Sunday, December 28, 2008
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Times of upheaval create great leaders
Affluenza: A contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste, resulting from the dogged pursuit of more.
An epidemic of stress, overwork, waste and indebtedness, which is an unsustainable addition to economic growth, has taken its toll only on the developed world. It is now spreading to emerging economies as well. India is no an exception.
The current financial crisis has revealed many facets of top financial institutions and business leaders. With growth dreams and hopes having been hit, the emerging economy is at the crossroads today. Organisations are crumbling under the sheer pressure of over-leveraging. They are also reeling under a severe cash crunch, the result of a mercenary approach in choosing shortcuts for short-term gains.
The turmoil and churn in the markets -- and the aspirations and emotions of people -- have always seen the rise of great leaders and legendary marketeers. They are remembered for their focussed approach, their inimitable style of leadership and their pursuit of perfection.
Customers today are a confused and withdrawn lot. They have been bombarded with negative news and pessimism, which they are unable to decode. Uncertainty leads to customers postponing plans; and marketeers are unsure where to put their money in this new era of Affluenza.
This changing environment has implications for organisations -- one of survival and growth -- that present a leadership challenge to CEOs. The CEO focus will shift from managing an operation to leading marketing hands-on by focussing on innovation, brand-building and customer engagement. Employee performance will be under the scanner, with a demand for greater accountability towards effectiveness and productivity.
Times such as these force one to make difficult choices. When the environment is one of gloom and panic, you could be paralyzed into inaction. You could crib and wait for the sentiment to change by itself over a period of time. You could listen to pontificating soothsayers.
Or you can choose to create the future, with hope, dreams and aspirations. This environment always throws up unique opportunities. It takes a visionary to see and relentlessly pursue them, despite the many odds, and achieve success.
There are many brands that have not only survived but have also grown from strength to strength and others who have created and defined the future with a new category. I would like to showcase four such brands that went on to create value and affluence for customers and for their stakeholders in the last decade.
I have been privileged to work closely on three of these brands for a significant length of time. The brands are Airtel, Maruti [Get Quote], and Parle. I have also studied and watched with admiration the journey of Infosys [Get Quote]. These brands exploited the opportunities that were presented to them in a difficult environment and went on to acquire leadership positions within the industry.
While they excel in their products and services, let's look at some of the common values and the secret of continued success for these organisations:
Strong leaders
These winning firms have leaders who believe in their dreams and have single-minded focus. They don't give up even in extreme adversity. They communicate and share their dreams, not only with their immediate employees but also with the other key stakeholders, and mobilise the efforts and energies of their team in that direction.
They have cultivated enduring partnerships and made them an intrinsic part of their success story. They have not only outsourced products and services, but also bought their wholehearted passion and commitment to the success of the venture.
Innovation
They went on to stimulate the market with innovative practices across products and services and managed to institutionalise these as best practices.
Value-creation
They went on to create value for the customer and create wealth for their investors, employees and partners. They believed in the power of the brand. So they invested and leveraged their products through superior and insightful advertising and marketing communications to create a brand preference in a very short span of time.
Airtel created a completely new category and experience for consumers by consistently setting the benchmark for the industry, and assumed a leadership position. They have not only consolidated their position in the mobile service space, but are constantly evaluating avenues for growth in new domains.
Maruti, a monopoly player with over 90 per cent of the market share, withstood the onslaught of competitive brands when the auto industry was liberalised. They leveraged their well-established strength of a nationwide service network.
Maruti also came up with social initiatives by propagating the values of safe driving, road safety, car maintenance and pollution control. They did this through a series of television commercials which were aired in partnership with leading media channels.
This not only helped to communicate that Maruti 'cares' for its customers; it also prompted the government to introduce pollution control norms towards creating a cleaner environment. It took courage for the leadership to invest in a social initiative of this magnitude at a time when others were focussed on information-oriented advertisements to drive sales.
Parle has stood the test of time over the last 60 years and has been a leading player in the highly competitive FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) market. The leadership at Parle has constantly experimented to energise their portfolio with new product launches. They have strengthened their presence in the biscuits, confectionary and snack food categories by capturing the customers' imagination and palate.
Infosys focussed on the international B2B market and the software and IT services domain. They were media shy and possibly the best-kept secret till they were lauded for their achievements in the international market. Recognition followed in India. They not only became leading players in IT services but have also positioned India as a knowledge hub.
These brands and their leaders will continue to inspire many entrepreneurs to create brands that will dominate the next decade by focusing on building a strong and vibrant business model.
Times of upheaval will create new leaders who would sight opportunities and delight customers by delivering greater value. Marketing should play a key role in turbulent times, not only to differentiate and build vibrant brands but also to lift the spirits of the people and build a future on strong fundamentals, with a long-term vision to enjoy affluence and not fall prey to Affluenza.
D Rajappa is president, Everest Brand Solutions Pvt Ltd.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Team Coaching - David Clutterbuck
The role of the team coach is very different to that of the one-to-one coach. While the latter may help bring into focus the network of intra-team relationships – line manager, colleagues and key stakeholders outside the team – the team coach has to facilitate the open and often simultaneous interaction between all of these parties, often against a background of open or hidden conflict.
Where the team coach is also the team leader, it can be very difficult to rise above these interconnections. The coach in this situation has to rise above the team, taking an independent and objective perspective, while at the same time recognising his or her own needs for personal change and his or her own direct and indirect influence on the issues the team faces. If the team regards the leader as a major part of the problem, then his or her capacity to resolve the problem in a coaching style may be significantly reduced. It is, in some ways, like being both a catalyst and a reagent at the same time.
In a team where everyone adopts a coaching style towards their colleagues, it’s a lot easier. Issues come to the surface and can be discussed openly, in a manner where mutual responsibility is both implicit and explicit. But getting to that point usually takes a great deal of learning and behaviour change on the part of both the leader and the other team members. Coaches external to the team are often essential in building such a level of intra-team coaching capability. Although the goal for such coaches is normally expressed in specific performance-based outputs, there is a very strong argument for defining the aim of team coaching in terms of bringing the team to the point where it is largely self-sufficient in coaching itself.
The team coach’s role – whether internal or external to the team -- is also made more complex by the fact that teams are not all the same. As previous CA research has demonstrated, there are at least six different types of team people can be members of – sometimes all at the same time. These vary in terms of their stability of membership, stability of task, degree of interdependence and clarity of structure, reporting lines and purpose. Each team also has its own idiosyncrasies, which come from historical baggage, personality mix, reputation within the organisation and prevailing beliefs (micro-culture), all of which influence its ability to perform.
The key roles of the team coach
Our initial research identifies several core roles for the external team coach, helping the team to:
1. define its purpose and priorities
2. understand its environment
3. identify and tackle barriers to performance
4. build the team learning plan
5. grow confidence in themselves and their leader
6. develop the systems, skills and behaviours to internalise coaching
Taking these in turn:
Defining the purpose and priorities
Like individuals, teams need to know what they are trying to achieve and why before they can focus full attention and effort where it is needed. The fad for anodyne mission statements has (thankfully) passed its peak, with at least part of the decline being the result of disillusionment with the impact of broad statements of purpose that achieved little in motivating people at the enterprise level and probably even less at the team level. In its place, we are seeing more and more reasoned dialogue around what the team is there for. What wouldn’t happen if we stopped work? How much would it matter? How can we maximise our team contribution to the overall objectives of the organisation? – these are all questions that stimulate insight for individuals and teams alike.
Understanding the environment
Teams exist by consent of external social environment (the organisation) and their own members. Where the expectations, purposes, or beliefs of these two forces conflict, the coach can help identify the source and impact of the conflicts and help the team establish practical ways to resolve or defuse them.
In recent work with key account managers, one of the most useful interventions by the coach was to provide tools and concepts, by which they could map and manage the four different networks, each needed to operate effectively. Two of these networks related to information gathering, in the client companies and in their own organisation; two related to getting things done (influencing) in the same two environments. A key realisation was that both of the influence networks were in effect virtual teams, and needed to be managed as such. One of the key account manager’s priority had to be turning these from dysfunctional to effective teams.
Identifying and tackling barriers to performance
In principle, it’s simple. Knowing what the team is supposed to achieve and what it is achieving, you identify and work on the reasons for the gaps. In practice, it takes a great deal of reflective time, gathering of data and analysis of feedback to establish what the barriers are, whether they are external or internal to the team, whether they reside within the team as a whole or within specific individuals (for example, a skills deficiency), whether they relate to structures, systems, know-how, or behaviour. The coach’s role is to facilitate the learning dialogue that explores these issues and ensures that “elephants in the room” are acknowledged and dealt with openly. It is also about helping the team recognise and avoid group think.
Building the team learning plan
The team learning plan defines what the team and its individual members need and want to learn, how this will contribute to the business purpose and the responsibilities, each holds to the others in helping achieve the learning goals. It is as important a document as the business plan, because it underpins targets and goals with practical ways of developing capability and capacity.
Growing in confidence
A frequent role for the team coach is to work one-to-one with the team leader and separately with the team members (without the team leader) as well as bringing them all together. Crucial here are building the competence to accept and value different contributions, to understand the different pressures the team leader is under compared with the team members (and his or her role in protecting the team from some of those external pressures) and to develop the feedback processes that recognise day to day achievements.
Developing the systems, skills and behaviours to internalise coaching
For the team to achieve the level of learning maturity, where it can do for itself most or all of what a good external coach can do, it needs to develop a quality of dialogue well beyond the norm. To achieve this, the coach has to make sure that the team does not become dependent on the external facilitation. Setting a deadline, by which the team will have achieved this level of internal sophistication and expertise is helpful, as is building these competencies into the team learning plan.
Maintaining the balance
The team coach has a multifaceted role that is neither fully inside, nor fully outside the team. He or she must be a non-partisan confidant for all the stakeholders within the team, yet able to give sometimes highly challenging feedback; encourage the team to think more broadly, yet to maintain focus on the practical; help it balance the need for short term performance versus building capability for the medium term; and support the team leader without duplicating or supplanting the line role. Maintaining an appropriate balance is difficult but essential – which is one of the reasons why professional supervision (in the sense of frequent reflection on practice with another experienced coach) should always be part of the deal.
The growth of one-to-one coaching has been much faster than team coaching, not least because the latter is more difficult, less clearly scoped and a less well understood concept in business. In the next five years, we expect to see a lot more employers using team coaching and more coaches expanding their portfolio to include work with teams – and increasing attention to measuring the impact of these interventions.
Coaching v facilitation
It’s noticeable, (and I have done it in this short article) that team coaching and facilitation are often used synonymously. There is, in my view, a distinction between the two. Facilitation focuses on creating the environment for dialogue. It does not require specific expertise by the facilitator in the topic under discussion. It focuses on processes for clarifying and making decisions. Coaching adds extra dimensions of creating and analysing feedback, sometimes giving specific advice, and focusing on performance. These distinctions are currently explorative – as part of the research, we expect to gather a wide range of views and perspectives.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Learning to become a leader coach
Management futurists are fond of predicting a “War for Talent.” They foresee a time in the near future when organizations will be battling for their very survival in the competition for top performers. Organizations will increasingly face debilitating shortages of talent; however, I believe that this war can be fought and won primarily within the organization itself.
Look around your organization right now – in cubicles, meeting rooms, labs, the factory floor – and you will find enormous, untapped potential waiting to be developed. Unleashing this potential is the job of the Leader Coach. This is your job.
Coaching has received a great deal of attention over the last several years. As today’s fastest growing human development process, it is quickly becoming an essential competency for leaders at every organizational level. Why? Quite simply because coaching produces such impressive results. Yet, despite the growing popularity of coaching, there are precious few managers who actually make it a significant part of their day-to-day activities. In fact, many organization leaders are unable to distinguish true coaching from ordinary conversations. As a result, they find themselves ill-equipped to do what is now being asked.
It’s not that they lack the requisite interpersonal and leadership capabilities. It’s simply that high-performance coaching demands more than relating well to others and providing constructive feedback.
Remember your own coaches
We can all recognize great coaching because, without giving it a name, we have each been the recipient of it at some point in our careers. Consider for a moment your own career successes. Who were those few special people instrumental in you becoming the person you are today? Perhaps your mother, your high school math teacher or your first boss come to mind. These people were your coaches.
As you reflect upon these unique individuals, can you identify what it was that earned them the title of coach in your life? I have asked this question of hundreds of senior managers and I routinely hear the following in response. My best coach: • Was honest and straight-forward (Authenticity) • Was fully aware of and confident in his/her unique gifts and talents (Self-esteem) • Had a genuine interest in me and my success (Noble Intention) When I ask these managers what their coaches did to help them reach significantly higher levels of performance, I usually hear at least one of the following responses: • They expressed a belief in my gifts, talents and potential (Appreciation) • They challenged me to find or create opportunities to more significantly deploy my gifts and talents (Confrontation) • They expected great things from me and held me responsible for living up to my own highest standards (Accountability)
The two things I never hear? Gave me advice or told me their war stories. Incidentally, these are the two things we most often do and label as “coaching” in organizations.
Coaching is not simply giving that great piece of advice or telling another how we did it. It is a way of interacting with others that sees them at their very best; confronts them with all their gifts, talent and potential; and then holds them accountable in becoming the very best version of themselves.
The truth is we already know what great coaching is; we know it because we have at one time been the recipient of it (or have experienced its opposite and so know what is ineffective). Managers do not need to learn coaching skills as much as they need to be more intentional about being the kind of person their own best coaches were, and discipline themselves to be that person more frequently in the lives of others.
Dangerous conversations
Leaders at all organizational levels are being asked to be more coach-like with their team members, colleagues, and even their customers. Unfortunately, many leaders find themselves ill-equipped to provide such coaching. It’s not that they lack the requisite interpersonal and leadership competencies, but that coaching requires more. It challenges us to engage in ‘dangerous conversations’ – conversations that confront real topics of performance discrepancies, aspirations, values, disappointments, and passions – topics that are often uncertain, uncomfortable and emotionally charged.
When we engage in a dangerous conversation we walk away empty; everything that needed to be said was said directly and honestly. We know immediately when we have done this because we feel a release. The burden we carried is transformed into a gift for another. Even if the message was difficult for the other person to hear, we can take comfort in knowing that it was delivered with that person’s interests at heart. We did not hold back; we cared enough about the person’s success to take the risk and be uncomfortable for his benefit.
We also know immediately when we haven’t given everything to a conversation. We held back, not wanting to hurt, challenge or even affirm the other person, believing that our words would be too much for him to handle. We lacked the courage to share our unvarnished perspective. As a result, we leave the interaction feeling unsettled, still filled with our real concerns. Sometimes we even seek out a third party with whom to confide the truth. Communication experts call this “triangulation”, but to most of us it’s simply gossip.
Are you a Leader Coach? Are you willing to have the dangerous conversation? Try this: think of someone in your organization that you believe is very talented but underachieving. Then ask yourself, “What is the dangerous conversation I need to have with this person?” Make a promise to have that conversation today.
After the conversation, notice how you feel. Do you feel empty? Did you say everything that needed to be said? If you felt you held back, notice what you held back and why.
As the baby boomers increasingly leave our organizations, the need for qualified leaders who can attract and develop talent will continue to grow significantly. The war for talent will be fought and won by those unique and special individuals who can coach others to their highest level of performance. It is a war that can be won by you, the Leader Coach.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Personal Leadership
we hear all the time that we are living through a period of furious pace of change. One take on this can be seen in the (technology-centric) 'shift happens' video, see http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbI-363A2Q
Clearly, we can't stop change happening, nor slow it's pace...
Change is not a bad thing. It is inevitable, and it is fast.
Some things change and some things don't...
For me, personal leadership is about knowing who you are and what you are for, having a beacon to guide you through the storm of change. Many people today are clear what they are against... many people today find purpose and fulfilment from being against something, whether it be wind farms, nuclear energy or the prospect of an eco-town being built near their home. Another perspective is to decide what you are for in this world.
The good news is, we needn't be like a cork bobbing on the tide of popular opinion and ever-changing (not always for the better) societal values. Indeed, there is little virtue in just 'going along with the others'. As philosopher Edmund Burke is reputed to have said: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing".
We have the option to decide who we are, who we will be, what we are for, what difference we will make in this world. This is effortful work, requiring much contemplation and deep personal honesty (it comes from within). However, deciding our purpose and reason for being is the first step to discovering a level of passion and inspiration within ourselves that can lead to an extraordinary quality of life.
And, guess what, change begins with ourselves, as Gandhi memorably remarked: "Be the change you want to see in the world".
How much more fulfilling such a life is than living the life of a grazing cow...
Personal opinion! Paul
Monday, October 27, 2008
Leadership Challenge
The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® resulted from an intensive research project to determine the leadership competencies that are essential to getting extraordinary things done in organizations. To conduct the research, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner collected thousands of "Personal Best" stories—the experiences people recalled when asked to think of a peak leadership experience.Despite differences in people's individual stories, their Personal-Best Leadership Experiences revealed similar patterns of behavior. The study found that when leaders are at their personal best, they:
Model the Way Leaders establish principles concerning the way people (constituents, peers, colleagues, and customers alike) should be treated and the way goals should be pursued. They create standards of excellence and then set an example for others to follow. Because the prospect of complex change can overwhelm people and stifle action, they set interim goals so that people can achieve small wins as they work toward larger objectives. They unravel bureaucracy when it impedes action; they put up signposts when people are unsure of where to go or how to get there; and they create opportunities for victory.
Inspire a Shared Vision Leaders passionately believe that they can make a difference. They envision the future, creating an ideal and unique image of what the organization can become. Through their magnetism and quiet persuasion, leaders enlist others in their dreams. They breathe life into their visions and get people to see exciting possibilities for the future.
Challenge the Process Leaders search for opportunities to change the status quo. They look for innovative ways to improve the organization. In doing so, they experiment and take risks. And because leaders know that risk taking involves mistakes and failures, they accept the inevitable disappointments as learning opportunities.
Enable Others to Act Leaders foster collaboration and build spirited teams. They actively involve others. Leaders understand that mutual respect is what sustains extraordinary efforts; they strive to create an atmosphere of trust and human dignity. They strengthen others, making each person feel capable and powerful.
Encourage the Heart Accomplishing extraordinary things in organizations is hard work. To keep hope and determination alive, leaders recognize contributions that individuals make. In every winning team, the members need to share in the rewards of their efforts, so leaders celebrate accomplishments. They make people feel like heroes.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Leader v Manager
This is a table I came across that looked at characteristics of leaders and managers
Adrian
Leader v Manager
This is, of course, an illustrative characterization, and there is a whole spectrum between either ends of these scales along which each role can range. And many people lead and manage at the same time, and so may display a combination of behaviors.
Subject | Leader | Manager |
| Essence | Change | Stability |
| Focus | Leading people | Managing work |
| Have | Followers | Subordinates |
| Horizon | Long-term | Short-term |
| Seeks | Vision | Objectives |
| Approach | Sets direction | Plans detail |
| Decision | Facilitates | Makes |
| Power | Personal charisma | Formal authority |
| Appeal to | Heart | Head |
| Energy | Passion | Control |
| Dynamic | Proactive | Reactive |
| Persuasion | Sell | Tell |
| Style | Transformational | Transactional |
| Exchange | Excitement for work | Money for work |
| Likes | Striving | Action |
| Wants | Achievement | Results |
| Risk | Takes | Minimizes |
| Rules | Breaks | Makes |
| Conflict | Uses | Avoids |
| Direction | New roads | Existing roads |
| Truth | Seeks | Establishes |
| Concern | What is right | Being right |
| Credit | Gives | Takes |
| Blame | Takes | Blames |
Poll Finds 'Leadership Crisis' in America
An recent article published in U.S. News
Posted October 15, 2008
In the midst of a global financial crisis and a lame-duck presidency—and the impending election between Barack Obama and John McCain—80 percent of Americans believe the United States faces a "leadership crisis" today, according to a new poll. Three years ago, that figure was 65 percent.
Another sign of how bad things are: The traditional news media, usually near the bottom of popularity contests, ranked higher on the survey's leadership index than business leaders, Congress, and, in particular, the executive branch, which finished dead last. Confidence in the executive branch plummeted for the third year in a row, with 60 percent of Americans saying it gave them "not much" or "no" confidence, up from 49 percent last year.
The poll, undertaken jointly by the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and the Merriman River Group, asked 997 U.S. citizens about their faith in American leadership today, which of 13 leading sectors they trusted, and how they conceived of the president's role.
Only 2 of 13 sectors—military and medical—won a moderate amount of American confidence. The military's lead has lasted for four years in a row.
"It's a combination of multiple crises all at once and anxiety over the imminent change in our country's leadership," said Seth Rosenthal, the study's main author and a fellow at the center. "People don't know what will happen."
Confidence in business leaders dropped more than in any other sector. Of course, it couldn't have helped that the survey was taken in mid-September—during a market meltdown that included the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, the bailout of insurance giant AIG, and the debate over the $700 billion rescue plan.
Most Americans do see the election as an important watershed for the country. For many, it would bring improvement. Nearly 39 percent of Americans said the country would be better after the election, while 7 percent said "worse." One quarter wrote in that it "depends who wins"—an option that wasn't even included in the question.