needs of our stakeholders? — but also our cultural performance too — did we work together effectively to achieve the outcomes that we had?
From that workshop came a list of potential development opportunities that made filling out the requisite HR forms relatively easy. Those that wished to attend conferences knew that they were learning opportunities for the entire team and were required to present back on what we could do differently. Certification courses were only considered if there was a benefit to the team — often in reputation or technical skill set — rather than personal motivation to get more money or a better job elsewhere! And we would look internally to HR to provide courses around emotional skills (courageous conversations, negotiation etc.) to ensure that we were able to be the best humans we could be.
But one thing I did every year, at the start of the financial year, was to take my team off site for two days to agree on our desired culture. I’m still staggered that more managers don’t do this. If relationships aren’t built, aspirations aren’t captured, behaviours agreed and the ‘rules’ about how you’ll collaborate aren’t defined, then how can you possibly think that you’ll maintain a vibrant culture that knows how to get the job done throughout the year?!
It sounds like an obvious activity to undertake, yet so few managers actually do it because:
- They don’t actively think about the culture (despite it being the differentiator between success and failure)
- They assume that people will be ‘happy’ to come to work despite the issues they have to contend with on a daily basis
- They don’t see team building as a priority over business as usual activity (even though the latter relies on the former to consistently achieve results)
- Taking people off site for two days isn’t considered the norm or is seen as somehow risky
- They think that money spent on culture needs to provide immediate financial returns rather than provide the foundations for continual, positive evolution
The irony is that although cultures take time to evolve, you do actually see immediate results post-workshop. I found this and my clients do too. Whilst the workshop may not provide an immediate financial return, you gain the following benefits:
- Improved empathy between staff
- Improved communication
- Improved collaboration
- Greater productivity
- Better able to have courageous conversations
- Improved presence and listening
- Retention of key staff
- Fewer meetings
- Fewer emails; and
- Improved sense of belonging.
Planning how you’ll use the budget you have to develop your team is the most exciting part of financial management. Use it early so there’s no danger of losing not only the budget, but the great people you’ve failed to develop. That will only make it even harder to achieve your goals next year and every year after that.
