How do leaders move from being a functional leader to an enterprise level leader? - part #2

Having the right skill set as an enterprise level leader is very important.  The first skill is having the ability to sell the problems within an organization. However, before you can sell the problem, you have to understand risk. There are basically four kinds of risk in the world of business as outlined by Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen in their book, Great By Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck - Why Some Thrive Despite Them All (HarperCollins, 2011):

- Death Line Risk which will kill or severely damage the enterprise.

- Asymmetric Risk in which the downside dwarfs the upside.

- Uncontrollable Risk, namely a choice that exposes the enterprise to forces or events that it has little ability to manage or control.

- Time-based risk when the degree of risk is tied to the pace of events, and the speed of decision and action

The critical question a leader has to regularly ask is: How much time before our risk profile changes? Understanding risk helps a leader formulate how to sell a problem.

Furthermore, selling the problem helps you manage nonstop change successfully. “Selling the problem is more than just a practical tactic to encourage people to let go of the way things have been”, writes William Bridges in his book,  Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change, (Da Capo Press, 2003). As he explains, “… selling problems is the only way to get beyond having to sell every change piecemeal….People who understand the organization’s real problems … don’t have to be “informed” or “educated” after the fact.” 

As he continues, “If you understand the problem and the people you work with don’t, a polarity is immediately set up. If, on the other hand, everyone recognizes the importance of the same problem, it the manager and the people on one side and the problem on the other.”

From my experience, the opposite of selling the problem will result in a control and command form of leadership where one will have to spend time solving each problem and overcome each pocket of self-interest. This will just take too much time, especially if the risk profile has changed. Selling the problem solves problems before they become problems.

The second skill set is learning how to create an environment for ownership. When I see great leaders do this, they always start by asking questions. Here are a few to get you started:

- why must it be done this way?

- what is the root problem?

- what are the underlying issues?

- who has a different perspective on this?

- what happens if we don’t do it at all?

This reminds me of what John Maxwell wrote in his book, How Successful People Think: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life (Center Street, 2009). As he explains, “Realistic thinking gives you credibility…. Realistic thinking helps people to buy into the leader and his or her vision. Leaders continually surprised by the unexpected soon lose credibility with their followers. On the other hand, leader who think realistically and plan accordingly position their organizations to win. That gives their people confidence in them.”  From my experience, an environment of ownership comes when leaders ask good questions and show realistic thinking.

The third skill set to being an enterprise level leader is to role model better and better each day. To do this, you, as a leader, need to learn how to deal with disjointed incrementalism, i.e. this is when you know where you want to go, but not always how to get there. The solution is to learn how to convey strategic intent. This means making the objectives clean, but avoid micromanaging those who will execute on them.

It also means recognizing that you are more visible with every level you move up in the organization. All of your actions are constantly sending a message. Therefore, be more present when you are with people, quit multi-tasking, and quit thinking e-mail is a solution! The key to role modeling well begins with spending more time shaping the values and standards within the organization, spending more time defining what is and what is not meaningful outside the organization, and spending more time helping people focus on the right things, rather than just doing things right.

This week, practice bringing everything back to the core mission or purpose of the organization, support those who role model the mission, and always stay focused on mission.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Competitive Advantage - Part #2

Picking up where we left off last week on competitive advantage, once we start working on retaining the right people, then we need to do something else that is very important, namely sell the problems and strategic variables before the company.

Right now, many organizations are suffering from the disease of under-communication. Realizing that one of the primary roles of a leader is to create organizational clarity and to make sure this clarity is cascaded down into the organization, what I have witnessed during the last quarter of 2010 and now again in 2011 is an amazing amount of disconnectedness within organizations. From my perspective, this is a symptom of under-communication.

In a healthy and competitive company, any employee should have a line of sight from what they are working on today to how this work moves the company forward strategically, how it fulfills the brand promise, and how it supports the company’s competitive advantage. But, what I am seeing over and over this month and last, is that many employees, supervisors and mid-level managers can not connect what they are doing on a day to day basis to the company’s strategy, brand promise or competitive advantage. To them, the work is just stuff to get done. And when we work with a “get ‘er done” mentality, we do not always maintain focus on the right things and instead just focus on getting things completed.

However, if this symptom surfaces in your work place, the goal is not to scold or yell at the employee because they are forgetting the right stuff while they work, The goal is to realize that the manner in which we lead is not working. Too many times, the worker is seen as the problem when in reality it is the management and leadership that they are experiencing that is the problem. As Pogo said many years ago, “We have meet the problem and it is us.”

Under-communication happens because we as executives are so busy we forget to get around to something, namely communicating the bigger picture. We become operational leaders rather than strategic and operational leaders. And once we do communicate the big picture, we assume that those who heard us actually understood it. So many times in my work as an executive coach, I have to remind leaders that just because you said something once or sent the e-mail once does not mean that it was received or understood. This is why I keep asking key leaders what is their theme for a quarter. From experience I have learned that it takes at least 90 days for a message to consistently be cascaded down into an organization so that people actually remember it and reference it when thinking about what to do today or in the future.

To build organizational clarity, many leaders need to remember that most workers are simply focused on the day to day and do not understand or even pay attention to the strategic variables or problems that consume an executive’s day to day work experience. We forget that a Bud-lite and a TV remote are common forms of stress management at the end of the day. With the bandwidth of an employee’s mind focused on “get ‘er done” and how much longer to the Bud-lite and the TV remote, competitive advantage is not part of their day to day lexicon or mentality.

Therefore, to improve organizational clarity, we must do the following. First, we need to sell the problems which are getting in the way of us being more competitive. When employees understand that doing nothing is more dangerous than doing something, then they will move through the challenges of change from a different perspective.

Second, we need to sell the company to our own people. We need to explain to our employees why we are the answer to our clients' challenges. We need to point out how what we offer is a solution that will solve not only today’s problems but help them in the future. We need to explain how our strengths as a company assure us the capacity for a sound and profitable future. Otherwise, we are doomed to loosing our best people and loosing our competitive advantage by problems of our own making.

This week and this quarter sell the problems, resell the the company, and focus on making sure clarity is cascaded through out the organization on a consistent and regular basis. If we are to leverage our strengths in an unpredictable economy and to capitalize on short windows of opportunity when they arise, then we need to have everyone focused on the right things at the right times. This demands that we are more connected to the core of what makes our company unique on a daily basis.

Geery Howe, M.A.Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer inLeadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational ChangeMorning Star Associates319 - 643 - 2257