Innovation in Leadership

Special supplement | Innovation in Leadership | Introduction

The EFMD Business Magazine | Iss3 Vol.13 | www.efmd.org

Special supplement

Innovation in Leadership

EFMD Global Focus_Iss.3 Vol.13 www.globalfocusmagazine.com

Innovation in Leadership Introduction

Innovation in Leadership Contents 2 Introduction 7 Techno-Humanism: If algorithms make all the decisions, who is the leader?

Johan Roos 13 Leadership as a System: circumventing the VUCA Vortex Tony O’Driscoll 21 Discovery Journey: Innovation in Leadership Development Joel Casse and Bori Molnar 25 The Siemens Global Learning Campus Volker Rosen 29 Leadership development has to reflect modern contexts Susan Francis 35 The training delusion: the man who thought Play-Doh was for cleaning walls Nick Shackleton-Jones

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Special supplement | Innovation in Leadership | Introduction

You need to think again about how you develop your leaders. Here are the reasons why.

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From To Reinforcement Challenge Comfort Discomfort Courses Experiences Clear outcomes

Unknown outcomes

Me Us Knowledge Mindset Curriculum Exploration Centrally authored

Co-creation

Content creation

Content curation

Inside Outside Telling Asking Shaping Framing Figure 1

he EFMD Special Interest Group (SIG) “Innovation in Leadership” was set up in 2018 and has pulled together 12 large European companies and paired them with Hult Business School to examine what is happening to leadership development in their own business environments.

The companies operate in widely different sectors ranging from finance and insurance to energy, pharmaceuticals and engineering.

Though the 12 companies have evidenced a wide variation in aims and aspirations, it became clear very quickly that the pressures they were facing and the demands on their leaders were very similar. To put it succinctly, their common problem was that they were in danger of developing their leaders for a world that had already passed.

Their increasingly critical challenge was to reverse that process and offer tangible help and support to their leaders as they battled technological change, disruption, and a hostile and challenging business environment.

The companies’ aims were to develop and share the skills, resources and experiences that would help build a coherent and empowered leadership cohort. They in turn would be ready to develop the next, emerging generation of leaders, helping them grow in skills and confidence. In order to achieve this, an entire rethink of the process of leadership development had to take place.

The shift in scope and focus is summed up in Figure 1.

These are not minor revisions to existing practice, but a radical rethink of the role of leaders and leadership together with an analysis of the help 2

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Innovation in Leadership Introduction

This was not a question of fine-tuning leadership development but drastically changing it in the light of the acutely differing needs that were emerging.

Big established companies were being disrupted by start-ups; key staff were leaving because they felt unsupported and confused; teams were demanding answers that leaders were unable to provide and support that leaders need to survive. The push for these changes comes from the increasing turbulence in the external environment and the subsequent need to manage and lead through uncertainty, driven by a constant need for readjustment and realignment.

This was not a question of fine-tuning leadership development but drastically changing it in the light of the acutely differing needs that were emerging. Big established companies were being disrupted by start-ups; key staff were leaving because they felt unsupported and confused; teams were demanding answers that leaders were unable to provide. There was in many member organisations within the SIG a significant crisis of confidence and challenge at the heart of what leadership meant – as well as a fundamental challenge to assumptions about how and what leaders need to learn.

At the first face-to-face meeting hosted by global chocolate-maker Barrie Callibaut at its development centre in Marbach, [Germany] the group began to share strategies and ideas.

As common ground emerged, this process led to a decision to try to formulate some coherent statement about what everyone agreed would shape the future of leadership development in each of the dozen member companies.

The Marbach meeting was also the starting point for the process of scoping the range of innovations that each member of the SIG was working on as a response to leadership challenges.

These discussions culminated (following later webinar debates) in eight agreed beliefs that that would influence the future of leadership development and in the creation of a number of case studies around innovation. The beliefs that emerged were: 3

Special supplement | Innovation in Leadership | Introduction

The eight beliefs 1. Experiential learning is the single most efficient way to develop leaders 2. Reflection is a critical key to cementing understanding 3. Transformational change should be a desired outcome of many leadership development interventions 4. Group and peer learning encourage not only individual but collective learning and a focus on the organisation as a whole 5. The digital transformational going on inside organisations should be mirrored in leadership development 6. Leadership development should be a single event and a continuous process rather than integrated with work 7. Changes in the workplace of the future (such as the development of less hierarchical and more diverse organisations) should be reflected in leadership development 8. Increased resilience – of the individual and of the organisation – should be a critical outcome of leadership development The eight beliefs were agreed and signed-off by each company in the SIG. Although the degree of uptake for, and investment in, each of the beliefs varied company by company, the beliefs track the general direction of travel of each organisation in terms of their leadership development thinking and aspirations.

Each, taken alone, represents a big shift from traditional development programmes. Collectively, they represent a transformation in the way leaders are supported and developed and a significant innovation in an area that many have claimed is ripe for disruption (see, for example, Jeffrey Pfeffer Leadership BS and Barbara Kellerman The End of Leadership.)

The articles in this Global Focus Special Supplement go some way to illustrating the impact and influence of these beliefs. Three of them offer an insight into the thinking around leadership

development from key members of the SIG: Nokia, Bayer and Siemens. The other three represent an articulate and challenging commentary on how leadership can be taught in such challenging times, and some insights provided by those who help companies provide new solutions.

These articles are not a recipe book! They do not offer a step-by-step approach for readers to follow slavishly. It is much more context-setting and an exploration of this challenging environment and how the number of companies are beginning to build effective models and solutions.

Johan Roos, the Chief Academic Officer of Hult Business School, argues (page 8) that the changes facing our environment are such that the eight beliefs can only go so far in driving transformational change and building increased resilience in our leaders.

They are perhaps core building blocks to tackle the new challenges that, he writes, will emerge in the immediate future. These could include the potential conflict between data-generated management and a search for what is authentic, and the challenge of leading and managing in a world where humans and technology merge.

What scope is there for human intervention? Roos claims that “a cacophony of signals threatens our inner voice”. If this is true, how do we build trust with others and how do we understand ourselves?

Nick Shackleton-Jones, an authority on adult learning at PA Consulting (see Nick ShackletonJones How People Learn Kogan Page 2019), puts his finger on what he calls “the training delusion”. (page 35) This is the gap between what individuals who receive the learning think they are doing, in contrast to what the providers believe is happening.

Without bridging that gap, he is pessimistic about the impact of any corporate learning initiative.

He argues strongly for several of the eight beliefs: getting away, for example, from courses in order to build authentic experiences; and working with the business to build effective transformation rather than presenting courses and programmes as a fait accompli.

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Innovation in Leadership Introduction

His solutions are simple: we need to spend a lot more time asking questions and listening to discover what people care about and what they do not care about, and then using this as the basis for developing resources and experiences.

Tony O’Driscoll, from Fuqua Business School at Duke University in the US, takes another tack (page 13). He focuses on the difficulty of navigating through complexity. He defines this as coping with a rate of change that has moved from simple velocity, through increased acceleration to lightning bolts that sporadically propel us forward. This means we have to accept and work through a new normal of constant disequilibrium where the context for how we work is not simply complex but chaotic. He looks at how we can build leaders to manage in such an environment and by engaging experimenting and responding in real time.

These three articles from observers and commentators on leadership are complemented by three from those actually responsible for leadership development in their respective organisations.

Joel Casse and Bori Molnar from Nokia define leadership as “the art of getting people to define tomorrow today” (page 21).

The company has pioneered what it calls “Discovery Journeys”, placing senior leaders in new and challenging environments. This helps them explore potential new markets and to understand the way the tech market and the “Internet of Things” are evolving so that Nokia can develop strategies for meeting these new needs before they have become completely visible.

To do this the programmes have no curriculum and no defined outcomes. There are explorations with a focus on bringing back insight and leading innovation in the company. After a year, real progress has been achieved. Nokia is exploring market areas where it was not visible before and encouraging its leaders to be more challenging, resourceful and curious.

Volker Rosen from Siemens describes the establishment of its Global Learning Campus 5

Special supplement | Innovation in Leadership | Introduction

This special supplement of Global Focus hones in on a critical concern for every organisation within and without the EFMD ambit. No organisation can function without a leadership ethos and culture but it has to be fit for purpose. This special supplement explores the way that leadership development is evolving to respond to the changes and challenges facing every organisation

(page 25), which was set up to offer cutting-edge learning methods paired with experienced experts to ensure that Siemens expertise could be shared around the world quickly and consistently.

Because it is largely virtual and ever-present, the aim is to make the Global Learning Campus an integral part of every employee’s day-to-day working life. Leadership learning is integrated to the Global Learning Campus and is tailored to the needs of Siemens managers, from first-time managers to those who manage other managers.

One core aspect of this management development programme is to help Siemens’ leaders thrive in a digital world and to accelerate the process of digital transformation that is taking place. This is a critical aspect of all leadership roles in the company. The Campus is truly global, based in 30 operating units around the world.

Bayer is going through huge structural changes and leaders need to be able to expand their capacity to manage both the intense complexity of the world outside, as well as the new Bayer structure, inside.

Susan Francis (page 29) shares her insights into the radical realignment of leadership development within the company.

In order to achieve this radical realignment, Bayer set up a diverse project team from across the organisation with the key task of generating a new model of leadership with clearly articulated expectations. The team used agile principles to iterate a new model quickly, which could then be presented back to the HR leadership team for review.

The elements of the model included transformational leadership through strong purpose, empowering employees, driving innovation, agility, strong customer connection, building external collaborations, and creating positive impact on the lives of both employees and customers inside an inclusive culture where people can thrive.

The final shape of the learning programme will be determined by leaders within the organisation, but the core elements are now well established and will completely revolutionise the way leadership is seen, felt and lived-out inside the company. These capabilities will take Bayer forward into its next iteration.

This special supplement of Global Focus hones in on a critical concern for every organisation within and without the EFMD ambit. No organisation can function without a leadership ethos and culture but it has to be fit for purpose. This supplement explores the way that leadership development is evolving to respond to the changes and challenges facing every organisation.

About the Authors Nigel Paine is an author, broadcaster and consultant working for Nigel Paine.com ltd.

Roger Delves is a professor of practice with Ashridge Executive Education at Hult International Business School.

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Innovation in Leadership Techno-Humanism: If algorithms make all the decisions, who is the leader?

By Johan Roos

Techno-Humanism: If algorithms make all the decisions, who is the leader?

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Special supplement | Innovation in Leadership | Johan Roos

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t the EFMD Special Interest Group (SIG) “Innovation in Leadership” kick-off in March 2018, I called for our group to help innovate leadership in the context of rapid digital transformation and ambiguous globalisation.

A year later, the SIG facilitators, Nigel Paine and Roger Delves, note that the challenges faced by the 12 companies involved were almost identical, none were satisfied with their current leadership development offerings and all urgently wanted to change.

The outcome of this one-year journey is summarised in their eight “beliefs” about the future needs of leadership development: 1. Experiential learning is the single most efficient way to develop leaders 2. Reflection is a critical key to cementing understanding 3. Transformational change should be a desired outcome of many leadership development interventions 4. Group and peer learning encourage not only individual but collective learning and a focus on the organisation as a whole 5. The digital transformational going on inside organisations should be mirrored in leadership development 6. Leadership development should be a single event and a continuous process rather than integrated with work 7. Changes in the workplace of the future (such as the development of less hierarchical and more diverse organisations) should be reflected in leadership development 8. Increased resilience – of the individual and of the organisation – should be a critical outcome of leadership development Having worked at seven business schools and been engaged in many leadership development

programmes, I am a believer in these eight precepts. But I suggest that the pace of digital transformation and globalisation is outpacing these eight beliefs.

In this article, therefore, I call for even greater innovations in leadership because while we typically overestimate short-term impact we underestimate the consequences of technological change. We need to prepare ourselves for how to lead and develop leaders in view of the following five trends: 1. A cacophony of signals threatens our inner voice As the primary philosophy of the liberal world order, humanism assumes we can find the answer to difficult problems by connecting with our unique inner human sensations, emotions and thoughts and allow these inner experiences to influence us. When in doubt, leaders can sit at their desk, close their eyes and listen to their inner deliberations in order to find the answer to a difficult dilemma.

But few leaders can now distance themselves from the loudness of signals received from face-to-face meetings, telecoms and through cyberspace. Meditation and mindfulness practices may help but listening to our inner voice remains challenging for many.

To deal with this, one of the SIG group’s eight beliefs is that the digital transformation going on inside organisations should be mirrored inside leadership development. Using Ashby’s famous Law of requisite variety as a metaphor, I suggest it is also vital that leadership teams develop the skills and have the diversity that enable them to comprehend technological advances outside their organisation. Not only do these advances result in new products, services and systems but they also challenge, and even threaten, the very notion of trusting our inner self.

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Innovation in Leadership Techno-Humanism: If algorithms make all the decisions, who is the leader?

2. Be prepared for mega cycles Over past centuries, revolutionary technologies have always generated a few decades of speculative, early hype-cycle growth followed by bubbles that burst, followed by another 20-30 years of growth based on healthy profits.

According to historian Carlota Perez, the current cycle began with the early information and communication technologies in the 1970s.

Predictable, speculative growth created a bubble in the 1990s, which then popped around the millennium . We are now enjoying the second period of sound, accelerated growth. As per Perez’s cyclical patterns, we are now on the precipice of a few more decades of sound growth before another revolutionary technology kicks in.

In fact, the next mega cycle is already at the door – the “Internet of Things” with its ubiquitous data collection across platforms and artificial smartness (different from human intelligence).

But there is no way of stopping it because technology breeds more technology and the “technium,” as Kevin Kelly calls it, develops and procreates sometimes out of control. Leaders must deal with this faster pace of technology and the prospect of decades of accelerated growth.

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Over past centuries, revolutionary technologies have always generated a few decades of speculative, early hype-cycle growth followed by bubbles that burst, followed by another 20-30 years of growth based on healthy profits

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Special supplement | Innovation in Leadership | Johan Roos

3. Techno-humanism is coming In addition to the zillions of CCTV street cameras capturing our every move, continuous data collection from advanced sensors on or inside our bodies will gradually have enough data to outrun whatever inner voices we have. Shared data from wearable fitness products is just the start; we can already replace dysfunctional or lost body parts with technology, and neuroscience is evolving so rapidly that eventually humans and technology are bound to merge even more. Add to this advancement in gene editing and whatever is our authentic self will be up for question.

In his recent book Future of Mankind, physicist and futurist Michio Kaku speculates this will happen gradually over decades and even centuries.

But I think it will be sooner. In fact, it is already here: digitally-equipped teachers track their primary school students by monitoring every question and answer, facial expression, heart rate and emotional mood.

Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter, Baidu, Alibaba, and other tech giants have data about everything we do, think, and feel. The capacity to track what we say, read, watch, like and buy means real power not only to sell us legitimate products or services but also to incite our emotions and influence our values, as the Cambridge Analytics scandal demonstrated in the 2016 Brexit vote and the US elections.

In his Homo Deus book, Yuval Noah Harari not only skilfully deconstructs humanism, he outlines a scary possible future based on this kind of Dataism, as he calls it: non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms may soon know us better than we know ourselves. Who will win, man or machine? How will this kind of tech-humanism transform leadership and leadership development?

4. Leadership by dashboard Today, we can collect and analyse vast amounts of data quickly to make decisions.

Google Analytics, Tableau, Salesforce and similar tools give leaders dashboards on their desktops that are vastly more effective than older “expert systems”. It is conceivable that in the near future, employers will have access to interactive and continuously self-improving algorithms that quickly learn everything you need to know about current and potential employees, even to the point of infringing on personal privacy.

But imagine you walk into a performance review with your authentic self-assessment and it is matched against what an “HR algorithm” concluded. If it helps performance reviews and difficult conversations, would not that be just great? Maybe.

Which assessment should a manager trust?

Should we continue to trust our “authentic self” more than the dashboard data findings? Who is the real expert system? And what then becomes of leadership?

Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter, Baidu, Alibaba, and other tech giants have data about everything we do, think, and feel. The capacity to track what we say, read, watch, like and buy means real power not only to sell us legitimate products or services but also to incite our emotions and influence our values, as the Cambridge Analytics scandal demonstrated in the 2016 Brexit vote and the US elections

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Innovation in Leadership Techno-Humanism: If algorithms make all the decisions, who is the leader?

This digital transformation of me challenges the very idea of individualism at the heart of Western societies; that I am an autonomous individual with an authentic self at an inner and private sphere. The scenario is troubling, suggesting that an algorithm may soon come to know my no-longer-private inner being better than I do myself

5. A smell of techno-totalitarianism This digital transformation of me challenges the very idea of individualism at the heart of Western societies; that I am an autonomous individual with an authentic self at an inner and private sphere. The scenario is troubling, suggesting that an algorithm may soon come to know my no-longer-private inner being better than I do myself. The consequence is that others, for example, a manager or even the company algorithm rather than I, should be entrusted with making decisions for me instead of me.

This is not just the imagination running amok. As I write this, the April 2019 issue of the renowned journal Scientific American features as its main story the “mind reader,” a new brain-machine interface that detects what the user wants. What if we soon can do the opposite? Would that programming be “leadership” too?

This development taken a bit further resembles the creeping totalitarianism that Hanna Arendt so skilfully detailed in her fact-based 1959 book The Origins of Totalitarianism. It also feels like dark and updated versions of what George 11

2019

In early 2019, the system judged tens of millions of people in a few Chinese provinces to have sufficiently low scores to ban them from travel by train or air

Special supplement | Innovation in Leadership | Johan Roos

Orwell and Aldus Huxley captured in their famous dystopias from the 1930-1940s.

Is this prediction going too far? Not really, as some of it is already happening and not only in the Black Mirror series on Netflix.

The fast-growing Chinese Social Credit System gives a “trustworthiness� score to citizens based on an algorithm that extracts data from all of the person’s digital platforms.

In early 2019, the system judged tens of millions of people in a few Chinese provinces to have sufficiently low scores to ban them from travel by train or air. It is only a few more steps to extend such bans to include attending school, getting a job, moving to big cities, or even getting married and having children.

How should leaders react to this technology if it is exported, which is likely?

In the face of these trends, we need to go beyond the eight beliefs to further innovations in leadership development. Peter Drucker famously stated that leadership should be seen as both a liberal art because we need to draw on all the knowledge from the humanities and social sciences as well as a practice because we have to focus on effectiveness and results.

This duality is truer than ever. The ultimate goal, as Aristotle said, is that leaders need to develop a habit of making context-specific decisions that reach above their egoism in order to sustain the community or society they are part of.

Experiential learning, reflection, group and peer learning, integrated and continuous processes certainly help drive transformational change and increased resilience of leaders and organisations. But, if these five trends are for real what else must we do?

There is still much discussion to be had and challenges to overcome.

About the Author Johan Roos is Chief Academic Officer, Hult International Business School

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Innovation in Leadership Leadership as a System: circumventing the VUCA Vortex

By Tony O’Driscoll

Leadership as a System: circumventing the VUCA Vortex E

conomic prosperity and disruptive technology have long been intertwined in a generally positive – albeit tumultuous – relationship.

Disruptive technologies such as the printing press, the steam-engine and the transistor were catalysts in creating discontinuities that brought both economic growth and human strife during their respective eras. Each one permanently altered the playing field on which the game of life is currently being played out.

Today, humanity is facing a digital divide of a different kind, where technology is proliferating, information is exploding, time is compressing and change is evolving. Our species finds itself in a prolonged period of permaflux as successive waves of disruptive technologies emerge, converge and evolve into a synthetic digital ecosystem that is characterised by ever-evolving rates of change and ever-compounding degrees of complexity.

To understand the scope and scale of this change, mathematics can help shed some light.

In calculus, the first derivative of distance is termed “velocity” and the second derivative is termed “acceleration”. Today’s synthetic digital ecosystem is evolving at a third derivative rate of change that physicists appropriately term “jerk”.

We have reached an inflection point in history where technology is literally jerking humanity around. (See Figure 1) In this emerging world of discontinuous jerk, change itself is endemic to the ecosystem and it is throwing off tensions and trade-offs that must be dealt with in real time all the time. We are living in a state of constant dis-equilibrium where the new normal is that nothing will ever return to normal and organisations are struggling to survive.

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Today, organisations the world over are being sucked into a VUCA Vortex where the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity swirling around within this synthetic digital ecosystem are simply too much to handle.

The average life-span of a typical publicly traded company is two-and-a-half times shorter than the average life-span of a typical employee and more than half of the Fortune 500 companies have been wiped out since 2000. In short, organisations are living in an era of digital Darwinism where they must learn to adapt or they will die.

The emergence of the VUCA Vortex begs the question: can leadership avoid digital Darwinism by cultivating the responsiveness, resilience and adaptability required to navigate the permanent white-water rapids of continuous disruptive change?

Figure 1: Experiencing Technological Jerk

Special supplement | Innovation in Leadership | Tony O’Driscoll

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Innovation in Leadership Leadership as a System: circumventing the VUCA Vortex

Traversing the Complexity Chasm As organisations experience the strengthening pull of the VUCA Vortex, they find themselves vacillating violently between complicated and complex operating contexts; many are plunging to their demise in the gaping chasm that lies between.

In complicated operating contexts, the connection between cause and effect is knowable. Decision trees of possible outcomes can be identified. Risks and probabilities around these outcomes can be calculated and plans for each path can be controlled and “de-risked”.

In complex operating contexts, the relationship between cause and effect cannot be pre-determined. Patterns of relationships emerge and recede in unpredictable ways, momentarily revealing possible progression paths. Both the outcomes themselves and the paths to get there are emergent and cannot be predicted, controlled and “de-risked” ahead of time.

There are two fatal errors that leaders commit in attempting to traverse the Complexity Chasm.

First, they misdiagnose their operating context, often assuming it is complicated when it is actually complex.

Second, they apply an incompatible leadership response for the context they are operating in, often applying a complicated response while operating in a complex operating context. (See Figure 2) The threat of the Complexity Chasm begs the question: does leadership have the ambidexterity required to avoid plunging into the complexity chasm by recognising and responding to different operating contexts?

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Figure 2: Traversing the Complexity Chasm

Special supplement | Innovation in Leadership | Tony O’Driscoll

Today, the interdependencies between strategy design and delivery are far more fluid and dynamic than ever before. Strategy formulation and execution are no longer discrete problems to be solved at the top and bottom of the traditional leadership hierarchy.

Instead, they are interdependent polarities that must be navigated on an ongoing basis

Navigating Strategic Polarities A perennial challenge facing every organisation is ensuring that its strategy is designed and delivered to maximise value creation, delivery and capture. The key to maximising value within the synthetic digital ecosystem lies in seeing and seizing moments of synchrony around shifts in the rate of change and degree of complexity of the ecosystem while maintaining equilibrium between short-term profitability and long-term growth opportunity.

On the one hand, leaders need to do everything in their power to extract maximal value from their core business. On the other, they need to ensure that once their core business meets its inevitable demise there are new profit pools to tap into to sustain the business over the long run.

Today, the interdependencies between strategy design and delivery are far more fluid and dynamic than ever before. Strategy formulation and execution are no longer discrete problems to be solved at the top and bottom of the traditional leadership hierarchy. Instead, they are interdependent polarities that must be navigated on an ongoing basis.

To succeed in navigating these strategic polarities, leaders must avoid the trap of mining the past at the expense of making the future by successively iterating around a top-down directive approach and a bottom-up participatory approach to dynamically formulate and execute strategy.

The need to navigate Strategic Polarities begs the question: can leadership design and deliver dynamic and integrated strategies that optimally balance core-business profitability and future-business opportunity?

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Innovation in Leadership Leadership as a System: circumventing the VUCA Vortex

As our lives become increasingly digitally mediated, the distinction between productive and generative learning becomes crucially important. In short, productive learning is finding out something that is already known to achieve a known end. Generative learning, on the other hand, is about figuring out something we do not yet understand

Overcoming Organisation Orthodoxy Organisations come in two fundamental forms.

Exploit organisations seek to apply deductive logic to optimise enterprise structures, process and routines by leveraging “best practices” to maximise core-business profitability. Explore organisations seek to apply abductive logic and trial-and-error experimentation to uncover “next practices” that find fertile ground within which to sow the seeds of future value for the business.

Organisations typically evolve through a maturation cycle where they successfully see and seize a new market opportunity and develop structures, practices and routines to improve productivity and maximise profitability around that opportunity. Over time, however, as shifts in the broader ecosystem occur, these core capabilities calcify into core-rigidities that limit the organisation’s ability to see and seize next market opportunity.

These core-rigidities ultimately degenerate into a destructive set of cultural orthodoxies that unconsciously undermine the organisation’s ability to respond to change. Most organisations today are suffering from a severe case of “responsiveness lag”, where their structures, procedures, routines and time signatures are increasingly out of sync with the external pace and scale of change. What began as the pursuit of building capability to capitalise on a new business opportunity culminates in the unconscious adoption of crippling orthodoxies that undermine the organisation’s response-ability.

Today, organisations are disappearing at an alarming rate because they are failing to adapt to the complexity and jerkiness of the environment they inhabit. Overcoming the organisation orthodoxy that is honed to maintain the exploitative 17

Special supplement | Innovation in Leadership | Tony O’Driscoll

Figure 3: Activating a Second Operating System

status quo will require that leaders leverage human flexibility and technical connectivity to activate a second networked operating system that works alongside the traditional hierarchy to deal with this complexity and jerk. (See Figure 3) The rigidity of Organisation Orthodoxy begs the question: can leadership implement a dual operating system that taps into the flexibility and ingenuity of people and the connectivity of technology to simultaneously run and grow the business?

Learning to Change In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Thomas Kuhn argues that scientific advancement is not evolutionary but a series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions where one conceptual worldview is replaced by another.

A paradigm shift occurs and our collective perception is forever changed, fundamentally altering the way we engage with the environment around us. Such shifts cannot happen unless learning happens. Learning and change are two sides of the same coin. Today, for example, we have come to learn that the world is not flat and planets do not revolve around the earth.

At the most general level, learning can be broken into two primary factors: productive and generative.

Productive learning focuses on driving individual human conformity around best practice for known

and predictable situations while generative learning focuses on driving collective human creativity around next practices for unknown and unpredictable situations.

Productive learning is professionally instructed while generative learning is socially and situationally constructed. In productive learning, content is king; in generative learning context is the kingdom.

As our lives become increasingly digitally mediated, the distinction between productive and generative learning becomes crucially important.

Productive learning is about conveying known information to achieve a specific outcome such as increasing customer satisfaction, improving productivity or knowing whether or not to bring a raincoat to work tomorrow. In short, productive learning is finding out something that is already known to achieve a known end. Generative learning, on the other hand, is about figuring out something we do not yet understand.

As we move from a “find-it-out” world to a “figure-it-out” one, leadership must shift its focus from increasing the efficiency of productive learning in the classroom to enabling the effectiveness of generative learning in the workplace. (See Figure 4) The need to learn to change begs the question: can leadership develop a generative learning culture within the organisation to figure-out how to address the complexity and jerkiness of the existing operating environment?

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Innovation in Leadership Leadership as a System: circumventing the VUCA Vortex

Reconceiving Leadership as a System In times of disruptive change, leadership has consistently emerged to bridge the gap between an untenable present and an uncertain future.

As our planet careens towards a future that is increasingly data-rich but certainty-poor, the need for leadership becomes increasingly acute.

The primary leadership challenge today is to evolve the organisation into a responsive, resilient and adaptive “instant enterprise” that maintains a perpetual state of readiness to respond to the unexpected. This capability of “instancy” empowers organisations to simultaneously navigate the complexity and jerk that characterises their existing operating environment.

Paradoxically, to better understand how leadership can be leveraged to become a responsive, resilient and adaptive organisation, we must first critically examine leadership itself.

For too long, we have wrongly assumed that leadership is a noun and not a verb. In so doing, we have unconsciously separated the leader from the system within which leadership itself is being exercised. As a result, we tend to over-emphasise the impact of individual leadership actions while ignoring the reality that leadership is an integral part of the organisation system itself.

In short, we have failed to recognise that leadership is not simply a person, position or role, but a complex and interconnected set of relationships that is a property of the organisation, not of the individual.

So, we find ourselves in a situation where our dependence on leadership is greater than ever before but what will be required of leadership in the future is markedly different from how it has been conceived of and leveraged in the past.

To begin this paradigmatic journey to shift our collective perspective, we must begin by conceiving of leadership as an “Adaptive System” that has requisite complexity and response-ability to enable the organisation to avoid extinction. This perceptual shift will require unlearning much of what we have previously believed about what it means to lead.

An “Adaptive Leadership System,” requires that leaders at every level engage disparate and diverse sets of people, systems, processes 19

Figure 4: Creating a Generative Learning Culture

Figure 5: The Adaptive Leadership System

The primary leadership challenge today is to evolve the organisation into a responsive, resilient and adaptive “instant enterprise” that maintains a perpetual state of readiness to respond to the unexpected. This capability of “instancy” empowers organisations to simultaneously navigate the complexity and jerk that characterises their existing operating environment

Special supplement | Innovation in Leadership | Tony O’Driscoll

responsiveness, resilience and adaptability of the organisation under increasingly uncertain conditions. By working from the “middle-out” to inform strategic direction, motivate cultural change, guide key work activity and influence individual behaviour, they orchestrate the capability required to respond instantly to uncertainty. (See Figure 5) The reconceptualisation of “leadership as a system” begs the question: can leaders avoid the demise of enterprise seeing, thinking and acting differently to catalyse a middle-out adaptive leadership system?

and technologies in real time to increase the likelihood of survival. Perhaps contrary to popular opinion, the leaders operating in the middle of the current hierarchy are the greatest source of leverage to build the responsiveness, resilience and adaptability that the modern-day enterprise so desperately needs.

Leaders at the centre of the organisation operate at the confluence of a new normal of constant dis-equilibrium where unanticipated change is constantly throwing off tensions and trade-offs that require immediate response.

We call them “centre-leaders”.

To better understand the critical role that centre-leaders play we turn to chemistry. A catalyst is defined as “a substance that enables a chemical reaction to proceed at a faster rate or under different conditions than otherwise possible”.

So centre-leaders function as catalysts within an adaptive leadership system to accelerate the

Coming Full Circle Coming full circle, we can summarise the existential organisation challenge as follows: To escape the strengthening pull of the VUCA Vortex, organisations must avoid plunging into the complexity chasm, by designing and delivering agile and integrated strategies and overcoming organisation orthodoxy and rigidity, by evolving from productive to generative learning and catalysing a middle-out networked leadership system.

Paradigm paralysis is defined as an inability, or refusal to see beyond current models of thinking.

To achieve enterprise instancy, leaders at every level within the hierarchy will have to fundamentally reframe what they see, rewire how they think and reconfigure what they do to create an Adaptive Leadership System that brings the Vision, Understanding, Clarity and Agility required to neutralise the VUCA Vortex.

Anything short of this will inevitably result in the continued demise of the enterprise.

About the Author Tony O’Driscoll is an adjunct professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and a Research Fellow at Duke CE. This dual-role affords Tony the opportunity to operate at the intersection of cutting-edge academic research in business and real-world business challenges faced by leaders.

His current research examines how rapidly emerging technologies are disrupting existing industry structures and business models.

He specifically focuses on how to develop leadership systems that enable organizations to adapt and evolve in increasingly unpredictable and turbulent business environments.

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Innovation in Leadership Discovery Journey: Innovation in Leadership Development

By Joel Casse and Bori Molnar

Discovery Journey: Innovation in Leadership Development

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Special supplement | Innovation in Leadership | Joel Casse and Bori Molnar.

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okia is a giant among technology companies. Long past its phase as the world’s largest producer of mobile phones, it is now a technology company delivering end-to-end networks for the 5G era. It enables digitalisation and automation as well as being a heavy part of the roll-out of IoT (the Internet of Things). It has over 98,000 employees and a turnover €22.5 billion.

Nokia is almost by definition future-facing and in this context I have defined leadership as the art of getting people to define tomorrow today. It is not surprising, therefore, that a core part of Nokia’s innovation in leadership development is to enable what we call “Discovery Journeys” for its high-potential middle to senior leaders.

The aim is to help them gain insights not from the classroom but from being placed in new situations interacting with companies with whom they were previously unfamiliar but from whom they could garner new knowledge and build potential new opportunities for Nokia.

There is an additional element: a fast and intensive learning curve. Sharing the knowledge of experts means non-technical participants become more familiar with technological topics, Nokia strategy and basic elements of IoT and “Industry 4.0”, which is key for Nokia, private networks and connectivity in general.

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Nokia is a giant among technology companies, it has over 98,000 employees and a turnover €22.5 billion

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The Discovery Journey programme has between 30 to 36 participants divided into teams of around five

The Discovery Journey is an integral part of the overall framework of leadership competence.

The experience addresses five critical competences that will carry the company forward: 1. Drives vision and purpose 2. Offers business insight 3. Demonstrates strategic mindset 4. Cultivates innovation 5. Shows courage and manages ambiguity The programme is an exploration and therefore has only a small pre-defined curriculum. For this to be successful, key staff running the programme need to offer flexible input and support that is tailored to the needs of both the individual participants and each team With each cohort having between 30 to 36 participants divided into teams of around five, those running the programme have at least five or six individual experiences to organise and manage simultaneously.

The focus for the teams is to meet key players from different industries who have a stake in IoT. By working with companies they would not usually meet, participants are forced to adjust their understanding of how IoT works in the wider industrial world and therefore work on new business opportunities. These are then pitched to senior executives and if the pitches are good enough, the projects will secure funding to pursue the ideas embedded in them.

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Innovation in Leadership Discovery Journey: Innovation in Leadership Development

The programme lasts between eight and nine weeks, including one week that includes Learning about Leadership, Innovation, Strategic Intuition, Pitching/Elevator speech and getting to know the smaller and wider teams – enhancing collaboration – and includes key face-to-face meetings with other companies outside the normal Nokia sphere of influence.

In addition, there are centrally organised online sessions and group work that is self-directed by each team.

The programme does not end at week nine.

If a pitch to the executives is successful, the team continues to work on its case to turn theory into practice. All of the presentations made to senior executives will help stimulate innovation and some will mould the company for the future and open up new markets and new business opportunities as well as offer the senior executives learning opportunities themselves.

The programme workload comes on top of the participants’ normal jobs and does require freeing up some of their time. To ensure this, 23

alignment calls with participants and their line managers were scheduled to ensure all parties know what the programme requires and maximum commitment. This paved the way for participants to develop their curiosity, begin experimenting, questioning, observing and reflecting on the complex technology environment and begin to see clarity in uncertainty and change.

In addition, by defining a business idea and converting it into a business case, they learn about business modelling, competition, pricing and so on. It also helps them address and overcome the fear associated with the risk of failure. Not every pitch is funded and not every experiment works.

The teams also offer the rest of the company a unique perspective on where Nokia slots into the IoT ecosystem. This process also helps establish a strong, new network of colleagues from different regions and functions inside the company as well as building partnerships with different organisations outside Nokia’s usual sphere of influence. Potential new partners also

Special supplement | Innovation in Leadership | Joel Casse and Bori Molnar.

By maintaining an open agenda with no fixed outcomes, the participants are able to follow their instincts and interests and experiment and be curious. The expectation is that the conclusions the teams draw will offer huge insight to the company and offer perspectives about new opportunities and new markets

experience at first hand the quality of Nokia and how it sees itself going forward.

The Discovery Journey, at its core, introduces Nokia managers to a range of new companies from large mature companies to innovative new companies and even start-ups. Each company has a different IoT specialism and staff experience the newest technologies such as robotics and automation and look at breakthroughs in cybersecurity and enterprise in line with Nokia strategic priorities.

In addition to the opportunity to meet new external potential clients, key executives from around the company present to the teams and share their specialist knowledge. So, while the thrust is about developing leadership skills it is equally aimed at encouraging participants to have the courage and wherewithal to challenge the status quo and renewing the company.

The ultimate aim is to build value through opening up new opportunities with new organisations and new markets. And on top of this, cohorts learn to observe, ask relevant questions, network with people they would not normally network with and formulate experiments to test out their assumptions and ideas.

This programme is genuinely innovative for Nokia. It is a clear indication that the company wants to innovate and experiment using its own resources and without recourse to consultancy firms telling it what to do. By maintaining an open agenda with no fixed outcomes, the participants are able to follow their instincts and interests and experiment and be curious. The expectation is

that the conclusions the teams draw will offer huge insight to the company and offer perspectives about new opportunities and new markets.

The programme started in 2017 and each nine-week programme has between 30 and 36 participants. Even though it is still a relatively new idea, a few key experiments that have emerged from these encounters are being funded by the company. It is too early to predict the long-term outcomes but it is quite possible that one of these experiments could help move the company forward at some point.

This would justify all the effort and investment.

And this outcome could not emerge from a more conventional leadership development programme.

In essence, Nokia is betting on the future by investing in its key “talents”, “high-potentials”, future leaders and offering them a high degree of autonomy and trust in the knowledge that this belief will be repaid handsomely.

About the Authors Joel Casse is Global Head of Leadership Development, Nokia Bori Molnar is Global Programme Manager for Discovery Journey, Nokia

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Innovation in Leadership The Siemens Global Learning Campus

By Volker Rosen

The Siemens Global Learning Campus S

iemens AG is a German multinational conglomerate headquartered in Berlin and Munich with over 379,000 employees worldwide and a turnover of more than €83 billion. It is the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe. Siemens is setting a course for longterm value creation through accelerated growth and stronger profitability with a simplified and leaner company structure.

The main aim of the Vision 2020+ company strategy is to give Siemens’ individual businesses significantly more entrepreneurial freedom under the strong Siemens brand in order to sharpen their focus on their respective markets.

Plans also call for strengthening the company’s growth portfolio through investments in new growth fields such as IoT (Internet of Things) integration services, distributed energy management and infrastructure solutions for electric mobility. The concentrated expansion of industrial digitalisation, in which Siemens is already the world leader, will make a further contribution.

Below group level, there are three “operating companies” and three “strategic companies”.

The three “operating companies” include Gas and Power, Smart Infrastructure and Digital Industries.

The CEOs of the newly established “operating companies” continue to be members of the Siemens AG’s managing board. The three “strategic companies” include Siemens Healthineers and Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, two fully consolidated companies in which Siemens holds a majority stake. They also include Siemens’ Mobility business.

Recently announced, Siemens is spinning off its Gas and Power business helping the company to strongly focus on its Digital Industries and Smart Infrastructure businesses The new firm will be a major player in energy with revenues of €27 billion and more than 80,000 employees. The

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Siemens is spinning off its Gas and Power business helping the company to strongly focus on its Digital Industries and Smart Infrastructure businesses The new firm will be a major player in energy with revenues of €27 billion and more than 80,000 employees

Special supplement | Innovation in Leadership | Volker Rosen

Gas and Power business, which includes its oil and gas, conventional power generation, power transmission and related services businesses, will be set up as a standalone company with the aim of a public listing by September 2020. Siemens also plans to include its 59 percent stake in wind energy company Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy in Gas and Power. Siemens will remain an anchor shareholder in Gas and Power with between 25 and 50 percent.

As an in-house service provider, Global Learning Campus is the partner for business learning at Siemens. It helps to develop the specific competencies and skills that individuals, teams or organisations need to succeed in a volatile and changing business environment.

The range of training courses Global Learning Campus offers is geared to meeting the challenges Siemens is facing as well as the specific needs of the individual businesses and regions. It reaches out to all target groups: helping employees develop their personal skills; supporting managers as they work to develop their teams; and assisting those responsible for entire organisational areas as they seek to implement strategic steps and change processes.

Cutting-edge learning methods paired with experienced educational experts ensure that Siemens-specific expertise is available at short notice. Siemens’ fundamental learning philosophy is to create an ecosystem that places the learner at the centre of everything the company does.

The Global Learning Campus comprises Siemensspecific learning that can be via a classroom, e-learning or blended; approved external learning offerings are again via classroom, e-learning or blended together with community-based learning and user-generated content.

The aim is to make learning an integral part of everyday life that is relevant to the individual and 26

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Innovation in Leadership The Siemens Global Learning Campus

available anytime and anywhere it is needed. The company also has a policy of embracing social learning so that knowledge can be shared, and staff can learn from each other.

A critical focus for the Siemens’ Global Learning Campus is to deliver business impact. Therefore, its entire evaluation of learning is based around impact metrics and improved business performance.

There is as much emphasis on business targets as there is on learning competence. All of the learning targets that form the basis for programme development are derived directly from business targets and are measured in terms of improved team, individual and company performance.

If you include the participants in partner programmes there have been over a million students in the Global Learning Campus across all 30 Siemens regions. Those numbers refer to both standard classroom training and e-learning. The number includes participation in the Siemens Core Learning Programs as well as tailor-made and specific Siemens e-learning modules, and modules developed, designed and delivered by their key learning partners.

Siemens Core Learning Programs provide employees and managers with competencies and skills that are critical to their role at Siemens and help them achieve outstanding performance. The programmes address specialist functions and key roles as well as cross-functional topics focussed on by the company and of high relevance for business success. With innovative learning methods they ensure immediate application of the knowledge in the job and thus maximum impact on the business. Thanks to uniform availability worldwide, Core Learning Programs provide all employees with access to knowledge that is critical to success. With a cosmos of micro e-learning related to the programs, they also offer opportunities for learning on-demand.

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Figure 1

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Siemens Core Learning Programs provide employees and managers with competencies and skills that are critical to their role at Siemens and help them achieve outstanding performance. The programs address specialist functions and key roles as well as crossfunctional topics focussed on by the company and of high relevance for business success

Special supplement | Innovation in Leadership | Volker Rosen

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If you include the participants in partner programmes there have been over a million students in the Global Learning Campus across all 30 Siemens regions.

Those numbers refer to both standard classroom training and e-learning

Leadership learning is part of the Global Learning Campus and is tailored to the needs of Siemens managers – from first-time managers to those who manage other managers. The concept includes a mixture of prework assignments, in-class modules, e-learnings and coached practical phases during which the newly acquired skills are put into practice.

This is rolled out at three levels covering everyone from supervisor to senior manager. Executive development is handled separately.

The focus for leaders is, first and foremost, on leading yourself; then leading others; and finally managing and leading the business. The spectrum of leadership and management topics ranges from self-management, social competencies, coaching, business management, strategy, innovation, change and project management to financial acumen. There is also a strong emphasis on the digital transformation of the business and the need to lead that transformation. Everyone is expected to participate in this if they have any kind of leadership role.

The Global Learning Campus is building and implementing new, community-based, user centric and state of the art learning innovations to help its leaders and individual contributors to cope with these changes. For example:

1. Learning Experience Platforms (LXP) LXP presents content in a “Netflix-like� interface, with recommendations, panels, mobile interfaces, and AI-driven recommendations. It accommodates any form of content, including articles, podcasts, blogs, micro-learning, videos and courses.

2. Three-dimensional learning environments They allow participants to represent themselves with an avatar to interact with other avatars and offer opportunities to create authentic learning contexts. This technology driven approach will boost the virtual learning experience almost as onsite learning.

3. Core Learning Paths Core Learning Programs will be further developed to Core Learning Paths by modularisation and flexibilisation. This allows a much more individual, self-paced learning experience by simply providing mandatory and optional learning nuggets.

About the Author Volker Rosen is head of Management and Sales at Global Learning Campus. He is passioned about lifelong learning and leadership culture in the digital transformation.

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Innovation in Leadership Leadership development has to reflect modern contexts

By Susan Francis

Leadership development has to reflect modern contexts

B

ayer AG is a life science company with more than 150 years of history and core competencies in healthcare and agriculture.

The company operates in pharmaceuticals, consumer health, crop science and animal health. It has recently acquired Monsanto and thereby become the market leader in agriculture.

Bayer faces a number of concurrent challenges. It has to modernise the company and build a flatter, more linked structure that is leaner, faster and more customer oriented.

It needs to integrate Monsanto. And it has to digitally transform as an organisation.

Bayer’s leaders are being challenged to expand their capacities and methods to manage the intense complexity of the world today as well as cope within the new Bayer structure.

As a reaction to this, Bayer decided to focus on leadership as a critical element of a new people strategy. The aim was to redefine the expectations for leadership within Bayer and to ensure the learning framework supports development to the new requirements.

A project team was established with the key task of generating a new model of leadership, with clearly articulated expectations. The output was a list of the necessary qualities and capabilities for a successful future-oriented leader within Bayer.

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150yr Bayer AG is a life science company with more than 150 years of history

Special supplement | Innovation in Leadership | Susan Francis

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Innovation in Leadership Leadership development has to reflect modern contexts

The project team tapped into Bayer’s innovation resources, including a coaching resource, to support idea development that would move the project forward speedily. The team used agile principles to structure the project and build it around a number of “sprints”. The first solid iteration that emerged from the sprint model was presented back to the HR leadership team for review and guidance for next steps.

The major themes highlighted in this model were: • transformational leadership through strong purpose • empowering employees • driving innovation • agility • strong customer connections • building external collaborations • positive impact on people’s lives (both employees and customers) • continuous learning • creating an inclusive culture where people can thrive.

Each theme had identified behavioural anchors. The goal was to hone in on the critical elements that drive success and to word them in a way that resonates, shift mindsets and inspires leaders to expand their leadership capability.

As a next step the model was tested with leaders in the organisation. There was also some consideration as to how the model could be integrated into existing company frameworks to avoid “re-inventing the wheel”. Additionally, the company had to ensure that the model would be easily taken up by the organisation and applied, and not marginalised as an adjunct framework.

When reviewing the existing framework, it was also clear that many of the elements were still relevant as the foundations for effective leaders and that relatively few additional focus areas needed to be added to upgrade the expectations to fit the company for the 21st century.

This is in line with recent research from McKinsey and is reflected in the IMD model 31

developed by Michael Wade on Agile leadership.

(See Agile Leadership in an Age of Digital Disruption, Global Center for Digital Business Transformation, June 2017).

The goal of the feedback rounds was to gather the business perspectives on leadership expectations related to the major business challenges that were being faced by divisions and corporate functions. This step was also helpful to stress test the framework to see that it is useful to provide business leaders with orientation that can support them to manage effectively into the future.

Leaders were widely canvassed about their reaction to the model and consulted about how to handle the explicit behaviours that emerged.

This entailed re-examining the company values to clarify whether the new leadership behaviours impacted upon those values and necessitated updating them. The outcomes of that exploration were fed in to the third iteration of the new leadership plan and enabled finalisation of the model.

While this was going on, personal networks with other multinational companies explored the leadership models they were using and the way

Special supplement | Innovation in Leadership | Susan Francis

The programmes that have been developed are high quality and built on learning methodology that broadly aligns with the eight leadership beliefs. Features include self-reflection, action learning, co-creation of content with business leaders and strenuous processes to ensure an alignment with business needs

in which they were turning those models into insights that could be actioned. The aim was to explore good practice outside the organisation to see if lessons and practices could be shared.

This was one of the main drivers for joining the EFMD Special Interest Group “Innovation in Leadership Development”.

This proved to be a great source of inspiration and benchmarking and many of the outputs were utilised. Many organisations in this group are grappling with many of the same challenges involved in rapidly increase the capability of their leaders. Through their insights, the eight “beliefs” for effective leadership development were identified.

In parallel, Bayer’s Learning team started the process of refreshing the leadership development curriculum in line with new expectations, drawing upon the eight beliefs as a basis for moving forward. The new direction for Bayer’s leadership development approach is very much in line with the belief statements.

The next generation of programs under development are being co-created closely with business stakeholders and a cross-section of HR colleagues from around the world. It is important to set the new leadership expectations globally to drive the change in paradigm yet incorporate local cultural elements to ensure acceptance and relevancy of the learning approaches.

Bayer is proud of its systematic approach to leadership development, together with a curriculum that covers the whole gamut of leadership in the company from first-line managers to top executives. The resulting programmes also maintain the existing range of performance and development structures that already exist.

The programmes that have been developed are high quality and built on learning methodology that broadly aligns with the eight leadership beliefs.

Features include self-reflection, action learning, co-creation of content with business leaders and strenuous processes to ensure an alignment with business needs.

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Innovation in Leadership Leadership development has to reflect modern contexts

Further enhancements will include extending the role of leaders as teachers and sustained and continuous learning through self-directed alumni groups. Increasingly data will be gathered and used to measure outcomes and also promote the impact of the programmes to the whole organisation but particularly the senior executives who act as sponsors.

The aim, ultimately, is to go beyond programmes into extended learning journeys that are constantly revised in the light of internal and external changes in the working environment. This will enable a more agile approach to updating content and provide flexibility to the curriculum to be tailored to individual needs and to meet the goals of the various divisions within the company.

In that way, the programmes will mirror the organisational changes as the company attempts to create a flatter structure, with fewer silos.

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The aim, ultimately, is to go beyond programmes into extended learning journeys that are constantly revised in the light of internal and external changes in the working environment.

This will enable a more agile approach to updating content and provide flexibility to the curriculum to be tailored to individual needs and to meet the goals of the various divisions within the company

Special supplement | Innovation in Leadership | Susan Francis

A recent example of how Bayer has synthesised the integrated learning journey approach and is applying the eight beliefs into programme development is demonstrated by the digital curriculum for executive leaders. Bayer has identified that it needs to speed up its digital transformation. Senior leaders have been asked to update their strategic business skills and leadership capabilities in order to better drive the digital agenda in the company.

The challenge is that each division is at a different starting point in their digital strategy, and individual leaders have a large range of capabilities in their digital fluency. To address these developmental challenges, we have developed an integrated learning journey, partnering with IMD business school to deliver this.

The programme starts with leaders benchmarking their digital fluency to inform their learning plan. Those with basic knowledge will be recommended a virtual online module on digital disruption and digital basics so that there is a common base of foundational knowledge before those leaders enter the residential deep-dive programme.

This residential programme is tailored to the divisional strategic directions and will draw upon leaders in digitally advanced parts of the business to share their knowledge. The programme will also address the leadership capabilities needed to be effective in the digital age, emphasising aspects from the new leadership expectations such as agility and collaboration, in addition to understanding the personal transformational aspects required to navigate people through these revolutionary changes. The application of learning will be reinforced through projects, individual coaching, and regular Webinars.

In addition, existing Bayer programs such as reverse mentoring and digital immersion market dives will be used. A range of electives will be offered to meet leaders evolving learning needs in the digital space. This was part of the initial

benchmark and will allow leaders to continue their development. This programme, to be launched in July, will last approximately 18 months.

There is still a fundamental issue and a tension between standardisation across the whole company on the one hand, and the need to adapt to local conditions and individual needs on the other. This next phase of the programme will attempt to get this balance right.

There is also a plan to introduce new capabilities and mindsets to help leaders cope better as the organisation moves forward. These will include humbleness, leaders’ roles as facilitators and drawing on the strength of reflection for both individuals and teams.

Bayer is trying to shift away from the heroic leadership paradigm to become much more inclusive and ready to acknowledge the contribution of many different individuals drawn from across the organisation. One emerging aim is to celebrate the organisation’s diversity by engaging more people in the process of remaking Bayer.

Rather like the organisation as a whole, future leaders at Bayer will be able to listen more, draw upon techniques such as mindfulness, and be more resilient in these complex and challenging times. The organisation is going through a radical makeover and it would be absurd to imagine that the makeover would not profoundly affect who is selected as a leader, what their role is, and what expectations are put on their shoulders.

About the Author Susan Francis is the Senior Learning and Training Manager responsible for Executive leadership development programmes

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Innovation in Leadership The training delusion: the man who thought Play-Doh was for cleaning walls

By Nick Shackleton-Jones

The training delusion: the man who thought PlayDoh was for cleaning walls H

ere’s a funny story: Several years ago I worked on a “Change Leadership” programme aimed at improving the ability of leaders in a big organisation to lead change.

We designed a programme with a number of digital and project-based learning elements.

A change model was introduced that delegates would have to then apply in practice through a simulated challenge, receiving feedback from peers and culminating in a judging panel. There were digital elements and performance support and a community of change leaders to further the sharing of expertise. Overall, the programme was carefully engineered to shift capability and ensure that behavioural change was embedded.

Proudly, we presented our design to the “Head of Change”. He listened politely then said: “Yeah…

I think people really just want a couple of days off the job”.

I often find that people in education (whether corporate or public) are living out some kind of delusion. What I mean is that there is a huge gap between what they think they are doing and what the consumers of their service believe they are providing.

For example, in public education people often talk about “building skills” and “delivering learning” when in reality most students are just there to get a certificate and have as good a time as possible while doing so. If nothing else, the astonishing numbers of university students who do not bother turning up to lectures suggests as much (together with the vanishingly small amount of information they retain).

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In corporate learning and development we like to imagine that we are “building capability” and “improving performance”– even “delivering the business strategy”. But when we listen closely to our customers it seems they see our role as managing risk through regulatory training and providing the occasional break from work.

In case this sounds a bit cynical, I do believe that it is possible for L&D to do something useful – but not if we carry on as we are. I would suggest that there are two big challenges that stand in our way: First, if we were really interested in shifting capability and performance, we would be operating very differently than we do today.

Instead of designing courses we would be building resources and designing experiences.

Second (and less obviously), we would have to dramatically shift our clients’ perceptions of what we are able to do. Today we seem to be trapped in a bit of a bubble, where the only people who genuinely believe that we can make a difference to performance are ourselves. I would like that to change.

You might wonder how it is possible for training to have persisted in this delusional state for so long. Consider this: Play-Doh was originally created (in 1933) as a wallpaper cleaner. It was only sold as modelling clay for children in 1956 when the company realised that its product was being purchased for this purpose.

Imagine being the company who makes it, seeing sales climbing and thinking “wow – people

Special supplement | Innovation in Leadership | Nick Shackleton-Jones

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Innovation in Leadership The training delusion: the man who thought Play-Doh was for cleaning walls

are really crazy about cleaning their walls”, never realising that it was being purchased as a toy.

It is possible for something like this to happen.

Obviously, you have to be almost completely insulated from the lives of your customers – and the missed opportunities are enormous.

But it can happen.

So, what should we be doing?

Over a decade ago, I set out an explanatory framework within which we can make sense of what is going on when people (and other creatures) learn. According to the Affective Context Model, we store our reactions to our experiences (rather than the experiences themselves) and use these reactions to re-create the experience in a process we call “remembering”.

But what do we react to? Answer: the things we care about. A person who does not care much about bathroom tiling, for example, may fail to appreciate the outstanding beauty of your recent DIY efforts and – heaven forfend – find them boring or forgettable.

This basic mistake – chucking information at people that they don’t much care about characterises almost all education and training.

The good news is that solving it is really quite simple: we talk to people. By talking to people 37

Special supplement | Innovation in Leadership | Nick Shackleton-Jones

When learning professionals start producing “useful stuff” and realistic challenges, we can begin the shift from the educational ritual of content dumping and finally realise our ambition – and persuade business that we really can deliver development, engagement and performance

– for example, talking to new leaders – we can discover what they care about and what they don’t and this then forms the basis of the decision whether to develop resources or experiences.

Resources are typically the sort of things we use when we do care about something – for example when we use Google to solve a problem. They don’t have to be fancy or expensive. They can make a huge impact on engagement and employee experience – just compare the impact that having Google to hand has made on your life.

Oftentimes the things people care about are quite unrelated to standardised curricula – new starters, for example, really care about “fitting in” and “not looking stupid”. New leaders are concerned about impressing their peers, keeping their boss happy and being seen as a good leader by their team (among other things).

We use the term “challenges” to describe the things people are concerned with doing – for example, creating the perfect Baked Alaska is a challenge for someone I’m sure but not for me.

Consequently, I will not be Googling it tonight.

A simple way to think about our role as learning professionals is as follows: people learn

through challenges; there are two classes of challenge -- challenges people already have and challenges we can give them.

When we discover that someone already has a challenge it is usually the case that resources are the best solution since they will use these to address the challenge. But there are cases where people are not yet sufficiently concerned about something – for example safety or effective feedback or inclusivity. They may also need the opportunity to practise a skill and develop capability in an environment where it is “safe to fail” (rather than, say, in a live environment).

In these latter cases, we need to design experiences that will change how people feel about something as well as give them a chance to practise their response. For example, people may be quite unconcerned about fire safety – but by creating a VR experience in which they have to escape a burning building, we can impress on them the importance of learning proper procedure.

So experiences – often challenges or simulations – play a critical role in building capability where none already exists. Whether or not a resource or an experience is the most effective intervention can only be established through engagement with your target audience – specifically mapping their concerns (the things they care about and the things they don’t) and everyday tasks at sufficient level of detail.

When learning professionals start producing “useful stuff” and realistic challenges, we can begin the shift from the educational ritual of content dumping and finally realise our ambition – and persuade business that we really can deliver development, engagement and performance.

About the Author Nick Shackleton-Jones is author of How People Learn, Kogan Page, London, May 2019

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