THE SOCIAL HOUSING MBA
Your housing association has a large backlog of repairs. The board wants an improvement plan. Fortunately, the chief executive has enrolled on an MBA.
Things are about to get considerably worse.
MODULE ONE: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
SCENE: A prestigious university business school (it was me in the room, really).
Twenty executives sit attentively beneath a giant PowerPoint slide. Today’s lecturer is Professor Richard Performance, a world-renowned expert in motivating people who have never asked to be motivated. At the back sits Sarah, the new Chief Executive of a housing association, worried about performance, an inspection and a backlog of repairs.
PROFESSOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Human Resource Management.
Today we’ll learn the single most important principle of managing people.
People are inherently lazy.
Left to their own devices, they’ll do as little as possible.
Fortunately, management has developed three powerful solutions.
Targets. Incentives. And consequences.
The students begin taking notes.
SARAH: Sorry, Professor. Can I ask something?
PROFESSOR: Of course. We encourage critical thinking here. Provided it doesn’t hold up the slides.
SARAH: I’ve recently become Chief Executive of a housing association. We have an inspection coming. Repairs are a particular problem.
PROFESSOR: Classic motivation problem.
SARAH: Well, that’s what I wanted to ask. We’ve got a repairs operative called Dave. Lovely bloke. Been with us twenty years. Tenants love him.
PROFESSOR: Does he meet his targets?
SARAH: Not always. But sometimes he gets to a property and the diagnosis is wrong. He hasn’t got the right parts in his van. And he’s only authorised to do what’s written on the job sheet.
PROFESSOR: Ah. Excuses.
SARAH: Sorry?
PROFESSOR: Sarah, there are two types of people in this world. Winners and victims.
SARAH: Yes, but Dave can’t replace a tap if he’s been sent to repair a washer.
PROFESSOR: Not with that attitude.
SARAH: It’s not an attitude. He’s literally not authorised to replace the tap.
PROFESSOR: And what determines our altitude, Sarah?
SARAH: I’m sorry?
PROFESSOR: OUR ATTITUDE DETERMINES OUR ALTITUDE!
The class enthusiastically writes this down.
PROFESSOR: Winners never quit. And quitters never win.
SARAH: He’s not quitting. He just hasn’t got a tap.
PROFESSOR: Have you considered a financial incentive?
SARAH: For what?
PROFESSOR: Fixing the tap.
SARAH: But he hasn’t got one.
PROFESSOR: Then increase the incentive.
SARAH: How much?
PROFESSOR: Let’s say £50.
SARAH: And if he still hasn’t got the tap?
PROFESSOR: £100.
SARAH: Professor, do you understand how taps work?
An uncomfortable silence.
PROFESSOR: Sarah, I think we’re beginning to understand why your organisation may receive a poor rating.
The professor changes the slide.
SLIDE 14: HIGH PERFORMANCE IS A CHOICE.
PROFESSOR: Let’s approach this scientifically. How many repairs does Dave complete in a day?
SARAH: About four.
PROFESSOR: Good. Set his target at six.
SARAH: But if he can’t complete four because the diagnosis is wrong...
PROFESSOR: Then he needs to work harder.
SARAH: What if the parts aren’t available?
PROFESSOR: Smarter.
SARAH: What if he’s not authorised to do the work?
PROFESSOR: Harder AND smarter.
The students applaud.
SARAH: But surely we should fix the diagnosis, put the right stock in his van and give him the authority to complete the repair?
The professor removes his glasses.
PROFESSOR: Sarah. That’s a very dangerous suggestion.
SARAH: Why?
PROFESSOR: Because if Dave can decide what work needs doing, choose the parts and complete the job, what exactly is his manager going to do?
Silence.
SARAH: I hadn’t thought of that.
PROFESSOR: Precisely. That’s why you’re here.
SARAH: So what should we do?
PROFESSOR: Introduce a performance improvement plan.
SARAH: For Dave?
PROFESSOR: Naturally.
SARAH: But he’s not the problem.
PROFESSOR: Then why isn’t he meeting his targets?
SARAH: BECAUSE HE HASN’T GOT THE BLOODY TAP!
The professor sighs.
PROFESSOR: And now we’ve identified a second issue.
SARAH: What’s that?
PROFESSOR: Your leadership style.
The professor advances to the final slide.
SLIDE 15: YOU CAN’T MANAGE WHAT YOU DON’T MEASURE.
PROFESSOR: For your assignment, design a balanced scorecard for Dave, including six productivity KPIs, three behavioural competencies and a financial incentive for first-time fixes.
SARAH: Can I give him the right parts instead?
PROFESSOR: That’s Operations Management, Sarah. Next semester.
Sarah looks at her notes.
Her housing association has thousands of outstanding repairs and tenants waiting months for help - she’s worried about a rating.
She has just paid £18,000 to learn that Dave needs a better attitude.
END OF MODULE ONE.
Next week: Financial Management - Why making every repair cheaper makes housing repairs more expensive.
Now, this is satire. But it’s uncomfortably close to my own experience of studying for an MBA. At the time, I was working in housing voids. And advice like this worries me. It’s not just contributing to it, but it’s causing the problem.
We’re teaching generations of perfectly sensible, intelligent, well-intentioned people how to run organisations into the ground. Not because they’re bad managers. But because they’ve been taught a set of assumptions about people, work and management that nobody ever thought to question.
Henry Mintzberg wrote a book called Managers Not MBAs, challenging the thinking behind conventional management education.
Perhaps MBA should stand for something else.
Maybe Best Avoided.
And here’s why this matters for housing.
If your housing repairs improvement plan is full of:
More SLAs
More targets and incentives
More performance management
More monitoring
More governance and accountability
Then perhaps you should award your improvement plan an MBA too.
Maybe Best Avoided.
Because the last thing a struggling housing association needs is to execute the thinking that created its problems more efficiently.
Question the plan.
If you want a better way - at first, just a second opinion- bring your current plan to Neil Alexander and me, and we’ll give you a view. We won’t pretend an hour is enough to diagnose your entire repairs operation, but it may be enough to help you see your improvement project differently.
