Leicester City's global mobility secrets!

I make no apologies for looking at everything through the lens of either leadership, management, food or global mobility! There are so many blogs I could write about Leicester City, so many incredible management and leadership lessons to be learnt.

Right now it is Friday night and it has been a long week, so I am going to simply piggyback on a great article I just read from the BBC with a global mobility twist!

So, as the Foxes lift the cup, what's the secret of their success and how can it work for your organisation?

1: You don't need to throw money at the problem

It is 21 years since any team other than Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City or Manchester United won the Premier League.

But Ranieri has flown in the face of financial logic and managed to build excellence on a budget.

The entire Leicester City squad cost about ￡54m to acquire. By contrast, Manchester City spent that entire sum on just one player, midfielder Kevin De Bruyne.

Get me more headcount, some Big Four consultancy and new expensive technology. The amount of money I hear being spent every week and the often underwhelming results, leads me to believe that throwing money at problems in mobility does not always fix them.

I was in a meeting last week with our global sales team discussing our extended business traveller (EBT) technology. One of our business leaders said, “You can be more expensive, have flashier systems but ours is the Honda Civic. You will get 200,000 miles out; it is reliable and it won’t cost you a fortune!” I fear at times we buy Rolls-Royce and then not learn how to drive them.

I think effective spend in mobility often relates to taking a long term view (not a plaster fix). If I buy this new technology will I have the budget to constantly update and customise it? What went wrong in the first place meant we had to spend six figures on an external transformation team. Do we need to get more headcount or simply strive to be more efficient?

2: Get the right people around you

It is very pleasing to see Leicester and Ranieri be so successful without resorting to simply spending a fortune on star players.

"You don't need the biggest names in either football or business to create a successful team, as Claudio Ranieri will tell you”

I remember a conversation from last year with a well-known Global Mobility Head who, like many, had former roles in expatriate tax. He said to me, “Do you know why we often struggle to get a seat at the table? It’s because we are all from tax backgrounds, so are heavily process driven and often somewhat introverted!” The conversation highlighted the importance of having the mixture of skills and personalities behind you for success.

The process is essential but sadly once achieved, it only brings you to a level, often considered a centre of excellence (COE); not a bad thing but also not quite a seat at or near the top table.

I was at a CHRO conference recently where they had a number of distinguished speakers. During the introduction I gleaned that a number of the speakers had entered HR from other areas of the business including finance, marketing and even sales. I found this to be very interesting as during the panel discussion, they clearly revealed their hand in terms of where they sat within the business and just how valuable their functions were likely to be perceived relative to other business units. The clear winners seemed to be the people that not only came from a totally different discipline but often from either sales or marketing. Why? Well, sadly as those folks probably had experience with selling their brand to external parties and now simply were applying the same skills internally. So if you want to get your mobility programme a seat at the top table, hire someone from marketing!

It would also be remiss not to note that these people might also just be the best at selling themselves at conferences!

3: Create the right culture

Ranieri has had the right staff, but his own personality has made a big difference. Sports pundits are forever observing that unlike many football managers, he is actually a very likeable man.

And as management experts have noted, he got the big decisions right, adapting tactics to suit the occasion.

There is no one size to fit all cultures but there are often notable constants such as integrity, trust and resilience. Speaking on behalf of Graebel, I was pleased to see us practicing what we preach by using data. One such example is tracking if a candidate for a transferee consultant role has volunteering experience on their CV. They are much more likely to receive quality scores. Why? Well if someone makes the effort in their spare time to help others, they are likely to be much more empathetic on the phone and better at helping to guide individuals and families through a relocation.

In essence, a good leader or manager decodes what the right culture is and infuses it into the hiring and management practices. In simplistic terms the right culture within in-house mobility teams, in my opinion, is having the self-belief to add more value to your organisation than you could ever imagine.

4: Do the maths

Data analysis is also something that the Foxes use to improve the team's performance.

Players are given individual summaries of how well they played after each match, including the number of tackles, the amount of distance they covered on the pitch and other number-crunching nuggets.

They are also monitored in training sessions by means of wearable technology, providing information about their general fitness and levels of stamina.

Numbers are important. Rich qualitative data can tell a great story but there are times when you need to back it up with hard data. I won’t talk too much about data as I have a number of blogs waiting in the wings, in part due to the inspiring work on “From Number to Narratives,” by our very own consultancy guru, Tim O’Shea.

One of my favourite lines from a regular source of inspiration (they know who they are), “If you do not keep score, how do you know if you are winning?”

5: Create the right incentives

Part of that cavalier-to-roundhead shift in tactics was about trying to stop the team conceding so many goals.

As a means of giving the players a reason to tighten up their defence, Ranieri promised them pizza if they could get through a match without letting the other side score.

Ranieri has worked to boost team morale in other ways too. His reluctance to chop and change the line-up has given players greater security, as has his determination to enforce rest days.

I think incentives are great but it will never beat strong, intrinsic motivation. It has not always been a true love affair with my industry and I remember when I joined Graebel I said to my boss, “You know this has been a great discussion. I feel really motivated to get started.” He paused and said, “Well, I hope I don’t have to motivate you” which at the time I thought was strange, as surely that is one of your roles, right, to help pick up the troops?!

It turns out under the right leadership you will always do the right things when no one is looking and at the forefront of your mind is not money, or success but creating something, inspiring someone or as our CEO often says, “leaving it better than when you found it.”

Gamification in reward (another blog!) is becoming increasingly important. In its most simplistic form you would not believe how many funny side bets I have on with my colleagues at the moment. All serve a purpose, but most importantly they are just fun!

6: Don't forget your mum's birthday!

No matter how high-pressure your job is, always make time for your family.

As Leicester's chances of clinching the Premier League title remained in the balance, Ranieri jetted off to his native Rome to have lunch with his mother Renata on her 96th birthday.

I had a really important meeting recently and was told that one of my key colleagues would be away on holiday with their family. It was going to be critical that he attend and without thinking emailed: “Well, do you think he would be OK if I asked him to move the dates around a bit?” The response from a senior leader within our organisation, who also was significantly invested in the outcome of this meeting, was pretty emphatic (actual email extract below):-

“Asking people to skip their family holiday, nope not cool; that’s putting our clients ahead of our people and while I want to make all dreams come true for clients, first we have to take great care of our people….then they will take great care of our clients.”

Wise words indeed. In retrospect I am disappointed in myself for even asking and I certainly won’t ask again!

On a side note it was actually my mother’s birthday today and yes, absolutely I called her!