Inlägget An Exciting Time for Boliden – A CEO Leadership Interview with Mikael Staffas  dök först upp på The New Leadership.

The One Step Ahead Principle is a well-proven method for creating long-term and sustainable success in sales and leadership, yet too few utilize it.

At The New Leadership (Nya Ledarskapet), we incorporate the One Step Ahead Principle into nearly everything we do, from budgeting to time allocation throughout the year, month, week, and beyond. It’s more than just a strategy; it’s our philosophy for cultivating enduring success in sales and leadership.

Let’s consider a practical example

Imagine you’ve identified the need for 200 client visits throughout the year to meet your targets. With a linear approach, that means 100 visits in the spring and another 100 in the fall. Even though it is common, this strategy can be vulnerable to unexpected disruptions.

Weighted planning with the One Step Ahead Principle

Planning with the One Step Ahead Principle instead, we weight our planning 60/40%, resulting in 120 client visits in the spring and 80 in the fall. This approach provides vital flexibility to manage unforeseen events without sacrificing your overall objectives.

Furthermore, you can apply the principle on a quarterly basis. In our example, we divide our 120 client visits in the spring into 70 visits in Q1 and 50 visits in Q2. This allows us to adjust and adapt our activity levels based on current conditions, even down to daily planning. Do the most important things in the morning! This not only provides structure but also enables us to adapt to the day’s needs and challenges.

Challenge your habits

We challenge you to break free from linear thinking when setting your goals and making plans. By breaking habits and embracing flexibility in your strategy, you open up new opportunities and adapt to changes throughout the year.

So simple – yet it works!

Your sales year is a journey, and how you plan and manage your time can be crucial to your success. By applying the One Step Ahead Principle you gain the tools to be flexible, control your time, and ensure you reach, and hopefully exceed, your sales goals. This principle may seem ridiculously simple, but oddly enough, few employ it – yet it works, we promise!

Dare to challenge linear thinking and embrace a strategy that puts you in the driver’s seat for your sales year!

Want to learn more about how the One Step Ahead Principle can impact your planning? Feel free to contact us for a meeting regarding how our methodology can be tailored to fit your specific needs and goals. You can also read more about our programme Personal Leadership.

We look forward to helping you and your team stay one step ahead!

Translated from our Swedish blog by ChatGPT 2024-04-19

Inlägget Plan your year wisely with the One Step Ahead Principle dök först upp på The New Leadership.

First, a very brief historic backdrop:

How much we are supposed to be working has always been a topic for debate. Mid-19^th century, a motion was presented in the Swedish government, suggesting that the workday should be limited to a maximum of 12 hours per day (and in those days, people worked six days a week). This suggestion did not win the government’s approval…

Since then, the statutory working hours in Sweden have been reduced gradually and at the beginning of the 1970s, it was down to eight hours per day, five days a week (exceptions made in certain professions and circumstances). In addition, the number of statutory annual leave weeks has increased and in 1978, this number had risen to five weeks. And that is more or less where we are still today.

What all these changes have in common over the last nearly 200 years, is that they have all been preceded by arguments about how difficult, or even impossible, it would be to implement them. Yet, they have been carried out and we seem to have coped quite well, both people, corporations and the country itself.

It is in the light of this last remark that we should perhaps view the result of a study which in February this year was presented by The University of Cambridge, UK in collaboration with Boston College, US, and the think tank and research organisation Autonomy. Over a period of six months, the researchers studied 61 different companies in the UK. These companies were from a number of different industries, had nearly 3,000 employees, and they all introduced a four-day work week, however with the same salary as before and still with eight-hour workdays.

The researchers describe this as the largest scientific project ever to be carried out to find out the effects of a four-day work week. So what were they able to conclude?

How were the employees affected?

• Absence due to illness was reduced by 65 per cent.
• 71 per cent stated that the risk of burnout had been reduced.
• 39 per cent said they felt a lot less stressed.
• The number of people resigning from these companies by choice was decreased by 57 per cent.
• 60 per cent thought it had become easier to combine their work with other tasks in their lives.
• 62 per cent expressed experiencing an improved social life.

What about the companies’ profitability?

• None of the companies in the study reported a decrease in profitability. Most companies reported the same profitability as before the project started.
• On average, there was actually an overall increase in profitability by 1.4 per cent among the participating companies.

So, what conclusions did the companies draw from the project?

• 56 of the 61 participating companies promised to continue with a four-day work week after the project had ended.
• 18 of the companies stated they would introduce the four-day week as a permanent solution.

Some other, less measurable conclusions presented in the study:

• The employees themselves came up with measures and solutions that made their work more efficient, for example shorter meetings, the use of new technical means, avoiding unnecessary interruption, etc.
• Some of the companies even introduced “uninterrupted time”, i e certain time periods when no one was allowed to disturb their co-workers, instead allowing them to focus and work in peace.
• The companies also noticed that they received many more applications when they advertised positions. It simply became easier to recruit new staff.

This is not the only successful example of a four-day work week with maintained salary. In the last few years, several similar projects have been carried out, for example in the US, Ireland, Japan, Spain, New Zeeland and Iceland – all of which have rendered the same positive results, both for the individual employees and the company as a whole.

You might perhaps now be thinking that this whole idea of a four-day work week must be a rather new idea? In one way it sort of is, as it is only in recent years that real projects have been introduced with the aim to find out what advantages and disadvantages there really are. But, and brace yourself now, already in 1971 one of the Swedish Members of Parliament (Gunnel Jonäng, Member of the Centre Party, a liberal political party) presented a motion to set up a Committee to explore a four-day work week!

This is 52 years ago.

Change takes time. Some changes more than others…

INTERESTED IN CHANGE? In our training programme Personal Leadership, we give you the tools for sustainable change – both for your work and your personal life.

Inlägget <strong>Working four days, but getting paid for five – is this possible?</strong> dök först upp på The New Leadership.

Let us start with a brief historical introduction:

Charles C Manz, researcher and author of numerous books on leadership, coined the term in 1982. He explained self-leadership as follows:

Your own influence on leading yourself to perform tasks for which you are naturally motivated, but also to be able to carry out necessary work for which you may not feel naturally motivated.

In other words, how you can make yourself do what you enjoy (easy!), but also that which you do not enjoy so much (difficult!).

During the 40 years since the term was coined, interest in the concept of self-leadership has increased, not least because more and more companies realise that there is considerable profit to be made when your employees are more in control of their working hours and are able to make more decisions themselves.

When the pandemic hit us nearly three years ago and many people started working from home, almost overnight we were thrown into a kind of involuntary self-leadership. When managers and colleagues were no longer within easy reach, a larger focus was placed on us, on ourselves. For example, we had to make more decisions ourselves, when there was no longer anyone nearby with whom we could easily discuss matters or whom we could ask for advice. We also had more time to reflect on our behaviour and habits when the workplace routines no longer governed our lives in the same way.

In addition, research has contributed to our knowing so much better today what successful self-leadership looks like. And, which is equally important, what leadership skills are involved when we have to lead ourselves.

One example is McKinsey, an American consultancy, who last year conducted a large survey among ca 18,000 employees in 15 countries concerning a number of different leadership styles and what impact these may have on the possibilities of a successful working life. 56 skills were listed and divided into four groups: cognitive behaviour, interpersonal, digital fluency and self-leadership. The foundational skills listed in the self-leadership category were:

Skills linked to your self-awareness and self-management:

• Self-motivation and wellness
• Understanding own emotions and triggers
• Self-confidence
• Self-control and regulation
• Understanding own strengths
• Integrity

Skills linked to your attitude:

• Courage and risk-taking
• Driving change and innovation
• Energy, passion and optimism
• The ability to dare break habitual patterns

Skills linked to your ability to set (and reach) goals:

• Decisiveness
• Goal orientation and focus
• Grit and persistence
• Self-development
• The ability to cope with uncertainty

We could of course question and discuss these different skills. For example, should communication skills not be part of this list? McKinsey has instead listed this skill under the heading of cognitive skills, but it would just as well fit in here, at least if by communication skills we mean clarity…

However, the message is probably still conveyed. We could, perhaps, try to summarise it as follows:

Self-leadership means to intentionally influence your thinking, your feelings and your actions towards your goals.

So, what are the advantages of self-leadership? The main gains which are often emphasised are:

• Quicker decisions. If every decision is to be made by the manager, it would be quite time-consuming. And time is, as we know, at a shortage in many corporations today.
• Better decisions. The likelihood that the manager knows more than the collective knowledge among all the employees is quite small, no matter how knowledgeable the manager is.
• Increased efficiency. Quicker decisions combined with better decisions can only lead to one thing: increased efficiency.
• More enjoyable. To be able to manage yourself to a larger extent means that the work becomes more interesting, positively challenging, attractive, not to mention more enjoyable.
• Increased engagement. To be able to take responsibility for your own ideas does, most likely, lead to an increased desire to really succeed in your projects. An engagement and commitment boost, indeed.

Here we need to address the risks, are there are obviously some too. These can be summarised in one, but oh-so-important, bullet point:

• Lack of information and clarity. What mandate do the employees really have? What decisions are they allowed to make and which ones are they not? Are the goals clear to everyone? Is everyone aware of the requirements and values of the company? Are you able to plan your working hours completely independently? What do you do if you require help? How do you follow things up? How do you prioritise if you cannot fit everything in? And many, many other questions…

It is here that you, as a manager, have a very important role. There is a misconception that self-leadership would lead to the manager becoming redundant. This is not the case, but the tasks and the role of the manager will change. The manager becomes more like a coach for a football team – they have to make the over-arching tactical and strategical decisions and ensure that the players are given the best possible conditions to make their own decisions, but will be careful not to slide on to the pitch and actually kick the ball…

This said, perhaps it is time to change the definition of self-leadership to this:

A life-long learning in the art of knowing and understanding yourself. And how this, through your actions, affects your life and opportunities as well as those of people around you, at work and elsewhere.

Or, as we like to say here at The New Leadership:

If you can lead yourself, you can also lead others…

INTERESTED IN BECOMING A MORE EFFICIENT LEADER? Sign up for our Personal Leadership programme, which is all about how you improve your ability to lead yourself – and others.

Inlägget <strong>The art of getting to know yourself and become a better leader</strong> dök först upp på The New Leadership.

If someone told you that there was a specific quality that would increase your chances of becoming successful professionally and which could really boost your career, would you like to know what it is? And how you could develop this quality?

Researchers at The University of Arkansas and The University of Minnesota claim to have found this quality, or rather: this personality trait.

The researchers have studied a very large quantity of prior research in the field, around 3,900 different studies involving almost two million subjects. They looked at the five big personality traits described in The Big Five personality traits theory – openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism (for a brief explanation of these traits, click here).

Since all humans are composed of different degrees of all of these five personalities, the researchers looked at 275 different combinations of the five. They then compared these combinations with the degree to which the subjects were successful in their jobs (their leadership, among other things), what their careers looked like and also the state of their mental and physical health. In addition, they looked at how well the subjects handled their relationships with other people, both at work and their personal friends.

What seemed to matter the most for a good professional life, and life in general, was: agreeableness. The researchers pointed to a 93-per cent correlation between a good professional life and strong results on particularly agreeableness in the personality tests.

If you look at what agreeableness means according to the Big Five theory, among other things you will find: empathic, cooperative, considerate, kind, generous, trustworthy, helpful and optimistic. This might make you wonder what being an agreeable person in the workplace really means, whether you are a manager or an employee. In brief, the researchers describe such an individual as someone who:

• Shows concern for others.
• Accepts life as it is and is able to adapt to new contexts.
• Is able to nurture and sustain positive relationships with others.
• Is empathic, able to coordinate goals and cooperate with others.
• Wants to always do their best.
• Is able to consider and make allowances for other people’s (sometimes poor) efforts.
• Respects social norms and avoids breaking the rules.

What do you think? Does this not sound like the very definition of a team player, successful teamwork and a great, healthy workplace?

Perhaps it is time we all nurtured our agreeableness trait even more… WOULD YOU LIKE TO IMPROVE YOUR ABILITY TO COOPERATE WITH OTHERS? Then this is the training for you.

Inlägget The key to your success dök först upp på The New Leadership.

We all understand that performing hard and perhaps physically challenging work during an extensive period of time will make us tired. We probably also realise that our muscles will need to properly rest before we resume our work again.

Intense mental work is very similar, for example when we are trying to find solutions to complex problems or need to make important decisions. After a few hours, our brain becomes tired and needs to recuperate in order to perform in the best way possible. Unfortunately, we do not always understand when it is time to rest our brain, which can lead to poor decisions.

In a scientific report presented in Current Biology in August this year, a theory on why we make worse decisions when we are tired is presented. We already know that a certain area in our brain, the prefrontal cortex (PFC), plays an important role for, for example, our ability to plan, solve problems and make decisions. 

Researchers asked a group of subjects to perform some tasks that required a great deal of mental effort in a workday. Another group of subjects were given much simpler tasks. Different brain functions were measured while the subjects were doing their tasks and what transpired, in a few words, is that in the subjects in the first group, they could see an increased production of certain chemical substances in the PFC which impaired its performance and made the subjects tired. These substances were, so to speak, piling up and the brain had to work incredibly hard. The harder the brain was working, the more substances were produced, which, in turn, led to even more energy and concentration being needed by the subjects to sort their thoughts. In the second group performing the simpler tasks, no such increase was observed.

However, for those of us who are not scientists, what is perhaps even more interesting, is how the people in the first group reacted when the tiredness kicked in towards the end of the workday. They chose simpler and quicker solutions and did not care so much whether their choices were the best possible ones. You could say that their brains had become too exhausted to try to work out the best solutions and were instead following the path of least resistance.

According to the study, there is only one solution to this problem: Never make any crucial decisions when you are mentally depleted. Instead, treat yourself to a good night’s sleep.

How about you? Do you make important decisions at the end of an intense, rough day at work? Then think of this: A wise decision tomorrow is most often much better than a quick decision today…

WOULD YOU LIKE TO DEVELOP YOUR PERSONAL LEADERSHIP? We have many different programmes, both for individuals and for groups.

Inlägget How you help your brain make wise decisions dök först upp på The New Leadership.

At the time of writing this, the scent of The Nobel Prize is in the air, as all of this year’s laureates are presented. This is perhaps when we are reminded that there are some people who have really been successful in their professions. However, these are not ordinary people. They are obscenely intelligent, extremely well educated, passionate and rather obsessed with their work. Or…? 

What we may not realise is that, even for these people, the road to success may have been both long and anything but straight, perhaps accompanied by failures and doubt. Take Thomas Alva Edison, for example, one of the most impressive inventors of our time. He had to try a thousand times before finally being able to make a light bulb that worked. “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”, he allegedly said. In the end, he succeeded.

Perhaps this is key to success? To be able to, when the problems are piling high and the challenges seem unsurmountable, ask yourself: Is there a better way to do this?

This is at least the view of a group of researches at The National University of Singapore, who, together with some colleagues at Stanford University, studied what distinguished successful people from those who do not do as well. The answer is a strategic mindset.

The researchers asked 800 people, both students and professionals, to take part in a self-assessment test where they were asked questions such as:

• If something feels almost impossible to do, how often do you ask yourself, “What can I do to become better at this?” 

• If you are struggling with a task, how often do you ask yourself, “What can I do to help myself to succeed in doing this?”

• If you get stuck and feel that you are not making progress, how often do you ask yourself, “Is there a better way of doing this?”

The results were quite striking. Students who had rated themselves quite highly in the test had much better grades at the end of the school year six months later, compared to those who had put in lower numbers on the test. Another group, who had work-related duties (for example learning a new computer language) or fitness and health-related assignments (for example losing weight), showed similar results.

The researchers had also asked a third group to just read and reflect on a short article about the advantages of a strategic mindset, and to then perform a task which was completely new to them. The participants were not only significantly better than the control group, they also showed several alternative methods for solving the problems. This shows that it is possible, with some practice, to learn how to change your thought habits to others that are more effective.

The importance of being able to use several different strategies to reach a challenging goal has been known for a long time (compare, for example, the expression, “ don’t put all your eggs in the same basket”). According to the researchers, it is however not until now that we are beginning to understand how this is done in practice. How we need to dare question ourselves, take a step back and ask us the short, but perhaps somewhat uncomfortable, question:

• Is there a better way?

Or, as Thomas Alva Edison (who, strangely, was never awarded The Nobel Prize) is said to have said:

There is always a better way…

Inlägget New research: Think like this and reach your goals dök först upp på The New Leadership.

This is the third article in our series of articles on Leaders in the future. You can read the first two here:

Leaders in the future #1: This is what awaits you
Leaders in the future #2: The leadership skill that will be the key to success

We all want to believe that there is meaning and purpose in what we do every day, that our work means something to others, that it makes a difference and that it is appreciated. And that what we do does not just mean money in the bank every month, but also brings joy and satisfaction to anyone paying for our goods and services.

Just over ten years ago, Simon Sinek published his book Start With Why, which soon became a “bible” for everyone in marketing and which has also influenced many people in their leadership. Very briefly, here is Sinek’s keys to how to build a successful business:

• Just about every CEO, manager and employee in the company know the goods and services they are offering very well – they know their “what”. They know how the products or services work and can explain this to their presumptive clients.

• Most of them also have a decent knowledge of how the goods or services are produced. This includes practical things like what methods and processes are used, as well as the softer aspects, for example what values are important in the company and how these are shown in the relationship between managers, employees, clients and the general public.

• However, according to Sinek there are few companies (or rather their leaders) who have really considered why they actually exist, why they create their products or services and why anyone should by them. It is this why which is the key to success, according to Sinek. Successful businesses are completely aware of why they exist, they live up to their why every day and are very good at communicating their why to their clients and to the general public. This way they attract loyal clients who return for repeat business again and again.

Simon Sinek’s conclusion to anyone looking for success is therefore: find your why (as in the book title, “Start With Why”), then think about what you are going to do and how. “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”, is one of Sinek’s mantras which he keeps coming back to and adds that we most often make our buying decisions based on our emotions, not just our common sense.

Even if Simon Sinek today is considered a guru among sales and marketing people, his theses have also been criticised. One criticism is that it is not as simple as Sinek makes it out to be, that many companies have spent a lot of time and money on finding their why, only to discover that nothing changed. And even if a company thinks it has found this magical why, it is difficult, or near impossible, to effectively communicate it to the world. Clients seems to still just care about the usability, the quality and the price of the product…

However, Sinek’s ideas are worth contemplating, at least from a leadership perspective with a view to the future. We have reason to believe that new generations think in a slightly different way to those of us of a more mature age, both when it comes to how they view their future jobs and as consumers.

Several studies have shown that today’s young people, those born from the mid-nineties to the mid-noughties and who will therefore soon become a large and important part of the workforce, have other demands and values than previous generations. One example is a survey from last year, conducted by Swedish local authorities and county councils, which shows what distinguishes today’s Swedish 15-24-year-olds. (Even though these results only reflect the younger Swedish population’s views, similar surveys in other parts of the world are likely to reveal similar tendencies as a sign of the times. What do you think the results would be in your culture?)

• 15-24-year-olds expect to be validated, seen and appreciated when they are in employment.
• They value a flexible job where they can have a say in their working hours and also have a good balance between work and free time.
• They think that nice colleagues, interesting work tasks and good and dedicated managers are more important aspects than a high salary.
• They want to help others through their work and want their employers to contribute to doing good for society at large.
• They are more interested in issues concerning the world around them than previous generations, but more in the sense of getting involved in important issues rather than political parties.
• They think that climate and environmental issues are very important and therefore want to change people’s habits towards eating more vegetarian food, shop more second hand and buy more organic products, among other things.
• The awareness and the interest in the world around them are important driving forces when these young people choose their higher education, careers and future employers.
• We ought to add that there are more and more people from the older generations who are also focused on sustainability and who see environmental issues are very important and this group is constantly growing.

Tomorrow’s companies and leaders therefore need to be able to deal with the changes above, and the most interesting thing is perhaps that these young people will not only become employees, they will also be consumers. And because of their awareness and interest in social and environmental issues, they are very likely going to ask, “Why should I work for this particular company? Why should I buy this particular product?”

Perhaps Simon Sinek’s praised and criticised model about finding your why in the end boils down to two things all leaders should recognise: passion and vision!

Passion is your first why. It is your drive, your fire. It is contagious to those around you and makes them grow, take more responsibility, feel better. Passion challenges, changes and wants to make things happen. It is your best friend and your guiding star. It never gives up.

Vision is your other why. It directs you and leads the way. Your vision inspires, motivates, clarifies everything – this is where we are heading. It ignites your imagination and it finds new goals. It says, ”longer, better, forward”. Your vision is unattainable, but only just.

If you combine passion with vision, you will most likely get as near to your why as you can possibly get. And if the passion and vision are embraced by everyone in the company and also liked by the customers, and preferably also be a majority of the public, you ought to at least have found a solid foundation for success.

(The products you sell will of course also need to be something that people actually want and are prepared to pay for, are of good quality and produced in an environmentally friendly, sustainable and ethical manner.)

In brief, we think that tomorrow’s leaders will need a large dose of passion and need to think outside of the box and dare find new solutions (i e be visionaries) in order to succeed. There are indeed a few problems to deal with in today’s world.

Although, why wait until tomorrow…?

• The New Leadership have a wide range of leadership training programmes. You can choose between individual programmes, group training, or programmes involving the whole organisation. If you are interested in finding out more about how your company can improve your work on vision, click here.

Inlägget Leaders in the future #3: Why you need to know your why… dök först upp på The New Leadership.

There was a time when all decisions were made by the manager. He (it was most often a man) gave orders, ruled and thought he knew everything, as he considered himself to be the smartest as well as the most knowledgeable person. He was after all the boss and a boss was, by definition, right and would therefore get his way.

This type of manager is already a dying breed, and within the next ten years, it will be extinct. This is going to be the decade when managers once and for all will have to stop thinking so much about themselves and instead focus on their employees, build relationships and – equally important – learn how to really listen.

In our last blog post, we discussed how the increasingly faster technical development and changing life conditions will transform our working life. Artificial Intelligence (AI), robots and automation will mean that some professions will disappear and others will emerge, digitalisation will facilitate flexibility as regards where, and sometimes also when, we choose to work. Global warming and climate threats will force companies to increase their focus on sustainability and the environment, not least because consumers demand that they do. Just to mention a few of the changes we will soon see more of.

Today, and in the next few blog posts, we will discuss how we think this is all going to affect leadership, the role of the manager and what qualities and skills will be required for success. We will start by looking at a skill set which is already important, but which will become crucial over the next ten years:

Social skills.

There are many reasons why social skills will become increasingly important for tomorrow’s leaders:

Social skills cannot be replaced by machines, at least not for many years yet. Even if Artificial Intelligence is already much better and faster than humans to retrieve and process data, we still need a human brain to interpret and understand how this data can and, more importantly, should be used.  It will be many years before AI has learnt how to think in terms of empathy and responsibility, two important qualities for every socially competent manager.

The role of the manager will become increasingly that of a team leader: taking care of their employees and giving them the best possible conditions to do a good job. What is important here is to understand your employees and their needs, in order to motivate and inspire them, get them onboard with the goals and create consensus around the values in the company. In addition, you need to dare trust your employees, listen to them and gather advice and ideas before making decisions. The manager’s ability to communicate in a clear and trustworthy manner will be crucial, which also means that the manager must be able to show a more vulnerable side of him/herself – “ I actually do not have all the answers”.

Companies will not, as much as they do today, consist of people who have known each other for years. Instead there will be many teams and project groups with colleagues with certain specific expertise having been brought in temporarily. More and more people will therefore be self-employed or work freelance and sell their knowledge and skills to the companies that need them. This will demand more of the manager’s social skills, in order to bring the group together so that the collaboration is smooth and the job gets done.

Loyalty will be on the decline, at least in the sense of, and certainly because of, there being fewer full-time employees and more people providing their knowledge and skills for a limited period of time. Loyalty towards the company may therefore not be taken for granted. Add to this that some people may be working for several companies at the same time, which further complicates establishing loyalty and trust. The manager’s role will be to ”nurture” this type of employee in such a way that they feel included and appreciated, as well as understanding and embracing the company values.

Several studies show that younger generations, those who are new to the labour market or about to join it, value a sociable and friendly manager more than a high salary. They also have stronger demands on the work being meaningful and in line with their own values. The manager must be able to promote and show that the company are living up to their vision and proclaimed culture in order to attract the people they want.

Social skills is really an umbrella term for a lot of different qualities and skills. Socially competent managers must be able to communicate and cooperate with all sorts of different people and therefore need to be adaptable, towards employees as well as clients and collaborative partners.

Socially competent managers are empathic and understand how their decisions affect their employees and they take other people’s feelings seriously. They realise that companies are made up of people and they are therefore good at building relationships. In addition, they are good listeners and happy to take onboard the ideas and opinions of others.

Furthermore, socially skilled managers are brave and dare do what feels right, even if it is not always easy. They are open and honest and therefore dare show themselves vulnerable sometimes, which also builds trust. They feel responsible and do not criticise failures, because they know that taking risks is part of course in the business world.

Among other things…

So, no pressure then…? However, it might feel a little easier if for a moment you consider what being a leader is all about: creating the best possible conditions for your employees, in order for them to not only perform brilliantly, but also enjoy their work, be able to grow, feel good and speak well of their work place.

This is what we mean by social skills. Or perhaps even social leadership, now and for the future!

NEXT TIME: The word every leader should know. And we will tell you why!

Inlägget Leaders in the future # 2: The leadership skill that will be the key to success dök först upp på The New Leadership.

Just as we enter a new decade, we at The New Leadership are also celebrating our ten-year anniversary. During this past decade, we have had the opportunity to work with thousands of managers and key people in hundreds of different companies and organisations. This means that our leadership consultants have acquired extensive knowledge about how managers and leaders, in both large and small corporations, view the future. Their hopes and potential worries, what motivates them to carry on and what makes them hesitate, what challenges they predict and how to conquer these.

In a world where the technology development takes place at the speed of light, conditions are constantly changing: Automation and Artificial Intelligence lead to many jobs drastically changing shape, some will disappear and new ones will emerge. Globalisation provides new markets and opportunities, but also leads to increased competition. Digitalisation has already changed how we work and will continue to do so even more in the future.

In addition, climate change and people’s increased desire to both work and live sustainably will affect our working life to a larger extent. Add to this that we tend to live far longer than we used to (Sweden will for example have an additional quarter of a million people who are 80+ years old within the next ten years), which means that more people both can and want to work into their old age.

In short, working life will become more and more complex. Many find this exciting and that it offers possibilities for growth and development, as new technical solutions equal new opportunities. Others view it as more uncertain or even frightening, as we will depend more on factors beyond our control.

Everyone will be affected – even you!

We can at least be certain of one thing: We will all be affected and have to learn how to adapt to these changes. This is indeed true of managers and leaders. When a company’s values become as important to attract customers as the products or services themselves, then the demands to “practise as you preach” will increase for all members of staff as well as managers. Personal leadership will play a more prominent role. Corporate values and whether a company can live up to these will determine people’s choices.

This is why we are now launching a series of articles where we will try to peer into the decade ahead, both when it comes to working life in general, but also the manager’s role in particular.

In what ways will the leadership role change? How will for example AI affect the ways in which managers work? What leadership skills will determine whether a company flourishes or not and how the people who work there can grow and enjoy working there? What do managers need to do to ensure the competence is top notch in a time where knowledge is changing and evolving so fast?

Today, we will kick off by looking at some of the practical and, quite frankly, unavoidable consequences of technology development and some of the changes our working life will be exposed to over the next decade.

Work wherever you want. Digitalisation has made working outside of the office possible and this is a trend on the increase. Only ten years ago, working from home for someone in full time employment was seen as something a little odd, or perhaps extravagant, but in ten years from now, this will not only be accepted, but in fact more of the norm. More and more work will therefore be conducted away from the “work place”.

Work whenever you want. More and more people will be working as freelance consultants. Focus will no longer be on the number of hours you work, but instead delivering the right results at the right time. Also among those who are still employed, the attitude to working hours will change. There are already companies today operating under the principle of “work as much or as little as you want, as long as you deliver what is expected of you”.

Work with whomever you want. Even if the number of people working freelance or are self-employed is expected to increase, the same need for colleagues and context will remain. This means that the co-working trend will become even stronger, i e offices where freelance consultants can rent a desk or a room on a short-term contract, meet other freelancers to collaborate or just bounce ideas with, before they perhaps move on to a temporary project.

New professions being born – how about climate accountant?

Employees will become increasingly unfaithful. Full-time employment will no longer be what people desire. Instead, you are expected to move from job to job more rapidly. A successful career will not mean moving up the ladder in the same company, but instead be about working with what you find interesting and meaningful, regardless of employer.

Further training and development will become even more important. Knowledge will age much more quickly and to keep up, you will not only need to do further training; for many it will also mean being willing to learn completely new things and work in new professions. Multi-competency will be key and if you want to keep up, you will need to be curious, flexible and adaptable.

New professions are emerging. Have you heard of jobs like cloud guard, DNA coach and climate accountant? If not, you might want to start learning… The ongoing technology development will give birth to new types of jobs. Training to become for example a climate accountant might not be such a bad idea – you would be keeping an eye on the company’s sustainability efforts and work towards improvements for the future.

The manager’s power is reduced – in one way. Traditional management will undergo change. The introduction of AI, Artificial Intelligence, will create more employees with expert knowledge that the manager will not have. Employees will have increased mandate to make their own decisions because of their unique knowledge and skills. However, this will mean that there will be an increased focus on the personal leadership of all employees, as in many aspects of their work, they will be managing themselves.

The manager’s power increases – in another way. Due to the technology development, the role of the manager will instead be to provide and build networks, convey values and vision, as well as building a sustainable corporate culture. As values and sustainability are issues that will increasingly be in demand by customers, the manager will play a very important role in how the company is perceived externally.

Meaningful jobs and sustainability will be important

Purpose becomes increasingly more important. There was a time when a good salary and career opportunities were enough to attract young new staff. Not anymore. Today you have to offer interesting, and most importantly, meaningful work tasks. The new generation are attracted by the possibility of contributing to a better world and in order to defend their existence and attract new employees and key people, companies therefore need to be able to show that they are working to take our society in a positive direction. Values and vision become important when we choose our employers.

Sustainability becomes key. That sustainability has reached a more elevated status and become one of the most important issues is obvious and can for example be seen in the fact that for the past few years, large Swedish businesses have had to produce a sustainability report, similar to the annual report. To just reduce the negative climate impact will no longer suffice. Recycling products will replace using new raw materials. You will now also need to commit to climate compensation. As consumers start demanding sustainable production processes, companies will realise that it is strategically important and, in fact, even a matter of survival.

These are just a few of the practical changes we are seeing already now and which will affect our working life. The pace of change will most likely increase even more, as new technology and solutions emerge. We are for example only beginning to see the potential consequences of Artificial Intelligence.

In the midst of all this change and uncertainty, you – as managers and a leaders – are still faced with your responsibility to deliver results, bring your team together so that it works and grows, make your clients happy, ensure you have skilled staff, make sure the work environment is good, be creative, be available, listen, make decisions, delegate, motivate… All this and more is already on your plate today. But how often do you stop to think about what your role will look like in a few years’ time?

What skills will be crucial?

No one can with any certainty predict what will happen in the future. The only thing we know for sure is that it will arrive and that we have to keep learning new things in order to understand our future and keep up with it. Perhaps even more so if you are in a leadership position.

This is why we are going to devote several articles to trying to answer some interesting questions about the manager’s role over the next ten years. What leadership qualities will be crucial? In what ways will the manager’s work change? What characterises a good manager?

In a couple of weeks, we will be back with our thoughts on this. In the meantime, you are very welcome to offer your own thoughts on this topic. What do you think? Comments are welcome!

Ps. Remember – there are no right answers. So far…

Inlägget Leaders in the future #1: This is what awaits you dök först upp på The New Leadership.

According to an annual survey from Peakon, one of the largest companies in the world measuring employee engagement, most of us are. 15,000 employees in the US, the UK, Germany and the Nordic countries say they are experiencing more stress and become less productive the closer to Christmas they get.

Today, with a week to go before Christmas, around half of the employees in the survey admit to not focusing as much on work as they normally do. Over the next few days, this number will increase further and the last working day before Christmas, productivity will be close to zero.

Here at The New Leadership, we feel we need to do our part to decrease your stress, which is why we will round off this blog post already here and give you a few extra minutes to do whatever you like with.

We will however offer some food for thought for the next few weeks:

1. If you think it is important – do it. If not, don’t.
2. If you think it is urgent, then ask yourself if it is also important. Then revert to point 1 above.

With Best Wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The New Leadership

PS. If, despite all the stresses in your life, you would happen to have seven minutes to spare, we really recommend this inspirational speech by comedian and actor Tim Minchin. When Minchin was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters degree by The University of Western Australia, this was his way of thanking his old university and inspire the students who were just graduating. Perhaps it may inspire you too, as we enter the new decade…

Inlägget The best and shortest top tip for the Christmas holidays… dök först upp på The New Leadership.

No one can claim to particularly like making mistakes or failing, yet it is an unavoidable part of life. Therefore, we should not be so hard on ourselves (or others) when something does not go quite according to plan.

Two recent studies show that in many cases, failure can be a necessary prerequisite for success. And making mistakes, within reason, increases our ability to learn new things.

According to scientific journal Scientific American, researchers at Northwestern University, US, have, among other things, studied more than 700,000 funding applications for various research projects and also analysed 46 years of investments in different start-up companies. They followed up the projects to see how successful they had been and how the people involved had handled any challenges and failures along the way.

Their short and simple conclusion: “Every winner starts out as a loser!”

What the researchers found was, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, that the projects and companies faced with problems and failures along the way, were also the ones which to a greater extent stood out as winners. Those who had had an easy ride from the start were, on average, not as successful.

Unfortunately, hard work, stamina and to keep trying are not enough. The researchers discovered other conditions that separated the winners from the losers:

• Do not change too much! If a project or business idea fails, it does not necessarily mean that everything about it is wrong. Therefore, changing too many things may not be the best way forward. Instead, try to spot exactly what was working and what was not and then focus on improving the latter.

• Fail fast! The number of failures is not crucial, but the time in between them. Those companies and projects that succeeded in the end had a shorter time span between their failures. “The quicker you fail, the greater the chances of you succeeding next time”, is the rather comical conclusion drawn by the researchers.

So, it is all about learning from your mistakes and to do so quickly, which brings us to another research report from the University of Arizona, where they claim to have found the “sweet spot” of learning, i e the perfect level of difficulty when it comes to learning new things as quickly as possible.

The researchers used machine learning, where they let advanced computers solve some simple tasks, for example “looking at” pictures of hand-written numbers and then learning to distinguish even from odd numbers, as well as recognising different geometrical patterns and placing them in the correct category.

If the tasks were too easy, the computers learnt very little or nothing at all. The same was true of tasks that were too difficult.

The fastest learning curve was noted when the tasks were just a little bit more advanced than what the computers were already able to do. The optimal level was found at 85 % correct answers and 15 % wrong answers.

Similar research has been conducted on how animals learn, and the results have been the same. The scholars see no reason why the 85 % rule would not apply to humans too.

If you always stay within your comfort zone, you learn very little. Nor is it advisable to try to learn too much in a very short amount of time, as this just tends to become confusing. A happy medium seems to be preferable, where the level of difficulty means that when you apply your newfound knowledge, your degree of failure will be around 15 %.

This discovery is seen as important for how the teaching in our schools should be conducted, but is also believed to be of great significance for current and future leadership in our workplace.

Work life is changing at a fast pace and the ability to take in and learn new things is already essential for today’s leaders, but is also predicted to become even more important in the near future. It is not just about taking onboard new knowledge to meet the demands that come with digitalisation and automatization. To the same degree, it is about becoming better at communicating with and understanding employees and clients, create a good atmosphere and being an engaging team leader.

The younger generations in particular, have high expectations of their future managers. A recent survey from the Swedish local councils and county councils, show that Swedish 15-24-year-olds value a good, dedicated boss, a good workplace atmosphere and interesting tasks more than a high salary. In a similar survey carried out around 20 years ago, the salary scored top place.

Your ability to keep up with a forever changing world therefore seems to rely on your daring to challenge yourself (to a reasonable extent) in order to learn how to deal with all the new things as quickly as possible. Equally important is your understanding that your failures along the way are crucial for your future success.

Just do not wait too long…

Inlägget Forget immediate success! The road to success is lined with mistakes and failures… dök först upp på The New Leadership.