05 February 2018 
Alex Killick, Interim HRD
Alex Killick, Director of People at Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) and UHR Treasurer, shares a story of change in GCU’s award-winning People Services team.
My seven-year-old daughter has just finished her school project about the sea. She beautifully illustrated the story of Toothy the tuskfish and Hunter the hammerhead shark. Basically, Hunter wants to eat Toothy but gets caught in seaweed. Toothy rescues him on the condition that Hunter leaves him alone. But with no guarantees, Toothy has to take a bit of a risk to trust that his sworn enemy will honour the agreement. In the seven-year-old world, the good deed wins. Toothy and Hunter go on to become friends and hunt together. In the world of work, however, sadly there are few trusting tuskfish these days.
So it was a revelation to see the octopus and the grouper at work on Blue Planet II. The programme provides remarkable footage of these two creatures with nothing obvious in common, working together as a tactical unit to flush out, scare and trap potential prey. It seems they both recognize that together they are more formidable. They are able to use their respective strengths to great effect with no obvious profit-share scheme in place. Their very survival depends on this reciprocal service, even if it provides no guarantees of reward, presumably on the basis that over time, the spoils even out so that both benefit.
This fishy metaphor could be about any organisational tribes needing to work together for the common good. It also illustrates that where there are divisions within tribes, sub-tribes, factions, cliques and so on, the job still needs to get done. There is an inherent tension here. On the one hand we would expect teams to work best when they have like-minded individuals with similar outlooks, beliefs, values and so on. On the other, we know that performance is enhanced where there is diversity and diversity of thinking. We know that diverse teams are more challenging because they disrupt the status quo and push the boundaries.
When I joined GCU six years ago there were two separate doors into the same open plan space – one saying Human Resources (HR) and the other saying Organisational Development (OD). Ridiculous I thought. And long story short, we became People Services - although some customers continued, and still do, to call us HR!
It wasn’t the change in name that was important, but the change in what we did and how we did things that mattered. I was pretty evangelical about the new People Services offer. Ultimately I believe you have to have teams with different and complementary skills to be able to deliver an effective service. When we are focused more on the outputs and less on the process, when disagreement is respectful but goal-oriented, when we can be candid and positive, then we know we have each other’s backs. This comes from embracing and encouraging difference – knowing the right people to take the lead on the particular issue or specific moment.
So I am coming round to accepting that HR and OD offer different perspectives (and not old wine in new bottles) and while some may argue that they are different species, I believe they can complement each other under a People Services umbrella but also in any number of configurations that capitalises on individual strengths and contributions.
If a tusk fish can work with a hammerhead shark, and a grouper can align with an octopus, it shows the ingenuity and creativity of what difference in teams can achieve. And while there may be plenty more of the same fish in the sea, better to be in the winning team and eat, rather than be eaten.
GCU’s People Services team scooped the 2017 UHR Exceptional HR Award. Alex will be sharing more of their story at the UHR Showcasing Good Practice Event in London on Wednesday 7 February.
