It's said that the Duke of Wellington had an unusual approach to developing his battlefield strategies - he played with toy soldiers.
In a large room he would build model landscapes over which he would set warring miniature armies against each other. But here's the twist. He would act as the general of both armies - conflicting roles he immersed himself in by, quite literally, wearing different hats. And at a time when generals led from behind, as the drama unfolded, the Iron Duke would be seen running round and round the edge of the battlefield barking orders and swapping headgear as lackeys moved the tiny troops into position.
Now this may sound more than a little eccentric, but in truth Wellington was honing a vital skill for 19th century warfare. In the days before aerial reconnaissance and real-time updates from the front line, the ability to 'read' a battle from a distant vantage point and to assess how your opponent would be interpreting your tactics from their perspective was absolutely critical. And at the start of a new year it might be an approach that's worth adopting in our organisations.
We all know about the 'new broom' effect: a bright, shiny new manager arrives in a department and the first thing that happens is a root-and-branch review. What does the business need us to deliver? Where are we doing well? Where can we improve? Are we doing stuff that's no longer creating value? And so on.
And the thing that always startles me when I see this inevitable process swing into action (and, indeed, when I've been wielding the broom) is that there are always things that need changing. Furthermore, once the dust has settled, there will typically be an acknowledgement from the team that the changes were for the better; that they are now focused on what is really important; that they have created extra capacity to get on with the important stuff by getting rid of the clutter that had built up; and that buried under the clutter were some really talented people just looking for the opportunity to rise up and shine.
Of course, all of this makes the new manager look rather good, and the organisation congratulates itself on the smart appointment they've made. And the irony of this, of course, is that the manager who had allowed the department to get a little stale in the first place is probably performing the same new broom magic in their new role.
In short, departments don't lose their va-va-voom because their managers lack talent - they go off the boil because their managers do not create the opportunity to look at what they are doing from a different perspective. And as I thought about Wellington switching headgear and perspective it occurred to me that we could do something similar - albeit less flamboyantly - to add a bit of zing to our organisations at the start of 2009.
Start by identifying one of your peer group whom you trust and whose opinion you respect - if you're the HR director it might be the marketing director; if you're head of recruitment it might be the head of training - and suggest that you mentally swap hats for a while.
You then invite your peer to look at your team through the eyes of a new manager coming into the department and get them to identify the areas where they would look to for improvement. In return, you will do the same for their team. It's a process I call Think Swapping, and although it's not without its challenges, the benefits of a fresh perspective can be enormous.
The year ahead looks set to be one of the most challenging any of us are likely to face in our careers, and HR departments will need to be fully aligned to the needs of the organisation and operating with maximum effectiveness. It's going to be a bumpy ride, but if we can ensure that our teams are in good shape, it need not be our Waterloo.
David Fairhurst, senior vice-president/chief people officer, McDonald's Restaurants Northern Europe.
