Public Sector Strategy Execution Essentials

July 18, 2014/in Blog, Dr Dave Norton, Events

Applying the Balanced Scorecard to deliver value for a “public sector version” of “shareholder value”.

RADICAL TRANSFORMATION

In Kaplan and Norton’s book they discuss triggers of a transformational strategy. This is what Kaplan and Norton say about transformational strategy, in their latest book The Execution Premium. “The trigger of a transformational strategy can be negative, such as a burning platform of a failed strategy or the appointment of new leaders. New leaders are frequently summoned to deal with burning platforms, but leadership changes have become the norm in all organisations, including the public sector, where new leaders are appointed after elections.”

So what now for the South African public sector after the 5^th democratic election? In President Zuma’s inauguration speech he has promised radical transformation. This is what he said. “we will move into industrialisation and strengthening the role of the state of the economy….the government would concentrate on better execution of land restitution and job employment, especially for the youth… to achieve this the performance of the state has to improve.. we have to eradicate corruption and inefficiencies in the public service…. And we are determined to succeed.”

This is what Dr Norton says

The change of administration is an ideal time to introduce a Balanced Scorecard (BSC). The new leadership has a new vision and new strategies. However, research shows that directions are not enough to create results. 90% of organizations fail to execute their strategies. The issue for a new administration is not only a new strategy. It’s about executing that new strategy!

The BSC requires an organization to translate that strategy into a set of related objectives, measures, targets and initiatives. The “strategy map” can then be cascaded to all departments and all levels of the organization. It can be communicated to employees and citizens and can be used as a basis for budgeting and human capital development.

The change of administration is the best of times. Citizens are excited about the new directions but are cynical about the likelihood for success. The BSC provides a way to “put your money where your vision is by creating a Strategy Focused Organization that brings together the energies of the citizens on a set of shared objectives, measures and results?

THE BRAZILIAN CNI STRATEGIC VISION AND PLAN TO REVERSE DECADES OF POOR PERFORMANCE

What can we learn from Kaplan and Nortons’ Strategy Execution Model and Balanced Scorecard used by the Brazilian Confederation of National Industries to achieve their bold economic plans for growth.

The Confederation of Local Industries (CNI) is an association of private sector organisations seeking to improve the competitiveness of Brazilian Industry. A member of their board suggested that they use the Balanced Scorecard to push an agenda for growth. They wanted to reverse the continued poor performance of the Brazilian economy over the past decades.

What transpired was one of the most innovative and complex applications of theme-based strategy maps. CNI recognised that implementing the national strategy would require the co-operation of a broader audience. They quickly realised they would need to change their structure to deliver on the strategy map objective to build stronger coalitions with various stakeholders such as government ministers and entrepreneurs. What they also acknowledged was that their strategy map goals were beyond their own control, but were determined to do their best. Their assertion is that the strategy map process will certainly increase the probability of implementation with better social and economic outcomes.

ADDRESSING AN UNFAVOURABLE CLIMATE FOR DOING BUSINESS IN BRAZIL

From the outset CNI acknowledged that a key to generate sustained economic growth was to address the climate which was unfavourable to investments, discouraged business persons and created obstacles for generating jobs to finance social expenses and services for society. As recently as last week it is still reported that the Brazilian government continues to make it difficult for businesses to operate within the onerous constraints.

CNI’S VISION FOR A PUBLIC SECTOR VERSION OF “SHAREHOLDER VALUE”.

This was about 5 tangible results or high level objectives for the public sector version of shareholder value.

Economic growth reaching annual levels of 5,5% by 2010 and 7 % by 2015.
More jobs and income for the citizens.
An increase in the quality of life.
A decrease in social and regional inequalities.
Expansion of businesses that generate sustainable value.

How did they measure up….In 2010, the financial world fell in love with Brazil with 7,5% increase in output that year. Tens of millions of people were entering the middle class and in 2013, they raked in $ 65 billion US in direct foreign investment, 4^th highest in the world, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade & Development. But behind this all was what CNI largely anticipated and that was the bureaucratic headache of doing business in Brazil, something they call custo Brazil – a combination of the longer time and higher costs that come in doing business there. This is still a largely prevailing problem inhibiting growth. Despite all this foreign investors are seeing the value of doing business in Brazil and recognise they have to be there.

MEASURING KEY BUSINESS OUTCOMES TO ACHIEVE DESIRED RESULTS – PRIVATE SECTOR CONTRIBUTION

With their belief that the private sector was the key to sustained economic growth and for Brazil to achieve the desired results, their strategy map indicated a clear market positioning for Brazilian companies, measured against several business outcomes.

Competitive and quality products.
Innovative products and services.
Products and services with higher aggregate value.
Recognition of Brazilian brands.
Accelerated growth of industrial output.
Increased participation by Brazil growth in trade.

CNI DEFINED THE 5 DRIVERS TO ACHIEVE THEIR STRATEGY

Expansion of the industrial base.
International insertion.
Management & productivity.
Innovation,
Social & Environmental responsibility.

CNI ACNOWLEDGED THE SET OF ENABLERS TO LEVERAGE ECONOMIC GROWTH

Infrastructure
Resource availability
Entrepreneurial leadership
Institutional & regulatory environment
Education & health

NOW, THIS IS WHERE THE BALANCE COMES IN…

According to Dave Norton, this overall architecture by itself was not enough to achieve execution. What was required was another level of detail. This was a set of strategic objectives for each of their themes, in particular, a measure to see the cause and effect relations between them. This logic clearly defines the set of activities and their interrelationships required to execute the theme.

INNOVATION THEME – CAUSE & EFFECT CASE IN POINT

By example, The CNI Innovation theme was designed to create country- level results including, economic growth, more jobs and income and expansion of businesses to generate value with products and services with a higher aggregate value. These outcomes also need to be linked to the enablers including innovation programs and learning & development enablers.

This succinct description of their Economic Development Strategy enabled the leaders for the first time, to clearly communicate their desired direction for the country and the specific requirements to achieve results from their strategy execution process.

SOURCE | The Execution Premium – Robert S Kaplan and David P Norton 2008

In 2014, BRG & GIBS will present Dave Norton – Live and in Person: Executing Strategy: Balanced Scorecard Essentials. The 2014 programme includes the latest findings and experiences in strategy, measurement, leadership, human capital and cross functional priorities and solutions.

Dr Dave Norton has most recently been honoured by Thinkers 50 in their Hall of Fame sharing this acclaim with Tom Peters, Warren Bennis, Howard Gardner, Charles Handy, Philip Kotler, Henry Mintzberg, Kenichi Omae, Ikujiro Nonaka and his colleague Professor Kaplan, for their mammoth contribution to business management and leadership. Harvard Business Review recognised the Balanced Scorecard as one of the most influential management ideas in the past 75 years.

How to Measure the Effectiveness of Your Innovation

July 1, 2014/in Blog, Dr Dave Norton, Events

HOW TO MEASURE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF YOUR INNOVATION STRATEGY | “ROH-PEE-D’EE” TECHNIQUES FOR YOUR BALANCED SCORECARD METRICS

In the words of Oscar Hammerstein from the legendary musical The Sound Of Music he recommends;; “When you read you begin with ABC and when you sing you begin with Doh-Re-Mi” – when it comes to Innovation, Dr Dave Norton suggests “when you measure innovation you begin with Roh-pee-d’ee.”

STRATEGIC MEASUREMENT CONTEMPLATIONS FOR INNOVATION METRICS

If innovation ranks as a key strategic objective it will surely be one of your key metrics on your Balanced Scorecard. Some of the measures to consider are as follows:

A ratio of number of new ideas per 100 employees.
Percent of new ideas selected for funding.
A ratio of revenue or net profit from new ideas divided by the average cost of implementation of ideas.
Aggregate ROI of new ideas implemented.

The most important step is to define your intended results for your innovation. This should be ONE of a number of intentions. An essential Balanced Scorecard principle should be applied here. Your intention or OBEJCTIVE should be concise and defined by a quantitative outcome and time frame.

Intended financial performance.
Increased number of new ideas.
Improved quality of ideas.
New markets / customers.
New products / services. etc…

NARROW IT DOWN | BSC ESSENTIAL

These may be good measures, but fall short in terms of a second key Balanced Scorecard principle. Best practice scorecards only have 1 – 2 performance measures per objective which makes it imperative to select the most meaningful measure for your innovation objective. Your selection criteria could consider the following:

Which of these measures can you influence the most?
Which of these measures will make a notable difference in respect of behavioural change?
Can you access the data easily and accurately?
Can you start from where you are; with what you have?
Can you establish meaningful targets and thresholds?
Will your measure work at both an enterprise and business unit level?
What baseline will you use to determine a known value; your historical performance or industry norm?
Use this measure during all stages of the innovation process.

Once this thinking is applied you should be in a position to select one and not more than two metrics for your Innovation Scorecard.

[pronounced ROH-PEE-D’EE] RoPDE™ = RETURN ON PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT EXPENSE | ROBUST KPI

Traditional ROI measures, such as discounted cash flow analysis are often owned by the finance team and rarely resonate with the other stakeholders and most often result in weak alignment.

RoPDE™ is a comprehensive KPI for measuring the performance of product/service innovation and development.

How do you calculate RoPDE™?

RoPDE = (GM – PDE)

PDE

Where GM = Gross Margin and PDE = Product Development Expense

Here are some RoPDE™ key guidelines;

Establish your thresholds comparatively using Operating Income, EBIT or EBITDA.
Chart your enterprise thresholds by fiscal periods.
Derive your data using standard accounting data.
Apply this at both enterprise level and as a business unit strategic measure.
Apply it at any stage gate or product life cycle process.

When you start at the very beginning, be it in ideation, evaluation and selection of innovation you can evaluate the opportunities using RoPDE™. As your innovation progresses you can compare actual revenue and product development expenses relative to your expected financial performance.

SOURCE: www.balancedscorecard.org/whitepapers How do I Measure Innovation by Gail Perry and Mark Malinoski

In 2014, BRG & GIBS will present Dr Dave Norton – Live and in Person: Executing Strategy: Balanced Scorecard Essentials. The 2014 programme includes the latest findings and experiences in strategy, measurement, leadership, human capital and cross functional priorities and solutions.

Using the Balanced Scoredcard to Define Big Data

June 26, 2014/in Blog, Dr Dave Norton, Events

USING THE BALANCED SCORECARD TO DEFINE THE BIG DATA THAT WILL OFFER THE BIGGEST IMPACT ON YOUR STRATEGY AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

The Balanced Scorecard can drive your big data strategy to overcome data analysis paralysis; Dr Dave Norton and Professor Dave Ulrich affirm that big data is of no use unless it offers leaders insights relevant to their strategy.

In 2012, Big Data made the cut as the new form of economic currency. The world’s brightest and best thought leaders in Davos acknowledged big data as an economic agent as strong as gold, oil or money itself.

Gartner defines big data as follows; “high volume, velocity and variety information assets that demand cost effective, innovative forms of information process for enhanced insight and decision making.

So with the prediction that nearly 3 billion people will be online pushing the data created and shared to nearly 8 “zettabytes”, how do companies decide which data will offer them the insights and choices to determine their strategy and leverage their competitive advantage?

So what does this mean for leaders in business?

Although there is strong argument that algorithms will rule over instinct Dr Dave Norton, renowned for his balanced approach to measure the effectiveness of business methodology, strongly urges a combination of left and right brain thinking where leaders blend their intuitive insights with structured disciplined methodologies including using big data to test the relationships of their hypotheses and assess how this will enable transformational change. On his recent visit to South Africa, Professor Dave Ulrich recognised the value of information as a fundamental capability, but highlighted further that this capability is less about the information and more about insight and impact. He says leaders need to collect data to make informed choices. This is key to overcoming “data analysis paralysis”.

Dr Dave Norton and Professor Dave Ulrich concur that the data mined must offer relevant insights. Bill Schmarzo, the moniker “Dean of Big Data” and Author of Big Data: Understanding How Data Powers Big Business, suggests that your Balanced Scorecard could define your navigation choices in terms of which information is relevant to your strategy.

To illustrate this, he aligned his big data requirements with his Balanced Scorecard key metrics. This is his big data determinant on one key metric.

Metric: Secure 87.M in New Accounts

Big Data Impact Examples:

Improve forecasting model predictability by modelling each individual deal (and components of the deal) taking into consideration sales team selling capacity (number and strength of deals in their forecast), sales team behavioural tendencies (selling products vs solutions), industry product buying trends and sales team track record with similar new name accounts
Leverage text mining capabilities to analyse the call notes captured by the account development organisation to assess strength of industry solution opportunity; benchmark every NNA opportunity against similar successful and unsuccessful NNA engagements.
Measure the effectiveness of sales and marketing campaigns to drive new NNA opportunities into the pipeline
Flag any change in the sales team comments that might indicate a change in deal status.

SOURCE: Big Data and The Balanced Scorecard Framework | Bill Schmarzo Part 1,11 & 111 December 2013

Barclays Bold, Concise and Clear 5 Year Plan

June 13, 2014/in Blog, Dr Dave Norton, Events

BARCLAYS BOLD, CONCISE AND CLEAR 5 YEAR PLAN TO BECOME THE “GO-TO” BANK RELIES ON THE BALANCED SCORECARD TO ENSURE SUSTAINABLE SUCCESS

In 2013, Barclays came up with a clear, concise and ambitious vision to become the “Go-To” bank. Antony Jenkins, Group Chief Executive, says, “The Balanced Scorecard is the final crucial piece of our plan; alongside our Purpose, Values and Behaviours to embed the right culture in our business.”

Professor Robert Kaplan and Dr Dave Norton say a successful vision should be concise, simple and have a quantitative target and time frame.

Here are some examples of very BIG, AUDACIOUS, HAIRY visions that are not concise and quantifiable.

Google’s “Organise the world’s information & make it universally accessible & useful”–, Bill Gates “put a pc on every desk”; JFK put a man on the moon and return him safely to earth by the end of the decade.

Barclays Vision “Become the GO to Bank by 2015” couldn’t be more concise and quantitative by time frame. Essential to this success they put citizenship in terms of social and environmental performance at the heart of everything they do.

The 5 C’s of Citizenship at Barclays:

Customer and Client
Colleague
Citizenship
Conduct
Company

Kaplan and Norton, also say that a successful Balanced Scorecard should not be cluttered with non- strategic measures. Barclays essentially have 11 metrics. To date they are on track on 10 out of 11 metrics for 2012/2013 and making progress against 2015 goals. How do some of their metrics stack up?

94% of almost 140 000 employees attest to the new code of conduct.
5,2 % reduction year-on year in global carbon emissions.
In 2013, they delivers 34bn in new and renewed lending – on track to meet 2015 goal of 150bn.
In 2013, they delivered 13,4bn in new and renewed lending to SME’s – also on track to meet 2015 goal of 50bn.
1150 apprenticeships provided – also on track towards target of 2000 by end 2015
2,43 million young people supported in developing enterprise, employability and financial skills – on track to support 5 million Young Futures by 2015.

In 2012, when Professor Robert Kaplan visited South Africa, he was asked about the vulnerability of an organisation to replicate and copy your Balanced Scorecard giving them a competitive heads-up. This is what he said.” In my experience, it is not easy to replicate a scorecard as the passion, commitment and innovation in creating it, is crucial to its success.” Nicola Tyler, CEO of Business Results Group says this (and has been saying this for years), “The closer someone is the origination of an idea; the more likely they are to act on it.”

Research has shown that companies who implement the Balanced Scorecard enjoy 50 -150% improvement in shareholder value.

Sept. 2014

In 2014, BRG & GIBS will present Dave Norton – Live and in Person: Executing Strategy: Balanced Scorecard Essentials. The 2014 programme includes the latest findings and experiences in strategy, measurement, leadership, human capital and cross functional priorities and solutions.

Employee Engagement Gap

May 19, 2014/in Blog, Frontpage Article, News

Dr. Caren Scheepers

“Imagine a time when you were highly absorbed and engaged at work. What were the circumstances that caused this attentiveness and engagement? What did you feel at the time, what did you see, what did you hear and what did you smell? Make that experience vivid in your mind. Let your body actually experience the feeling now.” This is an exercise that I regularly start off with when I facilitate workshops on the topic “Employee Engagement”. As you read this article you are welcome to participate. You can even partake in the next exercise, by asking a colleague to work with you.

“Now choose a partner to work with and show your partner how you literally step into those circumstances and personal experience. What your partner then needs to do is to notice attentively what you look like, sound like, your body posture and your facial expression. The next step is to mimic it so that you can see clearly how your posture for instance changes when you are truly engaged or in the zone”. You have to take turns in this exercise, obviously. It has an added benefit of practice how to “tune in” to where other people are at by mimicking their non-verbal behaviour. Consequently, it allows us to become aware of how others feel and as a result build rapport with them. The question to discuss then is, “When last have you felt this invigorated at work?” and a follow up question, “How big is the gap between what you experience when you are fully engaged and your current work circumstances?”

Having observed numerous of these exercises, I realised that it is clear when employees are engaged and that it is actually quite contagious. Other observations were that the more upright body postures generally brought positive energy into the room and lasted long after the exercise. Neuropsychology explains this phenomenon by biochemical neurotransmitters in our brains that are activated by the imaginary incident, which also explains why we would feel fearful of circumstances that have not yet taken place (Scheepers & Jooste, 2012).

Tuning into our own awareness of being engaged or withdrawn as well as to others’ experiences, teaches us intuitively what engagement is about. Employee engagement is topical currently and mostly practitioners have been writing about this phenomenon. Lately, it luckily also grabbed the interest of academia that quite frankly wanted to find out whether employee engagement was only the latest “fad of the month”. Empirical studies followed that were published in top tier journals. For instance, the seminal work of Saks (2006) on the antecedents and consequences of employee engagement has academic rigour and provides scientific evidence for what we regularly experience intuitively in our daily work lives.

Nonetheless, mainly two exponents provided the theoretical foundation for employee engagement. Kahn (1990, p.694) defined it as ”employing themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally…in varying degrees.” In turn, Maslach (2001) who conducted more than 30 years of research, contrasted engagement with burnout, another phenomenon that we often come across in our highly stressful modern work environments. Her research revealed that burnout was the opposite of being engaged and the face validity of her study is high when we consider that vigour and dedication constitute engagement, whereas exhaustion, cynicism and withdrawal illustrate the opposite. Later research of Schaufeli et al (2002) confirmed Maslach’s notion of engagement and burnout being antipodes.

You might ask whether engagement is similar to commitment. Robinson et al (2004) pointed out in this regard, that engagement is more than commitment and more than an attitude. It is rather the degree to which an employee is attentive and absorbed in their work. Saks’ (2006) research provided evidence that commitment is actually a consequence of engagement. Furthermore, we can differentiate between job and organisational engagement. As a result, this article will focus on these two aspects.

a) Job engagement

Some people are highly engaged with their organisations, whereas others are actually engaged with their discipline or type of work and do not care where they conduct this job. These employees find meaning in the content of their work. Interestingly, job engagement increases when people have more contact with the beneficiaries of their work (Grant, 2012). Consequently, organisations must make a concerted effort to get back-office employees in contact with external or internal customers who are impacted by the quality of their work or lack thereof.

For the last 7 years, I have been lecturing on the GIBS MBA Module: Organisational Development and Transformation and I regularly asked these students whether they experience quality of work life. Sadly, over the years few of the MBA’s could declare that they were experiencing quality of work life. We often discussed Hackman and Oldham’s (1980) recommendations of bringing more of themselves into their work or being more engaged by: ensuring jobs are challenging, having variety, conducting significant tasks, allowing for personal discretion and making an important contribution. These students reported that getting feedback on their performance also increased meaningfulness of their jobs.

An interesting theory that could be associated with job engagement is the Social Exchange Theory or (SET) that implies that employees, who are provided with challenging and enriched jobs, feel obliged to reciprocate by responding with higher levels of engagement (Saks, 2006). On the other hand, when employees do not feel supported by colleagues or they do not get appropriate recognition and rewards, it leads to the burnout syndrome (Maslach et al, 2001). Kahn’s (1990) research revealed that our careers could constitute a series of leaps of engagement and falls of disengagement as well as that the person-role dynamics are complex.

b) Organisational engagement

Schaufeli and Bakker (2004) found that engaged employees have a greater attachment to their organisation. As a result, they have a lower intention to quit. Furthermore, they are involved in extra-role behaviour or being good organisational citizens and contribute to the greater organisation and not only to their own department or division.

I found it disappointing that in contrast, numerous executives on Senior Management Programmes found it difficult to articulate the social value that their organisations were creating and rather focused on financial results, whereas without financial results the organisation would anyway not be able to sustain itself. Nonetheless, through firstly meeting human needs by producing products or delivering services, organisations are able to declare financial returns and sustain the business. To the contrary, luckily organisations in South Africa like Nedbank, Woolworths, Nampak and FNB utilize corporate social responsibility projects as team building exercises and to build pride in their organisation’s contribution to society and subsequently organisational engagement.

Perceived procedural justice or fairness with regards to distribution of resources also influences organisational engagement (Rhoades et al, 2001). Conversely, a lack of fairness can exacerbate burnout (Maslach et al, 2001). Another dimension to consider is the Psychological Contract (Rousseau, 2004) with the resultant two-way relationship where employees receive economic and socio-emotional resources from the organisation and they respond in kind and repay the organisation by being psychologically present or engaged. We found in a specific study around this psychological contract that the human resources practice that had the most important relationship with the relational contract was training and development (Scheepers & Shuping, 2011). Consequently, investing in employees’ development would result in them perceiving that they are important to the organisation and they would reciprocate with loyalty to the organisation.

In closing, it is important to note that in the USA the engagement gap or lost of productivity cost due to employees being disengaged is estimated at $300 billion per annum (Kowalski, 2003). We do not have South African statistics to report however, the engagement gap remains an important phenomenon to investigate and I invite more researchers to conduct qualitative and quantitative studies to provide scientific evidence of the antecedents and consequences of employee engagement.

Follow Dave Ulrich on twitter: @dave_ulrich

References:

Grant, A. M. (2012). Leading with meaning: Beneficiary contact, prosocial impact, and the performance effects of transformational leadership, Academy of Management Journal, 55 (2), 458-476.
Hackman, J. R. & Oldham, G. R. (1980). Work Redesign, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
Kahn, W. A. (1990). Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work, Academy of Management Journal, 33 (4), 692-724.
Kowalski, B. (2003). The Engagement Gap, Training, 40 (4), 62, as cited in Saks, A. M. (2006). Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21 (7), 600-619.
Maslach,C., Schaufelli, W. B. & Leiter, M. P. (2001). Job Burnout. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 397-422.
Rhoades, L., Eisenberger, R. & Armeli, S. (2001). Affective commitment to the organisation: the contribution of perceived organisational support, Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 825-836.
Rousseau, D. M. (2004). Psychological contracts in the workplace: Understanding the ties that motivate, Academy of Management Executive, 18(1), 120-127.
Saks, A. M. (2006). Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21 (7), 600-619.
Schaufeli, W. B., Salanova, M., Gonzalez-Roma, V. & Bakker, A.B. (2002). The measurement of engagement and burnout: a two sample confirmatory factor analysis approach, Journal of Happiness Studies, 3 (3), 71-92.
Schaufeli, W. B & Baker, A. B. (2004). Job demands, job resources, and their relationship with burnout and engagement: a multi-sample study, Journal of Organisational Behaviour, 25, 293-315.
Scheepers, C. B. & Jooste, M. (2012). Neuroleadership informs internal business coaches on change, COMENSANews, Nov 30.
Scheepers, C. B. & Shuping, J. G. (2011). The effect of human resource practices on the psychological contract at an iron ore mining company in South Africa. South Africa Journal of Human Resources Management, 9(1), 1-19.

Good Leaders Fall Between the Two Extremes – Autocrat or Abdicate?

May 2, 2014/in Blog, News, Prof Dave Ulrich

In the lead up to the upcoming elections “Collective Leadership” is receiving some pretty bad press. Professor Dave Ulrich the world thought leader on HR practises believes Collective Leadership is the key to sustainable future intangible value, be that, in a corporate organisation or political community. So I asked Dave Ulrich to clarify his thinking around Collective Leadership. Are our political and corporate leaders practising good leadership?

GOOD LEADERS TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE FINAL DECISION
Leaders often fall between two extremes of being autocratic or abdicate. Autocratic leaders command and control and tell people what to do. Abdicating leaders let people do whatever they want. Good leadership generally falls in between. Based on the competence and commitment of employees and on the situation, good leaders generally engage others, then take responsibility for making the final decision. They make sure that where they decide they are going is where they end up; leaders who do not ensure this, destroy trust.

GOOD LEADERS LISTEN & OBSERVE
Collective leadership does NOT mean leadership abdication. Collective leadership means that a leader listens, observes, and involves others before acting. The leader, by nature of the role, has responsibility and accountability. The value of engaging others is that they may have ideas the leader did not think of and that by engaging them earlier in the decision process, they are more likely to be committed to the decision once it is made.
Nicola Tyler, CEO of Business Results Group says, “The closer someone is to the origination of an idea the more likely they are to act on it.” She advocates this in her strategic interventions with many of South Africa’s C Suite leaders. This is what she believes is a key driver of strategy execution.

GOOD LEADERS ACT DECISIVELY TO GET THINGS DONE
Under the rubric of participative management, some employees think they always get their way. Not so. Leaders who practice participation, listen and make sure others are heard, but then they act decisively to get things done.
A leader told me once that participative management meant, “If you and I agree on everything, one of us is not necessary …. And it won’t be me! But, when we go public, we go with one voice.”
In 2014, BRG & GIBs will present Dave Ulrich – Live and in Person: The 13 Milestones for HR to transcend the way they deliver measurable value to their organisations. Become architects of talent, culture and leadership for 21st Century Organisations.
Professor Dave Ulrich has consulted and done research with over half of the Fortune 200. His honours exude a consistent track record of global influence and authority in human resources and business management. His research is based on collective feedback from over 60 000 line managers and HR professionals on the competencies required to improved business performance.
An accomplished and celebrated educator Dave is sought after the world over to present his findings and educate businesses. He has published over 200 articles and book chapters and over 25 books which he has co-authored with numerous fellow thought leaders.
Follow Dave Ulrich on twitter: @dave_ulrich