EDGE Autumn 2024

Butterfly effect

EVOLUTION IN A FAST-CHANGING WORLD

Plus

Be more punk

How to stop team burnout

Life on the front line

Tickets on sale now most anticipated event in leadership.

NOV 2024 15

THE LEADERSHIP AWARDS

John Williams, chief executive of the Institute, on being an effective leader in the face

Philip Tovey, visiting research fellow at Reading University, asks how can we learn to think about the true scale of ecological collapse

Laura Burch, founder of Work and Class, urges organisations to ensure class is part of their DE&I policies

Brandie

Allister Frost on building muscle for the

Edge contributors

Brandie Deignan is a sector-agnostic leader. She joined the NHS in general practice as chief executive officer within one of the UK’s biggest GP super partnerships in early 2021. Prior to this role, she was managing director at Marco Pierre White Restaurants. She has also held senior leadership positions at British Airways, Tesco, Whitbread, Travelodge and Hilton Hotels, where she started her career as a graduate trainee.

Mike Lenox is the Tayloe Murphy Professor of Business at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, Senior Faculty Fellow at UVA’s Miller Center, and the author of Strategy in the Digital Age: Mastering Digital Transformation.

Philip Tovey is currently a visiting research fellow with the School of Biological Sciences, University of Reading. His research explores embodied ecological temporalities and human augmentation. He is also a leading government futurist, specialising in strategic climate and environmental foresight.

Sharon Aneja is an award-winning entrepreneur with 20 years’ experience as a senior leader for Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 companies in the UK and APAC. She is a positive psychology coach and the founder of Humanity Works Consultancy and Recharge@Work. Their mission is to reduce corporate stress and burnout by building a more human workplace culture.

Laura Burch is founder of Work & Class – a communications agency putting working class audiences at the centre of campaigns. Her career has spanned more than 20 years – both in-house at the BBC and at agencies including Shine and Inkling Culture. She has delivered impactful integrated campaigns for brands including WWF, Sky, The National Lottery, ghd, eBay, Guinness, Netflix, EA and Hitachi.

Danny Wareham is an organisational psychologist, accredited coach, and speaker, with three decades of experience of helping businesses, leaders and C-suites nurture the culture and leadership required to support their strategy. He is a Fellow of the Association for Business Psychology, a published academic researcher, and a certified psychometrician.

BRANDIE DEIGNAN

MIKE LENOX

PHILIP TOVEY

SHARON ANEJA

LAURA BURCH

DANNY WAREHAM

Nature of change

Learning to thrive through unpredictability

By Louise Parfitt

Change is rarely regular. Its consequences are uneven. One way of describing it is the ‘butterfly effect’. The butterfly effect, a phrase adopted from chaos theory in mathematics, describes a situation where a small disruption in one area may have big consequences somewhere else.

Why a butterfly? The scientists asked, if a butterfly flaps its wings, does the breeze it creates travel round the world? Could a butterfly’s wings create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately lead to, or alter, a storm in another location?

This is helpful when we think about leading through change and disruption. Disruption means dealing with unpredictability, rather than trusting there are obvious and equal consequences ahead.

Instead, the butterfly effect challenges our predictions of the

future and asks us never to assume certainty. We need to be ready for the future in all its complexity.

Of course, we don’t want to resign ourselves to chaos. We need to be ready for risk and the unknowable. To achieve this, we need to be inclusive in our thinking, and ready to accept and incorporate diverse and different viewpoints about how to move forward and take the right course of action. When we do that, we are more likely to succeed.

So, when disruption arrives, how can we make the necessary transformation and evolve –perhaps into something resilient and future-ready for the next phase of the journey – like a butterfly?

In this issue of Edge, which is my first as editor, we hear from business leaders, consultants and experts, about how they manage disruption through inclusivity, adaptation, resilience and good planning, and who learn to thrive on the changes it brings. louise.parfitt@cplone.co.uk

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THonorary degree for CEO

he chief executive of the Institute of Leadership (IoL), John Mark Williams, has been awarded an honorary doctorate of civil law from Northumbria University.

Williams has strong ties with the university and with the North East. After graduating with an MBA from Northumbria in 2005, he stayed in the region to work as international trade director for UK Trade and Investment. He then joined Newcastle University as director of its international office, before becoming director of strategic partnerships at INTO University Partnerships, which connects international students with universities in the US, the UK and Australia.

In 2009, Williams became chief executive of Gateway to London, where he was responsible for leading inward investment into east London. Then, after a spell in banking and the financial sector, he was appointed chief executive of the Agile Business Consortium, the professional body behind the AgilePM handbook and AgilePM, a leading certification in agile project management. He took up his current role with the IoL in 2020.

Throughout his career, Williams has retained a close relationship with Northumbria University, and as chief executive of the IoL has provided a corporate donation of £12,000 for postgraduate scholarships for students from underrepresented backgrounds.

He has also been a member of the university’s Business School Advisory Board since 2019, and delivered guest lectures to current students and alumni.

Keep your

eye

Williams is a member of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council’s Global Advisory Board, and has been a diversity champion for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, as well as a strategy and leadership adviser to the Cabinet Office.

His honorary degree from Northumbria was presented during summer graduation ceremonies at the university’s Newcastle City Campus.

“I am deeply grateful for the incredible privilege of receiving this award,” said Williams.

“This is a very special honour from an institution that I value hugely for its dedication and commitment to furthering knowledge and to making higher education a benefit for all.

“I very much hope that I can continue to use the knowledge and skills I possess to advance further the aspirations and achievements of Northumbria University.”

out for future flagship events

In addition to our webinars, the IoL is wrapping up the year with two flagship events. Look out for highlights from September’s House of Commons Members Reception on our LinkedIn page (@The Institute of Leadership).

Although nominations for the Leadership Awards have now closed, tickets are still available for this prestigious event at the spectacular Hilton London Bankside on Friday 15 November

(see leadership.global/event_listing/the-leadership-awards-2024. html). If you can’t join us this year, stay tuned for exciting announcements about 2025.

We will soon reveal details for International Leadership Week and our Leadership Live conference, both of which are scheduled for spring/summer. These events promise to be bigger and better than ever, so mark them on your calendar!

Simon

Veit-Wilson/Northumbria University

Veterans can arm organisations with the right skills

Harnessing the unique skills of military veterans and service leaders can be of benefit to employers, a new report by the IoL has found.

Battlefield to boardroom shows that time management, problem solving and adaptability are key attributes valued by both veterans and employers, and that former service personnel can positively impact productivity, helping to drive success and growth in organisations.

The IoL’s research, conducted between 2022 and 2023, indicates strong alignment between veterans, service leavers, and the businesses and organisations that employ them, and highlights the valuable connection and shared

Dogs Trust achieves Institute accreditation

The IoL has approved accreditation for the Dogs Trust Aspiring Managers’ Programme. It’s the first within the Dogs Trust learning and development programme to carry an external accreditation.

Angela Massey, head of organisational development at Dogs Trust, said: “Investing in our colleagues’ growth is just as important as caring for dogs and their owners; only when our people thrive can we successfully deliver our mission. It was important for us to not only deliver a programme that truly equips our learners with the skills, knowledge and mindset to transition into future leadership roles, but also to provide learners with recognised, industry-standard value and credibility. IoL accreditation has enhanced the programme’s reputation, which signifies to our learners how important and respected their professional development and future careers are to Dogs Trust.

“Additionally, ensuring the content, planning and material for the programme are in line with IoL’s standards and values has promoted, and will continue to promote, transparency, integrity and accountability around content development and review. IoL accreditation has provided us with a mark of excellence that will help to foster trust and confidence among learners.”

Dogs Trust is planning to run six cohorts of 12 learners annually. The first cohort began their programme in May.

understanding that exists. However, at a time when the UK faces a profound skills shortage, 86% of the veterans surveyed for the report believe there is a lack of comprehension among business managers about the transferability of militaryhoned skills.

The research aims to be a resource for veterans, service leavers, employers and organisations, to help foster an environment that enables former military personnel to transition into civilian careers and continue to contribute to the UK workforce. Download the full report at leadership.global/what-we-do/ research.html

EMPLOYEE UNEASE OVER RETURN-TO-OFFICE MANDATES*

67 % feel it requires more effort than pre-pandemic

60 % say cost of going to the office outweighs benefits

73 % say it feels more expensive

48 % say mandates prioritise what leaders want over what employees need to do good work

Source: Harvard Business Review (January 2024)

IoL accreditation for Deaf & Hearing Trailblazers

The IoL has accredited training run by Deaf & Hearing Trailblazers (DHT), the UK’s only deaf-led training company dedicated to providing accessible courses for deaf and hearing individuals.

For years, deaf individuals have faced numerous challenges in accessing quality training because of additional costs and the lack of appropriate accommodations, such as interpreters or accurate captioning. DHT offers courses that are meticulously designed to be inclusive of both deaf and hearing participants.

Accreditation by the IoL marks a significant milestone for DHT. This recognition not only validates the quality and rigour of its programme, but also enhances its credibility and appeal to organisations committed to fostering inclusive environments. The Institute’s endorsement assures participants and employers that the training adheres to the highest standards of leadership development, particularly in the specialised context of deaf/ hearing team dynamics.

The DHT programme also caters for hearing individuals who wish to work effectively with deaf people or who seek a deeper understanding to support them better. DHT’s bespoke training is tailored to the specific needs of various organisations, aiming to create more diverse, equitable and inclusive environments.

Recognising the importance of communication and collaboration in diverse teams, the programme equips participants with the skills to become stronger, more empathetic, and more productive team players. Through a combination of reflective practices, interactive discussions and group exercises, learners develop a deeper understanding of their roles within inclusive teams.

Stuart Harrison, DHT founder director, said: “We are incredibly proud to offer a programme that truly bridges the gap between deaf and hearing communities in the workplace. This initiative is more than just a training programme; it’s a movement towards a more inclusive and empathetic society. Accreditation by the IoL is testament to the hard work and dedication of our team, and solidifies the importance of our work in today’s diverse organisational landscape.”

See dhtrailblazers.co.uk

Awards up for an award!

The IoL’s Leadership Awards 2023 have made the final of the Best Celebratory Event category in the Association Excellence Awards 2024.

Held at the Hilton London Bankside in November, last year’s Leadership Awards have been shortlisted alongside seven other events. The annual occasion is one of three flagship events organised by the IoL every year, in addition to Leadership Live and the House of Commons Members Reception.

The Association Excellence Awards have been running since 2015 and highlight best practice and excellence among industry bodies, professional membership organisations, and trade unions in the UK and Europe.

The winners of the 23 award categories will be announced at a lunchtime ceremony at the QEII Centre, Westminster, London, on 8 November.

Helping foster exceptional leadership

The Institute’s new Corporate Membership package has been launched, to help organisations demonstrate their commitment to fostering exceptional leadership.

Becoming a Corporate Member of the IoL is not only a source of great pride, but also shows that an employer is investing in its people, nurturing in-house talent, and elevating the role of managers and leaders. This, in turn, enhances the organisation’s brand and reputation.

By providing recognition for its leaders and managers, and developing leadership and management skills, organisations can also boost their performance. They can access a wide range of leadershipdevelopment support, and there is no limit on the number of employees that can benefit from membership. Find out more at leadership. global/what-we-do/ membership/corporatemembership.html

Around the universities

A round-up of recent research on leadership and management from across the UK and internationally

Success of council’s four-day working week trial

Independent analysis of South Cambridgeshire District Council’s four-day-week trial found that 22 of the 24 performance indicators monitored by the local authority improved or remained the same.

Researchers from the universities of Cambridge and Salford evaluated key performance areas over several years.

Daiga Kamerāde, professor in work and wellbeing at the University of Salford, said: “The trial suggests that a four-day work week maintains the quality of public services as measured by key performance indicators, while attracting new staff and improving workers’ wellbeing. The pioneering trial can inspire evidencebased innovations in local councils and other organisations.”

A key driver was the need for the council to improve services by employing permanent staff in hard-to-fill posts, instead of using more expensive agency staff, and this has been successful. The average number of applications for jobs advertised externally increased by 53%, with more than 130 new staff joining the council. In deciding whether to take up a position, 76% of the new starters were influenced by the four-day-week trial.

Leadership takeaway: Research continues to demonstrate benefits for employee wellbeing and business performance, but the four-day week is still controversial. Not all trials have been successful, and leaders should be aware of both the positive and negative impacts of a four-day week in the context of their own organisations. Find out more about the University of Cambridge at cam.ac.uk, the University of Salford at salford.ac.uk and South Cambridgeshire District Council at scambs.gov.uk

Lead the way for positive societal impact

More Americans than ever believe that businesses have a positive impact on people’s lives, but they still fall short in some areas, according to the second annual Bentley-Gallup Business in Society Report.

Of the 5,458 US adults surveyed for the report, 63% said businesses have an extremely or somewhat positive impact on society, being most supportive of businesses speaking out on climate change (55%) and mental health (52%). Small businesses were seen to be twice as likely to have a positive impact on people’s lives (85%) compared with large businesses (42%).

More than 80% of respondents believe it is extremely important that businesses make money in  ethical ways and compensate all workers fairly, but less than one-third think businesses are doing both effectively.

Of those surveyed, 55% would leave their job to work at an organisation that makes a greater positive impact on society, with 25% prepared to take a 10% pay cut to do so. These figures are more stark among younger Americans, aged 18-29, with 71% saying they would leave and 29% saying they would take a 10% pay cut.

Leadership takeaway: Leaders must act in an ethical manner and be prepared to make a positive impact on communities and stakeholders if they want to attract and retain the talented workers needed for future success and survival.

Find out more about Bentley University at bentley.edu

New faces at the IoL

The Institute of Leadership has welcomed two new members of staff to the team in recent weeks.

Rachel McLinn has joined as membership manager. Rachel’s early career was in digital marketing roles, before she joined a membership organisation. She has a passion for mapping out member journeys and being involved in developing communities, which is what led her to work in membership for the past eight years. Rachel’s professional highlights include presenting on membership strategy at an Association of Association Executives (AAE) event in London and being invited to present at the AAE’s conference in Lisbon 2020 (unfortunately, Covid got in the way).

Rachel is particularly drawn to the IoL because its values closely align with her own. She is especially enthusiastic about its emphasis on self-awareness through the MyLeadership tool, a subject that she is passionate about because of her work as a counsellor in her spare time. She said: “I believe the Institute is a truly exciting and inspiring organisation

to be a part of and I feel privileged to be a part of the team. I’m looking forward to getting to know our members more and developing the membership experience in the way our members want.”

Meanwhile, Michael Johnson has taken on the role of head of business development, and brings a wealth of experience to his new role. After a 13-year career in the Royal Air Force, Michael spent 25 years in the United States, where he excelled in business-tobusiness sales leadership.

His career highlights include significant roles in the telecommunications and tradeshow sectors, where he successfully launched and revitalised several sales enterprises while travelling extensively across the US.

Michael’s own journey with the Institute began in early 2019, when he returned to the UK and became a Fellow.

He said: “I’m looking forward to helping the Institute grow its corporate membership offering and to evangelise the positive impact of great leadership on all organisations and the individuals who work in them!”

Dates for your diary

Take advantage of the IoL’s upcoming webinars to gain fresh insights, connect with experts, and enhance your leadership journey. From insightful masterclasses to meet-the-author sessions, these free online events are exclusive to our members.

• Leadership networks for success, with Emma Maslen: 24 September, noon-1pm BST

• Explore Membership – the perfect opportunity for new members to get acquainted with the Institute and maximise the perks of membership: 1 October, 12:30pm-1pm BST

• Using AI to create content – where the human fits in, with Pete Fullard: 3 October, 1pm-1:45pm BST

• Unlocking Success: Sharpening your interviewing technique, with John Lees: 8 October, noon-12:45pm BST

• Meet the author, with Dr John Blakey (Force for Good, The Trusted Executive, and Challenging Coaching): 23 October, 12:30pm–1pm BST

Keep an eye on our Events Page for more webinars and head to leadership.global/whats-on/event-listing.html to reserve your place.

SHARING THOUGHTS AND IDEAS

Embracing change

Leading in a time of disruption

When I Googled disruption, the first definition that came up was “disturbance or problems that interrupt an event, activity or process”. That should surprise no-one – we are all used to being interrupted. Yet, interruption and disruption are not the same.

Clayton Christensen, the father of disruptive innovation, once said: “Disruption is a process, not an event.” Understanding and accepting that simple fact can produce a paradigm shift that transforms any organisation for the better. Failing to do so causes many of our organisational problems.

Someone once explained to me the difference between ice and snow. If you start with ice, melt it, and then freeze it again, you get ice. If you start with snow, melt it, and then freeze it again, you get… ice. Snow and ice are not only different in appearance – they are different in character. I use this to illustrate a little-recognised fact about disruption.

Things are interrupted all the time. Hot weather becomes cold; night interrupts day. When things are interrupted, we tend to see the shift as both temporary and reversible. A bit like ice changing to water, and back to ice. From a leadership perspective, we can learn through experience and education to cope with things being first A, then B, then A again. However, when things that were first A become 17 or ¥, or even all of them one after another, our experience and education are less useful. In work, as in life, we rely on certainty. We don’t usually express it like that, yet, in much of life, we assume reliability. Messages

By

John Williams

are supposed to be answered. Appointments are supposed to be kept. Trains are supposed to run on time. In every case, disappointment awaits. Not due to deliberate contrariness, but because the process of disruption is around us constantly, and the shift that disruption brings can render products, services, or even whole business models less competitive or obsolete.

In November 2023, an Insight Report by WatchMyCompetitor found that 72% of the original FTSE 100 companies, and 52% of companies in the Fortune 500, have disappeared over the past 20 years. History abounds with brands overtaken by disruptive competitors: Kodak, Blackberry, Myspace. In each case, the disruption process took years. By the time it was noticed, it was too late for the incumbents to do anything. The disruption was irreversible: like snow changing to water, and then becoming ice.

The reason organisations are overtaken by disruption is that they rely on certainty, forgetting a universal truth: ‘Trends continue until they are reversed.’ Think of disruption as a sort of reverse paradigm shift. With a paradigm shift, the situation remains unchanged, and we change our perception of it. With disruption, the situation changes yet our perception of it remains unchanged. History shows this is a dangerous state of affairs.

“THE REASON ORGANISATIONS ARE OVERTAKEN BY DISRUPTION IS THEY RELY ON CERTAINTY”

Leading in a time of disruption means putting aside assumptions of certainty, especially about our own abilities. It means accepting that profound changes are not always visible beforehand. And it means realising that the wisdom to handle disruption rests in the wider leadership community, where the experience of change is limitless. John Williams is chief executive of the Institute of Leadership

TA question of time

How can we learn to think about the true scale of the ecological collapse we are facing?

here’s a phenomenon that exists within all forms of human decision-making of ‘scope neglect’, a bias that causes us to undervalue problems when their scale increases. This means we fail to value the loss of a polar bear as an individual while simultaneously underestimating the risk to the entire ecosystem. We say the pain of losing a child is ‘unimaginable’ so it’s natural to find it hard to imagine the death of all of humanity. It’s time to change that.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, a nationalscale lockdown was unimaginable. Now, faced with the very real prospect of ecological collapse – where, for example, entire forest ecosystems exist only as lifeless stumps for 1,000s of years – we have to think way beyond 30-day or 10-year planning ranges to survive (and this is literally about survival). We need to develop a transgenerational temporal literacy. To move beyond ‘living’ memories and into the strange underbelly of the non-human realm.

By

Philip Tovey

point where we have radically reduced our synchronisation with the ecological rhythms of the earth. Increasingly, climate impacts are exposing the problems of the asynchronisation – effecting work patterns due to heat and commuting routines due to flooding. These are the new rhythms we all operate with, and we’re still deeply maladapted to them. So what to do? First, especially for new leaders, we need to start thinking ecologically, about deeper connections to non-human rhythms and flows of our earth system. Get your teams in step. This will require more ‘temporal imagination’ as Facer says, and more engagement with others that use differ temporal frames, from ancient oaks to bitcoin miners. It may sound hard to imagine, but that’s the point.

This can be encapsulated in what historian Jared Farmer terms ‘chronodiversity’ or a diversity of time. It is similar to what scholar Keri Facer has called for in cultivating our ‘temporal imagination’. It’s about acknowledging that there are different forms of time – glacial time, shrew time, oak time, Norway time – that all have ecological implications. When our view of time is shallow, we risk missing the slow death of our eco – or life-support – systems underneath our very feet.

Another part of the problem is our disconnection from nature. We really started to engineer this disconnect at the time of the Industrial Revolution. It has reached the

“WE NEED TO START THINKING ECOLOGICALLY”

One of the core roles of a leader is to bravely attempt to articulate a better future, even though that future is hard to imagine. It’s not about what you’re doing next week; it’s about the broader strategic context. This is a fundamental leadership responsibility. Leaders need to prepare their teams for the unknown, the unprecedented, and that is an act of creativity, about making new connections between things we perceive as disconnected or irrelevant today.

The question leaders need to ask is: “Who’s time am I harmonised with – the global stock markets or my local river’s Mayflies? Who’s time is being cut short by my choice of temporal framing?” Ecological collapse is about an irreversible loss of essential functioning and character of the landscape we have grown up with. They are all we’ve known. It’s time to get seriously imaginative.

Philip Tovey is a visiting research fellow at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Reading

Smash the class ceiling

Let’s ensure class is part of our DE&I policies

Most business leaders agree that diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) is important – for business, for employee engagement, and for creativity. Not to mention that creating more opportunities for people from diverse backgrounds is simply the right thing to do.

Organisations that have embraced this have had to make many changes and follow through on statements and promises in DE&I policies. This could be switching to a more inclusive hiring process, forming employee resource groups, introducing flexible working practices, investing more in training and development, or publishing pay-gap data. It’s a lot of work, a lot of change – and it’s change for the better.

By

Laura Burch

However, one thing that is rarely on the agenda when it comes to conversations, policies and plans around DE&I is social class. Yet class intersects all elements of diversity and, according to some studies, has a bigger impact on a person’s likelihood of success than even race or gender.

I grew up on a council estate and my parents were often on benefits. I wasn’t surrounded by people doing professional jobs and I had no idea what kind of careers could be available to someone like me. But I got lucky. I signed up to an admin temp agency and landed a placement at the BBC, which became a permanent job as an assistant in the press office. I didn’t know what PR was – but I liked it, and it turns out I was quite good at it.

I am an anomaly in my industry, however: 21% of people in PR – vs 7% of the general population –went to fee-paying schools. There is an 18.2% class pay gap across the marketing industry.

Employers, in all industries, need to do more to not only recruit talent from diverse working-class backgrounds, but also to make them feel that they

“SOCIAL CLASS IS RARELY ON THE DE&I AGENDA, YET IT INTERSECTS ALL ELEMENTS OF DIVERSITY”

belong and can progress, because a professional environment can feel lonely and alienating. I’ve seen and heard stories of peers mocked for their ‘common’ accents, for overindulging on the free food at meetings because they can’t afford much at home, for not understanding ‘high brow’ cultural references, or for mispronouncing words. Time and time again, they receive a lesser pay rise than their middle-class colleagues because they don’t have a parent at home telling them to ask for more (or the safety net of their parents’ money if they decide to walk). What can employers do? Quite a lot.

Education – Bridge gaps between schools in lower socio-economic areas and entry-level jobs by creating outreach programmes.

Opportunity – Offer internships/work experience to people exclusively from working-class backgrounds. Internships – Commit to paying at least the Living Wage or London Living Wage for apprenticeships or internships, and cover interview travel expenses. Remove education barriers – Unless essential to the role, eliminate degree or A-level requirements. Mentoring – Mentor those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and open your professional contacts book to them.

Expenses – Don’t assume employees can front up expenses, even if it’s just biscuits for a meeting. Pay-gap data – Publish your pay-gap data. Sign up to the Social Mobility Foundation Employer Index. Pay colleagues from working-class backgrounds the same as anyone else at their level.

This only scratches the surface, but it’s a start. Some of the most talented, hardworking, interesting and creative people I know came from working-class backgrounds. So do your business a favour – seek them out, let them in, and your output will be all the better for it.

Laura Burch is founder and managing partner of Work & Class

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REFLECTIONS FROM ACROSS OUR LEADERSHIP COMMUNITY

18 22 19 21

Be more punk

Resilience, reliability, rehearsal

Facing down our midlife crisis In the hot seat

Adopt a future-ready mindset

Leadership Q&A Leave the world a better place Being ready for disruption

Pivoting in heels

Iused to think that, as a leader, one would go into a particular organisation or sector and then specialise, starting and ending one’s career there. Over the years, however, I’ve discovered that leadership skills and behaviours cut across sectors. You can take this with you wherever you go. With these as your foundation, I feel you can make a big impact as a sector-agnostic leader.

I discovered this through a quest to be a better version of me. I wanted to stay curious and ask myself challenging questions. It reframed what I used to think a successful leader was and is. I have worked and led in four sectors now: hospitality, aviation, retail, and healthcare. I also have non-executive leadership roles in sport. On the face of it they are very different, but the foundations of leadership cross over all of them and they allow you to pivot in your career.

Being sector agnostic is not for everyone, however. You have to have the mindset that change is good; that being a bit apprehensive, not knowing everything and being comfortable with your vulnerabilities is OK. You need to be comfortable with others playing their part, helping you in what you’re trying to achieve.

The new arrival

When you arrive in an organisation from outside of the sector, the people you work with will often fall into three camps. The first camp welcomes that you’re bringing fresh ideas. They have made a bold move by bringing you in and want you to make an impact. The second is probably thinking “We’ve always done it the same way, with leaders from within the sector”. They want a steady leader who isn’t going to suggest any changes. You need to

The challenge for a sector-agnostic leader

By

Brandie Deignan

win them round. Finally, there’s a camp that wants a leader to convince them they can really understand the sector and do the job well.

With the first camp, you mustn’t disappoint them by not bringing in ideas and innovation. The second would prefer you not to push the ‘reliable’ boundaries. That’s fine, but as a sector-agnostic leader, you may find this frustrating. With the third, they just want results. For each, it’s incumbent upon the leader to build confidence so they back you.

When to pivot

To move across sectors means changing lanes and roles. In junior leadership positions, that can be difficult. You’ll need to convince people that you’re ready to come in from the outside and learn. I feel in senior leadership roles, however, it’s often easier because you’re backed by departmental specialists with the functional expertise to support you.

My big tip is confidence and comfort. You need both in abundance with the path you’re taking and what you’re bringing, because you need to combine agility with education and speed. The organisation isn’t going to wait for you to get your head around how things work – you need to move faster, deeper, and wider. The ability to pivot quickly is vital.

“I WANTED TO STAY CURIOUS AND ASK MYSELF CHALLENGING QUESTIONS”

Leaders need to embrace being multigenerational and not so one-dimensional. We can all benefit from diversity of thought, no matter what stage we are in our career. My ask is that we accept the possibility of difference in leadership, to help change the narrative and kaleidoscope. When more leaders become sector-agnostic, we align better and benefit from the power of difference.

Brandie Deignan is a chief executive officer in the NHS and author of The Sector Agnostic Leadership Playbook: Pivoting in Heels

Facing down our midlife crisis

Now’s the time to build muscle for the change journey ahead

By Allister Frost

The pace of change and level of uncertainty in the world are greater than ever and many people are struggling to adapt to this new reality. As I’ve watched this unfold, I’m increasingly concerned there may be an oncoming midlife crisis that will affect many parts of the workforce.

Some people are worried that the skills they’ve acquired over years will be rendered obsolete overnight by some form of technology. Others find the pace of work exhausting and struggle to keep up. And for many more, the energy needed to keep learning new skills feels unsustainable, leading to increasing apathy or even active resistance to change.

Of course, convention states that it’s the younger generations who are most disengaged with work and are apathetic about the future. But look around and you’ll see countless people with many years of experience who are becoming set in their ways and disaffected by the pace of change. They’re comfortable in their work, enjoying life, and good at what they do. That’s brilliant. But, tragically, they’ve also stopped thinking about how things could be better and are satisfied with the status quo, just at a time when constant reinvention is becoming the norm.

When faced with a major transformation project, many professionals recognise its necessity, but they may also feel “I can’t cope with this”. That’s the mid-life crisis, right there. This is increasingly a problem for leaders, who need the weight of experience in their teams, but also the drive and ambition to keep up in our fast-changing world.

“SMALL CHANGES, CONTINUOUSLY ADMINISTERED, SOON ADD UP TO BIG, BOLD BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION”

Adopt a future-ready mindset

So what can we to help busy professionals through this midlife crisis? We combat it by adopting what I call the future-ready mindset, by empowering teams to rediscover their love of learning, and to unleash their curiosity, creativity and passion for change.

To understand how a future-ready mindset helps, we have to first make a distinction between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. A fixed mindset says: “I can only do what I can,” and that’s a death sentence for any career in an evolving industry.

A growth mindset says: “I can achieve whatever I like if I work hard at it and I keep learning through life.”

The limitation of a growth mindset is that it fails to provide a roadmap for the future, placing the focus on the here and now, and creating unreasonably pressure for short-term growth.

The future-ready mindset is different. It looks beyond the present to focus the mind on the inevitable changes and challenges that are likely to affect work in the near future. It asks people to ready themselves today for that likely future. It’s not about being at the bleeding edge; it’s about having an appetite to grow into the place that you need to be through continuous learning and exploration.

And it’s not about radical reinvention. Anyone who has joined a gym in January only to lose interest a few weeks later knows that this kind of change rarely sticks. The big changes that matter are simply the accumulation of lots of small changes. It’s about iterating towards the next stage, constantly improving minor components of your working life as you go.

Celebrate the small changes

To help entrench this new approach, I think leaders should celebrate more of the small changes, even if that’s just someone looking at a spreadsheet and saying: “Well, that’s got really confusing over time, let’s cut some of these columns out and simplify it.” Small changes, continuously administered, soon add up to big, bold business transformations.

So, let’s not let a mid-life crisis ruin careers prematurely and shatter the potential for reinvention. Let’s encourage everyone to be part of the change journey, and let’s start to build that muscle now.

Allister Frost is a business growth expert and speaker

Be more punk

Let’s leave the world better than we found it

By Blaire Palmer

We’re at a crossroads. Or you could say we’re in a perfect storm. We have a mental health crisis, a cost-of-living crisis, difficulties with global supply, geopolitical uncertainty, existential angst around the climate. And, on top of that, we have fears over AI.

We are also operating an industrial-age model in the way that we run our businesses and use human talent. This needs to change, as employees are disengaging and it’s becoming hard to recruit. The revolution needed to fix this is as big as the industrial revolution. It’s not a tweak, it’s not another engagement programme, it’s not another culture change programme. It’s a fundamental rethink of the way we make use of human talent.

To make this happen, we’ve got to question all the conventional wisdom, rip everything up and invent a new model that will help people engage and do their best work.

“QUESTION ALL THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM, RIP EVERYTHING UP AND INVENT A NEW MODEL”

This is where punk comes in. Why? Because when I’m talking to leaders, I am often talking to the kids of the 1970s, or really late 60s or early 80s. And while there was a lot of new music in the 70s, there had never been anything like punk before, and there hasn’t been since.

To me, punk symbolises a willingness to go counter to conventional wisdom. The real punks were interested in social justice, in authentic expression, in inclusion, and in challenging stereotypes. These topics are all very important today.

What I’m hoping is that whether you were a punk or not, you can connect with your 15-, 16or 17-year-old self – and be the radicals that we believed ourselves to be.

Of course, as we’ve grown up, we might have ironed out some of the kinks and put a bit of polish on things, but we’re still that person. Most of us, at some point, have the urge to crank up our music in the car and feel that vibrancy we once had. And we still have the opportunity to reconnect with that energy and be as radical.

So, before we retire, can we take some action to leave the world better than we found it – and better than we’ve tolerated for the past 35 years of our careers?

Blaire Palmer is a business coach and author of Punks in Suits: How to lead the workplace reformation

Innovating productivity

From AI to holograms, tech will continue to change our ways of working, says futurologist Nicola Millard

Q How is tech changing the way we work?

A The shift to hybrid working technology has allowed us to measure basic levels of productivity by seeing what meetings people are having, looking at people’s schedules, and when they log on and off. We can see if they’re at the keyboard. But within the physical office all we generally have is a badge swipe to indicate our presence. We say physical spaces are great for collaboration, but how do we measure that? And what happens as we develop richer digital collaboration tools?

Q What else is on the horizon?

A We’re also looking at holograms, which is really the next generation of video. That could be used for hybrid meetings, which are currently a particularly thorny issue. Typically the physical room dominates and the people in digital space get forgotten. Could you bring those people into the room as a hologram, or even create a fully immersive environment where you turn an entire room into an interactive space?

“BEFORE WE CAN JUDGE IF PRODUCTIVITY HAS  IMPROVED, WE NEED TO GET BETTER AT MEASURING IT”

Q Will this change our workplace behaviours?

A On a behavioural level, humans tend to gravitate towards the same things. We communicate, we make friends, we network. These are unchanging fundamentals. The change comes in how we achieve these behaviours. My communication habits have changed depending on what technology is available to me, but as far as my habits are concerned, there’s not a lot of change. When it comes to adopting or rejecting technology, I usually summarise it with the three ‘U’s. Is it useful? Is it usable? And who else is using it?

Q Are senior leadership teams ready for the changes ahead?

A I was reading an article just the other day that argued that most leaders don’t really understand what their technology is doing for them. They see the outputs, but the outputs are usually so high level that they can’t see the influence of technologies on them. That also might be why we are at risk of toppling into a trough of disillusionment around generative AI. We went through the same thing in the 1990s with the internet. But if we rejig our data and measurement, and bring people with us, we’ll better understand a technology’s benefits.

Q Ultimately, is tech going to increase productivity?

A That’s a hot topic in the academic world. We still don’t really know how to measure productivity, particularly with knowledge workers. We tend to default back to things that are easy to measure – how many emails we sent or how many meetings we’ve got. On an individual level, productivity is more complex than that. Before we can judge if it has improved, we need to get better at measuring it.

Nicola Millard is principal innovation partner at BT Business

Resilience, reliability, rehearsal

Being ready for disruption

By Justin Cuckow

How do you know if your business is resilient? Can you be assured that your capabilities to respond to events such as a global software outage or pandemic are truly at the point of readiness?

Recent events have shown us it’s increasingly important to be fully prepared. I work with a wide range of very high-reliability organisations, and all of them understand that resilience planning is key to customer service. They invest both in business continuity and in incident response rehearsal. While planning and documenting processes is important, remember people recover processes, not documents! It is critical to focus on training and practice for your incident management team. Get the basics right by focusing on the mechanics of mobilising the team and understanding impacts. Things often go wrong out of core business hours. High-reliability organisations rehearse regularly and test their responses against a range of scenarios. This builds an understanding of impacts, and familiarity and confidence with roles. One of the most gratifying aspects of my work is seeing teams become increasingly adept setting clear objectives, managing uncertainty and anticipating obstacles.

High-reliability organisations work to build transparency about the risks that could knock them over, horizon scanning to consider the impacts of change. I support clients to do a resilience gap analysis to confirm their readiness to respond to operationally disruptive risks. Keep in focus the basics such as ensuring up-to-date contact details, robust secondary channels of communication and testing regular IT back-ups through to recovery.

Unsurprisingly, practice does make perfect. A resilient system needs to be resilient even in the face of the unexpected.

Justin Cuckow is a business continuity expert at Incident Ready Consulting

IN THE HOT SEAT

Martin Parr

This month, Edge meets

Professor Martin Parr, co-founder and owner of Guided Systems Solutions

What does leadership mean to you?

As a consultant, I always think there are three worlds you have to engage with when you think of leadership. The first world is the rational. You need to resolve challenges of logic – how can you improve efficiencies by reducing journey times from the warehouse, for example. Then there’s an emotional world, where you need to manage people’s emotional ties to what they do. Then there’s the political world, which has to do with the shareholders and ensuring they are getting value for money.

What are your main leadership and management challenges?

My background is in complexity and systems, and, from it, I see that our clients are faced with ever-increasing complexity and competition. If you think about 50 years ago, a hundred years ago, 200 years ago, people had a lot of time to make decisions and they were often working in businesses that evolved over generations. That’s completely changed. Markets appear and disappear, as does the competition. We need to be able to take advantage of the fleeting nature of the world.

How does the landscape of your sector affect those challenges?

It means there is a lot more pressure on organisations. In fact, it feels increasingly difficult just to stay in business. I know of organisations that have been viable for many years and are struggling now. It’s a tough time.

The consequence of this is that organisations are increasingly up for embracing the complexities that they might once have shoved under the carpet. How can they get their arms around it, look at all the evidence, and make some really good strategic decisions? Can you disrupt or adapt in complex and uncertain markets?

What are you focusing on from a leadership

and management perspective?

When we’re working with leaders on installing systems and reducing complexity, it’s always about discovering the big drivers. Can we get it down to a manageable set? It’s progressively working your way through all the information you have to weed out what really matters. What are the driving forces here, and what are the opposing forces? Then it’s about trying to build models that reduce the complexities without also reducing the richness of the decisions.

How do you develop your people?

I have always tried to help CEOs be more comfortable being a CEO and doing all the things that CEOs do. Often, people who come into a role only do what they already know. I like to get them to step out of that and do other things, using different styles, different approaches. So many people make their way through the corporate world being what the corporate world wants. They’re just the purchasing person or the finance guru, or whoever. I like to encourage people to bring more of themselves to work. It’s something I’m very passionate about.

What is your biggest leadership lesson over the past year?

“WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE FLEETING NATURE OF THE WORLD”

That we are being pushed to make decisions ever more quickly. Even today, as we’re talking, the stock market has taken a turn and interest rates have fallen. Suddenly, in the space of a day, what wasn’t viable could be viable. How can we translate all the data that comes with the changing world into useable information and make the right decisions quickly? That’s the pressure that’s going on now.

Would you like to feature in the Hot Seat? Email louise.parfitt@cplone.co.uk

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The Edge interview

Sophie Trueman

Life’s too good

Too Good To Go’s managing director UK and Ireland, Sophie Trueman, is leading the fight against food waste with authenticity, a little joy, and a simple message about the big changes we need to see in the world

Writing

Photography Martin Bewick

Ian Farrell

Only a few minutes’ walk from Liverpool Street station, in the City of London, you can turn off a busy road where Amazon has its giant UK HQ and enter a small oasis of calm.

This quiet location feels like something of a metaphor for the achievements of Too Good To Go and its managing director, UK and Ireland, Sophie Trueman.

That’s because, since it was founded in Denmark in 2015, the company has quietly – but steadily and assuredly – disrupted the food retail and hospitality sectors, partnering with major players and local independents alike to connect customers to restaurants and stores that have surplus unsold food. Amid the noise of tech innovation, Too Good To Go’s simple mobile

“PEOPLE DON’T REALISE THAT FOOD WASTE IS SUCH A BIG CONTRIBUTOR TO CLIMATE CHANGE”

app has quietly had a major impact on reducing food waste.

“Too Good To Go has a very clear mission,” says Trueman. “To inspire and empower everyone to fight food waste.”

There is also a clear necessity behind that mission. More than 40 per cent of all food that is produced is wasted – every single day. It’s a figure that Trueman describes as “horrifying”. Indeed, food waste is a bigger emitter of greenhouse gases than the aviation industry, which makes it a significant contributor to climate change.

“Our business exists to try to help solve that problem and to do our bit for climate change. There’s quite an awareness gap with the public,” she says. “People don’t realise that food waste is such a big contributor to climate change. Helping tackle food waste is one of the most

important things, on an individual level, that we can do to help try to solve climate change. That’s the principle of our business and the issue we’re trying to solve.

“The Too Good To Go solution is very simple. Our app, which is free and available for anyone to download, connects users, like you and I, with stores all over the globe that have surplus food available. It could be your independent local bakery or a large multinational food retailer. The app helps any business save food from going to waste.

“I like to think about it as a triple win. It’s a win for all of our partners because they can use the technology to save their food from going to waste. It’s a win for consumers, who are able to get good deals to access great surplus food, and it’s a win for the environment, the planet and sustainability.”

It’s certainly working, and Too Good To Go has global ambitions.

“The beauty of the tech solution is that it works for really small, independently run

“I WANTED TO PUSH MYSELF OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE AND HELP SCALE A BUSINESS”

businesses that might just have a couple of pastries left at the end of the day, all the way through to some of our partners in the UK, such as supermarkets Aldi and Morrisons, that might have larger amounts of waste. The stats speak for themselves. Globally, we’ve saved more than 350 million bags of food from going to waste. We are present in 18 markets at the moment and are about to launch into Australia. I think that proves the concept works.”

New challenges

Trueman joined Too Good To Go in 2019, to head up the key accounts team. Her earlier career had mainly been in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector, including six years in various commercial roles at L’Oréal.

“L’Oréal is a fantastic place to work and it was an incredible platform to really start my career,” she says. “It was on a sabbatical with the company that I had a real light-bulb moment, during six weeks’ volunteering in the

Philippines with a marine conservation charity, looking at ocean plastics and the impact 0f the beauty industry, and doing beach and deepsea clean-ups.

“I was coming out of a dive with a sack of ocean plastic on my back and I knew I wanted to find a company that had an exciting mission that I could get behind. I realised I wanted it to be in sustainability and to try my hand in the tech space. Very importantly for me, I wanted to go somewhere that had a business model that worked. With Too Good To Go, it felt like all of those stars aligned.

“I also wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone and try something where I could help scale a business. One of our values here is to keep it simple, but that can be hard to do in practice when you’re trying to embed into some of the large businesses with which we work. For example, Greggs bakery chain is a key partner in the UK; it has close to 3,000 stores, so challenges arise to that simplicity. You can learn from that challenge.

“When I joined, I needed to adapt from being at a large corporate, professional global company to one that, at the time, was still a start-up that was moving into the scale-up phase. One of the key learnings I took was that you can take some of the principles and processes from a large corporate business and embed and tailor them to a different type of business. If you do that in the right way, things can really fly.”

Trueman says her role was to understand how Too Good To Go could attract and win big partnerships, and how it could segment the team to win them.

“I joined to head up the key accounts team, but I had no-one in my team at that point, and I had a handful of historic accounts. To lead the change we needed, it was clear there was going to be a real importance on that initial team that was hired. Success really came about a year in, when we’d hired the correct profiles to help scale this amazing concept.”

Complexities of scale

As Trueman recounts the scaling-up process and Too Good To Go’s consequent growth, a theme emerges in which the mission and mantra of simplicity meets – and is challenged by –real-world complexities. Today, the business’s stakeholders and partners range from individual consumers and independent restaurants, to major retailers, local authorities and national government. How do they all connect, and how is the right balance maintained? For Trueman, the key is their interdependence.

“Ultimately, our priority is the 170,000 stores with which we are working, ensuring they are our priority and that we’re helping them save as much surplus food each day. But then there are other aspects to do with the wider impact of what we do and how we influence all those stakeholders and bring them together. We have held events where we have brought together consumers and local authorities, and got them round a table to foster discussion. It’s something I’m proud of the company for doing, but it takes time, and the key is how they all work in tandem.”

Managing complexities and balancing priorities to leverage influence, impact and growth demands confident, thoughtful and intuitive leadership, Trueman says.

“I’ve thought a lot about how I can be authentic, understanding myself and being true to that. One of the things I think about is that I don’t run Too Good To Go, the team runs Too Good To Go. I help lead and navigate the conversations about what direction we should set. So how do I want to engage in those conversations and remain consistent yet agile? It’s also about not being afraid to be vulnerable if we get it wrong and we need to pivot or change the way that the business is working. I think you have to be really clear on what type of leader you want to be.”

But what kind of leader does Trueman want to be?

TOO GOOD TO GO: A BRIEF HISTORY

restaurants in Denmark.

The solution they created was an app that connected food businesses with people who were seeking to help solve the climate crisis, get access to good food, and save money.

The Too Good To Go marketplace app launched in Denmark early in 2016. In the first few weeks, hundreds of businesses uploaded their surplus food to the app and thousands of users started saving it.

Later that year, a group of additional food enthusiasts joined forces with the original founders. Having tried to find solutions to solve the food-waste issue in their home countries across Europe, they established Too Good To Go in Norway, the UK and France.

In September 2016, Mette Lykke, a Danish entrepreneur and cofounder of fitness community Endomondo, learned about the app from a woman while travelling on a bus. Intrigued by the innovative idea, Lykke reached out to the founders and became an investor in the company.

In the spring of 2017, inspired by Too Good To Go’s mission, Lykke took over the role of CEO.

Too Good To Go now operates in 18 countries across Europe, America and Australia, and has a community of more than 100 million registered users and 170,000 active partner businesses across the globe.

Too Good To Go was founded in 2015 in Copenhagen, by a group of young entrepreneurs who wanted to find a solution for the food wasted by buffet

“I want to do what I say I’m going to do, and I want to be trusted and respected,” she says. “I mean, it’s basic fundamentals, but I hope to be a great role model for the team and someone that they see fostering a really great place to work. I think I’m a very open leader; I’m very honest and direct – I’d hope that the team would say that about me – but I think I’m true to my personality as well. Some of the best leaders are ones who really know themselves and can lean on their strengths, but who are also hyper-aware of areas they could develop and are not afraid to be vulnerable.

“Continuous learning is absolutely critical in leadership. Often, the more you get into leadership roles you are ‘on the balcony’, versus being in the field and the thick of the action. It’s important to keep learning from the team and not getting too far away from the problem, which is why I still try to go to stores to sign them up to Too Good To Go. If you are only ever on the balcony, you’re going to miss what’s going on.”

Supporting change

Over the past five years, the connectedness and shared understanding of teams, businesses and wider stakeholders has underpinned Too Good To Go’s growth – and the changes that have been required to support it.

“Change is not a solo sport,” Trueman says. “It involves multiple people and team efforts to get around it. A diverse network solidifies your resilience and the stronger, more diverse your networks are, personally and professionally, the more you can lean on different perspectives to help keep your resilience strong. I like to make sure my network is continually growing and that I’m learning from different people. It’s also a bit like that old airline advice – you need to put your own oxygen mask on first, before helping others. You need to make sure you prioritise maintaining energy; how can I top up my own energy, and have periods when I take a bit of a step back and renew?

“Ultimately, with change, it’s about communicating that change is inevitable. If we don’t adapt – whether that’s to do with the focus of the company or the particular way we speak with our partners – we become stale. When we are talking to our stores and partners, we need to find the balance of consistent messaging, but remember that what’s important to one partner might be very different for another.”

As she speaks, Trueman’s personal connection to Too Good To Go, and her work there, feels natural and authentic. She describes

Sophie Trueman

“CHANGE IS INEVITABLE. IF WE DON’T ADAPT WE BECOME STALE”

the app as a “simple and fun solution that is easy to do and will spark some joy and bring some magic to your day – and I think that is what everyone needs when things are difficult”. It’s a smart, positive and simple aid to the thorny issue of food waste – but which aspects of that positive mindset might work for leaders in different sectors?

“I think it’s positive to make sure you are a role model in your industry, to do what you say you are going to do, and have credible ways to back up your claims,” she says. “That means cutting through the noise with a simple, clear message and delivering on it.

“Second, it’s about working together. Collaboration is key. How can you break down those competition lenses and collaborate as an industry, as a community, and as a society? Finally, when you are trying to achieve something worthwhile, you need to raise awareness and foster a conversation about it within your teams – because change takes time. To make good things happen, those voices need to keep being heard.”

Martin Bewick is a writer and editor at CPL One

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Risk and disruption

Radical transformation

Periods of large-scale change can be damaging for businesses that are unprepared. But with the right planning and leadership, disruption offers the potential for proactive innovation and necessary evolution

Writing

Peter Crush

Call him a pessimist, but Jan Sedlacek, former VP of marketing at Kuoni – the ill-fated travel company that went bankrupt in 2015 (before being sold off) –spends a lot of time thinking about disruption and change (and not in a good way). Recalling his experience with the firm as one of “real pain”, Sedlacek – who has since co-founded change consultancy Stryber – is blunt in his appraisal of what went wrong.

“For years it failed to recognise underlying changes in market dynamics,” he argues. “Our problem was never around lack of innovation; rather a clear vision for the parent company’s future. By the time it was really failing, it was too late; we were simply rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.”

According to Sedlacek, the root cause of leaders’ failure to deal with disruption is because what he calls “proper disruption – not the day-today stuff of change,” tends to be fought with an unchanged business model.

“Companies always go down with their business model,” he says. “What they really ought to be building is a portfolio of new business models to at least give them a chance that one of them will neutralise or even turn the disruption into an advantage. That,” he adds, “requires a whole different view of governance.”

As an antidote to disruption, Sedlacek’s assessment of leading through change feels blissfully simple. But the fact is, change/ disruption – the presence of which seems more pervasive than ever – is a concept that fills most leaders with terror. As such, it’s often

“COMPANIES OUGHT

TO BE BUILDING A PORTFOLIO OF NEW BUSINESS MODELS TO AT LEAST GIVE THEM A CHANCE THAT ONE WILL NEUTRALISE OR EVEN TURN THE DISRUPTION INTO AN ADVANTAGE”

regarded as a difficult area to broach, leaving it likely to be swept under the carpet.

“Even though they know they may realise that disruption is happening, most leaders are hesitant to radically transform; there’s a sort of ‘intention-to-action’ gap,” observes Julia Binder, co-author of The Circular Business Revolution, and professor of sustainable innovation and business transformation at the IMD Business School.

“Change is always new and so people are fearful of it,” adds Lydia Kothmeier, VP of operations at Storyblok – a company that has itself gone through huge change as it has grown from an eight-person business four years ago to one with 240 employees across multiple countries now. “Because fear typically comes from people thinking they’re not able to meet this change, the approach should always be about how to take smaller steps, and to break complexity down.”

Making change more meaningful

An essential part of this, Binder says, is finding a way of transitioning disruption away from being a “fluffy concept” into something more meaningful and tangible, that gives leaders something to motivate people around, and to create what she calls a “sense of opportunity rather than a sense of urgency”. But, on this point specifically, it seems experts’ approaches vary tremendously.

“The worst thing you can do is call something disruption – that’s when things become a recipe for disaster,” says Ian Thatcher, CEO of strategic communications consultancy, Robots & Humans, who has worked with RollsRoyce on its corporate repositioning. “Change used badly becomes a convenience factor; it’s a buzzword,” he says. “When it’s used as a title for an initiative, it builds in failure. We never label the work we do as transformation or disruption; rather evolution.”

Dr John Blakey, author of Force for Good –How to thrive as a purpose-driven leader, agrees.

“The conversation around change is increasingly negative,” he says. “It was something people could buy into before, and it was easier to lead change 10 years ago. But now there’s this feeling that everything is ‘future fragile’ – which makes it very hard to motivate people around.”

And yet, this is exactly the opposite of what Rianne Silvey, principal leadership consultant at New Street Consulting Group believes good leaders should do.

“It’s precisely because disruption is so scary that there’s even more need to be upfront about it and almost create a burning platform,” she says. “Without it, there will always be resistance. We can’t ignore the fact people react emotionally

LEARN TO DIFFERENTIATE RISK AND UNCERTAINTY

Risk often involves elements that are typically predictable.

Uncertainty often involves elements that are relatively predictable.

Deep uncertainty often involves elements with least predictable future outcomes.

to change, but it’s absolutely a necessity that the case is made for change. Only then can it create the potential for it being inspirational and something people can pivot around and connect to.”

So which approach helps leaders manage the challenge of change? Dominic Ashley-Timms, author of The Answer is a Question, and COO of performance improvement consultancy, Notion, specifically trains leaders at the likes of Virgin and Samsung to make better use of inquiry. He explains that to navigate the realities of change, you must interrogate the reasons it is happening, or needs to happen.

“When change is a fearful prospect, the only way you can impact it is by asking more questions about it,” he says. “While it may not generate all the answers, it at least manages that fear, and gives people a sense of being resilient to the change ahead.”

To this extent, he goes a step further, suggesting change shouldn’t be something leaders manage alone –change is something that needs to be shouldered equally.

“What leaders really need to do is better engage with the skills of their whole team – which requires breaking the habit of being seen to be the person with all the answers,” he says. “There’s absolutely no reason leaders are any better placed to deal with disruption.”

Providing support

The subtle difference – in terms of the role of the leader – argues Simon Ursell, co-founder (and now chair) of B Corp four-day week environmental consultancy, Tyler Grange, is how they offer support.

“WHAT LEADERS REALLY NEED TO DO IS BETTER ENGAGE WITH THE SKILLS OF THEIR WHOLE TEAM”

Kothmeier says that “change [and ability to adapt to it] is itself a new competency”. In fact, she specifically hires people for this skill. But if predicting disruption ahead of its time sounds more like soothsayer behaviour rather than a skill set leaders are able to adopt, there is a growing school of thought that says leaders can be more empirical about change than they have previously been able to be.

Binder calls this moving from “crisis-driven action to risk-driven action” – that is, actually trying to define what risks exist for a business and working backwards to find a solution/ approach that mitigates it.

“Disruption is essential, because if you don’t change you’ll die,” he says about his business – which was regarded by many as being a disruptor in its sector when it went to a four-day working week in 2022. “Disruption is uncomfortable and change without support creates an unrelenting environment. You can’t face disruption with a blame culture – that’s why we face it with mentors and psychologists. You can’t always prepare people for change, but you can train people to enjoy the feeling of being uncomfortable – as long as they feel safe to take action. No-one here gets blamed for making mistakes.”

Building people up to be capable of handling change certainly sounds like a more proactive approach to dealing with disruption – especially as leaders tend to be accused of being too reactive to it rather than grasping the nettle.

There is a whole new ‘disruption consultancy industry’ developing aiming to do just this – including companies such as McKenzie Intelligence Services, which provides intelligence to some of the world’s biggest insurers around likelihoods of natural disasters or conflict. Its CEO and founder, Forbes McKenzie, says he first had to disrupt the way firms thought about calculating insurance (“it’s a sector that’s barely changed in 350 years,” he says), by adding that disruption is now itself a concept they need to factor in. “We respond by providing datasets and analytics,” he says. “Data is not intelligence, but having data can be an empowering addition to fighting disruption.”

Fighting disruption with foresight

The ultimate prize, of course, would be to better predict the forces of disruption earlier. According to Roger Spitz, futurist and author of Disrupt with Impact, the real leadership skill that

“THE KEY THING ABOUT CHANGE IS THAT IT REQUIRES ACTION, NOT JUST DECISION-MAKING”

is needed is foresight, along with a little bit of imagination.

He says there is a distinction between: risk (which he defines as things that are typically predictable); uncertainty (which has some predictability); and deep uncertainty (the least predictable of future outcomes). Spitz argues that leaders need foresight – a capacity to explore possible futures systemically – and that foresight is “preparation rather than prediction.” He adds: “Foresight is not about having a crystal ball,  but preparing leaders for swerves. There is more systemic change and disruption now, meaning historical trends are helpful, but only up to a point. In a systemic disruption world, the drivers of change are interconnected. Isolating change is harder, but foresight moves us away from predictions to a more future-prepared way of thinking, by forcing us to imagine a broader set of plausible outcomes.”

Ultimately, leading through disruption is a process of identifying (and solving) a problem, and ensuring employees are brought along for the ride. “A lot of it boils down to taking the OODA approach – Observe, Orientate, Decide and Action,” says Ursell. “The key thing about change is that it requires action, not just decision-making.” For others, engaging the troops brings in elements of ‘purposeful leadership’ – something employees feel is worth rallying around. The fact the number of B Corp businesses has recently crossed the 2,000 mark is evidence, says Blakey, that leaders now realise they can use ‘having a purpose’ as a catalyst for driving through change.

Andrew Day, partner at strategic change partners Metalogue, concludes: “Leaders simply need to give meaning in the face of disruptive change. Out of anxiety, they will often try to push through innovations or changes – which actually tends to exacerbate resistance.”

Recently, Metalogue’s own research into transformation found that if businesses faced disruptive changes with a sense of agency, they fared much better than if they had turned away from it initially and were eventually forced into reactive responses.

“If anxiety is one side of a disruptive coin, the other side is excitement and creativity,” says Day. “The two often co-exist. Given the right conditions and leadership, people are able to learn, innovate and adapt to periods of disruption. Indeed, this seems to be one of the distinguishing features of being human.”

Peter Crush is an award-winning HR-specialist journalist, writing about all aspects of leadership and the world of work

Disrupting the status quo

The youngest aircrew member to be deployed to Iraq; the only female crew member on the Chinook wing for four years; 10 deployments to Afghanistan; trying to adjust to Civvy Street during the Covid pandemic – Liz McConaghy has experienced her fair share of disruption. She describes dealing with the loss of job identity, the importance of finding your passion, and why we all need to be more honest about our mental health

Writing Louise Parfitt

Liz McConaghy bursts onto my screen with a bright smile and a wry comment about the dull weather we are experiencing (it’s July). She radiates energy – in fact, finding time for a half-hour interview proved challenging, and then we had to move the time because she’d agreed to cover an event in London for a friend at the last minute. It’s hard to imagine her ever sitting still.

Inspired by a magazine article that showed a man who appeared to be hanging out of a helicopter, she joined the RAF at age 19, beginning a 17-year service career. At the start, certainly, there were very few women doing what she was doing.

“Although I was the only female on the Chinook crew, I was never singled out in any way. I definitely felt like one of the team,” McConaghy says.

She believes this had a lot to do with always being her authentic self. “I never change who I am to try to fit in anywhere, which is key. I think that’s where people go wrong: they try to change who they are to fit in, but others can see through that a mile away. Teams – in the forces and in the civilian world – are based on trust. If people don’t trust you because they are not seeing the true you, that’s when things start to go awry.”

One of three

Clearly, there were big challenges– such as learning about the aircraft and how to fire weapons – but arriving at Camp Bastion, in Iraq, aged 21, at a base that was a little more than a small collection of tents and being one of only three women on site, must have been a bit of a shock, surely?

“Camp Bastion was still being built. There wasn’t a separate shower block for women, so we’d put a sign up saying a woman was using the shower and get on with it. I would have felt awkward had everything had to change just because I was there. But, just by being there, you start to affect change bit by bit. The lads used to say that just having me there meant they were a little bit less feral!”

McConaghy thrived during her time in the RAF. She was the longest-serving female on the Chinook crew, including service in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of her career highlights was as a member of the Immediate Response Team (now known as the Medical Emergency Response Team) in Helmand – essentially, flying ambulances.

“THE MORE DIVERSE YOU MAKE YOUR TEAM, THE STRONGER IT WILL BE. YOU NEED PEOPLE WHO THINK DIFFERENTLY AND DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY IN ORDER TO LEARN AND TO GROW”

When McConaghy left the forces in 2019, she experienced culture shock returning to life on Civvy Street. She believes part of the issue is that people in the armed forces thrive on routine and procedures, so they can be quite averse to change and fear the unknown. Without the uniform, McConaghy felt like she had lost a key part of her identity.

She also experienced crippling posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of some of the things she witnessed while on deployment – particularly during her time on the medical recovery aircraft. In 2020, during lockdown, she took an overdose and ended up in intensive care.

Self-reflection

“Thankfully, I was able to get the support I needed afterwards, including counselling that encouraged self-reflection. A lot of us are so busy in life looking outward at what people think of us that we forget to look inward.”

McConaghy says the past few years have given her time to really think about who she is and what she thinks of herself.

“I realised that some of the language I was using on myself was quite negative,” she explains. “One reason I didn’t get help earlier was because I didn’t allow myself to be that woman crying in corner – but I absolutely supported men who did get upset over what we witnessed. I had to learn to be kinder to myself. It’s only ever going to be a good thing for everyone to be more self-reflective. Instead of worrying about what the rest of the world think of you, think about what you think of yourself.”

McConaghy started to use numbers (from one to 10, with 10 being a really

ALL ABOUT LIZ

Liz McConaghy was the longestserving female crew member on the Royal Air Force Chinook Fleet, with a 17-year career.

During this time, she had two deployments to Iraq and 10 to Helmand, Afghanistan, in support of Operation Herrick, which gave her an insightful and very personal perspective on war.

On leaving the RAF in 2019, McConaghy slowly unravelled after a series of traumatic events that compounded her PTSD. This

led to her trying to end her life in 2020.

She went into the veterans mental health care system to help her deal with her demons and finally lay the images she had seen on the battlefield to rest.

She began writing poetry and, subsequently, an autobiography, Chinook Crew Chick, to help her get her thoughts out of her head.

McConaghy is now an ambassador for mental health and, specifically, PTSD in veterans.

STRENGTH IN DIVERSITY

McConaghy is a strong believer that the key to any strong team is diversity, so people learn from each other. It’s something she discovered on the Chinook team.

“The Chinook is a very manual, beefy aircraft, and all the kit that we carried was very heavy. I felt daunted when I arrived, thinking ‘what if I just can’t carry this stuff?’”

It was a struggle, but she found a way: she used to drag it. But then her size was an advantage when it came to other tasks.

“TEAMS – IN THE FORCES AND IN THE CIVILIAN WORLD – ARE BASED ON TRUST. IF PEOPLE DON’T TRUST YOU BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT SEEING THE TRUE YOU, THEN THAT’S WHEN THINGS START TO GO AWRY”

“Some of the bigger guys couldn’t get underneath or down the side of the vehicles in the aircraft to strap them to the floor, but I could shimmy down quickly and secure them. Since then, I have been a strong believer that the more diverse you make your team, the stronger it will be. And that diversity comes in all sorts of ways – upbringing, gender, shape, size, religion, culture. You need people that think differently and do things differently in order to learn and to grow.”

happy place) to describe how she is feeling. She asks her friends and family what their number is to see how they are, as well as checking in with herself.

“It gives you the opportunity to be honest about your mental health without necessarily having to give an explanation. People know then to keep an eye on you, but it also means you can monitor your own mental health so much better,” she says.

“If the number is staying low for a while, I reach out and get help. Coming back to making fundamental change, this was something I never did before and it has been transformative.

“How refreshing would it be if a CEO stood in front of all their employees and said: ‘Guys, I’m really struggling today.’ Then people would know they needed extra support, but it also instils that confidence that it’s OK to be honest about your mental health. You set the example and you lead by example.”

Find your purpose

Raising awareness of the importance of speaking out about – and being honest about –our mental health is what drives McConaghy today. “As a leader, if you know what motivates people in your team, you will get the best out of them,” she says.

“The thing that’s really given me my purpose back was writing my book and doing the motivational talks. Getting that message out about mental health and helping people is what I am passionate about.

“I have learned over the years that change won’t kill you – and it’s is one of the things you can only really reflect on once it’s happened. You can look back and say, well, actually, that really was worth doing.

“Change is probably the scariest thing in foresight, but actually the most useful thing in hindsight.”

Louise Parfitt is editor of Edge

Chart a new path

Knowing when to implement change is key to an organisation’s growth, but how do you ensure that the course you plot will lead to long-lasting transformation?

Writing Ronan Cloud

In a year of elections around the globe and shifting political landscapes, change is omnipresent – and with change comes disruption, which is often viewed negatively. Yet, for many, disruption can be a powerful catalyst for transformation and, ultimately, growth.

With so much transformation on the horizon – and the UK already seeing it in action, mere weeks after the general election – how can companies, individuals and organisations harness and drive meaningful change? And how can communication play a pivotal role in turning change into lasting impact?

Change is inevitable – so how do you deal with it?

My two-year old daughter is about to go through potty training and I am petrified. But with the right plan in place, sound advice from books and a clear communication strategy, I feel prepared to make the change succeed (he says!).

Away from nursery, there are 335 new MPs going back to school to learn the political ropes in Westminster – and there is a lot to do.

Take the energy crisis. The cost of energy in the UK has skyrocketed over the past 14 years – in no small part because of the country’s reliance on imported energy. Just three days into its administration, the Labour

government lifted a decade-long onshore windfarm ban to energise (pardon the pun) the UK’s renewable energy sector overnight. Sometimes, radical action is needed to resolve radical problems.

With such action, though, will come the need for companies that act in a certain way –out of necessity or opportunity – to change. And it won’t stop at simply a department’s strategic direction. Regulatory changes, policies that alter investor confidence, or broader, legislative impacts could cause upheaval to certain sectors or subsectors in a short space of time. Companies can let change happen to them, or embrace it. The huge positive about transformation is that it can stimulate innovation and open up new opportunities for growth. If that’s the case, then what do companies need to do to deliver meaningful change, and how can they make sure it is long-lasting?

The power of communication

Communicating properly with your stakeholders and key audiences is crucial in delivering meaningful change programmes. Without it –as we, at Copper, found in our recent change management report – many promising and well thought-out change programmes can fail for lack of buy-in.

For those who don’t work in it day in, day

out, developing high-quality communications can feel like a tricky task. So we have identified five central requirements for delivering meaningful, permanent transformation.

1

Leadership: Behavioural change, central to all ‘change programmes’, involves convincing people on an ongoing basis, to ensure they fully grasp and believe in the programme. To get people to embrace major change – particularly when it requires them to alter how they operate, or even their daily lives – they need a vision to buy into and a leader to believe in. This is your WHY. Why are you making this change, and what will you achieve by doing so?

2 Understanding: Once you have articulated your vision, it’s time to announce and reinforce it at all levels. Understanding exactly WHAT you want to do differently, and translating this into what it means to people, is essential.

3

Advocacy: No major change initiative will last unless there are champions embedded within the wider organisation, spreading your message – otherwise known as ‘advocacy building’. Having advocates from the outset of a change programme increases the likelihood of buy-in from others – in turn creating a snowball effect that helps deliver lasting change. It also helps stakeholders feel a sense of ownership for

the change initiative, and can put the impact of disruption into perspective.

4

Adapt: Organisations must evolve their approach as views, opinions and insights are gathered – or they risk losing trust among stakeholders. Taking feedback on board and adapting demonstrates flexibility, and shows that you are truly committed to collaborating with those affected.

5

Sustain: Change is a marathon, not a sprint. Effective change programmes take months –sometimes years. Once you have outlined your plans, it is important to follow up with regular communications, broken down into achievable, practical steps, to maintain momentum.

B ringing stakeholders along for the journey

Making a change is one thing; making it last is another. We have worked with a range of clients in the infrastructure space to embed new processes and projects, and effective communication has always been central to success.

For example, Copper recently helped deliver a major change programme for a public sector organisation with a huge portfolio of more than 60 new infrastructure projects over the next three years. The organisation recognised that it

“HAVING ADVOCATES FROM THE OUTSET OF A CHANGE PROGRAMME INCREASES THE LIKELIHOOD OF BUY-IN FROM OTHERS – IN TURN CREATING A SNOWBALL EFFECT THAT HELPS DELIVER LASTING CHANGE”

had to change the way staff and consultant teams work, which meant adopting new practices to improve efficiency. In essence, it had to initiate disruptive change, and Copper was brought in to support that.

After gathering insights from employees, our key takeaway was a sense of cynicism across the business, with some staff members feeling change was happening “to them” rather than “with them”. This required the team to develop a bespoke internal communications campaign that engaged employees meaningfully from the outset.

First, we understood what different departments and the individuals within them were keen to see from the change. We then delivered tailored content for each department to articulate the specific benefits of the new working practices and why they were being introduced, to enhance understanding.

Alongside this, we brought in leaders to work alongside employees, to develop ways of working collaboratively. This included running employee forums, providing clear and transparent updates on the project directly to staff to minimise misinformation, and implementing responsive feedback mechanisms.

Our initial evaluation showed perceptions had improved – proving that embedding stakeholders within the project early, and gaining buy-in through reliable communication, does make a positive difference.

Applying this to you

• Organisations: Leverage disruption to drive positive change by adopting robust communication and engagement strategies.

• Leaders: Prioritise transparency, inclusivity, and trust-building in all change initiatives.

• Stakeholders: Engage proactively and constructively in transformation processes, to ensure your voice contributes to the future of the organisation of which you are a part. While disrupting processes may seem counterproductive in the short term, having the foresight to know when to change tack is key to growth. With the right communication strategy, it can lead to powerful development. As we navigate this era of change, embracing disruption with effective communication and strategic planning will not only alleviate resistance, but also foster a more resilient and forward-thinking workforce.

Find out more: copperconsultancy.com/what-we-do/ change-management Ronan Cloud is director of economic development at Copper Consultancy

Psychological safety first

In times of great change, maintaining psychological wellbeing within your organisation is crucial

Venturing into periods of change without a solid foundation of psychological safety risks cultivating a toxic culture, leading to increased resistance, miscommunication and conflict.

So, building this foundation is essential for your organisation to navigate change effectively. Here’s how you can establish and sustain psychological safety.

Establish a foundation of psychological safety

Psychological safety must be deeply ingrained in the organisational culture before significant change can take place. Without it, existing pockets of toxicity can spread more widely throughout teams and the organisation, exacerbating the challenges associated with change.

By Gina Battye

cultivating strong interdepartmental relations, cooperation, transparency, knowledge sharing, collaborative problem solving, and making collective decisions that transcend organisational boundaries.

To create a psychologically safe workplace, start by identifying and addressing areas of toxicity across the five levels of culture.

The five levels of culture

Personal culture: this is the core of individual beliefs, values and behaviours that shape each employee’s contribution to the workplace. Focus on developing emotional intelligence, self-awareness, authenticity, personal accountability, motivation, work ethic, resilience, and effective coping mechanisms.

1-2-1 culture: this relates to direct interactions between individuals, such as manager-employee relationships or peer-to-peer interactions. Cultivate effective communication skills, trust, feedback mechanisms and conflict-resolution approaches to strengthen these interactions.

Team culture: this involves the dynamics, interactions and norms within specific teams or workgroups. Promote cohesion, shared goals, role clarity, inclusivity and collaboration. A positive team culture enhances teamwork, boosts productivity and supports innovation.

Collaboration culture: at this level, the focus shifts to interactions and collaborations among different departments or teams. Emphasise

Organisation culture: the highest level, this encompasses the overarching values, norms, policies and practices that define the workplace environment. It is shaped by leadership styles, organisational structure and systems, communication channels, reward systems, and alignment of values with strategic goals.

A strong organisational culture enhances employee engagement, morale, organisational effectiveness and the reputation of the company.

Address toxicity

To effectively address areas of toxicity within your organisation, implement a comprehensive and targeted approach.

Diagnose root causes: accurately identify the underlying issues contributing to toxicity at each of the five levels of culture. Use solutions such as Lux, the Psychological Safety Institute’s diagnostic tool, to gather robust data on these root causes.

Targeted interventions: use insights from Lux to develop and implement targeted interventions aimed at addressing the root causes of toxicity.

Raise awareness: educate all employees on the importance of psychological safety and the value of bringing their authentic self to work. Conduct workshops and training sessions to raise awareness, encourage a shared understanding of its significance, and highlight the role each person plays in creating a healthy workplace culture.

Train leaders and managers: equip leaders and managers with the skills necessary to transform toxic cultures and create psychologically safe environments. Offer training programmes focused on psychological safety, workplace culture, emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, and authentic leadership.

Enhance communication skills: ensure all employees have the communication skills to contribute to a positive workplace culture. Provide training on communication fundamentals,

including navigating conversations, active listening, constructive feedback, conflict resolution, and effective collaboration.

Understand team dynamics: take the time to understand your team’s dynamics. Establish personal and professional boundaries and learn about each member’s work, communication and celebration preferences. Organise team discussions to share these insights, navigate differences, and leverage this knowledge to create an environment where everyone can thrive and collaborate more effectively.

Create safe spaces: develop and maintain spaces where employees feel safe to participate actively.

Revise policies and systems: review and update organisational policies and systems to support a culture of psychological safety. Implement practices that promote transparency, fairness and accountability.

Proactively addressing these areas, as a starting point, is essential to cultivating a healthy and resilient workplace culture.

Sustain psychological safety

Once a healthy workplace culture is established, maintaining psychological safety during periods of change becomes more manageable. With a strong

“TAKE THE TIME TO UNDERSTAND YOUR TEAM’S DYNAMICS”

foundation, individuals and teams can communicate effectively, resolve conflicts, demonstrate resilience, collaborate and navigate workplace scenarios confidently.

The imperative of psychological safety

The key to navigating periods of change is to have psychological safety firmly in place beforehand. Without it, even the simplest changes can cause significant disruption. Ensure that your organisation prioritises and maintains psychological safety to thrive in times of transformation.

By cultivating a culture that values and upholds psychological safety, leaders can create a healthy, resilient and adaptable organisation, ready to face the challenges of change.

Gina Battye is the founder and CEO of the Psychological Safety Institute. Her mission is to create work environments in which people thrive. Battye’s expertise has been sought by the world’s largest multinational corporations, spanning countries and cultures. As the visionary behind the Five Pillars of Psychological Safety, the Hierarchy of Psychological Safety, and Lux, the psychological safety diagnostic tool, her contributions have earned widespread recognition. She is also the author of The Authentic Organisation: How to Create a Psychologically Safe Workplace

FEEL INSPIRED.

Have you seen our Member Stories yet? We’ve been publishing stories from across our community to help inspire and get a glimpse into other people’s leadership journeys.

Find out what they said.

Go to our website and look for 'Community'.

SETTING THE LEADERSHIP AGENDA

Going the distance

Training for and completing a marathon offer interesting parallels with the challenges of leadership

arlier this year, I took on the exhilarating challenge of running the Manchester Marathon, a feat I completed in a new personal-best time.

As leaders, we are always striving to improve and push our limits.

The word marathon is often used metaphorically to describe any long, arduous and sustained effort that requires perseverance, endurance and stamina. Much like leadership, it signifies an endeavour that is not quick nor easy, but that demands a prolonged commitment and the ability to overcome obstacles and setbacks along the way.

As I reflect on my journey to the finish line, I want to talk about how the preparation for – and undertaking of – a marathon mirrors the challenges faced by new and aspiring leaders, and share with you some valuable lessons from my experience.

Embrace the journey, not just the destination

The real value of running a marathon isn’t in crossing the finish line; it’s in the months of preparation, the small victories, and the camaraderie of fellow runners.

Each training run, early morning and moment of doubt and triumph contributes to the overall experience and that ultimate feeling of personal accomplishment.

In the same way, the notion that leadership is a destination is a fallacy that often hinders personal and professional development. As leaders, especially as young or aspiring ones, it’s incredibly important to recognise that leadership is an evolving process, not a fixed point of achievement.

By Mel Robinson, deputy CEO, Institute of Leadership

Celebrate milestones along the way I vividly remember the moment I achieved a new personal best in my training runs. A small win in the grand scheme of a marathon, but a milestone that boosted my confidence and determination to keep going significantly. As leaders, we are often guilty of not celebrating the ‘little’ milestones we pass along our journey. These seemingly small wins are catalysts for greater achievements to come. Recognising and celebrating these crucial markers of growth – whether it’s completing a successful project, receiving positive feedback, or establishing a new working relationship – helps boost morale and reinforce the progress being made that can otherwise be overlooked. Each small victory

ASK

MEL: INSIGHTS FOR ASPIRING

LEADERS

Q: How can I stay motivated following a setback or during a challenging time?

“AS LEADERS, WE ARE OFTEN GUILTY OF NOT CELEBRATING THE ‘LITTLE’ MILESTONES. THESE SEEMINGLY SMALL WINS ARE CATALYSTS FOR GREATER ACHIEVEMENTS TO COME”

A: Setbacks are unavoidable in leadership, much like injuries in marathon training; they often catch us off guard but are an inevitable part of the journey.

When faced with challenges, take time to first acknowledge and reflect on them, just as you would adapt your training after an injury.

Set manageable goals to rebuild confidence and don’t hesitate to seek support from mentors or colleagues – their encouragement can be invaluable.

Remember, setbacks are opportunities for growth, not roadblocks. Embrace these moments as learning experiences and use them to strengthen your skills.

is a stepping stone that builds confidence and character, encouraging us to strive for even bigger and better things.

Expect bumps in the road

As with most ambitious goals, my journey to the Manchester Marathon finish line was not, by any stretch of the imagination, linear. The pressure of setting a new personal-best time, along with unexpected injuries during training, meant there were occasions when I felt my goal slipping away.

These moments were challenging, but they taught me resilience. Successful leaders know that setbacks and failures offer the most valuable lessons. They make victories sweeter and provide experiences that contribute to long-term success.

Setbacks are not the end of the journey, but rather a part of it. When we face obstacles, we have an opportunity to grow, adapt, and come back stronger. Embracing this mindset in leadership is critical for success.

Build a support network

Running a marathon may seem like a solitary pursuit, but the truth is, like leadership, it’s the people around us who make the journey meaningful. My training group became my pillars of support during times of doubt and uncertainty. We leaned on one another, shared insights, and learned together through the entirety of the training process. Without them there to support me, I am not so confident I would have made it across the finish line.

In leadership, building a strong support network of mentors, colleagues and peers is invaluable. These relationships provide guidance, encouragement, and diverse perspectives that enrich our journey and make accomplishments far more fulfilling.

Final thoughts

Even as an avid sportsperson, who has tackled various challenges over the years, each marathon brings new lessons and opportunities for growth.

In my training group, some of us were seasoned runners, while others were beginners and new to running. Each person, whether they were on their first or fifth marathon, contributed value to our collective effort, with unique perspectives, words of encouragement, and their own expertise.

Leadership, too, thrives on diversity of experience and perspective. Embracing this diversity and recognising the value each individual brings – irrespective of their

Nominations for the Leadership Awards are drawing to a close, and what an incredible year it’s shaping up to be! We’ve been overwhelmed by the outstanding submissions we’ve received.

As a judge on this year’s panel, I have the privilege of witnessing first hand the breadth of remarkable accomplishments in our leadership community. This event is truly special in that it celebrates the diverse talent and potential in leaders, demonstrating that great leadership transcends age, experience or tenure.

This year, I am especially excited to present the award for Emerging Young Leaders. Recognition of young and rising stars is crucial for nurturing the next generation of leaders. Not only does it

validate their early achievements, but also motivates them to continue pursuing their goals, while inspiring others to strive for excellence – which is, of course, central to our mission.

The shortlist will soon be announced, so keep an eye on our LinkedIn page for more news. Whether you’ve made the shortlist or are simply passionate about celebrating leadership, this event promises to be a memorable evening. Members and non-members alike are welcome to attend, so secure your tickets now to be part of this exciting celebration.

When: Friday 15 November

Where: Hilton London Bankside For tickets visit leadership.global

background or level of experience – is vital for building cohesive teams and achieving shared goals. By harnessing our collective strengths and supporting one another, we can all reach new heights of success and fulfilment in our leadership journeys.

Do you have a question for Mel? Send us a message on LinkedIn @The Institute of Leadership or email us at membership@leadership.global

MEL’S CALENDAR: SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON GREAT LEADERSHIP

Lend me your ears

Communication is the language of leadership, so how can organisations set up their leaders for success?

Writing Steve Hayes

Engaging effectively with managers is central to any organisation’s success, yet the model of communication businesses employ rarely reflects the unique and pivotal role their leaders play.

What can organisations do to set up leaders in their organisation to succeed, and what role do leaders play in making this happen?

Four key principles sit at the heart of effective engagement.

We must treat our leaders as a  distinct internal audience

This might sound obvious, but it is rarely done consistently.

It has been said that “communication is the language of leadership” and research backs this up. Studies have demonstrated that up to 85% of colleagues rely on their manager for communication, yet as few as one in three feels their manager does this effectively.

This is just a flavour of research that demonstrates the potential for organisations to make transformational improvements in how we engage our colleagues and the pivotal role leaders play in this.

It is no exaggeration to say that the extent to which we empower our leaders to be great communicators, and harness their collective power, can be the difference between success and failure. However, this is only achievable if our leaders are equipped with the knowledge and tools to keep colleagues informed and engaged.

Treating leaders as a distinct audience should be a fundamental principle at the heart of every colleague-engagement strategy. This doesn’t just mean engaging leaders on particularly important news – it means seeing them as a driving force in our organisations; a group of colleagues that needs and deserves a different mode of communication to enable them to do their job.

To do this, we must think about how we can create and embed communities of leaders in our organisations. Communication platforms dedicated to your leaders, a simple visual identity for your leadership communication, regular events that give leaders the opportunity to come together – these are just a few examples of how you can engender a sense that you appreciate your leaders and create a collective sense of responsibility and ownership.

Keep it simple. As a starting point, at

GreenSquareAccord (GSA) we created a visual identity called GSA Leaders to elevate our communication with managers. Just including this identity on something as simple as an email or briefing has made a real difference in our relationship with leaders and the expectation placed on them when a piece of communication lands.

Manager and non-manager is, of course, not the only distinction to consider. We must be aware of the unique roles the different layers of leadership play in our organisations and have a tailored engagement approach for each.

A supervisor and a head of service both lead people, but the challenges they face, and their communication needs, will reflect the unique requirements of their role.

Timing is critical

An integral part of engaging leaders is giving them the opportunity to digest news before their team members find out. One of the worst mistakes organisations make is to convey messages to everyone at the same time. It instantly puts leaders on the back foot, because they face questions on something they are only just learning about.

When this happens repeatedly, your organisation will appear disjointed and incoherent, and you disempower and disenfranchise your leaders. You also seriously risk derailing important projects.

Think about how you can bring your leaders into the loop, to give them the time they need to digest what the message means for their colleagues, and work out how they will engage team members and pre-empt questions that they are likely to get.

A well-timed manager briefing that lands even a week before everyone else receives news, especially where there is a call to action, can make the world of difference in terms of how your wider colleagues engage.

“ONE OF THE WORST MISTAKES ORGANISATIONS MAKE IS TO CONVEY MESSAGES TO EVERYONE AT THE SAME TIME”

Carefully consider – especially when the news you are sharing is significant and may drive queries or concerns – when each layer of leadership in your organisation finds out.

A senior manager finding out at the same time as the managers in their teams can be just as challenging and damaging.

Give leaders tools to help them engage their colleagues

We must think about tools we can create to help our leaders engage with their teams. This can be the difference between someone taking the time to engage their colleagues or

Communication

thinking it’s just too much effort alongside their day job.

For bigger projects, this could be a toolkit that sets out the timeline, a clearly stated ask of your leaders, and activities they can run to engage their colleagues. For other messages, it may be as simple as a few PowerPoint slides that they can run through in their next team meeting. One size rarely fits all, so it’s important that your solutions match the diverse needs of your teams.

More broadly, ask yourself how well you are communicating your progress against your business strategy objectives. Our leaders play a crucial role in bringing our purpose and objectives to life, and ensuring colleagues understand the link between their dayto-day work and the wider goals of your organisation. The more tools you create and the easier you make it for leaders to make this connection, the more engaged your colleagues will be.

We must listen to our leaders

There’s a reason I’ve saved this one for last; it’s because everything above should be shaped by your leaders. We must take time to understand them and find solutions that work for them. Our managers are in tune with the challenges facing the colleagues they lead. They understand the demands on their time, technological obstacles and a whole range of other factors that will influence the style of communication that works best. This is a crucial source of intelligence, and we must tap into it.

Ahead of the launch of a new culture project at GSA, we ran workshops with leaders across our organisation to get a sense of what would work best to engage colleagues. For some, a digital solution was just what they needed; for others – especially our care teams – this just wasn’t going to work. We co-created the tools with our leaders as part of their wider engagement with the project. This made a huge difference, so by the time we came round to the wider colleague launch, our leaders were on board, primed and ready to go.

It’s easy to forget a simple truth: most communication and engagement in our organisations is not owned corporately. This is why it matters so much that we empower and equip our leaders with the tools they need to land messages and gather feedback on our behalf.

It’s about creating communities and making our leaders feel special; it’s about understanding their needs and the needs of their teams, and it’s about responding with a consistent communication approach that reflects their fundamental importance.

There is no secret. Like all good communication and engagement, leadership communication should be focused, disciplined and repeatable. It relies on implementing and embedding tried and trusted mechanisms that you can use again and again. It’s a layer of colleague communication that should always be there. This is what our leaders and our organisations need and deserve.

It’s quite simple: if we don’t engage leaders in our businesses in a way that befits their importance, we set them – and, by extension, our organisation – up to fail.

Steve Hayes has more than a decade of experience leading communication for not-for-profit organisations. He moved into communications and PR after a career as a newspaper journalist, and has since led a series of award-winning transformations of communications functions for large organisations. Since joining the social housing sector in 2014, he has overseen communication for the sector’s professional body – the Chartered Institute of Housing – and led the communications function at some of the UK’s largest social housing providers during times of major change. He is a leading voice on communication within the social housing and not-for-profit sectors. He is now director of corporate affairs and communications at GreenSquareAccord, and delivered a keynote session on leadership communication at Leadership Live 2024

Constellation leadership

Does a modern world need a different leadership approach?

Writing Danny Wareham

It may surprise you to learn that the study of leadership is a relatively new field. Though we have always had leaders, ‘leadership’ didn’t appear as a dictionary definition until 1821, and the first academic research wasn’t considered until the middle of the 19th century.

From early studies through to today, a leader has always been a person. The discussion then focuses on whether it’s the traits and attributes (Great Man and Behavioural Styles theories), the context and situation (Situational and Contingency theories), or the relationships between leaders and followers (Transformational and Leader-Member Exchange theories) – or some combination – that creates the leader.

These models developed alongside the textile mills of the 19th century and the production lines of the 20th. In these contexts, hierarchy was the norm and organisational design was simple and linear. However, today’s matrixed organisations are complex, with individuals potentially operating via multiple accountabilities and reporting lines. Given the range of responsibilities, challenges and pressures facing contemporary leaders, locating all required attributes, for all situations, all contexts and for all followers within a single individual is unrealistic.

“THE LEADERSHIP ROLE IS NO LONGER A PERSON... CULTURE HAS BECOME THE LEADER”

Sharing the load

This has moved research towards ideas of shared or distributed leadership. In these approaches, leadership is external to the group, usually via a governance team, with group members then having some level of autonomy.

This approach is used within some educational settings in the UK, where several schools might be grouped together to form an academy. While an academy has governance from a board or local authority, which identifies overall goals and budgets, the individual schools control how the budgets and approaches are applied locally.

A more familiar example might be an agile project. The overall objectives are managed by a product manager, while a scrum master is positioned within each sprint team. The sprint members have autonomy in how the goals are prioritised and achieved, within the confines of the methodology and the externally managed objectives.

This whistlestop brings us broadly up to date with the history of leadership theories, of which there are many. In 1974, leadership author Ralph Stogdill claimed that “there are almost as many different definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define the concept”. Consider how many more models have been added since then.

These theories might seem varied. But they share three commonalities:

I. The leader has always been a person II. The leader defines the destination (ie, vision) III. The leader influences how we get things done (ie, culture)

If the direction is clear, and the rules (both implicit and explicit) of ‘how we get things done around here’ are understood by group members, this offers an intriguing question…

Does a leader need to be a person?

It might sound fantastical. But there are examples of high-performing, self-organising groups driven by a shared goal and common rules of engagement.

For example, if an earthquake occurs, the purpose becomes clear for all: we must save lives. We might find physically fit individuals are the first to start moving rubble and rescuing people. Wellconnected individuals might be on their phones, arranging emergency help. Medically trained individuals would be tending to the injured.

No-one has organised this. There’s no traditional leader providing mission statements or direction. Everyone understands what needs to be accomplished, and everyone knows how they can best contribute towards that shared objective – and, importantly, has permission to do so.

It’s not leader-less. The leadership role is no longer a person; culture and a shared goal orientates the team, its approaches, decision-making, and behaviours. Culture has become the leader.

This is the basis of Constellation Leadership – a newly proposed and academically researched model, unveiled earlier this year at Leadership Live.

Star-gazing

In Constellation Leadership, each professional is an expert – a star – in their own right, surrounded by other professional ‘stars’. How do we create

“THIS IS THE BASIS OF CONSTELLATION LEADERSHIP – A NEWLY PROPOSED AND ACADEMICALLY RESEARCHED MODEL, UNVEILED AT LEADERSHIP LIVE”

dynamic networks of the appropriate groups of stars – constellations – to achieve a specific goal?

If we revisit the example of an agile project, we can see parallels between the leadership approach in the semi-distributed sprint and constellation leadership. Under what conditions could the scrum master (leader) be removed from the sprint process and performance would be either unaffected or would improve? (See Figures 1 and 2).

The study interviewed agile practitioners from a variety of backgrounds, industries and experience levels, across civilian and non-civilian participants to test the model, focusing on three main aspects within an agile sprint:

I. What does success mean to team members?

II. What are the preferred leadership approaches? III Could the scrum master be removed from a sprint without detriment to performance?

Competency, style and success

The first research finding was that the perceived competency of individuals within the team affected both the requested leadership style and the measures of success (Figure 3). With lower experience, short-term, transactional success measures and directive approaches were the norm. Participants prioritised clearing the project to-do list (the ‘backlog’ in agile) and delivering on time as priorities. In experienced groups, the quality of the work handed over to the next stage and the team’s shared learnings were viewed as successes.

Leadership approaches followed a similar position. Low experience correlated with directive or instructional requirement; high-experience participants preferred an autonomous, hands-off approach to leadership (see Figure 4).

The more experienced individuals are perceived within a team, the more likely that the team unit will value learning together and delivering quality autonomously over a directive leadership approach focusing on volume of work items.

Figure 1: Traditional leadership in an agile sprint

Figure 2: Constellation leadership in an agile sprint

There was an outlier to this data: non-civilians. For participants operating in military contexts, experience or perceived competency didn’t significantly impact the likelihood of success. There’s a perceived acceptance that everyone is already an expert and that a group member can trust that they will perform when called upon (Figure 5).

To achieve the same level of team trust and psychological safety in a civilian context could take up to eight years, the study suggests.

Is smaller better?

A second, more surprising, finding was that organisation size played a part in the perception of success, preferred leadership style and likelihood of

the sprint being a high-performance environment. The data suggest autonomy and trust is greater in smaller organisations. There is, however, a tipping point. As group size increases, we begin to see a request for defensive leadership (“Leave me to do my job and stop others putting work into my pile”) and, as we approach 150+ employees, even with high experience, there is a reversion to transactional performance. It means that, even where individual competency is high, the organisation’s size begins to undermine the competency, removing the autonomy and reverting to short-term success metrics and associated behaviours. Larger organisations appear to deliver lower-quality work.

Non-civilian participants understand this potential risk, which might be related to a psychological threshold known as Dunbar’s number – a suggested limit for the number of social connections humans can sustain – as military organisations intentionally ‘silo’ groups to a maximum of 150 individuals.

Is it time for leadership to change?

The research purpose was to introduce and study a new relational, theoretical model for Constellation Leadership, which asks if a leader can be the environment. Other distributed models have been shown to be a significant predictor of team effectiveness and deliver better performance than any other HR measure currently available.

It was anticipated that greater perceived competency and the trust to use that competency towards a shared goal would allow leadership to become a method, rather than a position.

What was not anticipated was the impact of the organisation’s size. Larger may offer opportunity for in-role specialisation and increased capability, but group size may frustrate the potential benefits, leading to lessened ownership and innovation. But this doesn’t need to be the case. If we can create the team psychological safety that informs members that each other member is competent, dependable and working towards the same overall goal, and we each understand the culture of how we get things done, then these ‘constellations’ can outperform traditionally led teams.

As with all leadership models, it is not necessarily suitable for all contexts and situations. Traditional vertical leadership is still required in creating the appropriate constellations. But, as organisations struggle to handle the changes in contemporary working approaches, demands and risks, Constellation Leadership offers an opportunity to revolutionise how we lead.

The world has changed since the mills and production lines of the 20th century. Perhaps it’s time for leadership to potentially change, too?

Danny Wareham is an organisational psychologist, accredited coach, speaker and a certified psychometrician

Figure 3: Success priority by experience

Figure 4: Leadership approach by experience

Figure 5: Success likelihood by experience

Making it happen

Micro power

How little things can make a success of your change programmes

By

Sarah Langslow

any businesses approach strategic change through large-scale transformation programmes. Yet a large proportion fail to deliver what they set out to achieve. The principal causes? Employee resistance and management behaviours that do not support the desired changes.

Long-term change is more likely to be achieved when it occurs as a series of micro-changes. Deconstructing change into small steps makes it more manageable, yet the cumulative impact over time remains substantial. Importantly, approaching change in this way recognises the profound influence of the everyday habits and behaviours that translate planned change into reality.

Change happens through thousands of individual choices about what to do, what to say, how to behave, and what to prioritise. These ‘micro-interactions’ may seem small and insignificant individually, but, collectively, they are how organisational strategy is delivered.

One way to consider how microinteractions can drive your change programme is by using the Leadership Shadow framework, a concept created by Goldman Sachs. It helps you review your change objectives and assess what adjustments need to be made across four areas of behaviour.

What you say

The way you talk about change influences how those around you relate to it. Do you frame it as a necessity or an opportunity? Are you informing your team or inviting them into a conversation to co-create change? Do you seek to build ownership throughout your team or maintain central control? Consider the effect you want to have when talking about change and use it to guide each micro-interaction.

How you act

How, when and how often you create space to talk about change all have an effect. Do you create space for discussion or focus on driving your agenda? Do you listen to and act on suggestions, or shut them down? Your energy is also contagious. Do you see change as exciting or scary? Are you seeking to instil urgency or maintain calm? Notice your own relationship to change and consider what one you would like to create within your team.

What you prioritise

This is how you show what matters to you. What do you spend your time on? What do you deal with quickly and what do you let slip down the to-do list? Look at your calendar and review how you spent your time in the past few weeks. If that was all the information I had, what does it suggest is important to you?

What and how you measure

“DECONSTRUCTING CHANGE INTO SMALL STEPS MAKES IT MORE MANAGEABLE”

What do you choose to reward and recognise, and for what do you hold your team accountable? What passes you by and gets ignored? What you focus on will drive your team’s behaviour and, ultimately, the success (or otherwise) of your change programme. Instead of seeing micro-interactions as a by-product of your change objectives, you can significantly increase your chances of success, and the effectiveness of your leadership, by integrating them into your planning. Sarah Langslow is an executive coach and leadership development specialist, and author of the book Do Sweat The Small Stuff

Root and branch reform

Leaders can navigate disruption more effectively if they are aware of their own behaviours, beliefs and assumptions

Writing Dr Maria Katsarou-Makin

The ability to lead though disruption is more imperative than ever, because the demands and expectations that leaders now face have no precedent. Any given situation requires physical and psychological resilience to navigate increasingly complex workplaces effectively.

As a leader, you have to consider a multitude of aspects: people dynamics; cultural sensitivities; and internal and external stakeholders within a sociopolitical context. This is happening in a world that is more interconnected than ever before. But what do leaders need when they are already overextended and overstretched?

Leaders are already doing their best to change and adapt to navigate these complexities, so we probably don’t need more change, but rather a deeper insight to ourselves.

Leadership is a reflective practice, yet we get carried away by the amount of tasks and doing,

and forget or neglect to pause and be, and look inside ourselves.

As humans, we all have a creative side – the behaviours we consciously choose on a daily basis, which include our competencies and various behaviours. For example, we collaborate with our teams, achieve results, and may have a strategic focus. If leadership were a tree, those would be the trunk and its branches – that is, anything we see above the ground.

There are also the roots, the less obvious, less conscious, and more reactive tendencies. These are the product of our past, how we were brought up, and they constitute our sets of beliefs and assumptions about the world. In certain cases, they might have been chosen strategies of our childhood, to ensure we got what we wanted. As we grow older, some of these strategies might become redundant or limit our effectiveness, so it’s important to be aware of them. For example, people pleasing, or seeking perfection in anything and everything, and performing at almost heroic levels to achieve this perfection.

During times of disruption and extreme pressure, these tendencies come to the forefront like uninvited gremlins. The intention may be positive (to self-protect), yet the impact is not as positive for the people around us, who are on the receiving end of this leadership style, which can look manipulative, controlling and autocratic.

The paradox – and the challenge – is that it’s not easy to get rid of these seemingly dysfunctional behaviours, because they often have a positive payoff for the person in question. In the case of people pleasing, for example, it could be that, through compliance, I get someone’s acknowledgement and respect – perhaps through the achievement of flawless results.

The question that arises, however, is “at what cost?” These reactive tendencies take up a lot of energy – rather like Superman’s kryptonite taking away his superpower.

We know from neuroscience that, during times of disruption, we tend to go into autopilot, where the brain has less creativity or choice, and its only mandate is to survive. It will revert to the familiar to protect us, which means that those reactive tendencies become even more pronounced. This is usually illustrated in the workplace through extreme behaviours or heroic modes, wanting to fix things, protect, or simply survive. There is always something quite dramatic about those behaviours, because of the energy they take up and the way they affect a person’s demeanour.

Anything we overdo can become a weakness. I always propose looking at behaviours with a dimmer switch, rather than an on-off switch, and asking “when do I have to do more of this and when do I have to do less of a certain

Personal insight

“DURING TIMES OF DISRUPTION, WE TEND TO GO INTO AUTOPILOT, WHERE THE BRAIN’S ONLY MANDATE IS TO SURVIVE”

behaviour”. This gives us more flexibility in our behavioural repertoire.

So, how can we gain this deeper insight as leaders and become more effective with change? I would like to offer several aspects as food for thought:

1

Look into your own family system, the one in which you were brought up. How were responsibilities shared/divided in this family system? How were decisions made? Who was leading on which topic? How was conflict handled? These are just some sample questions that could shed light on what you are carrying with you as assumptions and beliefs that you don’t even question. For example, if conflict was viewed as something bad, or wasn’t encouraged, it’s more likely that you will be avoiding it as well.

2 Transference to the workplace: Which behaviours from our family system are we transferring to the workplace, often subconsciously? Are you as competitive with colleagues as you were with your sister, for example? Are you still looking for support from your boss as you once did from your father? Are the any other parallels?

3

Explore your drivers: These are unconscious internal pressures that make us do things in certain ways – for example, with speed, perfection, or little emotion. They tend to satisfy inner needs rather than actual events. Examples of drivers include: be strong; be perfect; try hard; hurry up; always please others.

4

Remain open to meaningful feedback from colleagues, your team and other stakeholders.

5

Self-awareness is key. Be aware of our superpowers and our triggers, and of emotional self-regulation – that is, be in touch with one’s emotions, label them, explore them, and make sense of them.

The aim is not to get rid of our reactive tendencies, or shadow side; the aim is to become as conscious of them as possible and measure our progress against three criteria:

■ How often it happens to me

■ How intense the emotion is that I am feeling

■ How fast I recover.

If we see an improvement in all of these dimensions, that is progress.

Being in command of our reactive tendencies will enable leaders to navigate disruption much more effectively and, ultimately, support those around us, too.

Dr Maria Katsarou-Makin is the founder and director of the Leadership Psychology Institute

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it

All organisations need to transform to survive, but change for change’s sake should be avoided at all costs if a business wants to be the best

Writing Alex Adamopoulos

There are many things that Peter Drucker, the renowned management consultant, said in his lifetime that are worth quoting again and again. On the topic of change and transformation, he said: “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”

When we speak to organisations about transformation fatigue, we first acknowledge that we’re all somewhat exhausted with the idea and process of change. We’ve grown cynical of the words ‘change’ and ‘transformation’, and yet we have no words to accurately replace them.

But are the words the problem, or is it the way we interpret and define them? I would argue it’s the latter, or, more specifically, it’s the lack of definition and meaning we give them because we presume others already know what they mean.

Regardless, organisations need to transform; they need to be disruptive to survive and be better than the competition. There’s very little room for failure, despite the whole ‘fail fast’ fad that swept industries over the past two decades because, in an advancing digital world, there is less and less time to stall and start over.

Like ‘transformation’, the term ‘disruption’ is often viewed negatively, but it can be a catalyst for innovation and growth when approached with the right mindset. Social and economic crises accelerate businesses rethinking strategies, adopting new technologies, and attempting to find creative solutions to emerging problems. As a CEO with more than 30 years experience, who has seen failures and successes and led organisations through the process of digital transformation and change programmes, I understand deeply the importance of leadership in navigating change and leveraging the power of disruption.

The starting point must be the leadership team of an organisation first defining and agreeing what it means by ‘change’, ‘transformation’, ‘disruption’, ‘value’, and a host of other buzzwords.

How to change

It’s then about clarity on knowing what to change, what not to change, and why. Not everything is broken in an organisation. It didn’t make it this far by accident. It’s usually successful, but recognises the need to be more responsive, more efficient and more modern in the way it works. This means that transformation is specific to a business challenge and doesn’t always represent the need for the whole organisation to change. In some cases, there will be an impact across the whole, but knowing the ‘what’, the ‘why’ and the ‘why not’ is an important early step before what follows: the ‘how’.

Our approach has allowed us to see how true leadership involves not just steering the ship but also understanding when and how to pivot in response to challenges and opportunities. Crucially, it also involves always knowing what not to change.

As an example, when working with BP, our goal was to drive digital transformation by aligning with its vision of reimagining energy and achieving net zero. We concentrated on enhancing customer experiences, solutions and capabilities, zeroing in on improving payment methods for ROUTEX fuel card users. Through a six-week process of research, design sprints, prototyping and testing, we collaborated to develop a prototype for a mobile payment solution at fuel pumps. This initiative provided BP with valuable insights for creating a minimum viable product (MVP) and reinforced a human-centred design approach, setting a

foundation for disruptive change in its new projects.

As leaders, the ‘how to change’ is a major success factor. Successful transformations are those where leaders are well versed in the programme, visibly supportive, and actively engaged. It’s a bit like when you hear a CEO say ‘we’re all in sales’ or ‘we win together, we lose together’ – in other words, transformation isn’t just the CEO’s job.

When we get to the ‘how’, we emphasise the development of clear goals across the teams that will be leading these complex programmes of work. We talk about what we should measure, and what we might want to stop measuring. We ask hard questions about understanding whether what we’re building and working on delivers tangible and measurable value. This is where leaders can be positively disruptive, challenge everything, but be ultra-supportive, and inspect the organisation’s ability and capacity to absorb change.

You’ve probably heard of the classic triangle of people, process, and technology. If you look at research on transformation programmes and why they fail, it’s because there is a greater emphasis on process and technology than people. Where leadership can make the most impact is identifying the gap in skills and capabilities in the teams and in other leaders. Aligning skills with investments in modern technology and improved processes is what makes the convergence of that triangle work best.

My company, Emergn, brings this convergence to organisations through a process that helps them rapidly embrace successful ways of working and to understand the importance of adopting three core principles: value, flow, and quality (VFQ):

■ Value – instead of focusing on cost, deliver VALUE early and often to increase benefits Knowing what to change

■ Flow – instead of focusing on time, optimise the FLOW of work end to end to improve results

■ Quality – instead of focusing on scope, focus on discovering QUALITY with fast feedback to enhance experiences.

Together, these principles create a lens through which firms can follow a well-lit transformation path and see early results, which encourages them to continue without experiencing fatigue.

I believe the essence of successful digital transformation lies in how we organise our efforts around understanding and responding effectively to customer priorities. This strategic alignment enables us to redefine ourselves and fosters our ability to thrive. From here, we can move on to go further on the ‘how’ to change by adopting simple steps:

1

Orchestrate teams and processes around the creation and evolution of products and services. This will help you gain valuable insights into what truly matters to customers. This focused approach empowers you to address their most pressing needs and positions you as a pioneer within the industry.

2Empower teams with the skills and capabilities needed for long-term transformation. Investing in their development and education is crucial to ensuring they evolve at the rate of the industry.

3Foster a culture of innovation – once you define the meaning of that word – by encouraging creative thinking and experimentation. Do this by giving teams the freedom to explore new ideas, to test, and to learn. This way, you can drive continuous improvement, stay ahead of industry trends, and deliver cutting-edge solutions.

4Remember it’s your business, not someone else’s, so embed an operating model that works for your firm and leverage the right thinking and practice when you bring in experts to help shape it.

At Emergn, these are the basic principles we believe in and employ. We know from experience that by posing the tough questions, providing strategic guidance for the next steps, and ensuring our client’s journey toward transformation, the chances of success are far more predictable.

My journey as a CEO

I’ve learned that effective leadership isn’t just about steering through uncertainty but also recognising key moments to innovate and pivot strategically. Sometimes, there are blind spots, and you can only react; other times, you have some visibility and time to respond. In both cases, disruption presents opportunities to redefine an approach and get better – just as we teach clients to do. The exam question really exists in two parts: knowing what to change and knowing what to stop doing.

Alex Adamopoulos is CEO of digital consultancy Emergn

Year in the life of an award winner

The Leadership Awards 2024 are fast approaching. We caught up with last year’s winners and asked them what they have learned from their success

Writing Ian Farrell

Our annual awards are a chance to celebrate excellence in leadership, recognising progressive organisations and championing inspiring individuals. Whether you are a young professional or a more experienced senior leader, you can get involved by applying for an award nomination. If you are an IoL Fellow, you can also register your interest in being a judge – and everyone is welcome at the celebration dinner on 15 November 2024. At Edge , we wanted to catch up with some of the winners from 2023 and ask them how their careers have been since their success was recognised.

MICHAEL

FLAHERTY

CV writing, education and training

Winner of Institute Advocate of the Year

What did it mean to win the award?

Winning was an honour that validated my commitment to leadership development. It feels like recognition from my peers, and the IoL, for my work in shaping and supporting leaders, and reminds me of the need to continue advocating for effective leadership practices that drive positive change.

How have the past 12 months been for you?

Incredibly busy! I really haven’t stopped. In my line of work as a CV writer, I encounter a wide range of leadership styles. My role is to understand these and sell my clients’ skills. This year, I’ve worked with a senior leader who had a complex career history and a unique leadership style that didn’t fit traditional moulds. That posed a challenge in how to present their achievements and qualities effectively.

If you could go back 12 months and give yourself a piece of advice, what would it be?

Take more time off to relax and recuperate. Regular breaks and holidays are so important for maintaining mental and physical health. It’s easy to get caught up in the demands of work, but productivity and creativity can suffer without proper rest.

What about the year ahead?

I see a significant opportunity for leaders to make a difference by displaying compassion and empathy within their teams and organisations. In an increasingly fast-paced and high-pressure world, I believe that leaders who prioritise their employees’ emotional and psychological wellbeing can create more resilient, cohesive and motivated teams.

Compassionate leadership leads to higher employee satisfaction, reduced turnover, and a more inclusive workplace. Win-win for everyone!

GABRIELA BARZYK-SHERIFF

Co-founder and trustee at In2MedSchool Winner of Emerging Young Leader award

What did it mean to win the award?

I was very surprised and pleased to be formally recognised for my work by the Institute. Being shortlisted was an achievement in itself, and taking the time to reflect on this award really allowed me to appreciate how much I’ve developed. It’s so easy to get swept up in day-to-day life, so it was great to see that my work and leadership is having an impact.

How have the past 12 months been for you?

Exciting on a personal and professional level: getting married; continuing my work as a doctor in a new hospital; stepping into the role of senior house officer; and seeing positive changes in other organisations with which I am involved.

As a chronic overthinker, navigating self-doubt and imposter syndrome is always a battle. Coming to the end of the first formal stage of my training as a doctor, while managing my passions and work in the widening participation sector, means I’ve had to face up to those doubts about my abilities and skill. By opening up to others, and attending networking events, such as Leadership Live 2024, I’ve got a new perspective and vigour for the coming year.

If you could go back 12 months and give yourself a piece of advice, what would it be?

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

SHENAY CANTELO-POPPE

Director of quality and apprenticeship delivery at Future Talent Learning

Winner of Most Innovative Institute

Approved Programme

What did it mean to win the award?

It was a really motivating way to end the year. Winning the award felt like proper recognition of all our team members’ hard work and dedication.

“NAVIGATING IMPOSTER SYNDROME IS A BATTLE”

Reminding myself of how much each experience teaches you, even if you don’t succeed, is so important. Also that when one door closes, another opens, even though there may be disappointments along the way. To remember that ‘failure’ is a part of the journey.

What about the year ahead?

With lots of change in the world, there is so much opportunity for leaders to make a difference, big or small. Focusing on kind leadership is key, whether that’s by helping colleagues reach their potential, listening attentively, or bringing positive policies and change on a bigger scale. Kindness goes such a long way.

“WE TAKE TEAM MEMBERS ON THE JOURNEY WITH US”

How have the past 12 months been for you?

Perhaps the biggest challenge has been the shift in the Leadership and Management apprenticeship standards. These are being reformed, and we are working hard to ensure our programmes will still deliver incredible learning experiences for leaders and managers. Our approach has been to take our team members on the journey with us, getting their input and thoughts on how we can adapt.

If you could go back 12 months and give yourself a piece of advice, what would it be?

Don’t be afraid to reach out to your network and get different perspectives. That doesn’t mean you always need to take their advice, but at least you have considered varied cognitive divergences.

What about the year ahead?

I hate to sound cliché, but artificial intelligence (AI) is going to be huge. It’s already making a big impact on how leaders lead, learn, write and digest data. We should embrace this and encourage our teams to do so, too. AI is here to stay, so don’t ignore it.

JOHN SILLS

Managing partner, The Foundation Winner of Leadership Book of the Year

What did it mean to win the award?

It was a really special moment. I enjoy writing, so creating the book was a lot of fun. I wasn’t too worried about its ‘success’, as long as I was happy with what I produced. However, I would be lying if I said it wasn’t nice to hear that people were enjoying it. The award was really the icing on the cake.

How have the past 12 months been for you?

Fantastic! Since the book came out, my approach has been to say “yes” to articles, podcasts, presentations. It’s been really energising to have such great conversations. The challenge, of course, is managing time between the book, the business, and my family. I’ve tried to keep a consistent routine, making time for good food, good exercise, and good conversations.

If you could go back 12 months and give yourself a piece of advice, what would it be?

Enjoy it, make the most of it. It’s a lovely time when people are wanting to have interesting conversations, and it won’t always be that way. Also, to place a bet on Labour winning the general election, and a few other sporting moments.

What about the year ahead?

I’m a big fan of most things staying the same. For me, the central tenet of great leadership is to be authentic, and that will be as true in a year as it has always been. However, with the advent of AI, and a changing economy, the opportunity for leaders will be to make sure they keep releasing the potential in the humans who work for organisations, and not just rely on new technology.

“WE HAVE HAD TO CHANGE LEADERS’ MINDSETS”

SARA ANDREWS Chief people officer,

Acacium group

Winner

of Organisation Agility Award and Employee Wellbeing Award

What did it mean to win the awards?

The awards recognise how we have adapted to the changing needs of the healthcare landscape while ‘putting people first’, and validate our expertise in supporting the businesses within the group.

How have the past 12 months been for you?

Transformative, because we have shifted from traditional HR to a proactive and consultative approach. We’ve focused on bringing teams together to collaborate on business solutions, enhancing our understanding of customers and markets by working closely with business leaders. We have had to change leaders’ mindsets to design the organisational structures around business outcomes, rather than individual people. This involves considering the knowledge, skills and competencies needed for high-performance.

If you could go back 12 months and give yourself a piece of advice, what would it be? Allow more time for the team to get comfortable with organisational change. As a leader, you have time to think about change before you discuss it with your team, which gives you a head-start on getting through the change-curve. It’s important not to stretch people too far out of their comfort zones too quickly. It is fine to try something new and ‘course correct’ along the way.

What about the year ahead?

Implementing and adapting to AI and automation will require us all to reassess our skills and prepare for the work we do to change forever. Leaders should nurture teams that are comfortable with data analytics and AI tools, enabling better and faster business insights and decisions.

HANNAH WOOD Research manager, Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust Winner of Digital Leaders Award

What did it mean to win the award?

It made our year. We all worked so hard on the project, for which making a difference to patients’ lives and improving their experiences was our reward. So winning this award was something we were proud to take back to the team. It’s a daily reminder of the hard work and accomplishment.

“DON’T THINK YOU NEED TO KNOW EVERYTHING”

How have the past 12 months been for you?

Managing different personalities and opinions was invaluable. Working with such a varied group of professionals can be challenging, but the different perspectives made the project a success. My approach has been to let these different views be heard and discussed: as a leader, I don’t make the decisions; I lead us to make a collaborative decision.

If you could go back 12 months and give yourself a piece of advice, what would it be?

It’s OK to ask questions. Don’t think you need to know everything. Leadership is about asking the right questions to ensure the team are fully informed. I’d also say trust your instincts. Everyone leads differently, so when someone offers an opinion, listen and reflect, but don’t let it knock your confidence if you aren’t doing things the same way.

What about the year ahead?

We have seen a significant increase in the importance of mental wellbeing at work. I believe the majority of work-related stress is because of leadership, so there will always be the opportunity to make a difference.

GRAEME JACKSON

Civil Service College, Cayman Islands Government Winner of The Leadership Excellence Award (Individual)

What did it mean to win the award?

It was an incredible honour, and meant the world to me. It wasn’t just about personal recognition; it was a celebration of the amazing teamwork and dedication across all the organisations of which I’ve been part. I have benefited from working with some great people, who have supported my development over the years, and I’m passionate about helping others to grow their leadership skills.

How have the past 12 months been for you?

Much of my time has been spent helping senior leadership teams reimagine what is possible, often by taking a fresh look at the resources, systems and talent they already have. I’m still surprised that some companies don’t recognise the value of structured leadership development. You wouldn’t allow an employee to drive a company car without training and a licence, so why allow them to lead and manage your most important resource – your people –without investing in their professional development?

If you could go back 12 months and give yourself a piece of advice, what would it be?

Leaders take risks; don’t get comfortable. Five

“LEADERS TAKE RISKS; DON’T GET COMFORTABLE”

years ago, I decided to challenge myself by doing a PhD on the impact of leadership development on organisational performance, employee engagement, and service delivery. Just over a year ago, I left fulltime employment to complete my studies. It was a risk, but I have completed my PhD and the past year has given me the opportunity to experience a wider range of people and industries.

What about the year ahead?

We are part of an interconnected global economy facing pressure and challenges amid ever-changing tensions. Leaders must emerge, as they have throughout history, to drive meaningful change by focusing on what is possible and impactful.

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Taking a stand for ethics

Leaders are working in an ethical environment that is increasingly volatile. They also face high – and often conflicting – expectations from their stakeholders. In addition, there is mounting pressure for leaders to ‘take a stand’ on specific societal issues, which can often lead to complicated and conflicting expectations. Ethical decision-making becomes even more challenging for leaders working globally, given the distinctive demands of different markets.

Leaders need to think about the future so they can anticipate ethical shocks and build plans to react quickly. A great way to do this is to create hypothetical scenarios to test the resilience of your approaches against a range of possible events. This helps flag any blind spots so that you are able to build the readiness to act ethically in times of crisis.

I recently worked with a leadership team on a real scenario of employees protesting about a business decision, based on a recent experience of one of our clients. The team members had a high level of alignment in how they would handle it. We applied several ethical ‘tests’ to the situation in line with their values, key markers of their identity, and responsibilities to different stakeholders in various regions. Taking a structured approach that weighed the scenario through an ethical lens gave new angles they hadn’t considered.

Ethics as a ‘hard and soft’ skill

It is important to develop ethical leadership as a core skill, rather than just a business function to be implemented. Leaders are increasingly recognising the need to get ahead of issues and define their responsibilities and how to uphold them, so they can avoid

Creating an ethical and open culture

By

Sarah Miller

being in reactive mode when pressure to take stances arises. They also recognise the benefits for their culture – people are able to understand the reason behind decisions and positions, even if they don’t agree with them, helping shape a culture of integrity and trust.

As more leaders understand ethics as a core skill, they take it seriously as something to be built and developed – in themselves, in their people, and into the systems that shape how things work in their companies. I often talk to leaders about paying attention to the hardware and software: building key ethical considerations into operations helps make them stick; building the skills for people to act in line with them brings them to life.

Ethical culture embraces challenge

Encouraging people to know how and when to speak up is a fundamental part of ethical culture. But organisations often take too narrow a view, overly focusing on reporting systems, despite research showing that only half of employees who observe misconduct will report it. To increase the likelihood that people will report, leaders must recognise the importance of fostering an environment where people with different perspectives can deliberate together and challenge each other.

“PEOPLE ARE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND THE REASON BEHIND DECISIONS HELPING SHAPE A CULTURE OF INTEGRITY AND TRUST”

I often hear how hard it is to know how to create the space for respectful debate and constructive challenge – and that it feels even harder with globally distributed, multicultural teams. But when leaders demonstrate that they are open to challenge, and don’t shy away from naming tensions and trade-offs in a decision, people are more likely to raise concerns informally and speak out when they witness or experience misconduct.

Sarah Miller is chief executive at Principia, a leading global advisory firm on organisational ethics

Strategic alignment

Strategic alignment in the age of AI

As global businesses pivot to introduce beneficial AI technology, it’s even more important to align your strategy with your business capabilities

Writing Mike Lenox

In The Boys in the Boat, the 2023 George Clooney-directed film based on a book of the same name, a motley group of American rowers wins gold at the 1936 Olympics against a formidable German crew. Their inspirational success was derived in large part from their ability to achieve alignment – a well-articulated strategy embraced by the athletes, who, quite literally, all pulled in the same direction.

Too often, leaders seek the ‘perfect’ strategy without fully considering or investing in strategic alignment. They analyse the market and copy best practices without doing the hard work of aligning the organisation with their strategic intent. This is a recipe for disappointment or failure.

The truth is, alignment may be more important than a ‘perfect’ strategy. A group that achieves alignment – even in support of a less-than-perfect strategy – may succeed more than those pursuing a perfect strategy with fractured alignment.

The strategy must align with the capabilities of the organisation and the competitive reality of the environment. Such an alignment has never been more important, as artificial intelligence (AI) and other changes disrupt industries and sectors. Before rushing to adopt the latest AI tool, an organisation must assess whether it is strategically aligned.

There are many companies, for example, whose strategy is to be the ‘Google of X’ or the ‘OpenAI of Y’ (insert technology or sector). Unfortunately, those firms are frequently not the best suited to achieve that position. Does your organisation have unique capabilities that are aligned internally with one another, and externally with the competitive position, in an AI world to which you aspire?

Industries are becoming more knowledgeintensive, requiring people to operate at a high level of abstraction and complexity. They are also becoming spread across countries and cultures. Under these conditions, achieving alignment must

also be intense and, probably, highly multilayered. You must pay greater attention to making complex strategies easy to understand and execute.

Is your organisation aligned on its mission and strategic vision for AI? Success accrues when team members are aligned on and executing against the strategy. There is beauty when such alignment occurs. These moments may be fleeting, but when they happen, remarkable achievements take place.

Three types of alignment

Strategic alignment is critical in three dimensions:

• Alignment of strategy with mission and values, the capabilities of the organisation, and the opportunities provided by the competitive environment. Such alignment is known as the Strategist’s Challenge. Too often, companies follow industry leaders to adopt best practices. This is very much the case in the age of AI. This could lead to strategic misalignment as you pursue positions you are not best suited to attain. Consider the successful University of Alabama football team. If your strategy is to mimic their actions, to follow their best practices, good luck! Many successful firms have built reputations and competencies over years of investment. Simply copying them is unlikely to prove fruitful. Jumping on the latest AI fad is probably not going to lead to success if it is not aligned with your strategy.

• Capabilities need to be internally and externally aligned with your aspired strategic position. Such alignment refers to the degree to which your capabilities work as a system to reinforce one another and your overall strategy. Consider BMW. It positions itself as the “ultimate driving experience”. From engineering, design and manufacturing to sales and service, BMW has a set of complementary capabilities that align with its external value proposition. How can you lever AI

to enhance current capabilities and deliver on your value proposition? The success of BMW would not be possible if not for alignment along a third, and arguably most important, dimension: people.

• Aligning people with the desired strategic position and vision for the organisation is critical. In highperforming companies, employees and members understand their strategic mission and vision, and are dedicated to achieving it. They become passionate advocates for their organisations. They see how their role contributes to the strategy and execute it with a sense of purpose and teamwork. How many of your employees can articulate how your AI efforts advance your strategy?

Seven foundations of alignment

How does one build strategic alignment? Here are seven foundational conditions for success:

1. Focus. Have an easily communicated strategy. Focus on an attractive, but achievable, competitive position. Don’t be distracted by the latest fad.

2. People. Recruit and empower people who buy in. Leaders build alignment by drafting those who have the capability and intent to execute. Similarly, they are willing to ‘trade’ those who are unwilling to commit to the plan. Not doing so is a choice with consequences.

3. Incentives. Ensure metrics and incentives align with strategic objectives. Reward people who help advance the strategy and craft collective incentives to make sure everyone is working together to achieve organisational ends.

4. Honesty. Nothing kills the credibility and willingness of others to follow an executive team

“HOW MANY OF YOUR EMPLOYEES CAN ARTICULATE HOW YOUR AI EFFORTS ADVANCE YOUR STRATEGY?”

than an obvious falsehood. Share difficult news about the current situation or the competitive realities facing the organisation. Well-aligned firms, especially their leaders, tell the truth.

5. Unity. A leadership team may disagree in private, but they stand as one in public. They set and enforce norms of engagement. Leaders must create conditions under which healthy debate and dialogue is encouraged. Doing so means there should be no need for public disagreements.

6. Celebrate. Celebrate achievements and milestones. Empower individuals by highlighting their contributions to the overall strategy. These stories help build and sustain alignment.

7. Humility. Understand that you cannot perfectly predict the future and may need to pivot. Leaders must embrace that they cannot do this alone. They must have the humility to be wrong and to let everyone in the organisation shine.

In truth, strategic alignment is rare. If you are fortunate, you can recall a situation where alignment occurred, allowing you and your organisation to achieve incredible heights. These often happen in periods of great adversity, when the need for alignment and action is very clear.

Perhaps you recall a time when great achievements happened. What if that could happen most of the time? There is power when strategic alignment occurs, a certain magic that makes the possible real and the aspired achieved.

Mike Lenox is the Tayloe Murphy Professor of Business at the University of Virginia (UVA) Darden School of Business, senior faculty fellow at UVA’s Miller Center, and the author of Strategy in the digital age: mastering digital transformation

Stepping away

IBM’s lesson in ‘everything innovation’ and longevity

Writing Dr Anthony Gandy

Corporate survival is a rare thing. In 1997, Leslie Hannah, of the London School of Economics and Political Science, noted that only 20% of the top 100 global enterprises in 1912 were still in the top 100 by 1995. What’s more, 29% had been in some form of receivership and the vast majority had been subsumed by other firms. These were the largest and most resourced firms in the world, and only a few maintained their position.

Faced with uncertainty, Paul J DiMaggio and Walter W Powell, authors of The Iron Cage Revisited: Isomorphism in Organizational Fields, argued that firms are likely to undergo a process of ‘isomorphism’, where fear of the unknown leads them to increasingly ape the strategies of others in the market. The problem is that, as Hannah points out, companies that survive and remain top-100 enterprises over the long run have corporate architectures that are “complex and difficult to identify, describe and copy, for, if that were not the case, their value would be competed down by emulators”.

Longevity relies on the ability to innovate, change, adapt and, at least some of the time, lead these processes. Simply knowing a firm has survived is useless information to others, however. What is interesting is understanding the workings of how they manage to renew themselves. One case we can follow is that of IBM, a firm that, in the early 1960s, undertook what we can call a programme of ‘Everything innovation’. It was a process that would make everything it had done before obsolete – from the products on which its success was built, to the way that it made them.

Taking on the big guys

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, IBM had gained a controlling position in the market for commercial data-processing systems. Its two most important products were the transistor-based or secondgeneration computers. The biggest-selling computer in the world was IBM’s 1401 series, which was aimed at the lower-performance, commercial dataprocessing market, while its complex 700/7000 series of computers were leading the market for powerful science-orientated computing. Just simply stating this shows that IBM had already been through periods of enormous rebirth. Computer technology was very distinct from its heritage as a manufacturer of electro-mechanical tabulators, but, vitally, many of the customers were the same. Potentially the most serious threats to IBM domination were the North American electrical and electronics behemoths, General Electric (GE) and the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). Both were vast producers of complex defence electronics.

“LONGEVITY RELIES ON THE ABILITY TO INNOVATE”

RCA was also the major incumbent in the market for electronic components, and knew how to mass produce electronics like no other business thanks to its leadership in broadcast and consumer electronics. GE not only made electronic devices for the military and others, but – because of its interests in nuclear engineering and gas turbines, and the complex modelling it needed to undertake – it was also a very major user of IBM’s 700/7000 series of power computers.

IBM had leadership in computing, but these rivals had the tools to take it on. They knew as much – indeed, much more – about the underlying electronic technologies, and they had the manufacturing scale.

A reimagining

Management organisation was another area in which IBM was at the forefront. With the help of business school gurus and management consultants, it arranged its firms in new multidivisional – or M-form – structures, where each division was tasked with managing the firm’s activities in different industrial sectors.

Multidivisional structures resulted in a multiplicity of computer innovation. One division might develop computers with an eye to improving military and civil telecommunications, while another would be working on smaller systems to improve local data processing. Each division had its own take on what the product should look like. Similar structures also meant GE and RCA ended up with a multitude of computer systems. It also left IBM with ranges of incompatible computers.

Decentralised innovation had created an enormous technological capability. By the late 1950s, however, it was clear that the computer industry was growing to such a scale that IBM’s rivals had the opportunity to reimagine their computer operations – not as support operations for other activities, but as separate entities within the M-form structure. They created divisions with total control over nearly all their computing resources (some industrial control systems being left within other electronic capital goods divisions) and set them the task of taking on the market incumbent, IBM. In such a fast-growing market, they should surely find space to succeed. They had the tools to achieve this.

The timing seemed fortuitous. In an example of isomorphism, the next generation of computers was expected to be built on a new underlying technology: the integrated circuit (IC). The IC would herald the dawn of what we now call third-generation computing. It was the collective understanding within the electronics firms that it would not be economically viable to mass produce ICs until the very end of the 1960s, but GE and RCA expected to be leaders in these components. This

gave the new computer divisions of GE and RCA time to build their approach to the next generation of computing and truly compete against IBM.

Innovate at pace

IBM was not on the same page, and was not going to stick to the assumed industry timetable for thirdgeneration computing. Its cultural focus was on its salesforce, not just for its ability to sell, but also for its ability to sense the market. IBM had people embedded in its customers’ premises who could report back about what those customers wanted. The insight they gave was that what really mattered for the next generation of computing was not the components, but the family approach, where large and small systems could, approximately, run the same software. Customers would be able to develop software on small machines and roll it out to large production systems. Small operations could use small systems, large divisions giant systems – all running the same software.

These insights led to one of the great corporate reboots of all time – initiated by the SPREAD committee, which IBM established in 1961. Wonderfully, the end report from this group is available online. It made obsolete all of what IBM had done before, from the computers themselves to the organisation of the firm and the manufacturing processes. It was not a product innovation strategy; it was an Everything Innovation strategy.

SPREAD outlined how IBM’s 1401 and 7000 ranges of computers should be replaced by a single,

“IBM WAS HALF A GENERATION AHEAD OF ITS RIVALS”

modern, 32-bit architecture, covering all levels of small to large computing devices. To do this, it was necessary to remove the siloed approach of the past. The 20 or so engineering groups involved in processor design were to be made subservient to Corporate Processor Control. Further, SPREAD outlined the need for a new components division. This would eventually be tasked with introducing fast, powerful and less power-hungry integrated circuits. In the meantime, it would create what was termed Solid Logic Technology (SLT). The SLT building blocks sounded like integrated circuits, but were, in fact, a hybrid technology using a tightly packaged version of discrete transistors. IBM did not care – it was not circuits that its customers bought, but whole systems.

In April 1964, IBM was ready to announce the System/360, and a new structure for the firm. The S/360 would dominate mainframe computing for decades, as the new 32-bit architecture was suitable to use integrated circuits and other advances as they became available. In 1970, IBM updated the S/360 range as the new IC-based System/370. It delivered these just after GE and RCA had imagined delivering their first third-generation families. IBM was running at a pace that put it half a generation ahead of its rivals.

GE and RCA would leave the computer industry by the early 1970s. They never caught up.

Customer first

GE and RCA knew what the third generation of computers would be – they had their own internal SPREAD-like reports outlining the future. However, their focus was technological – the integrated circuit was the cue for what would come next; they were listening to their own narrative of this technology. IBM’s listening was focused outside of the firm: it was customer-led.

Of course, IBM had another factor that made it exceedingly difficult to replicate, at least for GE and RCA. IBM was the leader in an industry experiencing stratospheric growth. GE and RCA were trying to ride many high growth sectors, all demanding resources and finance. IBM did not have this internal competition; it did not even have to compete with shareholders, who were more than happy to allow IBM to reinvest profits into its burgeoning business. That truly is hard to replicate.

IBM’s innovation advantages in the early 1960s were many. However, none was more important than listening to the customer and focusing on one sector. Is this complex and difficult to replicate? Maybe not. ‘Everything innovation’ is possible. Dr Anthony Gandy is a passionate researcher in the history of computer technology markets, and has worked in the financial services sector for more than 30 years

Future of work

STRATEGIES FOR LONG-TERM SUCCESS

Change your head

I

By

Beth Stallwood

t would be fantastic to have a set of requirements that, once complete, meant you would walk into the perfect career or have the business of your dreams. But the world doesn’t function like that and there isn’t a magic formula for success.

Many factors are in play, including those unexpected events that throw out the best-laid plans. Accepting that you will not be in full control of the future or the challenges you will face is a helpful first step. Approaching changes that the future brings with the right mindset will help. Here are four strategies you can call upon to be change- and future-ready.

1. Continuous learning

Taking responsibility for your learning will set you up for future success, enabling you to adapt to the ever-changing world. Don’t be limited by what is offered by your company; go beyond the basics and seek to expand your expertise and your leadership capabilities, and supercharge your transferable skills. Being ready to flex to a different career as roles cease to exist is no longer optional – it’s essential.

2. Flexible goal setting

At the heart of a goal is a desire for some selfled change. Goals can be hard to define and challenging to see through when life gets in the way. It helps to set them well, and upfront

“ONE STEP FORWARD IN ANY DIRECTION FEELS WAY BETTER THAN BEING STUCK IN THE WHIRLWIND OF DISRUPTION”

investment will make for better outcomes. Preempting hurdles that might thwart progress will help you identify solutions to challenges. Know that there might be a side swipe, but trying to prepare for those is a fool’s errand, so focus on the controllables. Often, it’s our own limiting beliefs that interrupt our goal-getting plans and this thinking can be driven by the unhelpful stories we tell ourselves.

3. Rewrite your story

The stories we tell ourselves hold incredible power to influence our behaviours. If your internal narrative is hopeful, backed up by a healthy dose of self-belief, it’s likely that you will craft an external story that helps you to chart any challenging courses. If your self-talk is sending you to the worst-case scenario, you may have a bumpier ride. To realign mindsets for disruption, we must work on our internal narratives before turning attention to crafting the version to which other people will listen.

4. Nurture your network

We all need people who can provide us with support and insightful nudges to keep us adapting and growing. It’s not about work friends – better labels might be professional partners or constructive colleagues. Investing in these relationships helps to create a working life that is joyful and enables the weathering of disruptive storms. Seek out people who believe in you and offer the same to them.

When facing a big transformation, consider what’s going to help, take some action, and take it now. One step forward in any direction feels way better than being stuck in the whirlwind of disruption. Even if you discover, after a time, that the action you took was in the wrong direction, you’ll be able to adjust to that. You either win or you learn.

Beth Stallwood is a coach, facilitator, speaker, consultant and founder of Create WorkJoy. Her first book, WorkJoy: A Toolkit for a Better Working Life, is out now and her podcast, the WorkJoy Jam, is available on major podcast platforms

Mixing generations

Managing generational diversity

How can managers overcome the age biases, knowledge differences, value perceptions and generational shaming that can negatively impact a workforce?

Writing Martina Doherty

We are currently in uncharted territory at work, where, for the first time, we have a workforce made up of five generations – Gen Z (aged 27 and under), Millennials (28-43), Gen X (44-59), Baby Boomers (60-69) and Traditionalists (70-78). Like other forms of diversity, these different generations can contribute to team knowledge, skills and networks in complementary ways.

However, the opportunities that this diversity presents can be lost to the various divides and conflicts that come with it. Of course, generational divides and conflicts have always existed, but, in recent times, they have become more pronounced for reasons such as technological advancements and the impact of Covid.

Recent research from the London School of Economics claims that 37% of Gen Z and 30% of Millennial employees reported experiencing low productivity, fuelled in part by frictions with older managers. Those with managers more than 12 years their senior were nearly 1½ times as likely to report low productivity, and nearly three times as likely to report being extremely dissatisfied with their job.

In an era of challenging economic conditions and employee retention, these figures should be seen as a warning to leaders about the potentially destructive nature of generational differences when not addressed properly.

Notably, there appears to be little research available on how older employees feel about being managed by younger managers. However, it’s likely that similar frictions, frustrations and job dissatisfaction occur as communication preferences, values, skills, experiences and knowledge will always vary across age cohorts. It’s these differences

“OPPORTUNITIES CAN BE LOST TO THE VARIOUS DIVIDES AND CONFLICTS THAT COME WITH DIVERSITY”

that can become key sources of potential conflict, miscommunication and frustration if not addressed and managed.

So, how can leaders leverage the benefits that this presents and ensure it acts as catalyst for excellence rather than a source of negative tension?

1Learn and teach people to ‘adjust their lens’

In her book Gentelligence, Dr Megan Gehardt talks about leading a multigenerational workforce and discusses the need for everyone to adjust their lens to understand why individuals may behave in a particular way, as opposed to determining which behaviours are acceptable.

The first step to doing this is becoming more aware of our own age biases and our tendencies to generalise (we all have them, whether or not we want to admit it). This is key to realising the impact of how our subconscious biases and assumptions play out in how we deal with managers, colleagues and peers in everyday work and life.

Training and coaching are effective methods to help achieve this – particularly in groups – as they can provide valuable insights into, and understanding of, the norms and behaviours of other age cohorts. A simple but impactful group exercise could involve considering the following actions:

■ Typing on a phone or laptop during a presentation

■ Insisting on hard-copy documents

■ Receiving work-related texts from your manager/ colleague after hours

■ Questioning the decision of a manager

■ Regularly using social media during working hours. None of the above is inherently ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but each of them tends to be evaluated differently across generations.

In a targeted discussion, it can be interesting to see how different people initially react to each

example; and then, when delving into the ‘why’ behind these reactions, some interesting biases and generalisations can surface for teams to discuss and debate in a constructive way.

2Create the environment for meaningful knowledge exchange across generations

Workplace knowledge can take many forms. There are five types of knowledge, with each generation possessing varying degrees of each:

■ Know-what (facts and information)

■ Know-how (processes and procedures)

■ Know-when (intuitively knowing when certain skills or knowledge are needed)

■ Know-why (logic and reasoning)

■ Know-who (connections and networks). All are essential for every organisation and each shows up in a different way for different individuals and age groups. For example, older generations are likely to have more job-specific knowledge (know-what) and understanding of office politics (know-who) than a younger workforce, while younger workers are likely to have better knowledge of technology advancements and how to use them for the benefit of the organisation (know-how).

The generalisation of the last point serves to acknowledge how different generations display different knowledge. So, to facilitate knowledge exchange properly, it’s imperative to create an environment in which one individual or area of expertise is not seen as more valuable than another.

“WORKPLACE KNOWLEDGE CAN TAKE MANY FORMS”

Mentoring is one way to help achieve this, but for it to be an effective tool for intergenerational knowledge exchange, it needs to be recognised and acknowledged as a mutual learning and development (L&D) methodology. It is there for everyone to learn – regardless of role or seniority –and should be a core part of every L&D programme.

George Orwell said: “Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.” If we look at the age biases and generational shaming that are prevalent in today’s workplace, it would seem this is still the case.

However, with the likelihood of at least four generations now operating together in almost every workplace, organisations will lose out on the potential that generational diversity has to offer if attitudes like this are allowed to hold sway. The door will also be left wide open for problematic frictions and tensions to manifest and grow – ultimately impacting organisation’s bottom line.

In the current race for talent and productivity, leaders should not wait until a crisis emerges before proactively leveraging the benefits of generational diversity. Start today and get ahead of the curve, to create a unique and positive source of differentiation for your organisation.

Martina Doherty is a business psychologist, cultural change expert and accredited leadership coach, who works with leaders and global organisations across various industry sectors to create high-performing workplaces

The real digital drivers

A human-centred approach is needed for digital transformation to make a positive impact on society

Writing Freyja Lockwood

In today’s world, digital transformation is ubiquitous, infiltrating nearly every facet of our personal lives. It is also a critical focus for commercial and public sector organisations, reshaping how services are delivered and accessed with significant implications for leadership and the skills needed to deliver effective change.

But how is this digital transformation really being powered? How will it serve as an enabler of innovation? And how can we achieve a peoplecentred approach to tech development to achieve better outcomes for society?

What is digital transformation?

Digital transformation is a broad term that can mean different things to different people. According to the OECD, it is the ‘impact of digital technologies and data and their use on existing and new activities’. Leveraging digital technologies involves

“THE POSSIBILITIES OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR ARE IMMENSE”

significant shifts in operations, aiming to modernise, enhance efficiency, optimise costs and create new opportunities. This shift can fundamentally change how organisations, cities, even our homes, operate and deliver ‘value’. The range of digital technologies is vast, from everyday tech like smartphones and cloud computing to disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and advanced connectivity. Transformational possibilities are vast.

Drivers and impact

The drivers of digital transformation are a complex mix of technological advancements, changing consumer expectations, globalisation, demographic trends, economic pressures, regulatory changes and workforce dynamics. These factors profoundly impact our daily lives, economy and society. In the public sector, budget pressures, increasing citizen expectations, and the need for efficient resource use compel organisations to embrace digital solutions.

For instance, the shift to online government services has streamlined interactions with government organisations, reduced bureaucratic delays and improved service delivery.

Enabler of transformation

Digital technologies are powerful tools driving significant positive change. For example, the UK’s HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) Online Tax Filing System has evolved from a complicated paper form into a simple, automated online form, with HMRC’s February 2024 performance report recording a satisfaction rate of 83.8%. At the other end of the technological scale, AI is being used in the NHS to aid diagnosis and improve patient outcomes, leading to more effective treatments and faster recovery. These examples illustrate how digital technologies can enhance public service delivery and address pressing issues, but their true benefits depend on proactively shaping their development and use.

Tech-driven ethos

The application of digital technology is influenced by principles such as efficiency and cost-effectiveness, shaping the trajectory of digital transformation and its impact on people. An initiative focused on using technology to enable better outcomes for users and improve service quality will differ significantly from one aiming to reduce costs and workforce. The latter approach can lead to unfavourable outcomes, especially in the public sector. Employees may see technology as a source of frustration if it undermines their roles, and residents, especially those with complex needs, may find it harder to access services because of complex systems.

Overreliance on tech solutions can also exacerbate the digital divide, marginalising those without access to, or proficiency with, digital tools. For example, a 2022 study by London Travelwatch found that ‘1.5 million Londoners are being left behind by a digital-first approach to transport’, with many of them saying that the increased use of technology has made it harder to get around.

Public sector challenges

In local government, public spending often faces enormous pressure. Digital technologies offer a way to cut spending, but there is a risk that achieving savings becomes the overriding aim. While a recent Institute for Government report shows it is possible to improve performance while also making savings, the dangers of using technology poorly range from user frustration with services to major scandals.

In the UK, an example of this might be the Post Office’s Horizon IT scandal. In the Netherlands, the Dutch tax authority unfairly penalised families after

“TECHNOLOGY IS RARELY THE WHOLE ANSWER”

using an algorithm to spot suspected benefits fraud. While in Australia, the Robodebt scandal saw people unfairly penalised via an automated debt assessment and recovery system.

In these examples, the ensuing long-term human and reputational costs dwarfed any shortterm financial relief. These incidents were, to an extent, avoidable and highlight the need for a different approach to digitisation.

Facilitating change differently

If the purpose of digital transformation is to optimise outcomes for people, what should change? The answer lies in shifting focus from tech solutions to understanding their impact on people’s lives and the broader ramifications for society.

Technology is rarely the whole answer. It is almost always going to lead to better outcomes if we take a more nuanced approach. Integrating ethics and values into the design, procurement, and deployment of technology ensures it serves to enhance our stated aims. A people-centred, placebased approach is needed, emphasising co-design, empathy, and design thinking.

This human-centred approach places people at the heart of digital transformation, ensuring technology meets their needs. And that means involving stakeholders, including citizens, in the development process, ensuring their needs and perspectives are incorporated.

Empathetic approach

An empathetic approach allows service designers and tech developers to address the human aspects of technological interaction, leading to more intuitive and accessible solutions. Design thinking fosters innovation by encouraging iterative testing and refinement based on user feedback, leading to more effective solutions and better outcomes. This approach de-risks transformation.

Some public sector organisations already do this well. Others will need support to move away from transformation strategies driven by technology and technology providers. Outcome-focused, peoplecentred digital change will need upskilling and capability building, as well as support from leaders who have a good understanding of digital.

The possibilities of technology in the public sector are immense and leaders are in a unique position as enablers who can advocate for ethical, effective technologies that align with broader societal ambitions. By reimagining how we design and use technology, we can facilitate better outcomes that improve lives and society. Freyja Lockwood is digital innovation and transformation programme manager at West of England Combined Authority

Live and learn

MANAGING MENTAL, PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL WELLBEING AND DEVELOPMENT

Traditional leadership models often falter under the dynamism of global challenges, whether technological, economic, or social. Leaders must exhibit cultural agility, which means quickly adapting to and integrating different cultural cues. In my role as a cross-cultural leadership coach, I know this all too well.

Cultural agility

For example, I once worked with a leading European tech firm. It underwent a merger that expanded its market globally, but the executives struggled with unfamiliar leadership and communication styles. Through a customised cross-cultural development programme, we helped it grow its cultural agility, enhancing its understanding and respect for diverse perspectives. This not only improved its communication but also its decisionmaking, facilitating a smoother transition during the merger and fostering increased team synergy.

Empathetic leadership

Empathy is crucial when leading through disruption. Consider a British food manufacturing company operating internationally that had to adapt quickly during the pandemic. While production staff needed to remain on site, the company implemented remote working for administrative and sales teams. Leaders had to demonstrate empathy, balancing the

Cross-culture success

How embracing diverse perspectives can help your company navigate the uncertainties inherent in the global business environment

By Marina Ibrahim

safety and wellbeing of onsite workers with the challenges faced by remote employees, ensuring clear communication and support across all levels of the organisation. They implemented flexible working hours and regular virtual social meets, accommodating different time zones, work styles, and personal circumstances. This empathetic approach maintained productivity and built a resilient team culture, helping them to navigate through the disruption.

Continuous learning

Leading through disruption also demands a commitment to continuous learning. This approach involves an open mindset, embracing diverse perspectives, and navigating uncertainties – and what proved effective yesterday might not hold true today. For instance, I worked with technical leaders at a European automotive company, guiding them through a period marked by significant regulatory changes and market fluctuations. A structured programme of ongoing professional development and targeted cultural training helped them to effectively communicate across cultural boundaries, lead their teams through change, stay ahead of industry trends and maintain a competitive edge.

The principles of cultural agility, empathetic leadership, and continuous learning stand out as essential guides that help navigate through turbulence to triumph.

Marina Ibrahim, of Globility Coaching, is a mobility and inclusive leadership strategist, speaker, coach and facilitator

Live and learn

How to... stop team burnout

Chronic workplace stress has become the narrative of the modern workplace. According to Jennifer Moss, workplace expert and author of The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It, we are in the midst of a global burnout epidemic, with burnout rates among employees rising to 38% in the past three years.

To move the dial, we need to acknowledge that burnout is a ‘we problem’, not a ‘me problem’. The antidote is not simply telling employees to take annual leave or go to yoga sessions. We need to create a more humanised workplace culture where employees are valued, respected and appreciated.

Making the diagnosis

Identifying the signs of burnout is a key leadership and employee capability, because burnout destroys lives. According to the World Health Organization “burnout is a syndrome conceptualised as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed”. It’s a chronic condition that develops over time, making it hard to spot, but it does require professional help to overcome it.

Burnout is often characterised by feelings of emotional and physical depletion, emptiness and reduced self-efficacy. Symptoms can really vary, however, with most people only spotting it when it’s very advanced, so a helpful guide is the ‘12 stages of burnout’, first described in 1974 by psychologist Herbert Freudenberger.

1 Compulsive ambition: “I must prove myself.”

2 Working harder: “I must do more.”

3 Neglecting needs: “I don’t have time for myself.”

4 Avoiding conflict: “Nothing is wrong, I’ve got this under control.”

5 Revising values: “My work is more important than my family or personal life.”

6 Denying problems: “The problem is others or work deadlines; it’s not me.”

7 Withdrawal: “I need time alone.”

In the workplace, stress and the potential for employee burnout is a ‘we problem’, not a ‘me problem’ –and there are steps all leaders can take to stop it happening

By Sharon Aneja

8 Concerning others: “I’m fine, stop worrying”.

9 Depersonalisation: “I just need to make it through today.”

10 Sense of emptiness: “I don’t feel much any more.”

11 Depression: “Nothing really matters.”

12 Final stage of burnout “I can’t go on.”

How to speak about burnout

Speaking to someone who is burning out can be a tricky conversation, because many people don’t want to acknowledge the problem. It’s important that leaders use coaching skills, such as active listening, empathy and curiosity.

Do

• Make time to address their stress levels in a quiet space, where they can speak openly

• Be open to what they have to say

• Work with them on practical solutions, such as workload reduction and delegation using the 4Ds (Do, Ditch, Defer, Delegate).

Don’t

• Tell them they look tired

• Tell them they look stressed, because this puts them on the defensive

• Tell them to go on holiday or go to a yoga session and their burnout will be OK (it won’t).

How to create a healthy team culture

To prevent burnout in your team, tackle the systemic causes and focus on creating a healthy team culture. Christina Maslach, creator of the Maslach Burnout Inventory, identified six common causes of work burnout:

1 Work overload

Matching workload to resources available in the team is crucial for any leader to do on a regular basis via one-to-ones and team meetings. To make a diagnosis of what work is vital and what isn’t, use the 4Ds (see above) or Dr Darria Long’s traffic-light system of work prioritisation:

RED – Urgent. Right now. Emergency. YELLOW – Important. Essential. Priority. GREEN – Normal life. Ready mode. BLACK – Nothing more can be done. Stop expending time and energy.

Reducing meetings and screen time also improves employee wellbeing. According to a University of California study, it takes 23 minutes, on average, to refocus from a distraction at work (which means that 10-second check of a social media feed can be costly). You could also try:

• Introducing meeting-free days

• Creating email best practice, such as updating email signatures with: “I work hours that suit my schedule; please don’t feel you need to respond to this outside of your working hours.”

2 Lack of community

People experiencing burnout are twice as likely as those not burning out to also suffer from loneliness. It’s imperative that leaders create moments of connection in their teams:

• Asking people how they are in one-to-ones and team meetings

• Walking meetings in nature/meetings over coffee

• Hybrid working: encourage team members to sit together when in the office

• Using an in-office email signature – for example, “I’m in the office today, sat at desk X on floor X. You can expect a delay in my email and slack response times as I connect with my colleagues.”

3 Insufficient rewards

Basic psychological needs that employees want met are to be valued, respected and appreciated.

• Have appreciation shoutouts in team meetings

• Appreciate people for their inherent value rather than their achievements

• Provide training and development opportunities.

4 Unfair treatment

A lack of transparency around decisions, especially promotion decisions, builds distrust and disunity. Be transparent, even if the decisions are unpopular.

• Be honest in your one-to-ones and team meetings about promotion decisions

• Make time for the quietest voices in the room

• Shout out employees who set healthy boundaries, rather than those who work the all-nighters.

5 Little control or lack of autonomy

Giving employees more control over how they work and where improves wellbeing and productivity.

• Research shows that people working fewer than 40 hours a week show higher rates of engagement and overall wellbeing – and lower psychosocial risk and rates of burnout – than those working 40+ hours

• People in a hybrid work arrangement (two to three days per week in the workplace) report the highest levels of wellbeing and quality of work compared with those who work mostly from home or the office.

6 Values mismatch

Work values are often not communicated effectively, leaving employees feeling that their values and the company’s values don’t align.

• In weekly team meetings, remind employees of the common goal that the team is working towards and how their effort is contributing to the success of the company.

Wharton Business School professor and workplace expert Adam Grant recently said: “Burnout is everyone’s problem.” It also means we are all part of the solution.

Sharon Aneja is founder of Humanity Works Consultancy and Recharge@Work

Live and learn BOOK CLUB

WHICH BOOKS SHOULD BE KEEPING LEADERS AND MANAGERS AWAKE AT NIGHT? EDGE REVIEWS SOME OF THE MOST INTRIGUING TITLES AROUND

Confident Career Conversations

Author Antoinette Oglethorpe Price £14.99, Rethink Press

Helping team members thrive

Are you a leader with people management responsibilities? Then Oglethorpe’s book is a must for you. It supports leaders and managers to effectively engage in career development discussions with team members.

Oglethorpe’s vast experience shines through her book, which offers a blend of theory, practical tools and realworld examples to facilitate confident career conversations.

The book is structured around a clear framework that aims to demystify the process of career conversations. Oglethorpe simplifies the steps into

four easy-to-follow sections, making the framework accessible for managers and leaders at all levels. The emphasis is on creating an environment where employees feel valued and motivated to discuss their career aspirations and development needs, which – from personal experience – is important to support employee retention.

In the first part of the book, Oglethorpe highlights the significance of regular career discussions in fostering employee engagement, retention and development.

The second section introduces the career conversation model, which consists of eight stages. It explores how powerful questions can aid conversations, how a performance review meeting is not the right place to hold a career-based conversation – an interesting section – and introduces the career conversation model and toolkit.

The toolkit is centred on learning from the past, visualising the future while focusing on the present.

Oglethorpe highlights the importance of reflection and how to harness the power of future visualisation, with a range of tools to help assess where team members are on their career journey.

In the concluding section, Oglethorpe gives guidance and suggestions to put the learning into practice. With suggested conversation agendas combined with case studies, it’s a real world guide to enable careerbased conversations to flow with ease.

Confident Career Conversations is a brilliant guide for any leader seeking to embed a culture where people thrive, where career development is a priority and the importance of retaining talent is recognised. One to read!

The World of Work to 2030

Author Russell Beck Price £25, Bloomsbury

A vivid picture of what we can expect

What will the world of work look like in the future? How will technology, economic changes and societal shifts impact it? Intrigued? The World of Work to 2030 is an insightful read, which will keep you wanting to learn more.

Beck is a leading expert on the world of work and how businesses and individuals can make themselves future-ready. His passion to help leaders unlock the power of themselves and their people is evident in every aspect of this book.

He paints a vivid picture of what we can expect, balancing optimism with realism. He explores where we are and what it all means; how megatrends, urbanisation, technology, demography, globalisation and interconnectedness, climate and politics are unfolding. He asks what the future of work means from both a business and personal perspective, the skills required, how sustainability needs to be considered and how to future-proof our careers.

The first section introduces the concept of the book, explaining how fast the world is changing and how we can prepare to future-proof our businesses and our careers, with a

flexible approach. It then describes the six megatrends, explaining each through statistics and a range of perspectives and examples. Beck then focuses on how the megatrends are creating so much change in the world, reviewed through a structure of the challenge, the threat, and the opportunity each present. He looks at how the megatrends impact business strategy and the workforce, discussing the ‘yin of flexibility and the yang of the office’ – a poignant topic. Beck also discusses the impact of AI on jobs and the obstacles of recruiting talent with the skills needed. Finally, the book concludes with a review of sustainability through two lenses with the aim of making businesses more resilient, and the internal challenge of diversity and external challenge of climate change. With careers set to be longer in the future, Beck shares a more personal perspective on how best to be future ready, with some excellent advice –one being ‘do not be average’!

The World of Work to 2030 is a compelling read that offers a comprehensive look at the future of our workplaces and careers. It’s thoughtprovoking, informative and eye-opening. Whether you’re a business leader, keen to prepare for the future, or someone interested in what’s coming next, this is an excellent read.

The Triumphant Team

Author Declan Woods Price £18.99, Right Book Press

Gaining fresh perspectives and listening to everyone’s voice

Are you interested in teams – in any form – as a leader, an individual or a member? If your answer is yes, then this book will support your team development journey.

Declan Woods is a chartered and registered psychologist and a professor of leadership at King’s College London. With a passion for developing teams to release their magic, this sums up the purpose of this book.

The Triumphant Team is a straightforward guidebook consisting of 40 practices, structured into three parts and nine chapters. The aim of the book is, in simple terms, to support the creation of more effective teams. Centred on the six stages of team development – orientating, resolving, collaborating, achieving, excelling and re-orientating – it’s a book that can be utilised in a variety of ways, with no necessity to read the book from beginning to end, making it extremely user-friendly.

Woods explains the six stages of team development, reviewing what a team is and what makes it effective. He highlights the importance of the leader’s role, how the practices work and assessing the readiness to begin.

With a chapter allocated to each of the six stages, each contains a range of dynamic and easy-to-follow practices that can be chosen and actioned. It really is a step-by-step guide, which is appropriate for teams, managers and leaders at all levels. Woods puts the reader’s potential thoughts and requirements at the heart of his book.

Team culture and performance are core elements of any organisation’s strategic objectives. Creating effective and high-performing teams can be a challenge for leaders and managers.

Woods addresses these challenges effortlessly, and has created a library of researched practices to support every team, irrespective of what stage of their developmental journey they are at.

My personal favourite is Practice 22, generating creative ideas by ‘brainwriting’. As a creative myself, I found this practice empowering and one that really listens to everyone’s voice, gaining fresh perspectives and ideas, in a structured yet fun way.

This book is packed with advice, knowledge and guided practices, all supported by research, to assist with creating triumphant teams. It should be on the desk of every leader.

Live and learn BOOK CLUB

The Magic of Employee Influence

Author Ivana Brutenič and Kristína Cichý Kováčiková

Price £15.99, Rethink Press

Get your brand seen on a global scale

How can employees become brand and business advocates? How can LinkedIn be used to achieve this? Curious? Then this book is for you.

Authors Ivana and Kristína – aka The LinkedIn Sisters Powerhouse – are owners of the global boutique consultancy SundayFlies. The book consists of seven chapters that take brand and business owners and leaders on a journey of how employees can become company ambassadors and advocates through ambassador projects and use of social media. The primary focus is leveraging the

LinkedIn platform, as this is the sisters’ personal favourite. From their experience and research, it tends to generate greater success.

The book begins by explaining what employee buy-in is and why it is needed. The authors introduce ‘ambassador projects’, explore the different social media platforms, and assess the potential risks associated with having employee ambassadors. The concept of ambassador volunteers is fully explored, explaining the specific roles required for each project, how expectations are managed and the alignment of the employee and company goals, together with how to protect the company through robust social media policy guidelines.

The term content is evaluated –exploring what it is, the challenges, and how our nervous system can be impacted, through to providing a fivestep method to create content and how AI can be a helpful tool.

The book then goes on to analyse the three primary structures on the

THE LEADERSHIP SHIFT

The Leadership Shift

Author Stuart Andrews

The challenges for leaders today

Are you a leader on a transformational change journey in your organisation? Then this is book will act as an invaluable directory. Filled with theories, tools and techniques, it will support you every step of the way.

Stuart Andrews is a member of the Forbes Coaches Council and specialises in corporate restructuring and transformation. With decades

LinkedIn platform: the one global company page, the multi-page, and the individual structure, addressing the potential risks. As an avid user of this platform, I found this very interesting.

We’re then introduced to the 10-hour launch plan, an easy-to-follow, hour-by-hour guide to get your ambassador project launched. This includes top tips and case studies.

The concluding chapter is primarily focused on taking employee advocacy to the next level – a global scale with a global ambassador project and the 10-hour launch plan enhanced for a global impact.

My overarching feeling about the book is ‘confidence enhancing’. Where social media and content creation are concerned, we can feel overwhelmed. This well-written, researched and user-friendly book, will give readers the confidence to begin, irrespective of the size of their enterprise.

of experience, his knowledge and expertise embodies every element of this book.

It provides analysis, solutions and real-world examples, which collectively create a highly practical guide on how to successfully navigate organisational change, encouraging engagement throughout the company as the changes evolve – vital to retain talent and to keep morale high.

Andrews looks at the challenges for leaders today and how data can improve the customer experience and journey. He states leaders are required to “respond thoughtfully, decide prudently and adapt readily” when it comes to challenges, highlighting a seven-step process that can support this. There’s also another seven-step

Price £13.99, Absolute Author Publishing House

process when it comes to committing to customer satisfaction, recognising that automation is not the whole solution. As he explains, “leaders should ask more than tell and listen more than command” –empowering words!

Further on, Andrews analyses the role of a trusted adviser and how to source the right one. He explores ‘decision fatigue’, and explains how to design and own your strategy, creating a transformational road map, understanding technology and how to leverage it.

The section concludes with a chapter focused on organisational optimisation. It is no longer enough to be efficient and effective – executive leaders need to align to the company values and be dedicated to optimising the customer experience, all while managing risks and committing to a digitised future, with perhaps a more collaborative mindset.

The book then explores the future of work, the omnichannel customer experience, stakeholder management and engagement, and the importance of a governance infrastructure to support decision-making. It’s filled with practical insights and actionable ideologies to support successful execution of all transformational change, taking a holistic viewpoint throughout – which is insightful. It concludes with Andrews focusing on the importance of building a healthy organisational culture, centred on employee engagement.

This book is, in one word, remarkable. The content, research, theories, techniques and tools offer leaders everything they need to lead successful organisation transformation. I loved the ‘here’s my story’ section used throughout the book, adding a storytelling and self-experience dimension, which was extremely impactful. An essential book for anyone in a leadership position.

Live and learn BOOK CLUB

Firecracker Leadership

Author Sue Musson Price £16.99, Rethink Press

Imparting wisdom on the world

For anyone interested in becoming an exceptional leader, this book sets the tone for what it is – a brilliant read. Sue Musson is the founder of three businesses under the ‘Firecracker’ brand and she writes authentically with a touch of humour, making it an insightful, joyful read.

Musson introduces ‘the firecracker leadership framework’, 15 must-have skills and abilities of a ‘firecracker leader’.

Musson discusses the inspirational leader, stating “leadership is not about your seniority, the number of people who report to you, or where you park your car”, in contrast “the inspirational leader notices the efforts of others, takes every opportunity to praise and recognise the difference others make”. Further on, Musson explains the importance of adequately articulating the purpose and goals of the organisation to successfully achieve commitment and buy-in from

employees. Giving clear examples of good practice, supported by case studies, it provides excellent and practical guidance.

In the following chapters, she highlights six steps to creating a winning team, which include understanding the skills needed in the organisation, the recruitment process to attract talent, sustaining the team and addressing how best to overcome setbacks. She guides readers on the importance of recognition and celebration in terms of organisational culture, and the four ‘business as usual’ approaches to successfully achieve this. Musson goes on to uncover how the ‘head, heart, and hands’ philosophy supports coping with disasters. Musson cleverly uses case studies detailing a range of potential areas where challenges might occur, with clear guidance and advice on how the ‘firecracker leadership framework’ can support leaders to navigate any crisis.

Musson concludes by focusing on resilience, on how leaders need to invest in themselves, physically, mentally, and emotionally, and the powerful impact of laughter –we all need a dose of that!

This fantastic book is an inspirational read filled with leadership wisdom. It’s straightforward, easily understood, and bursting with advice and new ways of approaching leadership development.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Belinda O’Neill is a business, leadership and wellness consultant, and founder of Be Inspired To Be. She is an awardwinning author, speaker, event facilitator, podcaster and educator. She is also a business and community ambassador, having held many voluntary roles, and is currently a judge for the National Start Up Awards. She lives in Co Down, Northern Ireland, with her husband Peter and their son Leo.

Thoroughly modern Mary

The shock of the new

What lessons can we learn from the Mother of Modern Management?

Why change and continuity drive us  and keep us alert

MPlus ça change, plus c’est la même chose is a famous French axiom. Everything changes yet remains the same. Why is this and how does it work at the leading edge?

We all have an identity or an ‘inner sameness’; while engaging with everchanging events, we must keep our identities. Indeed, we learn by continuity encountering change. It is such differences that drive us and keep us alert.

ary Parker Follett, the renowned American author and management theorist, died in 1933, the year before I was born. Follett was a Quaker and her religion shaped her views on leadership. God was present in the dialogue between friends. During her lifetime, her influence was overshadowed by the likes of Max Weber and Frederick Winslow Taylor. Yet today, 90 years after her death, we have probably the most complete vision of leadership ever set out.

Most people regard creativity as pure change, which is why we marvel at it. But, in fact, creativity is change and continuity combined. Anything new is made from elements that are old. For instance, the Wright brothers’ plane was little more than a box-kite on wheels, with an engine and propeller to drive it forward. At a certain speed, it lifted off – and the rest, as they say, is history. Air flowing under the wings lifted it up; the kite and its angled shape is a thousand years old and propellers are relatively recent.

Like many brilliant women, Follett was regarded as an exception. So, when she died, she nearly disappeared from leadership studies. It was organisational scholar Warren Bennis who praised her. Dubbed the ‘Mother of Modern Management’, here are some of Follett’s most startling insights.

A leader must seek unity, but this is a unity of differences – not unanimity, not consensus, but a score of different views. Like the conductor of an orchestra, the leader brings together different instruments, different tunes and blends them into a harmony. The leader includes a wide diversity of ideas, which inform one another.

The power of an organisation comes not from power over people, or coercion, since this may actually diminish feelings of empowerment. It comes from co-activity, hundreds of people acting in concert to get things done. The leader is the one who orchestrates these efforts and makes the organisation powerful. Leadership fine-tunes joint activities and coordinates the efforts of many. Power derives from the quality of that coordination.

There is little that ruins the effectiveness of an organisation so much as blaming one another when things go wrong. Mistakes are

It is a similar story when it comes to Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press: he watched playing cards being made by the pressing of carved and inked blocks on cardboard; he watched a wine press in operation: he visited a coin mint and saw the emperor’s image being stamped on hot metal. So, he mused, why not letters of the alphabet? He borrowed parts from these old processes to make a new whole. One could say playing cards, money and wine produced the Bible. But without the continuity of religious belief, a Bible would have no value. Something totally new may not always be seen as valuable. It must encounter the continuity of human needs and be recognised as useful.

By

By Charles Hampden-Turner

Charles Hampden-Turner

Innovation gives us a ‘shock of recognition’. Shock comes from the novelty of the whole. Recognition comes from the parts seen before and the human need for the innovation (‘if only we could fly’).

inevitable and are an opportunity to learn and correct errors. Owning mistakes is useful and prevents others from making the same error. The error-correcting system is often credited to political scientist James MacGregor Burns, but Follett was there 30 years earlier.

ANSWERS LIE IN THE HEAT OF BATTLES IF WE HAVE THE SKILL TO SPOT THEM

“DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION IS A SIGN THAT CHANGE AND CONTINUITY ARE OUT OF KILTER”

Conflict is an opportunity to enrich the mission of a company. Answers lie in the heat of battles if we have the skill to spot them. We must fight to combine points of view, not polarise them. We need the passion each side of a dispute engenders.

A corporation needs to deal with an environment that is constantly changing. Unless it changes too, it will lose touch. However, many things will not change – salaries, profitability, revenue, professionalism, engagement – yet the market will demand not only improvement, but also the price at which it was purchased the last time.

Disruptive innovation is a sign that change and continuity are out of kilter. The customer is experiencing more and more change but is having to pay higher and higher prices. But then comes along a somewhat inferior product, offered at half the cost, and the whole market opts for this continuity of savings. Innovation must be affordable. Low cost is a powerful principle of continuity.

Avoid giving orders where you can. No one likes to be told exactly what to do. We all like to use our own judgement where possible. A better approach is to describe the challenge and ask for employees’ input. If X is coming to lunch and you have a cook, you don’t tell her what to do. She is the cook, not you. You say: “Our visitor was delighted by the last meal you cooked. Can you please cook whatever has attracted you the most praise?” This way, you and your employee solve the problem between you. You have elicited her best skills. Problems are solved by participation.

The American organisational theorist Michael Tushman, professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, argues that companies must ‘explore’ for and ‘exploit’ their products. Exploring demands change. Exploiting demands continuity. Unless you explore, you will run out of products. Unless you exploit, you cannot fund the exploration.

The unifying of opposites is the eternal process of social and organisational development for which the leader is responsible. The division of labour must be integrated, diversity of the team must be included, errors must be corrected. We must give to get and to get more back. Do not be bullied by either/or. Play with these concepts until you have achieved a both/and – and they fit finally together. How can we achieve our value through its opposite?

Change-continuity is a fine fabric the leader weaves together; Amazon comes in many shapes and forms yet is a single brand.

Charles Hampden-Turner is a British management philosopher and was a senior research associate at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge. He is a Companion of the Institute of Leadership, and author of more than 20 books, including ‘Culture, Crisis and Covid-19’

Charles Hampden-Turner is a British management philosopher, and was a senior research associate at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge. He is a Companion of the Institute of Leadership, and author of more than 20 books, including Culture, Crisis and Covid-19

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