Latest posting When football is being discussed in the workplace, I normally tune out. I’ve never watched a match, I don't know any of the teams and I definitely don’t understand the offside rule. But it was impossible not to join the debate about John Terry in our office.

Most of my colleagues were clear that you must maintain high standards and expect to be under scrutiny once you become a high-profile leader. Trust was clearly incredibly important to them – pretty much everyone could cite an example of a former boss who had let themselves down with an indiscretion or misjudgment.

When the England skipper was stripped of his captaincy one of my colleagues said: “Quite right – if more CEOs did that when leaders stepped out of line, perhaps people would learn that you can’t do whatever you like; you've got responsibilities.”

I must say I agree. I’ve seen a few examples where a senior manager was relieved of their leadership role for failing to live up to it. Although such decisions shocked people at the time, they had positive effects in the long term.

In Terry’s case, of course, there was no hiding the story from the media, so it had to be dealt with and not brushed under the carpet. My firm has its own version of the media: an in-house mag called ?Whatever! You can guarantee that, if anyone here steps out of line, they will make the headlines in the next issue. It is probably one of the most widely read documents in our office – particularly by leaders hoping that they have dodged a bullet.
A friend asked me recently: “How can you let this rag go out internally?”

I replied: “Well, if you’re an innovation company and there to promote freedom from fear, you’ve got to make room for freedom of expression – I don’t actually know which people are on the editorial team; they don't publicise it. And I love it because it keeps us all on our toes.”
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Has anyone stopped to read the back of a fairly recently launched vitamin water drink from Coca-Cola? My years in packaged goods design means that I do get drawn into reading all the print on these new products. I was pretty surprised to read this copy on the back of the bottle:

“If you’ve had to use sick days because you’ve actually been sick, then you’re seriously missing out my friend. The trick is to stay perky and use sick days to just, erm, not go in. Don’t overdo it on the coughing front the day before you want to take a ‘sickie’ though. Big giveaway. Just stick with the ever-elusive ‘24-hour bug’ – no one can prove a thing. Just remember not to answer the mobile while shopping when you’re supposed to be a spluttering, bedridden wreck. Please note: taking a ‘sickie’ is very, very naughty.”

Are you, like me, increasingly irritated by the media's reference to "throwing sickies"? It is so irresponsible for companies to promote this kind of “aren’t we naughty?” type message. If they had any respect for people who are genuinely sick, or any understanding of the impact of sickies on our industry, they would think twice.

Or should we be looking at this trend and thinking: "Okay, how do I make my business so interesting and motivating that people don't think of behaving in this way?" If your company has a problem with sickness absence levels, how are you actively looking for the underlying causes?

I particularly admire companies in which the vast proportion of employees have jobs that are pretty repetitive and lack a huge scope for advancement, yet they still manage to keep people totally engaged with their purpose and don't suffer with the sickie mentality. Take a look at Zappos in the USA - an online retailer of shoes and bags with a massively engaged workforce - impressive stuff. I have referred to them before for their innovative way of making sure that nobody who is not positive about the company stays past induction – a bonus to leave!

Coke – shame on you. Try to write some witty copy lines that refer to health but also move with the times.

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It’s a wonderful thing to watch an expert at work. When I see someone at work who is totally in the flow, being brilliant, I find it totally mesmerising. Take the other night, for example. I had the privilege to be at The Blue Note Café in New York watching Dave Brubeck (aged 89 and fabulous). I remember two men from that evening: Dave Brubeck, for being a totally amazing pianist and performer, and the barman, Chip. We arrived at the bar at 6pm and from then until 8pm the bar steadily filled up with people eager to get their drinks in before Dave Brubeck went on stage.

The place was rammed with people and the barman was just an incredible person to watch – he was calm, friendly, served up to four people at a time, never wrote down a single order, did all the maths in his head and for two hours solid chopped limes, served cocktails, cleaned surfaces and made polite conversation with guests. I found it hard to take my eyes off him. There is something truly wonderful about seeing someone at the top of their game – and you don’t have to be a world renowned artist to reach that status. If we look around in our daily lives we are surrounded by ordinary people being superstars, and that’s a daily inspiration for me.

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The HR community should be celebrating this week to mark The National Portrait Gallery’s decision to exhibit all its best fake works of art. Why is this significant? It demonstrates an attitude that it’s okay – even interesting – to make mistakes.

The curator who purchased some of these fake works of art was dismissed in shame. He made mistakes. Heaven knows how many brilliant pieces of art he acquired during his curatorship – but his mistakes cost him his job.

As we pull ourselves out from the recession, managers regularly refer to the need to innovate. They talk about this as if it is something that only happens because one day you decide, “Right, today I’m going to be innovative.” But they fail to recognise the huge need for an organisation to be innovation-ready in terms of its leaders’ attitudes, people policies and storytelling. Unless management and the wider organisation accepts that mistakes happen and that innovation can be born from mistakes, nobody is going to take the required risks to innovate.

Look at the tale of Dr Spencer Silver, the scientist at 3M who accidentally created the low-tack adhesive. His mistake occurred back in 1968 and he spent the next 15 years trying to get someone in the company to see the value in his creation. In 1977 3M launched the product and experienced a resounding failure because nobody had trialled or understood the product. Finally, in 1980 (after a period of free trials), the company launched Post-it notes.

Just think – if the organisation had understood the innovation process better and knew how to harness the value of those unscheduled “mistakes” – it could have stolen a march of 12 years on the market. Imagine the value that the company missed out on because it did not really understand how to bring innovation to market.

Maybe we need a UK-wide “National best mistakes week” to raise awareness within leadership groups of the enormous potential value of the mistakes in their business. And to get them to think about how to handle the people who make them. The mistakes of this year could well be the key income sources of years to come. Makes you think, doesn’t it?

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Did any of you catch the programme on the radio the other week about backing singers? It was truly fascinating. I won’t do it justice, but the headlines were that backing vocalists are not just a pleasant backdrop to the star’s voice. They play a really strategic role in the structure of the song.

The example the presenter used was “Leaving on the Midnight Train to Georgia” by Gladys Knight and The Pips. It explored what exactly made this hit from 1973 the best rhythm and blues performance and made it go on to win the Grammy Hall of Fame award. Well, apart from a damn fine story and tune, it was the power of the backing singers. I had never (until now) understood the powerful role of the backing singer in creating a hit record.

During the programme, I came to understand the various techniques used by backing singers and how it is the singing from The Pips (not Gladys herself) that delivers the power. Sometimes The Pips simply repeat her words. Sometimes they chime in with supportive messages. At some points, they hum. But when the power builds, they come in with their own lyrics that complement the song but are in no way simple echoes or humming. They take on their own powerful personality.

It struck me that we HR people are rather like the backing vocalists. Sure, we can just hum along and repeat the words of the leader – that’s handy. We can sometimes come in with an interesting harmony – that gives some depth. But we can do more than that and we should do. We need to find our own messages that support and complement – and challenge where necessary.

The programme inspired me to think - am I humming along here? Am I doing what most backing singers do? Or am I going to get my own lyrics out here and be one of The Pips...
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In this recession there is a public sense of concern for all the people who have lost their jobs. This week I have a plea for everyone to extend a big wave of support for everyone who is in a job – but in a job they really dislike. Yes, being unemployed is tough. But spare a thought for the people who are working in very unpleasant environments, who dream of redundancy and who spend every spare minute job-hunting.

I have a couple of friends in this situation. Watching the spring in their step being gradually worn down is hard. Their usual positive, upbeat characters have grown pessimistic and cynical. Interestingly, they both blame themselves for staying past the first week. They knew by week one that this was the wrong environment for them.

I recently heard about a company in the US that offers a substantial cash sum to any new joiner who would like to leave in the first two weeks. They run an in-depth induction programme and then let the new joiners work for a few days. After this point, anyone who has made the wrong choice of job is free to go, no questions asked – and with a cash lump sum.

How very smart of the company to realise that getting these people to leave fast and early is the right thing for their business. This way, they don’t spend any time with people who probably know already in their hearts that they have made the wrong choice. They get to leave, head held high and without any sense of failure.

I think this is one of the most deeply felt emotions when it comes to leaving a job. People in the UK are fearful of how it will look on the CV to leave early and so they tend to stick it out.

I look for people who have made some mistakes on their CVs and changed direction. It shows they took some risks, were adaptable, moved on and are resilient. How about if all we HR people said openly when hiring: “Don’t worry about a few jobs on the CV that did not turn out right – tell us your story.”

Perhaps if we invite more stories like this we will end up with fewer “doctored” CVs, which omit any role that shows any sign of failure.
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I was chatting with a very experienced woman recently about how her job hunt was going. “Oh, well, I get the ‘you are too experienced for the role’ response all the time – really frustrating,” she said. “Of course, HR people are smart enough to avoid saying that you’re too old for the team and so instead they say you are too experienced.”

In my book the concept of “too experienced” (so long as it’s not code for “expecting too much money”) is slightly bonkers. If you could hire someone with more experience then why would you not hire them? How can experience ever be a negative?

I found myself discussing this with another HR director in a different company: “I can see that – managers like to have people to manage, not people who can do their job”. Any company that employs managers with that attitude is sure headed for problems in my view. I expect managers to hire the most experienced person they possibly can for the budget. If the new employee slightly unnerves them because they might be higher skilled than them – better still.

If I was on Mastermind, I think my specialist skill would be surrounding myself with people who are better at all kinds of things than me. What’s not to like? I’m learning all the time, challenged by the team and confident that I have great counsel by my side.

I’m convinced that, when recruiting managers, if we all made sure that they could demonstrate they’ve hired people smarter and more experienced than they are, this is the fastest way to boost our economy.

I’m going to keep on hiring experienced people – what better way to keep on learning?

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Perhaps, like me, you’re sick of hearing about MPs and their expenses?

Perhaps, also like me, you’re quite intrigued by the range of reactions from people. Reactions such as:
- is it really theft if it's "just expenses"?
- is it really their fault if the system is so poorly communicated?
- isn't this just because they are not paid the going rate for their work and they have to make up the extra somehow?

Why do you know more about their expenses than you do about their recent voting decisions in the House of Commons? Perhaps you work in a culture where it is widely expected that people can claim for a few extra (non-existent) taxis or dinners. Or some nights away when they actually got the last train home.

The more I talk to HR people, the more I've been struck by what is tolerated in the way of expenses claims. I reckon there are a few aspects of culture that can promote a sense of financial responsibility.

First: whether people are trusted with cash. When I arrived at !What If?, I was told that we all sign off our own expenses up to the first £250 because "we can be 100 per cent trusted to take responsibility for the company's money – we are thrifty as if it were our own money".

I asked if there had ever been abuse and was told that in the past 10 years there had been only one person who had taken advantage and had to be spoken to. As we grow, we still find that trusting people to judge for themselves if a cost is appropriate is by far the best route rather than heavy controls.

Second: how we communicate about the cash. Every week we update the whole company on the sales results and the work in the pipeline. Everyone knows week to week how much work we are converting and how we are performing against our target.

Some might say there is too much information, but we think it’s really important that everyone understands how we are doing and can see the hard work paying off. They will be interested as we approach the profit targets as they know this will trigger profit share for everyone, regardless of role.

Lastly, I do think that there is something in the issue of being paid a fair wage for a fair day’s work. We Brits tend to shy away from conversations about salaries unless it’s the review period. Or perhaps a conversation is started when someone resigns over money. We need to change this and get comfortable talking about money. Making sure that people are being paid correctly is incredibly important to how they relate to the company and to ensure that they feel valued – and less likely to be looking for opportunities to “make up” for the value they feel they are losing out on.

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I'm at our New York office this week and I’ve been struck by what I see in the local stores. The corner convenience store has at least three photos of Barack Obama with the “Yes We Can” campaign slogan - quite an uplifting thought when you've just popped out for some gum. I can't remember ever seeing a picture of a UK politician in one of my local shops.

I found a less uplifting message on a number of the tills. It said: “If I do not give you a receipt for your purchase, please let my manager know and receive a $5.00 credit for your next purchase”. I asked a couple of assistants how they felt about the sign. They replied: “We’re used to it – the boss doesn’t trust anybody at all.”

I asked them if the manager gives many people five dollars off their next purchase and got the same response from two different stores and three members of staff: “Well, if you were going to think of doing this you would just make sure you gave the stuff away to your friends – not to people you don’t know.” I wonder if any of the store managers have realised that their system is not working! Stick people in a low-trust environment and, trust me, they will live up to your low expectations.

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Did anyone else see that recent brilliant TV programme about the science teacher who took his class to China to see how fireworks were made? It was fascinating to see the fireworks being put together and to see all the workers in their various sections.

What really interested me was the glimpse of the very highest paid workers that formed the factory elite. These "lucky" employees work in a separate building (at a safe distance from the main factory) working hands-on with the gunpowder. This is highly dangerous work, for which they are paid two-and-a-half times the salary of the other workers. The factory walls are plastered with prayers and messages from their families so that if the whole factory blows up, they will pass to the afterlife with the blessings of their families.

I expect that many viewers found this very shocking. Perhaps they asked themselves: "Would I put my life in such danger for 10 times my salary? How could anyone put themselves in this position?”

It was only a few years ago that we were told how working long hours and stress were killing us. All the evidence pointed to the fact that long working hours are bad for our health and our families, and that stress-related illness is the silent killer in UK workplaces.

The hot topics of the moment are redundancy, efficiency, innovation and surviving this downturn. I’m noticing a growing long-hours culture among my friends and family as they face the economic crisis and are thankful that their companies are not laying off more staff. With BlackBerries on 24/7 and Skype meetings being run from home, all the tools are there to help people work longer and longer hours across different time zones.

But when HR teams are working harder than ever to help leadership teams weather the storm, we also need to lead by example. Do we all know who the people are in our businesses that work in the equivalent of the gunpowder room? And what can we do to keep them safe from overload, stress and pressure? We won't have a major explosion on our hands but, as stress and pressure builds on those who are lucky enough to still be working hard, we could be witnessing the silent killer in the workplace.

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