Losing ‘yellow’ and ‘green’ and seeing ‘red’!

The last few stages of the tour have really lit the touch paper and stirred up some controversy and more interesting leadership issues

Firstly it was the sprinters, with one of the leading contenders for the green jersey, Mark Cavendish, winning an important sprint stage only to find his right hand man disqualified and thrown out of the tour. Sprinters stand the best chance of winning a stage if they have a well organised team who protect their rider through to the last few hundred metres. The team achieves this by creating a line of riders with the final sprinter positioned as the last man, peeling off as they get closer to finish until the sprinter makes the final dash for the line (they are at 60-70kph at this point ). Other teams try and disrupt the line, which can result in some physical contact. On this occasion Mark’s last man’s physical contact was deemed excessive by the race judges as they approached the critical point. As you can imagine this is a highly charged situation, with big stakes and huge amounts of adrenaline flowing! It’s often in these situations where the fine line between ‘acceptable’ conduct is defined. What tends to be the defining issue is the response of the team after a decision is made. It will be the emotional stability of the team leader and the ability to help the team return to ‘normality’ which will often determine not just the outcome of the stage, but also the performance of the team in the future, thinking strategically, regrouping after losing a key player and thinking of the bigger picture .

This mix of emotional response, behaviour and experience is also a critical determinant of leadership capability in the business world. How do you deal with highly charged situations and ensure that your team remains focused on the long term goals?

The next controversy surrounded the overall race lead entering the critical and defining stages of the race in the high mountains of the Pyrenees. The two main contenders, Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador, had been marking each other over the previous few stages, neither rider wanting to give the other an opportunity to gain time and just a handful of seconds separating them. On one of the toughest climbs, Schleck decided to make a move and accelerated to try to lose Contador. At the critical moment, Schleck’s bike suffered a mechanical failure, leaving him on the side of the road, separated from his team and team support car trying to fix his bike. There is an unwritten rule in cycle racing that if this happens then you don’t attack your rival, but Contador did and gained 40 seconds, putting him in the yellow jersey. A lot was said between the riders after the stage had finished, revenge being threatened and innocence pleaded.

A fascinating dilemma; do you behave in the way you where trained (Contador to race, business to make profit, lawyers to make logical sense of situations, accountants to add up the numbers, etc) or in stressful moments revert to your values and integrity and the impact this may have on the future, and then act accordingly?

Many leaders in recent dynamic times (and Mr Contador) will undoubtedly reflect on these paradoxes and the long term outcomes of their choices. Those working in a developmental environment might seek a deeper understanding of their orientations, and be guided through a coaching process. This can provide insight into when and where they might ‘derail’ in the future – in today’s business world, they are probably unlikely to get to many chances to get it wrong again.

Tour de France update

Since leaving the cobbles of Belgium we have seen three flat stages, a couple of high mountain stages and some interesting lessons in leadership.

Each stage requires team work that delivers a specialist to the front of the race just at the right time. The first of these specialists is the sprinter, and the guy reckoned to be the fastest man over the last 200m is a Brit called Mark Cavendish. His total focus for the entire three weeks of the event is to win the stages that involve a flat out sprint after his team has protected him throughout the stage.

It’s not too dissimilar to the situation in business when, as a leader, you have a technical or functional specialist who is only motivated when they are involved in their particular area of work. We often make the mistake of thinking their excellence will translate into leadership potential, only to be very disappointed when this doesn’t happen. To avoid that trap, a diagnostic tool such as the CHPD High Performance Motivator Questionnaire, can be very helpful in better understanding and focusing these technical experts.
In the case of Mark Cavendish, it takes five or six members of his team to lead him up to the finish line. They have to sacrifice any chance of winning for themselves to enable Mark to hit the final few hundred meters in the prime spot to execute his specialism. So the team tends to be built about the capabilities of one individual. This presents risk to the team (and their sponsors) and makes the reward structures and development of other team members challenging. We see the parallels in business – do you develop a strong pipeline of capability to support strategic intent or do you buy in people to fill specific gaps. As we know it’s probably a mix of the both and the cycling team managers struggle with the same dilemma.

The race has also now reached the ‘high mountains’ requiring another specialism – the ‘mountain climber’. Many of the hills are over 20-30km long with gradients of 10 per cent or more. This territory is where the overall race is won and lost, with massive time differences developing between riders, and the peloton often being split over many kilometres as the hills increase in their intensity and duration. The teams are then faced with a massive logistics problem. Racing cyclist can burn up to 8,000 calories during a race and are often riding close the edge of physical exhaustion. So a well developed behind the scenes back room staff is required to get food, water and energy gels to the right place at precisely the right time. It’s JIT logistics in sport.

The British ‘Sky’ team pays as much attention to the marginal gains in performance in this area of cycle racing as to the performance of the athlete. It’s often an area overlooked in business, in making sure the processes, systems and development of the back room keeps up with the guys on the front line. Success in this area can of course provide real competitive advantage.

Leadership lessons in the Tour de France

This year’s Tour De France has begun and already we find some valuable insights for those of us in the business world.

What’s particularly interesting from a business perspective is the team dynamics in this event. Competitive cycling is a team sport; an individual cannot be successful without the support of the other riders in their team. Each rider in a team of eight has a clearly defined role and the team is lead by the ‘director sportive’ who doesn’t ride a bike but follows around in a car, in radio contact with the riders. More than that, the riders are supported by a back room staff of mechanics, masseurs, and coaches and, in the case of the British ‘Sky’ team, a psychologist. Each element of the team has to be at the very peak of their profession; the best at what they do. They may not all be riding the bike, but they do have to operate in a completely cohesive way and with a total focus on ensuring the success of the team both on and off the bike.

Each team will have riders with specialist capabilities (sprinters, climbers, etc) and it will down to the director sportive to deploy these resources on a daily basis, depending on the terrain, the team strategy for the day and how the race unfolds with the tactics of other teams. So it’s a very dynamic and fast changing situation which will be impacted by external factors such as the weather, mechanical failures and crashes!

The story so far
Day one saw an individual time trial, where riders set out over a set course, this time through the streets of Rotterdam (not all TDF stages are in France). The riders with more power tend to do better in these stages, but it rained and cautious strategies prevailed. Reacting to the conditions of the day is a valuable lesson for us in business who can sometimes find ourselves operating in a bubble.

Day two showed just how powerful a group can be. It was another day of rain and a crash involving the peleton (the main group of riders) enabled one rider to get away from the group, gaining three minutes on the other riders. There was then a group protest (refusal to compete) in protest about the conditions and all the riders rolled over the line together. The collective will power of the group vs the organisation being very much in evidence and something that should not be overlooked by leaders in business.

Day three gave us the opportunity to value the whole team in the event. Riding over cobbles and very narrow roads meant the race split up, with punctures, crashes and bike failures. With this stage more suited to the powerful riders who can ride hard and fast over the cobbles, it’s the role of the team to get the ‘climbers’ through the stage. On day two, one of the most powerful riders found himself with a dilemma; he had broken away from the main peleton, but his team captain and potential overall winner was back in that group, so did he ride for himself and the glory of winning the stage or hold back to minimise the losses of his team mate? Team objectives rather than individual glory won the day. Once again the business learnings are clear, performing for the longer term good of the team rather than pursuing individual objectives and agendas will see long term business benefit.

More to follow as the stages and race unfold …

Phil Braybrooke, CHPD

Fabio as football leader - room for improvement?

The hype is over, the first game hangover is fading and we already have our scapegoat – it must be England playing at a major football (soccer) tournament!

While most of the British media has concentrated on Robert Green’s blunder, the slightly more concerning dip in form seems to be from a man who has, until very recently, put in a confident, no nonsense performance every time he has pulled on the shirt, or should I say the suit? Is Mr Capello’s halo starting to slip?

Managing any team can be tough, managing one in the glare of the national spotlight doubly so, which is why the appointment of Fabio Capello seemed like the perfect solution. Here was a man who had a proven track record as a winning manager, who believed in the psychological as well as the physical approach to the game, one who managed with authority and respect. And he’s certainly got many things right from a leadership perspective:

Discipline
Gone are the late nights, mobile phones, WAG’s (wives and girlfriends) and player cliques. By removing outside distractions and taking a firmer hand Capello has focused his players on the task at hand. This approach has obviously had a positive effect on the team as England uncharacteristically qualified for the World cup at a canter winning nine of their 10 games. Capello has, until very recently, been firm, fair and decisive and has not been afraid to make the tough calls or decisions. The players may not have liked the change this brought about but they have certainly respected it.

Built a team spirit and given his players confidence
“The manager is a strong manager and none of us want to let him down” - the words from England’s forward, Wayne Rooney, but they could have been lifted from any number of interviews with England players since Capello’s appointment. The players clearly enjoy playing for Capello. Part of the change in the team under his reign has been the confidence he has built, especially with some who were struggling to make their mark at international level. In his own words “It's more important to train the mind, to find confidence, create a group, create a winning mentality.” Capello knows that a winning team is more than just a collection of talented players, they need a winning mentality as well.

Recognised his mistakes and then taken action
Playing an unfit James Milner in the game on Saturday was a mistake that even the most rose tinted of fans would acknowledge. Any manager can make a mistake, what Fabio did well was to recognise this and then take swift, decisive action to rectify it.

For all of these positives, I’m afraid there is still room for improvement. In recent weeks we have started to see a different side to Mr Capello :

Poor communication skills
The media hype surrounding the captaincy, the announcement of the final 23 squad players via ‘tweets’ and the ill advised ‘Capello Index’ do not seem be Capello’s style. He may not have full influence over some of the announcements but he does seem to have made some poor choices recently in his presentation and handling of the media.

Indecision
No team should start a project if its members are unsure of their role. England have had plenty of time to select a goalkeeper for the World Cup and yet Capello went into the tournament seemingly undecided. If reports from the training ground are to be believed then Capello’s indecision looks to have done more harm than good. Capello needs to make a clear choice as soon as possible to end the uncertainty in the team and get their confidence back again.

Even with these recent blots on his copybook, I don’t believe we will see Signor Capello slumped listlessly on the bench or alone under his umbrella as England crash out of yet another tournament. First matches in major tournaments are not a good predictor for performance (as Italy will attest) and the USA game would have been won but for an unlucky piece of goalkeeping and some timid shooting at the other end (and the USA are no ‘mugs’ when it comes to international football having ended Spain’s 35 game unbeaten run). Capello’s record in club management and during qualifying speaks for itself. If he can get his communication and decision making back on track and rebuild the confidence in his goalkeepers then England will still be in with a chance of lifting the trophy on July 11th.

By Gary Cook, Group Systems Director at CHPD

BBC’s Big Personality Test

It was fascinating to watch the BBC’s Big Personality Test on British television last night. For those of us steeped in the world of assessment and development, it’s really interesting to see personality tests and work performance talked about on peak time television, but a word of warning …

… this was a programme built for entertainment and perhaps not as scientifically robust as we in the world of occupational psychology might like. In particular, be wary of personality assessments which link job promotion and the ‘big five’ personality traits. At one stage in the programme we saw employees of a law firm put into different lifts according to whether they were ‘high, medium or low’ on the ‘big five’ personality traits. The lifts then went up or down according to how ‘successful’ the people in the lifts had been at work. While it made for visually impactful television, the best leadership models use organisational performance rather than career progression as the measure of success.

Models which identify competencies by looking at people who have been successful (achieved promotion) and then conclude that those are the competencies essential for high performance are not reliable. It may be that in a law firm with significant amounts of bureaucracy, career advancement can be influenced by how well someone can play a political game, rather than how well they perform. For this reason, we would always recommend using a leadership model which links personality and competencies with organisational performance.

Having said all that, do take the BBC’s Big Personality Test and increase your self-awareness. If we understand more about how we prefer to operate it can increase our performance, but do also look for models which link to organisational performance if you want to make a real impact in the workplace.

The best of 'frenemies'

'Frenemies” is a horrible word. It sounds like a children’s action cartoon adventure circa 1985. Working recently in the US with a leading global publishing organisation, I noticed it was by far and away the word of the week. It describes those market players with whom we can both work and compete. Friend and foe; opponent and compatriot; Tory and Liberal. But once you decide to focus on the ‘friend’ part of the word, what does that mean to an organisation behaviourally? How do leaders in particular have to amend their way of working – and thinking? Seeing not opponents, but partners.

Let’s look at behaviour we see regularly at CHPD. Senior leaders in all walks of life can quickly become very single minded in the pursuit of organisational goals. Driven variously by shareholder demands, market sensitivity and personal ambition – a case of tunnel vision develops. They work towards the next shareholder report, the next election, the next winning tape. At CHPD we call this the ‘tyranny of the tunnel’. Three of our behaviours are chronically affected by this condition, while the rest can be impacted periodically. The chronic behaviours are concept formation; conceptual flexibility and influence.

Concept formation is essentially about creating ideas. The ‘tyranny of the tunnel’ can mean that a leader sticks rigidly to pre-existing concepts that are not anchored in relevant data. If new ideas are suggested they will reject them instinctively, citing how they could not work in practice. The analogy that springs to mind is the precocious chef, who rejects the concept of a new or altered menu.

The first cousin to this behaviour is conceptual flexibility. Having rejected even the notion of creating new ideas, this leader adopts a permanent strategy rejecting alternatives despite them being relevant and valued by others. It’s like a football manager sticking week in, week out, to the same tactical approach, regardless of opposition, because it has worked in the past. They refuse to alter their game plan regardless of the new available information on the opposing team. Only momentarily concerned with the loss of yet another match, they turn up at training on Monday with their ‘one last push’ speech.

Finally, influence. Given the closed approach detailed above, influencing by attacking others’ interests is inevitable. Leaders in this frame of mind are always trying to force other people down their preferred route through coercion and threats. Celebrity chefs and football managers again?

It’s very easy for any leader to enter the ‘tyranny of the tunnel’. The line between supreme self confidence and dogmatism is very thin, and what we see originally as purposeful leadership can mutate into belligerence. The contrast between former British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher’s, early and late years in office are the most clear, recent examples of this behavioural cross over. Her political life ended because she rejected the formation of new ideas, refused to countenance alternative policy perspectives in any meaningful way and used stridency of argument in place of sophisticated negotiation.

In short, Thatcher’s approach to ‘frenemies’ was clear cut. You were either with her or against her, there was no cross over. In working with anyone she would often ask: “Is he one of us?”

Following the 2010 British General Election, many of us who follow current affairs have been astounded by the audacity of the Tory/Lib-Dem coalition. Many people thought, including this author, that the arrangement would be a much looser ‘supply and demand’ agreement, not actually one where Cameron and Clegg share Government. However, what both party leaders have shown is how ‘frenemies’ could be a viable political, and business, strategy.

So what did the party leaders do? Firstly, the willingness to think differently about what was possible. Cameron saw that the result of the election, far from being a mousetrap for the party who assumed office, was an opportunity to reshape the political landscape. Behaviourally, his concept formation (creating ideas) was of a very high level. Given the disposition of the parties he saw that it was possible to reframe post war political assumptions – away from a centre left coalition to a centre right one. How many of us said as the results came in: “Yes, but the Lib Dems will never do a deal with the Tories”? To which Cameron said: “Says who?”

This daring, which showed an immense level of self confidence and political courage, brings us to another of the CHPD leadership behaviours: conceptual flexibility. The creation of the coalition exemplifies this behaviour at a very high level. As CHPD’s definition explains, the leader:

“Compares the merits of two or more realistic alternatives, by stating the pros and cons of each. [Creates] an over-arching plan or strategy as a result of this analysis, which maximises the benefits and minimises the downsides of the original options”.

We do not have space to recount individual policy conflation here, save to say that the output appears to be, as foreign secretary, William Hague, has said, “the best of the Liberal Democrat manifesto and the bulk of the Tory one.”

Once the strategy was set, the most difficult task was to begin for Cameron and Clegg: to persuade three key constituencies. They comprised of a) each other b) their own parties c) the public. The use of influence at a high level was now paramount. Convincing each other was the easiest part: when offered power most politicians will take it by gut instinct. How they influence their own parties was, and remains, the most formidable challenge. But, concentrating on the ‘friends’ part of ‘frenemies’ has worked wonders. Three examples: the abolition of the third runway at Heathrow appeals to the Lib Dems environmental instincts, as well as Tory parsimony; the rejection of ID cards meets Lib Dem civil rights concerns and again Tory parsimony; and the use of PR to elect the House of Lords appeals to Lib Dem electoral instincts and to Tory …well they have lots of other policies that will rebalance this. But how do they persuade the public? The simple answer is: they don’t have to … yet. The combined majority of the Con/Lib Dem coalition should keep them in power for a full five year term (this is almost assured by changing the ‘no confidence’ rules). Naturally, Clegg and Cameron will hope that their success in office will be the best influence on the electorate.

If a week is a long time in politics, half a decade is a lifetime. Asked what was his biggest challenge as Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan famously replied: ”Events, dear boy, events”. How this new kind of Government deals with these events will reveal if these best of friends can really avoid the ‘tyranny of the tunnel’.

Russell Deathridge

CHPD leadership consultant

UK party leaders need authenticity, trust and warmth

After watching the second of the British Prime Ministerial debates on UK TV, and declaring it a three way score draw, I went to bed with a nagging thought: who did Messrs Brown, Cameron and Clegg remind me of? The Three stooges? The Three Witches? The Three Degrees?

Then I realised, they were the triumvirate of Roman leaders in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra (I knew my A level in Eng Lit would come in handy one day). Not aware of who they are? The first is Anthony, 43 but aging fast. He thought he would be emperor on his own by now, but his strength may be on the wane. Second is the daring and handsome young new comer, Octavius Caesar, with his fresh ideas and smart haircut. Finally, Lepidus, who is politically weak, but a dogged fighter remaining upright in the battle much longer than anyone (including him) expected. How to cast this….tricky.

But what was the plot? Oh yes, they all try to grab power for themselves by courting the beautiful but wily and capricious Queen Cleopatra (in my analogy, that’s us, the voters).


So, if these three leaders were to woo us for one final time, what would they have to do to win my, and your, heart?

My advice, as Cleopatra, without fair or favour, would be this:

Cameron: Dave (sorry) Antony, you have clearly thought long and hard about what type of world you want to lead and how I fit into it. You would make me the centre of your ‘big society’. I like this and about 33% of me is attracted to you, but I have a nagging doubt … at our final romantic tryst I need you to speak straight to me, from your heart and show me an honest passion for what you believe in. Authenticity is what I need from you as a leader.

Clegg: Now then, fresh out of the box, Octavius, what would be my advice to you? Well I like your novelty and you certainly look me straight in the eye. Very good communications skills – you speak fluent human. You want to change the way we choose our lovers (sorry, leaders) and this is beguiling, it makes me feel as if my voice will be heard for ever more. But I need to be confident that you will not just become like all my old lovers and forget me after the fabled Election Day. Trust and consistency is what I need from you as a leader.

Brown: Last, but not least, Lepidus Brown. Ahh, my oldest paramour. Even though it was Blairius Caesar that dumped you on me and we have had our ups and downs, still over a quarter of me wants you by my side. I just don’t know which quarter. As other lovers rain down flowers and jewels, do you pour statistics and initiatives on me. Tip: at wooing time I prefer poetry and big, romantic ideas rather than policy detail. Stir me with your Scottish cadences, embrace me warmly with your passion for social equality but most importantly speak my language. Clarity and warmth is what I need from you as a leader.

And that’s all the advice I have. The problem with these new fangled ‘courting debates’ is that you leaders can only talk about what you will do rather than actually doing it. I have to take a lot on trust. So, speak kindly but with passion for …

… “I do not much dislike the matter, but
The manner of your speech”.
Otherwise I have a handy asp…

Russell Deathridge
Consultant, CHPD