Interview: Professor Mike Bourne
Achieving High Performance
Steve Macaulay
With learning and development budgets being cut in many
organisations, how do you ensure that development still
continues? Joining me in the studio today is a man that
has spend many years looking at organisational
performance, Professor Mike Bourne.
Now, Mike, you have recently turned your attention to self
development and you have written a book Achieving High
Performance. So why self development? Why are you
looking at this now?
Mike Bourne
I think it is always important to look at self development.
Your company, your organisation may look after you, but
actually you have got to look after yourself at the end of the
day. You have got to create your own visions and goals
and what you want to go for, and then you have to look for
the opportunities, chances to take to get there.
Your company, your organisation, may help you, but at the
end of the day, it is down to you.
Steve Macaulay
So OK, that is the theory, everybody would applaud that and
say yes, that is true. But you have some suggestions, I
think, about how you actually do this in practice?
Mike Bourne
There are a lot of things that you do in your job, but
opportunities appear in your job. You get the chance of
volunteering for a project team, you get the chance to get
involved in an audit, you get the chance to give feedback to
the chief executive – or whatever it is. Those are all
opportunities for you to do things. And the people who do
it stand out; they get the experience from doing it and it
really takes them forward.
So even with training budgets being cut, there are a huge
number of opportunities for people to do things within their
work and to develop the skills they need for their future.
Steve Macaulay
One of the things that I think you suggest is doing some kind
of formal audit: looking at formal strengths, at weaknesses,
setting out some objectives, devising a plan. That all
sounds maybe a bit too formal: some people say, I have got
a busy job to do here, can’t I just get on with it? That’s what
I am paid for.
Professor Mike Bourne
Mike Bourne
Well, you are paid for doing your job, but you go home at
night and if you are going to expect your career to develop
you have got to sit down and think, well, what is it I really
want to do? What are the skills that I have got currently or I
can develop which will enable me to get there? That is
really what it is all about: am I good with people? Do I
interact well? If I don’t, how can I get the opportunities to
learn how to do that? What are the things that people need
for people at the next level in the organisation? And you
can just open the job pages of a newspaper or you can look
on the web and you can see the types of things that people
are looking for, the qualifications, the experiences. And
then just put that down on a piece of paper and say well, if in
five or ten years time I am going to have a job at that level,
what are the things I need to do now to get me there? And
then plan accordingly.
Steve Macaulay
So that is a kind of portfolio, a kind of toolkit really, I guess.
One of the things you talk about in your book is the high
level leadership skills-setting a vision, ensuring team
cohesiveness, looking at individuals. How do you suggest
that people develop those leadership skills in practice?
Mike Bourne
You start off being part of your own team – and this is
where it begins. Do you actually support the team within
which you work? Are you an asset to the team; or are you
a problem for the team? So that is the point at which it
starts. Then within the team environment you can take on
responsibility for various parts of the task; you can start to
coordinate the work for other people. And then you may
get to a team leadership position. Once you get to the
team leadership position, you have got to think of two
things: firstly, what it is you have got to deliver through the
team for the organisation; but secondly what the team
needs to deliver for the team itself – for the individuals
within it, their own aspirations, their own development, but
all the capabilities and things they need for the future.
So there are two heads to this: the performance, but also the
people aspects as well.
Steve Macaulay
Now one of the things I was intrigued about were two words
that you use – one was networking and the next one was
mentoring. So let’s explore both of those. Networking, lots
of people talk about that, what does it actually entail?
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March 2010
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Professor Mike Bourne
Mike Bourne
That is a very good question. Networking means very
different things for different people, but it is creating your
own networks within your own organisation for a start off.
Understanding who the people are; who are the
gatekeepers. I was talking to one of the secretaries this
morning, she was saying look, people need to understand
that secretaries are the ways to get into meetings – so that
is the first step.
Talking to people and getting the chance to network with
people within the organisation – different functions,
different areas, so you have got somebody to call up when
you have a problem.
But going outside too is, I think, critically important. Being
able to have people in other organisations that you get to
know through conferences, through supplier relationships,
through customer relationships, again, gives you another
basis maybe just to have new ideas from, maybe a chance
for another job. Lots of opportunities from people you know
to take you forward.
Steve Macaulay
So networking is about opening up some possibilities, new
ideas, information, people to call on and maybe that might
pay off in the future?
Mike Bourne
Yes, and it is quite surprising that people in networks help
each other particularly well. If people ring me up and I have
got a relationship with them, I give them a lot of time and
support – and people do that for me. And it is really good
and really useful and really beneficial for both of us to do so.
Steve Macaulay
Let’s talk about mentoring; say some more about that,
because I think that is one of the areas that you feel people
can get a lot from.
Mike Bourne
Mentoring is important because people at different levels
and different stages in their career see things that are
happening in the organisation very differently. So if you
can get access to somebody who is more senior, maybe a
little bit older in the organisation who has been round the
block once or twice, then they can put the problems and
issues that you face into context. They may be able to
help you by pointing you in the direction of somebody else
who was having the same problem or needs this problem
to be resolved and therefore can give you political
leverage.
They may help you by talking through the issues that you
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March 2010
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Professor Mike Bourne
have got in a way that makes you ask the questions that
gives you the answers.
I talk about mentors not being necessarily specialists in the
areas that you are in in the organisation, because a good
mentor is not somebody who gives you the answers, but
asks you the questions that helps you to answer the problem
yourself. And probably what a mentor does most effectively
is get people to think about a problem in the right way and to
structure it and then to resolve it correctly.
Steve Macaulay
If you were to leave people with a key message about self
development, about achieving high performance in your
own terms, what would it be?
Mike Bourne
Two things: think about your strengths and weaknesses to
understand what you are good at and what you are not
good at. Then build on your strengths, not on your
weaknesses. You have got to find other ways of getting
round your weaknesses. If you are a particularly good
sales person, but you are not good at administration find
yourself a good administrator; that’s what I have done. Do
that because that is what takes you forward.
I would then plan your own future because if you don’t the
organisation won’t necessarily do it for you. Get the
correct things that you need to go ahead, get yourself the
experiences – if it is training you need, get the training, but
it is more about taking the opportunities that are around
you every day.
Steve Macaulay
Mike, that’s some very useful reminders. Thank you very
much.
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March 2010
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