Sampson Hall Ltd

CHANGING A BUSINESS CULTURE

2013-11-29T07:10:00.002-08:00

Modern business has to become more agile if it is to survive in the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment that is the modern business world it exists within in. The problem is that most businesses are not agile enough to drive and maintain the necessary change from within. It takes real discipline to constantly initiate and drive change before the environment enforces change upon an organisation. Such motivation rarely exists in established organisations that are comfortable within their own skin. Like dieting, change is much desired but rarely voluntarily undertaken and sustained without outside intervention. Why?

Most organisations see themselves as unique; hence most can deny the strongest argument for change. For such organisations change is appropriate to many others but not to them. Rather like individuals, organisations are highly critical of others but very forgiving of themselves. It is only the hungry young organisations that sustain the necessary agility to match their environment. Hence it is far more “the quick that eat the slow" rather than "the big that eat the small" in today's information driven world.

To change requires a dissatisfaction with current performance and hence an ambition to improve. The change process undertaken needs to unfreeze the organisation from itself and its established culture in order to learn the new ways and doctrine before refreezing itself to ensure the new doctrines are sustained appropriately. Change needs enthusiasm. Change needs energy and change needs ambition that is why it is far easier to sustain in young dynamic organisations.

So how can an organisation generate and sustain organisational agility? It needs to regularly objectively examine itself and analyse where its tangible success originates from. Replicate the origins of that successful environment and the causes of that success and turn them into common processes and doctrine. In simple terms it is unfreezing the status quo, prior to creating the new culture and doctrine amongst change agents and disciples before implementing the changes across the organisation by driving the change to a self-fulfilling tipping point. Then refreezing the new doctrine to sustain the change and ensure it is enduring.

The best way of ensuring buy in and render the unique argument superfluous is to use the evidence gleaned from within the organisation to define the new doctrine. By transmitting the evidence regularly to all and then empowering change agents at every level to drive the required change and preach the necessary messages to those sceptics who exist in every organisation the change becomes unstoppable. With the tipping point reached those in denial will either come round to the new doctrine or leave.

If change is proving difficult it may well be useful to involve an outside agent who has less baggage with them than those who have lived within an organisation! Often it is easier to identify the change from without and drive the cultural change as those within have inevitably been imbued with the current culture.

TO CONTROL OR EMPOWER AS A LEADER

2013-11-05T23:54:00.000-08:00

Where did you learn your most valuable lesson? Was it when being successful or when failing? When did you last really feel empowered by your leader? Leaders in the modern world have a constant dichotomy to deal with: whether to control a situation or to empower people and let nature run its course. If a leader controls a situation it offers their team members little opportunity for learning, to experience ownership or individual potential to be maximised. So allowing nature to take its course can be immensely valuable to the development of teams in an organisation. On the other hand such freedom offers the opportunity for a calamitous failure. Well leaders, get used to it. Life and leadership is like that. That is why leaders get paid more than followers because the scale of the success achieved is dependent upon the scale of risk the leader is able to endure.

Control and you may inhibit genius but remain safe and you may prevent it from ever emerging. The proximity between success and failure is all too evident and today’s leaders must instinctively know when to let go and truly empower their people without letting them succumb to a catastrophic failure! The word catastrophic is used quite deliberately here, because a great leader must demand failure from their teams. For not too fail is not too try and if you are not trying you will never reach your full potential. However it is that leader’s responsibility to support their teams through such small failures to make sure they are not catastrophic in their effect and that the team can keep on going and keep on failing until they succeed. A leader must also make sure that the team learn from each of the failures whilst not giving up. On the other hand good leaders must also know when to impose control for it is that control that will prevent the catastrophic failure.

It is a leader’s role to facilitate performance through motivation and influence. In so doing a leader affords answers to the question why? It is the manager who will provide the answers to the how and police and drive the performance with metrics and targets. The leader empowers and inspires whilst the manager alleviates disaster and controls. Both are key and both roles may originate from the same individual or they may be roles undertaken by two quite different individuals. If they are being undertaken by two different individuals those individuals need to have an analogous relationship and understand their working relationship and each other instinctively.

You can't manage exceptional performance you have to lead it and you can't control innovation and genius you have to inspire them. But it is in their ability to control and limit the effect of failure, in order to allow valuable lessons to be learned whilst preventing a catastrophe, that a great leader and manager’s value to an organisation are truly felt!

In conclusion leadership is all about situational awareness. It is a leader’s duty to facilitate both empowerment and control but both must be done to match the demands of the circumstances that each leader finds themselves in. A great leader will empower far more than they control!

STRUGGLING TO SURVIVE OR TRYING TO THRIVE?

2013-08-08T10:22:00.001-07:00

The question is posed in the context of our economic situation and your business’ approach to ‘dealing’ with this. If your answer is “survive” I would suggest you are likely to be undermining your chances of success by adopting a limiting perspective and attitude. It is possible your thinking will be constraining your business options by the inflexibility of your view of the current situation. Success is achieving what you set out to do and avoiding failure is something very different. An approach Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb, articulated well in his quote, “If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is often a step forward…”

Beware of the power of ‘spin’ and guard against it! It was widely reported the UK achieved a third quarter growth of 0.5%; furthermore, the global economy grew by about 4.5% during the same period. Yet our economic news was still dominated by a ‘doom and gloom’ perspective. The reality is growth is neither recession nor regression and ‘good news’ does not make good news copy. As an aside, I understand one CEO of a regional chamber of commerce was unable to get his good news publically aired at the time of announcing this third quarter data. Given these growth figures and that we enjoy unprecedented access (and support) to the global market place, areas of opportunity must exist to explore and exploit.

Challenge conventional thinking! ‘Niche’ is not always nice and can be a barrier to flexibility. The business ‘We Only Press Green Shirts’ is going to suffer if there are insufficient people who want their green shirts pressing. The skills, assets and resources required to press green shirts are the same as those required to press shirts of all colours, not mention a vast array of other garments. Overly simple perhaps but my point is clear; if your client base or market share is reducing what is it you do which can be applied in another way to make a profit?

Perception really matters when assessing the future of a business; challenge your perception of your business. If the diminishing client base of “We Only Press Green Shirts” is seen as being due to the real terms reduction in disposable income available for a discretionary spend service, this thinking may lead to assuming the business is destined to fail. However, if we consider the client base from a different perspective it may be possible to see an opportunity. For example, those who are working in the UK are tending to continue to work long hours and most working families are reported to be struggling to allocate the time needed for domestic work. Perspective influences branding, marketing and sales; remember perspective is not necessarily reality.

So, are you struggling to survive or trying to thrive? Do you possess the flexibility of perspective to recognise opportunity where others see only threat? Do you have the strength of mind and determination to succeed? What is your strategy for succeeding in the current economic situation and will it be sufficiently flexible to meet the needs of a dynamic market place?

An Opportunity for Command

2013-08-08T10:21:00.001-07:00

Further to my blog ‘Which Leadership Model Now?’ I invite consideration and challenge perceptions of the concept of Command as a values and behaviours based leadership model fit for the present day. I believe the concept of Command, parodied and mocked in various forms of comic entertainment and blamed for atrocities and spectacular failures in history, as a leadership style has been over simplified and is insufficiently understood. As a result, it is too widely presumed to mean a dictatorial, non-inclusive approach to leadership and associated with a communication style almost exclusively authoritative, impersonal and direct; holistically lacking in emotional intelligence and emotional literacy. When delivering Leadership Development Training I most frequently experience delegates initially confining the appropriate use of Command as a leadership style to dealing with emergency situations. If any or all of the above resonate then you may find the following somewhat surprising and possibly challenging.

British military doctrine defines command as; the authority vested in an individual for the direction, coordination and control of military forces. It is concerned primarily with leadership, responsibility and decision making. Clearly written in a military context but very easily contextualised in a civilian perspective by replacing; military forces with assets and resources; leadership with influence and motivation; responsibility with accountability and ownership; and decision making with judgement. Based on this, I suggest Command as a leadership style is the exercise of the authority vested in a leader for the direction, coordination and control of assets and resources. It is concerned primarily with influencing and motivating people, accountability for and ownership of actions and decisions based on judgement.

I offer the following definition of Command as a leadership style for consideration:

“The application of the authority held by an individual to direct, coordinate and control assets and resources; primarily by influencing and motivating others, whilst accepting accountability for and ownership of outcomes from decisions and behaviours based on their judgement.”

I ask the following questions in relation to this definition:

As followers, is this a definition of the type of leadership we want to see and subject ourselves to?

As leaders and managers, is this a definition of behaviours and values we feel worthy of aspiring to?

Is this an appropriate leadership style for today?

THE BIG STRATEGIC GAP BETWEEN THINK AND DO AND DO AND DON'T THINK

2013-07-25T02:53:00.001-07:00

The biggest issue in new under resourced businesses is the large gap between "think and do" and that goes both ways to "do and don't think" as well. People who spend their valuable time doing "don't think" about their business, and people who think about their businesses, don't have the time or resource to implement that thinking. The problem is "I know what to do but I don't know when I am going to do it" the most common cry in any young business and the biggest reason for them failing in the first three years. In any business there are things that have to be done, things that need to be done, things to do, things it would be good to do and things that don't need to be done. The problem is most people focus on the wrong things, whilst those that have to be done, are done, those that need to be done aren't because we are doing things that don't need to be done. How do we focus on the right things in the haze of our business environment?

In the Royal Marines a colour sergeant said to me "Sir, you are not clever enough to think of more than ten things, so just make sure they are the right ten things" extremely wise counsel that has held me in good stead ever since. The solution is simple its called STRATEGY, by planning and identifying what all our issues are and where we want to get to, we can identify our big issues and focusing on the top ten of them as we develop disciplines and processes that keep our businesses on track.

Strategy for me starts with identifying the purpose of the business, why does the business exist. Then the destination needs to be identified and shared. It is the head mark showing where the business needs to get to through the identification of a vision. The vision becomes reality through dividing it into missions, from which plans are drawn up, to achieve each mission milestone. Risks need to be identified and contingencies prepared for before the allocation of resources are considered, both in terms of the talent required and the priority of allocation.

Strategy has to be simple and effective and need not be an over complicated difficult and challenging process. Strategy needs to be empathic with a business and not prescriptive. It is a matter of the simpler the better but it also provides a guide to getting to where you want to be and not a fixed route to the destination. To be effective strategy has to adapt to circumstances and the environment in an organic way. It is far more like a sat nav than it is a printed route map description to a destination.

LEADERSHIP AND THE NHS

2013-07-19T04:14:00.003-07:00

I find it interesting that the Keogh Report found failures in care at 14 hospitals, 11 of which have been put into special measures. We now know none of the 14 has been given a clean bill of health and that then raises the possibility that there are other failing hospitals out there. The 14 investigated in this review were a snapshot of poor performers chosen because they had the worst death rates for the past two years.

The key question for me being how was this allowed to happen given the role of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and the leadership within each of the hospitals and their associated trusts? For me there is a fundamental dilemma between care and business. Basically the NHS will spend as much as it is given on caring if it were allowed to do so. However it is seen as a bottomless pit by the Treasury and those responsible for funding it. The clash of the two cultures, care and frugality, needs to be addressed by strong and decisive leadership to maintain the necessary and somewhat precarious balance in an affordable and efficient way. The issue being exposed in the media at the present is the current lack of balance with either one of the two cultures gaining supremacy. If the care side wins Trusts go broke if the business side does people die unnecessarily.

The real leadership dilemma is how does the government maintain standards at an affordable level? It has tried to do this from without using the CQC to maintain the standards and this has now been proven to be a flawed process although the government will maintain and enhance that philosophy with the appointment of Sir Michael Richards and his army of inspectors.

The real problem is not going to be changed from without, the problem is a cultural one and the clash of cultures within the NHS and culture can only be transformed through strong leadership throughout an organisation and a clear and unambiguous strategy that is understood and bought into by those who work within it. This cultural change has to be driven internally by great leaders. Cultural change cannot be driven from without the organisation. I believe the government should be investing in the leadership within the NHS rather than repeating its previous error of unsuccessfully imposing change from outside an organisation. Culture is after all "how people do things round here when no one is looking" and during inspections someone is looking.

The challenge now for the NHS and those in charge of monitoring it - the regulators, NHS England and the government - is to identify exactly how widespread poor performance is and how they can then deliver the necessary cultural balance to drive the required improvement in standards in an affordable way through strong and effective internal leadership.

THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING ON LEADERSHIP

2013-06-22T01:19:00.000-07:00

I love Henry Ford’s quote "Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right" and the problem is most of us learn during our formative years that failure is something to shy away from hence “The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.” Sven Goran Eriksson. It is key that we become more positive in our outlook and start believing “I can if,” and not “I can’t because,” when faced with struggles or doubt. Many average businesses fear failure whilst the great ones I know pursue success.
However, sometimes it isn’t enough to be the only one who believes in you – positive people make positive things happen they inspire each other to greatness. Collective positive thinking produces a self generating power that lifts group performance way beyond the expectation of any individual involved. Attitude is infectious and attitude drives behaviour “The success of a journey often depends more on who you are with than where you are going.” feel the power by surrounding yourself with “I can if” people rather than I can't because people .
Key to this is how an organisation deals with failure, if a blame culture exists and failure is stigmatised real lessons are never learned and real progress never made. Failure is always a pre-cursor to success. Just think of the great inventions and the number of false dawns that are learned from.
Powerful groups have always existed the book of Ecclesiastis states, “Though one person may be overpowered by another, two people can resist one opponent. A triple-braided rope is not easily broken.” and the ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus said, “The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.”
Some of the most successful organisations I work with recruit solely on attitude or happiness, they employ just positive people and inspire each other to greatness. Timpsons is one example of such an organisation that in its recruiting truly looks just at attitude because skills can be taught and learned; a positive disposition cannot be induced in any college. Your attitude is your own, make sure you take advantage of its power. “Every relationship in your organization will affect you one way or another. Those who do not increase you will inevitably decrease you?” John Maxwell
Successful modern leaders need to be positive in their outlook to influence and inspire those they lead.

GETTING THE BEST OUT OF YOUR PEOPLE

2013-04-28T00:43:00.001-07:00

For businesses in and around Exeter, Newcastle and indeed elsewhere motivating your people is an essential skill for great leaders. The Key question being how do I get my team to perform at a superb level for a sustained period? Financial inducements have always been seen as essential inducement but are they really?

The Candle Problem undertaken by Carl Dunker in 1945, where a candle and tacks were placed in a box with some matches on a table and those taking part were asked "how do you attach the candle to the wall, light it and prevent the drips from falling on the table". It was reused by Sam Glaxberg who proved that the pressure induced by financial incentives made teams less efficient by 31/2 minutes. So money can work as an incentive for mechanical and automated tasks but not for tasks requiring creative and cognitive skill here the pressure builds with the size of the reward and the degree of complexity related proportionally to the paucity of the performance. So money is not the answer. Extrinsic rewards were very much part of the management of workers last century. Today’s team members prefer far more intrinsic rewards once they have met their extrinsic needs.

So what other inducements has a leader got to enhance his team’s performance?

Today's employees unlike their predecessors like a degree of autonomy. They like to know where they fit within an organisation and where the organisation is going. They like to understand and fit the culture and the values of the organisation as they consider choice to be an essential part of modern life. But they like to feel they have some say and some control of what they do.

They like to feel that they are developing personally in their chosen occupation or role. There is a desire to be seen and recognised as an expert. So they need to see that they are progressing and expanding their knowledge and experience. They also need to recognise that there are opportunities to do this in the future.

The idea that money is king is balanced by a sense of purpose and this is the dichotomy the world is wrestling with now. How do you as an individual or unit survive comfortably and yet maintain a purpose and a contribution to the wider good in a very capitalist and media driven selling environment.

People need cash enough to survive in their chosen environment at their chosen status but they need much more from their employment if they are to be motivated within their employment they need purpose and control in their lives and that is part of modern freedom delivered when humans no longer need to be in a herd continuously to survive.

Sampson Hall are running a series of events in the South West in Exeter and the North East in Newcastle which cover topics such as this. Further information is available at http://www.sampsonhall.co.uk/services/course-dates-and-descriptions.html

ALLOWING AID TO FUNCTION THROUGH EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP

2013-04-02T09:36:00.000-07:00

The philanthropic nature of our modern western society is based within our capitalist conscience and therefore neither focused nor truly effective in its output. For most benefactors charity ends at the delivery of the sponsorship or donation as a conscience or desire to do some good is personally or organisationally is met. "The West has spent over £ 11/2 trillion on foreign aid over the last five decades and still had not managed to get cheap medicines to children to prevent half of all malaria deaths. The West has still had not managed to get £3 mosquito bed nets to poor families. How can our concerted global efforts at combating such a clearly defatigable issue be so inept. If a business was run in the same way with such a niche aim it would soon be bankrupt. It's such a tragedy that so much well-meaning and genuine compassion does not deliver effective results to the unlucky and powerless people who reside in such naturally challenging regions.

Where is the vision? Where is the coordination? Where is the leadership?

The director of the United Nations Millennium Project Jeffrey Sachs offered a Big Plan to end world poverty, with solutions ranging from nitrogen-fixing leguminous trees to replenish soil fertility, to antiretroviral therapy for AIDS, to specially programmed cell phones to provide real-time data to health planners, to rainwater harvesting, to battery-charging stations, to cheap medicines for children with malaria -- for a total of 449 interventions. Professor Sachs has played an important role in calling upon the West to do more for the Rest, but the implementation strategy is less constructive.

So the vision is there and the planning that naturally follows it is there. Where is the leadership? Where is the coordination?

According to Professor Sachs and the Millennium Project, the UN Secretary-General should run the plan, coordinating the actions of officials in six UN agencies, the UN country teams, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and a couple of dozen rich-country aid agencies. This Plan is the latest in a long string of Western plans to end poverty.

Unfortunately, the West has a bad track record when it comes to meeting its goals. A UN summit in 1990 set as a goal for the year 2000 universal primary-school enrolment. (That is now planned for 2015.) A previous summit, in 1977, set 1990 as the deadline for realizing the goal of universal access to water and sanitation. (Under the Millennium Development Goals, that target is now 2015.) Nobody was ever held accountable for these missed goals nations hide behind national agendas and leaders shirk their duties.

So perhaps the leadership is not there but what about the coordination?

At the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2005, Sharon Stone raised a million dollars on the spot for more bed nets in Tanzania. Insecticide-treated bed nets can protect people from being bitten by malarial mosquitoes while they sleep, which significantly lowers malaria infections and deaths. But if such nets are such an effective cure, why hadn't Planners already got them to the poor? Unfortunately, neither celebrities nor aid administrators have many ideas for how to get bed nets to the poor. Such nets are often diverted to the black market, become out of stock in health clinics, or wind up being used as fishing nets or wedding veils.

The non profit organization Population Services International (PSI), gets rewarded for doing things that work. PSI stumbled across a way to get insecticide-treated bed nets to the poor in Malawi, with initial funding and logistical support from official aid agencies. PSI sells bed nets for fifty cents to mothers through antenatal clinics in the countryside, which means it gets the nets to those who both value them and need them. (Pregnant women and children under five are the principal risk group for malaria.) The nurse who distributes the nets gets nine cents per net to keep for herself, so the nets are always in stock. PSI also sells nets to richer urban Malawians through private-sector channels for five dollars a net. The profits from this are used to pay for the subsidized nets sold at the clinics, so the program pays for itself. PSI's bed net program increased the nationwide average of children under five sleeping under nets from 8 percent in 2000 to 55 percent in 2004, with a similar increase for pregnant women. A follow-up survey found nearly universal use of the nets by those who paid for them. By contrast, a study of a program to hand out free nets in Zambia to people, whether they wanted them or not (the favoured approach of Planners), found that 70 percent of the recipients didn't use the nets. The 'Malawi model' is now spreading to other African countries.

The local PSI office in Malawi (which is staffed mostly by Malawians who have been with the program for years) was looking for a way to make progress on malaria when it discovered the solution. They decided that bed nets would do the job, and then hit upon the antenatal clinic and the two-channel sales idea. This scheme is not a magical panacea to make aid work under all circumstances; it is just one creative response to a particular problem.

So the co-ordination can be there through innovation and entrepreneurialism!

What is the real problem? Well it’s down to leadership and in the business world leaders make or break an organisation yet in the philanthropic world of humanitarian aid leaders seem unable to operate effectively and deliver to laudable well constructed goals. They lack the tool sets to deliver, they lack the ability to make a difference and yet the Western world sits back happily resting on its laurels having donated over 11/2 Trillion £ to help those poor people who suffer so much in the harsh environs of the third world.

Let’s get cleverer at delivering aid by employing top leaders, empowering them to deliver and rewarding them when they do so innovatively and with an entrepreneurial flair. Let’s give them the tools to deliver aid far more effectively and close that leadership gap.

LEADING A CHARITY

2013-03-17T08:07:00.001-07:00

Having worked with several charities I have found that the leadership, team cohesion and motivation and the leadership challenges are very different from those we have experienced when working within the corporate sector. Charities are businesses in their own rights but they work under a different and more challenging set of rules and circumstances.

Where a leader in the corporate sector just has the conundrum of balancing stakeholder profit with customer value and societal/brand expectation. A leader in a charity has to balance trustee requirements, fundraising requirements, employees and volunteers, societal expectations and the end user service/value.

Let's start by looking at the trustee dimension within a charity, as it is the most complex of the issues. Trustees are generally very well meaning and highly motivated people who work genuinely hard for a heartfelt cause. However, they may not all come with the same motivation and agenda. Hence, they may value different aspects of a charities work in different ways. They need to be marshalled to be truly cohesive in their approach and yet they need to be independent in their judgement, in order, to ensure the charity adheres to the requirements of the law and the Charity Commission as it moves forward.

Fund raising has many tenets from investment, the basic retail of products, to the winning of funding and grants from public and charitable bodies, to the support of individuals as they raise money. These aspects combined need to provide the working funds for the charity to function and develop. The charitable financial world is complex and fraught with risk during these frugal times, accountability and transparency has never been more valued and demanded by the customer and the regulator.

The employment environment of a charity is also complicated when it comes to motivating, leading and managing those involved. A charity will normally have paid employees who work in normal employee circumstances alongside those who volunteer their services. The paid employees, whilst viewing their employment as a job, may be intrinsically motivated to choose to work within the sector. However, it is the volunteers that bring other challenges in terms of motivation and expectation. How do you plan an event when you don't know how many people you will have there organising it?

When it comes to providing value for your customers, identifying who they are and how their expectations can be met is critical. Each customer will have a very different perspective of the charity and it's work. Derived from the reasons for their association with that charitable organisation. Contributors to the charity will expect their money to be spent wisely. Those who benefit from the work of the charity may have real issues and problems in their lives that have driven them to seek help. Some will be so desperate that any assistance will do and others will be far more choosy. Circumstances will be incredibly varied depending upon the focus of that particular charity.

The intrinsic rewards of charitable work far outweigh the financial reward and yet the challenges of leading such organisations in the highly competitive charitable sector can lead to a stressful and lonely existence. Best practice needs to be shared more effectively and proven solutions to common issues need to be more available to all those involved, in the leadership of these wonderful organisations, who afford our society so much.

Sampson Hall are now working with Charity Leaders as part of the Charity Forums UK. To help them work together, share best practice and support each other.

PUTTING A VALUE ON VALUE

2013-03-16T01:51:00.001-07:00

We all joke about singing from the same hymn sheet or indeed even being in the same church. But there’s a serious lesson here that some organisations have failed to learn to their cost. And the key word here is ‘values’.

Humans are individuals with their own sets of values and beliefs. Businesses too, have organisational values and goals. People join organisations because they like what they see. They stay because their personal values match those of the organisation. And they move on if they don’t.

Aligning these human and organisational values is the key to success in the modern business world where speed is vital and trust its key catalyst.

The simple truth is "me" becomes "we" and when an individual feels strongly that they are part of an organisation that affords them great benefit. They become disempowered as individuals and much more empowered as a team. They feel stronger within and are therefore loathe to stand up for themselves against their peers.

We are taught in modern education to conform, to be right, to go with the majority. But right is often merely a matter of current opinion. Think back to when the world was flat, women could not vote, capital punishment was an acceptable result of serious criminality, tobacco was good for you, drink driving acceptable. All are now considered unacceptable behaviours within most modern Western societies.

The images of a South African taxi driver being dragged behind a police vehicle for illegal parking and news of his subsequent death in custody has shocked the world. Here we see an appalling example of a state organisation with a poor organisational culture that has become unacceptable to most South Africans.

Last October saw the killing of 44 people at a Marikana mine, the deadliest police action since the end of apartheid. More recently the police officer responsible for the prosecution evidence against Oscar Pistorious was publicly removed from the case as a result of his own pending murder charges. The question is: what type of culture exists within the South African police force. Why do good individuals who join an organisation to uphold the law, then behave this way?

The answer comes from the top. Poor leadership allows values to slip and behaviour changes in groups to shift. Good leadership upholds values and deals with unacceptable behaviour by stopping it in its tracks.

Visualize a fire-fighter rushing into a building, or a Royal Naval ship venturing into dangerous seas. These acts of extreme bravery are an agreed-upon condition of an individual’s employment at the time of their joining. These are the same acts of commitment as our valiant soldiers undertake in fighting and risking life and limb in foreign wars. They each serve with pride, commitment and passion; their agreed-upon commitment. The power of this commitment becomes a personal promise to do the very best job possible. What these brave souls deserve are good leaders.

Napoleon once stated "There are no bad soldiers, only bad officers" and I believe he was absolutely right. Individual incidents and mistakes will always happen but when organisations go seriously wrong it’s because of the leadership culture that exists within the organisation. Invariably when an organisation is in trouble, things are going wrong in several areas. It’s rarely a one-off incident.

Sampson Hall say: know and publish your organisational values and you will recruit individuals that match them. it is then up to the leadership to ensure that the behaviour within the organisation matches those values, however complex and difficult that may be.

BANKING AND THE MORAL MAZE

2013-03-04T01:10:00.000-08:00

The Royal Bank of Scotland’s five billion pre tax loss – the fifth annual loss on the trot – is hard enough to swallow. So how does the bank’s head Stephen Hester sell the idea of paying £215M to its investment bankers?

Not very well is the answer. With public hostility to the banks showing no sign of abating, when are the banks going to start living by the morals and ethics that most of us in our business and private lives abide by?

Not any time soon, by the sound of it. Even more interesting, unless RBS faces any further punitive charges, it will return to the same high operating profit of £3.5 billion that it made this year. Unless more procedural failings emerge. Lets not hold our breath on that one. Nor any suggestion of a change in the culture of the banking hall.

In our modern world when does an organisation really need to stand up for the values it expounds? Acknowledging that truth comes before trust; how can the leaders who were the exponents of much of the wrongdoing now inflict a different less profit oriented culture on those who follow them? Particularly if they are still using their obscene, outdated and questionable reward system that does not fit the value sets of current social corporate practice

Why should the tax payer continue to support a self perpetuating antiquated money oriented system that is not fit for purpose? It is as close in terms of risk and reward to drug dealing although the associated rich rewards come without the personal risk. Is this sustainable whilst those within that society struggle to make ends meet.

Is it not time for a serious look at what banking is and what it stands for? What does it deliver to society and how does its current culture, values and ethics really match those of the society it serves.

The imbalance in the Banking, corporate conundrum made up of shareholder profit, customer value and societal expectations that exists is down to poor, unethical leadership. Leaders need to be far cleverer in balancing their delivery appropriately in each of the contributory areas. Those leaders will also need to live by the values they expound. The Banking industry is at a crossroad it is up to its leaders to rise to the considerable challenge of changing the culture and leading it into a new age.

SampsonHall

Good Leaders, Great Decisions

Sampsonhall.co.uk

LEADERS BEHAVING BADLY

2013-03-04T01:08:00.001-08:00

What do Lord Rennard, former Barclays boss Bob Diamond and General Petraeus, former head of the CIA all have in common?

Answer – they all left their positions as a result of inappropriate behaviour.

All three were extremely clever and competent, able leaders, yet they all misbehaved in a way that cost them or at least contributed to their losing their leadership position.

It is interesting that moral courage, self discipline and trust are becoming more and more important in life as societal values change. The common denominator in the News of the World phone hacking, the BBC and Jimmy Savill, the horse meat scandal, the Banks, the South African Police brutality stories is the same: leaders are not being morally courageous in their behaviours and certainly not when it comes to exposing misbehaviour around them.

If leaders do not have the moral courage to do what is right organisational values mutate. Leaders need to have principles and stick to them they need to have the courage to do the right thing however unpalatable it may be. For to let one piece of misbehaviour go unchallenged is to lower their personal and organisational standards. And results, just judging by the cases above, have been typically disastrous.

A moral compass is essential at the top of an organisation as its leaders, once truly embedded in the organisation will control and influence what happens within the organisation. Once accepted a leader can take an organisation wherever they want with little challenge from within. Whether they influence by word or deed they will be the ones who must be held responsible for their own behaviour and for the behaviour of those leaders around them.

When Lord Acton, expressed this opinion in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." he was absolutely right. But now we have an insatiable media and the technology to match. Never more have society’s leaders needed that moral compass as the likelihood of being exposed for wrongdoing is so much greater.

In other words in today’s world, you’ve got far more chance of being found out.

SampsonHall

Good Leaders, Great Decisions

Sampsonhall.co.uk

RESPECT AND POWER IS THE FAIR LEADER RETURNING?

2013-02-28T03:29:00.001-08:00

One of the key requisites of a modern day leader is fairness. However as humans we all have our favourites and generally they look, behave and think like us! All very well until you remember that diversity is a great asset to any modern team. So leaders how do we get the best out of a diverse teams if diversity is such a strength in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world?

As Coach Boone said in that film Remember the Titans: ”If we don’t come together right now on this hallowed ground, we too will be destroyed, just like they were. I don’t care if you like each other of not, but you will respect each other. And maybe… I don’t know, maybe we’ll learn to play this game like men.” Respect is the key catalyst that brings with it a fairness that glues individuals and teams together.

Respect is key in any cohesive group for without it trust will dissipate and teams will become a collection of individuals who function only for self gratification. Without respect the intrinsic bond that is so key to super success will never be found as team leaders and members focus on extrinsic reward. Look at those organisations that have tried to buy their way to success and failed.

Power used to be a key tenet to successful leadership but I am now of the opinion that today’s world is more about win win collaboration rather than the zero sum conclusion. Collaboration and mutual benefit are symptoms of maturing societies rather than the historical imposition of power and authority. As leaders become more ethical in their words and deeds societies judge them on their ability to balance profit for their shareholders, value for their customers with their brand’s expectations from society.

Ethical leadership is not about power and authority it is more about influence and motivation hence it is about fairness and diversity, compromise rather than power and destruction.

WHICH LEADERSHIP MODEL NOW?

2013-02-28T02:01:00.001-08:00

Given what I do for a living I found John Adair’s comments published in a recent ILM publication of particular interest. “The immense industry which has grown up around leadership is now estimated to be worth $50bn per year but has not actually produced many better leaders.” The truths of this statement are apparent in the various leadership scandals and failures currently dogging just about every part of our society and almost ever present in our daily news stories. Another day another leadership scandal or failure or, at least, an example of bad leadership and the consequences we have to bear as a result – dying to meet a target? So what kind of leadership or leadership model should we be investing in as we move forward?

Ethical leadership and authentic leadership are interesting to consider in context of the current spate of leadership debacles, though not as leadership styles because they are more than concepts of style. Being ethical is about being guided by moral principles and ethical leaders embody, exhibit and live their beliefs and values. Being authentic is about being real or true and authentic leadership is about being sincere, directing with integrity and taking full responsibility by being true. Doing things right is not the same as doing the right thing and reward for being good is not the same as being good for reward. Ethical and authentic leadership are about being good and doing the right thing to be good and true to self and others whilst accepting responsibility for actions and decisions.

My personal view of leadership, generally and specifically, is the most difficult element of leadership to deal with is behaviour; your own behaviour as a leader and that of those you lead. I believe it is the behavioural aspect of leadership which yields the greatest returns and yet most often breaks leaders and destroys leadership. With this in mind and considering the Ethical and Authentic leadership models are founded on values and behaviours, I suspect the appetite to be led by ethical and authentic leaders will be greater than the appetite of leaders to become such. Considering how to develop future leaders in the ethical and authentic ‘mould’ is a particular challenge given the apparent shortage of appropriate role models available to them and the obvious limitations of traditional training. How do we incentivise and give primacy to adopting good behaviour over achieving rewards? How much does knowing about behaviour inform behaviour and decision making? How does legislation affect leaders and leadership? Thinking of these questions called the following quote by Plato to mind.

“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly while bad people will find a way around the laws”

I cannot help but wonder how more stringent banking legislation or stronger whistle blowing laws will have any sustainable effect in addressing bad leadership?

MODERN ETHICAL LEADERSHIP

2013-02-15T03:19:00.001-08:00

Not very long ago, only the good guys did ethical leadership. All very well but it didn’t make much difference to the bottom line apparently. Well life and times in the UK are proving otherwise - get the culture wrong and you could be facing the wall.

How the BBC, NHS, most high street banks and now some food producers must rue the day they decided it was all about profit, targets and bonuses. Ignore the culture in your organization and you ignore it at your peril.

And all the retail brands who ignored their customer needs must regret doing some simple market research.

Lack of checks or possibly blatant disregard will be bringing down a number of food producers in the next couple of weeks. The culture of not checking deliveries properly came from a culture of tacit acceptance, lack of communication and probably management bullying. The culprits will undoubtedly be facing irreparable damage to their reputation and possibly a date in court.

Barclays announced today it’s closing its tax avoidance unit ‘in a bid to repair its battered reputation’. How life could have been so different if they had thought about their brand and their customer first, rather than focus solely on profit.

Everyone knows that the Mid Staffs hospital scandal is merely the tip of the iceberg. Stories such as we heard last week can be replicated in many other hospitals around the country. We’ve all heard or experienced shocking levels of care – or rather lack of it.

The common denominator here is poor leadership. Of course, business leaders have to make a profit. But they need to value and give value to their customers - and that includes listening to them. And finally they need to think about their brand and their culture. Get it right within the organization and you are someway down the road to getting it right for your customers.

So Sampson Hall say you should answer four simple questions about every business decision any leader makes.

Is it honest?

Is it fair?

Is it right for our brand?

Does it provide value for all involved?

If some of the above had addressed these issues, the current headlines would be very different

WHY THE WORLD AND ORGANISATIONS NEED MORE ETHICAL LEADERSHIP

2013-02-11T01:27:00.001-08:00

The Evidence

You only have to open a newspaper or switch your television on these days to see another example of a failure in leadership, banks are repeatedly the culprits with LIBOR and IRSAs, newspapers with phone tapping were and now its supermarkets and horsemeat. Even leaders of large retail outlets such as Jessops, Blockbuster and Comet have been susceptible. So why do I blame it all on leadership? Surely some of it is down to the environmental and societal changes?

Absolutely right to a degree, but it is the leader’s duty to ensure that the organisation at least keeps up with the environment that sustains it. Leaders must always be in touch with what is going on around them.

The Problem

The modern business leader has to balance three conflicting issues: the first is the requirement to generate profit for the organisation and its stakeholders; the next is the requirement to give value to customers so that they become advocates of and indeed return to the organisation whenever possible; the third aspect is what I call brand and culture this concerns the public and indeed self image of the organisation. It is how we do things round here when no one is looking. It involves values and ethics that need to be maintained and sustained. I am not advocating rigid traditions here but a set of clearly understood values and standards that are regularly reviewed for their relevance.

The Need

Modern Business Leadership is a difficult balance between organisational needs- profit, customers’ needs- value and societal needs- trust if we look at all the recent issues in business they have arisen where one of these issues has dominated the leaders thinking too much and the balance has been lost. Mostly its profit with the banks and the Horse meat, sometimes its value with Jessops and Comet and then its trust which is the one that is most difficult to rectify for before trust must come the truth! As society moves on our values have changed and matured. No more is it a zero sum game, today's world is about win win for it is only then that an organisation has true longevity. A modern organisation has to balance its brand with its profit and its customer value.

Here are some questions a modern leader should always challenge a decision with prior to promulgating it.

Is it honest? Is it fair? Is it right for our brand? Does it provide value for all involved?

FOCUS ON SHAREHOLDER RETURNS IS NOT THE ONLY WAY

2013-01-15T05:52:00.001-08:00

Recently as high street names fall the short term focus on profitability has been brought sharply into the fore ground. How do stores like Jessops and HMV survive in the modern world when price is king and overheads are seen as an albatross to retail survival? However how often does cheap last?

Commercial history tells us that the most successful organisations, over the long term, consistently focus on “enabling” people things (leadership, purpose, employee motivation) whose immediate benefits aren’t always clear in the short term. These robust organisations are internally aligned around a clear and cohesive vision and strategy; can execute to a high quality thanks to strong capabilities, management processes, and employee motivation; and renew themselves in an ever more demanding environment more effectively than their rivals do. In short, healthy processes today drive improved performance tomorrow.

The issue in the majority of the larger organisations is the short term requirements placed upon them by their shareholders. Many Chief Executives and Senior Vice Presidents instinctively understand the paradox of performance and health, though few have expressed or acted upon it better than John Mackey, founder and CEO of Whole Foods. “We have not achieved our tremendous increase in shareholder value,” he once observed, “by making shareholder value the only purpose of our business.” No most certainly not and yet the increase in value has been long term it has been as a result of healthy strategic processes and disciplines. Outstanding strategy, effective communication and the evolution of people processes to free up mangers and leaders to focus on the future rather than immerse themselves in the problems of today. Don't forget that people run businesses and people are the interface between a business and its customer base if they feel empowered, understand what they have to do and the route they have to take to get there, then they can create extraordinary value and longevity!

TEAM BUILDING v BUILDING TEAMS

2012-11-28T10:03:00.000-08:00

I always like to start discussions around team building with our clients by drawing their attention to and discussing Patrick Lencioni’s five dysfunctions of a team, namely:

Absence of Trust

Fear of Conflict

Lack of Commitment

Avoidance of Accountability

Inattention to Results

I do this because I think this model provides an excellent basis for building effective teams simply by removing the negative descriptors before the key words. So, for me an effective team achieves the following:

Trust through knowledge and acceptance

Constructive conflict by open communication

Commitment to agreed objectives and goals

Accountability and ownership of outcomes, individually and collectively

Results orientation through focus on desired outcomes

In terms of achieving a truly functional team, as defined above, in which team members are interdependent and supportive of one another; I believe there is little which can be achieved by traditional action learning ‘teambuilding’ events and activities. This is not to say the same have no value, more they tend not to build a team in any sustainable or relatively significant way.

Traditional team building activities ordinarily involve achieving defined tasks, which are not work related, away from the team’s operational environment. This dislocates and disassociates the team from their ordinary working experience and employs them in achieving an outcome which is irrelevant to the team in their operational role. Also, Lencioni’s model is hierarchical insofar as the absence of trust leads to fear of conflict which prevents commitment, and so on. By dislocating, disassociation and irrelevance the foundations of the functional team, that is, trust and constructive conflict are no longer required to achieve commitment to the task in hand. This in turn makes it relatively easy for team members to commit to the (irrelevant) task which can be achieved, more or less, without significant penalty in relation to ownership and accountability. Clearly, skilled delivery and facilitation can enable drawing of parallels and lessons relative to the working environment but the implementation of the same is another matter altogether.

My advice to clients seeking to build an effective team is to do so in their work place and utilising the realities of their environment and day to day work. Doing so smartly can also bring added value in achieving organic development and growth. In advising this I draw attention to the need for leadership and acknowledge the challenges involved in adopting such an approach. There are tools and processes which help in building effective teams in this way but the first requirement is for leadership and in so saying, the following clip by Patrick Lencioni about leadership helps explain why http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sqvWEI1CVg&feature=watch-vrec

HOPE IS NOT A STRATEGY- HOW STRATEGY CAN MAKE YOUR FUTURE

2012-11-22T09:01:00.001-08:00

In today’s business world if you are a business leader you have two choices. You can shape your destiny or let fate take you to the destination it chooses. All too often we come across businesses that have taken the second option and found they are in a place that they did not want to be. It’s a tough world out there with a rapidly changing environment with lots of competitors chipping away at your business. You need to ensure your business survives and flourishes through proper planning and preparation. Having some sort of Strategy that includes a vision of where you want to get to. An understanding of what might stop you. An idea of the team you would like to assist you on your way and a means of allocating your scarce resources to the most important aspects of your plan.

There is a time and place for each of these disciplines but you need to understand the where and when and how and bring all of these disparate activities together into one coherent strategy.

So how do I put together my strategy and where do I start?

Like all good stories you need to start at the beginning by understanding your personal requirements and how these can be met by your business. There is little separation in today's fast moving world between home and office. This entails asking yourself lots of questions. What is it you want to achieve? (Vision) How will you do this? (Plan) Whose help and guidance do you need? (Talent Management) What resources will you need? How much will it cost? What’s my time frame to achieve this? (Resource Priorities and Risk Management)

Hone your answers at each stage of the process by continually asking one of the most important but rarely used questions – WHY? Sometimes its best asked five times to get to the real issue or desire!

That’s a lot to take in if you’re also spending most of your time on day-to-day operational business matters. Sometimes it pays to bring someone in from outside your business to look at your strategy with fresh eyes and there are plenty of consultants who can do this. Some may also assist in the implementation of your strategy as you focus on the day to day activities. After all we all work far too much "in rather than on" our business.

But in the words of Rick Page “Hope is not a strategy” Start shaping your future to ensure that you get your business to the place it needs to be to give you the life you want!

CREATING VALUE FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS AND YOUR PEOPLE

2012-11-05T11:00:00.002-08:00

Companies often mistake profit for value and assume that the proof of profit within our capitalist society automatically indicates that value has been achieved. However the capitalist system is under siege. Companies are widely perceived to be prospering at the expense of their communities. A big part of the current problem is the stakeholders' and boards adopt a limited approach to value creation and the perception of value by potential customers. Focused on short-term financials, companies overlook the broader influences that will sustain their long-term success. The microscope that has been brought to bear by the economic environment brings with it a far more discretionary customer who is focused on what they get in total for their buck. Clever companies could bring business and society back together if they redefined their purpose as creating "shared value"—generating economic value in a way that also produces value for society by addressing some of its challenges; the old win win rather than zero sum argument.

What is value? Value is an individual perception. It comes from an individual's expectations which are founded in their own experience and beliefs. Value put simply is the positive difference between someone’s' expectation and reality. Just as a lack of value is the negative difference between expectation and reality. So value comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes and it is here that companies need to get cleverer in their delivery of something. Value will last as long as the item is around it is not just about shiny and new products.

Value needs to be measured through the life of a product. It needs to be measured in all sorts of ways to match the expectations of the audience that is trying to assess it. Long Term Value is no longer about initial cost but it is also about through life costs and disposal costs, it is also about the environmental impact, local economy impact, societal impact etc etc.

Clever companies are starting to focus their marketing on the other aspects of value that society considers important and those that don't reflect the new principles of non-monetary value will soon find their market dwindling as they look only towards their own profit. Clever companies provide and measure the same value to their employees, after all how good is it to work for a company your proud of!

EMPOWERING UNDERACHIEVERS FOR EFFECT

2012-10-07T02:10:00.001-07:00

Every leader has at least one person in their team who isn’t performing. You really want them to do better, but do you sometimes sabotage their progress that by managing them like underachievers? Well perhaps there is another way?

A leader always wants their people to perform at their optimum level. It’s good for every one involved in the team and drives organisational performance. Regardless of the leader’s personal intentions - whether they want to look good as a leader or they want to drive their business forward, all a leader wants is for their people to do their best at work.

As team members start to under perform, start to let the leader down, the leader’s initial impulse is to take back some control. Decrease team members responsibilities, control some of the project, or even micro manage them with a long screw driver just a little in order to make the leader feel more comfortable. This is human nature. After all a successful outcome is being threatened, so the leader naturally re-assumes control. Good leadership some would say and in certain circumstances that is the right thing to do for the task although it may damage the individual team member.

But stop a moment lets reflect on how this impacts upon the under performer doing the work?

You lead top performers very differently from those under performers and perhaps that may contribute to their lack of success. Two completely different approaches which achieve different results appear logical on the surface; however, it seems ludicrous when you think you are applying methods that inhibit under performers from learning and developing. Let’s break down the logic:

You do something new - and someone performs really well you give them control and let them get on with it with the belief and freedom that delivers success.

However you have someone that isn't performing well doing the same new thing - and you really want them to do well - so you do something totally different, you take back control pressurising them and hindering their opportunity for learning and development

In other words, we manage high performers like high performers. And we manage underachievers like underachievers - even though we want everyone to become a high performer for the sake of the team and the outcome.

And a big component of this is the leader feeling in control. When we take control away from people, their ability to think critically, to problem solve and to control emotions and behaviours is compromised. As leaders, we tend to give our high performers a lot of control and our underachievers a little. We are imposing our way upon someone who may have a better but different way. Someone who may just need to learn how to do it and the best way of learning is experimentally. Hence our imposition of control might end up driving a self-fulfilling cycle.

In a recent study a group of people were given a problem solving test and their scores were recorded. Each of the participants was then asked to describe a person in their lives that they thought was controlling. For 15 minutes, they were asked to describe the person, their actions and specific situations. After this interview, they were given another (equivalent) problem-solving test and each and every one of them performed about 30% worse.

Interesting that just the thought of someone controlling us decreases our ability to problem-solve by 30%!

But it turns out actual control by the incumbent isn't completely necessary. In many research experiments using computer tasks, just the feeling of control can reignite someone's performance. As with most things, perception is more important than reality. We call this ownership and its all about feeling ownership of an outcome. Effective communication by a leader should leave a team member in no doubt about the expected outcome to be delivered and the boundaries beyond which they have to seek permission to pass in pursuit of that outcome. This creates the impression of control although a good leader will monitor unobtrusively until they have total confidence in that team member.

So as leaders how do we develop our under performers through empowerment through the feeling of more control.

1) Be more organized in your delegation

To delegate well and give people control, you have to be more organized than when you simply do it yourself. You must clearly communicate expectations (the outcome) and boundaries. Give yourself and your direct reports realistic lead times, which allow them to get their work done, get some feedback and then redo it if necessary. When your direct report gets it wrong too close to the deadline, you have very little choice but to take it back and do it yourself but remember, if you can always, exploit a learning opportunity!

2) Delegate pieces of projects, rather than the whole thing

Remember people do things better if they like doing it. So you're bound to find things that people are more proficient at. The most effective leader develops their team members using challenge and support - too much of either is a poor recipe for learning. If you do not have total confidence in someone give them pieces of the project that you are happy for them to control, rather than setting them up to fail by being over ambitious asking them to do too much. Time spent building trust and understanding is never wasted.

3) Create the perception of control

Ownership is important as people always need to feel like they control something. There are always things that we have no control over - such as deadlines. But there are also things that we can make sure people do have control over - that contribute to the way in which the outcome is achieved. Delivery of a small contributing piece of an outcome such as the provision of refreshments or even the colour of the binding for the final report without interference can afford a perception of ownership. These small things can actually make a big difference in the way team members perform whilst enhancing trust and cohesion.

People do their best work when they feel they are trusted; when they have a sense of control. Not when they are operating on fear or over worried about making little mistakes that make them appear stupid. They need to understand what they own and the expectations and boundaries and then be left to get on with it.

These simple things might just help your underachievers become high achievers and valued team members in the future. The value of experiential learning should never be missed!

BUSINESS LEADERS - WHAT STATE IS YOUR CRYSTAL BALL IN?

2012-09-19T01:24:00.000-07:00

TURBULENT TIMES

I always say that you have two options at the bottom of a well drown or start climbing. Well many businesses currently sit at the bottom of that well. The events that have transpired over the last four years since the onset of the current recessionary cycle, evidence the turbulent times all organisations face. While uncertainty is troubling, it is also the time of greatest opportunity when business is most turbulent.

Humans are happiest in static times and yet if one looks at when the greatest organisations started, it was during times of upheaval and turbulence. Greats like Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie and J.P. Morgan emerged out of the shift from an agrarian to an industrial society. Companies like Hewlett-Packard, Apple Computer and Microsoft emerged from the shift to an electronic society. This leap to greatness is made possible by the state of turbulence where the traditional paradigms and norms that govern business are shattered. Companies and whole markets are driven to seek out new solutions to their problems as they strive for competitive advantage brought about by the forces of change.

We are well beyond the realms of management and informed creative thinking and decision-making can greatly enhance leaders’ ability to lead. Positivity is key and rather than mourn the loss of business or bemoan internal changes brought about by recessionary pressures or from intensified market competition, leaders need to exploit the new opportunities that present themselves in the prevailing market conditions. One thing is certain: organizations are not going back to the business models that governed them prior to 2007. They are seeking new ways to enhance productivity and profitability, and therein lies the opportunity for any leader who wishes to seek it out. However, each should acknowledge that in times of turbulence, the ability to anticipate problems, situations and opportunities dramatically increases their chances of success. The Sampson Hall Gordian model allows leaders to make informed decisions about their future and the Sampson Hall strategy model enables them to plan in a world of uncertainty. Both are key to an organisations survival in these modern economic times.

If leaders wish to take advantage of the turbulence in their markets they must apply informed creative thinking skills based on reality and yet forward looking to the future. They must step ‘outside the box’ and think imaginatively and yet not naively. Positivity is key and yet credibility is essential. Rigor needs to be applied from a futuristic perspective. The Sampson Hall tools stimulate a shift in thinking that allows leaders to design and develop new solutions to address their workplace and organisational problems. Not only do the tools help with the current position but they enable organisations to understand where they are and how much further they have to go. They identify potential by pinpointing available but oftentimes hidden opportunities. These tools will help the creative thinking process in an organisation, they will allow leaders to take informed decisions whilst understanding and mapping the possible consequences of their decision s and the future problems that they may come across along their path to success. However these tools will only suit organisations that have genuine ambition and the desire to remain competitive amongst their peers. Organisations that have used them do not look back.

VISION and DIRECTION - LEADERSHIP ORIENTEERING

2012-08-07T08:10:00.001-07:00

How can leaders at any level, especially at executive or board level, expect to get the best from their people and business or organisation without communicating clearly their vision and direction to their staff? It is not unknown for Sampson Hall to be commissioned to deliver a leadership development programme for a group of middle and senior leaders to find the very people we are helping are being inadvertently ‘hamstrung’ by a lack of vision and clear direction from their executive. This is particularly frustrating for us as we see individuals developing their leadership capabilities and becoming more able to fulfil their potential yet inadvertently prevented from doing so by the very people who have invested in providing the training.

How does vision work and why is it so important? If a leader has not got a clear picture of exactly what it is they are trying to achieve then how can they expect to know when it has been achieved? If a leader has a clear picture of their desired end state but the people they are depending upon to produce that end state do not know what it looks like then how will they know what it is they are trying to deliver? Would you set off to your work place in a morning without knowing where your work place is and what it looks like? A leader without vision is like an orienteer without a map; they are likely to run round in circles getting nowhere fast whilst their competitors get to where they want to be before them.

Not only must a workforce know and understand what is they are trying and expected to achieve but also how to do so. This is why clear, concise and well articulated direction is important. Woolly direction leads to uncertainty and ineffective action which leads to dysfunction and, ultimately, in failure to achieve the desired outcomes. Undoubtedly, when you set off to your workplace in the morning you know by which route you are going and how you are going to get there. A leader without direction is like an orienteer without a compass; they can only follow their competitors around the course and finish the race in last place.

Having a clear vision is only the start. If a vision is to be realised then it must be effectively communicated in a way which has meaning and can be understood by those who need to know what it is. Good direction need not necessarily be detailed but it must be clear and understood by those requiring direction. Also, there is little point in a leader giving direction which is not resourced; a plan must be deliverable and seen to be so otherwise it is no more than a work of fiction which will fail to yield the desired results. Good leadership is like good orienteering. Make sure you have the right map for the ground you are on, acquire and use the necessary equipment correctly to orienteer your way most efficiently and effectively through the course, quicker than your competitors to win the race.

THE KEY PASSIVE COGNITIVE LEADERSHIP SKILLS

2012-07-31T03:40:00.001-07:00

Modern leadership in a time when the quick eat the slow has to be different from that which flourished in the industrial era. Sadly very few organisations and academic places of learning recognise the requirement for a softer set of leadership skills. Cognitive leadership is all about understanding the environment in which you lead and then applying the appropriate leadership style, tool or skill to the occasion. This is beyond the broad definition of situational leading.

The modern leader needs to listen and watch passively to understand their situation and the needs of those they lead. Listening is an underestimated leadership competence that is recognised in some schools of thinking but watching or observing and noticing is rarely considered as a characteristic of leadership. Noticing skills are fundamental to cognitive leadership.

Lessons are learned harder and therefore learned better in failure and a vital component of the cognitive leader is the ability to forgive a mistake as long as it is learned from and not repeated. Humans are fallible and we all make mistakes it is how they are recovered from that makes the difference.

Using your experts many leaders believe they have to be expert at everything to have the right to lead. Experts are with you for a reason, use their expertise allow them to control when the situation is appropriate empower them to make them more effective. With the speed of information flow and the speed of business advisors are often better placed to react rather than just advise allow them the freedom to react appropriately to seize the opportunity before someone else does.

The bottom line in cognitive leadership is the ability to trust and be trusted. You will only be fully trusted by your team if you become a cognitive leader. A cognitive leader is someone who understands what needs to be done when, someone who has the courage and judgement to lead their teams through the toughest of ordeals and environments; someone who uses the cohesive power of the team and all its attributes. To become a cognitive leader you need to have complete faith in yourself and complete faith in those around you. Please do not confuse faith with arrogance.