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Six Keys to Leading Successfully During Transition

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By Professor Dave Ulrich, Ross School of Business

The last few months have seen noteworthy CEO appointments in South Africa and the rest of the world.  At home, MTN announced in June that Rob Shuter will replace Sifiso Dabengwa as chief executive in 2017, and in September it was announced that Sisa Ntshona will take over the reins at South African Tourism.  Internationally, Vicki Hollub became the first woman to lead US independent oil giant Occidental Petroleum, a Fortune 500 company, and Edward Bastian stepped into the corner office at Delta Airlines.

Changing a company’s top leadership can raise a lot of questions about its immediate and long-term future, and may even have a material effect on the company’s value and stock pricing. Many, both inside and outside the company, look to the CEO to set the tone in the immediate aftermath of any major change. Here are a few things that any CEO leading a company through a transition should keep in mind:

  1. Be aware of how the departures look to outsiders: Any leader is made stronger by the leaders he or she creates. Leaders should multiply others and make them better, and talk about “we” more than “I.” When an entire team leaves, it may send a signal to investors and others watching that a leader is not empowering his or her leadership team.
  2. Remind people watching, of your track record of leading people to success: An effective leader delivers results and takes personal responsibility for doing so. In high tech firms, there is often “patient” capital that will provide market value far beyond earnings—as seen in companies like Uber and Amazon—but executives need a track record of building market presence and share in clear and measurable ways. At a time when doubt runs high, a CEO should reassure those watching that he or she has a strong action plan and vision.
  3. Position the departures as an opportunity for growth: An effective leader has insight into industry trends and how to position his or her company to win. In fast-moving social media industries, it is critical to continually reinvest and create a future. For example, Google may not succeed in balloons or driverless cars, but its leaders are constantly positioning themselves to be the innovators and leaders of the future. There’s opportunity for the CEO and other company spokespeople to message the departures as a chance to propel the company forward.
  4. Hire the right talent to replace the people who have left: Good leaders surround themselves with better people. The most confident leaders are able to hire and develop very competent teams; the least confident leaders often try to make themselves look better by bringing in people who are not as effective. Whether someone has left or was asked to leave doesn’t matter, as long as the CEO takes this opportunity to replace them with someone even more closely aligned with the company’s goals. This will help propel the company forward.
  5. Stay true to the company’s mission: Effective leaders should turn customer brand promises into leadership actions in order to build trust. Walmart’s leadership team is dedicated to delivering low cost; Disney leaders are dedicated to guest experience. Twitter’s challenge is to create a clear external brand promise to customers and then use that as criteria for its leadership team.
  6. Above all, put the company and its success first: Effective leaders build cultures and HR systems that institutionalize the leadership. When the company becomes more important than the leader, it is more likely to navigate, and even thrive, through a transition.

Leadership transitions happen, especially when a company is entering a new strategic phase, and the current executive team isn’t the right one to get the company to where it needs to be. But all too often, the transition itself focuses too much on the individual people involved and not enough on the requirements and unique needs of the company. By keeping the focus where it always belongs—on how these developments can serve the greater business goals—a CEO can lead his or her company to an even stronger position.

Dave Ulrich is the Rensis Likert Professor of Business at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and author of Leadership Capital Index. Ulrich is ranked as the #1 management guru by Business Week, has been profiled by Fast Company as one of the world’s top 10 creative people in business, and listed as a Top 5 Coach in Forbes.  Ulrich was in South Africa last week leading an ongoing series of events on Human Capital, hosted by Business Results Group and the Gordon Institute of Business Science.

What value am I creating for someone else?

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By Dave Ulrich.

 

Value is defined by the receiver more than the giver. This simple principle affects professional and personal relationships and impact.

In professional settings, we often judge ourselves by our intent, but others judge us by our behavior. We intend to be provocative, but we come across as snarky. We intend to challenge, but we come across as contrarian. We intend to be playful or funny, but we may come across as cynical or cryptic. We need to have our “head on a swivel” and think about how our actions and behaviors will create value for someone else. It is like being on a balcony watching our life’s performance.

When we focus on value we create for others, traditional management maxims change. Building on our strengths is not complete unless we build on our strengths that will strengthen others. Leadership authenticity (a highly desired leadership trait) is merely narcissism unless our authenticity helps someone else meet their goals. Some leaders brag about how wealthy they are, but real leaders create wealth for others. When the inevitable crisis occurs, value-based, other-centered leaders start with the impact of the crisis on others and how their response will benefit others; self-oriented leaders start by thinking about themselves and what they can and should do. Leaders with a value focus reflect on whom they serve each day and how their work will make others’ work better.

The sample principle applies in many settings. Good teaching is not what I know, but how what I know helps students better accomplish their goals. Professional training and development is more effective when we focus on learning solutions by helping those who attend better solve their problems rather than giving a stirring lecture or presenting an insightful case. Often training faculty are exceptional performers who present the same material as a lecture or case study over and over again. When focused on value creating, training starts with the challenges participants may have, then seeks solutions to those challenges. When I coach leaders, I teach them that listening is not that they understand, but that the other person feels understood. When I work to upgrade a company’s HR practices, we start with the value these practices will have to company success. HR analytics starts with the business and shows how HR work will show up on the business scorecard, not an HR scorecard. When we work on culture change, we start by defining culture through the eyes of the customer (or other key external stakeholder) and define the value of the values. When I write, I often think about the reader and how the ideas might provide insights with impact to them.

In personal relationships, when I start by thinking about what someone else values, I better relate to and serve them. When I start with what is meaningful to my wife, my gifts add more value to her. When I listen to my friends and children, I show that I care for them and their well being more than for my actions. When I celebrate others’ accomplishments, my success is magnified. Good parenting is not about what parents know and do, but about how parents help children discover their strengths and purposes. When someone might do something that frustrates me, I can pause and see how their behaviors may make sense from their point of view. This “seek first to understand” mantra helps build enduring relationship built on mutual respect.

 

Why Creating a Winning Culture Matters

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By Dave Ulrich

Business success is not only about individual talent

Deloitte’s human capital trends for 2015 and 2016 found that organisation issues (culture, organisational design) were the top human resource (HR) issues. Some companies (Disney, Marriott) are trying to maintain their culture, others want to change it (General Electric, Apple), and others want to embed it (Google, Facebook). Top HR leaders share the same message: the war for talent is evolving and needs to evolve toward creating victory through organisation.

Read more about why Creating a Winning Culture Matters

Published in Skyways Insight Magazine – August 2016

Serious About Simplicity

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Ron Ashkenas, author of Simply Effective, suggests that complexity in business has emerged due to a combination of product mitosis, product proliferation, process evolution and poor managerial habits. These factors combine to land many businesses in a world of complexity and silo thinking and complicated work processes.  Ashkenas also suggests that one of the biggest, and often hidden, causes of complexity is the individual. Yes, that’s right – you!  It’s all your fault.  You did this!  But the great thing is that if you created the problem, then you surely have the talent to solve it.  Cue ‘Simplicity.’

If you’re ready to take the topic of simplicity seriously, and consider adopting it as a core business strategy (not a “we really should” but a deliberate, strategic focus for your business), then read on.

Ashkenas suggests you start with these four areas, which he believes to be primed for delivering value.  

  1. Streamline the organisation, or as Norman Kobert once said ‘Cut the fat, not the muscle”.  Companies are often resource heavy, process burdened, and policy proliferate.  Cut out what you don’t need, and make a deliberate effort to combine products, reduce lines, stick to the core.  
  2. Prune products, services and features to focus on those that are profitable and have the biggest growth potential.  Get rid of dead weight “stuff” that isn’t bringing in value.  Can you really turn 2% of revenue business into your biggest opportunity, or can you cull those things that don’t deliver, and get focused back on your core?
  3. Process – disciplined process.  Build pragmatic processes into your business that drive the right behaviours for your leadership and your teams.  Make what you capture relevant, useful and support fact-based, informed decision making.  Take a rigorous look at your processes and ask the question: is this necessary?  Do we really need this or could we do without it?
  4. Improve managerial habits.  Life would certainly be simpler (but so much sadder) were it not for other people. For the value of simplicity to realize benefits, it’s important to drive it home in behaviour. Ritualistic repetition, and supporting the value through consistent change and communication, are the factors most likely to reap rewards.  In short, consider making simplicity a cult if you want to make it part of your culture.  The gift is that everyone wins as the benefits reap rewards for both the business and the people who live in it.

Simplicity as a Strategy

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New strategic business values emerge over time.  In the 1980s, it was all about quality. In the 1990s, it was about cost cutting. By 2000, innovation had peeked its way through the clouds. What was once new has become the norm: quality and innovation are now widely accepted as common business practice. In fact, if either is not on your business radar, then you’re a laggard, and possibly in trouble. As we witness ever-increasing levels of business complexity, where a plethora of data and information prevails, a new set of values is emerging: the theme of “simplicity” is now pushing its way onto the corporate radar.  How do we make things simpler, for ourselves, for our customers, for our people? If you’re not easy to do business with, the customer will rapidly click somewhere else.

Simplicity is emerging as the next wave of strategic thinking.  Businesses and governments are preparing to make our lives easier.  Paperless offices used to be a pipe dream, but not so today. How can we harness technology to support simplicity? How can we use technology to reduce information overload rather than increase it?  Simplicity, just like quality, will eventually find a home, it will become embedded in other business processes. We need to give it full attention. The next wave is coming, and simplicity will be key to staying on your surfboard!

 

The Paperless Panacea

Before the dawn of the internet, companies were paper prolific and the idea of the paperless office was considered a radical innovation.  Heralded by Lars Kolind of Denmark’s Oticon as a prime business strategy, the concept that businesses could operate without paper seemed like a far-off dream.  Kolind, whose turnaround strategy was coined “Mission Impossible”, created a stand-up-only office on his  building’s top floor.  Employees would review their mail, magazines, etc and then hand it in to be scanned before venturing down to their desk.  Through the center of the building was a  transparent tube through which all things paper were shredded.  Radical.  At the time, it truly was.  

Today a “paperless” world is not only a reality, but an accessible option for all. Or is it? Two recent events have told me otherwise.  Renewing my mobile phone contract was a 1.5 hour process involving no fewer than 27 pieces of paper, (multiplied by two!)  including a copy of my driver licence.  It seems strange that despite having been a customer for over 20 years, they’re still not sure who I am.  Later, an attempt to open a new facility at what I considered to be a world-class bank, involved no fewer than 12 pieces of paper. Two transactions, 66 slices of tree!  Needless to say, these transactions are the company’s way of managing risk and for dealing with the new F word in finance – FICA!  Today, fortunately, there is an opportunity to leverage our advances in technology to support simplicity as a strategy.  Forewarned is forearmed.  

 

Information Overload

There is more content on YouTube today than the history of television ever produced. There are more books written and published in a year than you could read in several lifetimes.  There is more data, and more information, but perhaps less knowledge.  Are we really informed or are we over-informed?  For the most part, my clients cite “information overload” and “too many emails” as being big issues today.  Sometimes it creates acrimony in the corporate dialogue:“Why didn’t your reply to my mail?  I sent you that?  Find out for yourself.  Google it!” are all common conversations.  

What we lack are tools for how to deal with such vast amounts of information.  We need filters so that we can pay attention to what is relevant, rather than be distracted by the shiny and the new.  If there were an addict group for “Shiny Penny Syndrome”, I would have long since been a member.  On the one hand it’s marvelous: we have access to so much new, exciting information; learning is available to us all, quite literally at the swipe of a finger.  But is life really simpler, or is the weight of information a burden on our shoulders?  Does simplicity have a role to play in helping us convert data to information, and information to knowledge?

 

Simplicity as a Strategy

In short, simplicity is emerging as the next wave of strategic thinking.  Businesses and governments are preparing to make our lives easier.  Food manufacturers are reducing their brand SKUs to reduce choice, technology companies are introducing “ease of use” departments to ensure that users don’t have to figure out their complex models, and business engineers are using simplicity as a new way of re-engineering business processes.

Other simpler businesses – your competition – may be just a click away for your customer.  While it is good to ponder on the past, think forward to the future.  The next wave is coming, and simplicity will be key to staying on your surfboard.  Enjoy the ride.

Could you be doing something more smartly, more efficiently and more profitably. We can teach you how to streamline business processes and the world of work. Click HERE for more information or contact us at info@brg.co.za to book a needs assessment.

 

Top tips for women in the workplace

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by Italia Boninelli

Despite the plethora of literature on gender equity issues and the range of women’s development programmes, women are still asking: “Why is it so difficult to break through the glass ceiling?”  The tips that follow come from my personal experience in executive roles across different industries and the insights gained from coaching women in senior management and executive roles together with the results of a research study I conducted in a South African bank, focused on identifying which factors allowed women to break through the ranks.

Understanding the competencies required of the job at the next level

Tip 1: Get a copy of the role description and KPIs of the job you aspire to, so you can start to assess what is really required to succeed and what your gaps might be.

Many women continue to believe that delivering good results at their current job level will eventually be noticed and earn them a promotion.  But the initial strengths that led to promotions early in their careers can later become “fatal flaws” when women continue to repeat the same formula and fail to realize that success at the next level up is not ‘more of’ what they are currently doing but adding qualitatively different competencies and skills.  Yet with only a very loose understanding of how operating at a strategic level as an executive differs from what they are currently doing, there is little chance of building a coherent strategy for developing the additional skills and competencies required for the next level of work up.

Bridging the gaps

Tip 2:  Ask yourself: “How good is my environmental scanning?  What feedback loops have I created?  Is ‘Best Practice’ part of my ongoing plan?”

Successful executives put in place some key practices to enhance their skills in areas where they have gaps or staff their teams with people with appropriate skills who can compensate.  For example, in order to deliver solutions which will move the dial for the company, one needs to be informed of best practice, be able to identify developing trends and be fully in touch with how customers, staff and other key stakeholders’ expectations are being met.

Insufficient long-term career planning and risk propensity  

Tip 3:  Identify which some ‘key achievements’ you hope to complete in the next career cycle and create the time and mental space and find the resources to ensure you achieve these.

It is all too easy to get caught up in dozens of e-mails a day, ten meetings a day and five crises a day and arrive at the end of the year exhausted but with nothing of great significance to show for all the effort.   Many of the successful executives set clear career goals for each career cycle of 3-5 years and even write their CV that way –the first page usually contains a set of ‘key achievements’.  These executives also show a higher risk propensity and will take a job that is somewhat outside their normal area of expertise because it represents an opportunity to gain experience in a new area.  Even when such moves prove less than successful, they seem better able than women to capitalise on the learning experience and avoid immobilising self-doubt, accepting the lack of success as a short-term situation.

Breadth vs. depth of skills

Tip 4:  Take every opportunity to build the breadth of your business acumen and to demonstrate your ability to generate solutions across the business value chain, and not just within your discipline.

Almost all managers display a significant depth of experience which has supported their career success thus far.  However, many women spend considerably more time in staff or specialist roles rather than in line roles, while the managers who later make successful executives had made more frequent career shifts and as a result were more knowledgeable about different functions and divisions.  They were thus better able to provide integrated solutions born out of a wider perspective of the organization.

Mentors, coaches and development plans

Tip 5:  Stop waiting for someone to assign you a mentor or coach.  Go out and seek one – just be realistic as to the time availability of senior people with busy calendars.

Many women report that they do not have mentors or coaches and that developmental plans are not regularly discussed with them by their managers.  While this reflects poorly on their managers who are not actively developing them, it reflects equally poorly on the women themselves who have not taken proactive steps to address this shortcoming.  The majority of successful executives report having had a strong mentor and/or coach at critical points of their career and also mentioned having taking taken proactive steps at the early stages of their career in approaching someone in a senior position and asking to be mentored.

Networking and relationship management

Tip 6:  Rethink your networking strategies.  First step is to realise what you have of value to offer (refer to those ‘key achievements’) and then work out what other people have of value to offer and accept that networking is like an exchange of commodities.

Many successful executives display a characteristic pattern of networking that differs from that of other groups.  Successful executives use networking to establish ‘Contacts’ who can provide them with information, influence, introductions, invitations, access and power that can really help leverage the solutions they can develop. Women tend to see networking as they would personal friendships i.e. requiring a level of emotional commitment usually reserved for only a handful of close relatives and friends.  While women typically reported having a network of 30-50 people at that level, the successful executives reported networks of in excess of 200 people.

Self-esteem & Personal branding

Tip 7:  Personal branding is a skill that can be learnt and effectively applied.

Many of the executives have an instinctive grasp of personal branding and have used this to their advantage, compared to the relative modesty that characterised the women who often failed to take credit for their successes or did not market and brand themselves well.  Women often fail to project an image of self-confidence or at times ‘over-compensate’ coming across as overly aggressive and ‘more of a man than the men’.

CONCLUSION

Females may lack certain key competencies required for executive functioning, which were not adequately covered in past developmental programmes, appraisal processes or job exposure. But this is not irremediable – as has clearly been shown.  Organizations in turn need to address the cultural and organizational climate issues which create unnatural barriers to the progression of women.  They can also provide the training and development opportunities and the access to mentors and coaches which would ensure that more women are enabled to reach the top layers of the organization.

Italia Boninelli is an HR Strategist and Executive coach (Previously Executive VP: People & Org. Dev, AngloGold Ashanti)

References

  1. The ‘glass ceiling’ can best be described as that invisible barrier that allows you to see to the top of the corporate ladder but blocks off access to the top rungs.
  2. Italia has held executive roles in financial services, healthcare and mining.  She is now an independent consultant and executive coach.
  3. Boninelli, Italia. (2004) “Is the glass ceiling a myth or reality?” in HR Future, 18 February 2004, pp. 18-20.