Are Your Bad Habits Holding You Back From The Board?

Posted on March 21, 2012 by gregoryorme

5 Behaviours You May Have To Address To Be Promoted.

In my work as a leadership consultant I occasionally work with senior executives who’ve stalled just below board level – or sometimes just short of the CEO’s hot seat. This isn’t normally because they’re lacking in intelligence, experience or drive. It’s often because they’ve failed to develop the values required of a true leader.

They need to unlearn some of the “me-centred” and competitive behaviours that, paradoxically, have propelled them up the ranks in the first place. As former General Electric CEO Jack Welch said: “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” Here are five workplace habits you might need to become aware of to take the next step in your leadership journey:

1. Always Being The Star

You are watching a movie of your own life. Part of developing your leadership ability is to realise a successful management meeting is one in which others are allowed to star, as well as you. Building the capabilities and confidence of those reporting into you is the hallmark of a good leader. When you become an orchestra conductor you stop playing the notes. When you become the team coach you stop kicking the ball. Instead, you create a situation where people play harmoniously, and in synch, based on your lead.

2. Telling, Not Asking

The empowerment of others starts with active listening. The ability to patiently use open questions (questions that elicit explanation rather than “yes” or “no”), to help people to find the answer for themselves, has a transformational impact.

3. Playing Judge and Jury

You learn an enormous amount in your career. You often know, or think you know, the answer to most of the questions that crop up. But, paradoxically good leaders often display notable humility. They’re prepared to hear people out before they pass judgement or offer their own opinion.

4. Ducking Responsibility

A leader doesn’t make excuses for poor behaviour by trotting out the lame excuse “that’s just me!” They realise leadership is about making conscious choices about how you respond to what work throws at you. Let’s face it. There’ll always be cock ups and irritating clients or colleagues. Leadership starts with the conscious choice of how you proactively respond to people and events. Leaders take full responsibility for their words and deeds.

5. Forgetting to Say Sorry

This may sound like leadership is some unattainable nirvana for people with super-human self control. Untrue. Most people like leaders to be as flawed as the rest of us. The important thing is this. If you’ve displayed some of the anti-leadership behaviours above, apologise immediately. Being a leader doesn’t mean you never say sorry.

How Organisations Use Coaching to Drive Peak Performance

Posted on February 21, 2012 by gregoryorme

This article contains a seven-point plan on how businesses can use coaching to boost the performance of their management. It can also serve as an invaluable primer for senior executives deciding if coaching is for them. The seven-point plan is: 1. Clarify “Why?” 2. Set Clear Goals 3. Maintain (Appropriate) Confidentiality 4. Agree Ground Rules 5. Understand the Power of Intent 6. Adopt a Rigorous Process 7. Draw a Line between Coaching and Therapy.

Message from an Accidental Coach

I became an executive coach pretty much by accident. My “day job” is working with the leadership of businesses to facilitate peak performance. The bottom line objective of all my strategy development, leadership development and change management work is about achieving tangible results – as quickly as possible.

When my existing clients started to request that I coach senior leaders on a one-to-one basis alongside my other work, the objectives felt spookily familiar. There are clear similarities between improving organisational, team and individual performance – they all set off on a journey of rigorously asking three fundamental questions: “Where are we now? Where do we want to be? What do we need to differently to get there?”
The roots of coaching can be traced back to sports pitches. The work I do (sometimes differentiated with the label executive coaching) more often takes places in a board room. The objective is identical: facilitating a process whereby a “player” performs to his or her full potential.

Coaching Works

Effective one-to-one coaching has a transformational impact both on the individuals being coached and the business in which they’re working. Here’s some evidence:

Financial analysis by Manchester University shows coaching spend delivered return on investment of between 5 and 7 times the initial cost.
96% of companies reported coaching improved individual performance, with 92% reporting improvements to leadership and management effectiveness.
In a survey of over 4000 American corporations the primary benefits of coaching reported were (in order): improved individual performance, bottom line results, client service and competitiveness and development of people for the next level, including confidence raising, skills and self empowerment, goal achievement, relationship improvements, and retention.

Risks & Challenges

A business doesn’t invest in coaching out of the kindness of its corporate heart. The intent is identical to any other business investment: to deliver commercial success. Coaching can certainly help organisations succeed, but there are risks and challenges in rolling out coaching programmes. A coaching programme is a number of sessions combined together for maximum impact often supported by external input such as 360° feedback reports and psychometric assessments.
The issue is around fair balance. Coaching has two beneficiaries – the organisation and the player (my adopted replacement word for the rather limp and unproactive “coachee”).* Both their needs and expectations have to be balanced so the organisation gets return on investment and the player experiences maximum value from the one commodity they are normally short of – time. Here is the seven-point plan to ensure return on investment from working with external executive coaches:

1. Clarify “Why?”

It may sound obvious but all parties need to understand coaching has to be about improving a player’s performance to drive benefits for the organisation paying the bills. The most powerful opportunity to align the interests of the organisation (“we want to improve our performance, achieve our objectives”) and the player (“I want to improve my performance, achieve my objectives”) is to transparently agree the player’s coaching goals at the start of the programme. Of course, this arrangement does not preclude powerful win-win opportunities for the player as I’ll explain next.

2. Set Clear Goals

Clear goal-setting is the foundation for any effort to change a person or an organisation. One way to help a player to be completely honest about what that they want is to allow ‘public’ goals, which are reported into the organisation, and ‘private’ goals, which are kept between the player and the coach.
Private goals often reveal some kind of vulnerability or sensitivity. Obviously, there needs to be trust between the organisation’s client contact and the coach that these private goals will be linked to improving performance in the workplace – and achieving the public goals. Here’s how this works in practice:

Public Goals: “I want to”….“Achieve my sales targets”; “Improve my managerial skills”; “Boost my team’s performance to support other departments”; “Win promotion within two years”.

Private Goals: “I want to”…. “Increased my prominence and profile inside the business”; “Improved my pay packet”; “Repair my relationship with my boss”; “Build bridges with two key colleagues I am feuding with”; “Get over my fear of public speaking”.

3. Maintain (Appropriate) Confidentiality

Confidentiality can be tricky. It’s often something the player and the player’s line manager are nervous about. The coach has to strike a balance between protecting the player and ensuring the organisation gets its money’s worth. I achieve this by being transparent from the start with both parties about how and when information about the coaching will be shared. My ideal is the organisation receives written reports (normally written by the coach) on goals and progress; with the documents signed off first by the player first to ensure no confidence has been breached. We also come to a clear agreement on whom within the organisation, other than the designated client (normally a line manager or HR Director), has access to these written reports.
It can happen that player wants to discuss their long-term future beyond their current employment. In my experience the only way to tackle this is before the coaching begins by agreeing with the organisation if time can be spent on this. Many organisations take the long view. They accept, by encouraging people to become more aware of their future direction, it may lead to some leaving the organisation. The calculation is this: a small proportion will leave on good terms, most will stay and appreciate the development effort that’s been invested.

4. Agree Ground Rules

The player’s approach to the coaching is crucial and needs to be agreed up front. Here are the ground rules I ask players to stick to:

Trust – good relationships are based on trust. The only guaranteed way to sabotage coaching is if this relationship breaks down, or never gets started. The player needs to trust the coach which is why being clear about intent and confidentiality is key.
Honesty – the player needs to be completely honest with the coach about his or her behaviours, perceptions and beliefs.
Openness – the player needs to display the appropriate amount of openness needed to honestly discuss the issues in play. It’s fine to keep back some thoughts and feelings (we all do this) as long as they’re not relevant to what is being discussed.
Transparency –the coach, the player and the organisation need to be transparent about their intentions for the coaching.
Engagement, Enthusiasm, Effort – the player needs to engage with the coaching sessions and the vital work in-between with enthusiasm and effort. Anything less will lead to failure or unsatisfying incremental improvement.

5. Understand the Power of Intent

Observed through a sound proof window coaching is just two people talking. The reason why it can transform is due, in small part, to methodology and technique. But the coach’s intent is a far more important factor. Here is a brief overview of my coaching intent and beliefs:

The intention of coaching is to facilitate a player’s awareness, to encourage responsibility for his or her behaviour to improve performance.
People are their own best resource and each person has their own solutions, this is why a non-directive, questioning coaching technique is the most effective approach.
Human beings have a truly astounding ability to learn, change and succeed. We all interfere with our ability to do this to some extent through unhelpful mental chatter or unhelpful mental models – coaching helps players to observe and remove this “interference” and close the gap between their potential and performance.
Awareness is curative. In other words, we naturally change things simply by observing them.

6. Adopt a Rigorous Process

At its best coaching is dynamic, fluid and creative. But, as with many things that look “magical”, there is a solid methodology at work. The process of a coaching programme should include:

Agreement between player, coach and organisation
Identifying Issues
Goal-Setting
Mid-Programme Review
End of Programme Review
Longer Term Evaluation

A basic programme could be comprised of six sessions with the initial sessions spaced one or two weeks apart when the need for support is greatest, with later sessions potentially spaced further apart.
Within the sessions there is also need for a robust structure which results in clear actions for the player. The best I’ve discovered is the well-known GROW Model (GOAL – set a direction, REALITY – explore the current situation start point, OPTIONS – identify actions that could be taken, WILL DO – identify what action will be taken).

7. Draw a Line between Coaching and Therapy

One of the greatest barriers to (and, very occasionally, attractions of) investing time or money in coaching is that its “therapy”. Let’s be clear. It’s not. The intent of therapy is to heal extreme phobias, anxieties or fears. The intent of coaching is to facilitate behaviours and mindsets required to achieve peak performance. There’s a big difference.
However, I sign up to the notion that a “good inner game” leads to a “good out game”. So, whereas the objective of coaching is about results and achievement the discussions how to get there may dive underneath the surface to investigate more philosophical issues such as a player’s life purpose, cherished values, inspiring vision for the future; how to “self manage” thoughts and emotions or develop greater ability to engage with others. This is not navel gazing – there is robust evidence that happiness, optimism and even joy in our work are strongly linked to our ability to succeed.

*I found this term – Player – in Miles Downey’s Effective Coaching, Cengage Learning which I highly recommend

Self Awareness: the first step in your leadership journey

Posted on January 12, 2012 by gregoryorme

What is Self Awareness?

Self awareness is the ability to observe yourself as you go about your day-to-day life. It’s the invaluable knack of dispassionately monitoring your own mental, emotional and physical states as you interact with the world around you.

It has transformative potential for everyone – especially those who need to lead others. It’s so important because by examining your thoughts, as they happen, you can influence how you perceive the world. This makes self awareness the first step, not only in your leadership journey, but also in creating your own reality – rather than allowing life to create it for you.

Developing self awareness is vitally-important for anyone who wants to manage their own life. And by managing and leading yourself more consciously, you’re able to more effectively inspire others.

The Dance Floor of Life

Most people spend their lives firmly on the dance floor of life. Modern jobs and domesticity, like a packed, heaving dance floor, are absorbing places to be. You’re encouraged to move in time to music that’s often cued up by other people and external events. The alarm clock goes off in the morning like a starting gun propelling you into frenetic activity. Sometimes you’re dancing alone, wrapped up in a particular issue. At other times, you’re fully engaged (sometimes too engaged!) with those around you. Either way, there’s little time or opportunity to observe how well you are dancing, or living.

When you have a “good day” it feels exciting, positive, even uplifting. But too often “bad days” provoke anxiety and stress, as well as strong emotions you struggle to master (or even fully understand). Self awareness helps you to more fully relish the good days, and to eliminate the angst of the bad days. It’s the ability to step off the dance floor; to walk to the balcony overlooking the throng, to observe your life.

To use self awareness effectively you need to be aware of the distorting lense of your own mental models. These mental models – the beliefs and prejudices you’ve adopted, learned and created throughout your life – are themselves unexamined. So, if you fail to take them into account you cannot understand how they are helping, or hindering, you.

Self awareness is not just thinking about life; it’s thinking about how we think about life!

Mentally getting off the dance floor is the only way to truly understand what’s going on in your life – and to do something about it. It can happen in two ways. The first more traditional route is to reflect on your life issues in the few quiet times you can find: train journeys, the shower or while at the gym.

The more powerful pathway off the dance floor is far less understood. It’s a type of minute-to-minute self awareness. This requires the ability to do two things at the same time; to be on the dance floor living life to the full; and to be simultaneously observing life from the balcony. This is what I call Simultaneous Self Awareness – and its implications for your life are truly astounding.

Observation changes things

The power and importance of Simultaneous Self Awareness is derived from a simple truth. By observing the running commentary that takes place in our heads about the people and events around us we can take control of our existence, or at the very least influence it.

In other words, if I can observe a thought pattern, belief or mental model I have the power to alter it. If I am not aware of it, I can’t.

For example, if you have been asked to give a big presentation at work you’ll no doubt immediately start to think about it. For some people the thoughts will be empowering. Sarah might think: “This will be exciting and a bit nerve wracking but I’m sure it will go really well – there’s so much I have to say! My boss must think a lot of me to give me this big opportunity.”

For others in the same situation the mental chatter and emotional state will be very different, and very negative. Dave might think: “This is my worst nightmare. I’m bound to screw this up; how embarrassing will that be? My boss clearly wants me to trip up and make a fool of myself.”

The astounding thing about working with people to help them reach peak performance is the “reality” of the situation is not always connected to the negative or positive thoughts. The boss could be the same for both Sarah and Dave; the potential presenting skills identical. The only difference is the self-generated mental models: the beliefs of how the presentation request came about from the boss, and the imagination of how the presentation will go in the future. You can guess for yourself who will deliver a good presentation, and who will not!

The important point is self awareness is a powerful friend to both Sarah and Dave. For Sarah, it offers a way to acknowledge and build on her enthusiasm to deliver a truly outstanding performance. For Dave, it offers a chance to re-examine his disempowering thoughts – work out why he feels that way – and to try to change his mind set to one that’s more likely to achieve a good result.

Self Awareness over time

Self awareness has been referenced as a powerful approach since the dawn of human civilisation. The Chinese philosopher Lao Tse wrote around the 6th century BC: “He who understands others is learned, He who understands himself is wise.” A few centuries later Buddha wrote: “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make our world.” And, in the First Century AD the Roman Emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius wrote: “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”

Self awareness continues to be the cornerstone of modern leadership thinking – all 360º feedback exercises, executive coaching and leadership development programmes have self awareness as a key objective because it’s crucial for developing an authentic and effective leadership style.

Simultaneous Self Awareness can be used every minute of every day to allow you to observe and change your limiting beliefs and linked emotions. It allows you to be aware of the effect your own thoughts are having on you, as well as the imbedded beliefs behind many of the unacknowledged decisions you take every day.

By simply observing your thoughts and emotions you have more power over their direction. As you practice it daily you realise your “reality” is something you create for yourself every day. And if you are creating our own reality – how you perceive the world – self awareness offers a powerful route to change the world, and yourself, for the better.

The ’4C’s of High Potential Leadership Development

Posted on December 15, 2011 by gregoryorme

In Brief: The vast majority of companies don’t feel confident about the number and quality of management successors in their organisation. High potential leadership development programmes are a key weapon to help businesses win the war for talent. Without a rigorous well-designed focus on the next generation of leaders any organisation is heading for trouble. This article outlines the “4Cs” for the successful delivery of High Potential Leadership Development Programmes:

1. Clarify Goals
2. Collaborate on Development & Delivery
3. Choose Carefully
4. Communicate Honestly

The War for Talent Rages On

Even in these tough economic times winning the war for talent continues to be a crucial objective for businesses. Recent Harvard Business School research shows fewer than 30% of European companies felt confident about the quantity of talented, qualified management successors in their organisation. Creating and filling a management talent pipeline has become a business critical issue for forward-thinking leaders.

In fact, there is a good argument that the ability to attract and develop leaders becomes even more important when the economy is in turmoil; businesses have fewer chances to “get it right”, and to take profitable opportunities. Beating the competition requires good leadership at board level – and the level below. Even more true when times are tough.

What’s more, finding and retaining good leaders will get even tougher for western-based international players in the coming decades. This is because most have to focus, in part at least, on emerging markets for growth such as India and China. Here the supply of experienced managers is even more limited than it is in the west. So, what can companies do to put them ahead of their rivals?

High Potential Leadership Programmes

More and more companies are recognising the value of high potential leadership development programmes as a powerful weapon in the war for talent. But it can be tricky to get right. And even trickier to ensure there is a genuine long-term return on investment. If the design and delivery of these programmes is mishandled there can be serious damage to staff morale – quite apart from being a huge waste of time and resources.

This article is a collection of insights and best practice in attracting, incentivising and transforming high potential management into true leaders. It’s based on experience. I spend a lot of my time working with creative businesses to design and develop leadership programmes to transform great mid-level execs into influential board-level leaders.

The 4Cs which follow are guiding principles to help you to design interventions in this area that have a far greater chance of transforming both your high potential people – and your organisation.

Experience plus Research = Best Practice

Over the last few years I’ve worked with advertising agencies like Ogilvy & Mather and BBDO; content creators such as Shine Group – as well as other global concerns such as the recruitment giant Randstad, and the well-respected World Economic Forum. Before this I ran the Centre for Creative Business at London Business School which delivered leadership development to executives in the UK’s creative industries.

I’ve blended my first-hand insights and experience with rigorous research. Harvard Business School joined forces with the global executive search firm Egon Zehnder to conduct a large-scale cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis* of how companies manage their rising stars. They also interviewed executives from 70 companies which had all taken the decision to run high potential leadership programmes. The research essentially asked: “what worked for you; what didn’t work for you?” The “4Cs” for Successful High Potential Leadership Development is my summary of both.

Why invest in leadership development?

The business rationale for investing in leadership development is strong and growing. Firstly, top talent gravitate towards companies that have strong development opportunities. Secondly, a well-managed talent pipeline increases the odds the company can continue to appoint great leaders in important positions – which increase its chances of success.

Fortune’s Most Admired Companies – the likes of Coca Cola, Johnson & Johnson, Proctor & Gamble, IBM and Mars – have known this for decades. They consistently spend more time and energy on developing leaders than average companies do – and they have better share price returns to show for it.**

Alan Lafley, former P&G CEO, said: “Nothing I do will have a more enduring impact on P&G’s long term success than helping to develop other leaders. I think the most important thing we do is that we are a continuous selection machine”

1: Clarify Goals

Let’s be clear: there is no generic leadership programme that works for all companies. Like any good investment, leadership development needs to align with organisational purpose, strategy, values and culture. A transformational leadership programme perfectly aims the right content, at the right people, to address the right questions. In practical terms this involves clarifying two sets of leadership development programme goals:

1. What’s the programme trying to deliver for the organisation?

2. What’s the programme trying to deliver for participants?

The answer to the first question needs to be linked to strategic objectives and culture change; the output of the answer to the second question should always involved leadership attitudes and behaviours.

For example, if you are working in a creative content company that has grown fast through acquisitions in a market-place that values creativity and innovation, you might need a programme that encourages highly-collaborative leadership – and which has cross-disciplinary organisational development projects as a key output to help knit the emerging organisation together.

On the other hand, if you are working in a restaurant chain, which needs to grow through a well-established franchise model; the leadership behaviours and outcomes required will probably be more focussed around operational and productivity improvements.

In summary, a key point to clarify is how much of the leadership programme goals are around changing the organisation – and how much about changing participant behaviour. Clearly, these two goals are inextricably interlinked; but for the sake of clarity it’s vital to produce separate and mutually-supporting goals for each.

2: Collaborate on Development & Delivery

Like any intervention to try to change an organisation thorough groundwork makes a successful outcome much more likely. It ensures a leadership development programme will better deliver in the areas most needed by both participants and the company. It sounds like simple common sense, doesn’t it? But it’s surprising how easy it is for poorly-focussed programmes to get blown off course by pursuing content and objectives not directly linked to actual need. Even worse, when a leadership programme is not tied to agreed goals it can degenerate into the worst kind of corporate political football.

Collaborating on development and delivery means gathering input from as wide as possible – both inside and outside the organisation. Well-targeted programme content can then be co-designed and delivered by the senior organisational sponsors and whichever external learning and development experts are involved.

Senior-Level Engagement

The best way to deliver a transformative leadership programme is to ensure it has the buy-in and sponsorship from the most senior people in the organisation. There’s an old saying that “marketing is too important to be left to the marketing director”. The same is true for developing high potential leaders. Talent management strategy is a not an area that should involve only the HR Director.

Of course, it can be tricky to get the CEO involved. But it’s vital. This high-level sponsorship ensures the programme is not perceived by applicants as a frivolous “sheep dip exercise”. I’m sure you’ve come across the sort of fluffy, arm-waving away days which often give management “training” a bad name.

The perception of non-applicants and personnel at all levels across the company also changes. Having a CEO or similar senior figure onboard signals “this is important”. It immediately encourages other senior people to give freely of their time. This guarantees participants are exposed to the key people, in charge of the important issues, which are engaging the executive board.

Finally, senior-level involvement “raises the stakes”. This emphasis transforms what could be mere information and skills training into transformative experiences that can change behaviours permanently. Because of the massive difference senior involvement drives on all the programmes I direct, I push for one or more of the sessions to be run by the CEO – and ideally other sessions are run by other senior players from finance, operations, marketing and sales.

A learning organisation – not classroom training

A leadership programme has failed if it’s only about what happens “in the classroom”. Training is passive and centred in “someone else”; learning and self-development is active and based on what “I” can do.

Transformational interventions need to be about instilling a passion for self development and learning beyond the set-piece group sessions which usually form the core of a programme.

A holistic, multi-strand approach works best: group sessions supported by on-the-job development, mentoring, coaching as well as real-life projects and job rotations. Clearly, reinforcing group work with one-to-one support requires a larger investment in planning and coordination. It’s worth the additional effort and expense because the organisation is then not offering mere training, but designing a transformational experience which will play a crucial role in creating a genuinely learning culture.

3: Choose Carefully

Who chooses?

High Potential Programmes are a significant investment in time and money, so it makes a lot of sense to ensure the right people are sitting in the room on the first day. Having now tried both open application processes (perceived as “more democratic” in internal communications terms), and manager-nominated approaches (perceived as “more accurate and targeted”) I’ve come to the conclusion neither works very well on their own!

Research backs me up. Across the board the data shows that people often overestimate their own potential, or feel they are ready earlier than they really are for leadership, so applicants can’t be relied upon to put themselves forward at the right time. And untrained managers are often subject to serious prejudices and blind spots. Again, research clearly illustrates as a group managers are poor at reliably spotting potential leadership talent in their direct reports.

Because of this I recommend a combination approach which has a better chance of getting the right people as programme participants. Start with a tight, well-explained brief on who can apply in the first place. Then manage the process carefully to involve input from senior management, line management as well as output from annual appraisals, written applications, references and interviews. Anything less than a thorough multi-stage approach risks wasting time and money on the wrong people.

Understand Potential

Another necessary step is to create a shared definition for “potential” around the basic idea that it’s “the ability to handle responsibilities of greater scale and scope”. Participants need to be chosen with an understanding that potential is measured (and developed) on a number of different levels.

In my programmes I use the metaphor of an iceberg with visible behaviours above the water, and deeper layers, like identity, motivation and purpose, below the surface. The following diagram illustrates a model of executive potential (that combines my experience with the Harvard/Egon Zehnder Research) to demonstrate the importance of selecting, and then delivering programmes, to address the “easier to change” and “harder to change” aspects of people.

Inside-Out Programmes

Programmes which seek to engage participants at the core “Purpose” and motives level (“Inside-Out” Programmes) are incalculably more powerful than those which seek to work “Outside In” – i.e. focussing on skills and knowledge and hoping for the best on the more powerful Identity, Assets and Purpose.

4: Communicate Honestly

Senior executive sponsorship of a leadership programme naturally leads to a high profile within the organisation. This is to be celebrated, not avoided. A study of 225 companies in 10 industries found that while 78% of the organisations did not inform high potential people they were labelled thus; 90% of the employees knew anyway!

My approach, as it is in all my organisational development work, is to deliver the greatest degree of transparency possible (“transparency” being the corporate expression for what we call “honesty” in the rest of our lives!). Of course, an honest approach is not without risks. To mitigate this risk there needs to be careful management of expectation for those chosen for high potential programmes – as well as for those that are not.

*How to Hang on to your High Potentials, Harvard Business Review, October 2011

** Hay Group, Develop Your Leaders, 2011

Caution Change Ahead!

Posted on November 19, 2011 by gregoryorme

6 Ways To Avoid Being Tripped Up When Leading Change In Your Organisation

Creating change is often difficult, expensive, and prone to failure. And as a leader when you initiative the “pet project of the month” over and over again but nothing really changes guess what? You start to look a little like a politician: all mouth and no trousers.

Change is difficult because it’s about new behaviours. And we all know how difficult it is to alter our own habits (drinking less, exercising more or turning the TV off once in a while!) Imagine how much harder it is when you are trying to modify the attitudes and actions of an entire organisation.

Over the years I’ve been involved in the implementation of major change in a variety of businesses. From my experience – and research into good practice – here are six handy tips to help you to become a successful Change Maker.

1. Start Shouting Fire – Many businesses are too inward looking. They don’t listen enough to their clients or know enough about their competitors. An inward-facing mentality can breed complacency, even arrogance. As a leader you need to show your people that the need for change is urgent. If there is not a pressing commercial or operational “fire” in your business (and there normally is) you might need to start it yourself.

2. Get the right people involved, at the right time, during the process – change often starts with one or two people, but making it stick is not a solo sport. To get things going you need to get enough people involved with the expertise and credibility required. And ensure they are working as a team. Change Management is like getting a car started when it’s bogged down in the mud. You need a coordinated, sustained push with as many people involved as you can rope in.

3. Develop a Clear Inspirational Purpose – if it’s not there already start with a rigorous and collaborative development process to find this, then add specific objectives. Anything less is a recipe for confusion and apathy.

4. Communicate, communicate, and then communicate again - It is amazing how many businesses do not communicate effectively. Try this as a test: ask six team members what the fundamental purpose of your business is and see how different their replies are. You might be surprised.

5. Empower Your People – Make sure your team can grab the purpose and make it happen. But empowerment is pointless if it’s just a word. Take a look at your systems, structures and skill levels to make sure the sort of behaviour you want is even possible in your business.

6. Plan for some short term wins – Change is painful and difficult at times and it needs a sustained effort; timelines are normally not weeks but months and even years. To show your team the late nights are worth it make sure the changes you are bringing about delivers short term wins along the way.

With thanks to John P. Kotter’s ‘Leading Change’

The Evidence: Leadership and the Bottom Line

Posted on November 18, 2011 by gregoryorme

Research shows organisations with good leadership perform better than those that don’t

Most people believe in good leadership because as we grow through our careers we all experience the inspiring and empowering effect of good leadership – and the powerfully negative impact of bad leadership (or, more accurately, non-leadership).

When I ask people in my leadership development workshops and seminars to talk about toxic bosses it always provokes smiles of recognition. What follows are usually hair-curling stories of cynicism, short-termism, inconsistency, breath-taking self-centredness, volatile tempers, lack of direction and absence of communication. The sheer commonality of experience and abundance of colourful anecdotes is striking, if rather dispiriting.

My regular non-scientific straw polls are supported by more rigorous research. The DDl’s* Global Leadership Forecast 2011, which surveyed over 2,000 individuals, shows a real problem with the quality of leaders in organisations. And this is assessed by HR Directors, who are, interestingly, leaders themselves.

It’s a different story when I ask people to relate personal experiences of good leadership. At this point, the room goes very quiet. After some time a few stories and experiences are shared but not nearly as many. People talk about bosses who are mentors, who listen, who care, who provide direction, resources and commitment. They describe people who act in a way that facilitates the best in those around them.

People intuitively believe good leadership is linked to team and organisational success. Again this certainty about the power of leadership is echoed by academic research. Simply put: numerous in-depth studies demonstrate incontrovertibly that organisations with good leadership perform better than those that don’t. Examples include:

The Institute for Strategic Change reports that the stock price of companies perceived to be well-led grew 900 per cent over 10 years versus 74 percent for companies perceived to lack good leadership (2008).
Hay Group’s Best Companies for Leadership survey demonstrates that the top 20 organisations rated for leadership give over 36 times better shareholder returns than the S&P 500 in a five year period (2010).
The Corporate Leadership Council estimates that employees working for good leaders put in 57 per cent more effort and are 87 per cent less likely to leave than those with poor leaders.
The Institute of Work estimates that 20 per cent of the variance in productivity and profitability in manufacturing can be attributed to better people management – a stronger driver than strategy, technology, and research and development.
The Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine reports that workers with good leadership were 40 per cent more likely to be in the highest category of job well-being, with low rates of symptoms like anxiety, depression, and job stress. Good leadership was associated with a 27 per cent reduction in sick leave and a 46 per cent reduction in disability pensions.

So, if you think your organisation needs to focus a little more time and effort on developing great leadership ensure you make a persuasive case around the soft factors of inspiration, values and culture. But don’t forget the evidence, because it’s on your side.

* Development Dimensions International

With thanks to the Hay Group

10 Tips to Inspire Your People to Engage

Posted on November 17, 2011 by gregoryorme

How creating high-levels of commitment drives success

By Greg Orme

Over many years of working with business leaders trying to figure out how to create winning strategies I have come to realise one thing. For any change in direction to get off the ground you need a magical, intangible ingredient: employee engagement.

Inspiring your people to be bothered to deliver your company vision, pledge themselves to a new strategy or simply improve things is vital. Research shows an engaged employee is 87% less likely to leave a job – and a fully engaged person performs at a 20% higher level* . In business performance is so correlated to staff engagement it is in my view a key success factor for long-term sustainability.

So here is a bit of food for thought on how you can improve engagement in your business. Score your company on the following ten questions:

Are your line manager’s real managers? And, just to be clear, we are not talking about skilled practitioners in any creative, functional or technical specialism. That’s how you get promoted to management in the first place. But being an empathetic and skilled manager of teams and people is not something most people are born with. You and your managers need to be clear about the distinction. We have all experienced bad management (and its toxically demotivating effects).
Do your people really believe in your company direction? And remember, first they have to understand what direction you are going in before they can get to the stage of believing in it!
Are you providing inspiring leadership from the top? This is not easy to do consistently. High-performance leaders provide direction, show respect, inform regularly, live their values, exude energy. In other words, they are role models.
Do you engage people through involvement and consultation? I know this works. I recently facilitated strategy for a large UK business. Over 18 months we involved over 200 staff members (10% of the workforce) directly, and 2,000 indirectly, in an engagement and change management programme. This type of exercise can be time consuming for any business large or small but it pays dividends in the long-run.
Have you got a genuinely “people-centric” culture? We all know the old company mission cliché: “Our people are our biggest asset”. But things become clichés for a reason. And all businesses appear horribly hypocritical if action does not match rhetoric.
Do you have perfect internal communications? Don’t answer that one! However much you communicate right now you know the answer is “no” – at least in the minds of some of your staff! When we diagnose problem issues in businesses this is always in the top five staff complaints – normally because there is insufficient consistency, skill and focus from top management in this vital area.
Do you offer your people genuine influence over how their job is done? This means doing the HR basics rights (e.g. two-way performance reviews) as well as open-minded and empowered line managers who are prepared to innovate to improve.
Do your people get the “Big Picture”? In other words, do you take the time to explain why “things get done the way they do”. This is especially important for unpopular business practices such as time sheets and other forms of management information gathering.
Do you offer opportunities for career development? This is one of the arguments for smaller businesses to grow a little as it avoids losing talented staff who get bored waiting to fill “dead man’s shoes”.
Do you walk the walk? Are your personal values as an owner/manager and leadership team reflected in the organisation’s values? Any disparity between your leadership behaviour and what you project as “what the company is all about” can be potentially damaging.

*Corporate Leadership Foundation ‘Driving Performance and Retention through Employee Engagement’, 2004.

Greg Orme

Inspiring Leadership, Strategy and Change