Q&A with Adrian Moorhouse, Managing Director at Lane4 Management Group

MEDIA 7 | June 19, 2020

Adrian Moorhouse, Managing Director at Lane4 Management Group won a gold medal at the Seoul Olympic Games in 1988 and was world number one in his event for 6 consecutive years (Swimming - 100m Breaststroke). He was awarded an MBE in 1987. He co-founded Lane4 in 1995. As the Managing Director at Lane4 following retirement from sport. He divides his time between designing and delivering programmes for organisations and developing Lane4’s own high performance environment. 

Adrian’s role centres around shaping Lane4 as a business and driving company growth whilst ensuring the maintenance of strong client relationships and the delivery of high quality products.

MEDIA 7: What motivates you to get out of the bed in the morning?
ADRIAN MOORHOUSE: 
I have always loved mornings. I started early morning training as a swimmer at about 11 years old. Because I was driven to succeed in my sport, I understood that training and committing to something required me to get up early, because that’s when the pools opened!
My father had the kind of philosophy that rubbed off on me – find something you love, and work at it.

In my role of Managing Director of Lane4, my motivation to get up in the morning nowadays comes from my genuine belief in what the company does. My drive comes more now from purpose, than it does from simply goal achievement. I think that has moved on from when I swam. I want to create a business that people love to work for, and that they think this is the best job they ever had.

M7: You haven’t had an ordinary career, to say the least. Thousands know you for your many swimming achievements. Can you talk about winning a gold medal at the Seoul Olympic Games in 1988 and representing your country? What was your first thought when you saw your time?
AM: 
Representing my country was always something I did with great pride throughout my career, because it was always a stepping stone to achieving the bigger goals I had set. Once I was on a stage where I was representing Team GB, I could be in the mix to win Olympic medals or set world records.

The Seoul Olympics were such a pivotal moment in my career, as it had taken me 4 years to recover from the disappointment of my performance at my first Olympics in LA in 1984 (I came 4th). In the lead up to Seoul, I had analyzed every part of my performance from stroke technique to psychology and nutrition, all to make sure I was in the best possible shape. Going in as the favorite to win the 100m breaststroke, I also learnt from my mistakes in the 1984 Olympics by mentally preparing for the huge expectations the media placed on me.

It was a close race, and my first thought when I finished the race was “Did I get it?” because I had been 6th at the halfway turn. I worked so hard in the final part of the race and was closing the gap with every stroke. I knew it would be close, and it was: I saw my name at the top of the leaderboard, having won by only one-hundredth of a second. The relief and joy were unbelievable, but I must admit they did give way to tears when I stood on that podium with my gold medal.


"It’s critical that we have managers who see the potential, and the best in people, and who also have the skills to draw that out of them."

M7: Apart from the culture and behaviors, in terms of developing people, what are the initiatives Lane 4 has in place?
AM: 
At Lane4, as well as developing companies’ culture, we work to develop their leaders, teams and management, with the ultimate aim of improving people’s working lives. The metaphor I use from my time in swimming is that I want to help people in their own race – whatever that might be for them. Because we are a development organization, everything we do for our clients we also turn in on ourselves, and make sure we have the best developed employees too! Right now, a big part of my time is taken up seeing how we can best work within the restrictions, and for us that has meant moving a chunk of our face-to-face delivery to virtual. It’s been a big shift but also an exciting one in terms of showcasing some of our new digital products.

Our digital team has been working really hard over the past couple of years so that we have webinars, e-learning tools, virtual classrooms and personalized coaching apps already. These tools mean our transition to virtual delivery has been much smoother than it otherwise would have been. Our teams have also been sharing their learning with each other in real time. Again, from sport, we are really good at in moment performance reviewing – good or bad; asking ourselves: what’s the lesson?

I’m most excited about the off-the-shelf products which we’re going to market with. They aim to develop skills which are really relevant right now: adaptability, wellbeing, and how to be a high performing team. They’re scalable because they can be accessed anytime from any device, and that’s been the real success within the organisations we’ve used them in so far: it allows leaders to unify learning. That sense of cohesion is a benefit which feels all the more relevant now most of us are working virtually.

M7: Development is very closely linked to performance management. What approach does Lane 4 take when it comes to managing employee performance? And what is the reason behind such an approach?
AM: When I started Lane4, I had just come from this incredibly elite environment of professional swimming, and I wanted to apply some of that performance psychology and focus to the workplace. I’ve always had the belief that if people are given the right tools, then anyone can improve and realize their potential. It’s this belief that talent is everywhere, combined with psychology and our experience in elite sport, which grounds our approach and gets the best out of people. Our ultimate aim is to build winning organisations and improve people’s working lives.

I am also a big believer in the coach enabling and facilitating people – in this case, the person’s line manager. It’s critical that we have managers who see the potential, and the best in people, and who also have the skills to draw that out of them. Clarity between the person and the manager around role and goal expectations is crucial.


"If people are given then right tools, then anyone can improve and realize their potential."

M7: With many more people working from home, leaders are starting to experience a drop in people's motivation at work. In your opinion, how can smart managers effectively lead and motivate remote teams during the COVID-19 pandemic?
AM: 
In the last month I have run webinars with my colleagues on both leading virtual teams and maintaining motivation, because they are issues which many of us are facing right now. Leadership and motivation have to be looked at completely differently right now, because COVID-19 is a completely unprecedented challenge.
In terms of leading teams at the moment, there are some key lessons I have learnt from my experience of performing under pressure and weathering the 2008 financial crisis as a small business. To name a few, during a crisis it’s key to manage your own state as a leader. A lot of this is understanding what physical signs your body gives you when it’s all getting a bit much. Investing in support networks means you can then lean on others when this happens. Another one is to set up clear roles and responsibilities. In coping with disruption, priorities get scattered, and it becomes even more important to have those contracting conversations so that your teams know where their focus should lie.

At Lane4, we look at motivation through a framework. This outlines the four determinants of motivation: Autonomy, Belonging, Competence and Meaning. Once you have understood how working from home has impacted your motivation as a leader through these four areas, interrogate how that might be playing out for your team. With this understanding, you can tailor your leadership behaviors to help improve your team’s motivation.

There’s also something to be said about giving your teams a line of sight towards your organisation’s defined purpose during COVID-19, which might not be as corporate as it used to be. Having that line of sight allows them to create their own roadmap towards the goal and helps remind them of the meaning of their work at a time where little feels certain.

M7: How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your work - what day to day processes have you had to re-tool to be able to pull them off remotely? What does your remote tech stack look like?
AM: 
As Managing Director of Lane4, I spend a lot of time with the six board members I’m lucky enough to have working alongside me. Part of my job is helping them be brilliant, and thankfully I can still do that virtually, not that they need much help at all!

I’ve always believed that effective communication is key to a successful organization and I’ve managed to maintain this with people in my team during the pandemic. However, this does mean I find myself on Microsoft Teams for a lot of hours during the week. What this situation has made me notice is that operating remotely can still be highly effective given the number of digital tools we have available now. Although I still maintain that nothing beats a face-to-face conversation over a coffee!

As I mentioned, we’ve been operating mainly on Microsoft Office 365. The whole organisation uses this so it creates consistency throughout different teams. Whether that’s saving and sharing documents on SharePoint or holding a company-wide update on Microsoft Teams, I’ve been really impressed with how seamlessly the tech has worked.


"The sense of cohesion is a benefit which feels all the more relevant now when most of us are working virtually."

M7: How does Lane 4 cultivate an environment that encourages employees to seek guidance and support from leaders?
AM:
 We believe in having a learning mindset at Lane4, which dictates that people’s beliefs and abilities are malleable, not fixed. Because we encourage our employees to adopt and explore that learning mindset as much as possible, as people stretch themselves outside their comfort zones, they inevitably fail sometimes. But we believe in “failing fast”: failing, but learning quicker as you bounce back than you otherwise would have done. That’s where the support and guidance comes in, which we have embedded into the culture through mentoring schemes and coaching sessions.

We also promote trust immensely, and that’s been something which I’ve felt is pivotal to us as an organization overcoming the COVID-19 crisis. By being as transparent as possible with our people the whole way through this, I think they’ve felt more able to ask us for support when they have needed it.

M7: What are some exciting projects going on in Talent Management at Lane 4?
AM:
One of the projects which we’ve been excited about recently has been upskilling all of our consultants to bring them up to speed with our new talent management offering. It’s been a huge project and one we are proud to have completed despite COVID-19 making it slightly trickier.

I’m also really proud of the Bounce Forward academy we’ve set up for our employees currently on furlough. It’s allowed them to access training sessions to help them gain confidence with all of our digital platforms, mentoring schemes and opportunities to connect with one another around topics other than work. There was even a virtual gardening session led by our Director of Finance last week!

M7: What is your favorite quote?
AM: 
During my time as a swimmer, my favourite quote was: “If you follow in the footsteps of somebody, you’ll never overtake them.” My coach used to point out athletes who were really good at what they did, and I would watch them and learn. Having said that, I was always aware of the danger of only focusing on beating my competitors, because my reasoning was: if I’m just trying to beat someone else’s best performance, I might never know what my best could have looked like.

Now my swimming career is behind me, I don’t collect inspirational quotes quite as much as I used to! The one I have taken with me into the journey of building Lane4 is: “The aim of this establishment is to create an environment where champions are inevitable”.

ABOUT LANE4 MANAGEMENT GROUP

Lane4 are experts in people performance. Drawing on over 25 years’ experience of leadership development, our highly skilled team design and deliver bespoke programs in over 40 countries and in 18 languages to engage people in their development, create a sustainable shift in performance and truly change people’s working lives.

We work across leadership development, team development, culture change and large scale manager development. These topics can be delivered through a mix of face-to-face and digital methods.

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ServiceNow’s Vancouver release allows organizations to do just that, automating manual processes so that employees can focus on more complex work, and driving ROI from digital investments with significant efficiency gains. For example, managing the maintenance, security, and compliance needed for clinical devices diverts clinician energy from patient care to paperwork. ServiceNow’s new Clinical Device Management (CDM) solution simplifies how healthcare providers install, service, manage, and maximize the life of devices, such as MRI and X-ray machines. CDM automates the upkeep and management of these devices, guides staff on ordering parts, and identifies the best technicians for device maintenance, leading to improved patient safety and care. In addition, healthcare providers can save on maintenance expenses related to critical, costly devices. Accounts Payable Operations (APO), an enhancement to Source to Pay Operations, is now generally available as part of the Vancouver release. APO, part of ServiceNow’s Finance and Supply Chain Workflows, automates the accounts payable process, allowing teams to digitize the invoice receipt, reconciliation and payment process, which can positively impact cash flow as well as supplier relationships. With APO, customers can reduce their typical manual processes costs (~$16 per invoice) by up to 80% with automation from ServiceNow.3 Accelerating talent transformation with AI The growing skills shortage and employee demand for continuous learning is pressuring businesses and HR leaders to rethink the way they train and develop talent. Seventy-seven percent of employers report difficulty in filling roles—the biggest skills gap in 17 years.4 To help leaders better meet the needs of their workforce while optimizing for the future of work, Employee Growth and Development (EGD) is generally available today. EGD uses AI to collect, validate, and continuously update employee skills data, giving leaders greater visibility and insight into workforce capabilities so they can make smarter talent decisions that fuel business growth. New in ServiceNow’s Vancouver release, managers can create customized and trackable growth plans for employees that align skills development to career ambitions. Employees can define career aspirations, explore career options, and self-drive career progression through guided actions. AI-powered recommendations and proactive prompts foster more informed career conversations between managers and employees and empower employees to take ownership of their career development all from a single career hub. Both CEOs and CHROs know that skills are a core driver of every company's transformation. To enable this work at scale, technology has to keep pace. ServiceNow is leading the way with our Employee Growth and Development solution, harnessing AI to empower people to grow with more accessible, inclusive, and impactful opportunities, while providing leaders the transparency to see progress across the enterprise, said Jacqui Canney, Chief People Officer at ServiceNow. This solution bridges the gap between employees' existing skillsets and the necessary actions for development, and propels organizational growth while unlocking everyone's full potential. It's not just a tool, it's how we will help reshape the future of workforce development, placing people at the heart of everything we do. As a part of the Vancouver release, ServiceNow also launched Now Assist for ITSM, CSM, HRSD, and Creator to embed generative AI across all workflows on the Now Platform. With this update, customers can accelerate productivity, improve experiences, and increase agility across every business function through the power of generative AI. What customers and partners are saying about the Now Platform Vancouver release EY “Collaborating with ServiceNow has allowed us to implement effective solutions to improve EY finance and procurement teams’ work experience,” said Hank Prybylski, EY global vice chair – transformation. “Building on this valuable alliance, new solutions in ServiceNow’s Finance and Supply Chain Workflows, such as Accounts Payable Operations (APO), will help EY teams operate more efficiently by connecting a wide range of data, systems, and people, so they can drive more business value.” IBM Consulting "Pairing IBM's Skills expertise with ServiceNow Employee Growth and Development, we will revolutionize talent management," said Deniz Demirel, talent transformation strategic partnerships leader at IBM Consulting. "By consolidating the digital experience platform with learning, development, and skills intelligence, our customers can gain data-driven insights to proactively identify and develop critical skills, effectively closing talent gaps and simplifying the overall employee experience." Optimum Healthcare IT "At Optimum Healthcare IT, we recognize that healthcare organizations want a platform that provides a single view across the enterprise regardless of the type of asset. With ServiceNow’s Clinical Device Management, they can now take a holistic approach to managing their clinical devices on a single platform, optimizing the value of their investments,” said Brian Symonds, president of Optimum Healthcare IT. “This exciting new product, combined with our world-class staffing and consulting services, allows us to maximize value for customers through streamlined processes, compliance management, and risk assessment. This comprehensive approach resonates with many enterprise leaders as they desire heightened visibility and reporting, and it enables us to provide a whole new level of value for our customers." Availability The Now Platform Vancouver release is generally available today. A slate of new generative AI innovations, partnerships, and enhancements were also announced today and will be available on Sept. 29; more details can be found here. Additional information: Learn more about the Vancouver release from Jon Sigler, Senior Vice President of Platform. Watch a demo on Now Assist for every workflow.

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Workforce Management

TrueBlue Streamlines Operations with Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications

TrueBlue | September 20, 2023

TrueBlue Achieves 40% ROI through Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications implementation. Centralized Finance and HR Processes Enhance Productivity and Reduce Costs. Over 11,000 organizations opt for Oracle Cloud ERP and HCM Solutions. TrueBlue, a leader in specialized workforce solutions, has automated its finance and HR operations using Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Suite, resulting in a remarkable 40% return on investment (ROI). Leveraging Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Oracle Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM), TrueBlue has achieved heightened productivity, cost reduction, and enhanced business insights by streamlining and automating its finance and HR processes. This strategic move empowers TrueBlue to better assist its clients in achieving growth while addressing evolving workforce demands. TrueBlue, dedicated to improving growth and performance by offering staffing, workforce management, and recruitment process outsourcing solutions, annually connects over 600,000 individuals with job opportunities. To tackle the challenge of managing 20 disparate financial and HR applications accumulated over several years through organic growth and acquisitions, TrueBlue made the decision to consolidate its finance and HR processes with Oracle Fusion Applications. Derrek Gafford, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of TrueBlue, emphasized the positive impact of this transformation, noting, Our legacy systems were a struggle to maintain resulting in unnecessary delays, which hampered our ability to innovate. [Source – Cision PR Newswire] He added that with Oracle Fusion Applications, they had been able to bring finance and HR together on a single shared platform. He mentioned that this had helped them eliminate manual processes, improve the speed and accuracy of their business operations, and enhance their ability to meet demand. By implementing Oracle Cloud ERP and Oracle Cloud HCM, TrueBlue has realized tangible benefits, including automating billing to decrease days sales outstanding by 20 days and cutting three days from its financial close cycle. Furthermore, Oracle Cloud HCM has streamlined HR tasks, allowing employees to dedicate more time to achieving their career and growth goals. Steve Miranda, Executive Vice President of Applications Development at Oracle, praised TrueBlue's approach, noting, To efficiently support stakeholders and fulfill its mission to connect work and people, TrueBlue needed to streamline processes, consolidate systems, and embrace automation. [Source – Cision PR Newswire] He added that with Oracle Fusion Applications, TrueBlue had been able to take advantage of Oracle's integrated suite of applications to bring finance and HR together. He noted that this had made a significant difference to the way TrueBlue ran its business and was helping the team drive innovation to better serve clients both in the present and the future. Oracle Cloud ERP offers a comprehensive suite of enterprise finance and operations capabilities, encompassing financials, accounting hub, procurement, project management, enterprise performance management, risk management, subscription management, supply chain management and manufacturing. On the other hand, Oracle Cloud HCM provides market-leading features for human resources, talent management, workforce management, payroll, and the award-winning employee experience platform, Oracle ME. This transformative move by TrueBlue underscores the power of automation and integration in enhancing business efficiency and competitiveness. It exemplifies the benefits that organizations can achieve by embracing modern cloud-based solutions.

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Employee Experience

Workhuman Elevates Employee Recognition with New Microsoft Teams App

Workhuman | September 25, 2023

Workhuman, a renowned company at the forefront of transforming how employees engage, connect, and show appreciation in the workplace, has taken a significant step in enhancing its market-leading Social Recognition platform by introducing the all-new Workhuman app for Microsoft Teams. This innovative application is now readily available for download in the Microsoft Teams app store, providing employees within organizations complete access to the features offered by Workhuman's robust recognition platform, all within the Microsoft Teams environment where employees conduct their daily work, meetings, collaborations, and communication. Leveraging the cutting-edge capabilities of the Microsoft Teams platform, this new application empowers Workhuman to offer its clients an effective means to elevate awareness and real-time participation in their employee recognition initiatives. Building upon the initial Teams integration by Workhuman, which already supports users launching the recognition nomination process within Teams chats and Teams channels, the new app brings forth a host of features: A native welcome page that facilitates immediate recognition and showcases an 'always on' awards feed, along with a highlight reel of years-of-service awards and celebrations, all without necessitating employee logins to a company intranet. Award notifications within the Teams Activity tab, along with the ability to extend kudos and congratulations to colleagues across the organization who are receiving recognition or commemorating significant life and work milestones, thereby fostering a more unified company culture. The capacity to deliver 'in-the-moment' recognition within Teams chats, channels, or even during meetings (through a Microsoft Teams meeting extension), accessible across mobile, desktop, and web versions of Teams. Employee visibility into their own recognition points balance, serving as a reminder of the recognition they have received from their peers, coupled with one-click access to the Workhuman Store for perusing and redeeming points for merchandise, gift cards, charitable donations, or experiences. Teams administrators are granted centralized permission and deployment controls for the application within the organization's Microsoft Teams environment, offering granular settings and robust security options. Research conducted jointly by Workhuman and Gallup has delved into the profound impact of recognition on business outcomes. A key finding reveals that only one in four employees in Gallup's global database strongly agree that they have received recognition or praise for their outstanding work in the past week. However, the study also underscores the potential benefits of doubling this figure, leading to a remarkable 9% boost in productivity and $91,989,474 in increased employee productivity. Furthermore, additional research demonstrates that when employees are acknowledged for life events and work-related milestones, they are three times more likely to strongly agree that they feel connected to the organizational culture. The Workhuman app for Microsoft Teams harnesses the full potential of an enterprise's human resources and employee experience strategy, delivering it to an engaged audience to stimulate enhanced employee engagement, connection, retention, and productivity on a large scale. The introduction of the Workhuman app for Microsoft Teams represents the next stride in Workhuman's journey to bring the power of its entire platform to the digital employee experience provided by Microsoft 365, encompassing Microsoft Teams, Outlook, Viva, SharePoint, and more. About Workhuman Workhuman is a leading firm addressing the most pressing human capital challenges faced by companies today, including high turnover, employee engagement, hybrid work environments, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) through the Workhuman Cloud, a secure SaaS platform that offers the industry's premier Social Recognition solution. The company offers unparalleled technology solutions, analytics, expertise, and services to organizations of all sizes, fostering workplace cultures rooted in employee recognition and crowd-sourced feedback. As the global leader in technology solutions, Workhuman is revolutionizing how employees celebrate, connect with, and appreciate one another in the workplace.

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Lane 4 Management Group

Lane 4 Management Group

Lane4 are experts in people performance. Drawing on over 25 years’ experience of leadership development, our highly skilled team design and deliver bespoke programs in over 40 countries and in 18 languages to engage people in their development, create a sustainable shift in performance and truly cha...

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