The Focused Executive by Treehouse Type & Art Workers

Focused Executive T H E

LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT SKILLS IN CHALLENGING TIMES

Virginia Mansell

Focused Executive T H E

RESULTS LEADERSHIP ORIENTED & MANAGEMENT LEADERSHIP SKILLS & IN MANAGEMENT CHALLENGING SKILLS TIMES

Virginia Mansell

THE FOCuSED ExECuTIVE

Contents Introduction �� 6

executive leadership effectiveness

The changing nature of executive leadership �� 13 The impact on executives �� 14 Changes in the executive environment�� 15 Leadership truisms�� 18 Leadership myths ��19 Emotional intelligence ��20 The drivers of effective executive leadership �� 22 Linkage to leadership drivers to leadership competencies ��23 Your organisation ��25 The bottom line ��25

influencing

understanding power networks �� 32 Time management and prioritisation �� 41 Build loyalty �� 42 Setting goals �� 42 Expand your influence �� 42 Influencing at meetings�� 43

Personal selling �� 45 use of visuals �� 45 Closing �� 45 The communication process �� 47 How to win the audience’s attention �� 54 Speech aids �� 59 using visuals in group presentations �� 60 The challenges of group presentations ��61 Writing effectively �� 71 The bottom line �� 72

synergising

Bion’s theory �� 78 Synergising – are we losing the skill?�� 81 Operating style �� 83 Assessing and using operating styles �� 86 Team composition �� 87 In-team behaviour ��88 Dealing with conflict�� 90 Team processes ��91 The bottom line �� 96

LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT SKILLS IN CHALLENGING TIMES

enabling

Primary business drivers �� 103 External futures �� 106 Corporate communications ��110 Motivating individuals �� 114 Modifying delegation behaviour�� 116 Personal accountability �� 116 Fast and simple �� 118 Leadership traits �� 120 The need for flexibility �� 124 Coaching for results �� 124 GROW model ��127 Ongoing coaching meetings �� 130 Performance turn-around �� 130 The sports analogy for enabling ��131 The bottom line ��131

energising

134

Job alignment �� 137 Occupational interests �� 138 Motivational capabilities �� 139 Career areas �� 139 Job requirements and values �� 141 Atmospheric needs�� 141 Coping mechanisms �� 147

Stress and burnout �� 147 Stress management �� 149 Talent management �� 149 Career stages �� 153 Career alignment of talent �� 157 Dismissal avoidance�� 158 The role of career coaching in talent management �� 159 The truth of the matter�� 160 The bottom line �� 160

trusting

162

Values �� 165 Living vision and fundamental values �� 166 Employees as business leaders �� 166 From talk to walk �� 168 More tips for developing trust �� 169 Leadership of change ��170 Managing a restructure �� 173 Anatomy of a restructuring �� 176 Best practice in downsizing and rebuilding �� 177 The bottom line ��184 About the Stephenson Mansell Group �� 186 SMG Processes �� 187 Bibliography�� 188 Index �� 189

1 executive leadership effectiveness Executive leadership effectiveness starts with balancing leadership and management, and knowing when to emphasise each â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a real juggling match!

The changing nature of executive leadership ..................................13 The impact on executives ...................................................................... 14 Changes in the executive environment............................................. 15 Leadership truisms .................................................................................... 18 Leadership myths ......................................................................................19 Emotional intelligence ........................................................................... 20 The drivers of effective executive leadership..................................22 Linkage to leadership drivers to leadership competencies ........................................................................23 Your organisation ......................................................................................25 The bottom line .........................................................................................25

THE FOCuSED ExECuTIVE

“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” pETEr F druckEr

eadership is learnt primarily “on the job” and therefore it is often the luck of the draw how executives and managers learn the skills of leadership. If you are fortunate, you will have a boss who is known to be “good with people” and whose philosophy is to work “with” you rather than have you work “for” them. Such a boss will be a positive role model who exhibits authentic, best practice management and leadership behaviours. They will live the values of honesty, openness and trust. Otherwise, experience can only be drawn upon from early childhood, that is family and school environment, general life and work and the personality or DNA we bring to the workplace. A critical element of leadership is the capacity to tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty. This capacity is a function of the individual’s emotional development and pattern of defences. In other words, if the planets are aligned, if you have the resources (time, opportunity, insight, and understanding) to absorb learnings from a positive role model, and if you are attuned to the right signals in your environment and naturally possess the right functional capacities, then you

have a good chance of becoming a good leader. You might also win the lottery! The privilege of working for over ten years in the executive coaching industry, developing leaders, with our business focus on outcomesdriven behavioural change has provided us with both anecdotal and empirical evidence we can share about “HOW” people change and sustain their leadership behaviour beyond what really amounts to good fortune. Leadership is a concept which is usually applied in the business and sporting contexts. It is not usually related to family and community life. Leadership is not only about reaching the most senior role in an organisation, it is about reaching your own, true, authentic leadership self. Having a role which requires leading others in an organisation provides an opportunity to test and challenge oneself. Done effectively in tandem with taking on broader roles in the community (for example, children’s sports and other activities, working with not-forprofits), these enhanced skills sets can impact the community in a positive way with real

ExECuTIVE LEADERSHIP EFFECTIVENESS

outcomes. In our work at SMG, we experience changes, large and small, which impact significantly upon leader’s extended additional roles as fathers, grandmothers, uncles, daughters and community leaders. This book aims to provide insights, frameworks, models and techniques to assist managers, executives and senior leaders to become more effective in a business environment. The approach is practical and draws upon our extensive experiences coaching leaders for over 20 years. The core premise is that effective leaders are self resourceful and have achieved personal and professional success. Coaching and leadership development assists leaders to develop at a deeper level, and to experience the transformational change required to find the leader within. This enables them to develop a core competence to ensure their own teams and cultures become truly high performing. This requires strength, courage and the ability to deal with adversity and change. Developing leadership capacity requires dedicated focus and commitment to change. The benefits leaders we have worked with have gained through coaching and leadership development can be attributed to a combination of factors. Leaders think and behave strategically and operationally. They can deal with ambiguity and manage through uncertainty. They can inspire and engage others. They have developed and can sell their own personal brand. They have given up their “expert” status. They can take risks and

make tough decisions. They can be both directive and collaborative. They can delegate and can identify talent. They can align their capabilities to job roles to achieve high performance. They can understand the global market. And they can navigate through organisational politics. Effective leaders’ personal success factors include a highly developed sense of selfawareness, self-belief and an unfailing ability to persevere through change. They can be tough, empathetic and assertive, and have the agility to move from the “helicopter view” to a detailed perspective when required. To develop deep and lasting change requires hard work and time. It takes more than just one executive education program, a leadership guru’s insights, or reading the latest “eight habits” of successful leaders. Nor does it stem from the luck of having a good or bad boss as a role model. Developing effective leadership in a competitive environment requires ongoing focus and motivation to continually self reflect, receive feedback and try new behaviours required for the specific role. As most executives have highly developed mechanisms in place to defend themselves against change since early childhood, lasting change requires a combination of approaches. Our philosophy on effecting change is based on a contextual approach that recognises the need to understand the behaviours required for effective executive leadership. It requires leaders to develop an ability to reflect on their own behaviours and to become masters of their own emotional and personal wellbeing.

THE FOCuSED ExECuTIVE

The ability to hold up a mirror for constructive reflection consistently is an acquired skill, but it can become a defining personal characteristic. The following chapters illustrate best practice 360-degree leadership effectiveness based on SMG’s empirical research. Whether you are in a role that requires delegation or the leadership required to develop effective teams, the models and tools provided will help you enhance your own leadership effectiveness. To truly develop deep and lasting change you must have the courage required to examine your hidden leadership behavioural style. We also provide insights into how to examine underlying themes of leadership behaviour which are usually hidden from most leadership texts and programs. SMG uses approaches anchored in the behavioural sciences which support Hudson’s point (The Handbook of coaching [San Francisco, Jossey-Bass 1999]) that coaching is informed by a variety of psychological and social theories and draws upon a variety of practices, including the work of many well-known theorists such as Freud, Boon, Jung, Adler, Maslow, Erikson, Ellis and Egan. These include theories borrowed from human behavioural sciences and adult learning; that is, adults choose to learn when they want to. Within a business context, SMG has adapted a contextual coaching model which can either be utilised in a practical six-step coaching program or can draw upon underlying frameworks from parts of the model to address the coachee’s development priorities at a specific point in time.

The contextual coaching model is derived from a model developed by Dr. Francis Macnab, the founder and executive director of the Cairn Millar Institute in Melbourne since 1965. Twenty years ago, Dr. Macnab had already begun struggling with doubts about the effectiveness and outcomes of counselling and psychotherapy (Does it work? Is it a science?), all of which echo the current debate about executive coaching. There are many coaching and leadership frameworks emerging. However, SMG’s framework is based on: ➤ Assessment – needs analysis based on coach interview, line manager interviews, third party interviews and use of existing or obtained 360-degree behavioural data ➤ relationships – building trust and rapport, understanding the behaviours, drivers and motivations of the individual and the context in which the person operates in their role in the organisation ➤ Outcomes – results for the individual and organisation in terms of enhanced performance from their new behaviours, skills and knowledge. In summary, The Focused Executive provides refreshed 360-degree leadership best practice and insights from both the psychological and social sciences to provide a more in-depth and comprehensive view of leadership development. Because executives today are generally time poor, this book is designed to be used easily and practically – think about your role, what

ExECuTIVE LEADERSHIP EFFECTIVENESS

Factory Workers Focus on: • Land • Labour • Buildings • Plan • Equipment • Raw materials

KNOWLEDGE AGE

INDUSTRIAL AGE

Leaders have enormous resources and skills, which is why they have become leaders. However, most senior executives struggle with not clearly exercising their authority because they want to avoid conflict and to be liked. Later they can over react and become overly controlling, and abrasive and abrupt in the way they communicate with people.

THE CHANGING NATURE OF EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP In the not too distant past, executives were schooled in managing the factors of production: land, labour, buildings, plant, equipment and raw materials. Indeed, many organisations still live in the industrial age, and their executives maintain tight control over their organisation’s physical assets, the capital of the company. But while some executives cling to industrialage practices, all of us must work with the changes wrought by advances in information and communications technology. We live in a digital age. Executives have far less control over new forms of capital such as intellectual property, customer and supplier information, global alliances, and patents and technology. Equally unpredictable, but just as important, is an increasingly mobile and younger workforce with different mindsets to their forebears’. When a company moves from the industrial age into the digital or conceptual age its

Knowledge Workers Focus on: • People • Key stakeholders • Skills & know-how • Experience • Technology • Innovation

CONCEPTUAL AGE

are the critical requirements which will gain you the quick wins; read the related chapter and try out some of the techniques and ideas. Talk to your executive coach about how you are putting the behaviours into practice. Review what is working and what is more challenging. understand your motivations to change and what is holding you back. When you are struggling with the changes, don’t give yourself a hard time – because you are giving leadership a go. Effective leadership is based on developing an understanding of the five key strategies discussed later in this chapter. By doing so, executives can successfully move from “controlling the what” to “creating the how”.

Conceptual Workers Focus on: • Context • Big picture • Empathy • Creativity • Meaning/ purpose

Fig.1 The changing Nature of Leadership

THE FOCuSED ExECuTIVE

capital moves from purely physical assets, over which the executive has tight control, towards intellectual assets, over which the executive has far less direct control. The industrial age executive could control outcomes by managing the factors of production through conventional top-down management (“controlling the what”). The digital/conceptual age executive needs to focus on processes (“creating the how”) via enlightened 360-degree leadership. This means leading up, outside, sideways and down, while maintaining a strong customer orientation. This far more complex leadership model is expected by today’s customers, other stakeholders and employees, all of whom have been taught to question almost everything. In spite of what they might believe or profess, many organisations in whole or in part remain in transition between the industrial age, digital age and conceptual age, and are likely to stay in transit for many years to come. This means that executives need to hasten their development within the new leadership paradigm, yet retain elements of the command and control paradigm. In other words, effective leaders need to “create the how” and yet continue to “control the what”, according to situations and priorities. The shift from the capabilities of the previous two ages to an economy built on a different level of human abilities and aptitudes is all about “high concept” and “high touch”, that is, being able to detect patterns and relationships between things, crafting a narrative, linking apparently unrelated ideas to create something

new, being empathetic with others, understanding the pursuit of meaning and purpose. The challenge implicit in developing this way of thinking and working in a leadership context can be daunting for most people. Generally, learning technical skills and acquiring mastery by experience is felt to be preferable. Different styles of organisations will create more flexible, open cultures and therefore gently enable more conceptual, right brain operating styles to emerge. Difficulties arise when an organisation’s expectations regarding desirable management practices are at odds with an individual’s perception of how an executive should act and behave. Clearly, opportunities abound for these expectations and perceptions to be poles apart: some executives are stuck in command-andcontrol mode, while others are keen to win the popularity stakes in the feel-good school of mismanagement.

THE IMPACT ON EXECUTIVES Many executives believe good leadership is all about leading from the top down. But this is a given. Leading down and getting good results with the people who report directly to you is the baseline for performance. True leadership requires an executive to lead upwards (such as working with your line manager, the executive committee and the board of

ExECuTIVE LEADERSHIP EFFECTIVENESS

d Lea

t 15 cont ing Ou acts

Leading Up 8 contacts

Leading Sideways 7 contacts

EXECUTIVE The 360° Leader

Leading Sideways 9 contacts

Leading Down 12 contacts

Leading Out

Fig.2 360-Degree Leadership

directors on influencing, synergising, enabling); lead outside (working with key customers, suppliers, the community, other stakeholders); lead sideways (working with your peers); and lead down. All of these activities underpin five-star executive leadership performance and career development. When we consider 360-degree leadership we should also consider the large number of potential contact points to be managed. Executive leaders certainly have their hands full leading those around them, but fortunately they are not alone. Leaders can enlist the support of their team to help manage other significant contact points, allowing the leader to focus on key contact points. You could consider this a

form of internal key account management. It works by ensuring that your team members keep a careful eye on their contacts, communicate and remain engaged with them, and provide you with appropriate feedback. Many people are promoted into executive leadership roles quite quickly. These executives often come from technical backgrounds and move quickly into leadership roles partly thanks to flatter organisational structures and higher job turnover rates. Even those promoted from management roles can fail to realise true leadership requires a 360-degree awareness.

CHANGES IN THE EXECUTIVE ENVIRONMENT Opportunities to participate in and learn from global economic forums, leadership summits and global leadership conferences are available to all managers and leaders. To keep abreast of every current issue – economic, financial, sociological, environmental, corporate governance and corporate social responsibility – is impossible. A recent future summit explored this global theme: “There is unease that the world is in a fundamental shift of power for which we are unprepared. Power is being dispersed at several levels: geopolitical, sociological, economic and societal.” What this means is that leadership development occurs within a complex business, societal and interpersonal context. Key factors include sociological issues, expectations to create learning organisations, a renewed focus on

THE FOCuSED ExECuTIVE

corporate ethics, the nature of diverse and temporary work teams, and interpersonal and generational issues. At SMG’s recent tenth anniversary celebration, Nick Greiner, eminent businessman and former premier of NSW, spoke of the current global economic trials and the need for flexible skills. In his view, today’s business leaders must abandon charismatic management styles in favour of more results and people oriented modes of operation. Technology and the mass media have changed the way we work and interface to a 24-hoursa-day, seven-days-a-week world. Information and knowledge is at our finger-tips and in our faces. Extreme market and economic volatility create inherent insecurity, adding another layer of complexity to a world occupied by already highly-stressed and time-poor CEOs and their leadership teams. Massive skills and talent shortages impacting all industry sectors across the globe create paradoxical tensions between the push to grow and the pull to maintain market presence. There is little opportunity to do other than try to keep one’s head above water as the world of business propels us forward at an ever-increasing rate. Yet unless we take time out to think about truly changing and tapping into our passions and engaging authentically with ourselves and our world … we cannot truly affect our environment and create a sustained, positive, personal and organisational legacy. Change is a challenge for most executives. The following changes present both opportunities and threats.

Customer needs and wants. These change rapidly. And as customer needs and wants change, so too does the availability of product information and channels of supply, for any product or service. Economic and geopolitical shifts in power. China and India are emerging as economic powerhouses rivalling the uS and Europe. The potential economic power of Russia and other economies was not even considered a decade ago. Societal power shifts. Power shifts from the organisation to the networked individual are increasing pressure on corporations to meet increasing social changes and demands such as action on global warming. The global village. Deregulation and lower technology costs are fostering exponential growth in international trade, investment, mergers, acquisitions and communications. Competition is now a given. Information technology and telecommunications (IT&T). Massive growth in data traffic and Internet use, the expansion of bandwidth availability and the convergence of IT&T with broadcasting, media, entertainment and publishing is effectively making IT&T the new utility. It is predicted that 50 per cent of the jobs that will exist in 15 years have not yet been invented. Overseas competitors. Often these competitors are outsourcing non-core activities and disposing of fixed assets, placing greater emphasis on

ExECuTIVE LEADERSHIP EFFECTIVENESS

“Having recently been appointed to a cEO role, reporting to an eight-person joint venture board, the skills and insights gained from working with Stephenson Mansell Group have proved to be invaluable over the two years since I completed Executive coaching. reporting through a board requires new skills to be developed, and I worked on a range of areas, including influencing upwards, as well as delegation and managing downwards, managing stress levels and identifying key priorities.

intellectual property. The emphasis is on leadership rather than management, and developing alliances rather than going it alone. Changing business fundamentals. Organisational structures are being flattened, spans of control broadened, and different modes of work such as telecommuting are being embraced. Demographic and social change. We are marrying later, there are fewer births, there is more divorce and we are increasing our use of antidepressants. Rates of youth suicide are rising and levels of personal debt becoming very high. The proportion of single-parent households is increasing. For some, the work/life balance is out of control. Others are increasing their focus on self-gratification or are looking for a sense of belonging. Climate change. The world’s climates are changing, and a growing body of evidence is attributing this change to the (still) steadily

Working with Stephenson Mansell Group involved 360 degree feedback from my staff, peers and manager, allowed me to identify my characteristics and style, and helped me to identify the issues I needed to focus on to become much more effective in my role. I believe the coaching process has had significant benefits for both myself and, as a result, the company.” Greg donovan, Managing director, HIA Insurance Services

increasing practice of producing power by burning coal and other fossil fuels. The world’s corporations share a responsibility to do all they can to remedy the situation and give the world’s population and ice caps alike a reprieve. Demographic trends indicate there will be fewer young people to fill the executive ranks in the future. This creates employment opportunities for older executives who wish to keep working, although not necessarily in the same or senior positions. Executive mobility among jobs and organisations is increasing as people look for new challenges and enhanced opportunities to develop their careers and lives. Individuals will stay with an employer only as long as their personal career and personal goals are being met. This does not mean they don’t commit themselves fully to the job at hand, but it does mean the end of life-long employment with one employer. The meaning of ”loyalty” today has changed from what it was in the past.

2 influencing Because organisations are becoming increasingly complex, the executives leading them must learn ever better ways to exert their influence.

understanding power networks..........................................................32 Time management and prioritisation ................................................ 41 Build loyalty ................................................................................................ 42 Setting goals .............................................................................................. 42 Expand your influence ............................................................................ 42 Influencing at meetings ..........................................................................43 Personal selling ...........................................................................................45 use of visuals ..............................................................................................45 Closing ...........................................................................................................45 The communication process .................................................................47 How to win the audienceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attention ............................................... 54 Speech aids ................................................................................................. 59 using visuals in group presentations ............................................... 60 The challenges of group presentations .............................................61 Writing effectively .................................................................................... 71 The bottom line .........................................................................................72

THE FOCuSED ExECuTIVE

“I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about change in Washington … I’m asking you to believe in yours.”

BArAck OBAMA nfluence is about leading those outside of your direct control – CEOs, line managers, boards of directors and key external stakeholders – to ensure they are making informed decisions

Influencing through personal relationships rather than positional power is one of the most challenging shifts to have occurred in business. How people are now required to work together will be a determining predictor for future leadership success. Increased organisational complexity and greater competitiveness in the market negates the need for greater informal networks. Globalisation, flexible work practices and generational shifts all require less formal and less hierarchical relationships. Being responsible for results and outcomes without formal authority is becoming the norm. Lacking core relationship building and political skills and not knowing how to influence will be a career derailer.

Considerable skills in what are variously called “influencing”, “negotiation”, “relationship management”, “communication” and ”political management” are becoming key leadership attributes. The application of these skills, with the appropriate use of informal or personal “authority for task”, is becoming increasingly important in working with more senior managers and powerful stakeholders. Research from the Centre for Creative Leadership (CCL) on influencing concludes that good relationships are valuable currency. “The ability to build and maintain relationships and work well with others is in big demand – and in short supply.” “Building relationships is one of the strongest skills related to leadership effectiveness,” says CCL researcher Jean Leslie. “Managers with more experience building relationships are seen as more effective.”

INFLuENCING

This chapter on the first element of executive leadership effectiveness will help you to understand the core concepts about influencing, and provide practical ideas to help understand the way politics, power and influence work in organisations.

To enhance the material in this chapter, we borrow from two key contributors, Robert Cialdini’s book, Influence: the psychology of persuasion, and Mary Bragg’s reinventing Influence: How to Get Things done in a World Without Authority.

To extract most value from this chapter, think about how you exert influence now. What do you do that works? What could you do more effectively? What has got you to where you are now won’t necessarily be enough to propel you into successful leadership in the future.

Together with practical skills and techniques, the concepts in this chapter will assist you to build a strong network of supporters and develop successful personal selling skills. You can apply these in lieu of indulging in the destructive side of organisational politics, which is usually a result of underlying, negative, systemic cultural issues. You can only influence and lead others by repeatedly demonstrating the behaviours you want your team, your peers and your boss to adopt.

Think about whom you would like to influence right now, why, and what difference it would make to your effectiveness at work. Learning from our past influences establishes our preferred mode of influencing. Consider the following questions when reading through this chapter: ➤ Who were the key influencers in your life? ➤ What did you learn from the positive role

models and what did you learn from the negative influencers? ➤ In what areas of your life do you currently influence? Think about times where you have been a negative influencer and what were the consequences? ➤ What roles do you usually take up outside of work – father, husband, mother, sports coach, helper, etc? ➤ What similar roles do you play in your workplace?

“In today’s complex, fast changing, matrix organisations, executives are being called upon to use superior and flexible influencing skills in order to achieve better business outcomes across teams of people. Stephenson Mansell Group’s book on leadership provides a great insight for modern leaders and team members on influencing and working together. coaching and mentoring provided by the experienced executive coaches of the Stephenson Mansell Group have been shown to produce great results for many executives and their organisations.” Neil Hawker, Head of Global procurement, Orica Australia Limited

THE FOCuSED ExECuTIVE

“Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.” GEOrGE S pATTON UNDERSTANDING POWER NETWORKS Every organisation has its networks. Lines of power can be traced through an organisation’s formal structure, but informal networks exert power behind the scenes. The sooner you become aware of these networks, the sooner you can use them to develop your image and career success. This doesn’t mean fighting at other people’s expense, but it is imperative that you know who makes the decisions. Ask yourself the following questions: Whose advice is sought and followed? Whose criticism counts? Whose ideas carry weight? Whose opinion causes others to change theirs? ➤ At whom do people look when they make a recommendation? ➤ Who confides in whom? ➤ Who backs whose suggestions? ➤ ➤ ➤ ➤

Once you have identified an organisation’s power networks, you will be in a better position to enhance your influence. To do this effectively you will also need feedback on how your work performance and your relationships are seen by others. This feedback can come from the senior executive, your peers and your subordinates. Be aware of how people respond to you. What tone of voice do they use? Do they ask for your opinion? Are you aware of unspoken signals? Don’t neglect to ask for feedback. By doing so, you open a channel for communication that will keep you informed rather than isolated. understanding different sources of power helps you to decide which strategies, techniques and tools are most appropriate for your team; the same is true of stakeholders in other parts of your organisation. In the following tables, Mary Bragg (reinventing Influence, 1996) succinctly outlines the six different sources of power, how to maintain power, and how to use power effectively.

INFLuENCING

Source of Power / Definition AUTHORITY POWER:

This power is conferred on an individual as a result of their hierarchical position in an organisation. The holder has the legitimate formal authority to get things done. It is a form of structural power. People using authority power use their position and rewards for work performance to influence what is done.

How to increase and maintain power

How to use power effectively

1. Gain more formal authority.

1. Make polite, clear requests. 2. Follow up to verify compliance. 3. Don’t exceed your level of authority. 4. Insist on compliance if appropriate. 5. Explain criteria for giving rewards. 6. Encourage improvement and avoid the need for punishment.

1. Show acceptance and positive regard for the other person. 2. Be supportive and helpful. 3. Don’t manipulate and exploit people for personal advantage. 4. Defend someone’s interests and back them up when appropriate. 5. Keep your promises. 6. Make self-sacrifices that demonstrate your concern. 7. use sincere forms of showing personal regard for the other person.

1. use personal appeals when necessary. 2. Indicate that a request is important to you. 3. Don’t ask for a personal favour that is excessive given the relationship. 4. Demonstrate proper behaviour.

2. Get people to acknowledge authority. 3. Don’t use rewards or coercion in a manipulative way. 4. Follow proper channels when giving orders. 5. Exercise authority regularly. 6. Gain authority to reward desirable behaviour.

Key influencing strategies: • Rationality • Pulling rank • Consultation • Exchange

REFERENT POWER: Referent power is a source of personal power based on how you relate to another – which in turn is based on views, personal qualities and opinions. We seek support and recognition from those with referent power, as it is empowering and personally rewarding. Key influencing strategies: • Personal appeal • Consultation

THE FOCuSED ExECuTIVE

GAINING INFLUENCE The power of influence is summed up by the expression “It’s what you know, but also who you know”. It is clear that selling your views, ideas and yourself to others, networking to expand your support base, and effectively

negotiating with others within and outside your immediate work environment are critical factors. The table below describes some of the strategies more commonly used to influence others. This is an excerpt from Robert B. Cialdini’s article “Harnessing the Science of Persuasion”, which appeared in HBr Onpoint 2001.

Persuasion Principles

Principle

Example

Business Application

Liking: People like those who like them.

At direct selling parties, guests’ fondness for their host influences purchase decisions twice as much as regard for the products.

To influence people, win friends via: Similarity: Create early bonds with new peers, bosses and direct reports by informally discovering common interests – you’ll establish goodwill and trustworthiness. praise: Charm and disarm. Make positive remarks about others – you’ll generate more willing compliance.

Reciprocity: People repay in kind.

When the Disabled American Veterans enclosed free personalised address labels in donation-request envelopes, response rate doubled.

Give what you want to receive. Lend a staff member to a colleague who needs help; you’ll get his help later.

Social Proof: People follow the lead of similar others.

More New York City residents tried returning a lost wallet after learning that other New Yorkers had tried.

Use peer power to influence horizontally, not vertically, for example, ask an esteemed “old timer” to support your new initiative if other veterans resist.

Consistency: People fulfil written, public and voluntary commitments.

Ninety-two per cent of residents of an apartment complex who signed a petition supporting a new recreation centre later donated money to the cause.

Make others’ commitments active, public, and voluntary. If you supervise an employee who should submit reports on time, get that understanding in writing (a memo or email); make the commitment public (note colleagues’ agreement with the memo); and link the commitment to the employee’s values (the impact of timely reports on team spirit).

INFLuENCING

Persuasion Principles Principle

Example

Business Application

Authority: People defer to experts who provide shortcuts to decisions requiring specialised information.

A single New York Times expert-opinion news story aired on TV generates a 4 per cent shift in uS public opinion.

Don’t assume your expertise is self-evident. Instead, establish your expertise before doing business with new colleagues or partners, for example, in conversations before an important meeting, describe how you solved a problem similar to the one on the agenda.

Scarcity: People value what’s scarce.

Wholesale beef buyers’ orders jumped 600 per cent when they alone received information on a possible beef shortage.

Use exclusive information to persuade. Influence and rivet key players’ attention by saying, for example: “Just got this information today. It won’t be distributed until next week.”

Executives and managers should develop an understanding of professional selling techniques, and adapt these techniques to their own circumstances. Alliances can be built with individuals within and outside your organisation. These individuals could be contacts, leads or prospects. A contact is just about anyone you know or seek to know, or who may seek to know you. A lead is a contact that may have an interest or need to develop an alliance with you.

CONTACT

LEAD

PROSPECT

A prospect is a contact that looks like having such an interest or need (see Fig.5). Leads can come from many sources, including existing allies, newspaper announcements, social contacts, family and friends. Most leads will not have a definite interest in you or a desire to develop an alliance with you, so you must generate many leads to get the few who actually do have a need or interest.

ALLY

ALLIANCES

Fig.5 Developing Alliances

THE FOCuSED ExECuTIVE

SELL YOURSELF EXTERNALLY It follows that you should generate new allies within your organisation in order to build your internal support network. However, it is just as important to develop external influence. If you have a strong network of external allies you will enhance your organisationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reputation as well as your own. This will be fed back to those who matter in your organisation.

A strong external network of allies also balances your perspective and prevents you from becoming too introspective. This external network puts you in touch with a cadre of external experts who will offer advice without charge. Generating new external contacts is the first step in extending your external network of allies, and your success in this depends on the number of people you contact. The importance of generating new external contacts cannot be over- emphasised.

CASE STUDY

John had worked hard to reach a Senior Executive role as a CFO of a Division in a large blue chip Australian organisation in the mining sector.

by the key decision makers through being more decisive, more prepared, setting agendas, being across the business metrics, communicating more assertively and concisely, prioritising and delegating.

His performance was seen as diligent, reliable, thorough and a good team player. He reported to the Managing Director who had five Divisions and to the CFO of the Group. He had recently completed his MBA, however presented as frustrated, having been overlooked for recent promotions.

Serendipity provided an opportunity for John to try out these new behaviours in the acting role of MD for eight weeks. By applying new approaches, thinking about the outcome of every communication with the CEO and Executive team, John created a new profile for himself as a Senior Executive.

With closer analysis and after a 360Â° feedback tool was given, John and his Executive Coach identified that the critical development needs were to build personal presence, identify key stakeholders, clarify how he would like to be perceived

Both by identifying critical leading upwards skills, combined with the opportunity to behave to the expectations and requirements of the role, John increased his confidence in his ability to influence and persuade others to preplanned outcomes.

INFLuENCING

How do you develop external allies?

Building relationships is the key to developing external allies. While this is time consuming and takes many years of focused activities, it is well worthwhile. Researching the key influencers in your industry sector – who they are, and where they reside, is vital: sporting events, industry bodies, clubs, networking events, media events, political events. All executives need to become increasingly involved in customer contact and revenue generation. According to Richard Koch and Ian Godden, authors of Managing Without Management, the “post-management” corporation aims to double sales in ten years. If that’s the case, executives and managers will need to spend half their time dealing with customers, compared to approximately 5 per cent of time they currently spend in this area. Get ready for the post-management era by increasing your external selling. Acquire the attitude of an entrepreneur, and think about selling yourself in terms of efficiency and profit. The first step is to set some goals. We have to know where we are heading and what we hope to achieve before we set out, and we should monitor our progress so that we stay on course. Setting goals in personal selling involves two principles: ➤ the setting of realistic, specific goals; and ➤ monitoring those goals regularly. A very high profile and successful Australian CEO has a database comprising birthdays of all

Maximise Time

ii iii

Minimise Time

Fig.6 Ally Prioritisation

his customers and associates. It is monitored by his PA, who dispatches cards to over 500 recipients each year. Section “i” represents high-yield/high-potential allies (existing and potential). Again, applying the 80/20 rule, you may find that they make up 20 per cent of your allies, but 80 per cent of your alliance and influence potential. So, when buying a ticket to attend charity or business functions, it is worthwhile paying whatever premium is necessary to ensure you sit at the top table.

ORGANISATIONAL CONTACTS When you sell yourself and influence fellow executives you are not always dealing with independent contacts. Often you are dealing with people who may help you gain greater influence. These contacts may include

3 synergising Synergy is a team thing. You donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to play as a team all the time â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but you have to be ready to pull together when it really counts.

Bionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s theory............................................................................................... 78 Synergising â&#x20AC;&#x201C; are we losing the skill?.................................................. 81 Operating style.......................................................................................... 83 Assessing and using operating styles ...............................................86 Team composition.................................................................................... 87 In-team behaviour .................................................................................... 88 Dealing with conflict .............................................................................. 90 Team processes ..........................................................................................91 The bottom line ........................................................................................96

THE FOCuSED ExECuTIVE

“You do not lead by hitting people over the head – that is assault, not leadership.” dWIGHT d EISENHOWEr

uch has been said by experts about team behaviour and how to create a team of top performers. The idea of a totally aligned star team in which members all perform with total synchrony in the same place continues to captivate organisations.

Jon Katzenbach, the internationally acclaimed co-author of the bestselling The Wisdom of Teams, argues an approach that is far more realistic. After more than 35 years at McKinsey and Co, Katzenbach has come up with the following home truths: ➤ The best senior leadership groups are rarely a true team at the top, although they can function as real teams in the face of major adversity or unexpected events. ➤ Trying to become an ongoing single team doesn’t optimise performance. What does, however, is consciously working towards a balance between team and non-team efforts. ➤ Better balance lies in learning to integrate the discipline required for team performance with the discipline of executive single-leader behaviour – not in replacing one with the other.

Most organisations require alignment to the values and vision of the business, its mission and vision, together with focused commitment and mutual accountability for team results. Where there is adversity or extreme events, that is, takeovers or a change to the strategy, teams can perform constructively and credibly. People who work together rarely know each other intimately, which means they rarely know how they can help each other. Time is limited, and many decisions are best made individually. How often, when you sit down with your team, do they say the most important aspect of a meeting or team program was sharing their experiences and building relationships with other people in the business? Why is it important? Building trust, understanding the concept of trust and how to “walk the talk“ is dealt with in more detail in Chapter 6. However, we think trust is a fundamental requirement for building a team – without trust, team building won’t occur, and without functional teams, the organisation cannot strive to achieve its goals.

SYNERGISING

REAL LIFE EXAMPLE At a $1000-a-day executive retreat specialising in high-level strategy and team bonding sessions, it was fascinating to learn that the most productive time was spent not in the formal sessions, but over a late night drink. All barriers to communication were down, and executives could open up to each other without fear of retribution in an environment that encouraged open and honest communication. Despite the fact that business literature defines teams and what they need to do to perform effectively, most people do not experience real teamwork at work. Which factors at work prevent teams from fulfilling their potential? Is it the leader failing to treat each member of the team fairly? Not knowing the key drivers of each individual? Not knowing when to work as a team and when to work one on one? Not understanding the different types of people attracted to various roles? If you are a CEO with a marketing background managing a team of engineers, accountants and lawyers, how do you ensure the team becomes cohesive and collaborative? One chief executive was quite happy to create tension by continually shifting the goal posts for the team. He wanted to maintain competitive tension to keep them on their toes. Another CEO chose to criticise one member of his team for failing to get on side with the others members.

This can be seen as playing favourites. It is also very demotivating for the senior executive who requires certainty, let alone for the victim of the CEOs “joke”. CEOs of large companies cannot make all the key decisions. They require their direct reports to share the responsibility and must delegate the authority to do so. To build a top performing team, the leader needs to understand the deepest drivers and motivations underlying each individual member’s behaviour, and to inspire them to support each other in time of adversity as well as prosperity. It is helpful to think of each team as a family group, with the CEO representing the parent of the family. Each member of the group competes for approval or attention, either consciously or subconsciously. However, instead of helping each family member to meet their individual goals, the CEO’s job is to inspire each team member to work toward the achievement of the team’s common goals – both collectively and individually. This requires the leader to take charge and lead when required. It also requires the leader to allow someone else to take the lead when they are better equipped to do so. This can create anxiety because the role a person plays in their family of origin (for example, the joker, the peacemaker, the organiser) is usually the role they adopt in their work teams. It feels natural and familiar to them, but it is not always effective or appropriate. Social Systems theory also provides a framework for creating effectiveness in teams, organisations and communities.

THE FOCuSED ExECuTIVE

In Becoming a resonant Leader, Boyatzis, McKee and Johnston describe how complicated human systems are and how difficult it is to bring about systemic change, notwithstanding the fact that most of us aspire to be a member of a highly functioning team in which everyone works together to achieve the same set of goals. According to Boyatzis et al, in order to build an effective team, you must: 1. Start with yourself. Clarify your personal aspirations, ask for feedback, be honest about your shortcomings and walk the talk. 2. Inspire agreement in those around you. Develop resonant relationships with your direct reports. Check in with each other when working with wider teams; ask for feedback; understand your individual strengths. 3. Attend to all levels of the social system. Engaging the hearts and passions of every member of the group is essential for sustainable change to occur. 4. Explore the power of subjectivity. Ensure time is dedicated to understanding the abstract values, beliefs and taboos that drive the members of your team. They are just as powerful and important as those influences that are observable and quantifiable. 5. Discover how your group defines itself collectively. 6. Engage people’s hearts and minds. 7. Create resonance by inspiring a collective vision. 8. Express personal accountability and commitments.

“A change of approach is sometimes more powerful than a change of company or circumstance – and the best thing is it is your choice.” Senior Finance Manager

BION’S THEORY Wilfrid Bion (1897–1979) was a British psychoanalyst and pioneer in group dynamics who associated with the Tavistock Group. According to Wilfred Bion’s theory of group dynamics (Bion, WR, Experiences in Groups, Tavistock, London, 1961), at any point, a group/ team/meeting is either working on its task or is caught up in some other activity in which people are confused and can’t think straight, are bickering or avoiding some anxiety or topic, or are daydreaming. According to Bion, a group is either in “work” or “task” mode, or it is in “survival” mode, usually due to the anxiety or stress associated with the task. Bion describes these modes as the results of the following unconscious assumptions: ➤ Dependency: Assuming the leader is the “parent”, which relieves the rest of the group of responsibility. ➤ Fight/flight : Assuming that the corporate world is dangerous, and that everyone within it is either a friend or an enemy (including colleagues in the same organisation). “Flight” can involve avoidance, absenteeism or giving up.

SYNERGISING

➤ Pairing : Bion’s third unconscious assumption

is that pairing up with a person or group perceived as powerful will help a person cope with anxiety, alienation, and loneliness. ➤ Defences : Defence mechanisms are used to keep threatening feelings out of our consciousness and painful thoughts out of our awareness. We use them like aspirin to dull or block out pain until we find another way of managing. They work well in small amounts but beware they are toxic in continued, large doses. Based on past lessons and experiences, the three major defences are: ➤ Projecting : Putting our own responsibility onto someone else. It helps reduce guilt but advocates the reversal of responsibility. ➤ Denial : If we deny a problem exists, then it does not need our attention or ownership. ➤ Ignoring : Admit a situation or pattern exists but avoid facing any challenges.

SOCIAL DEFENCES OR ORGANISATIONAL DYNAMICS Just as individuals have to cope with anxiety and at times resort to defences, avoidance, fight/ flight and resistance, so too do organisations and systems. Organisations use them to reduce inadequacy, intimacy and dependency. The notion of “social defences” or “anxiety/ stress“ is associated with carrying out different tasks. The notions of “containers” or “holding environments” originate from a psychological concept relating to the experience of the infant in the hands of its mother/caregiver.

The concept is equally applicable to organisations, which can be thought of as containers of people and experiences. Think about the kind of container the organisation provides, what the boundaries are like (is it overor under-bounded?), and the type of experiences it provides for the people who work within it. Each organisation has its own unique identity and culture. It is within this culture that individuals and teams are required to perform. To help describe the foundations and requirements for team success, we refer to Kets de Vries, the head of the INSEAD Global Leadership Centre. An economist and psychoanalyst, Kets de Vries lectures and teaches globally, and is one of the top 50 thinkers and contributors in this area. According to de Vries, team success requires: ➤ Collegiality ➤ Collaboration ➤ Coordination. AND high performance teams share a: Passion for results Passion for people Passion for customers Passion for innovation Passion for change Passion for the work around them!

➤ ➤ ➤ ➤ ➤ ➤

When people at a similar level in the organisation work in separate functions, divisions or geographic locations, they often operate as though they exist in discrete silos. In many cases, these silos have developed to meet customer needs such as sales, production and finance.

THE FOCuSED ExECuTIVE

Sales Team

Production Team

Finance Team

Real Team?

Fig.10 Which is the Real Team?

However, if these silos are out of sync, customer needs are not met in the best possible way. Ask yourself which is the “real” team? Is it the sales team, the production team, or the finance team? As far as the customer is concerned, it is none of these. The team that matters for the customer is one that embodies elements of sales, production and finance.

Any series of silos should operate not only as a functional group, but also as a leadership team. If we accept that change is a given, then we must also accept that change creates new teams that need to get up to speed quickly. To enable this, team members need to understand each other’s behavioural styles and how their differences can be harmonised to create a star team, rather than just a team of stars.

Leaders make better decisions and achieve better outcomes when they synergise. We can think of synergy as “the power of one mind plus another mind, equating to three minds”.

Psychologists and behavioural scientists agree that winning executive teams need to be balanced in their composition. Teams generally perform best when their members embody

Executive Committee

Functional Group CEO

Sales and Marketing

Finance

Operations

Leadership Team Fig.11 Both Functional Group and Leadership Team

Human Resources

Distribution

SYNERGISING

all the main behavioural styles. But teams of this nature may clash, particularly when under pressure, unless each member contributes on the basis of mutual support, trust and cooperation. Organisations experience different phases in their life cycles — start up, early growth, adolescence and maturity. So do teams. The last two phases often give rise to particular concern because they are the times when the team needs to regenerate. Adolescence often coincides with interpersonal friction among team members. Maturity can be associated with endless rounds of meetings and not a lot of creative output. Consider the following kinds of unsuccessful team composition: ➤ All very clever people : disaster-prone ➤ Too many idea generators : good ideas produced but never taken up ➤ Idea generators and all-rounders : team looks brilliant but is always beaten by broaderbased teams that can accomplish things ➤ Fewer than six people : secondary roles/ doubling up as needed ➤ More than eight to ten people : difficult group dynamics and the possibility of imbalance. What kind of team do you participate in? Examples include: ➤ A new or young team. This collection of executives operates more or less independently, their main dependence being on the appointed leader for direction and support.

➤ A divergent team. This team is affected

adversely by a number of issues it needs to resolve before team members can work together effectively. ➤ A convergent team. This team has strong interpersonal relationships and alliances, but does not value independent thinking particularly. ➤ A synchronised team. This team enjoys independent yet mutually supportive team members. It combines star players with a star team. Often team decisions exceed what individual members working by themselves would be able to achieve. In summary, synergising requires highperformance teamwork, based on good interpersonal relationships, balanced team composition, effective group dynamics and efficient processes.

SYNERGISING – ARE WE LOSING THE SKILL? We have all heard the saying “Two heads are better than one.” We have seen a couple of “ordinary” people achieve the most amazing results. We know about systems and drugs working together to achieve so much more than would have been achieved if they had not been joined together. And of course we have heard coaches say “I want a star team not a team of stars”. When people are working in synergy the result is greater than it would have been if each person operated individually.

4 enabling A set of well-developed leadership skills enables an executive to move from functionary to visionary when the chips are down.

Primary business drivers .......................................................................103 External futures ......................................................................................106 Corporate communications ................................................................. 110 Motivating individuals ............................................................................114 Modifying delegation behaviour ....................................................... 116 Personal accountability ......................................................................... 116 Fast and simple .........................................................................................118 Leadership traits ......................................................................................120 The need for flexibility...........................................................................124 Coaching for results................................................................................124 GROW model ............................................................................................ 127 Ongoing coaching meetings ...............................................................130 Performance turn-around ....................................................................130 The sports analogy for enabling ......................................................... 131 The bottom line ........................................................................................ 131

THE FOCuSED ExECuTIVE

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.â&#x20AC;?

nowing how and when to move from management to leadership is one of the most difficult tasks people need to master in their quest for growth and development. It differentiates those who stay in management from those who progress to more complex leadership roles. Promotions typically have occurred for the person who is most technically savvy in their role. The best salesperson becomes the sales manager, the highest billing lawyer becomes the partner. With an increase in the percentage of fast tracked executives to fulfil the dearth of management and leadership roles due to the skills crisis and demographic changes, the issue of a lack of management and leadership capability on the talent bench increasingly is what CEOs are concerned about. We find our coaching skills are concentrating increasingly on the development of core management and leadership skills, particularly with those aged from late 20s to mid 40s. Yet limited time spent in each role prior to promotion to really develop sound management

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HENrY kISSINGEr and leadership skills is creating a crisis. Poor management and leadership skills are hidden in large organisations due to the pressure on results, a lack of performance, management skills development and coaching and mentoring, and a lack of role model leaders to build capability. This issue is not usually uncovered until there is thorough assessment and the need for development to fill the talent pool gap is uncovered. Whilst all people require recognition and approval regardless of their role or level of responsibility, most cultures reward by promotion to management with responsibility for direct reports. This requires a wide range of new skills such as leading and developing others, organising and planning, following through on task, and developing teams, to name a few. People skills are not usually taught at school or university. They are usually learnt on the job, either from working with a good boss or having a stand-out mentor. A few people have intuition and are natural leaders, but most are not. Seventy per cent of people leave their bosses before they leave their organisation.

ENABLING

ENABLING IS ABOUT LEADING YOUR PEOPLE FORWARD AND ATTAINING SUPERIOR RESULTS WITH AND THROUGH THEM In nearly 30 years in HR across industries and countries, I have seen lots of functional and organisational heads, but relatively few leaders. One of the best leaders I observed was a very tough CEO. He had enormous energy, a huge intellect and significant personal presence. When he spoke, people listened. When he decided on a course of action, it was full steam ahead. He had very high expectations, held people to account and expected them to deliver. He was larger than life. Were people scared of him? Some were. They found him positively intimidating. But then again, maybe they had reason to be. This CEO did several things that to me demonstrated true leadership. He flattened the hierarchy, vigorously pursued talent development, ensured he had direct contact with people throughout the company at all levels and made sure high potential people had challenging work and that they worked for good leaders themselves. And he truly delegated: he did hold people accountable but in doing so, he gave them responsibility and he allowed people to make mistakes (but not repeat the same ones). In short, he was a tough leader but a coach, mentor and teacher. He had faith in people and gave them room to grow and develop and to demonstrate what they could do. Another wonderful leader I knew was head of office services for a large company. In total contrast to the CEO described above, this gentleman was quiet, unassuming and softly spoken. And unlike the CEO who concentrated on the whole-of-company, big picture strategy, his role involved managing functions

such as cleaning, the mailroom, switchboard, security and parking. Most of his team members were people who had left school early with little in the way of skills. They also generally had little ambition. This leader created a wonderful team of people, totally focused on providing the highest level of service to internal and external customers. He painted a picture which showed his team members how vitally important their jobs were to the success of the company. He gave them purpose. Switchboard became a key customer service function. Mailroom became a communications hub. His team members came to see themselves as just as important to the organisation as marketing, finance, or operations. He gave them pride in themselves and in the work they did. He encouraged his people to go back to study to enhance their opportunities. He was truly a motivating and caring leader. He believed in his people, they believed in him and together they could see a world of bigger possibilities. Two more different people you couldn’t imagine. Yet both ignited a spark. And people would have walked over hot coals for them. It is not position, title, or personality that confers leadership, it is how the leader leads. It is what the leader does to enable people to be all they can and more, personally and professionally, materially and emotionally. Leadership is about painting a picture of success. It is about attaining superior results with and through one’s teams. So, for those who think people work for a company and with people, no. People work with a company and because of people. – Joe Fischer

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Building a great organisation requires a deeper understanding of the key concerns of executives. These include a whole range of often conflicting emotional states affecting both the work and home environment such as work relationships and interpersonal conflict, managerial capabilities, feelings of inadequacy, boredom, work/life balance, financial matters and a self-imposed lifestyle of “entrapment”, issues of physical, emotional and spiritual stress, and managing the inevitable challenges confronted in mid-life family relationships (including the transition of children into teenagers, looking after elderly parents, and dealing with second marriages and step-children, to name a few). Manfred Kets de Vries has studied extensively the pressures of leadership and quotes the base rate for leadership incompetence as between 40 and 50 per cent, noting that there is a spectrum ranging from an unwillingness in people to exercise authority due to a need to be liked and to avoid conflict, through to a predilection for tyrannizing subordinates with abrasive behaviour, becoming a micro manager with a preoccupation with detail, and a lack of succession planning causing problems in selection and development. He goes on to quote 10 factors necessary to become an effective senior executive, namely being able to: 1. Navigate organisational politics 2. Deal with ambiguity and uncertainty 3. Create a new network 4. Achieve work through others 5. Manage high risk decisions

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6. Give up the reputation as an expert 7. Engage and inspire employees 8. Think strategically 9. Lead across borders 10. Represent the corporate point of view. He also defines the particular style of leader required by an organisation to best suit its particular stage of development: ➤ The strategist – the leader as chess player – required to create and drive the vision (usually of a well-known significantly global organisation in the top 20) ➤ The change catalyst – required for turnarounds and implementation ➤ The transactor – the leader creates the deals and negotiates suitable for the property and financial markets ➤ The builder – the entrepreneur – exciting new companies, usually in new sectors, for example, Bill Gates (Chairman of Microsoft), Guy Laliberté (Cirque Du Soleil) ➤ The innovator – the creative idea generator, for example, Steve Jobs (Apple) ➤ The processor – the leader as the efficiency expert – usually attached to process-driven organisations such as insurance companies and banks ➤ The coach – people developer ➤ The communicator – great stage manager. This chapter identifies and deals with key primary business drivers, the influence of external futures, corporate communications, core management and leadership practices, coaching and leadership traits in the current context of management.

ENABLING

Not only do most executives have to do more with less, they have to do it faster. This creates significant time management problems, and can mean that the basics of good management are neglected. We will continue this chapter by describing a selection of management practices: ➤ primary business drivers ➤ external futures ➤ planning ➤ corporate communications ➤ organising ➤ monitoring ➤ decision making ➤ motivating ➤ delegating ➤ motivational delegation, and ➤ personal accountability.

PRIMARY BUSINESS DRIVERS One of the biggest problems in business today is the breadth of responsibility held by most managers, exacerbated by the loss of many middle management positions. An executive’s ideal span of control used to be seven direct subordinates, but it is not uncommon today to see senior executives with a dozen or more direct reports. Senior people often feel they are spread too thin. Primary business drivers are insufficiently attended to as other timeconsuming tasks proliferate. Executives need to avoid being sucked into this vortex. They should determine their principal business objectives, and devote maximum time,

effort and resources to the primary business drivers that will deliver these objectives. What is your single most important business objective right now? What are the first-level drivers of your principal business objective? In other words, what are the two main activities and result areas that will have the greatest impact on attaining your principal business objective? Which second-level drivers drive your first-level drivers? Which third-level drivers drive your second-level drivers? Which of all these drivers, if prioritised, can be most improved and will have the greatest impact on your principal business objective? It is critical that you evaluate these questions, and find the answers. To better understand primary business drivers, let us examine an autonomous division of a large manufacturing and distribution company. The principal business objective in this case, was Return on Total Assets expressed as a percentage, as supported by the two first level drivers of Net Pre-Tax Profit and Assets Employed in the Business. These two first-level drivers were supported by the second-level drivers of sales, operating expenses, fixed assets and current assets, which in turn were supported by a range of third-level drivers – a fairly classic profit tree for a company. Given the need to attain the principal business objective of maximising return on total assets, and by developing a complete profit tree, the general manager then determined which drivers

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were “primary” – in other words, which drivers he was able to improve most and which had the greatest impact on improving his principal business objective, and which he therefore needed to prioritise. These included: ➤ sales – increasing the domestic pricing differential, providing “free” product in place of discounts for export sales ➤ variable expenses – establishing a “joint gain” productivity program ➤ fixed expenses – reorganising and reducing staffing (via natural attrition) ➤ fixed assets – consolidating manufacturing and distribution and selling of excess equipment and facilities ➤ current assets – reducing the debtor collection period, increasing/renegotiating supplier payment periods, improving the sell/make for stock decision-making process.

In addition to being used to enable executives like the general manager to determine their primary business drivers, and which ones to prioritise at any given time, the profit tree can be superimposed on the organisational structure of the business, with relevant direct reports and their teams being held accountable for results in primary business driver areas, as well as in all other driver areas. The general manager in this case did this with great success. He found that superimposing the profit tree on his organisational structure had a strongly unifying effect on his team – they all pulled together to maximise return on total assets, which they nearly doubled in three years! Fig.15 below summarises the Profit Tree in this case:

Principal Business Objective

Profit return on assets employed in the business

First Level Driver (1) Net pre-tax proﬁt

Second Level Driver (1.1)

Second Level Driver (1.2)

Second Level Driver (2.1)

Second Level Driver (2.2)

Third Level Driver (1.1.1)

Third Level Driver (1.2.1)

Third Level Driver (2.1.1)

Third Level Driver (2.2.1)

Total Sales

Operating Expenses

Fig.15 primary Business drivers 1

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First Level Driver (2)

Assets employed in the business

Fixed Assets

Current Assets

ENABLING

CASE STUDY

Another example of primary business drivers is the case of the general manager sales and marketing of a consumer products manufacturing and marketing company. He had inherited a new CEO who had initiated a broad range of process improvement programs, to the extent, in fact, that wheels were spinning and results were suffering. His principal business objective was to substantially increase profitable sales growth. The two first-level drivers were increasing sales revenue and increasing margin. These two first-level drivers were supported by the second-level drivers of selling more to existing grocery and route customers and increasing the number of new vending and route customers (for increasing sales revenue); selling more to the more profitable route customers and decreasing sales costs in the case of less profitable grocery customers (for increasing margin). The third level of drivers were improved category management and competing more on the basis of quality of service (for selling more to existing grocery and route customers); exploiting underdeveloped channels and increased distribution in existing channels (for increasing the number of new vending and route customers); identifying and prioritising the more profitable customers as well as tailoring growth plans for them (for selling more to the more profitable route customers); and better identification of cost drivers and a tailored

plan to maximise returns (for decreasing costs in the case of less profitable grocery customers). Having mapped out the profit tree in this way, further analysis indicated just three major strategies, three primary business drivers in fact, to be prioritised. These were previously considered to be just three of the broad range of process improvement programs initiated by the new CEO, causing spinning wheels and slipping results. Yet on further analysis, these three were clearly seen to have a major and sustained impact on helping the general manager sales and marketing and his 1000-strong permanent and part-time team to better achieve their principal business objective of substantially increasing profitable sales growth. These drivers were: â&#x17E;¤ maximising profitable sales revenue growth through existing grocery and route customers by selling more to them and increasing market share through advanced category management techniques and the acquisition of permanent secondary space. â&#x17E;¤ increasing margin by better understanding the cost structures and tailoring specific plans for high-volume and low-profit grocery customers, in other words, developing profit and loss statements for each major grocery customer and implementing margin improvement programs. â&#x17E;¤ increasing revenue by identifying new customers in existing vending and route channels and implementing appropriate service programs.

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5 energising As well as a clear set of goals and a great set of skills, to perform at its optimum an organisation requires pride to be built and passion to be unleashed.

Job alignment ........................................................................................... 137 Occupational interests........................................................................... 138 Motivational capabilities ......................................................................139 Career areas ...............................................................................................139 Job requirements and values ...............................................................141 Atmospheric needs ..................................................................................141 Coping mechanisms ............................................................................... 147 Stress and burnout.................................................................................. 147 Stress management............................................................................... 149 Talent management .............................................................................. 149 Career stages ............................................................................................ 153 Career alignment of talent................................................................... 157 Dismissal avoidance................................................................................158 The role of career coaching in talent management ....................159 The truth of the matter........................................................................160 The bottom line ......................................................................................160

THE FOCuSED ExECuTIVE

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” MAHATMA GANdHI

iven the complexity of modern organisational life, motivating and energising individuals, and aligning personal and organisational goals to achieve a desired profit outcome, requires pride to be built and passion to be unleashed. To develop a strong organisational culture that attracts talent and has low attrition figures, a company needs a flexible, open minded and psychologically aware chairman, board and CEO. Without this level of understanding and insight into the motivations of human behaviour, and a realisation that its people and operational agendas must be complementary in order to achieve its profit objectives, the organisation will be unsustainable. High performance leadership can only be created by organisations with a high EQ. Much is written on the best organisations to work for, and leadership success factors. A vast body of literature has been produced on human psychology and sociology, and what motivates human behaviour. To navigate your way successfully through an organisational structure, you need to have high levels of both emotional and intellectual intelligence, as discussed earlier. You also need to be able to work as part of a team, and to contribute to the performance and maintenance of that team.

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To excel at work, you need to align a number of factors, including values, skills, knowledge, motivation and opportunity. Whilst this chapter focuses on critical factors for energising oneself, one’s team and one’s organisation, I would also like to introduce the idea of alignment of skills, motivation and knowledge and posit that when we are able to link all of these factors, we are able to achieve a feeling of “flow”. This idea grew from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s quest for an answer to the question “What do we need to do to live happy lives at work and at home?” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (“MC”) grew up in Hungary and Transylvania, where he observed in 1945 (at the ripe old age of ten) that Hungarian society was disintegrating because the people within it were being deprived of social status and financial support. MC has based his research on empirical data collected over several years by surveying 250,000 people throughout a number of countries. His surveys included studies of people (many of them artists) who claimed the “meaning” they created via their work enabled them to move outside themselves and experience an “ecstatic state”. MC attributed this feeling to the suppression of the individuals’ awareness

ENERGISING

of mundane objects (such as the room they are in, the atmosphere around them) that occurs as a result of the high levels of concentration they must apply to complete the tasks they are attempting. This explains why ballet dancers and concert pianists report they are unaware of their audiences (let alone their own bodies and hands) while they perform. MC’s research showed that people were generally unhappy doing nothing, generally happy doing something, and generally knew very little about what made them happy. These findings can be applied to work environments to improve job satisfaction. By assigning people tasks that align with their individual skills and experience, and asking them to face fresh challenges that will help them to acquire skills they wish to obtain, you can make significant improvements to both the performance of the business and the job satisfaction of the people within it. Manfred Kets de Vries, who works with global CEOs and executives, defines the best companies to work for as having a sense of focus, being secure, selecting people with high EQ, taking time to listen to their employees and making their opinions count, caring about their employees and helping them when they have personal problems, walking the talk – setting a good example, giving recognition and praise, assisting their personal growth and development, attracting team players not narcissists, paying fairly and on the high side, being family friendly, creating good morale,

decentralising decision making, executing tasks efficiently, coaching and leading by example, creating a learning environment and creating an egalitarian culture. But most of all, it is about creating a sense of fun, a sense of community and a sense of meaning. So, to build a culture which is high performing and energises the teams within it, you need to inspire behaviour which epitomises these values and becomes part of the organisation’s DNA – behaviour that is nourished by a passion for results, for people, for customers, for innovation, for change and for the world around us. This chapter addresses the interests, motivational capabilities and values that relate to job alignment. The better your job fits you, the more motivated you are to perform. In other words, the more energised you are. The same is true of organisations. The more energised an organisation is, the greater its ability to attract, motivate and retain the talent it needs.

JOB ALIGNMENT Motivation is an important aspect of executive life. It gives us the energy we need to meet personal and organisational aspirations. Leaders can build a motivational environment by effective delegation and by understanding the significance of job alignment and atmospheric needs. Job alignment is a prerequisite for job satisfaction. It allows individuals to go to work and contribute as much as they can, rather

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THE FOCuSED ExECuTIVE

than just coast along. Job alignment depends on two very different components: the nature of the work itself and its fit with certain personal characteristics, such as occupational interests and motivational capabilities.

OCCUPATIONAL INTERESTS The twelve main occupational interest areas are summarised below (NB: these are interests, not necessarily capabilities, which are addressed later): 1. Scientific. Characteristics include an interest in facts, particularly relating to the natural sciences; and a desire to work out how things occur, why they occur and what results from them. 2. Social. Characteristics include an interest in people rather than things; and an interest in supplying services that others need and will be happy to receive. 3. Persuasive. Characteristics include an interest in meeting and influencing people. 4. Literary. Characteristics include an enjoyment of writing and words; an interest in any activity that requires the use of imaginative verbal descriptions. 5. Artistic. Characteristics include an enjoyment of visual art, design or drama; an interest in colour and artistic activities, and a keen interest in your surroundings or in some aspect of design. 6. Clerical. Characteristics include an interest in administration, office or clerical work, often based on a routine requiring accuracy and precision; and an interest in recording and filing, coding and classifying.

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7. Practical. Characteristics include an interest in repairing and making things; a preference for learning by doing rather than by reading; and a liking for working with tools and materials rather than with words. 8. Musical. Characteristics include an enjoyment of any type of music, playing musical instruments or singing; an enjoyment of listening to people play music. 9. Computational. Characteristics include an interest in dealing with numbers and mathematical problems and concepts; an interest in using mental arithmetic or formulae; and an interest in proving or disproving things with figures. 10. Outside. Characteristics include an interest in being or working outside, sometimes involving considerable physical activity and/ or travel. 11. Technical. Characteristics include an interest in work that entails dealing with anything technical, such as machines, engines, tools, computers or electrical and electronic equipment. 12. Medical. Characteristics include an interest in medical and biological subjects; an interest in healing and caring for sick people; a desire to investigate the causes and relieve the effects of illness and disease; and an interest in various aspects of mental or physical health. A personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s major occupational interests need to be represented in the job to enhance self-motivation and personal performance.

ENERGISING

Occupational Interests 12 Interest Areas

➤ Fluency: an ability to make your meaning

clear in discussion.

➤ Reasoning : an ability to resolve complex

matters through logical reasoning.

The Nature of Work 12 Career Areas

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS Motivational Capabilities 10 Capability Areas

Fig.24 The Better a Job Fits You, the More Motivated you are to Perform

MOTIVATIONAL CAPABILITIES Motivational capabilities are those capabilities we enjoy using, whether we are born with them or develop them. They need to be present in a job to maximise self-motivation and performance. They can be summarised as follows: ➤ Memory: an ability to remember and recall ➤

➤ ➤

➤

faces, names, events, places or feelings. Verbal comprehension : an ability to understand accurately the meaning of written and spoken communications. Numeracy: an ability to understand and express ideas by way of numbers. Spatial ability: an ability to see and understand shapes or objects in more than one dimension; a good sense of direction. Perception : an ability to notice quickly if something is wrong, or to pick up important details or information that others miss.

➤ Creativity: an ability to think of more than

one way of looking at a problem or answering a question. ➤ Sociability: an ability to get on well with other people from a wide range of backgrounds, with different beliefs and views. ➤ Clerical speed and accuracy: an ability to be quick and accurate with anything clerical.

CAREER AREAS There are 12 career areas that should be considered when assessing job alignment. Each area relates to occupational interests and motivational capabilities. Executives at the start of their careers generally have a high level of choice regarding these career areas, but even mid-career or late-career executives can make changes to maximise job alignment. 1. Practical careers are for individuals who like to work with their hands or work outdoors. This type of work often suits people who have a spatial ability. Typical careers include the armed services; manufacturing and distribution; building, civil engineering and land services; agriculture, horticulture, forestry and parks, fisheries; clothing industry; metal and printing industries. 2. Technical careers are for practical and technical individuals, sometimes with outside and/or medical interests and an interest in science. They often require

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6 trusting Trust is the elixer of corporate life. You need it to win loyalty, develop productive relationships and achieve the desired results.

Values ..........................................................................................................165 Living vision and fundamental values............................................. 166 Employees as business leaders .......................................................... 166 From talk to walk .................................................................................... 168 More tips for developing trust ........................................................... 169 Leadership of change .............................................................................170 Managing a restructure ........................................................................ 173 Anatomy of a restructuring .................................................................176 Best practice in downsizing and rebuilding ................................... 177 The bottom line .......................................................................................184

THE FOCuSED ExECuTIVE

“Right and wrong are not a matter of mere taste and opinion. People have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way. They know the moral law.” c.S. LEWIS

uilding trust in organisations and in relationships is fundamental and essential for individual, team and organisational goals to be achieved. In our individual needs analysis work, we conduct third-party interviews that provide highly powerful and valid data to feed back to managers and executives. A core question is, “Is this person trusted by his/her work colleagues?” The question doesn’t usually require much deliberation as the concept usually invokes either a yes or a no answer. Attaining trust is core to survival, yet as C.S. Lewis said, people behave as though their way is the only and right way! So, is there a moral law? From my experience in coaching and working in large and small organisations, the complexity and systemic nature of organisations create opportunities to expand our own horizons and move beyond limitations, allowing us to grow and build trust and establish relationships with a diversity of personalities and people with different work styles.

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Effective executives must be able to discern who can/cannot be trusted. For clues to the way people trust each other it is worthwhile examining how others form trusting relationships with you. So think back to how you formed relationships with others, think about their communication style: were they open, friendly and transparent in their communication? Could you detect active listening, consistency, competence, fairness, integrity and mutual respect? Or did they appear wary, guarded, reserved, and concerned with “how much” they informed you. Was their body language relaxed, open and friendly, did they engage in good eye contact, or did you detect defensiveness in their posture? Was it head back, knee crossed over leg, arms folded, questioning the purpose of the meeting, tension and suspicion? The early stages of trust building are informed by these kinds of behavioural indicators. Building trusting relationships takes time and work.

TRuSTING

Questions that people ask include: Will they do what they say? (better known as “walking the talk”). Are they competent? Can I rely on them? Will they maintain integrity for themselves and the organisation? Do they demonstrate a strong work ethic? How will they operate with power and authority levels? (Will they be transparent and straight talking?) Who will I confide in and who not? (Most senior executives will usually choose two or three trusted colleagues out of a group of six to eight.) Will I be told the whole story or just the parts they want me to hear? Manfred Kets de Vries talks about fundamental characteristics of self-renewing organisations and creating high performance cultures. Basically, by providing direction and focus, a high performing culture, careful selection and placement, a customer-centric philosophy, entrepreneurship/innovation, an opportunity to speak one’s mind and empowerment, then accountability, fairness and upbeat morale will build meaning and trust. Trust must exist for true creativity and collaboration to occur. “The norms of trust and reciprocity play a crucial role in the emergence of a cooperative mindset.” (L Gratton, Hot Spots, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco, 2007, p. 62)

VALUES Take any group of people and ask them to come up with a list of values for their organisation, and you will discover that each group’s list will look very similar, despite differences in their socio-demographic makeup.

“When an issue or behaviour gives me a low-level niggle or feeling of unease deep within me, I try to ‘listen’ to such feelings. I look for body language in a colleague that is incongruous with their normal behaviour; actions or advice that offend an ethical or common sense standard. Whenever I have ignored this early warning signal, the outcome has been less than optimal for the business.” Helen Zimmerman, Executive General Manager, Navitas Workforce, English Language and Workplace Training division

An organisation’s list of values is often displayed in the office reception area or printed in the annual report, but rarely lived. At times of particular pressure, expediency often prevails and an organisation’s values fly out the window. Is there a place for values in day-to-day organisational life? Consider the following: ➤ Regarding moral law, consider C.S. Lewis’s

statement that right and wrong are not matters of taste and opinion. ➤ Living vision articulates a set of aspirational directions and goals. They should be to the point and inspirational. ➤ Fundamental values are a short list of high-level values. These values flow from moral law and support living vision. Organisational policies flow from living vision and fundamental values. These policies are converted into operating principles and/or codes of conduct. ➤ Leadership and management should uphold these principles and codes of conduct in the way they lead, manage and administer the day-to-day affairs of the organisation.

165

THE FOCuSED ExECuTIVE

Where Vision and Values Fit In

Before we go any further, where do vision and values sit in the spectrum of moral law that runs through day-to-day organisational life? Perhaps this is best explained by examining the following model.

When leaders and managers fail to exemplify an organisationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vision, it is generally because they are under pressures to perform, or they believe the vision statement exists to impress customers, new recruits and stakeholders rather than reflect the reality of life at the front line.

Moral Law Living Vision

Higher level elements

Fundamental Values

Organisational Policies

Lower level elements

Operating Principles / Codes of Conduct Leadership & Management Competencies & Actions

Day-to-Day Organisational Life

Fig.30 The Vision and Values Continuum

166

Building blocks

However, if there are just a few core values that are truly inculcated into the behaviour of the leadership of the organisation, then you can almost do away with the lower-level elements of the vision and values statement. In other words, if we get the living vision and fundamental values right, and if we walk them, not just talk them, then the others will take care of themselves.

When leaders uphold living vision and fundamental values, they behave reliably and instil trust. This liberates creative energies within the organisation, as opposed to binding people to the rulebook.

LIVING VISION AND FUNDAMENTAL VALUES

EMPLOYEES AS BUSINESS LEADERS

Vision-and-values statements often mix vision, values, policies, principles and codes to such a degree that they are not well understood. Leaders, managers and their staff consequently either ignore them or use them as a rule-book for guidance when things go wrong.

Everyone in an organisation can and should become a leader in their respective area. This can be achieved when living vision and fundamental values are embodied throughout the organisation. Compare the following two statements:

TRuSTING

➤ Weak vision and values create the need for

more rules and controls, stifling creative energy and encouraging employees to engage in safe pursuits. This is a formula for mediocrity. ➤ Strong living vision and fundamental values provide freedom to achieve, particularly if employees view themselves as business leaders in their own right. When vision and fundamental values are lived as well as espoused, they produce reliable leadership behaviour and instil trust. This gives employees the confidence they need to go the extra mile.

we empower employees to act as business leaders in their own jobs we also empower them to trust the organisation. This trust is a result of reliable behaviour by executive leaders who live their organisation’s vision and respect their organisation’s fundamental values as they pursue organisational goals.

Act and Achieve Greatness

The confidence and freedom to act and achieve greatness as the CEO of your own job role is a product of the way you are recruited, inducted, trained, developed and led.

There are many examples of employees operating as business leaders in their own jobs, and having confidence and two-way trust in their line managers: ➤ Consider the hotel chain where staff, with high levels 1. Weak vision of customer interface, are and values given five-figure budgets to rectify customers’ problems when they occur, without the need to seek prior authorisation from management. 2. Provide freedom to achieve ➤ Consider the sizeable manufacturer where 3. Particularly if employees view themselves as business employees were shown leaders in their own jobs precisely how they contributed 4. Living vision and fundamental to the bottom line. Results values, pursued as well as subsequently soared. espoused, create reliable behaviour We all know the impact that customer service, or lack of it, has on customers and clients. When

2. Create the need for more rules and controls 3. Stifle creative energy 4. Encourage employees to engage in safe pursuits

1. Strong living vision and fundamental values

and instil trust, giving employees confidence to give their all

Fig.31 Employees as Business Leaders in their Own Jobs

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THE FOCuSED ExECuTIVE

Bibliography ➤ Bion, WR, 1961, Experiences in Groups,

➤ Hamel, G, Prahalad, CK, 1994, competing for

➤ Boyatzis, R, McKee, A, 2005, resonant

➤ Hames, R, 1994, The Management Myth,

Tavistock, London

Leadership, Perseus Distribution Services

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Becoming a resonant Leader, Harvard Business School Press, Boston Massachusetts

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Financial Times, London

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of persuasion, William Morrow, New York

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Successful Habits of Visionary companies, Harper Business Essentials

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Effective people, Franklin Covey Co.

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Won’t Get You There, Hyperion, New York

➤ Gordon, DM, 1996, Fat and Mean: The

corporate Squeeze of Working Americans and the Myth of Managerial downsizing, Simon & Schuster

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Publishers, San Francisco

the Future, Harvard Business School Press

Business & Professional Publishing, Chatswood

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Jossey-Bass, San Francisco

➤ Katzenbach, JR, 1998, Teams at the Top –

unleashing the potential of Both Teams and Individual Leaders, Harvard Business School Press, Boston Massachusetts

➤ Katzenbach, J, Smith, DK, 1993, The Wisdom

of Teams: creating the High-performance Organization, Harvard Business School Press, Boston Massachusetts

➤ Kets de Vries, M, 2006, The Leader on the

couch, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, England

➤ Maslow, A, 1943, “A Theory of Human

Motivation”, psychological review

➤ Stephenson, Peter, 2002, The Naked Executive,

Prentice Hall, Sydney

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of coaching: A guide for the leader coach, Jossey-Bass, California

➤ Whitmore, J, 2001, coaching for performance,

Nicholas Brealy Publishing, London

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LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT SKILLS IN CHALLENGING TIMES

Index A

All-Rounder ��57, 86, 145 alliance building�� 37 ally prioritisation�� 39 building loyalty �� 42 expanding influence in�� 42–43 external allies �� 38–39 goal setting �� 42 in meetings �� see meetings organisational contacts ��39–41 personal selling ��45, 47 time management and prioritisation ��40–41 use of visual aids �� see visual aids apologising �� 67–68 assessment framework ��12 audiences building curiosity in ��54–55 building trust in �� 55 difficult questions from �� 67 ending with impact for �� 58–59 first impressions �� 52–53 operating styles of ��56–57 participation ��66 reactions classified ��66–67 winning attention of ��54 authority power �� 33 authority principle�� 37 autocues ��59–60

behavioural change�� 25–26 behavioural needs ��143 benefits and features �� 58 Bion, Wilfrid�� 78–79 burnout ��147–149

careers .......................see job alignment Centre for Creative Leadership (CCL) ��30

change, behavioural�� 25–26 the change catalyst as leader ��102 change leadership�� 170–171 clones ��88–89, 95 closing at meetings �� 45–47 assuming a close ��46 closing aids �� 65 closing signals ��46–47 direct close �� 47 emotional close �� 50 emotional ending �� 69 hidden close �� 50 last chance ending �� 70 mistakes ��64 option-giving �� 70 physical closing signals ��46 premium ending �� 70 silent close �� 50 summarising �� 70 summary close�� 50 test closing �� 63 verbal closing signals ��46 coaching the coach as leader ��102 communication for �� 125–126 GROW Model �� 127–129 ongoing meetings �� 129 performance appraisal �� 129 performance turn-around �� 130 principles of ��124–126 sports analogy �� 92–94, 131 in talent management ��149, 159 coalition power �� 35 Commander/Doer��57, 84, 86, 145 communication process�� 47–54 active listening in �� 47, 90 for coaching �� 125–126 see also coaching communication defined �� 47 corporate communications�� 110 elocution �� 62

eye control �� 69 grammar in��68–69 hecklers ��68 humour in �� 70 microphone technique ��68 noise, examples of �� 47 notes, impromptu ��66 opening statements �� 63 physical control in �� 67, 69 positive speaker traits ��66 questions in��see questions in communication repeaters �� 65 stereotypes in �� 67 use of jargon ��48 writing �� see writing effectively communicator as leader ��102 competencies, leadership�� 23–24 Conceptual Age leadership �� 13–14 confidence building �� 92 conflict in teams ��90–91 consistency principle �� 36 continuity statements ��64–65 continuous development/ improvement in teams ��94 convergent teams �� 81 coping mechanisms ��147 corporate communications �� 110 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly �� 136–137

Dalai Lama��107 defences ��79–81 delegation �� 116–117 Demosthenes �� 52 denial as a defence �� 79 dependency mode �� 78 dismissal avoidance �� 158 divergent teams�� 81 downsizing �� see restructuring drivers �� 22–23, 103–106

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THE FOCuSED ExECuTIVE

electronic hardware �� 65 emotional close �� 50 emotional intelligence (EI)�� 20–22 emotional intelligence quotient (EQ)�� 20 emotional needs�� 145–146 Empathiser/ Humanist ��57, 84–85, 86, 145 employees as business leaders ��166–168 employees (loss of key people) ��94 enabling��22–23, 100–103 energising ��23, 136–137 Evaluator/Detailer ��57, 85, 86, 145 expertise power��34 external futures��106–108

“fast and simple” premise�� 118–120 features and benefits �� 58 feedback in team building�� 93 fight/flight mode �� 78 Fischer, Joe ��101 flexibility �� 124 flip charts�� 61 frameworks for coaching and leadership ��12 functional groups ��80

globalisation and leadership �� 15–18 goal setting in alliance building �� 42 SMART goals �� 127 in team building �� 93 grammar in communication ��68–69 Greiner, Nick �� 16 group presentations ��see also audiences administration for �� 53 assembling content for ��54 continuity statements ��64–65 eleven-point plan�� 61 fact finding for �� 53–54 features and benefits �� 58

190

format��54 objectives for �� 53 opening statements �� 63 presentation plan outline �� 62 presentation sequence �� 59 speech aids ��59–60 test closing �� 63 things to avoid in ��51, 64 visual aids��45–47, 60–61, 65 groups ��see team building GROW Model �� 127–129

henchmen ��89, 95 Hierarchy of Needs (Maslow)�� 146 human needs �� 91

Idea Generator ��57, 85, 87, 145 idiosyncrasies �� 148 ignoring as a defence �� 79 individual motivation�� 92 Industrial Age leadership �� 13–14 influence ��30–31 in alliance building �� see alliance building as driver in leadership �� 22–23 in group presentations ��see group presentations at meetings �� see meetings personal influencing style ��72 personal selling ��45, 47 persuasion principles ��36–37 information power �� 35 INSEAD Global Leadership Centre 79 interpersonal relationships ��145

job alignment ��137–138 see also motivation atmospheric needs ��141–147 career alignment of talent��157 career areas �� 139–141 career stages �� 153–156 job requirements and values ��141 motivational capabilities �� 139 occupational interests�� 138–139

job moulding �� 93 Jung, Carl Gustav��12

Katzenbach, Jon �� 76 Kets de Vries, Manfred ��79, 102, 137, 165 King, Martin Luther �� 56 knights ��88–89, 95 Knowledge Age leadership �� 13–14

leadership 360-degree leadership �� 14–15 of change�� 170–171 changing nature of�� 13–14, 15–18 competencies �� 23–24 drivers �� 22–23 effectiveness �� 10–13 emotional intelligence (EI) in �� 20–22 myths about ��19–20 see also leadership myths and truths truisms ��8 leadership myths and truths ��19–20, 27, 73, 96, 132, 160, 184 leadership styles �� see operating styles leadership teams ��80 see also team building leadership traits��120–124 loyalty building �� 42 M Macnab, Dr� Francis ��12 management style �� see operating styles Maslow, Abraham ��12, 146 material needs ��142 meetings ��43–44, 45, 47 see also alliance building; closing at meetings; visual aids memorising �� 62 Missing Link Diagram ��157 motivation ��114–116, 139 see also job alignment

LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT SKILLS IN CHALLENGING TIMES

N The Naked Executive (Stephenson) 12 needs atmospheric ��141–147 behavioural ��143 emotional�� 145–146 human �� 91 Maslow’s Hierarchy �� 146 material��142 output�� 91 structural �� 142–143 new teams�� 81

operating styles �� 57, 83–86 assessing and using ��86–87 leadership styles ��102 management style ��143–145, 171–172 organisational contacts ��39–41 organisational dynamics ��79–81 organisations with new executives �� 25 outcomes framework��12 output needs �� 91

pairing mode �� 79 paperwork �� 65 personal accountability�� 116–117 personal selling ��45, 47 persuasion principles ��36–37 power networks �� 32–35 PowerPoints �� 61 presentation plan outline �� 62 prioritisation and time management ��40–41 proactive behaviour ��84–86, 87, 95 projecting as a defence �� 79 prompter cards��60

questions �� 47–50 closed and open ��48–49 directive ��48–49 engaging phraseology ��49–50 with options��49–50

receptive behaviour ��84–86, 87, 95 reciprocity principle �� 36 referent power �� 33 relationship building framework ��12 respect �� 92–93 Responder/Initiator ��57, 85, 86 restructuring ��173–176, 177, 182–184 rooks ��89, 95

scarcity principle �� 37 silent close �� 50 silos in organisations ��79–80 similarity principle �� 36 skills checklists �� 27, 73, 97, 133, 161, 182–184, 185 SMART goals�� 127 social defences ��79–81 social proof principle �� 36 social systems theory��77–78 speech aids ��59–60 stress ��147–149 structural needs �� 142–143 synchronised teams �� 81 synergising as driver in leadership �� 22–23

talent management �� 149–159 career alignment ��157 career coaching role in ��159 career stages �� 153–156 company image role in ��152 dismissal avoidance �� 158 resignations ��151 strategies ��151–152 work environment role in �� 152–153 task allocation power ��34 Tavistock Group �� 78 team building�� 76–78 Bion’s theory of�� 78–79 dealing with conflict ��90–91 eight points for �� 78 in-team behaviour��88–89, 95

silos in organisations ��79–80 sports coaching analogy�� 92–94, 131 synergy in ��80–81 team composition ��81, 87–88 team leadership ��94 team processes �� 91–94 trust in �� 82–83 teleprompters��59–60 testimonials 65 “A Theory of Human Motivation” (Maslow) �� 145–146 360-degree leadership�� 14–15 time management and prioritisation ��40–41 trust �� 23, 82–83, 164–165, 169–170

unique marketing differentiators (UMDs) �� 156 unique team players ��93–94

values and vision �� 165–169 visual aids ��45–47, 60–61, 65

wealth impactors ��151–152 whiteboards �� 61 The Wisdom of Teams (Katzenbach) �� 76 writing effectively ��71–72 factual statements �� 71 formality/informality in �� 71 paragraphs in ��71–72 personal appeal in �� 71 signpost statements for �� 71 unclear statements in ��72 visualisation in �� 71

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Focused Executive T H E

Virginia Mansell Stephenson Mansell Group Virginia, Managing Director of the Stephenson Mansell Group, is a leadership and organisational coach and coach facilitator. She has been a registered psychologist for 16 years, previously boasting 30 years in human resource management, counselling psychology, psychotherapy and organisational consultancy. Virginia was formerly a psychotherapist and corporate clinical senior consultant for Cairmillar Institute, where she designed and delivered a range of individual and group-based development programs. Virginiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s client list includes senior executives, EGMs and CEOs from top ASX 100 Australian companies. Additionally Virginia oversees the IP, case management, coach and facilitator professional development, accreditation, training and quality assurance of all SMG delivered work. Virginiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s approach combines rapid conceptualisation of complex leadership and organisational issues, working from the inside out and challenging the behavioural issue with practical strategies to assist leaders to claim their own leadership authority.

RRP $39.95

With a BA (Psych) major in psychology and statistics, and a postgraduate degree (high distinction) in counselling psychology, Virginia believes that professional training backed by a clinical skill-base are impor tant credentials for executive coaching.