I have been reading an outstanding book called ‘The Secrets of CEOs’. The authors, Steve Tappin and Andrew Cave, interviewed 150 top global CEOs who have over 1,000 years of leadership experience between them.
These CEOs believe that the economic downturn will last, at least, until the end of 2009.
These were the CEO top recommendations on how to survive this trying time:
1. Keep the balance sheet strong.
- - Cash is king.
- - Focus on working capital management.
2. Avoid surprises
- - Lay your cards out on the table from the very beginning. Declare current and expected losses early.
- - Make sure people face the bad news
- - Get extra luggage overboard
3. Focus intensely on performance and talent
- - Talented people do not stop being high maintenance simply because there is a downturn. Stop nurturing them at your peril.
4. Catch the tide
- - You need to act fast. Be alert.
- - Manage in real time
- - Develop short and effective communication lines.
5. Be bold
- - The downturn can bring great opportunity – low price mergers, low cost investments.
- - After the downturn, the early bird will get the worm.
‘A manager’s job is to manage in the good times and the bad times. Great managers use difficult times to position for competitive advantage.’
Archie Norman, former CEO of ASDA
The process of developing leaders for the corporate world has to undergo a radical transformation. Old mindsets and methodologies, the tried and tested will fail dismally to produce leaders capable of leading into the future.
In a world that is getting ever smaller cultures collide with increasing frequency. In this world of radical indeterminacy, paradox, diversity and acute uncertainty, leadership needs to transcend local context. In short, the ‘global leadership’ template is being re-written. Relying on what has worked in the past will be the surest recipe for failing in the future and avoiding this fatality requires a radical overhaul of our understanding of the context, task, challenge and measure of the corporate leader. Or in the words of Kenichi Ohmae in his book, The Next Global Stage,”Over the last two decades, the world has changed substantially. The economic, political, social, corporate, and personal rules that now apply bear scant relation to those applicable two decades ago. Different times require a different script.”
Continue reading ‘Developing Corporate Leaders’
I love studying successful people. I watch their body language in interviews, dissect their responses to complex questions, read their autobiographies and pour over commentaries about them so that I can copy some of their techniques and be successful too.
I have just read a transcript of an interview with Warren Buffett at the IMD Business School in Lausanne.
Warren Buffett is such a fascinating person because he is so clever, so rich, so wise and yet so very humble.
He was asked what is the definition of success. His response hits the nail on the head -
I would say success… I’ll tell a story first.
There’s a woman in Omaha. She’s in her eighties. She’s a polish-jew, she’s a wonderful person. She’s a friend of mine. She told me, “Warren, when I look at someone, I am slow to make friends, because at the back of my mind, the question always exists - would they hire me?”
Now I would say this, if you get to be sixty or seventy, my own age, and if you have a lot of people who would hire you, you are a success.
And if you don’t have anyone who’ll hire you, no matter how rich you are; no matter how many honorary degrees you’ve been given; no matter what hospitals you are being named after you – you are a failure.
And it’s another way of saying that many people love you. I have never seen anyone who has loved dozens of people, who is not a success when they get older.
I have seen a number of people who have all the ‘trappings of success’ by the world’s measurement. They are rich and have their names on the newspaper and they isn’t a person on earth who loves them. They can’t be a success.
If you have a lot of people who love you when you are sixty or seventy, then you are a very successful person.
I came across this excellent article by Norman Wolife, President/CEO, Quantum Leaders, a regular contributor for Fast Company.
In it he describes how if you want to catch a wild pig you lay down corn in the forest and over a period of time build a fence one section at a time until the pigs are happy to enter through a gate in the fence to collect their “free food”. Once inside the enclosure the gate is closed trapping the pigs, they run around madly for a while but then calm down and return to the food. It takes some time to hunt like this but at the end of it you have the whole herd captured and not just one pig.
The parable is an interesting one in our western society today especially with the current financial crisis. The fence can be equated to rules and regulations slowly encircling business. Norman argues that we must guard carefully not to fall into the trap of being so dependent on the government that we lose our sense of responsibility and even worse, the very spark of life. On the other end is allowing things to run wild which has led to the financial crisis.
The trick is to find a balance between regulation and freedom and this requires true leadership. As the article points out “The trouble we have in our political system is we keep running back and forth between taming the wild pigs and letting them run wild. Wildness is good for creativity, entrepreneurialism, and the like. You want the free flow of energy to stimulate new innovation. And yet when you have unbounded flow of energy you have chaos, which then has to correct itself. As we learn to work with the powerful flow of societal energies, I believe we can learn to modulate the unbounded flow of energy while not reaching the point of constraining it to where we are limiting its flow.”
The parable’s lesson is not only for society but also for business. How many companies so over manage their projects that they miss out on the innovation and creativity of “running wild”. The lessons from the current crisis and the message for leadership is the importance of finding a balance between rules and regulations and the unbridled freedoms that lead innovation astray.
You can read the full article here
In the wake of the world financial crisis, the analysis of “what went wrong” has started. Not surprisingly, one of the first groups of people singled out is managers. Here are some excellent thoughts from The Economist and the Harvard Business Review.
First, do no harm
Oct 7th 2008
From Economist.com
Do bosses need their own Hippocratic Oath?
ALREADY the managers of many of the world’s leading financial firms have been found wanting. Now, as the world’s economy slows, attention will turn to managers of non-financial firms, to see if they are any better prepared for the rainy day that was bound to come sooner or later.
It will be no surprise if soaring bankruptcies demonstrate that their risk management was just as inept, and just as focused on maximising short-term profits (and their pay packets) without thinking too hard about what would happen when the good times ended.
Why is this failure so unsurprising? In a new article in the Harvard Business Review, Rakesh Khurana and Nitin Nohria, who teach at the Harvard Business School, argue that the problem is literally a lack of professionalism. Contrasting corporate managers with doctors and lawyers, the authors title their article with their argument: “It’s Time to Make Management a True Profession”.
Continue reading ‘Managers, ethics and a commitment for the future’
Imagine being crammed in a room the size of a cupboard with an autocratic boss, who you don’t particularly like or respect. Imagine that you have to sit with him or her in this small, confined space for over 8 hours. You have to get on with the person because your career and 300 people’s lives depend on it.
It sounds like some sort of torture.
My friend Rob is a pilot and he often experiences this. He is a first officer (just below captain) and flies Airbuses.
He said that when he chose his career, he never anticipated the extent to which his diplomacy and people skills would be tested.
Continue reading ‘People problems and pilots’
One of my favourite PodCasts is Business Week - Cover Stories. Editor John Byrne interviews the author of that week’s cover story. On 14 August 2008 the cover story was to do with research Business Week had completed on the most common workplace problems. I particularily liked this one because ‘generational differences’ came up as one of the biggest and most interesting issues.
TomorrowToday in South Africa and the United Kingdom has been researching and working with companies around generational challenges for over 6 years now. We’ve gained a large amount of insight and experience with some very big, medium and small companies, around the world, as they find solutions to the different world views and value systems that each generation brings to the workplace.
Today I enjoyed listening to yet another perspective. I identified with much of what was discussed (although I wished they’d said more). I continue to hold the view that many companies still fail to recognise that generational theory is at the heart of many of their people challenges (talent included). Of course it’s not the only one, but gaining a full understanding of this theory, holds the key to some effective solutions.
To listen to ‘On-the-Job Woes‘ PodCast follow this link.
If you’ve picked up a Financial Times, from time to time, you may have been introduced to Lucy Kellaway. I discovered her while wondering around iTunes looking for interesting PodCasts. And interesting is just one tiny word to describe my journey with Lucy Kellaway.
I know I’m opening myself to plenty by suggesting that she’s my modern equivalent to business that Luther was to the Catholic Church. She’s been a wonderful breath of fresh air, forcing me to be honest about business today. Forcing me to be honest as a consultant working with people who are ‘in there’ each and every day trying their best to make it all work.
Apart from finding the courage to find a way to invite her to South Africa, I’ve also spent a fair amount of energy and headspace wondering plenty about her philosophies around how business works?
Continue reading ‘Lucy Kellaway’
I subscribe to the free e-zine from Wharton Business School. You can sign up and read it online here.
Here is an article about leadership in turbulent times by Gregory Shea and Robert E. Gunther. I highly recommend you read it, and sign up for their e-zine.
In the summer of 2005, a group of a dozen kayakers on a private expedition set out to navigate 225 miles of the Colorado River as it winds through the Grand Canyon. One of the largest rapids in their course is known as “Hermit,” and the guides they met along the way warned that rocks on the riverbed had recently shifted, opening up a churning cauldron of water so ferocious it had already upended a 30-foot motor launch, the water-borne equivalent of a tour bus. Navigating the Hermit would be most difficult for the three rafts packed with supplies for the kayakers on their multi-day excursion.
The leader of the group, who had been down the river twice before, had waited 15 years for a hard-to-obtain private permit for the expedition and then invited a group of more than a dozen paddling friends from the Philadelphia Canoe Club to join him. He led the three rafts and deputized one of the most experienced paddlers to lead the kayakers. Many of the members of the expedition were trained in the basic principles of whitewater rescue but they had not trained at all in meeting the challenge that they would face that day.
Continue reading ‘PERMANENT WHITEWATER: Fluid Leadership in Chaotic Environments’
Organisations are teeming with senior employees, managers and leaders. Why are there so many books on how to be a good leader? It is because truly inspiring, dynamic, visionary ones are difficult to find.
- ‘My manager has no vision.’
- ‘Leadership at my company is shocking.’
- ‘I feel unappreciated.’
- ‘We have no strategic vision’
- ‘My boss never stands up for me.’
- ‘My boss always delegates and is lazy’
Many strategic business failures, people problems and other organizational issues stem from poor leadership.
The Peter Principle provides an explanation for why there are so many ineffective, uninspiring leaders in senior positions in organisations.
Continue reading ‘The depressing reality about many people in leadership positions’
My friends at South Africa: The Good News are writing a new book. A more ambitious project it is “Africa: the Good News”. It will be out in November 2008, and you can order advanced copies at a discount by contacting Leanne Nimmo at leanne@sagoodnews.co.za.
Here is an extract from one of the chapters on leadership. It comes from their latest e-zine.
History has shown time and again that societies are made or broken by the few individuals who lead them.
It is difficult to imagine where the USA would be today without the efforts of one man, Martin Luther King, Jr., who brought about racial equality in that nation. It is also hard to imagine where India would be today without Mahatma Ghandi’s efforts to free his country from colonial rule, or where South Africa would be today without the collective efforts of three people: Nelson Mandela, FW De Klerk & Desmond Tutu.
In the arena of science and technology, it is hard to imagine our world today without the efforts of exceptional individuals like Bill Gates of Microsoft, Steve Jobs of Apple, or Larry Page & Sergei Brin of Google. The same holds true in the fields of education, healthcare, music, drama, journalism and sport. A few individuals change the world. These individuals - the leaders of society - determine the path of history.
Continue reading ‘Leadership matters: Africa’s new leaders herald a new dawn’
Since I’ve been in any form of organization, no matter how big or small, there’s always been an attempt to make a distinction between managers and leaders. There are all kinds of definitions that attempt to make the distinction, like this one from Warren Bennis, “Managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right things.” And for the most part they’ve done a great job convincing us of the difference.
May I suggest that the distinction between the two is not helpful in today’s business environment!
The lines between manager and leader have become very blurred. In this highly pressurised environment there just isn’t time to make the distinction any more. We’re thin on the ground. We need managers to lead and leaders to manage. Perhaps it’s time to scrap both these terms and come up with a new one. Of course that’s not going to happen. There’s too much money to be made by keeping them separate. Step outside of academia for a while and ask those on the ground whether they’re managers or leaders? Their answer is almost always both. And this is not because they’re not smart enough to understand the difference, it’s because today’s business environment requires them to do both and to be both.
Today, almost all of our work functions are highly documented. Is there a business function left in the world that doesn’t have a manual attached to it, showing in accurate detail, how to go about what it is you do whenever you’re doing it? With that much detail why do we need managers? Just follow the manual. Managers in the context of these manuals have become the go-to reference people. You go to your manager when you’re not sure how to interpret the manual, not because you don’t know what to do. Continue reading ‘Leaderment or Manageship’
I was sent a text copy of an article entitled, “The Dawn of the E-Lance Economy: Are big companies becoming obsolete?“, written by Thomas W. Malone and Robert J. Laubacher. A quick online search shows that it was published in the Harvard Business Review in Sep-Oct 1998.
In the article, they talk about companies developing with temporary workers and flexible teams, becoming more networked than hierarchical. It’s a good read - made even more impressive when you realise it was written a full ten years ago, when not everyone had Internet access or would text everyone on anything.
Towards the end, they turn their attention to the implications for management. This is worth reading, even if out of context. See below…
Continue reading ‘Managing Temporary Companies’
My youngest son Sipho arrived home from school the other day having just negotiated a history exam. “Well, how did it go?” I asked. Without so much as breaking his stride, he replied, “Well Dad, I either got 92% or 60%” and with that disappeared into his room leaving an empty and somewhat stunned silence in his wake.
I was left pondering his answer. Answer? What kind of answer was that anyway? I was left with two thoughts: Firstly, Sipho has a bright future in politics and secondly, he did a masterful job at managing parental expectations!
It was the second conclusion that led me to thinking about two of the most important aspects of leadership, namely the need to manage expectations and the need to manage perceptions. Continue reading ‘The Essential Smoke and Mirror of Leadership’
I received an email the other day inviting me to contribute a ‘thought’ or message to a leader newly appointed to the role of CEO. I was one of several people invited to do so and I thought it was a nice touch. Unfortunately, the mail arrived at a time when I was in Thailand on holiday (someone has to do it) and deliberately computerless. By the time I read the invitation, the deadline and opportunity to make a contribution had passed. Ah well, maybe next time.
But I got to think what it is I would have written and decided that this is the message that I would want a new CEO to hear…
Continue reading ‘So, it is your first day in the corner office…’
Dr Graeme Codrington offers insight for South Africans (and others) on how not to be left in the dark when it comes to strategic planning as well as attracting and retaining talented young people with creativity - particularly when traditional solutions aren’t working. Consider how you could use the current load shedding to your advantage!
Continue reading ‘Load shedding lessons (and opportunities)’
Explore four trends that are currently changing the face of business as Keith explains how these trends are resulting in the need for a radical transformation in the process of developing leaders who are capable of leading into the future.
Continue reading ‘Developing corporate leaders’
“Never before has ‘HR’ (Human Resources) been so redundant within the corporation; yet paradoxically, never before has it been more critical.” In this article, Keith Coats offers a viewpoint on how companies can make the transition to the connection economy and arrive in tomorrow’s world with the requisite skills to not only survive but succeed and lead in the business world today.
Continue reading ‘The Great HR Paradox: A Thought Bullet for CEO’s everywhere’
I am sitting in a full day session with Gary Hamel. I didn’t pay enough money to be alone with him, so I am sharing the hall with a few hundred other people, representing many of South Africa’s top corporates and leading businesses. Gary has been great. I enjoy his style (his PowerPoint slides are are shocker, but he is a relaxed and engaging presenter). His content is compelling. He knows his stuff. It’s been woirth the time and money investment.
But it’s now the afternoon tea break, and all around me I hear the same comment: “I’m looking forward to this last session….”. The reason for the anticipation is that Gary has set up things brilliantly in the morning sessions. He has explained the 21st century context, he has shown us why innovation in management processes is a key to sustained success, and he has inspired and excited us to want to innovate and make a change. But he hasn’t told us what to do yet. That’s what everyone thinks is coming now! I think they will be disappointed. OR, I will be disappointed in Gary. Either way, it’s going to be a disappointing end to a great day.
Here’s why.
Continue reading ‘Where’s my silver bullet?’
This article is an excerpt from Connecting Generations: The Sourcebook by Claire Raines (2002).
For more about the work that Claire and her colleagues do, go to her website.
I get questions every month from businesspeople looking for something about the newest generation of workers. They’d like an updated version of Twentysomething or Beyond Generation X, books I wrote in 1991 and 1996. Along with Bruce Tulgan’s Managing Generation X, they’re the classics on managing and motivating young employees. The thing is, the young employees we were talking about in those three books are well established in the workplace today, and the next generation is showing up with a whole new perspective, a different set of values, a distinctive work ethic. They’re as different from Generation X as they can be. By and large, it’s the Gen-Xers who are managing them, and who are looking for help in understanding just what the Millennials are all about. Thus this article. I think you’ll find a fairly comprehensive treatment of Millennial employees.
Continue reading ‘Managing Millennials’
I received this by email from the great lads at SA The Good News. I don#8217;t go with everything they say below, but it#8217;s worth thinking about (especially for our South African readers):
The prospect of a Zuma ANC presidency is becoming more and more of a reality and with it a scenario so long feared by the chattering classes. The prospect of a Zuma ANC presidency is becoming more and more of a reality and with it a scenario so long feared by the chattering classes.
Normally sane, rational people have said things like “If Zuma becomes President, I#8217;m outta here!? and “You#8217;ll really battle to find any “good news”? if Zuma is elected. The country will be screwed.”?
It reminds me of the hysteria and popular opinions that swirled around the suburbs before the 1994 General Election (”You better stock up on water, canned food, guns and ammunition because there#8217;s going to be chaos”?). Similarly, the world wide angst over the Y2K computer bug in the lead up to January 1, 2000 (”Planes are going to drop out of the sky! Nuclear plants will melt down!”?).
Continue reading ‘Beware the Chicken Littles (SA, ANC, Zuma and more)’
Over the years I have been doing presentations about attracting and retaining talent, I have watched global lists of “Best Companies to Work For”. Very consistently, SAS Institute, a privately owned software company based in the USA, has been rated as one of the very best.
One of my favourite quotes about the role of leadership in talent development comes from the CEO, Jim Goodknight, who has said, “Every afternoon at about 5pm, all of the assets of this company leave the building. It is my job to make sure they want to come back in the morning.” Nice!!
The Economist latest edition does a profile on SAS, and indicates that the approach of valuing staff is really reaping some great rewards for this company. Read it here (subscription may be required), or see extracts below.
PS - if I haven’t said so recently, then let me say it again - if you only have time to read one magazine a week, then it must be the Economist!
Continue reading ‘More lessons from SAS Institute’
I met Tim Keel in Uganda last year, where he and I attended a conference. It was about reconciliation, learning leadership lessons from Africa and about postmodern communities of faith. I spent some time with Tim, and really enjoyed his approach to life. At that point, he was just finishing up his latest book. It has now been released, to some acclaim.
Tim is a pastor of a church in the US. So, he writes from a faith community perspective. But his insights about leadership are universal and timely. I highly recommend his book. I have just got it, and am reading through it, so here is a review I received about his book.
Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor, and Chaos
Buy it at Amazon.com
Book Review By Nanette Sawyer
I’ve been hungry for a book like Tim Keel’s Intuitive Leadership . It’s the newest book just out through the emersion books line. Once I opened the book, I ate it up. Like a wonderful feast, I had to force myself to stop eating and set it aside to digest for awhile. And digestible it is. Written with beauty, nuance and a personable style, Keel makes you feel you’re sitting at table with him deeply engaged in a hopeful, passionate conversation about the activity of God in the world and our lives. His insightful accounts of biblical stories shine bright lights into the texts we think we know, but he sees more. As he tells the stories, they shine floodlights into our contemporary situation.
Continue reading ‘Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor, and Chaos’
Following a presentation on Invitational Leadership at a two day workshop for senior leaders at a prominent multi-national, the CEO of the company and Keith Coats engaged in a chat about values and the role they play in a company. He invited Keith to email him some thoughts around the four values his company had framed. Here is Keith’s response. It is an excellent insight into the type of values-driven leadership required in companies today.
Continue reading ‘Dear Yves…a conversation around Values’
This article was first published in the Boardroom magazine, as part of Graeme’s regular column, in March 2007.
Ask anyone and they’ll tell you. There’s a difference between managers and leaders. And there are any number of books, self-help gurus and consultants who will define precisely what that difference is and help those who want to become leaders to do so in 3 (or 7 or 13 or 21) easy steps. The problem is that most people think theyre leaders simply because they made it to the top of their pile. Yet, leadership is much more than this.
Are you a leader?
One of the most quoted leadership experts is Warren Bennis, a popular writer of leadership resources and business professor at the University of Southern California. His distinction between leaders and managers is famous: Managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right things (Learning to Lead: A Workbook on Becoming a Leader, Perseus Books / Addison Wesley, 1997). This various conceptions of the difference is often accompanied by lists of what leaders do (innovate, inspire trust, challenge status quo, seek risks, etc) compared to managers (implement, control, accept status quo, seek comfort and safety, etc).
After reading those lists, it is almost impossible to see managers as anything other than lesser beings than leaders. No wonder then that everyone wants to be a leader! And absolutely no wonder that those at Exco or Board level would not for one minute think that they might not be leaders that they might be nothing more than glorified managers! Yet, this is what many of them are: managers.This may seem like a bold statement, but the world is currently in crisis because of a lack of real leadership in all spheres of life.
The problem is that people with the title of leader often do nothing more than manage. This is true from small departments to large countries.
Continue reading ‘Leadership vs Management: A new look at an old question’
I have been reading an outstanding book called ‘The Secrets of CEOs’. The authors, Steve Tappin and Andrew Cave, interviewed 150 top global CEOs who have over 1,000 years of leadership experience between them.
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