Some years ago, early each morning before I went to work, my friend Brenda and I ran around the Botanical Gardens in Sydney. As we did so, we shared stories predominantly around of our lives including numerous work stories. I was a GM of HR at the time and Brenda was a Chemical Engineer. It was during one of these runs, when I was sharing one of my work stories that she introduced me to a concept called the Lawyers Truth and the Poets Truth. Simply put when making decisions in organisations, how do we ensure we view an issue through the lens of the lawyer who view the legalities of a situation and the lens of a poet, who views the humanity of the situation.
The topic came up as I was expressing my concerns about how legalistic organisations were becoming and how HR if not careful, with all the new legislation could become like mini lawyers rather than helping managers help manage people at work. The idea of a Lawyers truth and a Poets truth resonated so strongly with me, I started using the language in my everyday practice and I also designed an education program for managers based on this concept.
An example of how I used it in my everyday practice was as follows. A CEO, from a previous organisation in which I worked rang me up and asked me for my advice. He said that he had employed a brilliant GM of marketing 12 months before. He was fantastic at his job, got great results and his employees loved him. The problem was it was just discovered by the accounts department, that he was using his company credit card for private matters including cash advances. This had been done consistently since he started with the company and the numbers were significant. What to do as the marketing manager was so good at his job and it would be difficult to replace him? If we look at this situation, through the lawyer’s lens, the answer is clear. The rules were broken and he was in a position of trust, he needed to be dismissed. If we looked at it through the lens of the poet we would ask why? Without going into all the details the CEO discovered not surprisingly, that the marketing manager had a gambling problem. The outcome was that the marketing manager had to go. However he was given the opportunity to resign and the company offered to pay for three sessions with a psychologist if he wished to take this up.
By not simply taking a purely legal approach a win-win was created. The marketing manager had an opportunity to get help and the company maintained its’ values. Of those people in the know, as there always is, they would understand the cultural significance of the outcome even if it was not spoken, as long as this approach, was not only reserved for senior management.
Another example of this approach was a hypothetical scenario we were given in a workshop. It went something like this. An employee had committed suicide and had erased everything off his computer at work prior to his death. His wife was very upset and blamed the company for putting her husband under so much stress that this was the reason she believed her husband died. The wife was threatening to put in a significant claim against the company and was threatening the go to the press. The company had discovered information on the server that was so explosive it would have destroyed the image of her husband and would have had a significant impact on her children. What to do as the HR Director?
When giving my feedback on how I would approach this problem I decided to use the legal truth/poets truth approach. If I adopted the legal truth, protect the company and share the information. Problem solved. If I took the poets truth approach I had to decide how to protect the people left behind as well as support the company? My advice was to wait, say nothing and continue to support the wife financially, particularly as her husband had not left a will, according to the notes and, if possible, emotionally through people who were close to her in the company. I decided sharing this information would be the last thing we would do. The group loved the structure and language of the approach, though not everyone agreed.
You also may or may not agree with the particular outcome however the examples may provoke us to think beyond keeping the organisation legally safe as we seem to be marching headlong down this path. What are we and who are we if people only become a legal process.
Strangely enough in some aspects of Insurance claims everything has become so mechanised lawyers roles have become redundant.
Prior to my career in HR, I was the head of TQM for a large English firm based in Australia. I learnt the importance of measuring activities to see if they added value. I wanted to create an educational activity that would help managers understand their legal responsibilities and also their humanity responsibilities but I wanted to ensure it added value. One of the death nails of HR’s credibility in an organisation is to be labelled as soft and fluffy!
In my HR budget legal costs were always a significant line item. I decided the key measure of success of such a program, was a reduction of legal costs. If legal costs were being reduced we must be doing something right.
I know that trying to help managers understand HR mumbo jumbo can be seen as quite boring so I knew if had to be fun. Demystifying HR is not always easy. After much pondering, I created a quiz game called Legal Hat Moral Hat. There were suitable props and prizes and quiz game music. Each session went for three hours and was exceptionally informative, interactive and eye watering fun at times.
The activity involved two teams competing against each other to win the most number of points based on the correct answers. A scenario was painted and then the teams had to choose the right answer from multiple choice answers displayed on power point. After each question the team was allocated points, and a discussion followed about the legal and moral position of each question. It was always reinforced at the end of each question, the importance of documenting and contacting HR if in doubt. They were also shown where to find the relevant policy on the intranet …another team activity…
Every manager in the organisation participated in the activity across all states in Australia The first year getting managers to attend was difficult. The following years everyone was biting at the bit to attend and asking when the next session was scheduled. Each year we changed the game but not the process. For example one year we created a racetrack board game. You can imagine the fun and fierce competition between the teams and they loved the toy cars.
As the GM of HR I designed the original activity, however over time I coached several of the HR operations managers to create and deliver the training. It was a fantastic opportunity to reinforce the HR teams credibility and support the premise, if in doubt contact HR.
It was more complex than what I am stating in this article, as a lot of work has to go into the instructional design, but it was an outstanding success. Each year we measured our legal costs and over the years we reduced our HR legal expenditure from about $400,000 to less than $50,000.
Since the initial development of the program I moved to another organisation as the Director of HR and the process was repeated again with similar success. Now as an Executive Coach I often ask my clients when mulling over questions, what is the Legal truth and what is the Poets truth of that situation. As a consultant I have developed similar products and am intending to continue such an education programme in my new conference venue for clients.
Irrespective of my business pursuits, I have a passion that managers make decisions based on the whole situation. It is often so easy to sit in head office, make decisions that effect people’s lives, give legal and process advice over the phone without “eyeballing the person” or knowing the persons “circumstances”. Can you imagine an organisation where all managers considered the impact of their decisions through the lens of both the Legal truth and the Poets truth? Can you imagine the impact of respect, loyalty and discretionary effort? If you can, start today, feel free to steal the concept shamelessly and share it, like Brenda did with me. It can make a difference in more ways than you can imagine.
