"Turn again, Margaret"

Self confessed "man of the people" Russell Deathridge considers the leadership lessons that emerge from a particularly weighty anniversary falling this month.

There is an inevitability about discussions on the nature of leadership. At some point one name will emerge: Margaret Thatcher. Thirty years after her first historic election victory, we are seeing an examination of her style, policies and legacy. This is good, for, with the exception of Churchill, Thatcher is unique among post war British Prime Ministers: a generation after she was elected people still have incredibly strong opinions about her.

Ruthless, iron-willed, stubborn, necessary, visionary, energetic, “intransigent”, ‘inspiring, ‘direct and focused are just some of the more common (and printable) descriptions of Mrs T. Unsurprisingly ‘consensus’ never appears. The ‘ability to create general agreement‘ is not a skill that first springs to mind when we discuss Britain’s first woman prime minister. Once famously describing consensus politicians as ‘traitors’, she later publicly expanded on her theme:

“Consensus … is the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects … What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner ‘I stand for consensus’?”

The Sir Robert Menzies Lecture, Monash University, Australia,1981

When we skim the surface of Thatcher’s premiership this trenchant belief appears borne out by her behaviour: the implementation of the ground breaking 1981 monetary budget; the simple, single minded prosecution of the Falklands War; the trouncing of the miners; the “no, no, no” of her European policy and finally her implacable adherence to the notorious ‘poll tax’. In all these cases Thatcher showed a breathtaking disregard for the opinions of others. In some instances it worked for her (monetarism, the Falklands and the miners), in others it spectacularly failed. It was clear at the time that a combination of her contempt for the EU single currency and an almost messianic belief in the poll tax toppled Mrs Thatcher.

As experts in the nature of leadership, we at CHPD find that many successful leaders certainly need to have both the vision and drive to make things happen, but at the same time they need to build consensus and be open to different ideas. CHPD founder Dr Tony Cockerill defines this behaviour ‘conceptual flexibility’ and described it thus:

“It is the ability to compare the merits of two or more realistic alternatives. By examining, in detail, the pros and cons of each idea the leader may then create an over-arching plan or strategy. The outcome will be an approach which maximises the benefits and minimises the downsides of the original options. Without it the leader may be unable to persuade others of the benefits of the approach and ultimately fail”.

No politician, whatever they or their image makers may like us to believe, can reach the top without being able to think laterally both strategically and tactically. The ‘success stories’ noted above were achievable precisely because there were alternatives. In the case of the miners, Mrs Thatcher avoided a confrontation earlier because she was persuaded that neither the government nor coal board was sufficiently prepared for a long strike. Thatcher’s fall from power happened not only because of poor policy but also because she refused to think flexibly and, ironically, build consensus.

CHPD both assesses leaders against conceptual flexibility and a further 11 behaviours and helps them achieve a higher level of performance through training and coaching. To find out how your leaders stack up against the key benchmarks, email info@chpd.com. In the meantime, try the following tips to boost conceptual flexibility in your business:

• Show staff how to evaluate pros and cons of several different options when planning
• Establish a network of teams from different units or functions to solve problems and devise multiple strategies and visions
• Recognise and reward flexible thinking behaviour
• Create alternative visions for the future and predict their impact
• Introduce scenario planning or modelling as fundamental processes to be used to help with flexible thinking
• Task management and staff with multiple solution formation and short and long term planning – build this into the performance management process

One final thought, under the ‘30 year rule’, the Thatcher government cabinet papers will soon start to be released. Then we will see if she truly was the ‘Iron Lady’."

Russell Deathridge is a consultant at the Centre For High Performance Development.

“Ain't no mountain high enough”

“The speed at which we'll recover will depend on the international cooperation we can achieve” Gordon Brown – Wall Street, March 25th 2009.

Nobody walked out, everybody had something to call a victory and they all got to bathe in President Obama’s spotlight. While debate will continue about exactly what the world leaders achieved at the London G20 summit, one thing is for sure: the work of the faceless diplomats behind the scenes was invaluable. These so called ‘sherpas’ (leading the mountaineers to the summit) have to prepare all the detailed ground work for their heads of government and draft various communiqués before the meeting has even taken place.

The sherpas' work involves numerous face-to-face meetings, conference calls and e-mail exchanges together with an ability to coax, manoeuvre and negotiate with their opposite numbers. The delicacy of this task cannot be understated. It requires forensic analysis of complicated issues, deft diplomatic communication skills and, most crucially, teamwork - one of CHPD’s core behaviours contributing to high performance leadership. The ability to create teams that truly work together is all too rare. In a recent snapshot of results from years of assessment of leaders in the UK, we found that, on average, leaders were under-developed when it came to ‘teamwork’. (see diagram below).



At CHPD we find that many leaders believe they are good at ‘teamwork‘ because the team themselves say “we have a great team spirit”. This is commendable and to be maintained yet it is actually the output of an entire leadership approach rather than the application of one behaviour like expert facilitation of the team and fostering effective team results.

CHPD’s definition of teamwork at a high performance level is as follows:

“The leader facilitates dialogue between two or more team members so they create shared ‘team concepts’, that are more powerful than any of the individual ideas that were contributed at first”.
This means that the team is constantly working together not only to complete group tasks but also to harness disparate ideas into team strategies and solutions. In essence it is the work of the perfect ‘sherpa’.

CHPD both assesses leaders against 12 behaviours and helps them achieve a higher level of performance through training and coaching. To find out how your leaders stack up against the key benchmarks, email info@chpd.com. In the meantime, try the following tips to boost teamwork in your business:

· Encourage teams to pool knowledge and develop a shared sense of purpose through regular update and progress meetings

· Promote participative decision making rather than imposition of decisions from above

· Promote the cross-fertilisation of ideas by bringing people from your own and other teams together to improve co-operation

· Task teams to talk things through to develop shared thinking and to integrate different perspectives where appropriate

· Build bridges between the ideas of team members by asking them to build on the linkages of their ideas to create broader team concepts

· Stimulate a wide-ranging debate amongst all your employees on the decisions that affect them; encourage team members to understand their colleagues

Having reflected on the use of teamwork you may start to question who had the real leadership behaviours at the G20 meeting – the mountaineers or the sherpas?

Flexing leadership in turbulent times podcast

“Many leaders find it hard to transition between recession and recovery.”

According to CHPD founder, Dr Tony Cockerill, the behaviours needed in turbulent times are different to those we need in more stable economic situations.

Find out what these behaviours are and why they’re important in this podcast discussion between Tony and Kieran Colville, senior partner at CHPD.

Click in the window below to listen to the podcast



If you prefer you can download the podcast here

“Where are the Oscars for us mortals?”

The news coverage associated with the Oscars underlined a lesson for effective leadership in times of economic dislocation. It makes one think "Where are the Oscars for us mortals?"

Kate Winslett, Sean Penn and Danny Boyle were recipients of much more than a small, gold statuette. They got something money can't buy - recognition.

In fact, it's something we all crave. As psychologist Frederick Herzberg found, satisfaction does not come from pay but from challenging work, responsibility and ... recognition. Maybe the business world can learn something from Hollywood in this challenging economic environment.

Pay cuts are becoming more commonplace than pay rises. If a salary and bonus ever could help you keep your talent, it's doubtful it could today. Recognition need cost nothing - assuming you don't go for the Vanity Fair party - yet too often it is forgotten. The issue has everything to do with two leadership behaviours identified by CHPD as crucial to high performance leadership - 'building confidence' and 'developing people'.

Dr Tony Cockerill, CHPD founder and expert in leadership, explains: “There are 12 behaviours that have been identified as making the difference between average and high performing leadership. Two of these are clearly linked to recognition; ‘building confidence’ ties in with the public or external recognition of good work, while ‘developing people’ links to the one-to-one feedback that you give people about their performance. As a manager, if you have strengths in both behaviours, you are likely to have staff who feel recognised and valued for their contribution.”

Strengths in both behaviours necessary for recognition can be rare. In a recent snapshot of results from years of assessment of leaders in the UK, we found that, on average, leaders were under-developed when it came to ‘developing people’ (diagram below).

CHPD both assesses leaders against these 12 behaviours and then helps them achieve a higher level of performance through training and coaching. To find out how your leaders stack up against the key benchmarks, email info@chpd.com. In the meantime, try the following tips to boost the satisfaction of your people:

• Be specific with your recognition – don’t just say ‘you do a great job’, tell someone exactly what they did that has been appreciated. This way you not only make them feel valued, but they are also clear about what great behaviour looks like and what they need to focus on in the future.
  
• Try a handwritten note – something that stands out from a regular email and that you’ve put some effort in to
  
• Don’t combine praise and criticism – if there are issues with performance raise them separately from the praise, otherwise the recipient with only focus on the criticism not the praise you’re trying to impart. People are wise to the ‘feedback sandwich’ now – good thing, bad thing, good thing – and can be waiting for the ‘bad’.
  
• Present your own Oscars – why not get hold of a few statuettes or certificates to hand out to worthy winners. Having them around the office and pinned to notice boards can stimulate positive conversations and ensure that colleagues know why someone has been recognised.

After all, if it’s good enough for Kate, Sean and Danny, it’s good enough for you!

For more information on CHPD's leadership behaviours email info@chpd.com or visit our website http://www.chpd.com/

Leadership in turbulent times

CHPD’s newly appointed MD Jim Tapper outlines the first of three themes that should inform the thinking and commercial approach of organisations in this severe downturn.

“The contribution of leaders to business success increases markedly during turbulent times. During these times negative factors that create drag on organisational performance become impossible to ignore or work around. An organisation that is lacking in cross-functional teamwork or has opaque processes that hinder the effectiveness of its people will soon find itself slipping behind the competition. In a deteriorating economic environment such as the one now prevalent across the globe, crises start to regularly impact on an organisation. Accordingly the need for business leaders to maintain focus on their performance while thinking flexibly and building confidence and engagement with their teams rises sharply.

Around 40% of an organisation’s performance is determined by the capability of its leaders. Studies such as Weiner and Mahoney (1981) and Day and Lord (1988) illustrate this clearly; leaders’ characteristics have a significant bearing on variation in sales, earnings and profit margins over time. With the pressure on leaders expected to last throughout this recessionary period, we have identified a number of solutions that can address the varied challenges faced by businesses today.

1. Building the capability of managers to deal with the crisis:
The capabilities required by leaders during the crisis must be aligned to the business strategy. This entails identifying aspects of their personality and preferences that will equip them with the self-knowledge to direct their efforts to where they are strong and build teams to cover the areas outside their core skill. They must develop the required High Performance Behaviours to be effective at a strategic and operational level, senior coaching and leadership simulations play a key role here. Promoting diversity of mind to foster enhanced collaboration is also essential. As pointed out by our executive chairman Chris Parry in a response to an article published recently in the Observer, the upper tier of organisations must be heterogeneous and diverse; otherwise there is the risk of a stifling uniformity of thought and outlook descending.

2. Targeted cost reduction, not blanket cost reduction:
Cutting costs to the bone without a clear idea of the outcome is counter-productive. It is vital to find out the skills sets of your people, perhaps with benchmarking and diagnostics, and then deploy them where they will be motivated and effective.

3. Consolidation and mergers:
Measuring who is ‘fit for purpose’ can enable the retention of high performers and those with high potential to lead during disruption. However, in a downturn the easy ways to make efficiency savings and streamline your operations disappear. Leaders need to be ready to make these tough decisions without undermining morale in an organisation as it undergoes rapid change.

4. Retaining and motivating the best people:
Give them incentives to retain engagement and feel valued when financial reward is not possible. Consider also whether sufficient career paths are open to those with different skills and aptitudes, there may be valuable capabilities in your talent pool that do not easily fit a very tightly defined management structure.

Finally the case for investing now:
- During the recession of the early 90s the companies who continued to invest in their people thrived. Prices were lower, customers were scarce and discounts were deep. There is a real opportunity to lock in investment cheaply and reap the benefits when the upturn comes and your competitors find the bargains have disappeared.
- Studies have shown that there is a correlation between objective measures (e.g. profitability, productivity) and subjective measures (e.g. engagement, performance ratings) – enhancing the latter supports the former.
- Become the predator not the prey – companies that survive and thrive are pro-active and quick to respond to maximise opportunities.

A last thought from a recent study: 91% of strong performing organisations surveyed have a system that identifies high potential people. Only 67% of the weaker performers do.”

That was the speech that was

Having survived being stranded in Switzerland, our roving consultant Russell Deathridge finds it hard to condemn presidents past or present for buckling under the strain of office. Find out how hard...

Lesson In Nixon

On January 20th 2009 I found myself in the only part of Zurich airport that had neither TV nor internet access. So I could only imagine what Barak Obama’s inauguration speech contained. Working for a leadership development consultancy you can imagine my embarrassment. (“So, Russell, what’s your opinion of the new President’s strategic view of the global economic crisis?” - “Profound” was going to be my stock answer) Then I saw it. He fumbled the Oath of Office. What? Obama couldn’t repeat words just read out to him? Even George W. could do that! What a start.

By spooky coincidence a few days later the film Frost/Nixon opened. There he was – the famous hanging jowls, the receding hairline, the dark rings under the eyes. Oh and there was also Richard Nixon. Nixon left us more than a tawdry suffix to describe a scandal. He gave the world 'détente' and dialogue with China as well as some great hallowe’en masks. Both the film and the original interview show that his disgrace is in the end a tragic essay in self-deceit. His embarrassed squirming when trying to square the circle between 'cover up' and 'criminal cover up'; his evident discomfort at Frost’s brilliant research; his anger as a catalogue of his taped quotes are reeled off lead him to display his famous paranoia “why are you reading out just those bad sections?”

Throughout, Nixon refuses to accept his guilt and apologise, he only accepts one thing: that he “let down the country and my friends and for that I am sorry. And I will have to carry that guilt for the rest of my life”. Bizarrely I found myself moved by this grudging apology. Frost had forced the President to look into the true heart of his administration: and there he found that for all its’ soaring accomplishments the Nixon White House had achieved, quite simply, power beyond its integrity. The actual 1977 interview may not have been an incendiary confrontation in real life, but the film brilliantly shades the facts to bring out a dark truth.

Perhaps Obama’s fumbled swearing in will have a salutary effect on him. If the new President ever discovers the truism that 'power corrupts' his mind may turn to that moment last month when he tripped on the words “to execute faithfully the office of president of the United States and to protect, preserve and defend the Constitution”. After all Nixon’s swearing went smoothly.

Down We Go

At last Dick gets the respect he deserves from his underlings

A fascinating article appeared in the Sunday Times In December giving an insider's view of the decisive contribution Dick Fuld made to the eventual collapse of Lehman Brothers. From our perspective, it is the clear deficiencies in some key High Performance Behaviours that is helpful in understanding how he went from hero to zero. The list includes; negative Information Search as Lehman executives filtered out all information except that which confirmed their inflated estimates of the company' worth, negative Influence as Fuld and his inner circle demonised anyone who challenged their view of events and negative Teamwork, with business units forced to become isolated or combatitive. Used aggressively in this way by a dominant boss, the negative behaviours became a destructive force.

When the downward spiral accelerated, Fuld's last resort was to berate the US government for not bailing the firm out, abdicating responsibility to the very end. Disagreeable even by the standards of the financial world many will be hoping to never see his like again on Wall Street.