Infinite Leadership: Lessons From Nature

Infinite Leadership: Lessons From Nature

by | Mar 26, 2020

Many of you might have recently read or seen extracts from Simon Sinek’s new book on the Infinite Game. In it, he suggests that business leaders should stop focusing on short-term (finite) gains and instead focus on the long-term (infinite) game of the business. This is something I wholeheartedly agree with—but it’s nothing new as a concept.

When at school, I clearly remember learning about Japanese theory management and how, in Japan, people were more concerned with the long-term outcomes of what they did rather than the immediate short-term benefits. The challenge for leaders in the West today has become the fixation on short-term results. Public companies are measured by their 90 day success on the stock market. If the CEO fails to make the numbers, the stock price plummets. The result is that business leaders make decisions based on short-term success, rather than considering the longer-term consequences.

When leaders are always seeking to win the game, rather than acknowledge and appreciate that their decisions today have a ripple effect throughout society, the quality of their decision making can be significantly impaired.

That is why it was so heartening to see Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever, stop publishing quarterly results back in 2010 and informing shareholders that “if they didn’t buy into this long-term value-creation model, which is equitable, which is shared, which is sustainable, then don’t put your money in our company.” Curiously, over the decade that Polman was at the helm, Unilever’s shareholder return has significantly outperformed  the FTSE index. What Polman clearly understood was that if you are kind to the planet and the communities in which you operate, that long-term success is inevitable.

So, what exactly are the differences between a finite and infinite approach to business and life? In his book Finite and Infinite Games, the author James Carse identifies the difference as being:

  • Finite games have a start and finish. They are played within a boundary. There are rules that shape the play on the field, and whoever is the most powerful at the end of the game wins.

In contrast:

  • Infinite games are ongoing. There is no start and no finish. Once you enter an infinite game, the critical asset is endurance and resilience.

What can we learn from nature about having an infinite mindset?

Nature is always playing an infinite game—after all, it has been around for 3.8 billion years. In nature, if you don’t play the game and adapt, you die. Which is why we see so many species that have endured over time simply by adapting to the changing environments in which they find themselves. Contrast this with the abject failure of household brands such as Nokia, BlockBuster, and Kodak—all companies that failed to realise they were playing a long-term game, and so steadfastly resolved not to change and innovate as the environment and changing landscape shifted.

For leaders, really understanding that work is infinite can massively change your perspective on things. Just imagine, if you really appreciated that business was an infinite game, you would stop saying things like: “If I just stay late I’ll get caught up” (we all know that never happens!) or “If I just sacrifice seeing my kid’s event this evening, I’ll be in a better position for work tomorrow.” When we focus on work and business being an infinite game, we realise that it will never stop, there will always be something to do, a pivot to make, a promotion to plan.

The work will never stop—however, as leaders, what we can control is how we respond to this.

When leaders recognise that work is continually evolving (just like nature) and their job is just to harness and direct it in order to get the best overall outcome, it brings a degree of flexibility and freedom to the role. With an infinite mindset, leaders can build stronger, more innovative, more inspiring organisations that are committed to bringing meaning and contribution to their lives.

One of the first steps in creating an infinite business is to create a compelling purpose and vision, something that will make a real difference in the world and which will drive you forward on a daily basis.

Empower Rather Than Delegate

Empower Rather Than Delegate

by | Feb 17, 2020

“We need to get rid of rules – real and imagined – and encourage independent thinking.”
–Howard Behar, Starbucks

Great leaders recognize that business success is a team sport and they cannot do it all for themselves. That is why the old paradigm of command and control structures will no longer be a successful leadership model.

There is an unprecedented need to effectively delegate to get everything done; however, there is a spectrum to delegation. At one end of the spectrum are task-based activities that team members are asked to perform, with little understanding of the context of that task; whilst at the other end of the spectrum, delegation becomes empowerment that ultimately morphs into Shared Leadership.

Empowerment vs. Delegation: The Difference

Whilst both empowerment and delegation are important concepts in business, as they involve entrusting others to take on important roles in the business, empowerment is much more of a motivational strategy whilst delegation is more of a doing activity.

When team members are empowered, they are encouraged to take personal responsibility and make decisions based on the situation they find themselves in—which means, from a customer perspective, they can take action to resolve client problems without having to escalate it to a manger, safe in the knowledge that their manager will support the decision they have made.

Great leaders empower others to success by setting the GPS for the business and then rallying the team members to follow. However, team members will only follow if they:

  • are aligned with the vision
  • feel valued and recognized
  • recognize and see value in what they can contribute

When team members understand these aspects, they are able to take ownership for the activities they are responsible for and ensure that the outcomes are aligned with the business strategy, which can be very inspiring for them.

Conversely, delegation occurs when a manager assigns a task to a team members. The task emphasis of the delegation is different the decision focus of empowerment. When a leader delegates tasks, they typically provide details of the requirements, often in a step-by-step manner,  including the deadline for completion. There is little or no opportunity for the team member to provide any creativity or innovation to the process, and often learning is limited.

The Delegation-Empowerment-Shared Leadership Continuum

I like to envisage delegation, empowerment, and Shared Leadership on a continuum. At one end is delegation, which is task-focused with no decision making capability and lots of control and monitoring. In the middle is empowerment, where the team member has decision making capability within an assigned framework and therefore less control is required. At the far end of the continuum is Shared Leadership, where the team member and leader are jointly responsible for the task getting completed and work in a collaborative and co-operative way, each individual focusing on their own area of expertise.

Whilst many leaders may be reluctant to relinquish the control needed to engage in Shared Leadership, or its lesser cousin of empowerment, I strongly urge you to shift your thinking on this important matter. Yes, there are times when simply delegating a task may be enough—but the evidence is overwhelming that when team members feel trusted and empowered, they become more engaged. According to the Corporate Executive Board, leaders that can move team members from low to high engagement through empowerment experience increases in productivity of over 21%.  Just think about what impact that could have on your bottom line.

If you think you are doing a great job empowering your team, just remember that, according to Gallup, only 13% of the global workforce is highly engaged. That means only 13% of your team are prepared to go the extra mile for you and feel fully satisfied with their work. Just imagine the possibilities and impact on your business if, through empowering more team members, you could increase the level of engagement.

And remember that control and creativity are the antithesis of each other. Control stifles creativity and innovation, the thing that can bring competitive advantage, and it can also dampen team members’ enthusiasm and motivation.

What can you do today to start empowering your team members and making them feel more engaged and motivated?

What’s Your Leadership AQ?

What’s Your Leadership AQ?

by | Feb 5, 2020

I’m sure you’ve heard of the terms Emotional Quotient (EQ) and Intelligence Quotient (IQ); but few people have heard of Adaptability Quotient (AQ), especially as it relates to leadership. AQ is defined as “the ability to adjust course, product, service, and strategy in response to unanticipated changes in the market”—and indeed, the Harvard Business Review characterised it as “the new competitive advantage.” Specifically, leadership AQ examines how adaptive and responsive leaders are to change and how they navigate the ever-changing environment in which they find themselves.

What Low AQ Looks Like

There are many examples of companies that have failed to extol the virtues of an AQ mindset. They include Blackberry, Toys R Us, Blockbuster, and Kodak. These companies have failed to innovate and stay ahead of the rapid changes in technology, and so have fallen by the wayside. They believed and relied on the fact that their current success would be impenetrable and that consumers would remain loyal to them, but in the face of changing consumer demands they were left high and dry. Often this occurred as the companies failed to read the market and really, really understand what the customers desired.

For example, at one time Nokia, the parent of Blackberry, controlled 41% market share in the smartphone market. They believed they were invincible as their phones were more robust, when dropped from 5 feet, than Apple and Samsung. And indeed, whilst that may have been true, the durability of the phone was not what inspired customers to purchase it. It was the apps and functionality. Hence, Blackberry rapidly lost market share when Apple launched its rival, which had much better functionality and performance.

How Leaders Demonstrate High AQ

Companies with a high AQ are able to spot customer pain points and trends, and shift gears to create new opportunities that leverage the company’s core competencies and expertise. In part due to their agile and adaptable leadership style, they are able to create self-managing teams that collaborate together on projects.

Leaders with a high AQ focus on creating a culture where everyone takes responsibility for the businesses success—a place where everyone is engaged and seeking out the best options for the business to thrive and not merely survive. Leaders with a high AQ are masters at empowering their team members to be their best. They delegate decision-making to the front line team members who can make the difference, and they appreciate that in order to become more creative and innovative they have to “let go of the reins” and give team members the space and opportunity to experiment. After all, success only comes from trying new ideas, getting feedback, and recalibrating the experience until it delivers what the customer requires.

Consequently, leaders with a high AQ recognise that the current pyramid style, command-and-control leadership structures no longer work, because the hierarchical structures and fixed routines lack the diversity and flexibility required for rapid learning and change. They appreciate the need for self-managing teams and shared leadership that comes together to address a specific concern and then dissipates once the project is completed. Leaders with a high AQ are able to pivot and quickly and easily respond proactively to events happening around them. Indeed, by keeping the big picture in mind, they are able to see the potential challenges on the horizon and therefore implement adaptability strategies in advance of what is happening.

How do leaders with a high AQ stay ahead of the game?

They study the “underdogs,” the new market entrants, and quickly learn from them. They value outsider’s perspectives and wisdom that challenges the existing status quo. They never rest on their laurels, but instead are always thinking about the best way to innovate whilst paying close attention to the rapidly changing  needs of their customers. Take the hotel industry: who would have ever thought the largest “owner” of hotels would never own any bricks and mortar buildings? The same is true of the taxi industry, where Uber came onto the scene to disrupt the traditional taxi service.

Whilst actually measuring AQ is at present virtually impossible, I think we can all agree that leaders that fail to embrace an adaptable leadership style may well become the dinosaurs of tomorrow

The Confidence-Competence Matrix

The Confidence-Competence Matrix

by | Jan 21, 2020

As a leader we are all too familiar with the struggle that often exists between the need to get things done (results) and the need to build and maintain relationships, with clients and team members. As leaders we need to be able to balance both but all too often coaching and mentoring our team members gets relegated down our to do list as business critical activities take precedent. This is a fool-hardy strategy as ultimately it is our team members who get things done, and when they are engaged they deliver exceptional client service and increased productivity and productivity.

So how as a leader do we maximise the effectiveness of our time investing in our people. According to David Dye, President of Let’s Grow Leaders the secret lies in creating a series of micro-engagements. These consistent short development interventions win every time, id used at the right time. So how do you know what to do when?

When team members are struggling with activities it is often as a result of one of two things:

• Their Level of Confidence
• Their Level of Competence

The Confidence-Competence Matrix, created by Let’s Grow Leaders, provides a great framework for determining what is happening for your team members and more importantly how you can help them.

 

It enables you to identify who needs encouragement, coaching, more challenge, or training. This means that you don’t waste your time or their attention encouraging someone who needs a challenge or coaching someone who needs encouragement.

Now let’s look at each area in turn:

Challenge Me High-Competence/High-Confidence:
This could be a team member in the perfect sweet spot of positive energy and flow, or may be becoming a bit bored and longing for more. At best, they’re your A players, although the high confidence/competence combo can sometimes manifest itself in feelings of superiority, particularly if the rest of the team is weak.

Encourage Me: High-Competence/Low-Confidence:
The good news is you’ve got skills to work with. The low confidence may appear as disengagement, but don’t be fooled.

Coach Me: Low-Competence/High Confidence
This team member needs help seeing their strengths and developmental opportunities more clearly. Offering feedback through 360 assessments, specific examples, and coaching will help bring their skills in-line with their self-perceptions.

Teach Me: Low-Competence/Low Confidence:
This chicken or egg situation is still potentially solvable. Train and teach the skills the team member needs for success in the role. There may also be a skills miss-match, have deeper developmental conversations to determine if there is a better fit for them within your organisation.

I found this model to be invaluable this weekend when trying to ride out my pony Bracken. I wanted to ride her out on her own, without her friends, so I decided to take her to a place she has been before. That way I knew she would know where was going, however I knew being without her friends for support would be challenging. And sure enough whilst she had the competency of being able to get to the destination her complete lack of self-confidence derailed the process.

At first I was frustrated and then quickly realised that what she needed was encouragement. She needed to know that I knew she could do it. She needed me to help her build her trust that she could do that. So rather than ride her I led her in hand along the route. Having me by her side gently encouraging and rewarding her made her feel braver and as we went along she grew in confidence. So much so that by the time we got back to the start of the “ride” she wanted to keep going and do it again. It was a powerful lesson in how knowing how to assess what is derailing our team members performance and then knowing what intervention will best serve them in that moment.

Just imagine how effective you could be with just a few well-chosen words at the right time?. Remember effective team development conversations happen in the moment at work and not just at team review meetings.

What’s Your Leadership Wake?

What’s Your Leadership Wake?

by | Dec 5, 2019

The term wake is a boating term that refers “to the trail of disturbed water that is left as a boat moves in the water.” It can be seen from some distance away, and the size of the wake is typically determined by the speed and the size of the boat. Whatever the magnitude of the wake, the one thing that is certain is that a wake is created. A boat simply cannot move without disturbing the water around it. It’s a physical impossibility.

What Is A Leadership Wake? 

In much the same way as a boat leaves a trail behind it, so does a leader. This is all due to the law of cause and effect. Whenever a leader, or anyone else for that matter, enters into a relationship with someone else, they leave an impact (a wake). Whether this is positive or negative typically depends on the interaction, and also the self-awareness of the leader—and most leaders I know have no recognition of the type of wake they create.

Kip Tindell, cofounder, chairman, and former CEO for The Container Store, notes that:

“Someone who’s very mindful of their wake and has the mature and sobering understanding of how powerful [his or her] wake is . . . the kind of person we want to be connected to.”

The way you show up impacts how others experience you, and therefore the quality of the interaction. If you create a positive wake then it helps team members feel a sense of belonging. Consequently, a leader’s effectiveness, long-term and short-term, is directly linked to the quality of the relationships they have with their team and colleagues.

Leaders that use their position and the company hierarchy to create a big wake often create inefficient relationships that alienate team members; this, in turn, undermines the long-term viability of a company.

Great leaders fully appreciate that when they create a positive wake within the business team members feel more engaged and committed to the company. This, in turn, makes the team members feel happier as they recognize they are valued for their contribution.

The Wake of Non-Verbal Communication

Many people I work with are really surprised by the power of their wake, and are unaware of the fact that all the time they are influencing people around them. Your wake is part of the non-verbal communication that we all emit. Our non-verbal communication is the most powerful form of communication we have—and, according to some research, impacts over 55% of our interactions.

I’m sure you’ve all experienced a time when someone has said they are well, but every other visible sign is that they are not. Maybe they are shivering, coughing, hunched up. These are all non-verbal signs that the person is far from well.

Our energy is also part of the suite of non-verbal communication tools that we typically unconsciously use. Our energy creates a wake simply when we enter a room, and this too can create a positive or negative impact with others. If our energy is too large, we can become intimidating to others; conversely, if our energy is contained, we might appear as rather timid and shy. And whilst most of your team members won’t candidly let you know how they experience your wake, my horses have absolute clarity about this. If your wake is too big and rough they simply will not engage and connect with you; and although your team members might, rest assured they won’t be enjoying the interaction and won’t feel connected to you and the business.

Remember: as a leader, you are like the first domino in the pack. Your leadership wake creates a chain reaction that is felt throughout your team.

What wake are you creating—and are you doing this intentionally?

What Are Your Leadership Anchors?

What Are Your Leadership Anchors?

by | Nov 12, 2019

In today’s VUCA world it is important to have leadership anchors (secure bases) to help us feel safe and secure. I don’t know about you but I often feel that I am being tossed around by all the turbulence that is happening around me. Sometimes I feel a bit like a boat that is being pounded by the waves and when I can’t control these situations it can create anxiety and stress. It’s hardly surprising that given the environment we live into today 1 in 4 people suffer from some form of mental health challenges.

So what can we do to minimise this anxiety? What leadership anchors can we put in place to help us feel secure during these turbulent times. 

In his book Care to Dare author George Kohlrieser reveals how when you have an anchor or secure base it can help alleviate anxiety as you feel supported and acknowledged. Having a secure base or bases can help unleash astonishing performance that delivers exceptional results. In fact he defines having a secure base as “a person, place, goal or object that provides a sense of protection, safety and caring AND offers a source of inspiration and energy for daring, exploration, risk taking an seeking challenge.”

What surprised me most by this definition was that:

1.    You can have multiple secure bases

2.    Secure bases don’t just have to be people, they can be places, goals, objects or activities.

I know in the past I have often thought about security coming from other people but what I realised was that for me my horses are a secure base which is why they make such great partners for me to work alongside. I know they have my back and I trust them explicitly during our workshops to bring their best and challenge my clients in a daring way to step into their leadership greatness and become the person they are destined to be.

In today’s VUCA world business also has an increasing role in creating safety bases for our employees. With team members spending nearly a third of their week at work if they don’t feel safe they will not be as engaged and productive as they could be, and this will have a knock on effect on profitability.

Furthermore, the 2019 People Management Report conducted by the Predictive Index revealed that when team members feel that they have a secure base that gives them what Harvard Business School Professor Amy Cuddy refers to as Psychological safety they are less likely to quit.

“Psychological safety is a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes”

When leaders create psychological safety then 96% of team members feel that they can approach their boss with problems as they realise that they will not be judged for their ideas or contribution. Contrast this with just 43% of team members who feel they can speak up when there is little or no psychological safety.

In addition the data shows the subtle ways that managers can sabotage their teams and destroy psychological safety (e.g., not valuing employees’ unique skills, not being approachable, and not respecting personal values). While these aren’t outright displays of mistreatment, they still negatively impact the employee experience and contribute to low levels of team engagement.

The first step to creating a secure base with someone and in doing so provide psychological safety is by forming a deep connection with them – a bond. When people feel bonded to each other they trust each other. They know the other person has their back. There is a transparency in the relationship and both parties respect each other and value each other. These bonds are created through “water cooler talk” and actually investing time in getting to know your team members as individuals. Leaders need to know what makes every team member tick so they can effectively inspire and motivate them to be their best.

However, the rub here is that very few leaders can be an effective secure base for someone else if they don’t have their own secure base. This is one of the reasons that we often describe success in business as being a team sport. Few people can design a successful life without the support of others, and those that put success ahead of relationships often end up as “independent loners” and can often suffer from illness, addiction, depression and chronic loneliness. Conversely, those that put relationships ahead of goals can often end up failing to live up to their full potential.

So my challenge to you today is to get clarity on who or what are your secure bases, and where do you provide this role for others?. It can be really enlightening to understand where these drivers lie and how they impact you. Please share your thoughts with me.

A special thanks to Marie O’Hara and Coaching York for inspiring this post.

Are You Putting In Enough EFFORT?

Are You Putting In Enough EFFORT?

by | Oct 21, 2019

Recently I was attending some sales training and we were discussing the difference between a fixed and growth mindset. In essence a fixed mindset believes that everything is as it is for a reason and we really can’t change that. Contrast this with a growth mindset where we are always looking for opportunities to learn and develop.  There is no such thing as failure only learning opportunities. People with a growth mindset are continually looking to improve whilst those with a fixed mindset are often looking for someone to blame.

As I listened to the training and reflected on my own position I realised that I can often be a combination of the two. Most of the time I have a growth mindset. After all I create experiences for people to stretch out of their comfort zone and grow. However, I realised that often when it comes to sales I have a fixed mindset.  I keep trying all kinds of things and when they don’t work I blame my products, services or imperfect execution.

Then the trainer said something that hit hard. He said that when it came to sales the difference in success between the fixed and growth mindset all came down to EFFORT.  This floored me. I had always thought I was putting in enough effort but I guess if I am really honest I haven’t been.

These are the skills I have not been cultivating when it comes to putting EFFORT into sales conversations.

Enthusiasm – often I just dread the sales process. It can seem sleezy and forceful and I know that this comes from being the recipient of some less than ethical sales tactics that have left me with buyers remorse as I have invested in programmes and services I never really needed.  God forbid that anyone would see me like that.

Focus – success in sales requires focus and consistency. You need to be laser like in identifying the solution that you offer and who it serves. You need to be confident that your solution meets their needs. Any wavering or doubt on your part and the potential buyer will sense this and so never conclude the purchase.

Follow Through – according to the latest research it can take upto 12 touch points to convert a prospect to a client.  That’s an awful lot of interactions. So it is imperative to continue to follow up with people. Even those that say No, because a No often means not just now.

Overcome Objections – mastering how to overcome objections is essential if you are to be successful at sales. Think ahead to some of the common objections that your prospects have and craft answers to these. Typically they will involve the price, so ensure that you always help the client understand the return on investment (ROI) of working with you. A good rule of thumb is that you should be able to deliver 10x value. In other words if your service costs £10,000 then the client should be able to achieve a £100,000 cost saving or revenue uplift.

Resilience – given that only some 3% of people and waiting and willing to buy when you connect with them the prospect of you getting no response is really high. This means that you need resilience to pick yourself back up and try again.  Remember a No is often this is not right for us right now. Try this game and see how many No’s you can get in a day. Every No takes you closer to getting a yes, so embrace the process and don’t take No personally. It is never a reflection on you

Trust – the great thing about having to have multiple contact points with someone before they purchase means that you have the opportunity to build trust. Always be in service to the other person and never be afraid to withhold your services if you don’t think they are a right fit for the prospect. You will earn significant levels of trust by referring them to another supplier or solution and in my experience they will return in due course. So when you are thinking about sales please make sure you put in enough EFFORT or else the process simply won’t work.  Now I’m off to start changing some habits and this new found wisdom

5 Tips To Be An Effective Time Leader

5 Tips To Be An Effective Time Leader

by | Oct 1, 2019

Do you often feel that the day gallops away with you and you don’t get done what you wanted? Do you get frustrated by all the items that distract you in your day? Well, the good news is that you are not alone—but the challenge is that you are being reactive in your business, rather than pro-active.

Great leaders understand that they need to grab the reins and take charge of their business if they are to be successful. They need to lead their day, rather than let the day lead them. And whilst this is easy to say, it’s often more difficult to do in practice.

In fact, I didn’t realise how much I let distractions like email and social media run my day until earlier this month. I moved house and didn’t have any internet access for three weeks. My mobile phone signal was just one bar, so I also only had limited internet access through my phone. What a revelation. I got so much done, and this was just highlighted by the day my internet satellite was installed—and I suddenly got dragged back into the distractions of email and social media and had the least productive day ever.

So, here are my top tips to help you create unbridled productivity.

Turn Off All Notifications
I know it sounds obvious and you’ve been told this before, but turning off all the notification settings on your computer and phone can be transformational. Did you know that research by Google revealed that, once you are disturbed from a task, it takes you 20 mins to get back to the level of focus you had before the interruption?

Stop Task Switching
Just figure out how much time you waste daily switching between tasks caused by the interruptions (as noted above). Only work on one task at a time until it’s complete.

Block and Tackle
To avoid task switching, block and tackle your day by booking out times in your diary to get tasks done. In my experience if something is booked in my diary, it happens—if it isn’t, it doesn’t. So block time each week for managing your accounts, business development, blog writing, coaching team members, or whatever it might be for you. Research reveals that 90 minute chunks are the optimal time for focus, so break your tasks into this time frame. If you think a project will take longer, then schedule multiple 90 minute blocks with breaks between them.

Track Your Results
Set goals for each day, week, and month, and then be ruthless in tracking these metrics. When you first start tracking your activities, you may well be surprised at what you are doing. Be courageous and stay with it, as the more you focus on these metrics, the more energy you will put into achieving them—and then within a short period of time you will experience rapid results.

Plan Out Your Day
Set an intention every day for what you will achieve that day, and then prioritise your activities so that you achieve this. Your priorities should be the activities that will enable you to achieve your bigger goal and vision, and they should be done first thing each day.

Finally, consider adopting the 90-Day Year Principle where you think about your business as having only 90 days. You then break down the 90 days into 6 two-week sprints. It’s easy to focus on what you want to achieve in 2 weeks, and this then drives your daily and weekly plan. Having a plan makes it easier to prioritise what you want to achieve each day, and if you also have some accountability in place, you will also be more motivated to achieve this.

Just imagine what would be possible in your business over the course of a year if you made just a 1% improvement in your productivity per day. The compound effect would kick in and you would experience a 10x improvement.

What practices are you putting in place today to help you and your team experience unbridled productivity?

5 Steps To Help You Transform and Reinvent

5 Steps To Help You Transform and Reinvent

by | Aug 29, 2019

We’ve all heard the phrase “Change is constant” and I think we can all agree that right now the speed of change in the world is seismic.  Technological advances are changing the way we live and work at lightening pace. According to the findings documented in Exponential Organisations much of what we learned 10 years ago is obsolete and half of what we learned 5 years ago is irrelevant.  If we are to stay abreast of what is happening then it is essential that we transform and adapt to our ever changing environment.

That means we will need to transform and reinvent ourselves and/or our businesses to stay relevant. Sometimes that transformation will be minor, sometimes it might be major, but adapt we must if we are to survive. Did you know that  three out of four companies in the Fortune 1000 have been replaced in the past 10 years alone, and 50% of the Fortune 500 is predicted to swop out in the next 10 years? Furthermore, according to the World Economic Forum, 65% of the jobs that exist today won’t exist in a decade. So learning how to adapt so that we can navigate this change is a pre-requisite if we are to thrive in today’s economy.

Success mentor David Neagle identifies the five stages of transformation and reinvention as:

  1. Awareness
  2. Decision
  3. Change
  4. Adapt
  5. Grow

Knowing where you are in the process can be helpful, but the reality is that this change is never linear. I’m sure like me you’ve made a New Year’s resolution and never kept it.  For example, you are aware you are overweight, you make a decision to stop eating chocolate but you never change your buying habits so it never happens.

What stops the process is fear. It is a powerful and insidious force that permeates your mind and sabotages your goals. The only way to overcome this fear is to be crystal clear on why you want to transform – what are the benefits of this happening and how will your life change. Without a compelling why for taking action then you will never change your behavior and so be able to adapt to the new circumstances.

The opposite state of being in fear regarding transforming and reinvention is trusting the process. Knowing that you will vacillate between being fearful and then trusting the process can help alleviate some of the fear. When you trust something you feel safe and from this space you then feel empowered to explore, see the options and so grow. Contrast this with when you are in fear.  Fear often paralyses us as we cannot see the options and so we shrink and hide out. We give away our power as we look to others to provide a safe space for us to grow into.

It’s been interesting watching my horses go through the transform and reinvent process as they have recently moved to a new barn.  Luckily they are very trusting of me and easily loaded into the horse transport to bring them to their new home. However, once here I quickly observed the anxiety and fear that gets aroused when they are separated from each other and I am not around. In these new surroundings their herd instinct is heightened and when they can’t see each other they start to panic.  Consequently I have been making sure that they all graze in paddocks where they can see each other. When they feel the safety in numbers they are calm but when separated their energy levels rise (particularly when they see something scary) and the herd start running and whinnying to each other. 

My role over the next few months will be to move them from fear to trust so that I can go out riding. I’ve already started this process with Bracken, leading her down the driveaway alone and helping her get familiar with other situations with me next to her on the ground to support her.  She trusts me implicitly so this process has been quite easy as Bracken looks to me for safety.

Contrast this with Thistle is much more self-assured but quite frankly doesn’t trust me.  I don’t have the same relationship with her as I do with Bracken, so progress has been much slower as I am continually have to prove to her that I am a trustworthy leader who she can feel safe with. And until that happens she will never be able to grow and adapt.

As a leader we need to aware of this transformation process and how fear can derail the process. What can you put in place to help your team feel safe as we navigate change?  Recognise too that each team member may well need something different from you, so as a leader you definitely need to be able to adapt and treat each team member as an individual. When it comes to leading team members, especially during change, there is no one solution fits all.

Building Trust: A Leadership Imperative

Building Trust: A Leadership Imperative

by | Aug 14, 2019

For many years trust has been considered a “soft” corporate issue, in part because it has been so difficult to measure. Whilst intuitively leaders knew that the level of trust in the organisation impacted team performance and company value, there was no concrete evidence to support this. However, new research by Accenture has quantified the impact of trust on a company’s competitiveness. And the bottom line is that trust is anything but soft.

What is trust?

Accenture Strategy defines trust as “a consistent experience of competence, integrity, honesty, transparency, commitment, purpose and familiarity.” Trust acts as a lubricant that helps oil a company’s relationships with its stakeholders and, in doing so, builds shared value for the business. When there is an actual or perceived breach of trust then the impact on the business can be catastrophic. Remember the impact that the Enron scandal had on its accountants Arthur Andersen. Whilst eventually Arthur Andersen was exonerated from any wrongdoing, it was not before the company imploded, as clients left in droves not wanting to be associated with a business that was perceived to have been complicit in the demise of Enron.

Technology, social media, and the digital economy have resulted in trust incidents becoming increasingly visible to the general public. This heightened transparency means trust is a highly flammable, ever-present concern for business leaders. No longer can leaders assume that breaches of trust can be dealt with by great PR interventions. Instead, business leaders need to intentionally create a culture that builds, maintains, and preserves trust.

Trust needs to become baked into the DNA, strategy, and day-to-day operations of all aspects of business because it impacts relationships with all the business stakeholders.

Customers

Increasingly, customers have more choices than ever before and are selecting providers based on values alignment. Customer satisfaction occurs when a companies products and services live up to brand promise thereby improving reputational value and trust. Companies that cannot deliver on brand promise or transparency will lose customer trust and, consequently, business.

A recent Accenture Strategy study of 25,000 global consumers found that, of customers who switched companies in the past year, 46 percent did so because they lost trust in the company. And switching isn’t the total cost. Customers are willing to speak up, organize, and boycott when their expectations aren’t met.

Employees

In the war for talent, a company’s reputation and actions become more important to job seekers. Accenture Strategy research revealed that more than one-third of workers surveyed ranked reputation as a top-three motivation to work for their current employer.

Suppliers and trusted partners

Key players in today’s business value chain are suppliers and trusted partners as they enable faster innovation cycles with more flexibility. The recent Accenture Strategy research points out that 84 percent of supply chain executives say they will increasingly use distributed manufacturing networks (more third parties) to meet customer demands.

Media

The advent of social media has meant that the opinions of the general public play out in real time across all forms of media.  This has can have both positive and negative impacts on building trust, and also provide a forum whereby negative trust breaches can be acknowledged and rectified.

Analysts and Investors

Increasingly, analysts and investors are not just interested in the financial metrics of a business, but also in the reputation, social impact, sustainability, and employee engagement. A joint report developed with the United Nations Global Compact found that 88 percent of investors see sustainability as a route to competitive advantage.

With trust impacting so many aspects of a business, it is essential that leaders focus on how to build trust and embed a trust into the organizational culture. They need to that ensure that all the companies behaviors and actions match the company stated values in the eyes of all major stakeholders. This means ensuring that there is alignment throughout the organisation and everyone is pulling together in the same direction.

The consequence of leaders not focusing on developing a trust-based culture within the organisation is that it can significantly negatively influence the bottom line and competitiveness in the marketplace.

Pin It on Pinterest