Management #oneword #HR #CIPD

One word 2015

In 2015 100s of HR professionals were asked a simple question in a survey… in one word describe…Management

Participants were invited from the CIPD Members LinkedIn group, the CIPD communities, and the CIPD Facebook group. 616 participated. Of those, over 70% have been in HR for more than 11 years.

Not all questions were mandatory. The response rate for this question was 616 out of the 616 participants.

The demographics for this were:

Processing of one word data

During data analysis, spellings were corrected, and capitalisation resolved. No words were merged.

Responses to the one word survey

1. Control 13%
2. Direction 5%
3. Leadership 4%
4. Consistency 3%
5. Delivery 3%
6. Process 2%
7. Success 2%
8. Organisation 2%
9. Enabling 1%
10. Guidance 1%

It is interesting to see that “CONTROL” stands above all the others.

Is this due to the influence that “leadership” is seen as aspirational, but of course we talk about “managers”?

I wonder if the frequency of the term CONTROL is down to most participants’ experience of their management.

Summary conclusions

Looking beyond the first word, there does seem to be a practical reflection on the role of management, in that leadership at a local level is important, along with setting direction and consistency of approach.

Other words used included:

accountability, achievement, achieving, admin, bureaucracy, challenging, coaching, communication, compliance, consistency, control, controller, controlling, coordination, critical, decision, delivering, delivery, difference, direction, doing, drive, effective, effectiveness, efficiency, empowering, empowerment, enablement, enabler, enabling, engagement, engaging, execution, facilitation, facilitator, facilitators, fairness, firefighting, future, goals, growth, guidance, implementation, implementers, inconsistent, inspirational, integrity, leader, leaders, leadership, leading, makers, measurement, motivation, necessary, operational, order, organisation, organised, organising, outcomes, outdated, overseeing, oversight, overview, ownership, people, performance, power, process, productivity, purpose, resources, responsibility, results, standards, steering, strategic, strategy, structure, success, support, supportive, task, team, vision

What do you think?