Christian Whamond Leadership learnings

Leaders learn, develop and grow

18/11/2013

Leadership determines an enterprise and team’s level of effectiveness. The more you seek to achieve the greater the demand for leadership. Hence the reason for the huge need for leaders during these fast changing times. The lack of leadership restricts what can be accomplished. Enterprises are limited today by a lack of leadership more than any other resource.

The good news is that leaders are made, not born. Therefore we all can develop our leadership ability. To grow we need to raise our leadership effectiveness through learning and development.

The 70:20:10 model is a simple approach to guide the development of leaders based on research by various researchers at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL). This model suggest that a single focus on formal training is insufficient for the development of leaders. That formal training represents only a small fraction of how people learn and develop. The model shows that effective leadership development combines formal training, developmental relationships and learning experiences.

The 70:20:10 model recognises that a blend of learning elements – working together – results in effective leadership development. The framework suggests that effective leadership development programs are structured as follows:

70% from challenging assignments – real life and on-the-job experiences, tasks and problem solving.
20% from developmental relationships - feedback and working with and observing role models.
10% from courses and training - formal development and reading

It turns out that leadership development is largely an experiential process. The leadership skills we develop are primarily learnt through experience, not formal classroom training. This is supported by how many of the worlds greatest leaders have developed – from Martin Luther King, Jr. through to Nelson Mandela. Many of these leaders were formed, shaped and recognised during times of crisis or adversity. In business – as in life – we learn most by doing.

It’s important to recognise that this is a reference model and not a formula or recipe. The numbers are not a ridged formula. The insight here is not in the absolute percentages, but rather the emphasis placed on feedback, mentoring, social and experiential learning as part of developing leadership. This is not to say that formal learning is of no use, it certainly has it’s place, but it’s not the complete answer.

1. Leaders Learn From Challenging Assignments Leaders learn from challenging assignments. Leaders learn by doing. Leaders learn through purposeful practice. One of the most powerful ways of learning is through stretch assignments, these are assignments that demand we step outside our comfort zone. Challenging assignments can include the following:

The expansion of roles and responsibilities
An increase in decision making authority
Dealing with change and diversity
Working on new and innovative projects and initiatives
Building new teams and capabilities
Turning around a troubled project or business unit
Leading cross-functional teams
Working in a different industry or country

All of the above assignments challenge and stretch us, they challenge our thinking and demand that we develop new skills and behaviours for success.

Leaders learn by taking time to reflect their life experiences. Our experiences shape us and if we learn from our life experience we grow. Learning from life experience requires us to develop a regular practice of reflection. Reflection is simply a quiet time, purposefully set aside, to cast our minds back and think about the events of the day or past week, with the intention of learning. By asking questions such as “what happened?”, “how we reacted?” and “what should we do differently next time”, we learn valuable lessons.

2. Leaders Learn From Developmental Relationships As people we learn with and through others – learning is social. This means that we learn through personal interaction and conversation. Leaders encourage learning by creating an environment where people work in teams and take advantage of the social aspects of learning. Encouraging teams to talk, share experiences and best practice accelerates learning. So make sure people are wiring and talking together rather than working alone.

Leaders learn from others. We learn from discussions and feedback we receive from relationships and conversations with other leaders. The feedback and insights we gain from these relationships is another source of learning and development. Effective leaders cultivate relationships with other leaders and use these relationships to discuss challenges they face and receive feedback on their behaviour.

Developing relationships with coaches and mentors is another source of learning. We all need mentors and coaches in our lives – preferably more than one. Leaders develop wisdom by seeking advices and counsel from those who are more experienced. Specifically those who have experienced the journey of life and have a good understanding of human nature.

Here are some ways that we can encourage developmental relationships:

Create opportunities to work together in small teams for new initiatives where teams members can learn from each other.
Encourage collaboration and working across traditional enterprise functions and boundaries.
Identify opportunities for experts to work with and share work assignments with others.
Encourage coaching as an approach for the development of future leaders.
Create meetings for people to gather and share their best practices and experiences.
Establish and nurture communities of practice to capture and share learning.
Create space to debrief and reflect on what’s working, what could be improved and what should be stopped.

3. Leaders Learn from Formal Training Formal learning occurs through courses, training, seminars, and workshops. The goal of formal training is to change thinking and behaviours. Sadly formal training does not always result in changed behaviour. This is because effective learning requires a combination of formal training, developmental relationships and challenging assignments for maximum effect.

Leaders can gain a lot of leadership insight and knowledge from reading and digesting great books. It’s important however to remember – when reading for personal development – to focus on digesting and applying what we read.

Next Steps Thoughtfully combining these three types of learning helps to accelerate the growth and development of leaders. Continuous learning and development is key to lifting the lid of leadership in our lives – increasing effectiveness – growing our teams and organisations.

Developing Ourselves

Leaders need to learn and grow continuously. The 70:20:10 model can be applied to our own personal development as leaders. Effective leaders use these three elements to enhance their leadership skills.

In what areas do you need formal learning to enhanced your leadership?
Who can assist you in learning and acquiring these new skills?
How can you apply your learning? What experiences will help?

Developing Others

It’s when we combine all the three different ways of learning and implement them together that we develop leaders effectively. Leaders the 70:20:10 model to develop others in the following ways:

Leaders look for opportunities to shape the experience of those on their teams.
Leaders use questions to help their teams reflect, learn and grow.
Leaders use every project and initiative as a learning opportunity for their team.
Leaders combine formal learning, developmental relationships and challenging assignments to maximise learning.
Leaders act as coach and mentor for their teams.

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Healthy Organisations Beat Smart Ones Hands Down

18/11/2013

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Patrick Lencioni in his book “The Advantage” argues that to succeed in business organisations need to be both smart and healthy. Sustainable competitive advantage requires organisations to have what Patrick Lencioni calls “organisational health” rather than only organisational smarts.

Patrick Lencioni describes smart organisations as follows:

“Smart organizations are good at those classic fundamentals of business—subjects like strategy, marketing, finance, and technology — which I consider to be decision sciences.” – Partick Lencioni, The Advantage

However, it’s the health of an organisation the provides the context in which decisions concerning strategy, marketing, governance and technology takes place. As such organisational health is a key determinant of success. Patrick Lencioni describes healthy organisation as follows:

“An organization has integrity — is healthy — when it is whole, consistent, and complete, that is, when its management, operations, strategy, and culture fit together and make sense. A good way to recognize health is to look for the signs that indicate an organization has it. These include minimal politics and confusion, high degrees of morale and productivity, and very low turnover among good employees.” – Patrick Lencioni, The Advantage

In summary, the primary elements of smart and healthy organisations are summarised below.

Smart vs Healthy Organisations (Source: Patrick Lencioni, The Advantage)

It turns out that dysfunctional organisations make poor decisions no matter how smart they appear to be. This is the same effect can be seen with people who are not psychologically whole, they can be extremely smart, however they end up making poor decisions. Organisational health is thus a critical part of success.

Patrick Lencioni makes the following observations concerning organisational health:

Organisational smarts – although important – does not provide long term competitive advantage, it only gives organisations “permission to play”.
Sustainable competitive advantage requires organisational health, not just organisational smarts.
Leaders spend too much time on organisational smarts and spend too little time improving organisational health.
The biggest lack in business is organisational health, not organisational smarts.
Organisational health should receive priority over organisational smarts.
When organisational health is lacking smart people end up making dumb decisions.
Organisational health acts as a multiplier of organisational smarts.

In the fast changing, turbulent times of today it’s critical for organisations to be both smart and healthy. The biggest challenge today is that organisations tend to be smart but unhealthy. Hence a critical need for leaders to invest in improving organisational health.

What’s that state of your organisation’s health?
Do you need to commit to improve your organisational health?
Which of the elements of organisation health requires your focus?

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What your employees really think

13/11/2013

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With many managers and executive leaders far removed from the coalface, how do you know if your company has the culture you want? How can you tell if your getting full engagement, reluctant compliance or mere lip service from staff? And why should the leadership group be concerned with a matter most usually dealt with by the HR department?

Few will doubt the importance of organisational culture in leading companies to success, retaining the best talent, improving productivity and unlocking valuable resources towards collaboration, innovation and growth.

But even the best of us overestimate the openness of the cultures we create, underestimate the challenges for employees to be forthright within them or underrate how quickly cultural shift occurs.

Simple things can forge a gap between the culture we think we have (or would like to have) and the one that really exists. Most often, this occurs from genuine misunderstandings rather than disingenuous behaviour, but both have an effect in misdirecting your culture and increasing the gap between what the workforce can deliver and what it does deliver.

Given that alignment to a company’s values and operating environment drops before individual engagement and performance drops, the leadership group has an important role to play in sending a message of transparency and encouraging employees to speak up about where they feel the company could be doing better, where they are losing engagement and where the blockages to productivity really lie.

It is not the superficial behaviours that dictate whether your workforce fully engages with your objectives – it is their deeper values, which often remain hidden. In Margaret Heffernan’s Dare to Disagree TEDGlobal talk (video below), she noted that 85 per cent of managers avoid conflict when they should be advocating good disagreement as a path to progress. With so much swept under the carpet in every company, the leadership group can step up and make a real difference simply by reassuring the company that it is open to the truth and new ideas.

Here are three insights every company must uncover:

Who’s most important?
Is it the customer, the company, the board, the individual, the shareholder, everyone or another group? At a large healthcare organisation, most staff operated with the customer (or patient) as the most important. But one long-serving employee genuinely felt she was the most important because of the professional advice she gave patients. This seemingly innocuous difference in values had a huge (but hidden) negative effect on customer satisfaction because her patients felt their dignity was not being respected. After a short feedback and training session, the employee was then able to align her values with the company’s towards patient needs and began dispensing her professional advice with more empathy and customer focus.
What do your staff members feel?
Staff (or customer) reactions include their fears, hopes, emotions, ideals, rights and duties. These feelings dictate their level of engagement with all the company’s strategic objectives, but they remain hidden for lack of an appropriate channel to capture these insights. The healthcare organisation spotted low dignity levels among a group of patients and was able to trace this pattern back to the one employee. For example, staff might fear a new proposal could adversely affect the group they’ve identified as most important, or they may feel they have a duty to act in a certain way, or that a particular right should prevail. All these raise questions they need answered or suggestions they would like to voice, but they will often shy away from sharing their feelings. If nothing is done about it, it is at this point that engagement may become reluctant compliance.
How do your staff members think?
For most companies, this is the starting point and they discuss objectives or issues rationally and openly, but resolution is often difficult because people take sides, thoughts become entrenched and silo mentality kicks in. This is because their values and feelings have not been taken into account, and yet these are the very things that create understanding and unity. If nothing is done about them, it is at this point that reluctant compliance may become lip service. Had the healthcare organisation only tried to discuss its patient complaints issue rationally, it may have missed the key determinant creating the problem. Having access to powerful insights (and analytics) into staff values and feelings enabled it to build consensus, align employee values with its organisational objectives and enhance creative teamwork to deliver better solutions to its customers.

The leadership group needs to ensure the next cultural audit takes all three steps into account. It should also make it clear that the ensuing discussion over the results does not become a defensive rationale to justify the present, but rather an open debate about how to improve performance. If the employees know the board, CEO and leadership group are genuinely interested in more than scratching the surface to really get to know what makes their company tick, it may even inspire the 85 per cent of line managers to do the same and open their minds to more forward thinking.

It will allow you to create the culture you need to meet your strategic objectives.

http://www.ted.com/speakers/margaret_heffernan.html

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Five key questions about your digital strategy

13/11/2013

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Given that digital is now an important part of virtually every business, it is almost inevitable that organisations should have some sort of digital strategy.

The challenge for the directors and managers is how to tell the good from the bad.

While digital strategies vary in scope, quality and origin, here are the key reasons for having them:

To ensure all areas of the business are efficiently using digital channels and, in particular, to align IT and marketing team objectives.

To avoid duplication of expensive technology solutions and resources.
To leverage opportunities presented by the ever-changing behaviour of consumers and the ever-increasing range of channels they use.
To present the brand in a consistent manner for consumers and ensure all issues or engagements with consumers are effectively resolved.

Based on this, there are five essential questions to ask of any digital strategy:

What is the scope of the strategy?
A good digital strategy spans a wide variety of digital touchpoints, but still has clear boundaries and intersection points with other business documents.

It should clearly address all digital external touchpoints with stakeholders, including the media, job applicants and shareholders, but it shouldn’t cover off internal activities – for example, extranets, enterprise resource planning or document-management systems.

Leave internal workflow or process stuff to your IT strategy. IT strategies tend to have one point of ownership and don’t need the complexities involved with external-facing digital strategies.
Does your strategy clearly connect to the customer’s use of digital?
Many digital strategies are developed with a strong focus on IT solutions and business needs, clearly laying out what these are.

But ultimately it will be how the customer interacts with your digital communications and offerings that will determine their success.

The development of a good strategy must involve input from, or an understanding of, the key user audience.

For example, while businesses are often keen for customers to self-serve so they can reduce costs, customers will only play that game if it suits their needs and desires.

Ensure the customer voice is clearly represented in the strategy.
Is your strategy based on strategic principles, rather than specific technologies and platforms?
Having a Facebook page is not a strategy, it’s an execution. A digital strategy should be articulated based around the key areas of functionality, content and engagement required, and how this connects to business objectives.

Once these are outlined, they can then be executed based on the appropriate channel or platform of the moment.

Launching a new customer relationship management platform or mobile app may be the right thing to do, but without grounding your actions in strategic rationale, your business won’t be nimble enough to adapt if your digital environment changes. And it can change pretty quickly!
Do the digital executions clearly align with the business objectives and have the key performance indicators for both been connected?
Most elements of digital execution are really easy to measure – number of likes, visitors to a website or open rate on an email.

However, connecting these metrics to tangible business outcomes like sales, increased share of wallet or reduced churn can be difficult and, therefore, are often only referenced in vague or relational terms.

A clear strategy will link these measurables back to the business objectives.

This is essential to ensuring your digital spend remains relevant to the business and doesn’t blow out.
Does your strategy cover an ongoing approach with clear “test and learn” elements?
Digital is for life, not just for Christmas, and if your strategy ends with a silver bullet like “launch the new website”, it’s likely to fail.

The most effective digital strategies have the concepts of test-and-learn and “incremental improvement” baked in, as well as a roll-out plan that starts with the minimum viable product and progresses from there based on learnings and insights from the field.

BOTTOM LINE
If the digital strategy you are presented with stands up to being asked these five questions, it’s likely that the more prosaic elements – such as technology selection, channel plans and content alignment to audience – will be well thought through and that the strategy will be effective in driving the business forward.

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Collaborative Leaders

1/11/2013

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Collaborative leadership is crucial for leading in uncertain and turbulent times. Leading in turbulent times requires a deliberate shift away from command-and-control towards a more collaborative style of leadership. When talking about leadership here, we’re referring to leadership as a verb and not a noun. We’re talking about leadership as the social process shared by all members of an enterprise. We’re not the person at the top of an enterprise’s organisational structure!

If you are considering making the shift towards a more collaborative leadership approach you may be asking yourself, “What are the practices that support collaborative leadership?” Good question. In this post we will briefly explore the 11 practices of collaborative leaders.

1. Passionate Purpose and Vision

Collaborative leaders create an environment where people can unite behind a common purpose, vision and set of values. Clear and compelling purpose, vision and values are essential. They unite people and provide guidance as to the goals and standards of behaviour. Passion begins with the leader, unless the leader is passionate and leads by example others will be reluctant to follow.

Having a purpose and vision is necessary, but it’s not sufficient. Vision and purpose must be supported by passion. Collaborative leaders have passion for a cause. It’s passion that drives people to initiate, to act and draws them into conversations about the best ways to create a new future. It’s passion that causes people to step up to a challenge, to take on ambitious responsibilities and accept risk. Seek out people who are passionate about the purpose and vision of the enterprise and help the participate in bringing the vision into reality.

2. Accept You’re Not in Control

The reality is a leader in never in control. Leaders are unable to command the commitment and passion required for success. People may comply when you’re around, but they only commit as the result of inspiring leadership and a meaningful cause. Moving towards collaborative leadership requires you moving away from the thinking that leadership is about control. Making the shift from “command-and-control” is not easy, but it’s critical if you want to develop a more collaborative leadership style.

Collaborative leadership demands that leaders, lead without the safety of authority, position and hierarchy. This requires that leaders let go of their need to control and embrace an alternative a collaborative leadership style.

Collaborative leadership begins with the understanding that although you cannot change others you can change yourself. You can change your leadership philosophy, your leadership behaviours and develop a new set of leadership beliefs and skills. The bottom line is that collaborative leadership starts with you and your example. It’s a decision you must make and begins with a change in your mindset, behaviours and the example you set for the team and your enterprise.

3. Flatten Your Enterprise Structures

Flat organisational structures have fewer levels of management with more people reporting into a single manager. This supports a fast, reliable communication and increased collaboration when compared to tall, deep structures. Flat structures are more agile and flexible as a result of faster decision making. However to be successful flat structures require more competent employees as higher levels of responsibility is placed on each individual. Collaborative leaders seek to flatten their enterprises structures allowing individuals to take more responsibility, increased accountability for decision making and power to initiate change.

4. Lead Horizontally

Collaborative leadership is about breaking down silos and building trust based cross-functional relationships. This requires a shift in thinking about who’s your team. Instead of seeing your team as consisting only of your direct reports you must learn to embrace the horizontal team consisting of your peers. Your peers, those leading and working in other functional disciplines, is your team. Leading a horizontal team requires influence and strong relatiopnships. To lead outside your area of responsibility and accountability is the hall mark of collaborative leadership.

5. Develop Leaders at All Levels

Unless we invest massively in the development of leadership at all levels we’ll be stuck with command-and-control as the primary way of getting things done. We’ll constrain the extent to which the enterprise could embrace collaborative leadership. Sadly, many enterprises have historically underinvested in the development of the necessary leadership skills required throughout the organisational structures to navigate in complex, ambiguous and uncertain times.

Collaborative leaders focus intensely on the development of leaders at all levels of the enterprise. Everyone is a leader. Everyone is expected to take responsibility to lead. Everyone is developed to become a leader. Collaborative leaders commit to the development leaders at all levels. Letting go of control and sharing power gives other the opportunity to step up and develop their leadership skills.

One of the best ways to develop leader is through leadership experiences. This means viewing mistakes as a learning and development opportunities. It means placing your best leaders on your biggest opportunities, rather than your biggest problems. It means rotating individuals so they lead outside their comfort zone and to encourage them to lead strategic projects.

6. Build a Foundation of Trust

Trust is the foundation of effective team work and collaboration. When trust fails, leadership fails. All the dysfunctions of teams as described by Patrick Lencioni – the lack of accountability, fear of commitment, lack of conflict and the avoidance of accountability – are a result of the absence of trust. Trust is the foundation of successful team work and collaboration.

Trust does not “just happen” as the result of spending time with others. Trust needs to be deliberately nurtured and developed. Trust is a choice we make about someone, it’s a belief in the competence, reliability, integrity and character of another person. To encourage trust you need to be trustworthy, it’s a two way street. Collaborative leadership have the courage required to trust others, to risk being vulnerable and to expose who you are and what the stand for to others.

7. Encourage Risk Taking

Developing leaders at all levels means encouraging people to take initiative and the implications of that is we need to take risk. When individuals feel trusted and secure they’re open to risk taking. This is a good thing. Thoughtful risk taking by individuals and teams is necessary for creativity, innovation, learning and growth. Without this enterprises find themselves stuck in the mire of process, procedure, bureaucracy and the status quo. When individuals feel free to take risk they spend less of their time figuring out how to cover their asses and devote more time to driving change.

8. Lead with Questions

When you lead with questions you’re trading control for collaboration. Information and knowledge is spread throughout the enterprise in different silos. To leverage this information require shifting the leadership role from providing the answers to asking questions. Effective questions opens up the conversation and the search for creative new solutions. Effective questions engage people in meaningful conversations. Conversation is how groups think. Effective questions generate conversation. Collaborative leaders bring people together in conversation around the enterprises biggest opportunities.

9. Share Information Broadly

Information is the lifeblood of any enterprise. Sharing information widely places everyone on same level, it encourages responsibility and collaboration. A continuous stream of information about customers, suppliers, markets improves agility and decision making at all levels.

There was a time when information was seen as a source of power and many hoarded and withheld information. However collaborative leaders share information generously. This gives others the information they need to confidently step into leadership roles and take responsibility for initiating change.

Sharing information broadly contributes to building an environment of trust. Without information people feel isolated and tend to make up their own version of reality. This leads to gossip and rumours that undermine trust and leadership effectiveness. Collaborative leaders share information creating an environment of trust and openness.

10. Support Transparent Decision Making

Collaborative leadership requires that leaders share power and allows individuals to contribute and influence decisions. Collaborative leaders are clear about who makes decisions, how decisions will be made, who is accountable for the outcomes and how others can participate in the process. When decision making processes are transparent people spend less time questioning decisions and commit their energy to implementation.

Collaborative leaders create processes and systems that support participation in decision making. Transparent decision making processes empower individuals and teams with the authority to make decisions. They develop supporting principles, values and decision making criteria as decision making guidelines. This empowers individuals and teams by providing the necessary decision making processes and frameworks in which they can execute their decision making authority.

When individuals are involved in decision making they get a deeper understanding of the issues, challenges and constraints that influence decisions. When people feel their voice has been considered they’re more likely support the decision. This builds the commitment necessary in support of the decisions implementation. Transparent decision making creates buy-in, builds trust.

11. Encourage Constructive Conflict

The active sharing of diverse perspectives provides a richer understanding of what’s happening resulting in better decisions and outcomes. It’s when we combine different ideas, perspectives and understanding that we gain insight. But such insight is hard won – it occurs as the result of difficult conversations around conflicting issues and concerns.

Encouraging constructive conflict in an environment where people are free to raise tough issues, to provide raw feedback to their leaders and team members is essential. Without open and constructive conflict innovation fails, decision making stumbles and creative solutions become scarce.

Collaborative leaders invest in building the interpersonal skills necessary for constructive conflict in themselves and others throughout the organisation. They celebrate diversity and welcome new and challenging perspectives with the goal of finding innovative solutions.

Conclusion

Leading in turbulent times requires a deliberate shift from command-and-control towards a collaborative style of leadership. This is easier said than done. It demands that individuals at all levels take initiative and act in ways that supports the achievement of the vision, purpose and objectives of the enterprise. The freedom to take risk, to fail, to engage in constructive conflict, to participate in decision making and to experiment, to learn and innovate. All this is the result of collaborative leadership.

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Leaders learn, develop and grow

Healthy Organisations Beat Smart Ones Hands Down

What your employees really think

Five key questions about your digital strategy

Collaborative Leaders

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