Trust me

Part of my job is to keep track of leadership issues in current affairs. Each week I scan the media to see what the supposed great and the good are up to. This morning there are three stories I keep coming back to - the UK Royal Mail postal strike, the British National Party’s (BNP) invitation to appear on the BBC flagship news programme Question Time and the return, both in the UK and the US, of the dreaded question of bankers bonuses. Now all these are interesting stories in themselves and pose serious leadership challenges to the senior executives involved, yet I could not help wondering “is there a link between these stories and if so what is it?”

I had just started on my third coffee and was about to throw in the towel and watch Helicopter Heroes when I came across the stunning picture above. It is the winner of the prestigious Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009 award announced today. The photographer is Jose Luis Rodriguez who said: "I wanted to capture a photo in which you would see a wolf in an act of hunting”. Bingo – I had found my link. The obvious presents itself doesn’t it? All the news stories involve hunting of some kind or other.

Yet, what I was really struck by in the photograph was the level of trust required to capture the shot; trust in Rodriguez’s own technical ability, trust in the custom-built camera, trust that the Iberian wolves would return to the same spot to hunt and, of course, for both man and beast to trust they would not turn on each other. Trust, or lack of it, was the common thread in the news stories.

Take the Royal Mail dispute. Dave Ward, the deputy leader of the Communication Workers Union, said that the Union could not trust the management negotiation team. Citing external forces “deliberately trying to undermine” a negotiated settlement he said talks could not continue when agreements reached in the negotiation room were, in his view, subsequently undermined by later statements by the Royal Mail management. The management themselves responded that this was not the case – and the merits of each position need not concern us here. Our real issue, rather, is how leaders striving for agreement need to be able to truly trust in each other. Ward said at the same press conference “without that trust there was no point continuing”.

At CHPD we regard trust as an essential characteristic of high performing leaders – particularly when building empathy. The bedrock of this behaviour can be summed up as to see issues, events, ideas, explanations or options ‘through the eyes of another’ - to really understand their mind-set. Building on this we recommend managers disclose their true feelings in order for others to do the same. It is at this, quite personal, level that the Royal Mail negotiations have collapsed – with insult and invective peppering the media exchanges on the eve of the strike.

Yet the other examples we are looking at today require a more strategic and long lasting view of trust and empathy. CHPD describes this behaviour at its highest level as senior executives building a climate of trust and openness in which people are valued for saying what they really think, feel and believe and can do so without any fear of criticism, judgment or punishment. As a manager myself I have encouraged my teams, and my team leaders, to create an atmosphere where this can happen. When teams address issues honestly without fear of retaliation they are much more efficient, effective and self supporting. And surely if it is right to create this culture internally, it is right to echo it externally. Enter the BNP at the BBC.

By the time this article appears the BBC Question Time programme will have aired but the leadership issue goes beyond one broadcast. Many people find the political and moral views of the BNP repugnant, yet the BBC gave them a platform for debate because they reached a level of electoral success and thus automatically qualified for an invitation. But was it right to invite a self evidently racist political party (their current constitution does not allow for non whites to join) the legitimacy the programme endows? For all major broadcasters there is a covenant of trust between them and the public and the question senior executives at the BBC will have to answer is: by inviting the BNP did we reinforce or undermine that trust?

Finally, just a year after the colossal bail out of banks across the globe by national governments (well, tax payers) the bankers are on the verge of awarding themselves eye-watering bonuses. The idea of a ‘covenant of trust’ between bankers and the public may seem risible but on both a personal and national scale we trusted the banks to do the right thing with our money. It would be unfortunate if in paying these bonuses the banking system repaid that trust by showing a collective lack of empathy with their paymasters.

This past year has seen the issue of trust in public institutions put under intense scrutiny. All leaders, in whatever walk of life, always need to earn that trust and can never take it for granted. These cases show how negotiations collapse without personal trust, how we all are forced to trust institutions to take the ‘right’ decision on our behalf and how trust can, sadly, be repaid. Trust is of course a two way thing: do we trust the wolf and does the wolf trust us?

By Russell Deathridge, CHPD Consultant
www.chpd.com

‘Liquid modernity’ drives us to be flexible and adaptable

This month Trendwatching’s musings highlight the work of German philosopher Zygmunt Bauman and offer an interesting insight into the leadership qualities most needed today.

‘Liquid Modernity’ is Bauman's term for the present condition of the world. According to Bauman, we now have to splice together an unending series of short-term projects and episodes that don't add up to the kind of sequence to which concepts like ‘career’ and ‘progress’ could be meaningfully applied. Such fragmented lives require us to be flexible and adaptable — to be constantly ready and willing to change tactics at short notice and to pursue opportunities according to their current availability. In liquid modernity the individual must act, plan actions and calculate the likely gains and losses of acting (or failing to act) under conditions of endemic uncertainty.

This reflects our own leadership research. Flexible leadership is key to success during turbulent times and through to recovery. Without flexibility, leaders will become the ‘rabbits in the headlights’ of the business world.

There are certain key leadership behaviours which enable the flexible and adaptable approach that Bauman talks about. These are:

Conceptual flexibility – the ability to identify multiple solutions to a particular challenge, to hold different options simultaneously in focus and evaluate pros and cons

Continuous improvement – the ability to set challenging yet realistic goals and targets to continually improve performance. Measuring and reviewing progress towards goals and taking action to ensure these are achieved

Empathy - finding out and encouraging others to express openly their real thoughts and feelings

Teamwork - creating and developing cohesive teams within your unit and across related departments, functions or sectors

Contact CHPD to find out how to accurately assess and develop strengths in these high performance behaviours.

Request copies of CHPD’s white papers on flexible leadership and turbulent times.

www.chpd.com

Diversity of thought – the holy grail for UK boards

As a white, middle-class man of average height and weight, with no major psychological disturbances or regional accent, I would struggle to find the organisation to which I was the diversity solution. If only I were gay ... But before I broach the subject with my wife, perhaps I am more diverse than I look. My brain could be very different to yours, you just can't see it. And this is where diversity really begins to bite from a business point of view.

Our human differences are important, and it is important to reflect the differences of our customers in our workforce. We’re trying to say, ‘Look, we’re just like you, whoever you are’. And psychologists will tell you that works; we are immediately attracted to people who seem to be similar to ourselves. The old saying ‘birds of a feather flock together’ has some truth about it; we tend to be attracted to people who most closely approximate our physical appearance.

Whilst to meet me you might think I am as non-diverse as it is possible to be, my brain, on the other hand, might not work in the same way as yours. You can tell this by locating your eyebrows. If they are further up your face now than they would normally be, you are experiencing some diversity, not of race, gender, sexuality or anything like that, but of thought and expression.

I spend my time working with leaders, individually and as groups, facilitating board meetings, coaching individuals and supporting their development. I do this across a wide range of industries and all around the world. The biggest threat I see to my clients is not change, (economic downturn, acceleration of technological advancement, emerging markets, changing customer needs etc.), but their response to it.

This is not a new phenomenon. One hundred and fifty years ago, Charles Darwin recognised the same feature in nature. Darwin is often misquoted as proposing the ‘survival of the fittest’. What he actually put forward was ‘the survival of the most responsive to change’, in other words the fastest and best at evolving to suit new conditions. Let’s run a little example to make the point. At some point in the peacock’s evolutionary history females started liking males able to display their resistance to disease (that, incidentally is why peacocks have big tails). Had all male peacocks decided to do this with a little jig (something their customer base simply doesn’t like – ask any female peacock) then we would have none of the pretty birds around today. Fortunately some experimented with a slightly gaudy tail, which did the job tremendously well. The result: the species is alive and well. The same applies to organisations. If the whole board responds to a down-turn in the economy by reducing fixed costs and streamlining operations, (because they all agree unanimously that this looks like the sensible thing to do), then what about alternative approaches like raising capital, buying competitors, divesting whole product lines, expanding into new markets etc, etc. Potential dodo-dom lies this way.

The challenge for leaders in organisations today is that the diversity argument leads to a perfect contradiction. We like people who are like us – so in order to appeal to the maximum possible customer base we try and recruit a fully representative workforce. (Incidentally race, gender, orientation, age etc have no correlation with capability – if you’re still unsure about that … I despair.) However, we can get great diversity with no diversity; we all look different but we think the same way. This is even harder to spot because leaders will tend to recruit in their own (psychological) image. Recruiting people who think like you, behave like you and respond like you is extremely hard not to do, because you won’t end up thinking, ‘this person is just like me’, you’ll think, ‘this person is good, right, personable …’ And say what you like, we often recruit and promote on personality.

Thinking similarly makes for an easy life; few arguments and more action, though arguably less sound, rounded, well considered decisions. Thinking divergently makes for more conflict and may take longer, but ultimately leads to better decisions. On a first meeting you may find these divergent thinkers difficult to get along with, but if you persevere you can form an excellent partnership. Humans understand this strange dichotomy because whilst ‘birds of a feather flock together’, ‘opposites attract’. This too is true. The best partnerships are formed on points of difference, not similarity.

If you’re concerned about convergent thinking in your management team (a good precursor of group think) then you can use the Centre for High Performance Development’s Leadership Orientations Questionnaire (LOQ) to find out just how diverse your thinking styles actually are. Is your team predominantly far sighted or near sighted; detail conscious or detail averse; factual or intuitive; risk averse or risk taking? More often than not we find some severe bias in most leadership teams. This doesn’t mean you have to change the team (necessarily) but it does alert you to the fact that you may need to learn to watch for certain gaps or tendencies within the team.

The diversity debate encourages us to seek to minimise apparent differences between the internal world of our organisation and the make up of the external world – and this is healthy and good. Possibly more important is the argument that diversity really lies in maximising the differences in management team’s thinking styles and approaches. Because with diversity comes a much better chance of survival.

www.chpd.com
dan.white@chpd.com

Men may be to blame, but where do we go from here?

Robert Peston (BBC blog, Why men are to blame for the crunch, 29 July 2009) may be right, but will things ever change? Commission after commission reveals that discrimination against women at most work levels is only improving at a snail’s pace, if at all. In Norway, they’re tackling the problem with a minimum 40% quota of women on plc boards. But would that work here? Indeed, is it enough?

I’ve been coaching, developing and working with big business for many years and it seems there are a number of issues that need to be addressed – and soon.

We need diversity

The first thing to say is that this isn’t just about being ‘fair’, it’s about being better. With all-male boards and executive teams comes a very real tendency to think the same way and then develop similar solutions to the challenges the business faces. People have a natural tendency to recruit in their own image. Everyone agrees, so it must be the right thing to do. Organisations need diversity of all kinds; race, gender, style, experience, approach, background. Only with true diversity can organisations become more dynamic and creative in the market.

Cultures must change

Some organisations have recognised that they need to be more diverse; they’ve established ways of employing people from more diverse backgrounds, even setting quotas. But there is a significant risk that this will all be for nothing, unless the fundamental cultures of organisations are addressed at the same time. Too often organisations aren’t seeing the added value of diversity, because once, for example, women join, they soon realise that their skills aren’t really valued and they leave. Either that or they realise that they have to copy the dominant group to get things done. They become ‘more male’ in their approach and organisations fail to realise the true benefits of diversity.

Leaders need help

At CHPD we’ve been assessing and developing leaders for more than a decade and something continues to trouble me. The fact is that vast majority of leaders that come to us have weaknesses in the very leadership capabilities that they need to operate effectively in today’s complex and dynamic environment.

No individual leader can be expected to have strengths in all areas, but across boards and executive teams you would want to see a good spread of strengths. That’s why diversity is so important; in a team you’ll cover each other’s weaknesses and complement the strengths.

We find that the least developed behaviours are those complex interpersonal and cognitive ones which enable people to understand and value others’ perspectives, think outside the existing paradigms, and create powerful ideas within a group – we call them empathy, teamwork and conceptual flexibility.

Women are more likely to be naturally stronger in empathy, teamwork and conceptual flexibility, so there is a real chance that the right women could help redress the balance in the boardroom and beyond. However, in my view there is such a dearth of strategic strength in this area that we should look urgently at development activities for all genders to improve these key behaviours.

And finally …

So diversity makes excellent business sense. It can’t just be about quotas, it must also be about changing systems, structures and values, to create cultures which value and encourage diversity. And we need to help all of our leaders develop the vital skills that redress the imbalances that have contributed to our current economic predicament.

For all our efforts to date, we’ve done barely more than scratch the surface. Let’s stop tinkering and start shifting the paradigm.

More on leadership behaviours

Chris Parry, 2009

A lucky break for the English that first test

The bloody English weather – now I’m convinced the English wish a miserable summer upon themselves!! After six years in London, it stands to reason that I would have accepted the UK weather for what it is. But alas it continues to surprise and disappoint! Towards the end of the first test I started to get very smug with the knowledge that Australia had it in the bag and went about my merry way. Imagine my horror, disgust and all round cue for Australian whinging when the game was a tie because of the rain! Yet again foiled by the weather.

Considering the options
But of course what was heading to be quite a convincing win assured me that the second test would be more of the same. It appears the Australians did as well and this could have been their downfall. It’s worked before so let's not change our strategy. Clearly the wrong decision. The second test was a different ball game in more ways then one. Without reflecting on Freddie’s man of the match game, and my esteemed colleagues views on Strauss’ leadership during the second test; the Australian press seems to be pointing in one direction – the bowling of Mitchell Johnson. To blame the loss of the test on one person seems quite unfair in my opinion, in my amateur opinion I think there wasn’t any consideration of the different factors going into the match.

Firstly this is Freddie’s last test before retirement – after his spectacular contribution in the 2005 test (difficult for me to say even now four years on) he’s going to be playing at the top of his game to go out with a bang – and some pundits are saying that apart from his playing skills he is also having a major psychological impact on his team mates – simply building their confidence to inspire them to a win. Coupled with the threat of not beating Australia at Lords for 75 years – there was a lot at stake regardless of what was happening on the field. Whatever the reasons it worked for them and we didn’t seem to take that into consideration. And now after the Aussie win over Northamptonshire at the weekend with all-rounders Mcdonald and Watson’s good games there is more than one option to be had. The final line up is still a mystery, but the key here is how Ponting retools Australia for recovery.

Building confidence
As it is in the business world, outstanding leaders inspire and excite. They encourage people to achieve or exceed challenging performance targets through their passion, pride and belief in their people and their organisation. Both Ricky Ponting and Aussie coach Tim Nielsen are standing behind Johnson - "We have had the last two years where we have played some pretty good cricket and Mitchell has been at the forefront of all of that. There have been a lot of times when batsmen and bowlers have been out of form and we have stuck with them and shown some faith unlike what seems to be the public or the press's point of view." They both know the importance of building the bowler back up from his less than perfect start to the season – help him to get his confidence back, which will in turn build the optimism of the team. Playing cricket in England is much different for us then it is at home – we don’t have the support of the crowd which can be a massive factor in our team’s confidence, so we need that extra confidence and inspiration from within the team. Ignore the press and listen to your leader, coach and team. And, as is the Australian way, we love to get behind the under-dog and build up their confidence so they can beat the odds and win.

Teamwork
The focus on one player or another in particular takes away from one very important point - there are 11 players! Sometimes it’s easy to forget that when one person does particularly well or particularly badly, but it’s the job of the leader to pull everyone back together. As we know the best results are achieved when we collaborate together and promote teamwork – capitalising on their strengths, using their collective knowledge to strategically respond to the challenges. The third test is an historical game for Ponting – he is on the verge of overtaking Aussie legend Allan Border’s mark of 11,714 runs to put him third in the all time list of highest test run scorers. And in 22 fewer test matches than Border himself. But Ponting is putting it aside - "I know about it," Ponting said of the record. "I have known about it since the beginning of the series … I have bigger fish to fry than that right at the moment.” His focus is putting the best team possible together, keeping the spirits up and making sure we don’t go into the fourth test 2-0.

And, as has been written better than me before, whatever happens we the Australian crowd will always be behind the wearers of the baggy green –

“Night or day, they're out to make us proud

To keep our flags a-wavin' in the crowd

Even gettin' zeroes

They'll always be our heroes

And keep us signing' come on just as loud

COME ON AUSSIE, COME ON, COME ON!”

Posted by: Rachael Gulliver, Client Partner at CHPD

Home cooking the recipe for Strauss and England

With the Third Ashes test approaching and the ‘Fred’ appreciation society finally nursing its hangover, it is important to recognise a key factor in England’s turnaround: Andrew Strauss. The vultures were circling after Cardiff but the performance at Lords was down to Strauss’ leadership more than Flintoff’s hostile bowling. From the end of Cardiff through to the end of Lords, Strauss exhibited key leadership qualities that were vital to England’s success. These qualities ensured the team did not ‘dine out’ on the Cardiff escape and are great examples for any leader, especially within the current turbulent environment. Let’s have a look at the vital qualities that Strauss exhibited:

Confronting the brutal facts
After Cardiff Strauss was quick to highlight the underperformance of England’s specialist batsmen. He talked of pride not self-congratulation, with the plaudits going to the people who made the vital contributions. This put the onus on England to make the necessary changes for Lords rather than live in hope that the Aussies would under-perform.

Building on a core competence
As much as there was a post-mortem after Cardiff it did reaffirm England’s core competence under Strauss of being difficult to beat (the recent tour to the Windies apart). The application displayed by Collingwood, as well as Anderson and Panesar, on the final day in Cardiff demonstrated that Strauss has instilled the will and capability to get through a crisis. This galvanised the team for Lords as the players knew they had a platform to build upon.

Being the predator not the prey
As much as Cardiff may have been an escape Strauss talked of momentum for Lords and the need to play positive cricket. The opening session of Lords set the tone with Strauss leading by example in a very positive display. His 161 was the cornerstone of England’s first innings and ensured that England took the role of Predator not Prey for the remainder of the Test.

Considering the options
On the morning of the third day at Lords many thought that it was certain England would enforce the follow on. However, the weather conditions changed and the pitch became benign: Strauss then opted for England to go back in to bat. His ability to think flexibly and alter the plan based on new information ensured England was able to build a healthy total from which the Aussies could not respond.

Deploying the talent
The fifth morning of Lords was a great example of Strauss ensuring England played to its strengths. He allowed a fired up Flintoff to bowl continuously with a new(ish) ball and deployed the guile of Swann at the other end to provide uncertainty in the minds of the Aussie batsmen. Strauss’ ability to see how to best use his bowlers ensured that victory was swift and convincing.

The challenge now for England and Strauss is to ensure that these qualities are built upon for the third test at Edgbaston. Ponting was quick to take a leaf out of Strauss’ book after Lords: confronting the brutal facts and not dwelling on some questionable umpiring decisions. All is set for an engaging remainder of the series.

Posted by: Kieran Colville, Client Partner at CHPD

"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.