The best of all cultures

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I’m always acutely aware that one of the dangers of an evidence-based approach is the accusation of negativity.  This is a real paradox because what might appear to be very critical is actually very positive; with a very clear purpose to improve all of our lives.  Yesterday I was with a client where I met people from all corners of the world and I was immediately struck by the ‘family’ atmosphere but, more importantly, a family in to which I was warmly welcomed.  I don’t feel this very often and it is exactly the sort of thing that organisation developers would want to bottle if they could.

What was the real insight for me though was the way this company was growing and assimilating different cultures and yet, at the same time, apparently maintaining this ‘one family’ feel.  It inspired me – wouldn’t it be wonderful if an organisation really managed to take the best of all the cultures represented among its workforce?  If you wanted to do that with your organisation what would be the best bits from each?

As someone born in the UK, from Irish parentage, I am happy to start the ball rolling with what I believe are some of the best aspects of the cultures in which I grew up.  From the UK I would offer tolerance as one of our most attractive features.  There is plenty of evidence that the UK is an incredibly tolerant society, which includes allowing opinionated so-and-so’s like me to vent.  Of the many things I could have chosen from my Irish heritage I would take self-deprecation; it is very easy to get on with people who do not take themselves too seriously and prefer informality to ceremony: my own family would never allow anyone to have pretensions or to regard themselves as ‘better’ than anyone else.

I imagine there is not a nation on earth that could not offer something to strengthen these family ties so what would you bring from your own culture?

The Alternative Theory Theory

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How many of the things you plan to do today are based on sound theory?  If you work in HR you might be running an assessment centre, organising an employee survey or developing a competence policy.  Each one of these is working to an implicit theory – the theory of employee assessment says you will make better selections; satisfied employees perform better; competence development means effectiveness.  You might have assumed that someone, somewhere must have tested these theories out at some time, and that the practices you are following are already validated by evidence.  You could pause to check whether these theories exist and what evidence they are based on.  Alternatively, you could come up with a different theory yourself.  I call this the Alternative Theory Theory.  It states that for every theory that tries to explain human behaviour there is an equally plausible alternative that adopts exactly the opposite perspective.  Let’s try it out.

The most obvious contender is the employee-customer-profit chain theory.  It predicts that if you have engaged and satisfied employees they will look after the customer better and you will make more profit.  This theory, based on false correlations between employee engagement and company performance, led to the exponential growth in employee surveys over the last 20 years.  The obvious alternative theory is that good companies with good business models, providing customers with what they want at the right price, will be nicer places to work and employees will be more satisfied working there. This theory predicts that unless and until you get your business model right you might be wasting time and effort on trying to engage your workforce in a poorly managed business.

How about the theory of management education?*  The theory goes something like this, I think – management education has to be taught by management academics and the best management academics are those who do lots of research and write lots of papers, peer reviewed by other academics, none of whom has actually proven themselves to be great managers with clear evidence.  Actually, that does not sound like much of a theory at all does it?  OK here’s an alternative theory.  If you are a very ambitious manager you need the best CV to further your career.  The best CV’s have the best business schools on them and I know they are the best because ..…. hmmm, no I don’t like where this theory is heading either.

Let’s have another go at explaining why managers go to business schools.  Here’s a better alternative theory.  It does not matter what you learn, if anything, from your business school as long as everyone else regards it as one of the best business schools.  That means image is more important than substance so business schools play whatever games they have to in order to come top of the league tables of business schools. So the league tables are based on measures such as “faculty with doctorates”, presumably because there is a theory somewhere that having a doctorate not only makes you a better teacher but also, presumably, that you teach managers how to perform better?  I would be very interested to see the evidence that backs up that theory.  Or you can see “salary increase” or “career progression” as indicators of how good the business school is.  Hmmm, this is already starting to sound like another one of my favourite Alternative Theories, the Circular Argument Theory.

The problem with circular arguments is that eventually you disappear up your own orifice.  In fact Harvard’s traditional ‘case method’ of teaching was such a glaring example of the Circular Argument Theory that they have abandoned it.  Funnily enough though, they are still No.1 in the latest 2013 US News ‘Best Business School Rankings’ where no mention is made of Harvard’s break with its past and, as yet, unproven future.  Harvard itself makes no mention of whether Evidence-Based Management is on its new curriculum either.

Last but not least, what about the theory of why CEOs employ HR people?  The obvious theory is simply that they need HR but that does not explain why they need HR.  There are at least two alternatives. One is that it makes the CEO look like he or she gives a damn about their people.  Another is that they employ HR departments purely to keep them out of court.  A third, which gets a bit closer to the truth, is that managing people well takes a lot of thought and consideration and is damned hard work, so they would rather get someone else to do it for them. My personal choice of Alternative Theory is the simplest of all and is the one that explains absolutely everything – CEOs simply don’t have a clue why they employ HR.  That is because the business school they attended never presented any evidence as to HR’s real value.  Oh dear, we’re back to the Circular Argument Theory.  So who is going to help us all break out of this pernicious cycle with some evidence? Hmmm.

*PS. If anyone knows of an evidence-based theory of management education could they please let me know where I can find it?

CIPD’s ‘Next Generation’ are stuck in the 19th Century

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19th Century HR director introduces latest diversity policy

If you should ever have cause to visit the CIPD’s office in Wimbledon don’t be fooled by the modern façade: inside is a perfect replica of how dismal life must have been in first half of the 19th Century.  They may talk about their ‘Next Generation HR’ but their methods and level of professionalism are exactly where the medical profession was back in 1858: -

“The ‘professionalization’ of medicine in the nineteenth century has long been a subject of interest for medical historians. They have shown how this period saw the creation of new institutions and formal mechanisms for regulating medical practice, and for distinguishing the ‘qualified’ practitioner from the ‘quack’.  In Britain, a key development was the Medical Act of 1858 which established the General Medical Council and the Medical Register, a public list of all recognised medical practitioners.” (University of Manchester, ‘Making of the Medical Profession’)

The lack of a General HR Council, one that would actually enable HR practitioners to stand as tall as the medical profession, has been my biggest bugbear since joining the world of HR in 1978.  So, when I was invited by Xpert HR to write a guest blog (February 2011) I chose to aim my ire at the CIPD’s dismal performance as the upholder of professional standards. Realising this might depress many readers I decided to sweeten the pill with liberal dollops of humour.  Unfortunately I overdid it as some of those commenting on the piece thought I was joking so, for the record, I wasn’t!

Fast forward a year and the CIPD still shows no sign of taking itself or its 19th Century members seriously. Its new petticoat, laughably referred to as a code of conduct, will not hide its shame or spare its blushes with no General HR Council in sight, no definition of what ‘professional’ means and no attempt to move the profession onto an evidence-base.

Meanwhile, proper questions about what it might mean to be a professional manager are being posed by the most prominent protagonist in the evidence-based management movement – Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer – who concludes in his HBR column (September 2011) entitled “Management a profession? Where’s the proof?” –

“Before management can be considered a profession, its practitioners will have to see themselves as part of a larger purpose.  But it took more than higher aims to move medicine beyond quackery.  It took science and its application to practice. In a world afflicted by complex problems we should have more assurance that managers will also draw on knowledge greater than their own.”

When set against Pfeffer’s tough, evidence-based criteria, having the letters FCIPD after your name confers about as much professional credibility as the 19th Century doctor in the picture above.  In case you might be wondering what he is up to it comes with the helpful caption -

“Classic illustration of a woman’s medical exam by her doctor. Many 19th century medical textbooks used this illustration to show the proper manner to examine a female patient. The physician’s eyes are diverted so he will not violate the woman’s “modesty.”

What is the opposite of Advanced?

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The reason I ask is because I have just come across an “AIM Practice” document entitled “HRM and Innovation Assessment.” which claims it can help “assess the extent to which HRM in your organization is oriented towards innovation.”  If you have never heard of AIM Practice it is the sister organisation of AIM – the Advanced Institute of Management (Research) – and if you have never heard of AIM it might be worth asking yourself what makes these academics think they are so advanced?  Sometimes advanced is not good news – as when cancer reaches an advanced stage.

The Deputy Director of AIM is Professor Andy Neely and I first came across Andy in 1998 when I was invited to speak (about Organisational HR Maturity) at the ‘First International Conference on Performance Measurement’ at Cambridge University’s Judge Institute of Management Studies.  One of the papers presented at that conference (by Andy himself and Mike Bourne) was entitled “Why do performance measurement initiatives succeed and fail” and I have been trying to convince Andy ever since that one of the main deciding factors will be whether or not performance management is an integral part of a well-conceived, complete HR strategy.  I failed to get him or his academic colleagues interested.  In fact HR strategy has never really featured much in AIM’s research; so whatever they think they mean by ‘Advanced’ it certainly has nothing to do with advanced HR thinking.

Evidence-based HR does not loom large at AIM either.  Yet the very reason this blog/book exists at all is because the main area of management that still lacks evidence is, funnily enough, not operational management but human resource management.  This is because producing performance data on the way organisations manage their human capital is so problematic. If anything, AIM should be concentrating on EB-HR more than any other aspect of management research.  Instead it is just dumping more and more HR products into a market already awash with non-evidence-based gimmicks.

So how good are these products being peddled by AIM Practice? How about their “Hot Spots toolkit – Taken from Professor Lynda Gratton’s book ‘Hot Spots: Why Some Companies Buzz with Energy and Innovation – and Others Don’t”.  Odd choice when one considers the hot spot that Gratton’s exemplar organisation, BP, managed to get itself into.

If losing $$$billions in the Gulf of Mexico is advanced management what should we expect from the ‘HRM Innovation Assessment’ toolkit?  Apparently it only “takes up to 15 minutes to complete.” and “When all of your nominated participants have completed the questionnaire you will be notified, and your personalised report will be available online within 24 hours.”  There is no evidence offered as to what impact this ‘report’ might have so any thinking manager is bound to ask which elements of these off-the-shelf products qualify as ‘advanced’?  How arrogant are these academics and how advanced is their management ‘practice’ if they think they can produce a report about innovation without even bothering to come down from their ivory tower to visit the company concerned?  They would do well to heed Toyota’s very old principle of genchi genbutsu – ‘go and see’ for yourself.

AIM is the very opposite of advanced and there are plenty of antonyms of what that means – going back, receding, regressive, unsophisticated, even uncivilised and any organisation that does not take its human capital into account is certainly that.

Organisation Development – OD’s time will come when it has better definition and evidence

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Back in 2003 I was invited, by an alumni group from Roffey Park’s Masters in Organisation Development, to run a session on organisation design.  I was told at the time that the Roffey programme specifically excluded organisation design.  Roffey was always at the feely end of touchy (or should that be the touchy end of feely?) and took the view that the two are completely separate subjects.  That might explain why there is still something missing in their current mission statement “We develop people who develop organisations” – develop for what?

In November 2009, at a Leadership Foundation in Higher Education Conference (LFHE), while one keynote speaker was asking the question “What makes an effective Organisational Development Practitioner?” I was trying to answer it with my keynote on “Evidence-Based Learning & Development – The Real Purpose of Evaluation and ROI”.  I asked one of the academics hosting the event whether she took the view that ODevt and ODesign were different subjects?  My enquiry apparently did not warrant a serious answer – maybe it’s because I am not an academic?

Of all the disciplines that I have had to master to become an HR Professional the one that stands out for its lack of definition, purpose and workable methodology is ODevt. There are plenty of definitions available but here is one from the OD Network that I actually like -

“Organization Development is a body of knowledge and practice that enhances organizational performance and individual development, viewing the organization as a complex system of systems that exist within a larger system, each of which has its own attributes and degrees of alignment. OD interventions in these systems are inclusive methodologies and approaches to strategic planning, organization design, leadership development, change management, performance management, coaching, diversity, and work/life balance.” Matt Minahan, MM & Associates, Silver Spring, Maryland

Matt has restored my faith in ODevt because he relates it to performance and incorporates organization design; as it always should have been.  Now all we have to do is produce some evidence that ODevt actually makes a difference.  In that respect OD is no different from any other management discipline and the guiding principle, as always with evidence-based management, is to agree the evidence at the beginning. In practice this means that OD specialists need to demonstrate, up front, how their “interventions” are going to add some value: otherwise OD is just more vapourware.

One sector that is seriously in need of OD is the higher education sector. Universities and business schools are becoming more and more market-driven and this is already starting to put pressure on the quality of research and teaching.  Some of the immediate OD challenges in academic institutions are to find Deans (or equivalent) who can show true leadership in maintaining standards, at a time of significant transition, in the face of fierce competition.  They need to re-design their institutions with a whole new generation of academics who live in the real world and are evidence-based themselves; that means being prepared to have their performance managed.  The real art in the design and development will come from doing all of this without losing any of the strengths of academia (its previous rigour?) whilst maintaining a collegiate culture: that’s quite a task for OD but it is long overdue. Most of all though, before any OD effort starts, someone needs to agree what type of evidence will demonstrate that these ‘developments’ have been a success and higher education has changed for the better.

Would you pass the SHRM Standards test?

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Following the success of SHRM’s first ANSI standard I believe they are still looking for volunteers for its Taskforce.  If you were thinking of applying you might like to test your own standards first. Have a look at its latest efforts on “Investor Metrics” and then submit your answers to the questions below. Good luck!

 

PLEASE ONLY CIRCLE ONE ANSWER FOR EACH QUESTION

Question 1. Do you think the Earth is flat?

  • Yes
  • No
  • Well, I haven’t fallen off yet so I guess it must be round?

Question 2. Do you think employees would rather be referred to as -

a. people?
b. human beings?
c. human capital?

(Note. If you answered ‘c’ please state how it differs from ‘a’ and ‘b’.)

Question 3. Section ‘4.0.1 – Spending on human capital’ – do you know why they refer to ‘human capital’ rather than ‘employees’?

  • Yes
  • No
  • Presumably because they think it is what investors want to hear?

Question 4. ‘5.3 Objective’ – “The objective of the spending on human capital metric is to quantify an organization’s total expenditure on people, and look at that measure relative to other standard financial measures used in valuing an organization.” Do you think they really mean what they say?

  • Yes
  • No
  • I don’t know what they are saying so I don’t know if they mean it

Question 5. Section ‘6.0 Instructions for reporting on retaining talent’ – do you think it matters that there is no definition of talent here and they seem to be just referring to old fashioned staff turnover?

  • Yes it does matter
  • Errrm, not really sure
  • No it does not matter

Question 6. Do you think it would be a good idea to set global standards that are actually based on some evidence?

  • Yes
  • No
  • That might be nice.

Question 7. Section 9.6.1 – Do you think “Step 1” should be to -

a. (page 19) “… get employees to fill in a questionnaire, typically organizations hire a vendor who has expertise in employee questionnaires, but it is possible for an organization to develop their own questions. Good vendors will have tested their questions to prove there is a correlation with important business outcomes.”

b. Just give Gallup a call, again

c. Find out what the business priorities are.

Question 8. Do you think everyone hates HR because it ….

  • Wastes everyone’s time
  • Produces meaningless metrics
  • Avoids business accountability at all costs
  • All of the above

Question 9. Would you meet this standard?

  • Yes – I have been measuring this stuff for many years
  • No – but that does not worry me because no one outside HR is really interested anyway
  • I don’t want to – it would mean dropping my own standards

Question 10.  If you are not already a member of SHRM would this standard make you want to join?

  • Yes
  • No
  • Do I really look that stupid?

A disappointing hitch-hikers guide to evidence-based management – a book review of ‘Evidence-Based Productivity Improvement’*

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This review was originally commissioned by People Management (with a 400 word limit) and can be viewed here or read below.

The evidence-based management (EBM) bandwagon is now well and truly rolling, having trundled over many ruts of scepticism, misinterpretation and resistance.  HR practitioners and academics have to decide whether to get on board or jump out of its path so now is a good time to review this addition to the growing list of EBM literature.

At first sight it is difficult to know what to make of this text.  Two academics (Pritchard & Weaver) have teamed up with Ashwood who describes herself (p. xxiv) as “president and chief strategist of Strategy 42”: a reference to the “the ultimate answer to ….. everything” in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  This, and Pritchard’s revelation (p. xxi) that he and former colleagues developed ProMES back in 1988, might lead the cynical reader to conclude it is an old idea re-heated over the flame of EBM.  So is ProMES really evidence-based and does it live up to its claims of being a “practical guide”?

At its core is the simplistic “Pritchard-Ashwood Theory (2008)” of motivation (p. 27) – where motivation converts individual energy into actions and results – a statement of the painfully obvious that characterizes the whole text.  Nevertheless some big academic names endorse Pritchard’s credentials, and readers new to industrial and organisational psychology will benefit but evidence of ProMES’s achievements is hard to find. “Appendix C. Examples of …Objectives and Indicators” makes no reference to any evidence of costs actually saved, revenues increased or indeed productivity improved.

ProMES positions itself in the market (p. 208) by way of comparison to arguably better known products such as balanced scorecards (measurement in 4 separate boxes) and six sigma (re-heated statistical process controls?) but this comes across as a catching-up exercise rather than heralding any new breakthrough in EBM thinking.  Anyone tempted to check the index under ‘H’ for HR applications might be disappointed to find only one solitary entry well past its sell-by date – “Hawthorne effects”.  Those interested in fresher insights might conclude that if practical productivity improvement is the question 42 is not the answer.

The evidence-based management (EBM) bandwagon is now well and truly rolling, having trundled over many ruts of scepticism, misinterpretation and resistance. HR practitioners and academics have to decide whether to get on board or jump out of its path so now is a good time to review this addition to the growing list of EBM literature …..

*Evidence-based Productivity Improvement: A practical guide to the Productivity Measurement & Enhancement System (ProMES), Robert D. Pritchard, Sallie J.Weaver, Elissa L.Ashwood, Routledge, December 2011

 

EB-HR is designed to manage the illogical behaviour of rational people

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News of the UK’s recent experience of the panic-buying of petrol (gas) by motorists will probably be of little interest to anyone outside of the UK but for students of organisational behaviour and EB-HR there is a very important lesson here.  It is usually assumed, especially by economists, that most individual human beings of reasonable intelligence will act rationally but, collectively, they often act illogically.

The rational motorist who fears that there will be a shortage of fuel will want to fill up their tank; encouraged to do so by the sight of very long petrol station queues.  The same rational being will equally realise that this is a self-fulfilling prophecy; if everyone follows suit the fuel will run out much sooner and some motorists will have to go without. This subjects all of us to that classic dilemma of personal survival: weighing our selfish interests against the common good.

The same dilemma faces many employees on a regular basis.  When a rational employee makes a mistake they know they should let everyone know and try to ensure it does not happen again.  The same rational employee will take into consideration the behaviour of everyone else in the organisation.  If admitting your mistakes is generally regarded as career-limiting the same, rational employee will reason that it is not in their interests to own up, knowing that if everyone does the same this will inevitably lead to disaster, either for the individual concerned or the organisation as a whole.

Anyone wanting to be an HR director that actually makes a significant difference will have to have a strategic solution to this dilemma.  If they don’t there is plenty of evidence to show that the survival instinct is always going to triumph over the greater good.  So it might be instructive, if only from a risk management perspective, to consider collecting evidence of how individual rationality is being crushed by collective illogicality.  How about trying to measure how many employees -

  • fiddle their expenses
  • are afraid to voice what they believe are great ideas
  • turn a blind eye to bullying, harassment etc.
  • accept poor performance
  • buy toxic mortgages books to make their bonus

… actually this could turn out to be an extremely long list.

Those bloody “Meetings Bloody Meetings” videos

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The whole point of EBM is the facilitation of learning – both individually and organisationally.  It requires a culture of learning from evidence of both success and failure, in equal measure.  Yet many learning and development professionals are the worst culprits for ignoring evidence of training failure.  They persist in putting people on courses where training is not the problem or where the ‘trainees’ just do not want to learn.  It does not matter as long as they get paid for delivery, not outcome.  This phenomenon is best exemplified by one of the oldest video training products on the market – ‘Meetings Bloody Meetings’.

I still remember, when I was a very young and naive training manager, watching the original John Cleese video for the first time.  Cleese was better known as an actor who had a silly walk, complained about dead parrots and offered a dire customer experience to the unfortunate residents of a third-rate hotel in Torquay.  Nevertheless, I thought his video was humorous and made some telling points about how meetings go wrong.  So I hired it – once.  Never again: not because it had solved my problem, but because it hadn’t.

So I cannot believe that the producers have the nerve to issue a 2012 version; when the evidence is so plain that meetings have not improved. They are more prevalent, more time wasting, more ill-conceived, more hastily convened and managed just as badly today as they were over 30 years ago.  So if you were just about to run this video on a management course I thought I might suggest a few evidence-based questions before you inflict it on yet another, unsuspecting generation?

Question 1. Why do you think there is a need for this video?

Answer. Probably because you still hear the same refrain that I heard – ‘there’s too many bloody meetings in this place!’ or ‘when is anyone expected to get any bloody work done around here?!’  If you took that to mean your organisation has a problem with ‘meetings’ then I’m afraid your analysis and diagnosis might be inaccurate.

Question 2. Have you measured this apparent problem?

Answer. That was my mistake when I did not know any better.  I reacted to an apparent problem rather than a real one.  An evidence-based management problem is one that has been accurately identified and measured.  So has anyone ever measured how many meetings take place in your organisation?  If they have, did they also distinguish between the good meetings and the bad ones?  I guess not; because that would mean you have to tell some very senior people they could not run a third-rate hotel – I mean meeting.

In fact, your job might be on the line if you so much as hint that maybe, just maybe, it might be a good idea to start assessing the performance of the people who run meetings?  It is a lot easier for those in authority to presume they are skilled in managing meetings and not give a second thought to those whose time they waste or even consider whether they might be dragging others away from more relevant, pressing matters.

Question 3. Even if you identify and solve the problem – what could it be worth?

Answer. Obviously the first benefits would be fewer meetings, less wasted time, more efficiency and lower costs.  Meetings should also be managed better with clear objectives and a minimum of unexpected AOB.  They should only take as long as necessary and ensure the right actions are agreed and responsibilities allocated.  They will also check progress.

Probably much more valuable though would be a different culture altogether.  Really great meetings are those where you are allowed to voice your most honest thoughts without fear of retribution: where expertise is respected and evidence-based recommendations given much more weight than rank or gut feel.  One of my own favourite indicators of effective meetings is simply to ask how many attendees would just walk out if given the freedom to choose?

You know what?  Those bloody training videos are not solving problems they are bloody well perpetuating them.

American ‘HR metric mania’ is a concrete lifejacket

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Quality standards often get a deservedly bad press.  Tom Peters ridiculed ISO9000 by suggesting that a lifejacket made of concrete would satisfy the standard.  He was perfectly correct of course because the standard is more concerned with process than outcome or the functionality of the end product.  It is a pity no one on SHRM’s Taskforce for HR Standards had learned this lesson before it submitted its first attempt, Cost Per Hire (CPH), to the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).

We do not have to look very far for evidence of setting concrete.  Page 3 of this standard – the Executive Summary – tells us that:

“The CPH metric has been in use for decades, providing HR professionals and
managers with information to assist them in establishing budgets and also serving as a benchmark for recruiting effectiveness and the efficiency of staffing processes.”

CPH was just one of many ‘HR metrics’ promoted by the work of SHRM’s favourite, number-crunching, benchmarker Jac Fitz-Enz but neither he nor SHRM ever showed any understanding of the crucial distinctions that must be made between efficiency, effectiveness and value (that’s $’s to you and me).

Cost-per-hire is just the average cost of recruiting someone.  It does not tell you whether that person is of sufficient quality to do their job effectively.  Nor does it tell you anything about their subsequent performance.  So to claim that it can serve “as a benchmark for recruiting effectiveness” is actually a lie and to suggest it gauges “efficiency” is also nonsense until the outcome, the performance of the new hires, is established.  You could be hiring idiots at a very low cost and it would still satisfy this standard (sic). In short, this is not a standard at all.

In fairness, the standard acknowledges some of the “Known Limitations” of CPH (6.4) but then blithely carries on without resolving any of the complex issues inherent in the pursuit of value through strategic HR management.  This simplistic approach also ignores, or is unaware of, the paradigm shift required to move HR onto an evidence-based management footing.

As a lifelong campaigner for improving HR professionalism I should be welcoming the introduction of standards.  I was even a volunteer on SHRM’s Taskforce for six months before I realised that no one was listening to common sense or learning from their own mistakes.  History tells us that the use of such HR metrics never improved HR’s credibility or reputation in the US (or anywhere else for that matter).

What worries me more is that SHRM now wants to use its ANSI standards (there are more in the pipeline) as the basis for globally recognised, ISO standards in HR.  If it manages to do so there will be many HR departments drowning under the immense weight of this misguided bureaucracy (all 50 pages of it).  As an adviser to the British Standards Institute (BSI) on the same ISO-HR standards effort I will certainly be doing my best to ensure that the UK does not get dragged under.