I spend a large part of my year in conversation with managers working hard to try and understand today’s younger workforce. The pain they’re feeling is palpable. The evidence of change is overwhelming. Making the necessary changes, at times, seems impossible. The hope is that the challenges are being interrogated and slowly but surely acted on.

Business Week has a great article called, Working with China’s Generation Y. It’s a well written article that does a fantastic job describing a younger workforce entering today’s business world in China.

In urban China, Gen Y is a group of exceptionally talented people. No other generation in Chinese history has received such high-quality education for so many people. Chinese Gen Ys are single children born under China’s one-child policy. According to studies such as those by Posten and Falbo of the Guttmacher Institute, China’s solo children perform significantly better academically than peers with siblings. These single children have grown up in traditional extended families (including four grandparents and two parents), under pressure since kindergarten to pass entrance exams. This means that the child’s educational performance has been a top priority for six adults.

The article describes the different approach of this younger set and the challenges that face today’s managers (Baby Boomers and Generation X).

For Gen Y, the good boss is like a kung-fu master who stays in the background, teaching through small hints. The good boss is highly available to his employee and has trust in them. He is balanced and nonemotional. He knows how to share his skills without talking much but rather expresses himself in the right dose, at the right time and place. It is not about telling workers what to do but waiting for the right time to drop by their desk and ask: “Have you asked yourself X? Perhaps you might have tried Y?” Difficult to achieve? Yes, but it is important to show Gen Y why they should respect their boss—and then they will.

I often get the sense that the current set of managers are caught between the reality that they will have to adapt their management style, but also hoping (pleading) that this younger set will do the the adapting, instead of the other way around. Attachment to ‘how it’s always been done’ is a powerful anchor for many managers not wanting to do the work required to make the necessary changes.

Bottom line is that change is required in order to ensure a successful business into the future. It may take some time, but it will have to happen. Today’s younger set will not, and can not change sufficiently. For one, they don’t have a view of ‘how it’s always been done’. They only know who they are, and are going to need those older than them to do the shifting.

Related posts:

1. Gen Y in Japan not consumerising Interesting article from CNN Go Asia on 8 Feb...
2. After Shock: the five trends disrupting business in the next 5 years Updated in March 2010 (now with an added Executive...
3. A Conversation around Google and China I began a brief e-mail conversation recently with my...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” So goes the question embedded in the fanciful world of a children’s tale and a question that hauntingly stalks most of us for the remainder of our adult journey. Not that we would admit to such for over the years, not only have we learnt how to conceal and disguise the question, we have learnt to train the mirror into giving us the answer we wish to hear.  Hearing the truth? Now that is real fantasy!

For those in leadership it is a question that provides the yardstick of measurement, recognition and reputation. With so much at stake, it is the question that demands the answer, “why of course, you are”- be that true or not.

The real problem is not the question but rather the expectation surrounding the answer.  Perhaps it is the blatant denial or angry response to the answer – the one at least that fails to deliver the expected – that is in need of attention. And so, the mirror, weary of abuse and fearful of being shattered, has learnt to simply reply, “why of course, you are” every time the question is asked.

Honest feedback is hard to hear and often harder to give. Yet it is the lifeblood that fuels both personal development and organizational growth. Why then do so many keep asking the question yet refuse to hear any answer until they get the one that they want to hear? It happens all the time and so ‘the voice of the mirror’ learns to play by the rules and follow the script, until all authenticity and meaning is stripped away and the dance can continue undisturbed.

As a Leader, when last did you solicit and receive feedback that wasn’t what you wanted to hear or that you hadn’t anticipated? As a leadership team, when last did you invite feedback that might call into question your practice and effectiveness? Getting honest feedback is hard and don’t believe the delusion that the absence of feedback is an indication that all is well. It normally means that you are out of touch with those around you. David Novak, CEO of Yum Brands once said, “If you see people looking around in meetings, waiting for you to speak, that’s a telltale sign they aren’t being open. I want leaders who can push back. We have training programmes to encourage employees to discuss the undiscussable, even if others don’t want to hear it” (Fortune, April 20, 2009, p16)

The acid test of all this is to simple ask when last, as a Leader, you felt defensive concerning feedback you received. If you cannot recall such a moment then the chances are good that you have not been the recipient of the kind of feedback that contains an embedded invitation to personal growth. It is that simple. Of course the challenge then becomes avoiding being impaled on your  own defensiveness – and that is easier said than done. Recognizing such defensiveness represents the first step on a journey in this direction of being the beneficiary of authentic feedback. Sadly, it is a journey on which many in leadership fail to embark.

The compelling reason or motivation for Leaders to do all they can to ensure honest feedback is that it becomes the very essence of strategic leadership. The ability to gather, entertain, evaluate and act on information lies at the heart of making good decisions about the future. Often when the desired outcomes do not materialize, the process flaw is to be found in poor data or information. An organizational culture that doesn’t encourage open and honest feedback can have devastating consequences at not just a personal leadership level, but at an operational level as well. Information alone will not ensure that Leaders and those they lead will adapt and change sufficiently in order to meet the challenges of a changing world. For that to happen they will be required to adapt their behavior, but the platform on which adaptive behavior is build, is good information. Leading change is the leader of the future’s primary responsibility and to do this, the Leader has to be the recipient of honest and reliable feedback and information.

It is the Leader’s responsibility to create the appropriate climate for honest feedback. It is the Leader who ‘gives permission’ for those in the near vicinity to say what it is they really think and feel without fear of reprisal. Others watch and note the Leader’s response and then regulate their own responses accordingly when it is their turn to be ‘the mirror’.  If you don’t get feedback, if a silence greets your every invitation to share thoughts and ideas, or if the responses always seem to mirror your select ideas and thoughts…then, as a Leader, you have a problem. You have a mirror that has learnt to tell you what it is you want to hear and you are to blame, not the mirror. Leaders need to create a ‘safe place’ in which authentic feedback can be freely shared.

The use of social media can be one way to create such a safe place especially for a younger generation for whom this media represents a natural way of communication. Herein lies another challenge for many leaders: the use of ‘social media’. There is a truism that states, ‘technique will always lag technology’. It is true that the technology horizon will always appear tantalizingly beyond the reach of most leaders, yet the apparent extent of the gap is cause for concern. Some leaders even take pride in their computer illiteracy, as if it is noteworthy that they haven’t fallen prey to the all-consuming technology trap. The problem is that this ignorance can prohibit access to information and feedback that can be channeled through various forms of social networking technologies, thereby blocking a potentially valuable and viable medium for such information and feedback.  Smart leaders see themselves a ‘learners’ and the often-fearful world of technology offers an excellent playground to test the learning mentality. It represents a wonderful opportunity for leaders to engage in learning activities and sends out a strong message to those around them.  By being open to feedback through such means leaders open themselves to entirely new and fresh sources from which feedback can be solicited.

Astute leaders will constantly be asking themselves three questions when it comes to feedback?

1. How do I know whether I am hearing the truth?
2. What can I do to encourage open and honest dialogue?
3. What do I do with the feedback I get?

There are no easy answers to these important questions and much will be determined by the prevailing organizational culture that the leader has established.  One thing the leader can do is to talk to as many employees as possible and listen to what they have to say. Intel has what they call ‘skip level meetings’ where managers meet with employees two levels down. Campbell Soup CEO, Doug Constant, regularly has lunch with groups of 12 employees at a time from across the company and asks for their opinions and perspectives on what is happening within the company.

Creating forums for everyone within the business to be able to share what it is they experience and see will be necessary for not only attracting ‘Talent’ in the future, but for ensuring that you put the inherent diversity within your business to work. Much is made today of the need to embrace the cultural diversity inherent within most organizations. Writing on the issue of cultural diversity in his book The Gatekeeper, Terry Eagleton, a former Oxford English Professor, states, “If cultural diversity is part of what makes life worth living, it has also brought a great many lives to a bloody conclusion. The call to celebrate such diversity is nowadays the merest cliché in the mouths of theorists and politicians; but it is only when cultural difference can be taken for granted, rather than defiantly affirmed, that it will have ceased to be a source of conflict.” This is no easy terrain that leaders have to negotiate and reliable feedback represents life-giving water in what often proves to be a it baron wasteland. Leaders will need to show that they value differing opinions and then use such feedback in helping navigating the often difficult terrain that is leadership.

Quantum Mechanics teaches that information both informs as well as forms us. Information is the lifeblood of the organization to change, innovate, collaborate, adapt and learn. On a personal level it is the same. As a Leader you need to understand this and ensure you do all you can to create healthy information and feedback currents within your organization…and it starts with you!

Now out you go and ask someone what they think…what they really think. Be ready for a few surprises!

Related posts:

1. Mirror, Mirror on the Wall – the essential role of feedback for the Leader “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of...
2. Learners with Disabilities It was an interesting sign to have on the...
3. The Challenge for New Leaders Before a new era can come into being, there...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Behaviourist B.F. Skinner maintained that education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten. There has been much written about the need to create learning organisations and more resources than fleas on a stray dog have been spent on leadership formation (learning) within organisations. The fact that leadership formation assumes such a high priority within most organisations is fully justified but in terms of how it is done, is it money well spent?

In the face of this learning avalanche, a nagging question persists: Is the effort surrounding leadership formation producing learning or education (as per Skinner’s definition)?  In other words, are organisations and the individuals within them, better off for all the attention on leadership development? Are our leadership programmes really making a significant impact on the way we think, do business, and live our lives?

If, in the context of our leadership development programmes, it is real education we are after, then we can learn something from Harvard psychologist and educator, Howard Gardner.  Gardner argues that education shifts are the result of several factors. It stands to reason then that understanding these factors that serve as the driving forces underpinning educational shifts, will provide valuable insights for companies serious about leadership formation.

Firstly, there is the shift in values. In broad terms this shift has seen education relocate from a religious base to that of a secular one. Significantly education is fundamentally and primarily a values undertaking. If you wish to know something of a company’s values, look no further than its approach to leadership development. However, there has also been another significant value shift that companies ignore at their peril. I am referring to the value shift that has occurred across the respective generations. As these generations meet in the workplace there is an often paradoxical collision between their respective values.

Generational Theory presupposes that the different behaviour exhibited by the respective generations is due to a differing set of values driving that behaviour. What this means is that companies which are serious about developing leaders need to pay careful attention as to how the shift in values impacts the development, structure and delivery of their programmes. For one thing there needs to be move away from a content based approach to leadership development to one that places more emphasis on process and outcomes. This means that leadership processes need to replace leadership programmes and an understanding that the content aspect of leadership development is the ‘easy part’. Learning about process and how an individual or group can assume responsibility for their own learning (education) are far tougher undertakings.  This is a realisation that is still to be learnt by many business schools and academic institutions which persist in content-driven curriculum at the expense of a focus on process and outcomes. Instead of ceremonies to hand-out certificates of learning, there should be ceremonies of ‘certificate burning’ to symbolize the commitment to a journey begun rather than one ended! Radical perhaps, but it would serve to strike a chord and certainly make a point. If you ever come across such an event please do invite me.

A second shift-driver is that of science. Specifically how scientists have come to understand how humans learn. A simple way to express the shift is from intelligence to intelligences. In other words, a move away from the centuries old view that there is a single thing called intelligence – which varies in its development from person to person, to that of seeing people in procession of multiple ‘intelligences’.(This of course doesn’t apply to those in the  developmental stage we refer to as adolescence!) A derivative of the ‘single intelligence’ has been to adopt a uniform approach to learning where everyone is treated equally when it comes to their capacity to absorb and appropriate the input received.  It is a ‘one size fits all’ kind of approach which is stubbornly resisting relinquishing its dominant position in a world characterised by acts of urban terror and rising xenophobia. The new scientific insights will affect a philosophy towards learning which is far more individualistic. The growing emphasis will be on finding out as much information about the person as possible and designing a learning process that is congenial to that specific individual, aided of course by advances in technology. This tailor-made approach will become the template for developing leaders in the context of the emerging Connection economy.

This shift will impact approaches to both teaching and learning; it will also require nimbleness and adaptability from the design to the implementation when it comes to leadership development within companies. Companies in the habit of outsourcing the responsibility of leadership education to consultants and business schools had better pay close attention to the philosophy and methodology employed by those tasked with such responsibility.

A third shift-driver is that of globalization. This reality is demanding a new breed of leader. Anyone hoping to lead in a world colliding with itself at every intersection will need to attain new levels of interpersonal intelligence and multicultural understanding. The old frameworks simply no longer work. Learning from the future will supersede learning from the past in much the same way that talent is replacing experience when it comes to what companies are looking to acquire. Does this mean there is nothing we can learn from the past or that experience is totally redundant?

Of course not.

But companies need to recognise the new requirements and check whether or not they are making the necessary adjustments. This is not just fine-tuning that we are talking about. Here’s a tip: When last did you have a programme / process that failed? If you can’t recall one the chances are that your company isn’t doing enough in making this adjustment… give yourself a ‘F’ on your balanced scorecard! Responding to forces of globalisation and respecting the diversity of culture and belief systems is neither easy nor optional. How is your company going about this? What conversations are you having within your company concerning this paradoxical challenge?

As we consider these three shift-drivers is it any wonder that leadership development takes on a whole new complexion? In my experience companies worldwide are simply not doing enough thinking when it comes to how to develop leadership within the complexity of our current reality. Far too many programmes are captive to old thinking and paradigms. Not enough authentic conversation is taking place and we are hiding behind sophisticated developmental tools and machinery that is costly, ineffective and redundant. The implications of abandoning it are intimidating but the consequences of not doing so could prove fatal. This paralysis pervades not merely the halls of academia but the corridors of business.

I have just returned from two high level leadership development programmes in two companies from very different industries. Both companies are leaders in their respective industries, both are blue-chip organisations and both are multinationals. But sadly, in both cases the shadow cast by the legacy of a content-driven approach to ‘learning’ was all too apparent. Impressive programmes with big budgets but I fear programmes where little real ‘education’ will ensue and ones with questionable outcomes.

We need education: that which survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten. The challenge is not the lack of teachers but the lack of awareness (the Buddhists have a saying that when the learner is ready the teacher appears). This task will take time and so, in the words of one French military leader, “In that case we had better start today”.

Why not make an appointment with some participants of a leadership development programme your company is running, take them to lunch, and ask them – really ask them, what they think of what they are experiencing. You may be surprised!

Acknowledgements:

Globalization: Culture and Education in the new Millenium: Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco and Desiree boalian Qin-Hilliard

How Education Changes: Considerations of History, Science and Values: Howard Gardner        

Related posts:

1. Savvy Leadership: Leading in the Connection Economy Challenged recently to ‘frame’ a leadership development process has...
2. From Hawaii: What Survives? Education is what survives when what has been learnt...
3. From Hawaii: The Real Learning for Teams Had an insightful conversation today. As with any education...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I came across a fantastic post today that provides excellent leadership and company case studies. Here are some of the headline learning’s I’ve taken from this article:

- reward your staff during tough times: During 9/11 SouthWest announced a $179.8 million profit sharing payment to employees.
- Be human, approachable, genuine and transparent: Toyota’s CEO Jim Lentz appeared on a Digg Dialogg (an often hositle forum to corporate companies). The questions were asked in order of votes made by digg members, and none were filtered.
- Be humble and challenge the “nasty” stuff about your industry even if it means retaliation by the established players. Consumers will appreciate the honesty and reward you
- Don’t pay yourself excessive salary. Jim Sinegal CEO of Costco figured he shouldn’t be paid more than 12 people working on the floor. See also my colleague Graeme’s post A Radical Proposal for Executive Pay
- Trust your staff – At a time when the idea of “business blogging” was brand new (and usually feared), IBM encouraged their 320,000 employees to start company blogs. IBM leadership drafted a corporate blogging policy that encouraged employees to be themselves, speak in first person, and respect their coworkers.
- Perhaps the simplest but most powerful… always listen first, and speak last.

You can also read at Open Forum

Feb 24, 2010 -
Great leadership can be hard to come by. With all the politics and blaming that can go on within an organization, many companies are lacking good, solid leadership from people who are willing to stick to their word.

That’s why it’s always refreshing to see examples of great leadership in our society. Here are 10 examples of top-notch leadership from leaders who ultimately led by example, letting their actions (and bottom lines) speak for themselves.

1. How Southwest Handled 9/11

Southwest is known for their customer service. In an industry fraught with awful customer service, Southwest distanced itself from other airlines by putting the customer first, no matter what the situation.

On September 11, 2001, airlines were forced to shut down for days while the rest of the nation recovered from the terrorist attacks. This meant that all airline passengers, flight attendants and pilots were stranded with the planes across the country. Instead of merely sitting and waiting, Southwest employees were encouraged to take passengers bowling or to the movies to pass the time.

Many airlines started cutting jobs in the months following 9/11. The airline industry had been badly damaged, and many airlines were forced to cut their workforce by up to 20%. Instead of following the trend, Southwest made an announcement only three days after 9/11 that Southwest would be keeping all of their employees and starting a $179.8 million profit sharing payment to employees.

Southwest CEO James Parker believed that because Southwest had built their company on sound business principles for the past 30 years, they were able to handle crisis better than other airlines.

2. Toyota’s Digg Transparency During The Recall

Toyota recently announced that they would have to recall 2.3 million vehicles for faulty brakes. Outrage ran rampant across the media and public. Complaints were filed and lawsuits were made. It appears as if the Toyota brand has been tarnished for many years to come.

Instead of letting a PR team handle the issue with only press statements and interviews, Toyota turned quickly and offered a live conversation on one of the most popular communities on the web: Digg.

The community behind the social news site Digg is generally quite hostile to corporations. So it came as a shock to many that the Toyota CEO Jim Lentz would appear on a Digg Dialogg to be asked all sorts of questions about the company and the recall. Over a thousand hard questions were submitted from consumers and even past employees, and Mr. Lentz answered as many as possible in the given time. The questions were asked in order of votes, and none were filtered. It was a totally transparent interview.

While the fallout of the recent recalls are massive, Toyota’s openness will greatly help with minimizing the damage to the company’s reputation.

3. The Redfin Blog Saved the Company

Glenn Kelman knows a thing or two about being humble. In fact, it’s a method he’s utilized to successfully bring his company into the online real estate industry.

Redfin is an online real estate brokerage firm that gives back two-thirds of the commission that traditional agents charge. Real estate agents hated it, and started blacklisting anyone who used the service.

So, instead of keeping the problem quiet, Kelman started a company blog that focused on many of the awful aspects of the real estate business. He also posted about internal struggles within the company, and even criticized himself on many occasions. The blog was raw and authentic.

Customers loved the transparency. They appreciated the fact that a CEO could make fun of himself and the dirty parts of his industry. Since starting the Redfin blog in 2006, business has grown dramatically. Kelman gave his reasoning to the openness in a Wired article.

“I honestly believe that if Redfin were stripped absolutely bare for all the world to see, naked and humiliated in the sunlight, more people would do business with us.”

And they have.

4. Costco’s CEO is the Normal Guy

Over the past five years Jim Sinegal has shepherded his company Costco to impressive returns. Costco’s stock has doubled, and revenues continue to grow at an impressive rate.

Yet Sinegal might be better known as a man of the people at Costco. His name tag plainly says “Jim,” he answers his own phone, and his plain office at the company headquarters doesn’t even have walls. While other CEO’s are spending tens of thousands of dollars just decorating their offices, Sinegal’s pays himself a yearly salary of $350,00. Most CEOs of large company are paid in the millions. His simple contract is only a page long, and even includes a section that outlines how he can be terminated for not doing his work.

So how did he come up with that number? He figured he shouldn’t be paid more than 12 people working on the floor.

His employee turnover rate is the lowest in the retail industry, over five times less than rival Wal-Mart. In an age where CEOs are paid in the millions and would never be seen in the “trenches,” Jim Sinegal is an anomaly. And his workers love him for it.

5. How Starbucks’ CEO Handled Company Tragedy

Starbucks is known for its exceptional treatment of employees, offering things like insurance to even part-time workers. When tragedy struck the company, it’s no surprise that their CEO was able to comfort a hurting store and community.

In 1997 three employees were killed in a bumbled robbery of one of their Washington D.C. stores. Instead of issuing a press release or calling legal counsel, CEO Howard Schultz flew straight to D.C. and spent the entire week with the employees and their families in the area. Schultz’s compassion and incredible leadership helped heal those closest to the tragedy.

6. IBM Encourages Blogging

At a time when the idea of “business blogging” was brand new (and usually feared), IBM encouraged their 320,000 employees to start company blogs. IBM leadership drafted a corporate blogging policy that encouraged employees to be themselves, speak in first person, and respect their coworkers.

The result? A marketing bonanza for IBM. Their company blogs are some of the most trusted technology blogs and generate tons of pageviews and links back to IBM. Instead of fearing the new technology, IBM embraced it, making their customers and employees very happy.

7. How Nelson Mandela’s Father Made Tribal Decisions

Nelson Mandela is easily the most recognizable name in the Mandela family. Few people know of Mandela’s adoptive father, Chief Jongintaba. Mandela credits Chief Jongintaba as a major source of leadership learning, and Mandela learned how to make important decisions based on how his father interacted with his tribe.

Chief Jongintaba was a tribal king, and would frequently hold meetings of the court. Men from all walks of life would gather in a circle and express their opinion. The Chief waited until every everyone had spoken before he would enter the conversation.

Mandela would later use his father’s technique, gathering leaders at his kitchen table or in his driveway and holding discussions. Mandela would always listen first, and speak last.

8. TDIndustries Avoids Bankruptcy by Trusting Employees

TDIndustries is employee-owned and consistently on Forbes’ Best Companies to Work For list. But the company almost didn’t make it through the late 1980’s without savvy leadership.

Many Texas banks were failing in the late 1980’s, and TDIndustries was hurting greatly by the lack of funds needed to do large construction jobs. The company leadership informed their employees that instead of filing for bankruptcy, they were going to pay out the Defined Retirement Plan to its employees, and asked employees to use that money to reinvest into the company.

Because of the company’s transparency and trust in their employees, the employees responded by giving back 30% more than what the company asked for. The money helped stabilize the company, and they weathered the rough financial spell.

9. Sun’s CEO Fights for Internet Transparency

Jonathan Schwartz recently resigned his post at Sun with a Haiku tweet. While he was at Sun though, he was a major proponent of more transparency from CEOs. Schwartz was one of the first Fortune 500 CEOs to start a blog and opened up large companies to an excellent example of corporate blogging.

One of Schwartz’s biggest moves as CEO was hosting a public debate on openness for companies on the Internet. Schwartz and SEC chairman Christopher Cox had an open debate on their blogs about the Regulation Fair Disclosure not including the Internet (or blogs like Schwartz’s). By fighting for more openness from the SEC, Schwartz gave other customers and companies reason to trust his leadership.

10. Toro Adds Empathy to a Lawsuit Policy

Toro was going through major financial troubles in the late 1980’s, and after a series of firings placed Ken Melrose as the CEO. Melrose was able to cut serious costs on lawsuits against the company by making a slight change: he added empathy.

Toro manufactures commercial lawn and golf course management equipment, and because of the machinery experiences many lawsuits. The company yearly sees around 100 serious injuries on average. Toro started sending a company representative to meet with the injured person and their family to see what went wrong, express the company’s sympathy and try to attend to any needs the injured family might have.

Before they instituted the change, around half of the injuries resulted in a lawsuit. After the change, that number dropped to only a single lawsuit since 1991.

Related posts:

1. Are you working for a TALENTED COMPANY, or do you know of examples? I’m on a quest to find companies that are...
2. After Shock: the five trends disrupting business in the next 5 years Updated in March 2010 (now with an added Executive...
3. CEO’s views on leadership in Tough times Here are some quotes from the CEO’s of leading...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Everyone agrees that something must be done about executive pay. One of the major contentious issues emerging out of the financial crisis is the way that senior executives and manager, especially in the financial industries, are remunerated. These days, executive pay often seems to be unrelated to the company’s performance, and in many industries it seems out of proportion to the value the company adds to society.

A century ago, executives earned anywhere between 3 and 20 times what the average worker in their factories earned. According to research by global human capital and risk management firm, Towers Perrin (now Towers Watson), in 1965, CEO pay was 26 times that of their average worker. This is looking at the total packages, rather than base salary. By 1980, this had risen to 40 times. In 1989, it was 72 times. In 1999 it had risen to 310 times, and by 2004 CEO pay had reached 500 times that of the average worker in their firm. In some companies by 2010, this had jumped to over 1,000 times. (In pure salary terms, in 2008, US executives took home 319 times more than the average worker, according to a report linked to the Guardian’s salary survey).

For example, the most highly paid chief executive in the UK last year was Bart Becht of Reckitt Benckiser who received £36.8m in pay, bonuses, perks and share incentive schemes (all well deserved, as his company showed strong growth during the downturn). But, that’s 1,374 times more than that of the average lowest paid full-time employee in the company that he leads.

Despite the current recession which has led to FTSE 100 companies losing almost a third of their value, executives at Britain’s top companies saw their basic salaries rise by 10% in 2009. The UK Guardian’s annual survey of boardroom pay reveals that the average chief executive of a FTSE 100 company in 2009, earns a pay package of about £ 2 million. Nearly a quarter of FTSE chief executives received total pay packages in excess of £5m. To put it another way, by 2000 a CEO earned more in one workday (there are 260 in a year) than what the average worker earned in 52 weeks. By 2010, they were doing this in one morning’s work.

So, here is the radical proposal. (I curse those that think my original thoughts before me. In doing research for this article, I discovered that none other than Peter Drucker had suggested this many years ago):

CEO salaries should be capped at 20 times that of the lowest paid workers in their companies.

There are many benefits to this approach, including the likely rising of the wages of the lowest workers, and an increase in motivation and engagement within most companies. Executive pay is out of control at the moment, and the arguments in favour of these excessive payments don’t actually ring true.

For more reading on this emotive issue, see:

An excellent PDF article is available from the Institute for Policy Studies – it deals with eight myths around CEO and executive pay. A great read!

A similar article is available from the CEO.com website – read it here.

Related posts:

1. Good leaders share the pain with their teams This coming year is likely to see continued difficulties...
2. Best performing CEO’s in the world Morten T. Hansen, Herminia Ibarra, and Urs Peyer have...
3. Are you working for a TALENTED COMPANY, or do you know of examples? I’m on a quest to find companies that are...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

“Its your turn” accompanied by a rib-breaking jab to my side proved to be a sure antidote to any further sleep and left me in no doubt that to protest would be about as successful as Custer’s last stand. Arising from the fog of coma-like slumber when all the sane world is sleeping is never easy but doing so was aided by the knowledge that unless rapid progress in this direction was made, further collateral damage could be expected. As my mind and body desperately tried to find each other I locked onto the source of this intrusion into my sleep: Keegan’s cries of “Daddy, Daddy” were unmistakable as they were persistent. As I made my way to his room I wondered just how to ensure that in the future night calls could be rewired to “Mommy, Mommy” and “Daddy, Daddy” reserved for daylight saving only. Programming this kind of software into kids could make me a hero, a rich hero to millions of fathers all around the world I thought to myself; I would become a legend amongst men. Arrival at my destination curtailed any further development in this line of thought but I did undertake to return to this potentially ingenious plan.

“Daddy, there’s a lion in my room” was what I was greeted with as I popped my head around the door and instantly I understood why it was me that had been called to duty. Lion-tamer, Superdad, a life-threatening situation that required only the bravest of the brave…a job for Dad! A exhaustive search ensued, one that I might add Keegan watched wide-eyed from the safety of his bed interrupted only by him offering some suggestions that had me looking in places that no self-respecting man-eater would choose to hide – a pencil case for one.

Eventually, the search concluded I submitted my report: no lion, to a clearly doubtful client and turned to leave the room and return to the sleep that I had left there. It was as I turned off the light that I heard Keegan mutter to himself, “Of course there is a lion here, I see him every time I close my eyes”

Seeing what others see when they close their eyes is something leaders who know how to inspire vision and nurture dreamers need to be able to do.

Organizations need the dreamers, the fringe thinkers, the people who see things others don’t. It is often the case that these people are not an easy fit in organizations and one is tempted to wish life without them. Ricardo Semler in his book Maverick writes that every company should be paying someone to be looking out the window. To be taking in the big picture, to be surveying the landscape, to be dreaming as to what could be. Often leaders are under pressure to be this person, the person with their eyes wide shut. However this isn’t necessarily the best place for leaders but you do need to ensure someone is doing this and when their report is given and the lion spotted, the leader needs to be the one who declares loudly and clearly, “well why not!”

Such leaders are often known as visionaries.

Related posts:

1. Seeing the world through your customer’s eyes – your key to growing your business I regularly write articles for magazines and journals. Some...
2. Why Generation X has the right kind of leaders for today I recently discovered an author and generational expert, Tammy...
3. The Challenge for New Leaders Before a new era can come into being, there...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Challenged recently to ‘frame’ a leadership development process has led me to set out the following offering. Having had the opportunity to participate in several international leadership formation programmes I am, for the most part, left with a disquiet that is hard to articulate.

For one thing much of leadership formation is seen as a progamme rather than a process. Now, some might howl indignantly at this accusation and accuse me of splitting hairs or just playing with words. Perhaps they are right but let me give you an example of what I am getting at and you can make-up your own mind.

The ‘progamme mentality’ drives towards an end result. ‘Complete the programme and you have a leader’ is basically how it goes. Not too dissimilar I might add to a recipe which instructs the user to simply add some water, shake well and presto…you have the finished product.  Most programmes end with some or other certificate just to prove the point. As a consequence of this programme-obsessive approach is a surplus of leadership formation programmes but a dearth of leaders equipped to lead in an unforgiving and bewilderingly complex world. One of the more tangible outcomes of this approach is leaders who understand leadership as a qualification and a position rather than a process and about character. It has tended to produced a generation of leaders who emerge from such programmes with only answers and tragically few questions; leaders who now ‘know how to lead’ rather than inquiring leaders who realize that they are only at the beginning of the process in what will be a life-long pursuit.

Perhaps I am being somewhat harsh and of course I am generalizing here but I do believe that anyone taking an honest look at the majority of leadership formation programmes and the curriculum served in such hot-houses, will arrive at similar conclusions. I know because, as I said, I get to participate in many of these programmes. One shinning exception is that of the Asia Pacific Leadership Program (APLP) based at the East West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii. But that is another story on its own.

I subscribe to the school of thought that suggests that for the most part leaders are made rather than born. (after all every leader is born!) I also believe that everyone is a leader. If the core of leadership has to do with influence, then the potential for all to be leaders is obvious. I also believe that ‘learning leadership’ is a life-long process, one which starts with self-awareness. But we will return to this point a little later.

Back to the challenge then of setting out a leadership formation framework. I believe that there are three essential areas which leaders need to explore in the process of developing their leadership capacity. Some of the things commonly taught within the respective leadership schools and programmes have a legitimate place in aspects of these three areas so please don’t hear me say that everything that is currently taught within leadership programmes is of no value!  Exploring each of these three areas, asking questions as to how best to develop the desired attitudes and actions would be the work needed in adding substance to the framework

The first area is what leaders need to see.

Leaders need to work at an understanding of the big shifts that take place which impact on their context. It has become trite to talk about change and the need for leaders to adapt or die. We also know that change has changed and that shift happens. However leaders have the responsibility to find appropriate frameworks that enable them to make sense of the major shifts taking place, shifts that will invariably impact on both their context and how they lead. Although some of these might be industry specific these are not the only shifts that I am referring too. It is seemingly obvious that any leader would need to understand and pay close attention to shifts within their particular industry. Obvious perhaps, but amazingly we all know of instances where this wasn’t the case.

Ricardo Semler (in his book Maverick) writes about the need for every company to be paying somebody be ‘looking out the window’.  It a point I have often mentioned in various articles on leadership. Smart leaders aren’t necessarily the ones to be looking out the window but they ensure someone is doing so and they then pay careful attention to what it is that the window-gazer has to report. Contextualizing that information, from the reliable source, becomes the work of the leader. Making sense of the big shifts, being ahead of the game, anticipating changes and how they impact on their context is work that no leader can afford to ignore. At a practical level this means that leader needs to extract him/herself from the ‘hands-on’ operational trap that seems to ensnare so many in leadership.

There would be many frameworks that leaders could use when it comes to determining what it is they need to see. For instance there is the transition from the information economy to that of the connection economy. This has been the subject of several past TomorrowToday.biz ezine articles and is perhaps one of the most important frameworks for leaders to understand. The significant thing about major transitions, and this one is no exception, is that the rules of the game change. Failure to comprehend the impact of the rules changing can result in a company, an industry and even a country becoming obsolete, irrelevant or cast in the role of playing ‘catch-up’. Other frameworks through which to survey the big picture in order to contextualize the impact would include that of technology and globalization. There are others that different academic disciplines offer but I think you get the picture. The question is, ‘what framework are you currently engaging in order to lead into the future?’

The second area is what leaders need to know.

Here I believe there are only two areas in which leaders need to find relevant frameworks and cultivate skills. “Only two – whew…that’s great!” I can hear you sigh.

But (there is always a ‘but’ isn’t there!), they are both big areas! In a nutshell the two ‘need to know’ areas for leaders everywhere are: leaders need to know themselves and they need to know others. There have been those for whom this link (that between self-awareness and leadership) has been familiar territory for centuries. In his book, Heroic Leadership Chris Lowney looks at the best practices from a 450 year-old company (The Jesuits) that he was a part of for many years prior to becoming an executive of J.P. Morgan. Lowery offers a refreshing take on leadership in what he describes as the ‘crowded field of leadership gurudom’ (p11) in which he emphasizes what the Jesuits have known all along – you cannot dislocate self-awareness from leadership. To do so is to create a façade that inevitably will be found out. Growth in self-awareness is an invitation to character development. Character development is an implicit part of authentic leadership.

Again there are several frameworks with which to explore self-awareness. My favorite is that of the ‘enneagram’ and perhaps it is no coincidence that the enneagram is embedded within the Jesuit tradition. The point is…what framework are you using?

The natural overflow of self-awareness is the curiosity that seeks a genuine understanding of others. A need to know what underpins the behaviour and attitudes of those with whom we share space. An inquiry that seeks to understand others in order to be understood, as Covey emphasizes as one of his seven habits (Seven Habits of Highly Effective People)     

Essentially that is all leaders really need to know. But, both invite lifelong pursuits and take no small amount of courage and persistence. And here there needs to be a ‘warning’: there are no short-cuts!

The final area is what it is leaders need to be.

Here there are several things that one could add. I have only populated this final area with one point but I am sure I will add more in time (however I will do so with caution to avoid a daunting list that others are left feeling there is nothing to contribute).

The one thing leaders need to be? They need to be Storytellers.

It will be the stories that will increasingly attract and hold people together. We live our stories and are defined by our stories. We frame our reality through our stories. Leaders will come to appreciate the importance of sharing their own stories and creating the space for others to d the same. In a Connection economy, it will be the stories and how they are both lived and told that will determine why people should buy your produce / service and why they should work for you. If you don’t believe me, when last did you have a discussion with any 20-30 year old about their take on life, work and what it is they look for?

As to the place and importance of stories, as the ‘Director of Storytelling’ for TomorrowToday.biz I can believe nothing else!

Related posts:

1. Are you wasting your money on leadership development? Behaviourist B.F. Skinner maintained that education is what survives...
2. Leadership Thought: Ordering Steak Whilst Working With Vegetables Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of Britain, made no...
3. How’s That! 4 Leadership Tips for Leaders Everywhere from Gary Kirsten In the February edition of Sports Illustrated, Gary Kirsten...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Management in today’s organisational environment is no easy endeavor. The number of new elements that need to be negotiated and integrated in order to develop an effective management style are numerous as they are unchartered. The environment in which we work has shifted dramatically in the past 10 years. Business ‘how-to’ books are barely keeping pace as fresh challenges surface and new thinking emerges around how to survive and thrive as a manager.

Because of my business focus within TomorrowToday, I often encounter baby-boomer managers struggling to adapt to and accept the increasingly larger number of Generation X (and smattering of Generation Y) found within the workforce. Mostly it’s the vast difference in world view and value system that’s causing the angst. Boomers have done a fantastic job managing boomers. They’ve created systems, processes, management styles, reward philosophies, motivation programmes, etc that have resulted in tremendous growth and increased efficiency. As this younger group have entered the work force, they’re simply not responding and engaging in ways that Boomers have become accustomed to.

A large part of my work is assisting both of these groups (Boomers and Gen X) to appreciate their own and each other’s world views, as together we navigate this New World of Work. It’s key for all parties NOT to adopt a ‘wrong/right’ filter in this debate. Attempting to place a wrong/right label on either group just escalates the tension and ultimately never finds a resolution. I’ve found it far more helpful to frame this engagement as a ‘war of two wisdoms’. Baby-Boomer wisdom has got us here, and Gen X wisdom will take us forward. Because the ‘gap’ between these two generations is, at times fairly large, it’s critical that these two wisdoms are intentionally integrated into each other in order to avoid simply letting ‘nature’ take its course, as we wait for the younger lions to force the older lions out of the pride. This scenario, in my mind, will leave much destruction and wasted time and energy in its wake.

So, with a ‘multiple-wisdom’ filter, here are three tips for older managers to effectively manage their younger colleagues:

•    Often, Gen X and Y’s confidence far outstrips their emotional and cognitive ability. They can appear extremely capable, talk up a good game, but then struggle to deliver the goods. Keep in mind that they’re a ‘Just do it’ and ‘I can’ generation. Their parents and their peers have driven an ‘anything is possible’ mindset into them. Your options are to ‘bring them down to size’ or to guide them to achieving things you were never able to at their age. The former is fairly simple. Their enthusiasm makes them easy picking if you’d like to set them up for a fall, but ultimately what you want to do is to use that ‘I can’ confidence to achieve things nobody thought was possible. Don’t be intimidated by their confidence. Embrace it, appreciate it, and then assist them by channeling them towards successful delivery.

•    As a Baby-Boomer manager, you’ve got to learn ‘Write 2.0’. Of course Boomers can write. And they write beautifully. But that means nothing if what you’re writing isn’t being read. Your younger work force has grown up in a world of e-mail, sms, MixIt, FaceBook, and the like. One element these have in common is the ‘short-burst’ nature of all correspondence on these platforms. Today’s younger set are writing and reading shorter and punchier packages of information. When they’re confronted with a ‘book’ from their manager, sent via e-mail, it’s a significant challenge to read. It’s not that they can’t, it’s that they don’t anymore. Older managers are going to have to embrace their style of writing. Short, to the point, punchy and as close to 140 characters as you can get. Of course it’s a worry, but I dare you to reverse the tide : )

•    Your older Xers (closer to 40) haven’t embraced team-work like you wished they would. However, those closer to 20 are more likely to embrace working in a team. For two reasons:

•    They need the assistance of those around them to achieve the goals they believe they can
•     They’re social networkers. They’re comfortable sharing information, asking for information, and communicating in, with and to groups of people. Keep this in mind though; their version of team may look very different to yours.

Boomers often picture team in a very physical manner. Your youngest employees are going to see working together through a digital filter. So, you can either stick to your guns and insist team is only team when it’s done your way, or you can expand your own notions of team and learn how they do team, and adapt it to meet your team’s needs and style.

The generational differences playing themselves out in the workforce are significant at times, but certainly not insurmountable. It will take hard work, and a fair amount of bending, compromising and respecting from both sides. The solution is not going to include anyone digging their heals in and refusing to budge. Baby Boomer wisdom has much we can take forward, but there is also much that much be stripped away in order to attach it to the wisdom of Gen X. It is, after-all, going to be their wisdom that takes us into the future.

Related posts:

1. Talent is a Four Letter Word The title of this post comes from a reply...
2. Free video course on Managing Generation Y at work In December 09, Graeme Codrington recorded a series of...
3. You’re going to have to change your management style I spend a large part of my year in...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Commitment to breakfast means different things to the chicken and the pig. Well unless that is, you’re inclined to favour KFC for breakfast!

Nowhere has the shock to perspective that the global recession emitted been more keenly felt than in the banking / financial sector. The collapse in asset prices, a surge in distressed debt and a looming threat of deflation have all threatened systemic financial meltdowns.  At the start of 2010, for the first time in 40 years there are a billion hungry people on our planet. That said, towards the end of 2009 there was widespread evidence of healthy recovery which, following the tumultuous events of the last three months of 2008, seemed unlikely. The world’s economies, big and small, are taking stock and whilst the recovery is not evenly distributed and counting one’s blessings is a selective exercise, we do need to understand some of the deeper social shifts that have happened as a result of the past 18 months.

It has been a troubled and confusing time to the ‘man on the street’ – a term that for many has gone from mere analogy to the frighteningly literal. What once was is no more and a ‘new normal’ is emerging. The rules of the game have changed and this impacts on all the players. There are three things that we need to note as we take stock of the situation. It is not about ‘finding our way back’ and rebuilding but more about understanding what has changed and the new opportunities provided by such changes.

Firstly, is to recognize the impact that the recession has had on both the psyche and the consumer behavior of the younger generation. The Great depression of the early 1930’s had a significant impact on the children of this time as they watched anxious parents deal with the loss of jobs, homes and self-esteem. The impact can be measured in different ways but it certainly produced a generation who didn’t trust banks to look after their hard-earned savings and it produced a ‘cash is king’ generation who only bought it provided they had the money to pay for it. Children of the current economic meltdown will have had their consumer confidence similarly dented. Already consumer treads in unlikely places (Japan) and in commodities (vehicles and motor-bikes) are in decline. Hindsight could reveal a significant shift in consumerism amongst the ‘hidden’ generation in the context of the recent financial turmoil. As in the past, an event of this magnitude will sow the seeds for significant social change and only time will reveal the full extent of this attitudinal and behavioral shift.

Secondly, is the realization of the adaptive ability to ‘live without’ that has been forced on many households. As assets have had to be sold, holidays forfeited, simpler and more cost-effective forms of entertainment explored and budget fat cut, unforeseen benefits have emerged. Freedom from clutter and renewed family time and ties have reinvigorated many a home. A sharpened clarity as to ‘what is important’ and ‘what really matters’ have birthed opportunity, innovation and led to personal and collective renewal. This has been true for life in the suburbs as well as for life at Head Office. But herein lies a sharp warning for corporate behavior: When deep survival measures have needed to be adopted on the domestic front, it is hard to stomach continued extravagance at senior corporate levels.

Which leads me to my final point: Leadership has to change accordingly. Leadership takes many forms and wears many difference faces. It is needed at home, in the office, within communities, societies, nation states and globally. It can be constrained by borders yet can also transcend borders; it can be observed, engaged and evaluated. Its practice and look will always be contentious and be both supported and vilified – often in equal measure. Leaders need to pay close attention to the context in which they lead and then lead with an understanding that authentic leadership is always conferred and not claimed. They have a responsibility and now more than ever, leaders need to be aware of that responsibility. They need to move in rhythm with the tune being played at this time and gauge with sensitivity and accuracy any subtle changes that occur.

No one said it would be easy. The piggy bank might be gone but breakfast still needs to be served. The tough times of the past 18 months that has threatened the very core of our global economy look like receding and maybe, just maybe, we’ll be able to get back to the breakfast table, better for the lessons learnt.

I guess you just don’t want to be the pig called on to be the breakfast!

Related posts:

1. The Challenge for New Leaders Before a new era can come into being, there...
2. Savvy Leadership: Leading in the Connection Economy Challenged recently to ‘frame’ a leadership development process has...
3. From Hawaii: What Survives? Education is what survives when what has been learnt...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Miranda Devine is a Sydney Morning Herald columnist, and recently wrote an excellent piece on Australia’s Gen Y (young people now in the teens and early 20s). She had just witnessed a group of 400 of them grilling Kevin Rudd, the Aussie PM – and they had given him a rough time.

It’s well worth the read. The original is here, or you can read an extract below.

Trust savvy gen Y to smell a rat

February 11, 2010

Two funny things happened this week – the Prime Minister was punked on ABC TV’s Q&A program by 400 sharp-tongued gen Ys who looked as if they had “cynic” stamped on their foreheads. And history’s most watched Superbowl game featured an Audi ad about “green police”, which satirised environmental zealotry.

If you wanted proof of a shift in the zeitgeist, these two video exhibits would win the case.

Both point to a new attitude towards ”the greatest moral challenge” of our time, which found its tipping point at Copenhagen, set against the backdrop of Climategate. But more than that, they give us a glimpse into the future, as the children of the baby boomers, generation Y, born in the ’80s and ’90s, begin to flex their muscles.

Kevin Rudd was the first to feel their might. Facing the Q&A audience aged 16 to 25, he may have thought he was talking to his legendary fan base, the Kevin ‘07 youth surge who fired up his campaign and still staff his office.

But it soon became evident, by his crestfallen look and the nervous way he twiddled his wedding ring, that he has underestimated generation Y.

“Mr Rudd, I’d like to know how you expect us to trust you – our generation, the ones that got behind you in the Kevin ‘07 . . . on everything you’re saying and you broke promises like the laptops ones and the health ones and all the ones that were important to [us]?” was just one of the confronting questions.

“Well, you keep saying that your government keeps acting on climate change. [But] you also say … you’re supporting a big Australia. How realistic do you think it is to have a big Australia and reduce your carbon emissions at the same time?” was another.

Rudd never answered, despite filling the air with his verbal tics: “Guess what”, “You know what”, “frankly”, “folk”, “on a rolling basis” and “dead set serious”, plus lots of two-finger pointing and lively hand gestures.

Credit to him for fronting up, but the audience wasn’t buying.

Maybe he thought feeding young people a few symbols like Kyoto and an apology, and promising youth-specific goodies, such as computers, would be enough.

But gen Y, idealistic cynics that they are, can’t be won so easily.

Audi, on the other hand, tapped into their sensibility, daringly placing its green-yet-anti-green ad into the expensive Superbowl spot. It opens with a pleasant young man at a supermarket, who is asked if he wants his food in paper or plastic. When he replies “plastic”, a policeman shoves his head down on the counter and handcuffs him, saying, “That’s the magic word . . . You picked the wrong day to mess with the ecosystem, plastic boy.”

–> Watch the video here, on YouTube

Cut to “green police” riffling through a rubbish bin outside a suburban house looking for eco-unfriendly items. When they find a battery they cry: “Let’s go. Take the house.” A police helicopter trains its lights through the kitchen window of another house where a young man is peeling an orange into his bin. “Put the rind down. Sir. That’s a compost infraction,” comes the megaphone command.

A man comes to his door, chewing his dinner, to find green police inspecting his porch light. “Did you install these lightbulbs?” “Yeah,” he replies, before he is handcuffed and bundled into a police car. A TV reporter intones: “Tragedy strikes tonight where a man has just been arrested for possession of an incandescent light bulb.”

It is all done to the tune of the ’80s band Cheap Trick’s Dream Police reworked as Green Police.

The point of the ad comes in an “eco roadblock”, which has stopped two lanes of traffic, as green police go car to car checking emissions. When they get to a young man in an Audi, they say approvingly, “Clean diesel. You’re good to go, sir.” The young man roars off, fast and smug in his throaty diesel, which the ad tells us is “green car of the year”.

It is hard to imagine, even six months ago, one of the world’s largest car corporations, Germany’s Volkswagen Group, having the courage to advertise even its most eco-friendly wares by satirising green totalitarianism and fakery. They have sniffed the wind and decided the time for paying obeisance to the environmental movement is over.

The ad reaches beyond ideology to those who want to do the right thing by the environment but with sensible measures that are not incompatible with driving a real car with grunt.

It says to a new, spin-averse, satire-savvy, irony-aware audience: ”We are with you, we see the spin, we are not part of it.”

Of course, since it is an ad, there is a paradox, but it is the kind gen Y is used to. Having been bombarded with ads and marketing from every type of media all their lives, their scepticism knows no bounds. They have grown up in an era of spin over substance, of nanny statism and overblown scare campaigns.

But while their teachers were trying to brainwash them, they were getting a more realistic education from satirical TV cartoons such as South Park, Family Guy, Futurama, American Dad and The Simpsons. They barrack for no particular ideology, and, seeing close-hand the effects of divorce and social instability, are used to adults not living up to lofty standards.

As the first generation to grow up with Google, they expect real answers to real questions. They have grown up in a post-Berlin Wall world, and terrorism and war permeate their daily lives. The September 11 attacks and Bali bombings define their time. Their generation are the soldiers on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. They know what a ”moral challenge” is.

They are savvy and serious people, who expect to be treated seriously, and accord their elders respect only if earned. The future is in good hands.

devinemiranda@hotmail.com

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

Related posts:

1. Free video course on Managing Generation Y at work In December 09, Graeme Codrington recorded a series of...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of Britain, made no secret of her contempt for those who couldn’t keep pace with her legendary endurance and appetite for hard work. This was especially poignant given that those who surrounded her were men. There is a joke about her going out to dinner with her cabinet. “Steak or fish” inquires the waiter. “Steak of course,” she replies. “And for your vegetables?” “They’ll have steak as well” came the snappy reply. Many leaders pride themselves on their toughness and ability to get satisfactory performance from the vegetables that surround them. With this goes a silent self-congratulatory pat on the back on their tolerance for the vegetable stew that surrounds them.

Invitational Leadership invites leaders to believe the best in others and then create an environment that is able to invite this potential out into the open. It takes hard work and an unshakable belief that others have a worthwhile contribution to make. Without this starting point, Invitational Leadership cannot be practiced.  New frameworks are needed from which to explore what it will take to lead successfully in the new world of work. Invitational leadership offers one such framework.

Related posts:

1. Savvy Leadership: Leading in the Connection Economy Challenged recently to ‘frame’ a leadership development process has...
2. How’s That! 4 Leadership Tips for Leaders Everywhere from Gary Kirsten In the February edition of Sports Illustrated, Gary Kirsten...
3. Are you wasting your money on leadership development? Behaviourist B.F. Skinner maintained that education is what survives...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

In the February edition of Sports Illustrated, Gary Kirsten was asked what leadership lessons he had learnt whilst being in what has been described as the ‘toughest job in cricket, managing the Indian team (and the entire Nation’s expectations). Kirsten listed four things. They make for interesting reading and are applicable to leadership everywhere.

Firstly, he spoke the importance of building and nurturing relationships and trust with the players. Trust is the currency of any relationship and when leaders lose the trust of those they lead, the ability to truly lead is lost. Authentic leadership is always conferred, never claimed. Mutual trust is what makes this possible.

Secondly, Kirsten listed the focus on strengths rather than weaknesses. A strengths based approach to personal development is not new but is seldom practiced in the corporate environment. Here the emphasis is usually on improving and correcting weakness.

Thirdly, he mentioned the need to focus on solutions not problems. I have an associate who used to work at Proctor & Gamble where he had a boss who would insist that any problem presented to him, was accompanied by three solutions. Arriving with merely one solution was simply punting the ‘opposite’ to the stated problem and so wasn’t good enough. Having a second solution demonstrated a measure of creative thinking and arriving with three possible solutions demonstrated the ability to think more strategically. This solution would also most likely be one that considered all of the other stakeholders.

Lastly, Kirsten spoke of encouraging individuals to think for themselves and express themselves more fully. “Can’t have that…will be bloody chaos” echoes the barely muted refrain from the corner office. Wrong! Done appropriately and correctly, freedom of expression allows for greater accountability, ownership and participation. It can be done – it has been done. As for allowing staff to ‘think for themselves’ – well there is a new concept for many a leader! Anyone who has had to deal with a typical customer service department would know this only to well.

Now Gary, please hold off on the application of all this until after the series against your fellow nationals. Either that, or come and apply them at home!

Related posts:

1. Gary Hamel on Generation Y Gary Hamel, the best selling author and global guru on...
2. Leadership Thought: Ordering Steak Whilst Working With Vegetables Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of Britain, made no...
3. Top tips for mentoring the next generation of talent ...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

In my most resent article Onions or Parfait I put forward the proposition that companies should use new social media innovations to build relationships with customers akin to those of friendships. I strongly believe that customers want to engage in a open two-way relationship with companies that show a willingness and expend effort to build relationships. I just came across an example of 5 big brands that are using blogs, facebook and twitter to do just this. In a post by Attraction Marketing Starbucks, Zappos, Vitamin Water, H&M and Coke are identified as big brands that are actively using social media to build friendships and not just sell products.

I’m not surprised to see Zappos in this list. Zappos are innovators in creating connections with people inside and outside their organisation. I regularly use Zappos as a case study in my presentations and workshops. You can discover more about Zappos here:
Keeping employees motivated during a recession
Zappos hits one billion $ in sales
Zappos – delivering WOW through service

Zappos makes for an awesome case study in the corporate boardroom so if you are looking for ideas for your next meeting or proposal to your boss visit their website or email me and I’ll gladly offer my insights

You can read the article on Social Media 5 Big Brands below

Starbucks

Starbucks launched their “My Starbucks Idea” blog about 1 year ago. It allows its customers to make suggestions and vote on others suggestions. The most popular ideas & opinions are taken, reviewed and acted upon. As a follow up for participants, Starbucks created a blog called “Ideas in Action” which gives updates on any changes made as a result of their customer’s suggestions. Listening to the voice of the customer is powerful…. After all, who knows what the customer wants more than the customer him/herself?

Starbucks also has a Facebook Fan Page. They use a lot of the features on it, including video, events, etc. They post industry related news, contests, new products and much more. They also promote specials only available to Social Media followers. Their fan page won the first month’s Facebook Blue Ribbon Award.

Following suit in Twitter, they have 2 different accounts, one for “Starbucks” and one for “My Starbucks Idea”. The speed at which Twitter moves makes these accounts the fastest way for Starbucks to interact with their customers, instant ideas and answers…who doesn’t like that?

Zappos

Zappos has lively Facebook and Twitter accounts. They allow you to meet Zappos’ employees and build a connection with them. Zappos has its own Twitter account, but it also aggregates its employees’ Twitter accounts on twitter.zappos.com . Using your employees as advocates in Social Media is an explosive way to reach new audiences. (this must be monitored very closely in case of a disgruntled employee, Zappos has done a great job of that by starting this site) Their Facebook page also has a lot to offer with videos, fan photos, and anecdotal stories of Zappos employees’ lives at work. In Social Media marketing, the simple fact that your customers feel like they know you and your employees will be the #1 draw to your brand!

In addition, Zappos has a network of blogs on a variety of topics, not all of which are connected to Zappos products, like its “Workout Tip of the Week.”

Twitter is no stranger to Zappos either. They have a corporate page where they post and their CEO, Tony Hsieh, has over a million followers! Way to go Tony, you have figured out that transparency attracts prospects.

Vitamin Water 10

Vitamin Water 10 is one of the first companies given Facebook’s Blue Ribbon Award. Vitamin Water 10 is probably my favorite business Fan Page because of how they use it. They offer a lot of things to keep their fans engaged such as; allowing fan photos (usually holding their vitamin waters), polls, promotions, and videos – even previews of commercials.

When advertising on TV, instead of sending people to their website, they send them to their Facebook page. They are no dummies, they know where their audience is! They also advertised their fan page on ESPN.com where they focused on their discussion of the Kobe/Lebron match-up.

Although new to Twitter, vitaminwater10 has begun to post regularly, keeping fans abreast of what’s up in the Vitamin Water world.

H & M

H & M allows its Facebook fans’ comments to be its fan pages’ homepage. This probably helps to increase the level of fan interaction – one of the reasons H & M was awarded Facebook’s Blue Ribbon Award. The page also gives updates on the new lines, videos, promotions – such as Fashion Against AIDS, and asks for customer feedback.

H & M also has a Twitter account where it gives updates on everything H&M is involved with.

Also falling into the category of Social Media, they post YouTube videos through their own account so everyone can watch what is going on. By the way, did you know video is the most effective way to reach an audience on the Internet?

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola has a very large Facebook page with one of the highest number of fans to date. They have incorporated a wide variety of photos, products from all over the world, Coke employees and fans, and Coke memorabilia. They allow most of the content to be driven by the fans. One interesting thing about their fan page is how it was set up; two fans originally created it and rather than compete with a page that had already gained great popularity, Coke asked the creators to represent them. You can even see a video about their experience on the fan page.

Coca-Cola also has a Twitter account which they started only a few weeks ago. There is a lot of conversation going back and forth with some interesting news that attracts followers.

Click here to be taken to Attraction Marketing’s blog

Related posts:

1. In a Web 2.0 world, business has it’s head buried firmly in the sand I’m curious. Curious about business’ lack of engagement with...
2. Forget creating customer loyalty and focus on building friendships with customers I’m not talking about the glib friendships companies try...
3. ZAPPOS – delivering the WOW factor through service Tony Hsieh, the 35 year old boss of Zappos.com,...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Morten T. Hansen, Herminia Ibarra, and Urs Peyer have written an excellent article in the Jan-Feb 2010 edition of Harvard Business Review.

A lot of people have blamed short-term thinking for causing our current economic troubles, which has set off a debate about what time window we should use to assess a CEO’s performance. This article contains the first ranking that shows which CEOs of large public companies performed best over their entire time in office and the results cover close on 2,000 CEOs worldwide.

It may come as no shock that Steve Jobs of Apple tops the list. However, the ranking does contain a few surprises with some relatively unknown faces at the top. The inverse is also true: Some obvious candidates in terms of reputation don’t make the top 50, or even the top 100 or top 200. In fact, the list overlaps very little with lists of the most-admired or highest-paid CEOs.

Here are some of the headline findings:

- 1,999 CEOs performance was analysed
- The entire group represented 48 nationalities and came from companies based in 33 countries.
- The median age at which these executives had become CEO was 52,
- Only 1.5% were women
- Only 15% of the CEOs worked for companies based in a country that was not their country of origin. It is still not a global labor market for chief executives.
- Leaders had to produce remarkable performance to make the top 50. On average, those CEOs delivered a total shareholder return of 997% (adjusted for exchange-rate effects) during their time in office. That translates into a spectacular annual return of 32%.
- On average the top 50 increased the wealth of their companies’ shareholders by $48.2 billion
- Compared with the average performance of the bottom 50 CEOs who produced a total shareholder return of minus 70%, which corresponds to an annual return of minus 20%.
- On average poor performers presided over a loss of $18.3 billion in shareholder value.
- The #1 CEO on the list, Steve Jobs, delivered a whopping 3,188% industry-adjusted return
- The #2 CEO, Yun Jong-Yong, ran South Korea’s Samsung Electronics from 1996 to 2008.
- Yun is an example of a leader who has stayed out of the limelight. During his tenure he capably transformed Samsung from a maker of memory chips and me-too products into an innovator selling digital products such as leading-edge cell phones. Under Yun shareholder wealth increased by $127 billion, and the total industry-adjusted return was 1,458%.
- Of Barron’s 2009 list of the 30 most respected chief executives in the world, which a group of editors had selected after speaking with investors, analysts, and executives only five executives appear in both the Barron’s list and HBR’s top 30: Steve Jobs of Apple, John Chambers of Cisco, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Hugh Grant of Monsanto, and Terry Leahy of Tesco.
- Several CEOs that were “most respected” according to Barron’s are nowhere near HBR’s top 50 (or even our top 200)—namely, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, Satoru Iwata of Nintendo, Sam Palmisano of IBM, and Rex Tillerson of Exxon Mobil.
- Study showed little overlap between the highest-paid chief executives in America and HBR top 50.
– Performance is geographically widespread; no one country dominates the list.
- Some clustering of performance by industry, with industries are overrepresented in the top 200—notably, energy, telecommunications, health-care equipment and providers, and retailing. BUT revealed that some low-growth industries, such as retailing, are well represented, too. This shows that CEOs can attain exceptional performance even if they’re not in a booming industry.
- Insiders tend to do better. Internal promotions on average, ranked 57 places higher than outsiders
- MBAs tended to rank better than the non-MBAs.

The top 50 list shows that no country or industry has a corner on performance. But taking a longer perspective did bring to light a number of “hidden gems”—quiet CEOs who delivered outstanding results year in and year out, away from the glare of the cover stories and business school case studies. Their success makes a persuasive argument for a new approach to evaluating CEOs. Only by analyzing performance over their tenure and beyond can we begin to understand the nature of great leadership.

You can read the full article here

Related posts:

1. A Radical Proposal for Executive Pay Everyone agrees that something must be done about executive...
2. How the world has changed (since 1909) Today is precisely 60 years since Mao Zedong proclaimed...
3. In a Web 2.0 world, business has it’s head buried firmly in the sand I’m curious. Curious about business’ lack of engagement with...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Susan Gregory Thomas writes a great article, ‘Teachers Guide to Gen X Parents‘. Possibly the best description I’ve read as to how Gen X parents are experienced in a school context by educators and administrators, and then why they are as they are? To be honest, as a Gen X parent myself, I found myself very sheepish reading it. Having been fairly proud of my activity and involvement in my children’s school, I suddenly found myself being exposed with the possible truth behind all that ‘involvement’.

In preschool, we’re the ones anxiously arranging developmentally appropriate playdates for our Siouxsie-and-the-Banshees-T-shirt-clad three-year-olds. In kindergarten, we’re frantic that other parents’ children are starting to read cat and rat, while our Ruby and Dylan are still having trouble identifying lowercase letters. We think the gold-star system and its ilk are archaic and punitive, and we want to have a meeting to present our suggestions for alternative achievement systems.

By grade school, we’re demanding to know why the math program is not challenging enough for our child. We email our complaints about the seating chart. We openly deride the arts instruction and may rally other parents to the point of a coup d’état. By middle school, our kids have schedules and professional support staffs that resemble those of corporate lawyers. Look out, high school: We’re coming.

Thomas suggests the reason Xers as parents, are like they are, is because of their own school experience. Because we didn’t have, in our opinion, a great education experience, we’re determined not to let that happen to our own children. It’s not that we have any evidence that this is in fact what’s going on, we’re going to make sure there’s absolutely no chance it will.

We’ve been taking care of ourselves since we started going to school, and we don’t trust authority figures, because they weren’t trustworthy when we were growing up. Our parents didn’t know what was going on at school, and our teachers didn’t know what was going on at home. We’re not going to let this happen to our children — not even for a second. We’ll do whatever we have to do to make sure our kids get what they need.

One of those great articles worth reading. Be warned if you’re an Xer. It may knock you, as it did me, down a notch or two : )

Related posts:

1. Boomers: the worst parents ever? The worst generation ever! Here is the second article from The Spectator of last...
2. Millenials reversing the trend It’s always difficult convincing an adult audience, that from a...
3. Redundant: The School Reunion: A Reminder to Leaders Everywhere It was one of those father / son conversations...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Author, Tammy Erickson, does a nice job in a Harvard Business Review post taking a look at President Obama through the filter of Generation X.

President Obama is arguably the United States’ first President who is a member of Generation X. (I say “arguably” since the boundary line between Boomers and X’ers is subject to debate. Born in 1961, in my view, he’s the vanguard of the next generation leaders.)

She does a nice job focusing on a few characteristics she suggests belong to Gen X and how these display themselves in the world of President Obama. Some of these include:

• Options thinkers
• Richly multicultural and diverse
• In general highly pragmatic
• Fiercely dedicated to being good parents

Her closing observation, is that Xer leaders can fall into the trap of having multiple options, which works in an increasingly comlex world, but this needs to be backed up with a decision for action.

In a world as complex and rapidly changing as ours, I admire the X’ers’ bent toward multiple options. I’m skeptical of anyone who argues there is only one way. But I also admire those who, after considering multiple options, present a persuasive and engaging case for the course they’ve chosen. Perhaps this is one change we will see in President Obama’s approach over the year ahead and a useful lesson for all X’er leaders.

Related posts:

1. ‘I am the President’ doesn’t mean what it used to Jacob Zuma, the ANC, the ANC Youth League and...
2. 1989 – a year that changed everything (everywhere) Today is the twentieth anniversary of the Berlin Wall...
3. Book review: Upstarts I was sent the following book review from a...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

It was one of those father / son conversations that fathers are inclined to indulge in from time to time and that are usually invoked by some or other important milestone or ritual.

The ritual in question? My youngest son beginning his University career. Well let’s hope it isn’t a ‘career’ but rather a short stopover on the way to bigger things!

The parental wisdom I was freely dispensing had to do with the fact that at University he would make new friends and it was most likely that these newly acquired friends, would be the ones that would last a lifetime…unlike his school friends. “Why’s that?” he asked, somewhat puzzled.

“Well” I said, “once you exit school your generation tends to funnel into society at large and you will end up losing contact with them,” before going on to add some personal experience to the wisdom.

“But of course we’ll stay in touch…we’ve got Facebook” came the instantaneous retort in which I sensed a thinly masked tone of exasperation, maybe tolerance.

Immediately I realize the error of my ‘wisdom’ and the pitfall that had been my ‘experience’.  He’s right. His generation will stay in touch effortlessly and so, in one small matter, technology has again changed the way things will be.

How could I have been so stupid? Oh, and one last thing: be aware of ‘your experience’. In a world changing at the pace it is, experience is not all it’s made up to be.

Related posts:

1. The James Martin 21st Century School – understanding the future I am a huge fan of James Martin. Not...
2. Leaders with Foot ‘n Mouth Foot and Mouth could get you exterminated, provided you...
3. School sport as an indicator of Talent Malcom Gladwell’s book Outliers has been one of my...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Tesco sometimes takes a few knocks in the press. Most recently for not allowing people wearing pyjamas into their stores and another for asking a father, for safety reasons, to leave a store because he was balancing his six-year old child on his shoulder. Frankly I don’t want to shop were people are running around in their old flannel pyjamas (it’s never going to be sexy French lace nighties) so I for one applaud this decision and as for the dad with his kid on his shoulders, sure it’s petty but we have a government obsessed with health and safety rules and a big brother mentality. So no need to shoot the messenger in this case the Tesco security guard.

Over the past 18 months I’ve become a fan of Tesco. As a company they have achieved incredible results in a very competitive industry. Tesco have streaked ahead of their competitors over the past 20 years because they understand what their customers want and shrewd management and marketing have kept them ahead of the competition. At the end of last year I had the privilege of being invited to do my Mind the Gap keynote presentation on generational marketing at the Tesco Marketing away day and I got further insight into Tesco, you can read about these insights here.

This week Tesco launched the world’s first “zero-carbon” emission store as part of its bid to be a carbon neutral company by 2050. The shop, in Ramsey, Cambridgeshire, is timber-framed rather than steel, and uses skylights and sun pipes to cut lighting costs. It also has a combined heat and power plant powered by renewable bio-fuels, exporting extra electricity back to the national grid. In addition the refrigerators – one of the biggest blackspots for food retailers trumpeting their green credentials – have doors to save energy and harmful HFC refrigerant gases have been replaced. The new store, cost 30% more to build, but it uses 50% less energy, and with oil costs on the increase the business case sells itself.

To coincide with the Ramsey opening, the supermarket chain said it intended to spend more than £100m with green technology companies, although Leahy was unsure of the level of supermarket’s current spend on this.

Tesco has been at the forefront of the grocers’ race to be green. The UK’s biggest supermarket has provided £25m of funding for the University of Manchester to set up a sustainable consumption institute, and has a 10-point community plan, with pledges to increase local sourcing and to consult local communities in an attempt to be viewed as a good neighbour.

Related posts:

1. Tesco, a talented company I’m always on the lookout for talented companies and...
2. Reducing carbon by charging companies in the UK Are you prepared for the Carbon Reduction Commitment? This is...
3. 2010 will be an important – but bad – year for green business Cop15, the global conference in Copenhagen last year, produced...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

It was an interesting sign to have on the school bus I thought – ‘Learners with Disabilities’. Soon the school bus was to take another route to that of mine and then it was gone. The bus was no longer in sight but the bold sign emblazed across the back of the bus stuck with me as I continued on.

Learners with disabilities. What a pity contemporary corporate leaders don’t have that signage on their office door or perhaps on their desks: ‘CEO / Learner with Disabilities’. It wouldn’t be for a lack of space on their desk for we both know that isn’t the problem.  The real problem is, that no leader would come close to admitting a learning disability, much less advertize it. The system that has seen them make it to the corner office has long since squeezed out any doubt, questioning or openness to new learnings. Leaders aren’t expected to be ‘learners’ – they’re expected to know; they know what is best, they know what is needed and they know because, well because they have the track record to prove they know it. It is referred to as ‘experience’. As Mark twain so eloquently put it: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble.  It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so”

If we’re honest, often times we also want them to know for it relieves us of taking responsibility – and gives us someone to blame.  So we need to acknowledge that in part, the leader’s knowing is fueled by the expectations of others who look for certainty, answers and direction. After all, isn’t that all part of leadership?

Well this is how it works for the most part and I suspect you know this to be the case. Why just today I learnt of a CEO who used his authority to ensure that a key facilitator in a vital and delicate process concerning his executive team, would no longer be part of the process. The reason…the real reason? Well the Facilitator in question was simply too perceptive and not afraid to share her insights. Way too threatening for him is my guess. Leaders with disabilities: we meet them every day but unlike those school children, they refuse to acknowledge it.

Learning is not easy. For one thing it requires that the Learner is open to new information. Information about themselves, how they do – or don’t do things, about how things work or about alternative opinions and realities that differ from their own. Hearing such things is never easy and taking further steps toward understanding such things requires courage and conviction. It is the way of the Learner. Don’t ever be fooled into believing that the leader’s learning is inhibited by the lack of teachers – the teachers are all around him or her; rather it is the leader’s inability to recognize the teachers that surround them that is the chief inhibitor to the learning process.

This is a problem. Now more than ever we need learner leaders. In a world where the rules of the game are changing as they are; where things will not go ‘back to the way they were’; where a ‘new normal’ is emerging – in such a world, more than ever, we need leaders who are willing to learn.

And the first step? Simply admit to your learning disability. Sounds simple but it’s not. And without that first step, you’ll never get on the bus!

Related posts:

1. Are you wasting your money on leadership development? Behaviourist B.F. Skinner maintained that education is what survives...
2. Help! Linking Theory & Practice I am attending a leadership symposium titled, Indigenous Knowledge...
3. From Hawaii: What Survives? Education is what survives when what has been learnt...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Related posts:

1. President X – a one year review Author, Tammy Erickson, does a nice job in a...
2. Latest TomorrowToday PodCast available We continue to find the correct content to upload...
3. Drive to break down age barriers From the BBC News website, 20 April 2009. Drive to...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Yes it’s true. I’m getting coached in ‘Social Media’. “About time” some might say but it’s not just about how to engage in the various kinds of social media available – it’s about learning how to, ‘connect the dots’. It is about understanding how to work with all the options in an integrated manner that makes professional and personal sense. I suspect many more of my ilk could do with some time with my Coach and the reality is that knowing this stuff simply isn’t optional – it’s an imperative.

W. C. Howell is credited with the model with which most of us are familiar when it comes to acquiring a skill. The model moves from a level of ‘unconscious incompetence’ to ‘conscious incompetence’ to ‘conscious competence’ to ultimately, ‘unconscious competence’.  So what does this look like when applied to my development path in the area of social media education?

Unconscious incompetence: A what? ‘c-o-m-p-u-t-e-r. Don’t only major international companies and governments have access to this kind of thing?  I’m not sure I’ll need one, but thanks anyway. The future? Yes, yes…(late 1980’s – early 1990’s)

Conscious incompetence: Wow…how do you switch this thing on? It sure takes up a lot of desk space but looks important, even impressive…where did you say I turn it on? How come there is this blue screen…and what’s that noise? Show me how you did that…that’s really cool, I need to be able to do that stuff. Hold on, not so fast…I just need to make a note of that. (mid 1990’s – early 2000’s)

Conscious competence: Sure I’m on Facebook and I even know that ‘Twitter’ isn’t a term of insult nor is it some sort of birdcall heard only in the mating season. Sure I know how to access that information, open multiple windows and load useful software. How did I ever survive without email?  I know how to solve that problem…just reboot…there see, anything else I can help you with? With some concentration and focus I can link some of my technology gadgets and to really impress fellow travelers, even produce my iPod on flights whilst banging away on my laptop keyboard. Laptop? Apple of course.  Check out that cool little Apple logo that lights up on the lid! (mid – late 2000’s)

Unconscious competence: My tweet directs people to my latest blog which drives folk to the article and website resulting in conversations, connections and further helpful information, relationships and opportunities. There, dots connected and a seamless integration of knowing the why and how behind it all. By catching up I’ve actually been able to slow down and I feel an intricate part of an amazing reality that is unfolding all around me…connections, information and well, relevance. (the future)

Knowing what you don’t know is important. It is your learning pathway into Tomorrow, and it is a journey that shouldn’t be delayed. Let me know and I will put you onto a great social media Coach…

Related posts:

1. I don’t trust you I don’t trust you! Well it’s not exactly that,...
2. Office Technology, Boomers and Generation X & Y For most Boomers (born 1950s and 60s), the office...
3. 3-d TV is here This weekend, Sky TV in the UK will become...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Although the movie Invictus is only released in cinemas this coming weekend I was fortunate to get an early viewing this past Saturday and for me the film is simply brilliant. A week ago I’d decided to read Nelson Mandela’s long walk to freedom, so watching Invictus after having reread the book evoked a number of emotions and I must admit there were parts where I felt very teary. My colleague Graeme Codrington wrote a post below and mentions that today, the 2nd of Feb 2010 is exactly 20 years after Madiba was released. As a South African I find this amazing. Twenty years ago SA was on the brink of a bloody civil war, there are still problems but the SA I know today is a much better place than it was back then. In Invictus, Mandela played by Mr Freeman is portrayed as a man both burdened and blessed by having become a living icon after years of political struggle. Now as a newly elected President, Mandela takes his astute wisdom, insight into people, and incredible leadership to unite a nation still fearful on one another. I still remember clearly the 1995 world cup victory, how all South Africans partied in the street rejoicing the rainbow nation. The Economist has written an excellent review of the film and you can read it below. In Invictus, Mr Freeman and Mr Eastwood to made their sunniest film yet.

Extract from The Economist, Jan 28th 2010:

CLINT EASTWOOD’S “Invictus” has given Morgan Freeman, a 72-year-old ever-rising cinematic star from Memphis, Tennessee, his best chance yet to show what a canny actor he is. The year is 1995, just 14 months after South Africa’s first multiracial elections. Nelson Mandela wants to use the rugby World Cup, for white South Africans the absolute pinnacle of sport, to prevent the veneer of social unity from being rent asunder. Mr Freeman plays Mandela as a man both burdened and blessed by having become a living icon after years of political struggle, many of them spent as the world’s most famous political prisoner. But the newly elected President Mandela is determined to make use of his image rather than letting it use him, and no director could understand this better than Mr Eastwood, who has always kept ahead of his audience by ringing unexpected changes on his own star persona. The confluence of these three wily men—Mr Freeman, Mr Eastwood and Mr Mandela—has given birth to a perfect storm of a character study.

Frail and stooped at 76, the former revolutionary calmly bucks his closest colleagues during his first days in office by insisting that post-apartheid South Africa can survive only if fear and hatred are consigned to the past. Addressing a group that has just voted to change the name and colours of the Afrikaners’ beloved Springbok rugby team, which blacks consider a symbol of oppression, he coolly explains that he spent his years in prison studying the enemy, and rugby is the ticket to winning their hearts.

He deploys a quaint, courtly charm when he takes tea with the Springboks captain, Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon), and discreetly lets him know that he would appreciate it if he would lead his losing team to a World Cup victory. And when he begins studiously memorising the names of the players and excusing himself from policy meetings to check on their progress, Mr Freeman lets the viewer glimpse the great man’s inner child, who is a mischievous boy becoming an ardent rugby fan.

The past casts only fleeting shadows: Mr Mandela finding a bracelet belonging to his estranged wife; Pienaar visiting the Mandela cell. By incarnating a hero for whom leading well is the best revenge, Mr Freeman has enabled Mr Eastwood, Hollywood’s avenging angel, to make his sunniest film yet.

Related posts:

1. Leaders with Foot ‘n Mouth Foot and Mouth could get you exterminated, provided you...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The Great Recession has made CEOs rethink strategic planning. Walt Shill, head of the North American management consulting practice for Accenture believes that: “Strategy, as we knew it, is dead…Corporate clients decided that increased flexibility and accelerated decision making are much more important than simply predicting the future.”

In my my latest presentation Brave New World which explores the realities of the new world of work and steps companies need to take to become a talented company, I compare strategic planning of today with that of yacht racing. Strategic planning of yesteryear was more like an egg and spoon race. Competitors lined up at the annual starting line, ran in a straight line from point A to point B, making minor quarterly changes (normally to budgets and not strategy!) and once in a while someone dropped the ball (in this case the boiled egg) and pandemonium ensued.

However, for the modern talented company strategic planning is like yacht racing. Talented companies have a clear destination or vision of where they want to get to. But once out of the harbour they recognise that things can change. The course you plotted may head north but you discover that competitors are heading south, do you change your plan and follow or keep track? A weather system may develop causing rough seas on your route, do you tack around the storm or hit it head on? The key for yacht racing is that strategy is emergent! As conditions around you change so do strategy and tactics. The one element that does not is your destiny (vision), how you get there depends on team work (in emergent strategy everyone understands the quest, provides input and is involved in the strategic planning process). Ultimately the skipper (as should the CEO) steers the boat and emergent strategy required bold leadership but the team is integral to the strategy as it emerges.

The days of long term strategic planning are over but that does not mean that strategic process is dead it has just changed. Strategic planning has now become emergent strategic planning.

For more information on emergent strategy and what it can do for your business please contact me.

You can read more about the latest thinking on strategic planning in the Wall Street Journal

Related posts:

1. 10 rules for effective strategic planning PLUS one more Strategic planning is becoming the corporate buzzword again. Over the...
2. Are you working for a TALENTED COMPANY, or do you know of examples? I’m on a quest to find companies that are...
3. Tesco, a talented company I’m always on the lookout for talented companies and...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

1989 was a momentous year all around the world. I wrote about it last year, as each month we rolled through the “twenty years on” anniversaries of everything from Tiananmen Square (June), the Ayatollah’s funeral chaos in Iran (June), hands across the Baltic Way (August), the Berlin Wall (November), Prague’s Velvet Revolution (November), Ceaucescu trial and death (December) and the banning of the Communist Party in Russia (December).

In my home country, South Africa, it took a few extra weeks, but we added our own amazing memory to this list.

On Friday, 2 February, 1990, FW de Klerk, the State President opened Parliament for the new year. In his “State of the Nation” address he stunned the world, and all of us in South Africa, by very calmly and simply saying the following:

“People serving prison sentences merely because they were members of one of these organisations, or because they committed another offence which was merely an offence because a prohibition on one of the organisations was in force, will be identified and released.”

I have uploaded a 30 second extract, as recorded on the fantastic “Winds of Change” CD (buy it at Amazon.co.uk) – click here to listen to it.

The next week, on 11 February, Mandela walked free, and into history.

Can you remember where you were when it all went down 20 years ago? I was a conscript in the South African Airforce. I had a weekend pass starting that afternoon. A few of my friends and I made our way on the Saturday morning to the flea market at the bottom of Market street in Johannesburg, and bought ANC posters and T-shirts with various slogans on them. There were no T-shirts with Mandela’s face on them, as no-one knew what he looked like (no photos had ever been released from his time in jail). The next week there were amazing artist’s renditions of what he might look like, until we saw him walking out of jail.

I bought a t-shirt with the words of the freedom hymn, Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika on them. This had been a banned song – now it is our national anthem. I wore that (alternating with a similar) t-shirt under my military uniform almost every day until the end of my conscription period later in 1990. I still have it!

It was amazing, world-shaping time. And today is twenty years from the moment that started it all. Read BusinessDay’s article on this story.

Related posts:

1. Invictus The inspiration of Nelson Mandela Although the movie Invictus is only released in cinemas...
2. 1989 – a year that changed everything (everywhere) Today is the twentieth anniversary of the Berlin Wall...
3. After Shock: the five trends disrupting business in the next 5 years Updated in March 2010 (now with an added Executive...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Thinking About Thinking suggests that if board meetings looked like a state of the union, the agenda would play itself out like this:

“The CEO would make his way to the board room through a processional in the company’s hallways, flanked by clapping employees, shaking hands and giving thumbs up to the staff along the way.

The meeting would start with the CFO announcing the entrance of the CEO, and all board members standing and applauding.

The CEO would stand at the head of the table, with the CFO and CTO sitting in oversized chairs on a raised platform behind him.

All powerpoint slides and the projector would be replaced with a teleprompter.

When the CEO talked about cutting spending, lowering the burn and a hiring freeze, investors on both sides of the table would stand up and applause.

When the CEO talked about changing the healthcare plan to cover all employees and shareholders, the investors on the left side of the table would stand up and applause while the other investors sit stoicly.

Thereafter, the CEO would have to remind all investors that their job is to represent the shareholders, not their own partisan interests.

Rather than talking during the meeting, the CTO and CFO would convey their opinion by smirking, giggling, and giving standing ovations as the CEO spoke.

Meanwhile, outside legal counsel, sitting in the first row facing the CEO, would never applaud and would be generally expressionless throughout.

At the appropriate time, the CEO would give a carefully calculated shout out to his wife who is sitting at the outer edge of the board room next to some carefully selected key partners and customers.  She waves at the mention of her name.

The CEO closes the meeting by saying God Bless this company.”

Nice one : )

Related posts:

1. Is it wiser to hire people without meeting them? I’ve just come across a great article from Fast Company....
2. Was I only dreaming? Last night I had the wierdest experience. I woke...
3. Rethinking Marketing and the age of consumer capitalism In this months Harvard Business Review, Roger Martin writes...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The UK is officially out of recession, as are most countries around the world. You couldn’t call it “bouyant” yet, but the recovery has started. Over the next few months and years, it will gain momentum. One of the unintended consequences of the recovery will be that many companies will lose their best staff. We have spoken about this before.

In reading an article from Deloittes again, I thought that it would be worth repeating the advice they gave for how to stop your best staff leaving in the next year.

When economic conditions improve, a certain amount of voluntary turnover is inevitable. But if addressed early and managed correctly, the turnover doesn’t have to be debilitating. Here are some small steps to consider taking now to avoid big problems later:

• Take care of top performers and critical workforce segments. These employees are the heart and soul of your business. Their skills will enable them to succeed anywhere, which is why they are attractive targets for poachers – particularly when business conditions start to improve. Communicate one-on-one with these key people so they don’t even think about leaving. Let them know they will not be cut, and pre-empt competitive offers by providing them with valuable development opportunities that are worth more than money.
• Hold managers accountable for retention. When times are tough, companies typically encourage leaders and managers to focus on short-term financial performance at the expense of everything else. In the process, people issues often get pushed to the back burner. To help avoid this problem, companies must make a deliberate effort to hold leaders and managers responsible for retention – and support them with the right tools and training. One of the main reasons talented people leave an organization is because they don’t like or don’t trust their immediate bosses. Tying managers’ performance and compensation to retention gives them a tangible incentive to keep their people both happy and productive.
• Don’t kill survivors by drowning them with extra work. After a round of layoffs, it’s tempting to pile all of the old work on the few people who were “lucky” enough to keep their jobs. In many cases, the end result is that the talented people you wanted to keep burn out and leave anyway. To avoid this pitfall, you must accept the fact that some of the old work simply won’t get done. Set clear priorities, rather than trying to do it all with a fraction of the staff. Also, make sure people get the training they need to succeed with their new responsibilities.
• Be careful about cutting compensation. These days, a growing number of companies are using across-the-board pay cuts as a way to share the burden and avoid lay-offs. Some workforces respond well to this “enlightened” and egalitarian approach. Others don’t, and wind up with a mass exodus of top talent. Think carefully about your company’s culture and how your people are likely to react. Discreetly talk to key employees to get their personal read on the situation. Organizations that emphasize teamwork and rely on contributions from people at every level tend to favor a shared approach. On the other hand, organizations that emphasize individual performance and personal heroics might actually prefer lay-offs.
• Tell the truth. If you tip-toe around the truth, people will spend all of their time speculating and worrying about what is really going on. Also, your best people will start formulating exit strategies and contingency plans. You might get away with fibbing for awhile, but when you eventually get caught your credibility will be lost forever. At that point, even telling the truth won’t work. These pre-emptive actions can help companies hold onto their top talent and keep future turnover to a manageable level. That’s one of the keys to outmaneuvering your competitors and capitalizing on the recovery.

Good advice!

Related posts:

1. A Talent Exodus ahead? Surviving the upturn I am becoming increasingly concerned for my top corporate...
2. Good leaders share the pain with their teams This coming year is likely to see continued difficulties...
3. How to motivate talented people in tough times – a story from Time Warner Harvard Business Press is releasing a well timed book...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Guiseppe Garibaldi, the old soldier-patriot who unified Italy in the mid-nineteenth century, following his military campaign was quoted as saying, “We have made Italy, now we must make Italians”

In South Africa the ‘Proudly South African’ campaign is widely known and I recall my colleague, Barrie once saying something along the lines of, “They’ve missed the point on this…’proudly South African’ should not refer to a ‘product’ but rather be a set of behaviors…behaviors that, if lived, could then make anyone, anywhere ‘South African”. Both Garibaldi and Barrie make sense. What they are pointing towards is the realization of an authentic living of a particular culture, or set of values. They are pointing to something deeper, more elusive but ultimately, more desirable and transferable than what we tend to focus on.

Now think about the culture within your company. How do you get to an authentic realization of people living your desired culture much like there was once the renown, ‘IBM Man’? Your culture, and there always is ‘a culture’, is a vital part of any organisation. The culture is essentially ‘how things get done’ and reveals attitudes, displays behaviors and determines the ‘climate’ within your environment. If we’re to be honest, this reality seldom reflects what is written on the corporate walls by way of mission statements, values etc…

Your organisational culture will benchmark your company’s learning mentality; the ability to bounce back or adapt to change; the ability to innovate or tough it out. It shapes important organisational elements such as a sense of belonging, motivation and accountability. Essentially it is the very oxygen, the quality of air that will either allow you to thrive or deprive you of the needed resources to ‘live’. It is that important.

But most leaders don’t do enough work to fully understand ‘organisational culture’ and how they influence it, for good or for bad.  There is no shortage of resources on the subject but not all of it helpful and invariably the resources point to quick fixes and band-aid approachs that often only mask the real problems.

So where to start? Well for one, how about having some real conversations with people within your organisation about how they experience things? If they do talk freely, or don’t talk freely will in itself be a strong indicator of the quality of ‘your air’. How about walking the floor and learning to observe, to ‘listen with your eyes’ as Malcolm Gladwell calls it in his book, Blink? How about sitting down with a cultural anthropologist and getting some basic frameworks for an expert in the field and could then be applied to your organisation? How about dropping in to select meetings as an observer and see how things are being done?

How about doing some thinking on the matter? The source of organisational culture starts with you, the CEO. It may just be the most important part of your leadership responsibilities – I’m prepared to bet, it may also be the most neglected?

Related posts:

1. The 100 Euro Note Received this via e-mail today. Would anyone care to...
2. Mirror, Mirror on the Wall – the essential role of feedback for the Leader “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

It was Machiavelli who wrote that, ‘Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times’. That of course is easier said than done! However is also a non-negotiable part of contemporary leadership. Perhaps the best way to describe what is needed here is one word: Unlearning. Today experienced leaders paradoxically need to be able to unlearn things before they can learn what is required for leading in the new world of work. What, you may ask, is the best way to ‘unlearn’? Well, a good starting point is to be intentionally open to feedback from others and, when coupled with a willingness to act on the feedback, the first steps in the unlearning process have been taken. Cultivating a different view from the one entrenched – or the one that has ‘worked for you’  is difficult. It starts with openness (to different viewpoints, ways of thinking and acting) but is helped by making the time to think things through. Bill Lucas in his excellent book, ‘rEvolution’ suggests that two key questions in the process of thinking about things are: (1) What is going on here? and (2) What do you see that makes you say so? His point is that such questions lead to a ‘process of thinking’ necessary to change habits of the mind.

No longer do leaders have the luxury of ‘gradual change’. Leaders need different mindware if they are to keep pace with a world in which change itself has changed. It is fast, furious and constant. And so, the old wisdom of Reinhold Niebuhr is a good reminder to those tasked with leading in such a context: ‘God give us the grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other’. Amen.

Related posts:

1. Fly Me To The Moon I love travel. The last 21 days has seen...
2. “People Resist Change” – Not So! The well worn adage that, ‘people resist change’ is...
3. Mirror, Mirror on the Wall – the essential role of feedback for the Leader “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I’m on a quest to find companies that are extraordinary, companies that not only achieve good financial results but also contribute positively to society as a whole. I’m intrigued at how many companies have fallen down in the past few years because a number of very talented people have been behaving badly – think Enron, the financial crisis, Bernie Madoff, Lehman Brothers and the US motor industry to name but a few. Companies have wrongly convinced themselves that they need the best of the best, the most talented people, to succeed and they have been rewarding their “talent” excessively. This has resulted in a bonus culture that is eating away at the fabric and moral code of business.

Rather than build a business around star individuals I believe that companies need to be building talented systems processes and cultures. They need to be focusing on building the star company. I’m currently conducting research to form the basis of a new book about talented companies. if you know of or work for a company that has talented structures, organisational designs, cultures, systems and corporate DNA I’d love to hear from you.

Related posts:

1. Tesco, a talented company I’m always on the lookout for talented companies and...
2. Examples of Tremendous Business Leadership I came across a fantastic post today that provides...
3. 25 “talented” people behind the meltdown I’m currently researching and writing an article called “Talent...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The title of this post comes from a reply to a tweet I once posted:

Does anyone have a better word for ‘talent’? Does business really think it’s a big issue? Is there some other ‘thing’ we should be noticing?

Related posts:

1. Where Leaders of Talent Get Their Edge A business colleague, Julien Salvi, owns an excellent company, Teneo,...
2. A Talent Exodus ahead? Surviving the upturn I am becoming increasingly concerned for my top corporate...
3. The war for talent is still on – and it’s going to get worse At TomorrowToday, we are predicting that the recession is only...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.