Five Challenges that accelerate leadership development

The high levels of change demand increased leadership capabilities and the requires organisation to focus on the development of future leaders. The Center for Creative Leadership has studies the development of leadership for the last 38 years and have identified five key challenges that have facilitate the effective development of leadership:

• Challenge 1: Unfamiliar responsibilities. When you practice new skills and expand your knowledge base, you learn how to operate effectively when you are early in a learning curve.
• Challenge 2: Creating change. When you lead change, you learn to operate in ambiguous situations, think strategically, make tough decisions and persevere in the face of adversity.
• Challenge 3: Significant accountabilities. By expanding your role in terms of scope, scale, time pressure and accountability, you learn what it takes to be decisive, to work and learn at a fast pace and to have significant impact.
• Challenge 4: Managing across boundaries. Assignments that require you to collaborate across functions and business units or to work with people over whom you have no authority will strengthen your ability to influence others.
• Challenge 5: Dealing with diversity. By working with people of another culture, gender or background, you will be better prepared to adapt to different expectations and persuade people of different backgrounds to work together.

Organisation face an increasing leadership shortage, not having sufficient leaders to meet their organisations future needs. Given this leadership crunch the way organisations approach the development of leaders is critical.

• Have you included these five challenges as key components of your leadership development programme?
• Have you included these five challenges as part of your personal leadership development?

The management of attention through vision

“The scarcest resource for today’s business leaders is no longer just land, capital or human labor, and it certainly isn’t information. Attention is what’s in short supply..” - Thomas H. Davenport and John C.

In other words, it’s not about managing time effectively, its about managing attention….! In the book “Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge” Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus discuss the practice of managing attention through vision.

The management of attention through vision is about the creation of focus. Leaders are results-orientated people, they know what they want, they’re committed and focused on outcomes. It’s this intense focus and commitment to results, draws people to them. Effective leaders have a clear vision of the future. A clear vision guides effective action as it provides the all important bridge from the present to the future. Vision provides the necessary focus required to limit distractions and drive meaningful action. The intensity of the leaders vision coupled with the high levels of commitment in making the vision come to pass, creates a powerful force of momentum that draws people into the flow. It’s this passion and commitment dynamic that grabs attention.

This vision becomes shared by the organisation and drives action as Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus state that…

“A shared vision of the future also suggests measures of effectiveness for the organization and for all its parts. It helps individuals distinguish between what’s good and what’s bad for the organization, and what it’s worthwhile to achieve. And most important, it makes it possible to distribute decision making widely. People can make difficult decisions without having to appeal to higher levels in the organization each time because they know what end results are desired.”

Vision is central to leadership success, without it leaders and their teams are flying blind!

• Do you have a clear vision of your future?
• Does your team understand and share this vision?
• Are all your plans and actions aligned behind this vision?

Is your behaviour damaging trust?

Management-issues has a great article that asks the question “Does your behavior damage trust?” and list the following 25 behaviours that contribute to creating mistrust within your team:

1. You fail to keep your promises, agreements and commitments.
   
2. You serve your self first and others only when it is convenient.
   
3. You micromanage and resist delegating.
   
4. You demonstrate an inconsistency between what you say and how you behave.
   
5. You fail to share critical information with your colleagues.
   
6. You choose to not tell the truth.
   
7. You resort to blaming and scapegoating others rather than own your mistakes.
   
8. You judge, and criticize rather than offer constructive feedback.
   
9. You betray confidences, gossip and talk about others behind their backs.
   
10. You choose to not allow others to contribute or make decisions.
    
11. You downplay others’ talents, knowledge and skills.
    
12. You refuse to support others with their professional development.
    
13. You resist creating shared values, expectations and intentions in favor of your own agenda; you refuse to compromise and foster win-lose arguments.
14. You refuse to be held accountable by your colleagues.
    
15. You resist discussing your personal life, allowing your vulnerability, disclosing your weaknesses and admitting your relationship challenges.
16. You rationalize sarcasm, put-down humor and off-putting remarks as "good for the group".
    
17. You fail to admit you need support and don’t ask colleagues for help.
    
18. You take others’ suggestions and critiques as personal attacks.
    
19. You fail to speak up in team meetings and avoid contributing constructively.
    
20. You refuse to consider the idea of constructive conflict and avoid conflict at all costs.
    
21. You consistently hijack team meetings and move them off topic.
    
22. You refuse to follow through on decisions agreed upon at team meetings.
    
23. You secretly engage in back-door negotiations with other team members to create your own alliances.
    
24. You refuse to give others the benefit of the doubt and prefer to judge them without asking them to explain their position or actions.
25. You refuse to apologize for mistakes, misunderstandings and inappropriate behavior and dig your heels in to defend yourself and protect your reputation.

 

Looking at the above list how are you doing? Are you creating or destroying trust?

Leadership is a choice

"The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” 

- Ayn Rand

As people we are designed to choose. Like many other things in life, leadership too is a choice we make. . We do not become great leaders because of our title or position. Leadership is about making the decision and taking the responsibility to bring our future into the present. This first step to becoming an effective leader… it is the choice to be proactive. 

The question is “have we make the choice to lead?” Although you may think of yourself as a leader, until you choose leadership you will find yourself drifting around aimlessly. Lacking passion, commitment, courage and direction.

We don’t usually choose not to lead, we simply choose not to get involved. We choose to be neutral and not to participate. We choose to simply observe from the sidelines, choosing rather to be an observer of life rather than a liver of life!

Unless we make the choice to lead… we we will fail at leadership…

• We fail to choose to leadership when…. we choose to take action by what seems possible or reasonable. We have chosen to live with the constraints of the circumstances. We have chosen to surrender.
• We fail to choose leadership when…. we do not to choose and rather wait to see what happens.
• We fail to choose leadership when… we do what everyone else seems to be doing and follow that route.
• We fail to choose leadership when… we eliminate all other options and follow the one that seems to have the best chances of producing good results. This is usually the safe and risk free option. It’s also the mediocre option.

Many of the “choices” listed above are the result of living a passive and mediocre existence. Leadership is never a mediocre response to life. Leadership is inspired and passionate. In fact, the choice to lead requires passion, there is a clear relationship between leadership, passion and action. The more passionate you are the more proactive you tend to be and passionate people initiate action. Passionate people make things happen. Passionate people don’t wait for others form ‘permission’ to lead, they make the choice and take leadership.

• Have you made the choice to lead or are you waiting for someone to give you permission?
• Have you made the choice to lead…. or are you just going with the flow?

We were not created to watch from the sidelines… we were made to get involved… to lead… Remember that we first we make our choices… then our choices make us. If you don’t choose to lead, you will be used to accomplished the vision of someone who has made the choice to lead.

 

Decide today..!

Jon Gordon’s 10 thoughts on leadership

I stumbled across these “10 Thoughts about Leadership” from Jon Gordon’s blog which are great and I thought them worth sharing.

1. People follow the leader first and the leader’s vision second - It doesn’t matter if the leader shares a powerful vision, if the leader is not someone who people will follow the vision will never be realized. As a leader, who you are makes a difference. The most important message you can share is yourself.
2. Trust is the force that connects people to the leader and his/her vision - Without trust there is a huge gap between the leader and the vision. Without trust people will stay off the bus. However if people trust the leader they will hop on the bus with the leader and help move the bus forward towards the vision.
3. Leadership is not just about what you do but what you can inspire, encourage and empower others to do.
4. A leader brings out the best within others by sharing the best within themselves.
5. Just because you’re driving the bus doesn’t mean you have the right to run people over - Abraham Lincoln said “Most anyone can stand adversity, but to test a man’s character give him power.” The more power you are granted the more it is your responsibility to serve, develop and empower others. When you help them grow they’ll help you grow.
6. “Rules without Relationship Leads to Rebellion” - Andy Stanley said this and it’s one of my favorite quotes. As a leader you can have all the rules you want but if you don’t invest in your people and develop a relationship with them they will rebel. This applies amazingly to children as well. It’s all about relationships.
7. Lead with optimism, enthusiasm and positive energy, guard against pessimism and weed out negativity.
8. Great Leaders know they don’t have all the answers. Rather they build a team of people who either know the answers or will find them.
9. Leaders inspire and teach their people to focus on solutions, not complaints. (The No Complaining Rule)
10. Great leaders know that success is a process not a destination - One of my heroes John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach, never focused on winning. He knew that winning was the by product of great leadership, teamwork, focus, commitment and execution of the fundamentals. As a leader focus on your people and process, not the outcome.

This list really resonated with me. Point 1 “People follow the leader first and the leader’s vision second” is so true. Unless people have the confidence in the leader’s character and his ability to successfully lead the way people will not follow. Have you given the necessary attention to you character and competence so that people have the confidence to follow? It’s this that create the trust, “the force that connects people to the leader and his/her vision”, which inspire the commitment to take action.

Communication is essential in times of crisis

During these difficult economic times clear and meaningful communication is critical. People are looking to their leaders for direction and hope. Richard Guinn from Watson Wyatt, a leading global consulting firm, in the article “Communication is Essential to Lead Workers Through Current Economic Crisis”, suggests that leader keep in mind the following communications principles: whilst navigating this financial crisis:

• Be a leader. Leaders don’t have to have all the answers. Tell employees what you know and what you don’t. Explain the steps the organization is taking to identify issues and resolve problems. Knowing senior executives are there to lead through uncertain economic times is crucial to your people.
• Show your strengths. Reinforce the core competencies and values that make your organization successful. Talk about how they will help the organization thrive in the future.
• Be visible. Credibility, conviction and passion are important messages that only actual presence can convey. Employees can benefit from seeing engaged and informed senior leaders through Web casts or other interactive vehicles.
• Use your team. Make sure the management team knows how and what to communicate, and that no one is a bystander. Limit potential damage from leaders’ informal conversations that are overheard and ripple through every organization.
• Be coordinated. Coordinate your internal and external messages. Employees should hear company news from the company first.
• Share responsibility. Be clear about what you want your managers and your workforce to do. People want to help — tell them how. It’s never a bad time to reinforce customer focus.
• Give up the myth of message control. Find ways to listen to what is on employees’ minds. Monitor the press and social media for what is being said about your company and your industry. Have a process for quickly developing and distributing answers to rumors and for clarifying inaccurate statements, such as possible layoffs.
• Be humane. Some employees are experiencing personal trauma from falling 401(k) account balances and home prices. Acknowledge their pain and make them aware of the resources at their disposal, such as the company’s Employee Assistance Plan.

This is a great list to keep in mind whilst you navigate the turbulence and uncertain financial times we are experiencing. It’s in times like these that visible leadership is of utmost importance. You cannot afford to lead from the corner office neither can you inspire hope from high up in the ivory tower. Leader need to be visible, walking around on the floor, engaged in setting vision and inspiring hope.

Seven critical questions to assess your leadership

Effective leaders are always striving to become better, always stretching themselves and their teams. The Harvard Business Review of January 2007 had a great article “What to Ask the Person in the Mirror” by Robert S. Kaplan, discusses seven questions that leaders can use to assess themselves to stay on top of their game.

“I have learned the key characteristics of highly successful leaders is not that they figure out how to always stay on course, but that they develop techniques to help them recognize a deteriorating situation and get back on track as quickly as possible. In may experience, the best way to do that is to step back regularly, say every three to six months (and certainly whenever things feel as though they aren’t going well), and honestly ask yourself some questions about how you’re doing and what you may need to do differently.”

The seven questions Robert recommends we ask ourselves to keep us on course and on track are are:

1. Vision and Priorities: “How frequently do I communicate a vision and priorities for my business? Would my employees, if asked, be able to articulate the vision and priorities?” “Have I identified and communicated three to five key priorities to achieve that vision?”
2. Managing Time: “How am I spending my time? Once you know your priorities, you need to determine whether you’re spending your time – your most precious asset – in a way that will allow you to achieve them…. The key here is, whatever you decide, time allocation needs to be a conscious decision that fits your vision and priorities for the business.”
3. Feedback: “Do I give people timely, direct and constructive feedback? And second: Do I have five or six junior people who will tell me things I don’t want to hear and need to hear? …As hard as it is to give effective and timely feedback, many leaders find it much more challenging to get feedback from their employees. Once you reach a certain stage of your career, junior people are in a much better position than your boss to tell you how you’re doing. They see you in your day-to-day activities, and they experience your decisions directly….”
4. Succession Planning: “Have I, at least in my own mind, picked one or more potential successors?” “Am I coaching them and giving them challenging assignments? Am I delegating sufficiently? Have I become a decision-making bottleneck?… This issue is critical because if you aren’t identifying potential successors, you are probably not delegating extensively as you should and you may well be a decision-making bottleneck. Being a bottleneck invariably means that you are not spending enough time on vital leadership priorities and are failing to develop your key subordinates.”
5. Evaluation and Alignment: “Am I attuned to changes in the business environment that would require a change in the way we organize and run our business?” “If I had to design my business with a clean sheet of paper, how would I design it? How would it differ from the current design? Should I create a task force of subordinates to answer these questions and make recommendations to me? …Even the most successful business is susceptible to new challenges posed by a changing world. Effective executives regularly look at their businesses with a clean sheet of paper – seeking advice and other perspectives from people who are less emotionally invested in the business – in order to determine whether key aspects of the way they run their organizations are still appropriate.”
6. Leading Under Pressure: “How do I behave under pressure, and what signals am I sending my employees?” “What types of events create pressure for me?… As a leader you are watched closely, During crisis, your people watch you with a microscope, noting every move you make. In such times, your subordinates learn a great deal about you and what you really believe, as opposed to what you say. Do you accept responsibility for your mistakes, or do you look for someone to blame. Do you support your employees or do you turn on them? Are you cool and calm, or do you lose your temper? D you stand up for what you believe, or do you take the expedient route and advocate what you think your seniors want to hear? You need to be self-aware enough to recognize the situations that create severe anxiety for you and manage your behavior to avoid sending unproductive messages to your people.”
7. Staying True to Yourself: “Does my leadership style reflect who I truly am? … A business career is a marathon, not a sprint, and if you aren’t true to yourself, eventually you’re going to wear down.”

Considering the above seven questions…. are you still on track?

HRD Versus HRM

If we view the field carefully, we can easily differentiate the two field in the following manner:

Human Resources Development (HRD):

1. Continuous process.
2. Sub system of a large system, more organizational oriented.
3. More proactive; it copes with the changing needs of the people as well as anticipate these needs.
4. Developing the whole organization. (Ex: Organizational Development).
5. Involvement of the entire workforce from top to bottom is more and a must in most of the cases.

Human Resources Management / Personnel Management (HRM):

1. A routine and administrative function.
2. Function more independent with separate roles to play.
3. Mainly a reactive function responding to the demands which may arise.
4. Concerned with people only.
5. It is basically responsibilities of the HR department.

Thus, the differentiation will give you a feel that again it's a difference in scope and orientation and nothing else. Thus, if we want a composite view we find that they will placed like the following, historically, in scope and in orientation.

How to know when you’re not leading?

People fail to lead when they act from the stance of a victim. People fail to lead when they act from a sense of helplessness. You have a victim attitude and are failing to lead if you recognise any of the following symptoms:

1. You take no action until you have satisfied that you have complete information. That you understand all the steps and risks involved. This means you fail to act and nothing happens.
2. You wait for authority and permission to act from those higher up on the organisational ladder.
3. You expect senior management to provide you with all the answers and the solution to your problems.
4. You place safety ahead of your vision.
5. You avoid conflict by not raising issues and concerns which need to be address for any real change to occur.

This is not a leadership attitude. Leadership happens when we make the decision that what is happens around us is our responsibility. One of the hallmarks of effective leadership is the willingness to accept responsibility, to become the change we want to see in the world. Truly empowered leadership occurs when an individual comes to the realisation they they are the problem! That they are responsible for the problems in their life, the frustrations they feel, for their responses to circumstances and for how they feel.

Leaders adopt an empowered response toward life, they do not allow life to just happen to them. They have decided to own their life and their future, by acting everyday to create the future they want. The have accepted their responsibility to act to make the difference. 

• Do you have a vision for your life?
• Are you acting to create the future you want?
• Do you act as an owner of life’s circumstances and your future or more like a victim?
• Have you decided to begin the journey of learning how to act on your vision and create the future that you want?

Behaviours that create or break trust…

Trust is the foundation of effective leadership. Dennis and Michelle Reina, founders of the Reina Trust Building Institute and the authors of “Trust and Betrayal in the Workplace”, discussed in the article titled “Building Sustainable Trust” (pdf) the behaviours of people we are and are not inclined to trust.

We are inclined to trust people who…

• Are self-aware.
• Take responsibility for their role in the relationship.
• Demonstrate that they consider the best interests of others rather than just themselves.
• Do what they say they will do.
• Practice the values they tell us are important to them.
• Are willing to recognize and consider both sides of the story.
• Listen and respond to our needs and interests.
• Are willing to think about what they have to give as well as what they hope to receive.

We are NOT inclined to trust people who…

• We experience as selfish and self-absorbed.
• Do not demonstrate an interest in the needs of others.
• Are not willing to accept responsibility for their actions.
• Gossip/talk about others behind their back.
• Blame others without looking at their role in the experience.
• Make snap judgments and draw conclusions before hearing all the information.
• Are not open and receptive to the ideas and views of others.
• Change the rules all the time.
• Are inconsistent in their behavior so we don’t know what to expect from one interaction to the next.
• Distort the truth by omitting information for their own purposes.

 Considering your behaviour over the past week, are you someone who can be trusted?

Bob Sutton on Leadership vs Management

Having previously posted on the distinction between leadership and management, the recent discussion by Bob Sutton on his view of the differences between leadership and management in his post “Leadership vs. Management: An Accurate But Dangerous Distinction?” caught my eye. In the post Bob makes an important point concerning how the distinction between management and leadership affects the conduct and behavior of leaders…

“… although I think this distinction is more or less correct, and is useful to a degree (one emphasizes the focusing on the bigger picture and the other on the details of implementation), I also think that it has unintended negative effects on how some leaders view and do their work. Some leaders see their job as just coming up with big and vague ideas, and treat engaging in conversation about the details of those ideas or the details of implementation as mere management work that is ‘beneath’ them, as things for ‘the little people to do.’  Moreover, this distinction also seems to be used a reason for leaders to avoid the hard work of learning about the technologies their companies use and the people that they lead and to make decisions without considering the roadblocks and constraints that affect the cost and time line, and even if it is possible to implement their grand decisions and big ideas…. But one characteristic of the successful dreamers I think of — Francis Ford Coppola, Steve Jobs, folks at Pixar like Ed Catmull and Brad Bird — is that they also have remarkably deep understanding of the industry they work in and the people they lead, and they often are willing to get very deep into the weeds. This ability to go back and forth between the little details and the big picture is also evident in the behavior of some of the leaders I admire most who aren’t usually thought of as dreamers… am all for grand visions and strategies.  But the people who seem to make them come true usually seem to have deep understanding of the little details required to make them work — or if they don’t, they have the wisdom to surround themselves with people who can offset their weaknesses and who have the courage to argue with them when there is no clear path between their dreams and reality… I am not much rejecting the distinction between leadership and management, but I am saying that the best leaders do something that might be most properly called a mix of leadership and management (a great example is HP CEO Mark Hurd) , or at least, lead in a way that constantly takes into account the importance of management.  And some of the worst senior executives use the distinction between leadership and management as an excuse to avoid learning the details they need to understand the big picture and to select the right strategies.” 

I agree with Bob concerning the effect that the distinction between leadership and management has on the behaviour of leaders where “Some leaders see their job as just coming up with big and vague ideas, and treat engaging in conversation about the details of those ideas or the details of implementation as mere management work that is ‘beneath’ them, as things for ‘the little people to do.’”. I have also observer this behaviour in many organisations. It is also true that great leaders have a good grasp on the details of the industry and the job at hand, they need to understand an practice the word of leaders and the work of managers.

It is also true that many of the organisations today tend to be over managed and under led. This requires that a focus on developing a leadership practice. It does not mean we stop or reduce our management discipline. We need both to be effective.

I agree that the distinction between management and leadership is useful, as it help us become more self-aware, giving us insight into when we are behaving as leaders and when we are behaving as managers.

If you assess your behaviour over the past few months, what percentage of your time was spent on management (the details) and what percentage of your time was spend on leadership (the big picture)? What have been the results? Was this an effective use of your time?

Abraham Maslow’s 8 Ways to Self-Actualize

Derek Sivers has a great post on Abraham Maslow’s and his 8 Ways to Self-Actualize. Maslow defined as self actualisation follows:

"Self Actualization is the intrinsic growth of what is already in the organism, or more accurately, of what the organism is."

One of the interesting insights concerning Maslow from this article is that:

“Maslow studied healthy people, most psychologists study sick people.”

Rather than studying sick people and seeking to avoid the issues and challenges faced by these people. Maslow studied healthy people and identified what drove them to be healthy and successful. This approach resulted in some really interesting insights. Maslow came to the conclusion the man is basically good and that man has a natural drive to become the best person that he can be. Maslow also recognised the need for man to live a life that is an expression of himself and a life that is founded in moral and ethical behaviour. That man has a longing to live as a person of character. His research led him to articulate the following eight ways to self actualise:

1. Experience things fully, vividly, selflessly. Throw yourself into the experiencing of something: concentrate on it fully, let it totally absorb you
2. Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth): Make the growth choice a dozen times a day.
3. Let the self emerge. Try to shut out the external clues as to what you should think, feel, say, and so on, and let your experience enable you to say what you truly feel.
4. When in doubt, be honest. If you look into yourself and are honest, you will also take responsibility. Taking responsibility is self-actualizing.
5. Listen to your own tastes. Be prepared to be unpopular.
6. Use your intelligence, work to do well the things you want to do, no matter how insignificant they seem to be.
7. Make peak experiencing more likely: get rid of illusions and false notions. Learn what you are good at and what your potentialities are not.
8. Find out who you are, what you are, what you like and don’t like, what is good and what is bad for you, where you are going, what your mission is. Opening yourself up to yourself in this way means identifying defenses - and then finding the courage to give them up.

Executives are unhappy with their leadership development

Leadership development is the pressing need of organisations across the globe. Whilst there are organisations investing significant sums of money to develop leaders, according to recent research the results have been disappointing. Management-Issues discusses research by the Global Leadership Forecast 2008|2009, by consultants DDI, which sets out to examine why confidence in leaders is declining despite a heightened focus on developing leadership talent. The study surveyed almost 1,500 HR professionals and more than 12,000 leaders from 76 countries. The key findings of this research is as follows:

• Although three-quarters of the executives surveyed said that improving leadership talent was a top business priority, just four out of 10 were satisfied with what their organizations were actually doing to help them, a decline of 12 percentage points since the last Leadership Forecast was published two years ago.
  
• “… what emerges from the report is a clear message that while executives want more opportunities to learn on the job, such as special projects or moving to a new assignment, their senior management seldom takes responsibility for making this happen".”
  
• Almost six out of 10 executives said that they and their manager had not agreed on a formal written plan for their development.
  
• Only around a third of senior managers were held accountable for the success of leadership development programs.
  
• Just a quarter of organizations monitor their leadership development programs or formally measure their results. "Great leadership doesn’t happen by accident - organizations need to start listening to their leaders and make the right development investments if they want different results than they’re getting now," Wellins said.
  
• Only half of organizations globally have succession plans for their leadership team and US organizations even lower than the global sample. “But having succession plans isn’t the whole story - HR professionals indicated that one in three succession candidates fail.”
  

This research makes it clear that developing future leaders is not seen as a priority by today’s leaders. The sad thing is that one of the primary responsibilities of leaders is to grow and develop other leaders. It seems that we are failing in executing this responsibility. What actions can you take over the following week to start developing a programme to grow and develop future leaders in your teams and organisations?

Responsibility and it’s role in leadership

"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In those choices lie our growth and our happiness." - Stephen Covey, The 8th Habit

As leaders we can be given accountability and we can given authority, but we cannot be given responsibility. We have to take responsibility. Leadership is a choice we make. The attitude of responsibility, is a leadership mindset.  We do not become leaders because we have authority and are therefore accountable. We are leaders because of how we choose to respond. Leadership rests on our responsibility, not our authority.

Leaders take responsibility, whether or not they actually do have responsibility. Great leaders are not afraid to take responsibility for things that are out of their control. Leaders don’t wait for permission or for authority, before they take responsibility and act to make a difference. When a situation needs to be improved, leaders make the choice to take responsibility. They choose to make different choices, to take difference actions and change life’s situations. 

• Have you made the choice to take responsibility?
• Where can you take responsibility for changing?
• What are the first few steps that you can take?

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Leader as Map maker

Leadership is a journey and an effective leader brings along a map. Maps are useful tools to helping us understand where we are, where we want to be and what route we need to take when journeying from where we are, to where we want to be.

A key leadership practice is that of leading change. Leading change requires that we shape people’s thinking. Thinking guides action….. resulting in either great or mediocre performance. Thinking and reflecting results in robust mental maps and robust mental maps leads to effective action. Shaping thinking is about, shaping the maps of current reality and that of future destinations that people carry around in their heads.

As leaders, we are responsible for the mental maps we develop for ourselves and others. These mental maps are used to guide our journey. Peter Senge in his best selling book “The Fifth Discipline” called these mental maps, mental models, which he defined as follows:

“’Mental models’ are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures or images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action. Very often, we are not consciously aware of our mental models or the effects they have on our behavior.” - Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline

Mental models or as I like to refer to them mental maps, are the maps of how we see the world and how we understand, the way that the world around us works. These are maps and frameworks which reflect our understanding of the critical aspects of reality. Why is all of this important? Well, the key reason, requires us to understand that we all make decisions, resulting in actions, based on the mental maps we hold of reality. Poor maps lead to poor results. The more effective the mental maps we hold, the more effective is our action, resulting to better results.

• If you get the facts wrong, you get the map wrong
• If you get the map wrong, you do the wrong things and take the wrong action

As leaders we need robust mental maps that help to ensure that we take action that produces positive results. The three steps detailed below describe how we go about building robust mental maps.

1. Map reading through sensemaking: I have posted on the importance of sensemaking to leaders on this blog in the past. The MIT Leadership Center article “Making a Difference by Making Sense” makes the following observation concerning sensemaking.

“As a leadership capability, sensemaking closely resembles map making. At the MIT Leadership Center dialogue on sensemaking, academics and practitioners spoke of places, observations, and directions, of ‘where we are,’ ‘where and why we are going,’ and ‘what we should look for as we go.’… Like cartographers, sensemakers create consequences with their maps. The way they understand and then describe an environment has ramifications, because this understanding guides future action.”

As we travel through life we read the landscape of people, events and consequences. Interpreting and assigning meaning and importance to events and behaviours. Through this process of observation, we begin to develop a picture of how the world works and how we need to behaviour to be effective in it. It’s conclusions that form the beginning of our leadership map.

2. Map making through inquiry: We develop and build upon our initial mental maps though a process of further inquiry and learning. This is how our comprehension of reality and possible futures are developed. Inquiry is not something that just happens, we need to make conscious effort to inquire and build our maps. The inquiry we do may be in the form of research, reading, interviewing other or the observation of cause and effect relationships of everyday life. Some of the best learning happens when we reflect on life’s experiences and the consequences of decisions we make.

3. Map testing through experimentation: Map reading through sensemaking, leads to map making, resulting in insight and understanding, leading to map testing through experimentation. Experimentation with our ideas and insights are important, as poor maps lead to poor results. We need to ensure that we have our maps right. When we act, we act within the context of the leadership map we have developed. Through experimentation we test our maps, testing whether we are getting the results we expected when acting based on our leadership map. After evaluating the effectiveness of our actions, we get an idea of the effectiveness of our mental maps. If, after some experimentation, we are not getting the results we expect, then the map is wrong and requires adjustment.

As leaders, we need to ensure that we are leading from a mental map that results in effective action.

• Do you have a clear mental map as to what is effective leadership?
• Do you consciously use this map to guide your actions?
• Do you test your mental map through experimentation?
• Do have a mental map that is shared with others to align organizational action?

Four key factors that impact on Organisational Productivity

The Institute for Corporate Productivity article “Productivity Is a Higher Priority, but Which Initiatives Really Work?” discussing a the May 2008 survey, of 305 respondents, asking questions about 16 factors that have the potential to raise productivity. Of the16 factors, the following five factors, corporate culture, leadership, compensation and benefit programs, training and development, and performance management. Of the five factors, the most productive organizations furthest outstripped the average ones in the following four areas:

• The culture of the organization: “Seventy-nine percent of the most productive organizations say that, to a high or very high degree, the cultures of their organizations help raise employee productivity.”
• Leadership: “Seventy-six percent of highly productive companies said that, to a high or very high extent, leadership in their companies raises productivity (compared with 48% of all respondents).”
• Employee engagement practices: “Whereas just 31% of average respondents said their organizations use engagement practices to a high or very high extent to boost productivity, 59% of highly productive organizations said they do. Engagement means that workers are mentally and emotionally invested in their work and in contributing to their employer’s success.”
• Employee health/wellness programs: “People like to work for organizations that send strong signals that they care for their employees. These particular programs may be sending those signals more than most other types of initiatives do… It’s also possible that such programs actually boost the physical and mental well-being of workers, leading to higher rates of work productivity.”

The research highlights the importance of effective leadership for company success. Organizational and indeed personal success rises and falls on the effective practice of leadership. What are you doing to develop your leadership ability? What are you doing to develop the leadership ability of others? This may be the most important task of any organization.

Is Knowledge Management the future of HR?

Creating a sharing culture becomes primary task

During the past 18 months, I’ ve spoken with a number of HR managers who are astounded by the amount of executive interest in the emerging discipline of knowledge management. Most of the reaction I’ ve received within the HR community involves senior management interest in developing ways to implement knowledge sharing programs that provide sustainable competitive advantage.

Listening to those senior executives, it becomes apparent that two issues are driving the need to implement KM programs: In this emerging knowledge economy, KM is a necessity for any organization that wishes to remain competitive, and/or the competition has allocated budgets and personnel to develop an internal KM program.

In many cases, KM has emerged as a key lever in strategic planning. In other organizations, IT executives have found that leading the effort to develop an infrastructure that allows the free exchange of employee experience and expertise has expanded their role outside traditional limits. Because KM results in the creation of an information infrastructure providing solid, measurable benefits to the organization, many senior IT managers have experienced an increase in their ability to influence strategic decisions. KM has provided a quantifiable method of measuring the contribution of IT to the entire organization.

The emergence of the HR executive

A similar trend is now emerging within human resource management. While the involvement of IT is critical to any successful KM program, it is becoming increasingly apparent that HR plays an equal, if not more important, role in designing a system to share employee knowledge. The establishment of a sophisticated infrastructure that allows knowledge to be collected and disseminated across an organization can only benefit those who understand the advantages it provides. HR managers who realize the value of KM can provide the cultural direction needed to ensure success.

Barnett’s (www.barnettinternational.com) Knowledge Management Group has conducted a number of employee focus groups across a variety of industries. That research makes it clear that employees will not share knowledge and expertise until they believe they will be rewarded for it. To maximize the value of knowledge sharing, employees must understand the following:

• the benefits that sharing knowledge and experience provide to them as individuals,

• the advantages that will be gained to the organization as a whole,

• senior management recognizes the sharing of knowledge,

• knowledge sharing has become an integral part of every employee’ s daily function,

• a compensation/reward system is in place to recognize and promote employees who adopt that new behavior.

Many companies expend resources developing a corporate culture of sharing knowledge and experience. Leveraging that investment, successful HR managers recognize that unlike fixed assets, the intellectual assets contained in the minds of employees are the only assets that gain value every time they’ re used. The most creative and innovative employees have always been the highest in demand and cause the greatest loss in value when lured to a competitor, and companies that fail to capture their employees’ collective knowledge suffer the loss of that wisdom every time an employee walks out the door.

HR’ s new job

A critical factor in developing the type of knowledge transfer that will put an organization ahead of the competition is the ability to convince employees to share their expertise. That is emerging as HR’ s most important function.

The HR executive who can create and implement a process to maximize the intellectual assets of an organization will become as important to the organization as the CFO. As the knowledge economy continues to emerge, organizations, which for years have been satisfied with the status quo, will quickly realize that maximizing the value of intellectual assets is more important than maximizing fixed assets. Once that becomes apparent, what CEOs want to tell their board of directors that they’ ve done a great job managing the company’ s cash and a lousy job managing human capital?

The experience that Barnett’ s Knowledge Management Group has gained in the creation and implementation of KM initiatives has led to the development of a training program that HR can use during the implementation of a KM system. It has also been used in new hire training, training of newly promoted managers and as annual training for sales, marketing and research personnel.

Knowledge management training modules include: What is Knowledge Management, The Market for Knowledge Management, Knowledge Management Roles, Knowledge Management Technology, Intellectual vs. Fixed Capital, Knowledge Management Within the Industry (customized for each), Interactive Case Study, Sharing of Best Practices, Implementation and Glossary.

Those types of formulized training programs are only one step in helping human resources create a knowledge sharing culture within an organization. Another activity that is useful in ensuring maximum value is a review of compensation systems to identify the existence of barriers that might stifle the sharing of knowledge. A number of firms have changed their interviewing process to more accurately identify prospective employees who will easily adapt and flourish in an organization that seeks to maximize collaboration.