STRATEGY: HOW BUSINESSES ARE TRANSFORMING THEMSELVES DEVELOPMENT: HIRING THE BEST IS JUST THE BEGINNING
SPRING 2016
THE JOURNAL OF ALUMNI
BOOK REVIEW: DARING TO BE DIFFERENT
Visionary leadership
–the RED THREAD of success
PART OF THE HARVEY NASH GROUP
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Creative leadership What does good leadership in today’s environment look like, asks Jan Hemmingson
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Being at the forefront as a leader demands courage
n this issue of AQ we take a deeper look at what good leadership in today’s business environment entails. Through interviews with leaders in some of the Nordics’ top companies we see how businesses that actively develop their leaders can transform themselves into organisations capable of delivering sustainable results. We have deliberately sought out executives who work closely with their people to translate visionary leadership into tangible success. Different organisations facing different challenges require different kinds of leadership. This means thinking carefully about the kind of person you need in a leadership role – and, as Dr Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, CEO of Hogan Assessment Systems, points out in ‘A scientific approach’ (see facing page), “too many companies put too little effort into recruiting the best people.” But leaders can also adapt and develop their style according to the nature of the challenges their organisation faces, and, indeed, to the nature of the leadership team they are working with. When we at Alumni talk to our clients about leadership development we always challenge them on what they think makes a good leader in their specific situation, and what suite of skills they need to allow talent to flourish in their organisation. Alumni has worked closely with companies over many years to support them in transforming their leadership strategy and culture. We have helped them to assess their leaders, find the right candidates to complement their management team, connect business results to leadership development, and push them to accelerate organisational transformation. Being at the forefront as a leader demands courage, an open mind and an ability to create the space for divergent thinking. However, when the pressure is on to deliver results, fostering a climate where people are allowed to make mistakes, and where individuals are moved to different parts of the organisation as a spur to innovation, may seem too difficult or risky. But it pays off, as our interviewees – and the author of Originals, the book we review on page 11 – testify. We hope this issue of AQ catalyses your own creativity and sparks your interest in how leadership development might help you transform your organisation.
About Alumni Alumni is a leading consultancy within leadership services in the Nordics and Eastern Europe. For more than 25 years we have been developing tools and services designed to strengthen the organisations and teams of our clients throughout the public and private sectors. Through a service offering ranging from executive search and leadership consulting to high-level board advisory services, we support our clients’ business success. We have approximately 65 colleagues across offices in Copenhagen, Gothenburg, Helsinki, Malmo, Oslo, Stockholm and Warsaw. Internationally we operate through our owner Harvey Nash Group, which has over 7,000 professionals in more than 40 offices in Europe, the US and Asia. Contact information for Alumni: HQ Stockholm: +46 8 796 1700 Gothenburg: +46 31 60 42 90 Malmo: +46 40 35 48 70 Copenhagen: +45 77 99 32 60 Helsinki: +358 40 727 9727 Oslo: + 47 22 40 40 80 Warsaw: +48 22 428 47 28 alumni@alumniglobal.com www.alumniglobal.com For queries regarding AQ: Catharina Melin-Jones catharina.melin.jones@alumniglobal.com Editor: Jane Simms Designer: Anna Hammar © 2016 Alumni AB.
Jan Hemmingson Managing director of Alumni Nordic.
All rights reserved. Contents may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written consent of the publisher.
ASSESSMENT
A scientific approach D
Developing leaders would be more effective if organisations hired the right people in the first place, says Dr Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic.
r Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic knows a thing or two about what makes an effective leader. CEO of Hogan Assessment Systems, Professor of Business Psychology at University College London (UCL) and visiting Professor at Columbia University, he is an international authority on psychological profiling, talent management and people analytics. All good leaders have four key attributes, he says: technical expertise or knowledge about their particular field, self-awareness, integrity and vision. He adds: “Factors such as intelligence, emotional intelligence and judgement are givens, and link in to these four key attributes.” Leadership is not as contextual as some people claim, he continues, pointing out that most successful organisations share the same characteristics – that is, they need talented and engaged people who can perform at a high level in order to deliver superior results. “Leaders are essentially responsible for creating cultures that allow this to happen,” he says. Leaders have to adapt and develop He maintains that there are just two leadership dimensions that are contextual: the individual’s expertise and the culture of the organisation. But even these are not insurmountable barriers for a leader who is prepared to learn, adapt and develop. Leaders can’t just assume that what worked in one organisational context will work in another. This development should be a combination of training (to develop expertise and keep abreast of trends), coaching or mentoring (to keep dark-side tendencies in check) and learning the kind of soft skills (political skills, networking and so on) that aren’t taught in business schools. But it’s a lot easier to develop leaders if you have the right material to work with, and
too many companies put too little effort into recruiting the best people, claims ChamorroPremuzic. “They tend to think that if they select the wrong person, they can fall back on training and development to make up for it,” he says. “That is rarely effective.” The science is evolving One of the problems is that they rely too heavily on intuition when recruiting. “There is as much science to managing people as there is in astrophysics, but organisations seem to think gut instinct is a better guide,” he says. Organisational politics are another barrier to effective recruitment: “In any organisation there are hidden or informal forces that determine outcomes.” And the science is developing all the time. “For example, people have used Big Data to see if they can pick up signals that predict leadership potential, and there is even work going on around digital interviews, whereby algorithms capture attributes such as social skills and integrity.” Peer rating is increasingly being recognised as an important recruitment criterion – and Chamorro-Premuzic suggests this could evolve into a recruitment system similar to the way Trip Advisor works for hotels and restaurants. But while all these developments offer significant potential “there is no sign of a revolution just yet!” •
For extended versions of these interviews, please go to our website: www.alumniglobal.com
There is as much science to managing people as there is in astrophysics
What makes a good leader? HR VIEW
HOGAN VIEW
Defined by position - the person at the top is a leader.
Defined by the ability to build a high-performing team.
Evaluated by bosses and other superiors. Focused on competencies valued by an organisation.
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Evaluated by the team’s performance. Focused on qualities valued by the team.
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Safer, healthier, happier A new more inclusive approach to health, safety and wellbeing is helping to transform the culture of Skanska UK, as Dylan Roberts, Health, Safety and Wellbeing Director and a member of Skanska’s global safety professionals network, explains. AQ: What is Skanska’s IFE programme? DR: We introduced our ‘Injury-Free Environment’ (IFE) programme in 2010 because although we had excellent safety systems and training and processes we realised that our culture wasn’t right. We describe our IFE as ‘a culture of care and concern
Over the past two years our view has been very much about ‘safer, healthier and happier’, which encompasses physical and mental health as well as the nuts and bolts of doing things more safely
for people, which encourages everybody to accept responsibility for their own and their colleagues’ wellbeing’. This embraces the ‘soft’ as well as ‘hard’ side of health and safety and moves the focus from ‘telling’ to ‘asking’. AQ: What does the programme involve? DR: The first trigger to get people thinking differently is a four-hour orientation programme, where people from all different levels of the organisation share their personal experiences of what safety means to them. That in itself is a big levelling exercise, and is designed to show that we are all just people, whose health and safety is very important to their friends and family. The fact that the programme is delivered by non-health and safety professionals is significant too. AQ: What benefits has the programme delivered? DR: Our annual engagement survey shows positive shifts over the past five years in measures such as ‘My manager cares about my wellbeing’, ‘Skanska cares about safety’ and ‘I have the tools and equipment to do my job properly’. In fact, the cultural improvement we have seen as a result of IFE has influenced our values, which we recently rearticulated. Overall, our purpose is ‘to build for a better society’, and one of the four key values is ‘Care for Life’. Under that heading we ‘care for the lives of people and the environment’, ‘work safely, or not at all’, ‘never walk by if we notice unsafe actions’, ‘support health and wellbeing’, ‘promote green solutions and run our operations in a green way’, and ‘are accountable to future generations’. The other three key values are ‘Act Ethically and Transparently’, ‘Be Better – Together’ and ‘Commit to Customers’. That adds up to a culture of care and concern for ourselves, our colleagues and others. AQ: How has the culture changed? DR: The way we express the values is more positive now: the one on health and safety in particular was very much about not doing things. Over the past two years our view has
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been very much about ‘safer, healthier and happier’, which encompasses physical and mental health as well as the nuts and bolts of doing things more safely. And the three are inextricably linked. People behave more safely, and are more productive, if they are physically and mentally fit. IFE has allowed us to have conversations about these things; in the past we might just have put a policy on the intranet. There’s been a distinct shift in our approach. AQ: Does this new culture affect your stakeholder relationships? DR: It is a very important part of our employer brand. Younger people in particular are more interested in things like sustainability, ethics, respect and work-life balance, so the fact that we espouse these things makes us more interesting to them. Our supply chain partners are interested too, and they go through the IFE programme themselves. When we first embarked on this journey, we invited the managing directors of around 60 of our suppliers into our offices to talk about how they could help us to address the problem of injury and harm in the construction industry. Bear in mind that men working in construction are six times more likely than men working in any other sector to commit suicide. Suppliers responded very positively; they appreciated being asked for help rather than being blamed. They are very engaged with the programme; indeed some have developed their own programmes as a result. AQ: How do you see IFE evolving? DR: I’m disappointed that our safety record hasn’t actually improved very much since 2010, but big cultural shifts (we’ve got 5,500 employees) take time to deliver tangible results. I believe that the results will come through over the next five years as the new culture beds in, helped by the absolute commitment of our UK President and CEO Mike Putnam. So far, we have kept the leadership of health and safety and IFE separate, so as to emphasise the importance of the ‘soft’ side, and Mike chairs the IFE leadership team. However, by 2020 we hope the culture will be so well established that we can bring the two together again. That will be a real mark of our maturity. •
IFE in practice
Katy Dowding, Managing Director Facilities Services, Skanska UK Rearticulating our purpose and values in a more explicit and positive fashion has given people clarity about what we are about as a business and the role they play in it. These days how you do things is arguably as important as what you do. We have cascaded down this new culture in a very ‘immersive’ rather than prescriptive way, so that people understand how it ‘feels’ and therefore find it easier to connect with. For example, in my area, people who work to help maintain hospitals now understand that doing their job better makes it easier for doctors and nurses to care for their patients better. People say that IFE has spilled into their home lives. IFE is about ‘being’, so they don’t take their hard hat off as they leave our buildings and go home and mow the lawn in flip-flops. IFE has a training component, but there are no metrics or measures; we’re just trying to change people’s mindsets. That requires a different leadership approach. Drive, motivation and a results orientation are as important as ever, but with the new ‘asking’ rather than ‘telling’ culture, leaders need to inspire, encourage and motivate others to do this. The war for talent continues to rage, and the young people we want to attract have choices. It’s really interesting how different the questions are when I go to recruitment events: ten or 15 years ago it was all about what big projects we had on, but today it’s all about our environmental approach, sustainability and work-life balance. And these attitudes reflect broader societal shifts. Customers want to buy from ethical businesses and employees want to be proud of the company they work for.
These days how you do things is arguably as important as what you do
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Building on solid foundations Following a demerger from YIT in 2013, building services group Caverion embarked on a journey to transform itself into a customer-focused provider of integrated solutions. Merja Eskola, Senior Vice-President Group HR, describes its progress. AQ: What were the key drivers of your transformation journey? ME: We identified four key megatrends: increasing technology; growing demand for improved energy efficiency; growing digitalisation; and continuing urbanisation. These megatrends represent big opportunities for our business, but to realise that potential we needed to take an integrated approach. At the moment we have nine different technical disciplines, and in the past we have competed on the basis of those disciplines. They provide an excellent foundation, but our real strength is in being able to combine them into an integrated offering designed to provide solutions to customers’ needs. It’s the difference between, for example, supplying air conditioning (as we might in the past) and delivering a healthy and/ or energy-efficient building (which is our new approach). And this is a very significant change of strategy and culture. AQ: You describe your transformation journey in terms of ‘succeeding through people’. What does this mean in practice? ME: Our roots are in the building and construction company YIT, which grew over some 100 years through acquisitions across northern and central Europe, and every acquisition brought new people, new competencies and new markets. However, to date, each company has operated more or less independently, and we have set ourselves a very ambitious target of operating as one company, with a common culture, a common way of working, common systems and competencies, and targeting a distinct group of customer segments. That will require people to think and behave in very different ways from the past. AQ: Do you see this transformation as a project or a process? ME: It is both. It is a process because changing behaviour takes time as people have to adjust and practise, test and learn. But it is a project too, because there are certain milestones we have to reach, within given timeframes. In a complex world having a structure makes it easier for people to lead and follow.
There is a danger people can suffer from ‘initiative fatigue’, so we always try to keep in mind the golden rule ‘Less is more’ AQ: Who have the key responsibilities for effecting this transformation? ME: The CEO and top management have a key role, but line managers throughout the business are the most important interface in terms of
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This is not a top-down process. Our transformation model is highly collaborative and iterative making it happen. We’ve already trained over 350 managers in the new customer-focused approach, which is about selling them valuable solutions rather than technical features. But with such a major transformation, you need the ability to simplify things and translate the vision and strategic targets into concrete actions. The key messages also tend to be quite amorphous, so we have to prioritise certain things and keep reinforcing what we are doing and why. Continuous dialogue is essential to create common understanding and buy-in. AQ: Have you had to bring in new people? ME: Yes, but we have built selectively: the first layer was the group management board, and then the layer below that, where we augmented existing competencies with competencies more closely aligned to what we offer and how we offer it. Then we built the sales side. The pivotal appointment was that of the new CEO, Fredrik Strand, in early 2014 (I joined at the end of 2013). He is very experienced in global service delivery, and comes from the IT/telecoms sector, which went through consolidation 15 years ago. We have also recruited new division heads and country heads, who have totally different profiles from their predecessors – for example, they are used to working in complex Western matrix-style companies, in turnaround situations and in an international context. As well as having high professional competence and technical expertise, the individuals we have recruited are also very good ‘people people’. We really needed to improve leadership here both to give direction to the business and to lead change. But we’ve been careful not just to recruit for the short term. I am spending a lot of time on medium- and long-term strategic workforce planning and talent management, which is something this organisation wasn’t used to. AQ: What practical tools and processes are you using to help the transformation? ME: We have defined a classical ‘strategy house’, which includes our mission, vision, values, strategic targets and focus areas. This is a very simple and concise way to communicate our strategy, including the key areas of focus, to
all our stakeholders, including our employees, and serves as a focus for discussion. We also have a simple Enterprise Architecture model, which provides a ‘big picture’ view for our leadership and operations people of the platform and tools we have that will enable us to move forward. This is a very useful tool to help people to understand the shift we are making from a holding company mindset to a ‘one Caverion’ culture. We monitor our progress on the six areas of strategic focus on a monthly basis, and each area is led by a member of the group management board. I am responsible for the ‘excellent leadership’ area, for example. AQ: What progress have you made on your transformation journey? ME: We have had four strategic milestones since our demerger in 2013 – ‘fix, build, create and reach’ – and by the end of 2016 we aim to be at the ‘reach’ stage of being operationally excellent, of having developed innovative and advanced solutions, and having a strong company image.
CAVERION Caverion designs, builds, operates and maintains intelligent and energy-efficient solutions for buildings, industries and infrastructures in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. Headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, Caverion has approximately 17,400 employees in 12 countries. Caverion is listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange, and in 2015 its revenue was approximately €2.4 billion. It is the sixth largest building systems company in Europe and it aims to grow both organically and through acquisitions.
AQ: How are you motivating and supporting existing people and new leaders throughout the transformation process? ME: We have done a lot of work to harmonise people processes and supporting systems. We have also been keen to create a learning culture. But here again we are doing things a bit differently. People can go online and find a learning profile and programmes relevant to the particular job they are doing. AQ: And how do you ensure you remain profitable throughout the transition? ME: We are a listed company, so we have to deliver returns to shareholders in the short term as well as the long term. Crucial to this is focusing on what we feel are the most important things, based on strong business cases. Also, there is a danger people can suffer from ‘initiative fatigue’, so we always try to keep in mind the golden rule ‘Less is more’. AQ: What are the key insights gained? ME: Every transformation journey is different. You never ‘know how to do it’ – you learn as you go along. You need to be humble, very curious and listen – and you have to lead it rather than direct it in order to get people engaged and involved. This is not a top-down process: our transformation model is highly collaborative and iterative. Another very important aspect is to celebrate success. •
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Providing food for thought Transforming the leadership strategy at food group Menigo has resulted in a doubling of EBITDA in the space of two years, says CEO Jonas Köhler. AQ: What’s your background? JK: I’ve worked in food and sales all my life, apart from a short break in the Royal Swedish Army. We had a family supermarket business, and I started working there when I was ten years old, but when I was 19 and finished high school I declared that I wasn’t going to sell another sausage in my life, and I went off to do my military service. After my compulsory two years I stayed on for another five years, and rose to rank of Captain before I left.
AQ: What did the army teach you about leadership? JK: It taught me the theory and the mechanics of how different leadership behaviours affect people, but it also gave me lots of opportunities to put that into practice. I was leading successive groups of people, which allowed me to test and learn continuously and much faster than you can in a commercial team where, if you get it ‘wrong’, the effect on your team can take a long time to dissipate. I also realised that I liked developing people and was quite good at it. AQ: What is your leadership style? JK: I am always clear with people what I expect from them, I am straightforward, I treat everyone the same and I treat them fairly. I also keep them informed even if I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen. AQ: How did you arrive as CEO at Menigo? JK: When I left the army I did an MBA in Economics and Law and then spent five years at Axfood before joining Menigo as procurement director in 2008. I became commercial director three years later and CEO in December 2013.
You could maybe describe our leadership model as ‘involving’ or ‘empowering’ leadership
AQ: Why and how did you change the leadership strategy at Menigo? JK: In 2012 we had started on a strategic journey, set clear targets and started to communicate it. But I thought we were trying to do and communicate too much: we had 23 ‘top priority’ projects. So I began to involve the operating board and management team in helping to distil our strategy, mission, vision and priority projects into a one-page document, which would be far easier for everyone in the company to understand and get behind. We reduced the priority projects to three main ones, and three supporting ones, and placed the focus on what these would mean to our employees. And we took out all the numbers. It was suddenly much clearer to everyone what we expected from our people. We had a clear ‘why’ (the mission and vision), ‘what’ (the prioritised projects) and ‘how’. The ‘how’ comprised four key things that employees needed to do, namely: behave in a way that supports the business (seeing opportunities and creating profitability); collaborate (we weren’t used to working cross-
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We are on a never-ending journey of continious improvement and training functionally); improve our business day to day; and make it happen. These four things are as relevant to a truck driver as they are to the finance director. AQ: What were the leadership implications? JK: In 2012 we had lots of ‘bosses’ all over the place but no real leadership. It’s all very well having a clear strategy and challenging targets, but without proper leadership we couldn’t do the all-important thing of ‘making it happen’. But people didn’t understand how to be a leader, so when I became CEO we started to train 110 people (10% of our employees) in leadership. I, together with my HR director, created a leadership model which had three components: strategic, operational and human. The strategic component is about having clear targets, mission and vision; the operational component is about the resources (people, money) you have to achieve these; and the human part is about how you work with your team to do it. This approach represents a real change from the old ‘telling’ model: it is more involving and encouraging and makes all the leaders accountable for making things happen and cascading the same approach down to their teams. AQ: Did you and the board have to change your own leadership style? JK: We did. Back in 2014 when we had the one pager and the new leadership model, the eight of us on the leadership operating board spent four months training ourselves and challenging our own leadership behaviours – including our tendency to give direct orders. You could maybe describe our leadership model as ‘involving’ or ‘empowering’ leadership. This exercise in itself started to change the behaviour of people in the next tier down, and it was at that point that we started the formal leadership training. AQ: How are you sustaining momentum? JK: The evaluation and reinforcement of leadership skills is continuous. Alumni helps us by providing personal coaching, supplemented by quarterly discussions with the leadership teams. Another way we help to develop and
embed these skills is at our annual leadership conference, which is effectively a collegiate learning session. The first one in 2014 was delivered by me and my operating board. In 2015, operating board members’ leadership teams were heavily involved. And then the conference this year involved leaders from lower down in the organisation running break-out sessions. So leaders throughout the organisation are increasingly involved, even in helping to train their colleagues. Everyone in the organisation, not just the leaders, has their own personal ‘business plan’ – it’s the same system whether you’re the FD or a warehouse stock picker. They discuss their progress against the plan regularly, and in the context of the overall business strategy and leadership model, which is the ‘red thread’ that runs through everything. AQ: How successful has the leadership transformation been? JK: Since I became CEO, EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) has doubled, and I believe leadership has been absolutely key to that. Our ambition is to become a rising star in the European food business and to attract employees who want to play a part in that. Again, our leadership approach will be critical to achieving that aim. AQ: What are the next steps on the Menigo leadership journey? JK: We are starting to look more closely now at the best way to communicate as a leader in order to affect the behaviour of our teams. So we are on a never-ending journey of continuous improvement and training. •
MENIGO Menigo is a full-service provider for professionals in the culinary arena, but it specialises in the provision of fresh produce, from crispy croissants to tenderised steak or freshly picked funnel chanterelles. The original business, Wickmans, was founded in Malmö in 1744, and since then it has grown organically and through acquisition. In 2010 Menigo was acquired by Brakes Group, the leading food service operator in Europe, which, in turn, was taken over by US company Sysco in February 2016. Menigo has more than 15,000 customers, approximately 900 employees, and its most recent turnover was SEK 5 billion. It supplies some 31,000 items of food, drink and non-food and equipment every year.
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C R E AT I V I T Y
Let your brain run free
Creativity is increasingly prized by CEOs as a way of preparing organisations for an uncertain future. Samuel West, business psychologist and creativity researcher at Lund University in Sweden, explains how to embed organisational creativity.
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n a survey of some 1,600 companies around the globe*, CEOs ranked employee creativity as the most important factor in their organisations’ future success. This is not surprising: in a world where production capabilities are quick and easy to replicate, the ability to adapt to the rapidly changing business environment is critical, and this requires creative new approaches. There are also proven links between creativity, employee engagement, productivity and profitability. These links are becoming stronger as new generations, with their higher expectations of ‘meaningful’ work, enter the workforce. But what is creativity, and can it be taught? Creativity in a business context is agreed to be about developing ‘new’ or ‘novel’ approaches, which are also ‘useful’ or ‘appropriate’ for the organisation. The concepts of ‘creativity’ and ‘innovation’ are often used interchangeably, but I would argue that innovation is about the implementation of creativity. You can’t have innovation without creativity. And it can most definitely be taught. We often debate the relative influence of nurture and nature on someone’s ability to do to things, but with creativity, genetic predisposition is negligible; environment is all-important. How do you foster a creativity culture? You can run workshops and train people in cognitive skills and techniques to open their minds and think more divergent thoughts. But this approach has limitations, not least the fact that it’s often difficult to apply what you’ve learnt in a workshop to the messy reality of the workplace. The best way to promote creativity is to foster a culture where people behave creatively, and to do that you have to make it clear that you expect them to be creative and then support them in doing that. One organisation I know of, for example, tells its people it expects them to come up with 25 ideas a month. Setting such targets explicitly, reinforcing them and measuring progress against them, creates focus and delivers results. Typically, companies try to behave rationally and expect predictable results. But allowing creativity to flourish requires a different
approach, because the creative process is chaotic and messy – it’s a form of ‘controlled craziness’. You have to allow people to experiment and make mistakes, which means you can’t be too hung up on productivity and performance. But you ‘de-risk’ the process by keeping in mind the adage ‘Fail quickly and fail cheaply’. Do lots of small experiments and be brave enough to cancel the ones that don’t work. Google, for example, says its starts lots of ‘crazy’ things, and then works very hard to find reasons to kill them off. That way it knows that the ones that come through really are strong. You also have to create a climate of ‘psychological safety’ if creativity is to flourish – a place or space where people can share ideas and ask questions without fearing a negative response, and try something new without being penalised if it doesn’t work. What are the threats to creativity? Lack of time, too much pressure, too much competition and, ironically, traditional brainstorming sessions, are among the main barriers to organisational creativity. You need to give people’s brains the time to make the loose connections that are essential to creativity. You often have the most creative ideas on your own away from the workplace. I talk in terms of ‘the three Bs’ – bath, bus and bed: these are the rare times when you’re not busy or staring at you mobile device and you can let your brain run free. And creativity won’t thrive in a highly competitive internal environment, because people protect their own ideas. Organisations where people take themselves too seriously are a barrier to creativity too: research shows a link between ‘play’ at work (which could be as simple as feeling you’re allowed to smile) and creativity. Finally, as with everything, leaders have to role-model the behaviour they require of their teams. • * Capitalizing on Complexity: Insights from the Global Chief Executive Officer Study. Somers, NY: IBM Global Business Services. 2010 ** You can assess the creativity of your team through a new (and currently free) online tool Samuel West and his team have created – creativity-index.com.
Creativity can most definitely be taught
BOO K R E V I E W
How to be original
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Successful non-conformists have the same doubts and fears as all of us; what sets them apart is that they take action anyway.
hich web browser do you use to surf the internet? Your choice is likely to be a measure of your own originality, suggests Adam Grant in his new book Originals: How non-conformists move the world, which he describes as being “about how we can all become more original.” Grant cites a study into why some customer service agents stay in their job longer than others. The study revealed that those using Firefox or Chrome stayed in their jobs 15% longer than those who used Internet Explorer or Safari. They were also 19% less likely to miss work, generated significantly higher sales despite shorter call times, and took just 90 days to achieve the levels of customer satisfaction that it took Internet Explorer and Safari users 120 days to reach. The difference lay not in the respective groups’ technological prowess, but in the way they obtained their browser - in short, you have to be resourceful to download a browser that is different from the default, because you think it might be better. “And that act of initiative, however tiny, is a window into what you do at work,” concludes Grant. “The starting point is curiosity; pondering why the default exists in the first place.” Quantity and quality He goes on to explain how individuals can give flight to their originality, and how they can foster it in others – children as well as work colleagues or subordinates. And in doing so he debunks many myths. For instance, there is no trade-off between quality and quantity: “In fact, when it comes to idea generation, quantity is the most predictable path to quality,” he writes. He cites Thomas Edison, who, between the ages of 30 and 35, pioneered the light-bulb, the phonograph and the carbon telephone – as well as designing a creepy talking doll and filing over 100 patents for inventions as diverse as stencil pens, a fruit preservation technique and a way of using magnets to mine iron ore. “You may
Dissenting opinions are useful even when they’re wrong
have to generate a lot of garbage to reach greatness,” says Grant. When formulating ideas, procrastination is good, maintains Grant, citing research showing that CEOs who delay work tend to be more flexible and versatile, whereas those who plan carefully, act early and work diligently tend to be more rigid and miss opportunities. Older people are just as likely to be original as younger people, but the secret to sustaining originality over time is to push yourself out of your comfort zone – by working abroad for protracted periods, doing job rotations, gaining as much experience as possible of different approaches and industries. But the best way to get your idea adopted is not to speak to friendly people who share your values, but to speak to those who are critical, sceptical and challenging, because if they ‘buy’ it they really believe in it and will advocate for it to others. Grant also suggests that instead of reeling off all the reasons someone should accept your idea, try giving all the reasons they shouldn’t. It sounds a little dangerous, but he maintains this approach will inspire confidence in your audience that you have thought it through carefully and believe the strengths will outweigh the weaknesses. Cultural misfits can be good Another controversial idea is that ‘groupthink’ is not the evil it is commonly believed to be. Grant cites research showing that “in many cases, cohesive groups [tend] to make better decisions” – because people who trust each other are more willing to challenge each other. However, ‘cultural fit’ is not all it’s cracked up to be: “If you hire people who fit your culture, you’ll end up with people who reinforce rather than challenge one another’s perspectives,” writes Grant, adding: “Dissenting opinions are useful even when they’re wrong.” Originals is a fascinating and thought- provoking read, packed full of real-life examples and scientific studies. There’s also a highly p ractical ‘Actions for Impact’ summary chapter, which is a great starting point for any organisation keen to harness the creativity of all its employees and create a culture of originality. •
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INSIGHTS
Time for the annual service? The courage to abandon old behaviours and explore new approaches is the key to leadership success, says Christina Harrington, Head of Leadership Development Services at Alumni. Having good leaders today is arguably more important than it’s ever been. Not only are we experiencing growing competition and complexity, globalisation, and talent attraction and retention challenges, but also, because employees are ever more demanding, leadership is increasingly about persuading people to do things, not telling them. High-quality leadership is connected to employee engagement and successful companies. But research, and our own experience, shows that many leaders find it difficult to meet the multiple demands on them. The reason is clear: attracting and recruiting the ‘best’ individual is not, on its own, enough, because no one is so well rounded that they will excel in any situation. The most effective leaders understand that what worked in one place, or one role, won’t automatically work in another, and that they are likely to have to adapt their skills and approach to the new context – and the leadership team – they find themselves in.
You’re never done with development, however experienced a leader you are
Just as a car needs an annual service to ensure it maintains its optimum performance, so do leadership teams. To help leaders perform at their optimum level we at Alumni augment our assessment and executive search services with leadership development services. We work extensively in the areas of developing management teams, executive coaching, and ‘onboarding’ new executives and management team members. While a good leader is critical to business success, it is the collective contribution of the leadership team that determines outstanding and sustainable performance.
The approach we take depends on the circumstances – there is no ‘one size fits all’. Clients turn to us for help in a range of different situations. For example, a leader, leadership team or business division manager might be facing a new challenge – they might need to roll out a new strategy, say, and anticipate resistance. Or employees may have rated them poorly in engagement surveys – they aren’t trusted perhaps, which is affecting productivity. A leader might call us in because they feel the management team has the wrong outlook or focus – they’re maybe not sufficiently strategic or collaborative, for example. Or they might want to introduce a culture change – perhaps to be more customer orientated, or innovative.
We wish to be the trusted adviser of our clients. It is not easy for anyone to evaluate their own performance, and we can come in as an objective third party, analyse the situation and leadership demands, and, where appropriate, observe and challenge an individual or a team in order to find better ways of working. You’re never done with development, however experienced a leader you are. Transformation applies to individuals as well as organisations: it’s not so much a process as ‘business as usual’. Leaders who are prepared to work on strengthening their leadership capabilities improve the performance of the firm. This is what ‘Business success through people’ is all about. •
For more information about Alumni’s Leadership Development Services contact christina.harrington@alumniglobal.com