As I write this, the economic outlook for the UK (and Europe) is looking precarious to say the least. Although we are not currently in a recession, market conditions are tough with a credit squeeze, rocketing fuel and power prices, falling house prices and statements from the Bank of England and many leading retailers that trading conditions are worsening. The press would have us believe that a recession is just around the corner. I’m not sure I buy this, but regardless, leadership is becoming more important than ever.

So how do we lead in these situations? For me there are 6 points to consider:

1. Have Vision
   This is important at the best of times, but at the worst, it become critical. Articulating your vision to your employees allows them to perform in an atmosphere of confidence. If they feel that you know where the company is going and that they are involved in this journey, they will be more inclined to roll their sleeves up, to give you the discretionary effort which can be the difference between success and failure. Keep them abreast of developments, good and bad. Make them feel a valued member of your team. Get this right and they will walk through the proverbial brick wall for you.
2. Understand Your Shortcomings
   This is in both yourself and your team. In good times, we tend not to think about our own weaknesses. In bad, they can really hurt you. Now is a good time to work out what your people need to do to improve their skill sets with coaching and/or training courses. Brainstorming meetings with employees you rate can kick start innovation.
3. Nurture Your Employees
   Your top performers are less affected by market downturns than others because they are the most mobile and confident. To hang on to them they must feel part of your team. Get creative in how you make them feel like this: increase their professional development, think about their reward structure etc etc. However don’t neglect everyone else. If they perceive the top dogs getting more than they do, it will quickly breed resentment which can undo all the good work you’ve done elsewhere.
4. Empower People
   This is about trusting your team. Delegate to them and allow them to make strategic changes without asking permission if they think it is in the best interests of the firm. In bad times, speed of decision-making is crucial.
5. Don’t Cut the Marketing Budget
   This is one of my biggest concerns with clients as they don’t seem to see the obvious flaw in this logic. In order to survive, you need to sell. When the market it poor, your sales drop. So you need to find new sales channels. How can you do this if you cut the marketing budget? I’ve always felt that there is a strong argument to be made for actually increasing the marketing budget in a slump. But one thing you must do is “sweat” your budget. Get the most “bang for buck” by putting pressure on your PR company, advertising agency etc. This can easily be sweetened by paying them a performance related bonus – a real “win win” in this market.
6. Be Brave, Be Creative
   When the going gets tough, you need to look at every aspect of your business including things which you hold dear. Nothing can be sacrosanct. Remember this is about survival so everything can and must change if it helps in this regard. If it doesn’t help, think about whether it is actually necessary at all. If it adds to your costs, kill it. A healthy does of realism makes it much easier to be brave – and creative!

You will note that I have hardly mentioned costs in the list above. Indeed several of the points will increase your cost base in the short run (training, coaching etc.). Many companies won’t have a lot of cost they can strip out as they have outsourced in the past and can use the Internet for much of their workflow. Ironically cutting costs can bring about the very recession we fear. If I cut costs, my suppliers get squeezed so they cut costs which in turn squeezes their suppliers. And so it goes on. This takes liquidity out of the marketplace and it is liquidity, not interest rates, which determines how people feel. If your mortgage rate goes up, but you have money in your pocket, you don’t feel too bad. But remove the cash element and you quickly feel upset.

Being a leader in times of trouble is what seperates the successful from the failures. It is hard to do emotionally as you won’t get much time just to be, but it will pay off believe me.

---

Copyright © 2009 Philip de Lisle. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.philipdelisle.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

View Rainmakers Bio
Go to Source

At some point in the distant past, a client was describing the problems he was having implementing a particularly tricky change policy on his company. While listening to him I realised that I’d been through this situation several times myself so we discussed what his options were to overcome objectors. Out of that discussion came a process I call “Slaying Dragons” which has the express aim of enhancing buy-in to change and strategy. One of it’s advantages is that it is as powerful working on the board of directors as it is in, say, the fleet management team. Another of it’s advantages is that it is simple to understand and to implement.

What follows is a one page overview of Slaying Dragons so that you can get a feel of how it works. It has been a fun process to facilitate and the outcome has always been positive.

Enjoy!

Slaying Dragons

Enhancing Buy-in

The Problem

One of the biggest problems faced by any leader is getting the team to understand, and more importantly, buy into a new strategy and/or plan of action.

Countless, and often precious, hours can be wasted persuading team members that a) the strategy makes sense and is the correct course of action and b) helping them to understand their role within the strategy. As we all know, team members are often afraid of change and what effect it might have on them and their jobs and so take entrenched positions which can ultimately harm both themselves, in terms of their career and standing amongst colleagues, or, more importantly, the success of the strategy.

Best Case Outcome

Clearly the best case outcome is that every member of the team instantly understands the strategy and the role they are required to perform. Sadly this almost never happens. Consequently we need to ensure that everyone understands and buys into the strategy collectively even if they are unsure or unhappy with the effect it might have on them personally. The power of this collective responsibility should never be underestimated, as not only is every member of the team committed to the agreed course of action, but they have also implicitly committed themselves to their colleagues to make it succeed; as we know, people are generally more worried about “losing face” with colleagues than just about anything else in the workplace. Slaying Dragons is a technique that delivers this. In anything complex in an organisation, many attitudes and anxieties (the “dragons”) remain hidden in “caves” and only come out later at inconvenient times, often with very disruptive effects on the change.

The Technique – Slaying Dragons

This workshop runs for about 4-5 hours (it can last longer than this depending upon numbers and the level of engagement from the participants) and uses a number of well understood concepts. It breaks down into 5 parts.

Part 1 – Strapping on Armour
Break up into pairs, choosing someone you do not know well or work closely with. Take turns to listen to each other and discovery 3 things that each of you is good at. Maximum 30 minutes total. (Appreciative Inquiry). This gets everyone into listening mode as opposed to talking mode.

Part 2 – Look into the Dragon’s Eye
Everyone comes up with a verb and a noun to describe the organisation. This is how the organisation is viewed today and is the starting point for change.

Part 3 – Taking Aim
Using the Value Discipline Model, everyone discusses where they believe the organisation is today. It is highly unlikely that there will be consensus.

Part 4 – Wielding the Sword
The same exercise as Part 2, but this time the words describe how the group sees the organisation at some agreed point in the future (i.e. in 2 years time).

Part 5 – Extinguishing the Flame
The group decides and agrees how to get from Today (Part 2) to Tomorrow (Part 4). This is where the proposed strategy can be analysed by the group and buy-in confirmed.

Conclusion

This technique is proven to be successful at achieving buy-in. It also has the (dis)advantage of modifying the strategy in real time based upon the group’s feedback. When this occurs, the buy-in is even stronger as the group recognises that it has shaped the outcome and is therefore even more committed to it.

---

Copyright © 2009 Philip de Lisle. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.philipdelisle.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

View Rainmakers Bio
Go to Source

Working with a client recently, they mentioned that they had started to hold internal lunchtime meetings to discuss how they were delivering projects for clients. They called these ‘TEAM Meetings’. “why ‘TEAM’?” I asked thinking it stood for something, as it was all in capitals. Nobody was able to give me an answer which set me thinking.

I like the concept of TEAM as a delivery acronym. For me it means

T – Think (about what the client needs)
E – Engage (with the client and other stakeholders)
A – Action (build it – create the ’something’ your company delivers to clients)
M – Manage (the system, the client and the other stakeholders)

Yes, I like this a lot …

---

Copyright © 2009 Philip de Lisle. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.philipdelisle.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

View Rainmakers Bio
Go to Source

Dr. Max Blumberg :

The term silo has a well-known negative connotation suggesting uncordinated activity to the detriment of the organization. HR people are particularly keen on silo-busting because it inhibits implementation of best HR practices.

But HR functions can also fall pray to silo-creation if the various specialists functions do not work closely together and lead to unintended consequences. For example in many organizations, employees are rewarded for their individual effort and receive some kind of bonus if the organization as a whole performs well.

However, an employees’ locus of control usually extends to their own work and to that of their team. Unless they are a board-member or the CEO, they can seldom influence the organization as a whole and therefore company-wide bonuses (like share-schemes) are flawed from the start.

A more pragmatic approach is therefore for reward and performance-appraisal specialists to de-silo and work together to create rewards that are a function of individual and immediate team performance.

Such systemic effects can occur between all HR functions (employee development, relations, succession planning, and so on) and will be addressed in future posts.