Where have all the (British) heroes gone?

Right. A quick test. Give me the names of 10 British individuals who would feature in a book on strong, inspirational and talented leaders who also serve as role models worthy of emulation.

Get beyond about seven? Me neither.

But is that because Britain is (contrary to Simon Cowell's assertion) devoid of talent, or is it because as Brits we're such a critical and cynical bunch?

The editorial team of HR Case Studies have recently been reading a book (co-authored by a Brit and an American incidentally) which focuses on developing innate personal strengths and talents rather than concentrating on eliminating weaknesses and acquiring new skills. The book is liberally laced with anecdotes from the lives of leaders and entrepreneurs from across the Atlantic - Tiger Woods, Walt Disney, Bill Gates, Colin Powell, Charles Colson, Cole Porter. Although there's a tacit acceptance that all these individuals have weaknesses and failings (perhaps Tiger Woods would be unlikely to grace the pages of an update edition!) there's nevertheless a belief that despite such failings, their strengths and achievements are worthy of acclaim, and that we can learn from their example.

Who would feature if the book was restricted to British leaders and entrepreneurs who are also considered to be good role models?

Forget any football players (they're all overpaid philanderers), cricket players (they drunkenly pilot plundered pedalos), politicians (expense-grabbing warmongers), rock musicians (all on drugs, living in the Bahamas), scientists (elite swots), business leaders (earn too much), military leaders (political stooges), HR professionals (spend too much time pondering the reason for their existence…) And on and on we go.

But are we really so lacking in role models that we couldn't scrape together enough to fill the pages of a "Brits Only" book similar to the one above? Or is it more the case that we're such a cynical bunch that the slightest sign of weakness, failure or an error of judgement in a character and they are immediately and eternally cast onto the heap marked "Villains".

Think we need to reconsider some of the guys in the Villains heap and see if we can't move them into the rather small heap for Heroes.

Any suggestions who should be there?

Earning £50,000 per annum is essential for happiness. Really?

As anyone familiar with Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen will know, "Money doesn't buy you happiness"

But it seems that communal living in a shoebox in the middle of the road while drinking cold tea from a rolled up newspaper is no longer the accepted path to contentment.

According to research undertaken by Princeton University, personal happiness rises steadily until you're earning a mere £48,960.98. (OK, the study says $75,000, but I prefer the pseudo-precision of the English Pound!)

Guardian: The price of happiness? £50,000 per annum

The survey asked people to rate how happy they felt each day, based on their experiences of emotions such as joy, worry, sadness and fascination. They were then asked to rate their overall satisfaction with life, on a scale where zero was the worst they could imagine life to be and 10 being the best.

The researchers found that life satisfaction rose steadily the more people were paid. Happiness rose with income too, but plateaued when people reached an annual salary of $75,000. For those on more, happiness appeared to depend on other factors. Unfortunately the "other factors" aren't particularly well defined, but are broadly characterised as "spending time with people you like, avoiding pain and disease, and enjoying leisure."

There's actually an argument that, far from merely plateauing (a good word if you've a handful of vowels at Scrabble!) at a certain level, too much filthy lucre has a negative effect. How about these quotations from the über-rich and famous:

• The care of $200 million is enough to kill anyone. There is no pleasure in it. (W. H. Vanderbilt)
• I am the most miserable man on earth. (John Jacob Astor)
• I have made many millions, but they have brought me no happiness. (John D. Rockefeller)
• Millionaires seldom smile. (Andrew Carnegie)
• I was happier when doing a mechanic's job. (Henry Ford)

Perhaps that explains why us Brits are such a miserable bunch. According to the Office of National Statistics, half of people in full time jobs in 2009 earned less than £25,816. Some 90% earned less than £46,278 a year. Just think: increase the average British salary by a mere £2682.98 per year (that a tiddly little £51.56 per week!) and 90% of us will be delirious.

I wonder what the 200,000 people in Niger made homeless by the extreme flooding which has only worsened the country’s crippling food crisis would make of all this though? The average total annual family income in Niger is just over £100.

Puts things into perspective, doesn't it?

Mind the Gap (for the next 57 years)

Oh, the heady days of 1970!

• Jimi Hendrix, The Who and Emerson Lake and Palmer at the Isle of White Festival
• Simon and Garfunkel release Bridge over Troubled Water
• Concord makes its first supersonic flight
• Paul McCartney announces that the Beatles have disbanded
• Onboard Apollo 13, Jim Swigert announces "Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here"

How things have moved on.

Or have they? One of the other (apparently) life changing events of 1970 was the passing of the UK Equal Pay Act, which was intended to bring the pay of men and women into line. But it seems that working women who thought they might live to see Britain's pay gap finally close will have to hold out for another 57 years.

According to research published this week by the Chartered Management Institute, at the current rate of progress it will take until 2067 before the gap between men and women managers is eliminated.

Guardian: Equal pay for women not likely till 2067, says research

Women, it seems, have also been harder hit by the recession, with more female workers than men being made redundant in the past 12 months.

On a slightly more positive note, women's salaries increased by 2.8% over the past 12 months, compared with 2.3% for men. But with the average UK salary for a male manager currently £10,031 more than that of a female manager, women face a 57-year wait before their take-home pay is equal to that of their male colleagues. At senior level male pay still outstrips female pay by as much as a staggering 24% . Even at junior level the gap is significant, with male junior executives receiving £1,065 more than their female counterparts.

The CMI is calling for the government to "take greater steps to enforce pay equality by monitoring organisations more closely and naming and shaming those who fail to pay male and female staff fairly" But with only four women in the Cameron/Clegg coalition Cabinet, it's likely that the call will fall on deaf ears.

Incidentally, with women making up only 14% of the total in the coalition Cabinet, this means that Britain lags behind other European countries for the number of women in top political jobs. Spain has 53% women in its Cabinet, while Germany has 37% and France 33%.

So it looks as if the Chartered Management Institute's "Ambitious Women's Toolkit" might be needed in order to fix some of the issues that didn't disapppear when flares went out of fashion!

We don't need no education ...

. . . Partly because it doesn't seem to do much for social mobility in the UK!

According to a report from the TUC published today, in Britain 50 per cent of a child's future earning potential is determined at birth, compared to less than 20 per cent in Canada, Australia, Denmark, Norway and Finland. This therefore means that the UK has the worst record on this front of any of the countries for which the the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has data, and means that the UK lags behind the US, Italy, France and Germany.

TUC: The social mobility challenge for Milburn's in-tray

Although there is a strong case for education playing an important part in transferring advantage and disadvantage from one generation to the next, the evidence shows that real improvements in social mobility will not be possible without making Britain a more equal society. The report specifically indicates that if you grow up in a better educated family, the chances are you will end up in a well-paid job, but if you're unfortunate enough to grow up in a a less-educated family, your wage levels are very likely to be significantly below average.

According to TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber

A real programme to reduce inequality and enable social mobility would need higher taxes and fewer tax loopholes for the super-rich and a more highly skilled workforce, stronger unions and higher benefits.

So it looks as if the issue of excessively high pay for the UK's top earners is here to stay!

(Don't) keep off the grass!

Who comes up with some of these ideas?

Seems that in a moment of total inspiration, Hotel Chain Crowne Plaza has decided that the best way to foster creativity is to lay turf in some of its conference rooms!

Management Today: Time to turf out boring meetings?

Allegedly (and one does have to question where such apparently precise figures come from) 98% of our creativity has gone by age 25, so we all need a little help to reignite the flames of innovation. "Why grass?" I hear you ask. It seems that grass was chosen "because it reminds guests of their childhood and therefore frees them of societal barriers that restrict creativity" The experts at Crowne Plaza seem to know a thing or two about ensuring that meeting attendees are kept engaged too: they claim that 40% of meeting attendees start to lose their concentration after 20 minutes. Presumably the promise of being able to frolic in the verdant pastures at coffee break will keep delegates minds in gear.

The editorial team at HR Case Studies are wondering if Crowne Plaza will need to recruit someone to mow the grass, or whether they will subcontract this activity to a flock of sheep or herd of cows? That would be one way of ensuring fresh meat in the restaurant!

There's more than one way of measuring national growth!

Clearly the news that good times appear to be returning to the Eurozone economy which increased by 1% in the three months to the end of June is welcome.

In particular, the fact that the German economy (boosted by strong exports) grew by 2.2% in the three months to the end of June ( its fastest quarterly growth in more than 20 years) is possibly even an excuse to uncork a bottle of Black Tower or warm Liebfraumilch.

BBC: German economy sees 'record' growth of 2.2%

But before we all go into raptures about good times just around the corner, it's worth considering what is taken into consideration when measuring national growth, and GDP in particular.

The following quotation from Robert F. Kenedy offers some very challenging food for thought:

Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.

Any thoughts, dear readers?

UK managers are deluded!

Most managers are deluded!

Or so it seems according to a survey (yes, it’s one of them again!) commissioned by the Chartered Management Institute and reported in the current issue of Management Today.

Management Today: Deluded managers misjudge their strengths

The survey found that managers have a drastically different perception of their abilities compared to those of their subordinates, with over half of managers apparently giving themselves praise where it isn’t exactly due.

The CMI started by questioning just over 2,000 managers, and here are the scores on the (office) doors:

Managers’ strengths according to managers:

• Managing people: 44%
• Busting Targets (!): 21%
• Managing themselves: 19%
• Being a strong leader: 14%

Managers’ strengths according to subordinates:

• Getting results: 41%
• Being a strong leader: 37%
• Managing people: 14%

There’s clearly a big discrepancy between the “”managing people” rating of managers themselves and their subordinates.

Rather than recommend psychiatric help to counter the delusional tendencies, the CMI puts the blame at the door of inadequate training. (The fact that the CMI is a major provider of management training is purely coincidental of course ……) Apparently, 68% of managers say they never planned to end up in a managerial role, while 63% had no training in management before they took up their post. 'There's an urgent need to refocus the attention of UK businesses on the way individuals learn to manage. Good managers aren’t born, they are made,’ said the CMI boss last year.

So the problem lies not with the managers themselves, but with their managers. (I’m sure that the more astute of the readers of HR Case Studies will have spotted the flaw in the logic here!)

Dodgy logic notwithstanding, as Management Today cheekily asks, is the current state of UK management one of the reasons why the likes of Royal Mail, Marks and Spencer and BP have all recently chosen to appoint CEOs who have significant management experience acquired outside the UK?