Tag Archives: leadership development

The A to Z of OD: L is for Leadership

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People get awfully confused about leadership.  What is it?  How is it different from Management? Can anybody be a Leader?

At the risk of adding to the confusion, here’s my deceptively simple definition:

“Leadership is the power to organise ideas into action.”

Leadership is not the same as Management

Let’s start by contrasting Leadership with Management.  Management is the act of overseeing a process.  In an organisational context, the processes managers oversee are often referred to as business processes.  In manufacturing, business processes turn inputs into outputs.  This concept can be extended to business processes in other sectors – there will always be some form of inputs (data, designs, resources) and business processes turn these into outputs that customers want (information, products, services).

Leadership, on the other hand, is the power to organise ideas into action; the power to change.  World-renowned wellbeing guru Deepak Chopra argues the power to change derives from a combination of creativity – the seed of an idea for the future – and the desire to enact it.  The desire to enact it requires organisation.  Such organisation requires you pay attention to the present to make your intention a future reality.  This is the essence of organisation, the essence of leadership.

Anybody can be a Leader

I believe everybody can be thought of as a leader.

The desire to enact a future intention, coupled with the capability to make it happen is all you need to be considered a leader.  You do not need a job title.  In an organisational context, the future intention is sometimes called a vision.

I believe there are really only three levels of hierarchy in any organisation: strategic leaders, operational (or service) leaders and individuals (who to some degree lead themselves).  Everything else is ‘fluff’ to justify job titles, pay grades and HR functions.

  • At the individual contribution level, you are a leader if you choose to do something that aligns to the vision, then make it happen
  • At the operational/service leader level, you are a leader if you organise others to deliver the activities that deliver the vision.  You probably have ‘supervisor’ or ‘manager’ in your job title, or perhaps ‘head of…’
  • At the strategic leader level, you are a leader when you – collectively with others – organise the whole system to deliver the vision (the whole system comprises things like strategy, operations, people, structures, planning and performance mechanisms, engagement and team culture – see The A to Z of OD: J is for Joint Diagnosis).

Leadership development at any level is about developing the Four Cs of Leadership

The skills and experience you need at each level are different, and depend on the organisation, the nature of its activities and the scale of the activities in which you are involved.

However, the leadership behaviours are uncannily similar across organisations, industries and sectors.  And they relate to the power to organise ideas into action.  Four elements must be present:

  • Commitment to the idea itself – the commitment to a vision
  • Competence, i.e. the ability to act – the leader must be good at some aspect of the activity in which they are engaged, and must be able to organise themselves to make progress towards that vision
  • Communication – the vision and the steps needed to move towards it must be articulated to influence and mobilise others.  Even at the individual level, turning thoughts into actions involves saying what you are going to do (even if you only say it to yourself inside your own head)
  • Change orientation – whereas management is about overseeing a defined process, which is fundamentally about stability, the leader must embrace change to make the vision a reality.

These are the Four Cs of Leadership.  You can build your leadership capability by considering the extent to which each of these is fundamentally embedded and working effectively within your organisation.

OD Thought Leader: Kurt Lewin (1890 – 1947)

Through conducting field experiments in social science, Lewin proposed many models and techniques that formed the bedrock of early OD practice and endure today.  He created an action-oriented approach to his research into everyday social problems and drew from Gestaltism and psycho-analytics to create the new academic (perhaps ‘pracademic’? i.e. both practical and academic) field of Social Psychology.

On individual behaviour and group dynamics: Lewin’s equation

Lewin proposed that how individuals interact with each other create the world in which we’re living.  In turn, the world we have created shapes individual behaviours.  This proposition strikes at the heart of the nature/nurture debate, demonstrating that both nature and nurture interact to shape who we are as individuals.

He coined the term ‘group dynamics’, meaning how groups of people interact to survive and thrive in changing circumstances.  He suggested that groups unify as a whole system and cannot be understood by only studying individuals.  The whole is different (and greater) than the sum of its parts.

On Organisational Learning: Field Theory and Action Research

He excelled at turning everyday problems into psychological experiments, which he termed Field Theory.  An early observation revealed, “intention to carry out a specific task builds a psychological tension, which is released when the intended task is completed.”  This was the foundation of social psychology.

Action research (another Lewin-coined term) involves participating in resolving a social problem, whilst simultaneously conducting research into that problem and how it is solved.  It is inherently reflexive.  It is related to Action Learning (see the A to Z of OD: A is for Action Learning).

On Change: Force Field Analysis and the Ice Cube Theory of Change

Lewin found that people, teams and organisations tend to become frozen by a combination of driving forces that are propelling them forwards towards their goals and restraining forces that are holding them back.  By analysing these forces, individuals, teams and organisations can prioritise the actions to remove restraining forces and encourage driving forces so that they unfreeze and then can move forwards towards their goal.  See also The A to Z of OD: I is for the Ice Cube Theory of Change.

Recommended reading: Jay Marrow (1977), The Practical Theorist: the Life and Works of Kurt Lewin, New York, Teachers Press.

Next time: M is for Metaphor

How to make a fruit salad: the difference between knowledge and wisdom

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There is a difference between knowledge and wisdom.  Knowledge can be picked up in the classroom, by reading a textbook and – to some extent – through experience.  Real world wisdom, ‘capability’ if you will, can only be picked up through experience.  Leadership can be understood through gaining knowledge, but leadership capability can only be developed through experience, applying that knowledge in a range of situations.

A tale of two leaders

I’m going to demonstrate this idea by showing you how to make a fruit salad.  Not a hard thing to do.  So, let’s do it from two different leaders’ perspectives, each with the assistance of a five-year-old child.

Leader #1: let’s call him Father*

“We’re going to make a fruit salad.  You’re in charge, I’ll help you,” said dad.

“Okay, what do we do?” replied Sam.

“Chop up some fruit and put it in a bowl,” continued Sam’s dad.  “I’ll chop, you mix.”  Then, nodding towards the fridge, “Get the fruit.”

This is going well, thinks dad, and the task at hand progresses.

…

“Tomatoes are fruit, aren’t they daddy?” Sam suddenly exclaims.

Leader #2: Let’s call her Mother*

“We’re going to make a fruit salad.  I’ll lead, and you can help,” said mum.

“Okay, what do we do?” replied Sam.

“What do we want in our fruit salad?” continued mum.  “How should we get started?”

This starts a conversation.  Sam feels involved and excited that they are doing something new together.  This is going well, thinks mum, and the task at hand progresses.

…

“Tomatoes are fruit, aren’t they mummy?” Sam suddenly exclaims.

Key leadership tasks

Our parent-leaders have taken different approaches to five key leadership tasks: visioning, translating the vision into a plan, defining the task, communicating the plan and deploying their resources.  And they both seem to be getting on with the task, and with Sam, reasonably well.

There are three other things leaders do: motivate the team, control and evaluate team performance and lead by example.  Let’s look at how mum and dad might deal with these aspects of leading Sam.

1. Leaders grasp opportunities to motivate their team

How will the leaders now respond to the killer question?  In other words, how will they motivate Sam to maintain performance?

Laugh?

Ask Sam to explain her thinking?

Just say “no”, without explanation?

Say, “Trust me, I know what I’m doing”?

Brush the question aside or even brush Sam aside?

Get angry?

Plans are not set in stone.  Questions from the team are a great opportunity to motivate… or to demotivate!  What would your response be?  What would your boss’s response be if you or someone else in the team were to ask what may seem to be a silly question?

2. Leaders control and evaluate performance effectively

Here are two ways our Mother/Father leaders could control the task and evaluate Sam’s performance:

  1. A coaching/nurturing style. The parent might question Sam on her* progress, probing where necessary and guiding her to adjust her approach: “How’s it going?”
  2. A directive/controlling style. Performance expectations are set unilaterally by the parent, who is more concerned about when deviations from the plan will be rectified than how this will be achieved: “You’re not doing it right!”

Ask yourself honestly, which sort of leader are you?  And is this always appropriate?  It might be some of the time.  Flexing your style only comes with experience.

3. Leaders lead by example

Sam’s attitude to the task of creating the fruit salad could go one of two ways:

She might get particularly excited, “This is going to be the best fruit salad ever!”  The leader has built capability and kept motivation high.  The leader might even ask how we can make the salad even better to elicit further growth and innovation in her* team.

Or, Sam might become frustrated, “I can’t do it!”  In which case the leader has a tougher challenge on her hands.  She might choose to take over, or might suggest an alternative role for Sam.

The true character of a leader is often revealed under stress.

Perhaps, being dependable under pressure is more important than being charismatic or in control?

What is leadership anyway?

Think of a great boss you’ve had; and an awful one.  What words would you use to describe the awful boss, the worst you’ve had?  And how would you describe the greatest leader you’ve worked for?  Write a description of that person’s behaviour.

Regardless of your answers, consider this definition of leadership:

Leadership is the power to organise ideas into action; the power to change.

Leadership is not management – processes need managing, organisations need leading.  This is because organisations are (by definition) collections of people achieving something together.  These collections of people create a collection of systems.  As that system becomes more complex, subsystems emerge, each specialising on one aspect of the organising activity.  These subsystems develop different objectives and can be in conflict in terms of what they consider most important.  Hence, they need organising in pursuit of the common objective.  This is the essence of organisation, the essence of leadership.

And, finally…

Let’s hope the fruit salad came together for Sam and her parent(s).  Sam has built her knowledge and experience.   She and her parents have, in their own way, built organisational capability.

Knowledge x Experience = Capability

You need both knowledge and experience to generate leadership capability too.  You can get knowledge by attending courses, reading books or being shown what to do.  When it comes to developing leadership capability, some classroom training may help.  Learning in the real world through experience will propel you faster and further.  This requires other support such as 360-degree feedback, psychometrics, coaching, mentoring and action learning to reflect on your leadership impact in the real world.

Some call it wisdom.

Or in other words,

Knowledge understands a tomato is a fruit.  Wisdom understands not to put it in a fruit salad.

 

* It is not my intention to suggest a gender divide in leadership, or indeed in followership, styles.

 

Jeremy J Lewis
March 5, 2018
Committed to making a difference in building organisational capability

Tips to maintain your energy for change

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I had the very great pleasure of working with a large group of CFOs this week, who are coping with some gnarly transformational changes in their organisations.  We were looking at how to lead change so that it sustains.  We were looking for tips to maintain your energy for change.

In one session, we considered how people move through the change curve – from everything being okay, through denial once a major change is announced, into a confused state as we work through what the change means for us and finally towards renewal.  This follows Claes Janssen’s simplified change (curve) model – the Four Rooms of Change – Contentment, Denial, Confusion, Renewal.

The four rooms of change

I invited the group to come up with their own words to define each of these ‘Rooms’ in which we live; each of these four states of mind.  States of mind that everyone goes through when working through change.  Here’s some of their thinking:

  • Contentment – confident, creative, cerebral, fun, sociable
  • Denial – stubborn, apathetic, intense
  • Confusion – unpredictable, lonely, narcissistic, moody
  • Renewal – individual, free-spirited, kind, enthusiastic, spiritual, rational

It strikes me that leading change starts on the inside.  We all react to change when it happens to us from the outside-in.  Learning to recognise our own emotional response means we can make more active choices in how to respond, rather than react.  How we can maintain our own energy for change, so we can help others cope with it too.  How we can internalise the change, so we work with it from the inside-out.  This, I believe, makes us better change leaders.

The way we are working is not working

It also reminds us of the words that describe working in different zones we operate in as described by Tony Schwartz in The Way We work Isn’t Working.  Schwartz suggests we work in one of four zones:

  • The Performance Zone, when our energy and activity is high, and we feel optimistic
  • The Survival Zone, when our energy and activity are high, but we are running around doing so much. In this Zone, our emotional state is negative, we become pessimistic about work, we retreat into silos, protecting ourselves from the outside world.  We are just about surviving
  • The Burnout Zone, when our energy drops too and it all becomes too much
  • The Recovery[1] Zone, when we find time to recover from the pressures of work, energy remains low (we are recovering after all), however we regain our optimism, and become ready to move back to the Performance Zone.

So, what?

I suspect these two models are saying very similar things.  Here they are overlaid onto one another:

When the pace of work and change becomes too much, our performance slips, we can find ourselves operating in the Survival Zone.  This is like the Room of Confusion, we might find ourselves feeling lonely or moody.  We may become narcissistic and unpredictable.  We might also stumble through the doorway to Room of Denial and become apathetic, appearing to others as stubborn or intense.  These are the signs we are moving towards the Burnout Zone.

The trick is to find ways to move freely between the Performance Zone and the Recovery Zone, so that we remain optimistic and enthusiastic, whilst slowing our energy and activity to recover, and then using our renewed energy to keep our performance high.

And so, the question becomes: what can you do to maintain your energy for change?  To find time in your routine to recover from the pressures of work – where the pace of change is ever-increasing – and keep your performance high?

Three tips to maintain your energy for change:

  1. Find your own words to describe the four Rooms or Zones. Then, notice when you are feeling that way, it is probably an indication you are already in that Zone, or moving towards it
  2. Work out what renews your energy – this might be mindful meditation, sport or exercise, social activities, hobbies or clubs. At work, it might simply be finding time to leave your desk and go for a walk or have your lunch with others away from the office.  It might be finding time to #JustBe.  Outside of work it might be reading, listening to or playing music, painting or simply have a long soak in a hot bath.  This tip helps you discover your own Recovery Zone.
  3. Mindfully choose to spend time in your Recovery Zone. Schedule it in your diary if needs be.  For example, I have time blocked out in my diary entitled #JustBe.

You might find you start to spot the signs of the Survival Zone or Burnout Zone in others.  If so, you might want to encourage them to think about their own Recovery Zone.  You should also find you can spot the signs of the Performance Zone or the Recovery Zone in others and choose to celebrate their achievement!

 

Jeremy J Lewis

Committed to making a difference in leading sustainable change

[1] Schwartz calls it the Renewal Zone.  I have changed the name so that it does not become confusing when comparing with the Four Rooms of Change model

Coaching others

Coaching others to improve performance

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Coaching others improves performance

In SMEs and charities, coaching others is probably the most cost-effective thing you can do to improve performance.   It helps identify solutions to specific work-related issues.  It allows fuller use of people’s talents.  And it demonstrates your commitment to the individuals in your team and their personal development.

This half-day workshop will help you develop coaching skills as a management style.  It is ideal for anyone interested in understanding how to use coaching or a coaching style to improve performance and help people develop in their own organisation.

Learning outcomes include:

Δ       Understand what a coaching style means and how it might be used every day

Δ       Review some key frameworks and tools so you can start managing people differently

Δ       Practise the skills needed to coach effectively at work.

Booking

Venue:

Hurol Ozcan Enterprise Centre
Leeds Trinity University
Brownberrie Lane
Horsforth
Leeds
LS18 5HD

Date:                      1st November 2017

Time:                     09:30 – 12:45 (arrival from 09:00)

Price:                     FREE

Directions:

Use LS18 5HD for SatNav, free parking if attending the Leeds Trinity Business Network, otherwise pay and display charges apply

Book now on Eventbrite

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/coaching-others-to-improve-performance-workshop-tickets-38280574228

Click here to read more about our coaching offer.

The trade-off between interpersonal tension and task tension

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The trade-off between interpersonal tension and task tension is not that well understood in organisations.  And yet it is a fundamental equation that can help improve productivity, the quality of work relationship and outcomes.

Interpersonal tension is a sad thing.  It occurs when people simply don’t get along.  This could be a personality clash or residual tension from previous encounters.  Oftentimes, people simply avoid others they don’t get along with, and that’s fine if it doesn’t impact your work outcomes.  But what if your job requires you to work with someone with whom you have interpersonal tension?  I’m not talking about a saboteur who actively tries to stop you doing your job – that would require escalation to a more senior manager or the involvement of HR.  no, I’m talking more about the persistent naysayer who you just don’t get along with well enough to be able to focus on the task at hand.

Task tension is a happy thing. According to taskmanagementguide.com, task tension can be described as a positive feeling that a person or a group feels when they have an interesting work to be done. Task tension includes feelings of zeal and enthusiasm that encourage people to intensively research the task, seek for ways to complete it, build their collaboration around these aims, and overcome many interpersonal problems for the sake of common goals.

Chart: the trade-off between interpersonal tension and task tension

The chart shows that, over time, interpersonal tension decreases as interest in the task increases.  The challenge is to work on techniques that overcome interpersonal tension quickly so that teams can focus on the task.  This moves the interpersonal tension line from A to B, and hence saves time, increasing productivity.

And so, the workplace challenge is first to ensure there is a stream of interesting team-based collaborative work available so that task tension has a fighting chance of overcoming interpersonal tension.

And then, the workplace goal is for task tension to overcome interpersonal tension as quickly as possible.

This requires:

  • Self-awareness of our own behaviours and how those impact others (“Knowing me…”)
  • The ability to ‘let it go’ and work with others as you find them (“Knowing you…”)
  • So that you can get on with the task at hand (“Aha!”).

Knowing me, Knowing you, Aha!

It is important to bring people together to reflect on their own behavioural style, recognise that of others with whom they work and begin to understand how to collaborate.  It helps team members and their leaders play to their strengths, overcome their weaknesses and work collaboratively together for the benefit of the organisation. This is of fundamental importance in today’s complex workplace.

And so, I have three questions for you:

  • Do you have the reflective practice in place to be able to do this?
  • Do you have the right behavioural insights to facilitate the discussion?
  • Do you have the right facilitator to bring people together in a way that values differences, seeks common ground and builds collaboration without the session falling apart?

I can’t help you find a stream of interesting, team-based, collaborative work.  But if you’re searching for your “Aha!” moment, I believe I can help with expert facilitation supported by leading edge psychometrics.

 

Jeremy Lewis

Committed to making a difference in building collaborative teams that get the job done

 

Understanding the public service leadership challenges

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The challenges

The public service leadership challenges of cuts, confusion and change have become the norm.  The basic elements needed to lead through this ever-changing landscape are: clarity over direction; adequate support to adopt change (preferably in the form of budgets for resources and development) and positive consequences for delivering the change without damaging services.

There is now a growing realisation amongst public sector leaders that each of these elements is irrevocably threatened: confusion has replaced clarity; cuts have replaced adequate support and negative consequences have replaced any semblance of positivity.

For too long, individual leaders have sought the answers unilaterally, while the pressure to retain accountability mounts daily.  They have done this while struggling to have influence that the right things get done within an evolving democratic Political process.

Individual leaders cannot be expected to have all the answers.  The solution requires whole system leadership.  This means that learning to collaborate is essential, both within organisations and between partners in other public organisations, and in the private and third sectors.

Evidence-based recommendations

Recent research supports the need for leaders to balance collective leadership and accountability with changes in the Political process:

In The 21st Century Public Servant, the University of Birmingham  asked questions around what is the range of different roles  and requirements on  those responsible for delivery 21st century public services and what are the support and training requirements for these roles.  In a 2016 report, the Institute for Government undertook a study on the impact of elected regional mayors on ministerial and local accountability, reporting that “success of local collaboration and innovation will depend on the strength of local accountability.”

The latest leadership research, Leadership: all you need to know, (Pendleton and Furnham, Palgrave, 2012), suggests that individual leaders cannot be expected to have all the answers.  Leadership requires strategic focus, operational focus and a focus on developing relationships.  Leaders are probably strong in one or two of these and very rarely all three.  The answer is of course to develop collective leadership where the top team has access to all these capabilities.

This evidence points to the need for public sector leaders to understand more deeply their own leadership strengths and development areas and consider how to build collective leadership to face the challenges of cuts, confusion and change.

Supporting leaders to rise to the challenge

In 2013, in association with the LGA and Skills for Government, Solace published Asking the right questions following consultation and a number of interviews with serving CXs to understand the key challenges they faced and the skills and behaviours they believed were required by their peers and those aspiring to such roles.

Working with CMdeltaConsulting, Solace have now adapted the thinking from both sets of research to suit a broader leadership population and develop collective accountability for public sector leadership – the Leading in Context Framework

The framework can be accessed by individual leaders taking a free self-assessment diagnostic questionnaire, available here.  The tool works by presenting you with 30 statements relating to your experience at work.  Once you have selected the responses that most closely represent your experience or usual way of working, you are immediately presented with a brief report that shows your strengths and development areas against the Leading in Context Framework

Next steps

We can build the solution to the current challenges together.  Using the free diagnostic questionnaire and report, individual leaders can deepen their own understanding of their leadership strengths and development areas, build a shared understanding of the leadership challenges and perhaps increase their collective accountability to develop as leadership teams and across multi-agency partnerships.

 

Trudy Birtwell – Head of Leadership and Organisational Development at Solace

Jeremy Lewis – MD at CMdeltaConsulting and Solace Associate

Note for editors

Solace (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers) is the representative body for senior strategic managers working in the public sector. We are committed to public sector excellence. We provide our members with opportunities for personal and professional development and seek to influence the debate about the future of public services to ensure that policy and legislation reflect the experience and expertise of our members.

CMdeltaConsulting is a specialist consulting, coaching and facilitation firm that focuses on whole system leadership and collaborative partnering.  We are committed to making a difference in helping senior leaders and the teams they lead thrive.  Working directly with public sector leaders, we support and challenge them to ensure the changes they need to make stick, partner and coach them throughout their change journey and build the skills they and their teams need to face tomorrow’s challenges.  We support public sector organisations in Local Government, Health and the Police.

Calling all SMEs and Charities in Yorkshire

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We need your help to shape a programme of skills development for Yorkshire-based SMEs and Charities.  We’re asking you to complete a short survey that will only take you a few minutes.  The findings will help to build a value-for-money programme of workshops aimed at developing the leadership skills needed to grow your business.

Where do you turn when things get tough?

There is a famous story of a woodcutter who was sawing wood for several days straight.  The process of cutting naturally dulled his blade and the job became tougher and tougher.  He was far too busy getting the job done to realise a better solution would be to stop and sharpen his saw.

Leadership development for SMEs is a tough challenge.  In terms of investment in skills development for staff, managers and leaders, there is a large and widening gap between larger businesses and SMEs.  Training and development is a resource-hungry activity.  It is hard for SMEs to engage their people in upgrading their skills – there is just too much to get done today, in the business, every day.  Right?

Short workshops that build into a leadership development programme

CMdeltaConsulting specialises in developing leaders and building collaborative partnerships.  We have sketched out a programme of short workshops.  We intend to build it into a comprehensive programme of leadership skills development for SMEs and Charities.  And so, we need your help to shape the content of the programme.

Please complete our brief questionnaire

What workshops would interest you and your teams?  How long should they be?  How frequent?  What would you be willing to pay for this type of leadership development, or perhaps you think they should be free?  What have we missed?

Please click here to complete the survey.  It will only take you a few minutes.  And there’s a chance to win a half day of consulting, coaching or facilitation if you sign up to our mailing list in March (optional).

Take the survey

Thank you

What is the difference between management and leadership?

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I sometimes get commissioned to deliver development for managers, i.e. delivering facilitated learning for people with ‘manager’ in their job title.  But I don’t consider myself to be in the business of management development.  I do however accept that one area on my work might be called leadership development.  So, what is the difference between management and leadership? Google this nugget and you’ll get a bundle of different answers.

At the risk of adding to the confusion, here’s my simple definition.  The leadership definition might surprise you:

  • Management is the act of overseeing a process
  • Leadership is the power to organise ideas into action.

In an organisational context, the processes managers oversee are often referred to as business processes.  In manufacturing, business processes turn inputs into outputs.  This concept can be extended to business processes in other sectors – there will always be some form of inputs (data, designs, resources) and the process turns these into outputs that customers want (information, products, services).

Leadership is the power to organise ideas into action; the power to change.  Deepak Chopra argues this power derives from a combination of creativity, the seed of an idea for the future, and the desire to enact it.  The desire to enact it requires organisation.  Such organisation requires you pay attention to the present to make your intention a future reality.  This is the essence of organisation, the essence of leadership.

Can I be both?

Yes, you can.  In fact, anybody can be a leader.

I argue that the desire to enact a future intention, coupled with the capability to make it happen is all you need to be considered a leader.  You do not need a job title.  In an organisational context, the future intention is called a vision.

There are only three levels of hierarchy in any organisation: strategic leaders, operational (or service) leaders and individuals.  Everything else is fluff to justify job titles, pay grades and HR functions.

  • At the individual contribution level, you are a leader if you choose to do something that aligns to the vision, then make it happen
  • At the operational/service leader level, you are a leader if you organise others to deliver the activities that deliver the vision. You probably have ‘supervisor’ or ‘manager’ in your job title, or perhaps ‘head of…’
  • At the strategic leader level, you are a leader if you organise the whole system to deliver the vision (the whole system comprises things like strategy, operations, people, structures, planning and performance mechanisms, engagement and team culture).
Leadership development at any level is about developing the Four Cs of Leadership

The skills and experience you need at each level are different, and depend on the organisation, the nature of its business and the scale of the activities in which you are involved.

But the leadership behaviours are uncannily similar across organisations, industries and sectors.  And they relate to the power to organise ideas into action.  Four elements must be present:

  • Commitment to the idea itself – the commitment to a vision
  • Competence, i.e. the ability to act – the leader must be good at some aspect of the activity in which they are engaged, and must be able to organise themselves to make progress towards that vision
  • Communication – though not explicit in my definition, the vision and the steps needed to move towards it must be articulated to influence and mobilise others
  • Change orientation – whereas management is about overseeing a defined process, which is fundamentally about stability, the leader must embrace change to make the vision a reality.

These are the Four Cs of Leadership.  You can build your leadership capability by considering the extent to which each of these is fundamentally embedded and working effectively within your organisation.

Jeremy J Lewis

A scary thought – could a robot do your job?

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First published on LinkedIn on Hallowe’en, 2016

Another month over and time to reflect.  I attended two conferences this month.  The first was the Shared Services UK annual conference in Manchester.  I ran a breakfast seminar on behalf of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales on the importance of attending to culture when establishing a shared services function.  Then it was straight off to Gateshead for the SOLACE Summit.  SOLACE is the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, in case you didn’t know.

The audiences and speakers were quite different at each conference: mostly private sector finance and a few HR professionals at the former, mostly Local Government senior managers at the latter.  Despite these differences, the sessions I managed to catch had eerily a similar message: automation is going further than ever before; digital transformation is happening right now; ultimately; should you be afraid … could a robot do your job?

Digital transformation

The Guardian reported this month 47% of jobs in the UK will be lost to automation by 2050 (Oxford University research).  Global consulting giants McKinsey & Co. have evidence that companies who have embraced digitisation across the entire enterprise have higher revenues and share prices some 20% – 30% higher than the ‘digital laggards’.

The MJ (the leading publication dedicated to local government in the UK) has a view too.  They sagely note that digital transformation only makes sense across silos, which means that local authorities can only embrace digital transformation if they first work on a common shared services infrastructure.  It is not lost on me that this sentence neatly brings together the two conferences I attended.  It is interesting to note the absence of local authorities at the Shared Services Conference though!

In a special report on digital transformation published last month, The MJ noted that Artificial Intelligence can help prioritise citizens’ needs and direct them towards appropriate services 24/7.   Thankfully, they also recognised you still need ‘the human touch’ to deliver those services.  Surely this applies to any service that transcends commoditisation, regardless of sector?

That said, you can always do more to standardise, eliminate waste and centralise service provision.  Surely, the next logical step once this has been achieved is to automate it?

Whether it’s automation or digitisation, the need to work across silos is paramount.  This means more collaboration is needed, and better quality collaboration at that.  For me, this points to the need to understand and deliver whole system leadership.

Whole system leadership

Whole system leadership means attending to strategy, operations and relationships and having the leadership skills to balance the needs of each of these organisational elements.  To do this effectively you need to develop a collaborative mindset and skill-set in your leadership team.

On strategy, you might want to take heed of Chris Paton.  He spoke at the UK Shared Services Annual Conference, recommending you deploy strategy as a live framework rather than a five-year document, obsolete from the moment the ink on it has dried.  This requires agility in operations to ensure the strategy remains flexible and responsive.  In operations, you’ll need to use this agility to operate beyond vertical silos, invest in efficient common services and then automate.

On relationships, you must provide staff with a vision of how digital technology can improve their working lives and the quality of the services they provide and then invest in their skills to deliver those services excellently.

But whole system leadership means more than that too.  There is a real risk of becoming too internally focused and too design-led and as such lose sight of your customers’ needs.  So, you must balance the external pull of the market in which you are operating against the internal pull to efficiency.  And you must balance the rational, design-led approach to optimising operations with the developmental, emotional engagement of the people you lead, and serve.  This is where effective organisational diagnosis comes in.

Collaborative partnering

In the spirit of reflecting on the month, and indeed the year to date, I’d like to share some of the work I’ve been doing recently.  I’ve undertaken a lot of work with clients in developing a system-wide view of their organisational effectiveness.   We then create joined-up development plans to deliver organisational readiness for the future, perhaps a future of digital transformation.  And it’s curious that I’ve delivered more facilitated learning in collaborative partnering skills than any other leadership development topics this year.

You can’t replace customer service with machines, but you need to be ready to work with the machines, collaboratively partner across organisational boundaries and lead the whole system.

 

Jeremy J Lewis

@growthepig

#growthepig

I am both absolutely essential and totally irrelevant

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First posted on LinkedIn May 19, 2016

Tomorrow I am facilitating an Action Learning Set for a group of managers and senior managers who are in the middle of a partnering skills developmental programme.  They will have been practising partnering techniques they have learned.  They are coming to share their progress and blockers, and help each other build confidence in their new skills.

What is action learning?

Action learning is a process by which participants study their own actions and experiences in order to improve their skills and performance.  This is done in conjunction with others in small groups called Action Learning Sets.

Research has shown that action learning develops real-world wisdom rather than traditional educational processes that tend to focus purely on knowledge.  It is particularly suited to leadership and management development in organisations.  This is because participants are working on real problems in the real world that affect real people, rather than solving individual puzzles (such as developing budgets on spreadsheets).

Both learning approaches require taking action, reflecting on that action and making practical changes to the actions to be taken next time to improve performance.  However, action learning in groups propels the individual further and faster in the real world.  This is because their peers are helping them see the results of their actions on other people.

The role of the facilitator

And as facilitator of this process, my role is to intervene as little as possible, so that the participants do as much of the work as possible.  I will hold the space on behalf of the group so they can focus on helping each other.  I will ensure ground rules are observed and I will manage the process of the session.

Arguably, I am totally irrelevant to the group, who are quite capable of running this for themselves.  Equally I am absolutely essential… my presence will create the right conditions for the group to maximise their learning.

If I do my job well, they will hardly notice me, they will feel confident they can run the next session themselves, and then my continued presence will be totally irrelevant…

I will know my presence was absolutely essential.

 

Jeremy J Lewis

@growthepig