Farscape Development — Reach Your Goals Faster

Prepare to Engage

An organisation’s employees are a valuable commodity that should be nurtured rather than neglected, writes Ruth Moody, Managing Director of Farscape Development.

The subject of employee engagement has gained momentum as the recession has deepened. Many organisations have lost their way, with senior leaders turning inwards and focusing on cost-cutting and survival, ignoring their most valuable resource — people. The companies and organisations who have continued to look forward and engage with their people are the ones who are now showing signs of strength and vigour.

According to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, engaged employees are 43% more productive than disengaged employees. Signs of disengagement are everywhere — low morale, increased absenteeism, conflict, poor productivity. As soon as the economy starts to recover, those people who have been staying put for the sake of security will be looking around for new jobs, making it even harder for those organisations to recover.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) estimates that absenteeism costs an average of £517 per employee per year. Therefore, the cost to organisations employing 100 people will be £51,700 per year, while the cost leaps up to £258,500 per year for those employing 500 staff.

The best strategies are the ones that bring the maximum return for the least investment. It doesn’t need to cost the earth in order to be effective. Employee engagement can be improved in a variety of ways, including:
• Creating a clear mission with exciting possibilities and communicating it to staff if people don’t know where they are supposed to be heading. they won’t be innovative about how to get there;
• Taking the time to talk to people - it’s the small things that count, and finding out what motivates people, what their challenges are, and delivering some of the things that are important to them will help to make them feel valued and cared for:
• Including people —-asking people for their ideas and opinions and sharing the burden of helping the organisation to progress can create a high level of enthusiasm and commitment;
• Allowing time and space for creative thinking — forums for new strategies and ideas can generate buy-in and energy;
• Challenging the process —-inspiring people to overcome difficulties and seek out new ways of working — giving people the space to innovate - will often achieve things more quickly and effectively;
• Showing vulnerability - the best leaders are the ones who are willing to show emotion. Asking for help will start to build trust, which is the essential ingredient in any successful team or organisation;
• Being prepared to have courageous conversations — by creating a culture of openness and honesty, people will welcome constructive feedback and will use it to improve;
• Celebrating success - tell people when they’re doing well, because a little bit of praise can go a long way.

Engaging people is not an unrealistic or utopian approach, but it does take time and care. Some people think that it is too nebulous to make a real and measurable difference. I disagree — creating a trusting culture where contributions are valued and mistakes are accepted and acted upon generates energy, passion and enthusiasm. People learn from experiences. The more opportunities they receive to experience empowerment. The more willing they will be to step up to that responsibility and drive an organisation forward. 

The Lure Of The Jungle

Daniel Wain goes in search of the hidden interior of TV's Ken Names

Many in L&D can relate to the analogy of working life as a jungle. Those who learn, survive; those who don't get eaten.

Yet for Ken Hames, the jungle's real, not conceptual. He's the TV hero whose Herculean tasks have included leading a dozen women from middle England through the rainforests of Borneo and guiding various groups of physically disabled teenagers across the Andes, over Victoria Falls and on a pan - Nicaraguan trek, from Atlantic to Pacific oceans via jungle, desert, river and mountain.

Hames describes himself as "passionate about giving ordinary people the opportunity to do extraordinary things" - hence his own journey from the military to the world of L&D. Now operations director for Farscape, a company specialising in leadership development, Hames started his personal odyssey as a 16-year-old army recruit. He left some two decades later as a major, in command of 600 men.

His military experience includes eight tours of Northern Ireland, the first Gulf War and a stint as commander of Britain's anti- terrorist team. He also helped to guard Nazi war criminal Rudolph Hesse in Spandau prison and to liberate Port Stanley. Hames is one of the very few British officers to have worn the red beret of the parachute brigade, the green beret of the Royal Marines and the sand beret of the SAS.

As if all that weren't enough, he's represented Great Britain in cross- country skiing, played rugby for the Combined Services and is a keen amateur opera singer.

He credits the military, however, for his interest in, and understanding of, leadership. "Coming through the ranks, I know what it's like to be led," he explains. "The army is all about people. There's a clear hierarchy but individuals are continually required to step up to the mark, take actions and make decisions. It's an environment that demands initiative and risk-taking."

So maybe it's not such a surprising leap to his current career, as a business speaker and leadership trainer, as well as our real-life answer to Indiana Jones. His first TV show was The Trek, back in 1994. With the help of Princess Diana, he took 12 disadvantaged youngsters to the heart of Africa on a 500-mile journey over desert and mountainous terrain. Diana described Hames as "the master practitioner in the field of training and development".

Since then, he has created and fronted adventure programmes for the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, CBBC, Sky and the Discovery Channel. His most famous brand is Beyond Boundaries for BBC2. In each of the three series to date, Hames has led a troop of highly disabled and disparate people on extremely arduous, seemingly impossible expeditions.

For his Nicaraguan jaunt, he was following in the footsteps of Christopher Columbus, the last Westerner to attempt the self-same route, way back in 1492. The great explorer had the aid of a galleon and only made it half-way. Hames and his crew succeeded.

The unlocking of potential links his soldiering, documentary-making and now his work with Farscape Development. "It's all about understanding how people work, what makes them tick," he says, "and then helping them to surprise themselves."

Low motivation and morale costs employers an average of £4,700 per person per year. For a business with 200 staff, that's close to £1m.

He makes reference here to The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the memoir of Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered a massive stroke that left him with a condition known as locked-in syndrome. He was totally paralysed, with the exception of his left eyelid, leaving his only means of communication as blinking. "He could still see, and see that life could be beautiful," explains Hames. "From this huge disability, Bauby discovered a host of possibilities."

Hames joined Farscape three years ago. The company, like him, is based in Bristol but it's clear they have more than just geographic location in common. Farscape markets itself as "a results-focused behavioural L&D company", with the naturally appealing tagline of "make more profit, reduce downtime, perform better, resolve office conflict". Who could refuse? Certainly not the likes of Airbus, Allianz Insurance, Greene King, the Metropolitan Police and the Department of Transport: all Farscape clients.

"They recognise that most organisational problems stem from people - their attitudes, behaviours and relationships," Hames says. "And so do all successes. If you get the foundations right, the rest will follow, and much quicker." For Hames, people are more important than process, hence Farscape's focus upon learning experiences that bring people together to build more positive working relationships. "Ours is a values-based approach," he explains, "in which a unified purpose, that goes beyond bland mission statements, is crucial."

As well as a friend of the late Princess of Wales, Hames is also a great fan of REG. Here, however, he's not referring to the birth name of Di's other friend Elton John, but to the acronym that stands for respect, empathy and genuineness. "I learned a lot about REG when I led the 'Jungle Janes' through Borneo. This group of women had never been on an expedition before. Physically, they weren't that fit but, emotionally, they were the strongest team I've ever worked 'with. They respected each others' strengths and weaknesses and knew how to support one another with genuine empathy and no judgement."

However, for Harnes, what turns REG from good to great is the addition of trust. "You need to get inside each others' heads," he believes. "If your people don't know each other, don't trust each other and don't open up to each other, the team can't function properly. The individuals will remain invulnerable yet isolated. Without trust and exposed vulnerability, your team won't have the confidence to have courageous conversations and positive conflict. They may live in artificial harmony but decisions won't get made and dissatisfaction will rumble on below the surface." Perhaps surprisingly for someone who makes Ross Kemp look like Alan Carr, Hames is big on emotion: "The only way to really inspire people is to engage them on an emotional level. That's why adventures are so beneficial. If people have an emotional experience, they're far more likely to commit to change and stick with it." And so we enter the arena of the naked leader.

Learning experiences with Farscape are deliberately staged outside the comfort zone of the normal working environment. There are no five-star hotels, and minimal contact via mobile phones and emails. "Busy leaders need time and space to reflect on their personal values, to re-evaluate their priorities and to re-energise themselves and thus others," Hames says. "My role is to pile on the pressure, but also to give them the opportunity to share knowledge and experiences.

"The more immersed the learner, the greater the learning. Hence the need to get out of the office and into a different environment, away from the usual distractions."

Learners may be asked to plan and execute a crossing of the Namibian desert, conduct a rhino census, get water from a dry river or, with the aid of only sledge dogs and skis, chop down a 100-foot tree and move it across Norway. The thinking seems to be that, if they can work as a team and handle that sort of pressure in the jungle or tundra, life back at the desk will be a walk in a very safe and suburban park.

Hames is quick to clarify, however, that he's not organising survival courses. "Though we're often out in the open," he says, "participants sleep in tents and there's usually a few glasses of wine in the evening. We don't want our participants falling over with fatigue." Much of the challenge in Farscape's approach appears to be as cerebral as it is physical. Certainly, for Hames, everything is a potential source of learning.

"Each of our delegates creates an ongoing self-reflection diary," he explains. "Personal reflection, supported by challenging one-to- one coaching, is central to all our programmes. We want people to get in touch with what's important, to stop hiding behind business processes, break down their own blind spots and those of others, and make commitments to change. The only way to really inspire people is to align them around a compelling vision full of exciting possibilities, include them in creating plans for bringing it alive, and giving them responsibility for doing so."

Thus, for Hames, it's a total misconception that such development programmes are all about tough machismo. For him, it's about emotional intelligence and self-awareness. And the importance of being experiential. "Farscape owes a great deal to David Kolb and his learning cycle of 'plan, do, review and apply'," he says. "Our programmes are 50 per cent rigour, 50 per cent experiential. We offer the opportunity to try out different skills and techniques, in situations where decisions have real and immediate consequences. Then there's always a 'hot wash-up at the end, to review learning collectively and individually."

And such experiential expeditions don't have to be jungle-based. If Tibet seems too far off, remarkable stuff can still happen in Slough. Or indeed Guildford: head office of Allianz, for whom Farscape has developed a bespoke six-month programme, with both indoor and outdoor elements, for teams of a dozen, all of whom need to be equipped to step into leadership roles. As Hames explains, "delegates go on personal journeys to discover their own strengths and weaknesses, supported by psychometric profiling, coaching and feedback. We help them to identify their own values and drivers, to better understand themselves before agreeing a set of principles and a personal leadership mission statement that they're happy to be measured against".

A recession is the perfect time for talent to emerge, for people with new ideas to come to the fore and lead their teams out of the mire"

The key is providing an opportunity to practice different skills and techniques. I'm reminded of the golfer Gary Player's quip that "the more I practice, the luckier I get". Hames and his colleagues provide the ultimate golf-course, on which leaders can play and experiment, learning new shots, decreasing their handicap and improving their game.

However, for real improvement, Hames is clear that the most successful programmes are long- term: "It's almost impossible to achieve meaningful and lasting change in one day." That's not to say that Farscape doesn't offer single-day 'master classes', for example on relationship-based selling or psychometrics. These lie at the opposite end of the spectrum to its two-week overseas expeditions, of which the next include taking 'high performance business leaders' to the Himalayas and 'high potential employees' across Costa Rica, from the summit of Cerro Uran to the Caribbean.

How does Hames counter accusations that he's just providing jollies, opportunities for the corporate top brass to play at being soldiers? "Every one of our expeditions is based upon a rigorous learning framework," he says, "with an emphasis on longer-term follow- up to ensure we effectively deliver return on investment."

But surely his brand of 'over the top, lads' derring-do must have proved a harder sell of late? "The recession was tough," he admits, "because unfortunately some do consider any form of development as a 'nice to have' in such difficult times. But we've found many forward-thinking companies who recognise that it's their people who will make the organisation survive and succeed, who have turned the threat into an opportunity. After all, a recession is the perfect time for talent to emerge, for people with new ideas to come to the fore and lead their teams out of the mire.

"To a recession-jaded manager, this may look like a jolly. To a forward-thinking business leader, this is an exciting opportunity to really get the most from his company's greatest asset."

And Hames and Farscape can certainly roll out an impressive artillery of heavy facts and figures to defend their claims about ROl. For example, assume a team of eight, each paid £20k per year. "We know that they're likely to only be performing at 70 per cent of their potential because of poor communication, personality clashes, lack of trust and so on. That's £48,000 in wasted salary before you even begin looking at the wider impact on the bottom line." Hames also cites research estimating that engaged employees generate 43 per cent more revenue than disengaged ones, and that low motivation and morale costs employers an average of4,700 per person per year. For a business with 200 staff, that's close to £lm. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills recently calculated the cost of disengaged employees to the UK economy as between £59.4 and £64.7 billion. I imagine that most L&D practitioners would be open to persuasion that the payback on rigorously designed and executed experiential learning can be considerable. The challenge for us all is to persuade others of that return. As Hames says, "where it really works is when the programme's sponsored by the CEO, who either believes the ROl arguments or takes a leap of faith that the outcome will more than justify, the outlay".

So what outcomes can he lay claim to? The answer is varied:

• More confident and self-aware people with a greater sense of loyalty to the organisation that enabled them to develop
• Managers who understand the impact of their behaviour on others and, as stronger influencers, know how to get the most from their colleagues Leaders who will drive performance within the business by demonstrating the right behaviours and motivating others
• Improved productivity in the teams in which these people work and therefore a healthier bottom line.

"Each organisation has different challenges and seeks different outcomes," says Hames. "Right up front, we always ask our clients: 'What does success look like for you? Where do you want to get to?' This then drives the design of how we do that. The end goal might often be very common - the need to increase profit - but how you go about achieving that will be company-specific."

The underlying motivation isn't remorselessly financial, however. For Farscape client Stena Drilling, it was a matter of life and death. The company needed to identify,' the leadership behaviours necessary to ensure safety procedures were quickly and thoroughly embedded on its rigs. Farscape's workshops centered on the importance of personal and team accountability. Outcomes focused on the quality, rather than quantity, of safety monitoring and improved communication and knowledge- sharing, which in turn enhanced operations and delivered a coherent, ongoing approach to safety.

For Hames, there is obviously both safty and strength in numbers: a collection of people operating as an aligned, cohesive team and thus proving greater than the sum of their own individual parts. It's pure Rudyard Kipling and his Law of the Jungle, as old and as true as the sky: "As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back, for the strength of the Pack is the Wolf and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack."

Perhaps surprisingly for someone who makes Ross Kemp look like Alan Carr, Hames is big on emotion.