Is nudge management the key to overcoming change resistance?

Business and change are inextricable. But just because it’s common doesn’t mean successful business change is easy. As humans, we naturally resist the new and novel. We will fight or flee from anything unfamiliar, especially if it presents a considerable shift from what we know. However, recent studies reveal that small, subtle suggestions are making huge impacts in changing behaviours.

 

Effective, optional suggestions

A technique often attributed to making easier, faster, and simpler choices, nudging isn’t new.  We see examples of it every day. Your alarm is a nudge, so is the default renewal of subscriptions, even the ‘low fat’ labels on food are nudges.

The reason why nudges are effective relates to the fact that you are free to ‘follow’ the push or not. You have a choice. For example, GPS directions are a nudge, but how often do we stick to the exact route provided?

One of the most publicised examples of successful nudge management involves the reduction of fuel consumption by Virgin Atlantic pilots. In the aviation industry, pilots – particularly the captain – enjoy much autonomy when it comes to decisions that involve fuel and the flight. The experiment saw how nudges had an impact on the behaviour of captains. By simply informing the captains that their fuel consumption will be monitored and requesting them to report on their fuel performance, the airline saved $5.4 million in fuel.

Perhaps the experiment was highly effective since it avoided making fuel reduction a ‘mandatory’ requirement for pilots. Instead, it preserved the pilot’s sense of autonomy while making subtle suggestions about improving fuel consumption levels. The change didn’t seem out of their control.

 

Nudging the right way

So what about when it comes to managing change in the workplace? Can nudge management help? If we think about the top reasons for resisting change, nudge management does provide an ideal counter:

  • Fear of losing control: As demonstrated with the Virgin Atlantic experiment, the liberty-preserving aspect of nudges could make them an effective way to start changing behaviour.
  • Concerns about the unknown: The most effective nudges present a benefit upfront. You could suggest an action to simplify a process, help others make healthier choices or ensure their safety (as with speed limits, for example). No one enjoys coercion.
  • Insecurity over reputation: In some change scenarios, people may feel that the shift is occurring because they failed and were ineffective. One type of nudge – the use of social norms – can address this. By confirming that the majority of colleagues feel positive about change (or want to see change occur), that lifts the pressure on the people who may feel personally responsible.

 

While nudge management is a great tactic to use when implementing change, it’s prudent to remember that it is just one of many. Plus, the most successful examples of using nudges to influence change have involved ‘behavioural change’. Structural changes, for instance, may not be as adequately covered by nudge management.

Change is complex. Resistance is only one of the many challenges that accompany any shift from the norm. Every organisation, team and individual will face unique hurdles in their transformation journey. Great leaders will analyse the specific needs of their team or organisation and consider whether nudge management is a tool they can use.

 

 

Building trust in an age of disruption

By Dr Mathew Donald

 

The age of disruption may be characterised as an environment that is fast-paced, uncertain and risky. This new environment emerged from globalisation, aided by technology and trade interconnectivity, whilst facilitated by social media and the internet. A simple presidential tweet, or small change in a trade war is now transmitted instantly around the world, without necessarily any verification, analysis or investigation. This unfiltered and immediate nature of information may contribute to instability and confusion for staff and stakeholders. Leaders may not be able to control the external environment, yet through explanation, influence and engagement, leaders may be able to effectively reduce the stress and worry that results from disruption.

 

The interplay of trust and successful change

Leadership is influence. It can generate a willingness or inspiration to follow. Staff do not automatically listen and follow leaders irrespective of the environment, as they need trust as a precursor. If there is low trust in leaders, their messages may not be heard nor believed. It has long been recognised that trust is an element of leadership. Recent research now indicates that trust is also closely related to organisational change success. In a future disruption environment, change is likely to be constant and the need for trust is heightened, so future leaders will likely require excellent skills in communicating, explaining and involving staff in associated change.

Leaders set strategy, direction and plans to inform and influence their teams. The strategy and planning process is designed to signal a way forward, provide context and alignment across a whole array of staff and stakeholders. When new data and information emerge quickly, leaders could be under pressure to react to new advances, new information or developments. The risks in this scenario is where there is a high prospect of leaders regularly reversing and overriding past decisions. Reacting quickly may be just as risky as delaying decisions in disruption and the competition may react before accurate information or analysis emerges.

 

How disruption erodes trust

The changing nature of disruption creates new challenges as leaders will continue to attempt to build trust by delivering on past promises despite the change around them. Organisations will find it impossible to move forward if the leader is not able to ensure that they are believable and worth following. Imagine if a leader offers a pay rise, only to later discover that their cost of inputs has been altered significantly by a new tariff. Imagine a leader who announced a new acquisition but soon discovers that a new technology has completely eliminated the business value.  Sudden change that alters decisions are part of a disruptive world. So leaders of the future will need to explain changes, risk and uncertainty with their teams in order to prepare for disruption.

 

Leaders must be ready to respond

In an uncertain environment, leaders will need to explain the fast pace, the uncertainty and risk regularly. Failure to do this adequately will likely lead to staff confusion, or blame toward the leader for not controlling the situation. Staff will appreciate regular and open communication on disruption, even when they do not like the described environment. Communication is such an important part of leadership, a factor that is likely to be more important with constant change, so the new leader will need to be cognisant of various communication forms, language styles, formats and regularity. Leadership communication may even be so regular that staff may be included as partners or advisors, rather than merely as subordinates. Leaders will require efficient, effective and regular communication in order to build trust, those unable or unwilling to operate this way may fail to move an organisation forward with the speed required. The leader of the future will likely be comfortable in explaining the new environment and changes, whilst building teams that are resilient to multiple options and decisions despite any ongoing risk or uncertainty.


Dr Mathew Donald specialises in leadership, management and organisational change and has more than 35 years of business experience. He is the principal of Dr Mat – The organisational Health Doctor ™, available globally for consulting, mentoring and presentations. He is also the author of “Leading and managing change in the age of disruption and artificial intelligence” (Emerald $USD 100.00).

Effective change starts with failure

By Richard Shrapnel FIML

 

Because no one likes to fail, we’ve created many ‘feel-good’ sayings about it. However, most of us take these so-called clichés with a grain of salt. But in business, leaders must pay attention to their attitude toward failure – it could hold the key to success.

So, how does your business consider failure?

 

Non-compliance is not failure

Let’s define failure at the outset. Failure has nothing to do with non-compliance. And by non-compliance, I mean not upholding business values, policies, procedures – the set ways which everyone knows the business requires one to act. That’s not failure. That’s breaking the rules; and appropriate sanctions should be applied and enforced. Non-compliance is an issue of discipline, and all business must uphold discipline.

Failure is trying something new, untested, experimenting, stretching the business’s capability to a new level but not reaching the ‘hoped-for’ outcome.

I draw this distinction as many businesses around the world get caught up in not meeting appropriate standards, whether they be internal to the business or external through regulation and even customer expectations. These outcomes are often described as failures, where they are better-considered non-compliance.

Failure should be encouraged whereas, non-compliance should not be tolerated.

 

Failing forward

Success and profitability rely on a business’s ability to outcompete all others in its chosen marketplace. And that means being able to deliver greater value to customers than your competitors today and importantly tomorrow.

Stepping out, evolving, reinventing and creating are some of the descriptors I would use to flag the type of behaviours that a business must immerse itself in to be competitive. If a business simply continues with what worked in the past, then there will become a time when their customers’ needs and their competitors’ capabilities have all moved on, and they are left behind.

This ability to continually evolve requires the practice of trying, failing, retrying and continuing to learn from each step taken. Then incorporate those learnings into the value that you deliver to your customers.

 

Barriers to failing

There are many barriers that exist within a business that will prevent it from failing and taking those learnings forward, but they can all be traced back to the business’s attitude to failure.

In many businesses, failure is spelt ‘your fault’, and it is often swept under the carpet or passed around when it occurs. Such an attitude is anti-change and counter-growth. Everyone wants to be associated with the successful project, and no one had anything to do with the failure. Failure can be a source of fear – real fear – but should it be feared?

Material losses can be incurred by businesses where a fear of failure is prevalent. This fear seeds a blame culture leading to denial, no ownership, and a lack of oversight and accountability. Failures may well be hidden where fear is prevalent, and losses escalated rather than mitigated.

There can be no learnings where fear exists as no one will want to be associated with or recall the project nor its lessons.

So what attitude should a business seek to develop when it comes to failure. Well, there are, I believe, two aspects:

  • We are an innovative and growing business, so experimentation is part of who we must be.
  • Failures will occur and will be acknowledged with humility, acceptance and learning.

 

Honestly, doesn’t something only become a failure if you abandon all the learnings and hope for the future? The attitude you create and sustain in your business must uphold the right attitude towards failure. And do not allow failure to become a political tool within the business.

 

How leaders should handle failure

The way leaders act with respect to failure will set the role model for everyone else in the business to follow. Failure is a test of and testament to the character of leaders. How leaders handle their failures and those of fellow leaders and colleagues speaks volumes to their character and motive. You should listen carefully to what it says as it will identify the worthy leaders in your business.

Leaders will need to develop humility as a core character trait if they are to build a business that grows and can outcompete everyone else in their market. Humility is the character trait that allows you to listen and learn most effectively, and that is a trait you want in your business’s DNA.

The trait you do not want in your business is self-interest. Self-interest will undermine your individual and your business’s success. If you are always putting yourself first, then no one else will be uplifted, and that uplifting of others is essential for growth.

The right people, in the right places with the right attitude, is essential to the growth and enduring success of your business.

How your business views and approaches failure is a cornerstone to its ability to deliver greater value to your customers every day. Allow the wrong attitude to take hold, and your business will stagnate. Seed, feed and flourish the right attitude, and growth will never be an issue.

Richard Shrapnel is a business strategist, advisor and speaker. He is a Fellow of IML ANZ.

Beyond fulfilment: How to keep teams motivated

When employees reach a peak of self-fulfilment and growth, how do you help them to stay motivated? Could there be more to fulfilment than simply achieving personal bests? More importantly for managers and leaders, how does keeping your employees impact your business?

Motivated employees are undeniably valuable. Findings from IML ANZ’s latest National Salary Survey (NSS), show that keeping engagement and motivation levels up is vital. NSS respondents revealed that the single most important human capital challenge they believe would add the most value to their organisation is motivating employees (53%).

Compound that with the fact that the NSS shows a slightly upward trend in voluntary staff turnover. Moreover, what’s the top reason for leaving a job? Employees are looking for a new challenge (72%). So, keeping your teams motivated is not just about getting them to be their best; it is also best for your business.

However, when an employee has achieved much on their own, is it still possible to keep them challenged, excited about the work and motivated to do their best?

Here are some ways to achieve this:

 

Maslow’s sixth level of motivation

Most of us are familiar with Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. At the apex of the five-stage peak is self-actualisation or the realisation of self-fulfilment and peak personal achievements. What is not as widely known is that later in his life, Maslow added a sixth level to his hierarchy of needs – intrinsic values. This involves supporting a cause beyond individual success.

How to harness it: Leaders must help all employees, including high-achievers, to understand how they play a part in the greater purpose of the organisation. Who does your organisation help? How does it contribute to society? Keep them focused beyond self-actualisation to help them stay motivated.

 

The value of teamwork

Staying motivated after achieving much as an individual doesn’t mean high-performing employees won’t appreciate team-led wins. Never underestimate the power of collaboration and great working relationships between colleagues. As social beings, humans always enjoy the sense of working together to overcome an obstacle, reach a goal or even assisting each other when times are tough.

How to harness it: Encourage open communication between teams and within teams. Use technology to open up lines of communication by starting a team chat group. Help your employees get to know each other not just as colleagues but as people – develop real connections by organising social activities. Celebrate successes as a team too.

 

Empowering others

A sense of motivation can be sapped if one feels that they are held back from making decisions. To help keep good performers engaged, display trust in their abilities.

How to harness it: Let your team members make the call on decisions that they know best. Avoid crushing their motivation by making them feel they are powerless when it comes to their own projects.

By emphasising how they contribute to the organisation’s purpose, fostering a healthy team environment and empowering your team members, you’ll keep even the highest achievers motivated to give their best.

Sources:

IML ANZ Members can access these articles via Leadership Direct.

The need for greater trust in recruitment

By Kara Atkinson

 

In the digital era, fast-paced, competitive business environments reward those who are quick to respond to new opportunities and market challenges. Trust plays a vital role in the success of these initiatives, providing a cornerstone for building strategic partnerships, establishing a reputation, embracing digital transformation, and more.

Today, this once-stable foundation is crumbling under the pressure of royal commissions, and large-scale data breaches faced en-masse by organisations in every industry, and we’re quickly losing our footing. This sobering trend is made apparent in a new survey conducted by Harvard Business Review, in which nearly two-thirds (63%) of senior executives at large enterprises throughout the world stated that trust among people, businesses, and institutions has declined over the past two years. Further, after 20 years of research, the Great Places to Work Institute found that experiencing a high level of trust, between leaders and employees, is the primary defining characteristic of the very best workplaces.

 

The challenges

When looking at recruitment, if the process for joining a workplace is engineered through a broken vehicle, then trust is difficult to establish.

Leaders deal with subjective candidate vetting; their recruitment firm only shortlists the people on the market at that time rather than a shortlist of the best people.

On the other side, the candidate deals with unreturned calls, the black hole of resume submissions, and last-minute internal candidate competition and an emotional minefield of career guidance from short term relationships with inexperienced recruitment consultants.

The recruiter deals with outdated, generic job descriptions, usually supplied by their clients. The market is corrupted by over promotion of the same roles. Also, everyone competes in a time-stamped environment where speed wins over quality.

 

The environment

Hiring is never easy. According to a study by Leadership IQ, 46% of newly-hired employees will fail within 18 months, while only 19% will achieve unequivocal success. This lack of vision keeps companies from achieving the holy grail of business outcomes: Trust. This is what keeps teams drowning in a sea of mediocrity and what derails once-promising leadership careers. And this stops trust from developing.

Career ladders are long gone – where once a person signed onto an organisation at 21, followed the rules, were incrementally promoted along the way and retired with a gold watch. As companies have thinned out, leadership positions have disappeared, not to be seen again.

Career pyramids have replaced the ladders. The further up the pyramid people move, the hotter the competition for the top spot and the failure rates are staggering. Harvard Business Review puts the failure rate among management hires at 60% and the consequences of failure derail a once-promising career and cost the organisation time, money and trust.

 

The way forward

It is time for the recruitment industry to rewrite the rules of recruitment. Not just improve it, but, just as Uber did to the taxi industry, they need to transform and disrupt it. Every recruiter is an ‘expert non-transactional specialist with a proprietary search methodology who has access to deep global networks.’ Where is the recruiter who builds their business, and yours, on a foundation of competence, bespoke communication and trust?

Leaders must understand that a true employee value proposition is not only written in the first line of a job ad but is permeated through every touchpoint their prospective employee has.

Kara Atkinson is an executive recruitment expert with 18 years’ experience in helping people continue to build and transform themselves throughout their careers.

Why connection is the key to talent retention

By Michelle Sales

 

Think of the last time you had to deal with some kind of performance issue. Maybe an individual had stopped working cooperatively or seems less engaged in their work.

We think these individuals are being uncooperative or unreasonable, which leads to performance management to try and fix the issue.

This then spirals out of control: employee engagement continues to decline, performance issues become more challenging and the divide gets even larger, often leading to employee resignation or, worse, firing of potential talent.

The real issue here is not the individual themselves. It is the lack of connection that individual feels.

Studies show there is a connection deficit in workplaces today. For example, employee research completed by the Pew Research Center and the Ken Blanchard Companies reports 81% of people say their leaders don’t listen, and 36% rarely or never receive performance feedback, while 67% wish they did.

Most people, however, would rather leave a job than have a conversation to address a workplace issue. That’s a real shame – not to mention a real problem!

So what to do?

 

Digital detox

The ability to connect in our selfie-obsessed society has never been easier – at least online – so often organisations see the solution to strengthening connection as a technology issue.

Online tools like Yammer are implemented to try to make people converse and share more. Online conferences and ‘catch-up’ meetings are held across different time zones. Sure, many technology enablers are helping us to collaborate more effectively and connect differently.

In reality, though, these one-on-one meetings with people are really just a mechanism for managing work performance rather than getting to really know each other. For example, we prefer to use email to communicate rather than talking face-to-face or even by phone.

Technology is an enabler, but it is never the solution to a human issue. We must learn the art of cultivating real connections in our organisation to truly thrive.

 

Cultivate connection

Prolific author and researcher Brené Brown describes connection as ‘the energy that is created between people when they feel seen, heard and valued – when they can give and receive without judgment’.

When we feel a real sense of connection we trigger neurochemicals that make us feel good. Dopamine, oxytocin and endorphins give us a sense of wellbeing; they make us want to engage and work with others; collaboration happens and performance thrives.

On the flipside, when we experience disconnection, the reaction is as real as physical pain. Cortisol and adrenaline increase in our body, triggering the ‘fight’ stress response. This makes us respond to our environment as if it is hostile, like we’re out of place – which results in the behaviours and impact previously mentioned.

It’s a fact that companies that are voted ‘best place to work’ or an ‘employer of choice’ value and foster connection among their teams and organisations. As Sylvia Vorhauser-Smith, senior vice president of research at PageUp People, puts it, these companies are ‘meeting the more altruistic and basic human needs of feeling connected and being an important part in something bigger’.

 

Trust us

Hence, feeling connected and trusted to be and do our best is the ultimate human condition.

Employees are able to be their best possible self and feel valued and rewarded for this. They feel understood at an individual level and they are clear on the contribution they are making to the performance of the organisation. They love what they do and they connect to each other, their customers, leaders and the organisation in a very human way.

This is when you start to bring out the very best in people. This feeling of connection builds a critical foundation of trust in which your employees feel they can have a voice and can make a difference.

When employees are encouraged to connect, communicate and collaborate better, this leads to an increase in productivity, not to mention happiness. This, in turn, has a positive impact on performance, company loyalty, and of course, retention.

Michelle Sales is a highly sought-after speaker, trainer, coach and author who helps senior leaders and their teams to build confidence and maximise their leadership and performance by consciously connecting with others. She is the author of the new whitepaper The Connection Deficit: Why leaders must bring both head and heart to work to build trust, lift engagement and accelerate organisational results.

How to tackle unconscious bias in recruitment

By Clare Edwards FIML

 

When it comes to making decisions about people, we all like to think that we’re objective, fair and impartial. The reality though is very different because, if we have a brain, we are biased.

Unconscious bias (UB), also known as implicit bias, happens automatically, is outside of our control and is triggered by our brain making quick assessments of people and situations, influenced by our background, culture and personal experiences. The clue is in the word ‘unconscious’. When we are being biased, we aren’t aware of it as the brain can’t reflect at the same time as it’s making a mental shortcut decision.

UB impacts every area of decision-making in organisations including who gets hired, fired, promoted and demoted. It impacts leadership and team effectiveness, the treatment of stakeholders and ultimately, culture.

One of the most common unconscious biases in recruitment is affinity or similarity bias.  This leads us to gravitate towards people who are like ourselves in appearance, beliefs, and background.  We have an unconscious belief – “I prefer people like me over those who are different”.  

When we were roaming the African savannah plains, out looking for lunch (or becoming lunch if we weren’t vigilant), different equalled dangerous, so we are programmed to consider people who are different to us as ‘foe’ before friend.

Unconsciously, when we first meet someone who appears different, (even for microseconds), our brain’s master error detector fires off subtle signals checking for safety, while consciously we are openly welcoming, curious and respectful.

Because most of our biases are unconscious, putting systems and processes in place can help to mitigate them.  Awareness training can also work, but it is most effective when supported by a conscious effort to have a culture of diversity and inclusion where bias is challenged.

Here are four practical strategies for mitigating unconscious bias:

 

1. Challenge existing processes

 

When crafting job advertisements, apps like Textio can help managers avoid gender-biased language and ensure the vocabulary they use is inclusive, gender-neutral and not influencing candidates subjectively.

Software company Atlassian put Textio’s software to the test by reworking the way in which it worded its job advertisements. In just one year, the company increased the number of women being hired for technical positions by 80 per cent!

 

2. Minimise our ability to revert to affinity bias

In first-round selections, consider removing a candidate’s name, tertiary education experience and all other factors that don’t directly relate to the attributes you are seeking in a successful applicant.

In auditions for symphony orchestras, screens were put in place between the musicians and the interviewing panel (and female candidates were asked to remove noisy heels). This increased the likelihood that a female musician would advance to the next round by 11 percentage points. During the final round, ‘blind’ auditions increased the likelihood of female musicians being selected by 30%.

 

3. Re-think decision making

When we make a conscious effort to slow down and reflect on the drivers behind our decisions, we can uncover hidden biases. This is even more effective when executed in a group environment because we don’t challenge our own biases because we’re not aware of them!

Actively welcome differing perspectives in recruitment decisions; the people don’t have to be from the same department to help shine a light you might not see.

Being open to having our decisions respectfully challenged requires a culture of psychological safety.  This supports us in becoming more open-minded, less judgemental and more flexible to changing our decisions based on the feedback we get.

 

4. Proactively drive inclusion

Having a diverse workforce brings benefits – and investing in, and focusing on, inclusion brings even greater success. It makes sense to want your employee base to culturally, racially and ethnically reflect that of your customers/ stakeholders and to have these people feel fully included.

 

  • Encourage people to interact more with those traditionally outside of their ‘in-group’ to expand their awareness and appreciation of difference
  • Team-based psychometric profiling tools such as Team Management Systems (TMS) and DiSC are extremely helpful. These provide an objective insight into preferences of self and others, our key differences and how we can harness differing strengths to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts.

 

Recruiting people is the most important and potentially costly decision that organisations will make. It makes sense therefore to invest energy, focus and time in ensuring that the people we hire feel valued and included members of our community from the outset and for the duration of their career with us.

 

Clare Edwards is the Principal of BrainSmart Consulting. She is also a speaker, facilitator and author. She studied the Neuroscience of Leadership – how knowledge of our brains can help us to be more emotionally intelligent and effective leaders and managers. Clare now helps people effectively manage and lead themselves and others in complex and uncertain business environments. 

Doing more to beat unconscious bias
Keep an eye out for the next edition of IML ANZ’s quarterly print magazine, Leadership Matters, where Clare Edwards joins a panel of experts to delve deeper into unconscious bias and how to overcome it.

Five things Shakespeare can teach you about leadership

By Andy McLean MIML | Photo by Prudence Upton

 

Modern-day managers and leaders can learn a huge amount from the epic plays of William Shakespeare.

Here are just five lessons:

 

1. Bring your people with you

Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is a military and political leader who has begun to believe his own publicity. He claims he is ‘constant as the northern star’ and his success to date makes him think his decision-making is infallible. Caesar’s failure to listen (to his Senate peers, his wife, a Soothsayer and others) proves fatal.

Leadership lesson: It can be lonely at the top – but it doesn’t have to be. By definition, a leader is someone who brings people with them. In business, that means taking time to consult with stakeholders and explain the reasons for decisions.

 

2. Take time to recognise people’s achievements

The Percy family literally risks life and limb to support Henry Bolingbroke’s battle to become King Henry IV. But, once in power, Henry is distracted by new priorities. He neglects his former allies and disregards their contribution to his success. This oversight almost costs Henry IV the crown when the embittered Percys later raise an army against him.

Leadership Lesson: In today’s market, where change is constant and time is short, it’s tempting for leaders to focus solely on the challenges ahead. But it’s essential to pause occasionally and recognise the achievements of individuals and teams. Rewarding the right behaviour helps to role-model the organisation’s values, foster loyalty and propel people to even greater heights in the future.

 

3. Give your people purpose beyond profit

In The Merchant Of Venice, everyone is consumed by the pursuit of wealth. There’s Shylock lending money, Antonio wheeling and dealing, Bassanio hustling to raise funds – and Lorenzo even wooing Jessica with one eye on the till. All of Venice’s most influential people are clamouring for cash and a toxic culture infects the city. Bell Shakespeare’s James Evans, who facilitated a Leadership In Action workshop, points out: “In one of the best opening lines of a play ever written, Antonio says: ‘In sooth, I know not why I am so sad’. He’s got everything that money can buy, but he’s still not content.”

Leadership lesson: When it comes to work, money is not the be all and end all – and your workforce knows that. As a leader, people will only follow you if you can articulate a purpose beyond profit.

 

4. Show empathy to inspire your people

On the eve of the Battle of Agincourt, King Henry V and his army know they are outmanned and outgunned by their enemy. Henry spends the night in disguise, listening to his soldiers’ hopes and fears. The next morning, before the fighting starts, Henry delivers a motivational speech that unites and emboldens his people, including the immortal lines: ‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he today that sheds his blood with me/Shall be my brother’.

Leadership lesson: If you know what makes your people tick, then you can help them achieve extraordinary things. Use surveys, forums and informal feedback to gauge the mood of your staff. Incorporate what you’ve learned when you communicate with your people. And never underestimate the power of public speaking!

 

5. Plan your succession carefully

Shakespeare wrote that, ‘All the world’s a stage, and all men and women merely players, They have their exits and their entrances’. Time and again, his plays remind us that – no matter how great the leader – their tenure is only temporary. Yet too often, those leaders fail to ensure a smooth handover of power. Rome is plunged into civil war because there is no prearranged Plan B after Julius Caesar falls, and King Lear pays a bloody price for leaving his kingdom in the hands of his two devious daughters.

Leadership lesson: Ultimately, it must be a leader’s mission to leave their organisation in a better position than when they found it. That means always keeping an eye on the long term and identifying the right talent to lead in the future.

On stage near you

Bell Shakespeare’s national tour of Much Ado About Nothing continues across Australia until 24 November. Their production Titus Andronicus will be staged in Sydney in August and September.

About the author

Andy McLean MIML is the Editorial Director of Leadership Matters magazine.

Managing the business vision

There’s no shortage of talk about strategy. But behind every good strategy, there must be a clear vision – after all, we all need a destination before mapping out our journey’s route. So, on top of managing the day-to-day and adjusting the strategy, how can leaders ensure they don’t neglect to manage the vision?

An organisation’s vision should be its North Star. It needs to be the aspiration that everyone strives to meet.  In other words, it needs to help managers think beyond the daily details and think ahead to the type of future they wish to achieve.

So essential is a leader’s vision that many CEO’s are either marked by their lack of it when they fail or they are exalted for it when they succeed.

At any stage of your leadership career, managing the vision and ensuring that it remains the guiding light is vital. So, here are three ways leaders can manage the organisation’s vision:

 

Align everything to your vision

The Golden Thread Model provides an excellent visual on how to practically align all activities to the organisation’s vision. It represents the link between vision, analysis, systems and people, amounting to a shared understanding of how the vision, goals and values of the organisation relate to daily work.

By using this model, leaders enable the development of clear metrics which align business goals with measures of success and ensures that individuals are aware of and accountable for their contribution. This makes it easier to drive business success as everyone in the organisation is heading in the same direction.

 

Motivate through the vision

In addition to drawing direct relationships between the vision, strategy and metrics for success the model also encourages the creation of team and individual objectives that tie back to the vision. This is important for maintaining lasting motivation. Unlike hitting targets, aiming to move the organisation closer to the vision takes incremental steps and the cooperation of all. That means your teams will aim to complete a marathon rather than running a sprint.

Leaders should, therefore, be conscious of providing their teams with an update on how their individual or team efforts bring the whole closer to its vision.

 

Tell compelling stories about the company’s future

The reality for leaders is that not everyone will be driven by metrics or inspired by stats. Vision-focused leaders appreciate the importance of shaping a powerful and compelling story of their companies’ futures. Beyond crafting an inspiring narrative, it also serves as a powerful engagement builder. Stories have the power to turn aspirations into reality – even if it’s just in the mind. That, in turn, gives employees the clarity they need to visualise something that often can be too abstract and feel out of reach.

Sources (these articles are available to IML ANZ members via Leadership Direct):