A Vision Splendid

 

When Starbucks lost its way it had to come up with a whole new recipe. By Fiona Smith

 

When you order a grande chocolate chip frappuccino at Starbucks, you know exactly what you will be getting – a lot of calories, some free Wi-Fi and a friendly chat with the staff, who may amuse you by misspelling your name on your plastic cup.

It is this reliability that helped make the US cafe company one of the world’s most successful retail chains, but nine years ago, Starbucks was ready to implode. The company had over-reached in its ambitious expansion and was forced to close about 900 stores worldwide.

In Australia, which never embraced Starbucks as enthusiastically as other countries, 66 shops were shut down – leaving only 23.

Stepping back in to the CEO role after an eight-year absence, chairman Howard Schultz sought to reconnect the company with its vision and mission statement, which was: “To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighbourhood at a time”.

Schultz explained at the time that the company had become too focused on the money and had lost sight of the people.

Starbucks’ turnaround is now the stuff of corporate legend. Reversing from the brink, Starbucks last year posted record-high profits of $US2.8 billion on revenues of $19 billion.

Shultz has said an integral part of the recovery was his decision to stage the company’s 2008 conference in New Orleans, which was still struggling to get back on its feet after the devastating Hurricane Katrina three years earlier.

About $US30 million was spent taking 10,000 store managers to the city, starting their conference with community service – building, painting and cleaning for the residents.

“I went to New Orleans because I knew that if I could remind people of the character and the values of who we have been, by starting the conference, not with the conference, but 50,000 hours of community service, that we would make a difference,” he said in an interview in the Harvard Business Review.

“And if we didn’t have New Orleans, we wouldn’t have turned things around. I’m convinced of that. It was the most powerful experience that any of us have had in years, because it was real, it was truthful, and it was about leadership.”

For all the cynical commentary that often surrounds discussions about company vision statements, aligning an organisation with a higher purpose can be a powerful business strategy, says Sydney-based consultant Alan Riva, who uses the concept of ‘purpose’ to grow businesses.

“It’s the glue that holds everything together,” says Riva, pointing to a study of 50,000 brands that found that the 50 highest-performing businesses were those who centred their businesses on the ideal of improving people’s lives.

These companies grew three times faster than their competitors and were 400 per cent more profitable than the S & P 500.

“This is a beautiful piece of research. We have these shining stars of businesses that show that purpose and vision are what really helps galvanise a business,” says Riva, who consults for companies such as yoghurt maker Chobani, BUPA and CoreLogic RP Data.

But not all visions are created equal. The author of that research, former Procter & Gamble global chief marketing officer Jim Stengel, says some are too short-sighted to inspire anyone.

“Does a shared goal of improving people’s lives sound, well, too idealistic for the rough-and-tumble of business? What about practical, hard-nosed goals such as making the quarterly numbers, increasing market share, and cutting costs?” Stengel asks in his book GROW: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit At The World’s Greatest Companies.

“All are crucial, but the best businesses aim higher. When many business leaders articulate mission and vision statements, they typically talk about having the best-performing, most profitable, most customer-satisfying, most sustainable, and most ethical organisation.

“Strip away the platitudes, and these statements all aim too low.”

Such lack of ambition is a “recipe for mediocrity,” he says. Instead, the core beliefs of a business should be linked to fundamental human values that remain relevant through all sorts of business cycles and changes in strategy.

So, a vision should be “visionary”, but it also needs to connect to winning in terms of a customer or market, says the national leader of strategy consulting practice, Monitor Deloitte, Jeremy Drumm. If the customer or market are omitted, then employees are left to rally around products and services. “And that never inspires and is really a poor war cry,” he says.

 

“A strategy is only good if someone else is doing the exact opposite. In order to win in a market, there must be somebody else doing something differently.”  – Jeremy Drumm, Monitor Deloitte

 

Another principle is that the vision should be broad enough so it remains relevant over decades.

Walt Disney’s simple vision – “To make people happy” – is open-ended enough to accommodate expansion into new businesses.

“If they had gotten really detailed and gone down a path [in their vision statement] of winning in animation, that would have been quite limiting and wouldn’t have seen them go into amusement parks or ships,” Drumm says.

 

Drumm uses the term “winning aspiration” to describe an organisational vision, but other commonly used terms are credo, manifesto, statements of intent, mission and core ideology.

Swedish furnishings company IKEA explains its vision (with a charming, slightly Scandinavian syntax): “At IKEA our vision is to create a better everyday life for the many people. Our business idea supports this vision by offering a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.”

Microsoft keeps it short and simple: “Our mission is to empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more.”

Some companies with enlightened-sounding aspirations today had more blood-thirsty rallying cries previously. US footwear company Nike had “Crush Adidas” as its 1960s motto, but now says its mission is “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world”.

Responsibility for coming up with a vision varies from company to company. It can be dictated by a founder or CEO, it may involve consultants and, sometimes, it is a lengthy process of harvesting and distilling the views of every employee.

Drumm’s view is that it’s the CEO’s role to define and express the “winning aspiration”. “You don’t want to spend money and waste too much time on getting the perfect language around a vision statement, but if you don’t have one, then you don’t have a North Star and all the choices that you make underneath that will be unfounded … which is a horrible place to be because you will spin your wheels and waste more money.”

When a vision is in place, it should be relatively stable, underpinned by strategies that may change frequently, says entrepreneurial strategist, Paul Broadfoot.

“If you’re going to turn something around, a vision helps. Sometimes, it’s not until there’s a dramatic need for a turnaround that a vision gets renewed, or a strategy is linked more to a vision,” says Broadfoot, author of the Xcelerate book.

“The best businesses have both a strong vision and a strong strategy and that they have developed together.”

Drumm starts the strategy conversation by asking: “Where do you play?” and “how do you win?”

The first question examines the value of particular markets, customer segments, and sets of products and services.

“Those are pretty meaty questions but if they’re not answered in the context of the [vision], they won’t resonate,” Drumm says. “They are the essence of how you set strategy.”

“Those are the hardest questions you could possibly answer. They need to be mutually reinforcing and to align with your winning aspiration.

“And a strategy is only good if somebody else is doing the exact opposite. In order to win in a market, there must be somebody else doing something differently – either in that market, or in a different market in the same way.

“Otherwise, you all just fight and the prices go down and it’s a death spiral.”

Being Professional Doesn’t Mean You Stop Being A Human Being

 

One of my (many) professions these days is a public speaker. I often attend conferences in all sorts of sectors that I would never otherwise get to see up close and personal.

It’s a great privilege and generally I learn two things. The first is that every sector and industry think the challenges they struggle with are unique to them – but they’re not. Everyone, regardless of where they work, is living in the same moment of time and is beset by the same trends and problems as the rest of the world.

The second is that a lot of people, especially when asked to present at an industry conference, confuse being a professional with being a robotic, bland and impersonal bore.

It’s as if they believe they must not allow any particle of their personality, humour or lived experience to intrude on their presentation. The result is not only eye-glazingly dull, but would have been much better handled if they’d simply distributed a copy of their (often endless) Powerpoint and remained seated while the audience read it.

The horror of your life intruding on your work has reached pathological proportions among some who strive to be taken seriously. I blame the pernicious phrase “work/life balance” for this epidemic. If you think about it, the idea simply does not make sense. Do you go to work when you are dead (dead inside, perhaps, in some jobs)? No. Well, in that case, work cannot be separated from life. It’s one part of it and that is all.

This false elevation of “work’’ as the only thing that exists outside of life may be part of the reason so many professionals appear allergic to letting anything personal slip out when they’re representing their job or employer. Sadly, such attempts at separation not only fail, they’re damaging.

When I mentored young aspiring career women (another profession of mine), I would often have to explain to them that a particularly nasty and inexplicable comment from a superior was what I called a toxic emotional fart. It was invariably an aside designed to make the young person feel inferior and was unnecessarily mean and annihilating. The young recipient of the bad smell had often spent days puzzling over it and may even have wept a few tears.

 

 

“A lot of people confuse being a professional with being a robotic, bland, impersonal bore.”

 

My explanation was that the toxic fart had nothing to do with the shaken young woman (or man). It was simply an unconscious expression of what occurs when so-called professionals suppress their humanity and have emotional baggage they will neither acknowledge nor deal with. The pressure of the things they ignore builds up until it must escape and when it does it covers all those nearby with its odour.

A professional is not just someone who turns up on time, follows through on their commitments, delivers work by the due date and knows their business – although all those things are important.

They’re not just people who deal fairly, honestly and ethically with their clients, colleagues and staff, important though that is. They don’t simply pay their appropriate taxes (yes, professionals do that, too, they’re also good citizens), and obey the laws of the land. Although they must do all of those and more.

A professional is a person who understands – not just their own job – but themselves. This matters because until you understand yourself – your motivations, vulnerabilities, weaknesses and toxic baggage (we all have some), you haven’t a hope in hell of understanding other people.

It’s called emotional intelligence and really professional managers have lots of it.

If you don’t, you can bore us all with stats and graphs and “consumer insights” until we’re blue in the face, but you’re not fooling anyone, except yourself.

A Bank of Knowledge

 

What makes Shayne Elliott and his trusted team tick?
The ANZ boss tells all

 

Self-acknowledged introvert Shayne Elliott seems one of the least likely big-bank chiefs, but his career has followed a path that is familiar to his fellow bankers. The ANZ CEO is a bank ‘lifer’, joining Citibank New Zealand as a management trainee in 1985. Within seven years he was the head of derivative sales in London. And after spells in the US and Egypt, he found himself in Australia in 2001, as the chief executive of Citibank, Corporate Bank. In 2009, he joined ANZ, becoming CFO in 2012. And in early 2016, he was appointed to the top spot at ANZ, where he leads a team of about 50,000 employees. CEO of the Institute of Managers and Leaders, David Pich, interviewed Shayne Elliott at a recent Outstanding Leaders event.

 

David Pich: How would you describe your own leadership style?
Shayne Elliott: Well, I think I’m probably an introvert. I’m actually quite shy although, funnily enough, I’m actually reasonably comfortable speaking to 500 people. I’d probably rather do that than speak to two, because there’s more distance when you’re speaking to a room [of people]. When I was CFO my team made fun of me – it was suggested that I do performance appraisals in a 500-seat auditorium, [as] that was a much more engaging conversation than having a one-on-one [with me]. I think there is a shift away from that big, charismatic, loud leadership style to one that is probably – and again, I’m not saying that’s wrong – to a more grounded, humble leader. I think good leaders are able to shift. Sometimes you do need to be really directive about what you’re doing, depending on what the crisis might be at the time, or the team. But at other times you need to be more visionary. So I think, actually, good leaders are able to change their style for the moment and the objective. But in general, my preferred style is to be quite consultative. I lead more by example and by describing what we’re trying to achieve.

 

DP: Talk us through some of the different styles in your leadership team, and how you interact with them.
SE: Over the last 18 months I had the opportunity to build my team. There are 12 of us on my direct team, and of that, a third came from outside the organisation, including two of them this calendar year. We have a couple of people we’ve promoted from within, and only one of the team has the same job they had a year ago. So I’ve got people who’ve been around a long time and really know what they’re doing, who don’t need a lot of hand holding or direction, and it’s more about just being clear about expectations. Then I’ve got some people who have never worked in a bank before so they need a lot more coaching and time. I have people with big opinions, and they think differently and challenge us all the time, and my job there is to actually give them space to be creative and listen to what they say. And then there are others who are naturally reserved, who need time, who digest a lot and are really thoughtful and quiet, and take time to come to a conclusion. I need to give them time and space, and not rush them, or rush the overall team to a decision without allowing them the benefit of that time to digest.

 

DP: There is an elephant in the room we need to get to: the bank levy. [Announced in the federal budget in May, it applies to ANZ, Westpac, National Australia Bank, Commonwealth and Macquarie. The policy was introduced on 1 July and is expected to raise $1.6 billion in the first year.] I’ve read much of what you said about the federal bank levy, and you seemed relatively fair about how you approached that. Your comments were very measured. The South Australian bank levy, when it was announced, raised some hackles. You’ve just used the word “immoral”. Or was it “unethical”? Would you like to explain that, and why you shot off the fence?
SE: I think the federal bank levy is wrong. I don’t think it’s good policy. I think it’s unfair to pick on an industry because they’re successful and say, “because people don’t like you, because you make a lot of money, we’ll tax it”. I don’t think that’s right. But, on the other hand, it has the support of all sides of politics. The people are represented by the parliament, and the parliament, across all parties, have agreed and support this. And so, our approach was to use our efforts to really have private conversations with the treasury and the government, to just talk through the implementation. We thought that was more effective than just banging the table. Actually, in my opinion, banging the table and shouting loudly would just reinforce people’s views that the banks are out of touch. Bringing in the state levy is different. Not everybody agrees with it. What is happening there is a wealth transfer underway from the rest of Australia to South Australia. I don’t think that’s right. And so what we said was, 94 per cent of our shareholders and customers do not live in South Australia [yet] they are being asked to absorb this. Because when people say, “Oh, you should absorb it,” that means the shareholders and the customers pay. It’s not a huge number. It’s not the money. It’s the principle. So we have to stand up for those stakeholders. That’s why we felt strongly about it, and felt we had to say something.

 

DP: One of the roles of a leader is to explain things in relatively simple terms for those who might not necessarily understand it. What do you think a few attributes of successful leaders are?
SE: Being able to listen and take feedback. I don’t just mean personal feedback. Yes, that’s important, but also ‘listen’ to what’s happening in the environment around you. One of the areas where leaders fail is in locking into a strategy or a view. The worst thing you can do is fall in love with your own strategy, because you rationalise staying the course when maybe you should listen and maybe you should change. Another [attribute of successful leaders] is having people who are very good at being self-aware, who understand their own weaknesses and mitigate that by hiring the right people in the team.

 

DP: Who are the leaders you have admired over your career?
SE: I’m not one of those people who has a big hero. I look at companies that I admire, and they tend to be those companies that I see as being talent factories. The obvious candidates are Procter & Gamble, GE and Hewlett-Packard. You could go there and learn how to be a manager and leader, and then go on to other companies. That’s extraordinary. The number of CEOs who’ve come out of those companies, Procter & Gamble and GE in particular, is extraordinary. At ANZ we want to be known for a number of things, but one of them is as a talent factory, and a company that creates great leaders. I think it’s a huge opportunity for us, actually, because I don’t think enough companies do pay attention to it.

 

ANZ board chairman David Gonski

DP: Quite often I think that leaders, when they get into leadership positions, they forget or they overlook the importance of managing upwards. What’s your relationship like with the ANZ board and the chair David Gonski? How do you manage upwards?
SE: I think, unfortunately, that term ‘managing upwards’ has a really bad connotation. It sounds manipulative. And maybe there’s a better way of stating it. [As a leader] you actually have to manage all your stakeholders, and they’re [the board and chair] just an important one. The reason I stepped out earlier [during the interview] was because my chairman was on the phone. So I think answering their phone calls is a good start. You have to build a really strong working relationship. I’m really lucky with David [Gonski]. He is very open and transparent. He always answers his phone. We speak formally once a week. And there are weeks where we speak once a day and many times a day, like this week. So I think it’s just about having openness. I have really worked hard with my board. I’ve actually never had a board before [so] I asked some people for advice. The advice was that it’s better to over-communicate, keep people aware of what you’re doing and thinking. Make sure that, with the board in particular that you don’t get into a transactional relationship. [Make sure] there is time for reflection and discussion, and open dialogue.

 

“I’m really lucky with David Gonski. He is very open and transparent. I think it’s just about having openness. I have really worked hard with my board.”

 

DP:  You’ve talked about the importance of embracing social media. What do you see as the pitfalls of social media for leaders?
SE: Our business is digital. Money has actually been digital for a long time and all we’re doing today, when we talk about digital, is giving people the tools to be able to see , manage and move their money on their phones or in another digital way. So I think it’s important that our people are interested in technology. We’re not a technology company, we’re a bank. But a big chunk of what we do is about technology. You cannot be successful in banking today if you’re not interested in technology. I don’t think it’s acceptable to be a senior executive in a bank today and say, “I’m not on Twitter. I don’t use social media”. You’ve got to be there, because that’s the way that people live today, and that gives you all sorts of insights into people’s experience of life, and what they want. And more and more, our customers’ expectations of us are set by their experiences on social media. What are the pitfalls? Well, Donald Trump can probably tell you more about this than me, but the pitfalls are that it’s in real time. It’s really hard to retract. It’s fraught with danger.

 

DP:  How would you describe the culture at ANZ?
SE: It’s a learning culture, a culture that is interested in technology, and a culture that is, ultimately, diverse and welcoming and team-based. Banks historically have very compliant cultures. There’s a pretty good reason for that, because of what we do for a living. We’re good at following rules and, you know, that can sometimes get in the way of being a learning company and an innovative and technology-focused company. So that’s part of our challenge, getting the balance right.

 

Brand Is You And It Is Them

 

 

Making people want to identify with your brand is crucial to any rebranding as Candice Chung explains

 

 

At the most fundamental level, all forms of rebranding is an attempt to influence the subtle chemistry between a company’s reputation and their customer’s social identities.

“Rebranding is not merely about revamping a brand name or logo, it’s about changing a company’s message, goals and their culture,” says Nicole Hartley, Senior Lecturer of University of Queensland Business School. “This requires a vision for the brand that is inspiring to customers, stakeholders and employees.”

To ensure an overall alignment of visions, first, a company needs to understand what it represents to its customers. “Specifically, what does this brand say about them and their social identities?”

Our social identity refers to a self-curated sense of who we are, and the groups we belong to. For instance, those who cycle to work may identify with people who stay fit; they may also identify with being environmentally conscious. Each of us contains a multitude of social identities, which in turn become powerful triggers to our consumer behaviour.

 

“Successful rebranding is about surprising or delighting customers in a thoughtful and authentic way.”

 

“When consumers identify with a social group that has a well-defined, positive image, they tend to select products that most clearly broadcast membership in it,” according to a recent report by Harvard Business Review.

“Toyota’s [environmentally-focused] marketing for its Prius hybrid car provides an example of how to do this well. By September 2014 the Prius accounted for over half the hybrids ever sold in the United States.”

As Revelian CEO Cherie Curtis pointed out in her recent ‘Change’ podcast with Institute of Leaders and Managers CEO David Pich, “brand is an interactive thing”.

“How much do your members/clients want to attach their identity to your brand? That is the biggest endorsement they can provide,” Curtis says. “It’s about people wanting to associate themselves with that brand.”

Most big rebranding mishaps result from companies not taking the time to understand their customers’ attachment to the brand, says Dr Hartley. “Wanting to merely inject a bit of modernism into a brand is not enough.

“Successful rebranding is about surprising or delighting customers in a thoughtful and authentic way.”

New Name, New Opportunities

 

How successful rebranding can open up new markets for your business. By Candice Chung

 

Regardless of the core business of a company, one of the main aims of of rebranding is to change the expectations you’re setting for your stakeholders.

Companies typically find themselves at a strategic crossroad in response to changing market conditions or increased competition, says Nicole Hartley, Senior Lecturer of University of Queensland Business School. Or they may consider rebranding as a way to support growth strategies that involve moving into new markets – extending their appeal to a wider range of clients, a different gender or age group.

No matter the reason, there is one common thread between all successful rebranding campaigns. “Rebranding done well involves acceptance and continued brand loyalty by your established consumer market,” says Dr Hartley.

Below are some stand-out examples of Australian companies that have broken new grounds by re-energising their brands while maintaining customer loyalty, according to Dr Hartley.

Virgin Blue In 2010, the company renamed and repositioned themselves as Virgin Australia. This was in response to a drop in market share and revenue after entering the market as a low cost airline. Keen to compete in the upmarket business and leisure segment, they repositioned the brand with a new culture and a new customer experience. The comprehensive rebrand led to a name change and focused on a more contemporary look and appeal.

 

‘Rebranding does well involves acceptance and continued brand loyalty by your established market’ – Dr Nicole Hartley

 

Woolworths’ notable 2009 logo relaunch involved a signatory new W for Woolworths, styled with a green apple and accompanied by a new tagline, “The Fresh Food People”. The rebrand hits back at the growing perception that a large percentage of Woolworths’ food was imported. Importantly, it reflects the company’s commitment to fresh produce, which was proudly Australian grown. Their additional commitment includes showcasing the baked goods section within the stores, so shoppers could see fresh food production in action.

ANZ wanted to focus on delivering a brand image that pushed them from being a domestic to an internationally recognised brand – particularly in the Asian markets. A new tagline for the bank – ‘We live in your world’ delivered on this in their 2009 campaign. They also launched a new logo that spoke to a more diverse population. The use of a lotus as the main image “represents ANZ in all its markets regardless of language”, and signifies cultural resonance with the Asian market.

Super Retail Group’s 2012 rebranding campaigned aimed at making a clear distinction between two of their flagship brands – Amart (All) Sports and Rebel Sports. The shift was to rename Rebel Sports as ‘Rebel’ – repositioning it as a premium sports retailer, while enhancing the focus on a female sports enthusiasts market. Rebel Sport had been identified as overly masculine, and the revamp of Rebel (with a new yellow and black logo), together with an effort to make its product offerings more women-friendly, ultimately helped to expand its female market.

 

Take Two – Second Sight

Dr Christopher Clarke FIML, manager of corporate safety at Melbourne Water, was inspired to push his career envelope by mentor Ron Skaff FIML, an organisational change practitioner and director at Forma & Associates. They began meeting in Melbourne last year.

 

Why did you join IML’s mentor program?

Christopher Clarke (pictured right): I joined for the opportunity to tap into the knowledge of someone who sits within a senior leadership team and to learn from their experience. Also, I wanted to discuss my long-term goals and how I could reach them. I wanted to have trusted and personal conversations and expand my range of contacts and look at innovative ways of career development.

Ron Skaff (left): I actually saw a tweet the other day where some millennial was saying that mentoring is dead. I didn’t respond but I wanted to. I have been mentoring for a good portion of my adult life. I was coaching CEOs when I first came to Australia [from the US] and I’ve been a Member of IML since 1994. In the last couple of years, I realised that with all my commercial acumen I should be giving back to IML because of all the relationships it has opened up to me.

 

What did you learn from each other?

CC: Within the first five minutes of speaking to Ron, I knew he was the right fit for me. It didn’t take me long to see Ron has a brilliant strategic mind. His was a great mind to tap into. Although we were talking about career development, we’d also dive into life in general.

RS: You need to separate the person from the career. Chris has a strong family values anchor and I believe my family values play the same important role for me. He would tell me the things he was doing with his family and how that made him feel in terms of his personal life and career, and that was helpful for me because my family was following some similar paths. It helped me see where my focus should be, which was with my family.

 

What is the value of a mentoring relationship?

CC: Without the mentoring program I may not have been able to meet someone like Ron. He definitely inspired me to push the envelope in my chosen career field.

RS: Part of my role as a mentor is to develop a roadmap with my mentee about their career. Chris had just finished his PhD in safety and was looking at transformational leadership. I enjoy the personal satisfaction of knowing I played a role in the growth of a protégé.

 

What did you get out of the IML Mentor program?

CC: We workshopped various professional development tools. We did a career SWOT and also looked at my strengths in my personal life, which I hadn’t done before. We were able to correlate the two and I got some great insights. Ron also sent me some reading material to discuss when we caught up.

RS: Sharing my motivation and seeing the motivation of others is enjoyable. Mentoring allows you to see unique perspectives and a diversity of thought.

 

Would you recommend it to others?

CC: If you want to work closely with someone to improve your career and personal progression, absolutely.

RS: Anyone who believes they’d like to mentor should do so. The experience delivers a deeper learning outcome, different than using the internet or reading a book to understand new leadership approaches.

 

Strike Up The Band

Being an evidence-based leader is a double-edged sword. Evidence becomes both a tool in our hand and a rod for our back. It’s how we learn about the true performance of our organisation, so we can manage it and also manage how we’re judged for that performance. We cannot have the former without the latter.

The price for informed decision-making is transparency and accountability, a price that appears too high for many leaders. They keep their heads in the sand and steer by gut feel; they distract with hearsay and anecdote and biased selection of data. But what these leaders don’t realise is that the price of transparency and accountability is much lower than the price of ignorance. Organisations led by such leaders rarely perform well. And if they perform well in something, it’s usually short-lived and at the expense of other important results.

In truth, most of us would like it both ways: to always be right and to have an organisation that is performing well. But we need to decide what’s more important.

One of my earliest teachers in organisational performance was the safety manager in a transport organisation. He invited me to help him improve safety performance reporting, and part of my improvement was to display the safety-performance measures in line charts with about two years of history. This was so we could see how performance changed over time, track the impact of our improvement initiatives and see the potential for further improvement.

This was what I assumed the safety manager was indeed trying to do. But I was wrong. He wanted to know that what he was doing was working. Not if, but that it was working. The graphs I showed him told a different story: they showed nothing had changed over the past two years. Performance was not improving under his leadership. He wanted to be told he was always right, and the price he paid was impotence: the lack of any effect at all on safety performance. And, of course, that was the price his organisation also had to pay.

In contrast, Jon, the CEO of a timber products company and one of my favourite clients, decided to lead his organisation to actually perform well. He was frustrated that he couldn’t see any bottom-line impact from all the investments the company was making in improving processes.

Rather than hiding this from his board, making excuses or looking for data that would paint a positive picture, Jon took ownership of reality. He and his senior leadership team spent the time to learn how to measure the company’s strategic direction, over and above profit. They aligned each operational team with that strategic direction and helped them learn how to measure the operational results that were drivers of the strategic results.

They used the measures as a cornerstone in their evidence-based management. And it became easier to align their process improvement projects to the strategic results, and the bottom line.

Transparency and accountability are demanded of organisations now, and they are needed in order to truly know how an organisation is performing. And, of course, accountability means that the organisation’s leaders will take responsibility for actual performance if it’s below expectation.

Our world needs more courageous leaders who will accept the price of transparency and accountability and pursue high performance. Because that’s really the only way that things get better.

Evidence-based leadership is not about how to lead. It’s about what to give our attention to as we lead. It’s not about how to direct or how to engage. It’s about how to communicate or how to inspire or how to direct or how to engage. It’s about how to apply all these attributes to create a high-performance organisation.

What we give our attention to as we lead is the performance of the organisation. We communicate the results that matter, so everyone understands them. We inspire everyone to reach for higher performance targets, to achieve the results that matter. We set direction and help each team find their contribution to it. We engage everyone so they feel ownership of their contribution. How we lead is important, and what we emphasise through our leadership is just as vital.

To lead an organisation to high performance, a strong emphasis must be given to the role of evidence. Evidence-based leaders pursue high performance by speeding up the cycle of closing performance gaps – those gaps between where performance is right now, and where they want it to be. This is why these leaders give a lot of attention to results-based performance measures.

Without good performance measures, we have no evidence. With no evidence, we can’t know.

 

MAKE IT UNDERSTOOD AND IT WILL BE MEASURABLE

Leading an organisation is much more complex than navigating a ship across vast oceans. There are many more variables and forces interplaying, and we don’t yet have the instruments and charts to detect or predict them all.

But the fundamental principle of direction is the same: if the captain isn’t clear about where to go and how to hold course when the seas get rough and the crew gets worried and confused, the voyage fails. Leaders of organisations need to be clear about the destination, and how to hold course when the pressure is on. This is the habit of articulating a clear direction, which is not about business as usual. It’s about strategy, and strategy is about change, improvement and working on the business and not in it.

A good strategic direction is where evidence-based leadership begins. A good strategic direction is results-based, not action-oriented. Evidence-based leadership makes no sense if there are no results to strive for. If the strategic direction is a simply a list of initiatives or projects or things to get done, then people confuse success with completion. But there is little point in getting stuff done if we’re not aiming that effort at the results we want to achieve.

For example, there’s no point in completing an initiative to set up a customer relationship management system unless everyone is clear that the result is to retain profitable customers. When we know the results we want to achieve, evidence-based leadership has a context. But too often strategy is written as a list of initiatives or projects or things to get done, and there is no result in sight.

 

ALIGNING PROJECTS WITH RESULTS

It isn’t an either/or decision to be project-oriented or results-oriented. We need to be both, but at the right time. We need to be project-oriented when we are managing the activities and initiatives we’ve invested in. And we need to be results-oriented to make sure we choose the right activities and initiatives, and that those investments aren’t a waste of time, effort and money.

There is a clear difference between program management and performance management, which monitors milestones and expenditure to keep projects on track. Performance management monitors performance measures to keep the results on track. Both are part of evidence-based leadership, but the former is only ever going to add value when the latter is defined clearly first.

 

WHEN PEOPLE ARE ONLY PROJECT-ORIENTED, WASTE IS GUARANTEED

Performance does not equate to completing projects on time and on budget. The only reason we invest time and money into projects is to make a needed difference, or have a specific impact, or achieve a particular result. If we don’t know what the objective is then how can we know that we’ve chosen the right project? How can we know if we’ve designed the project in the right way, and implemented it well? If we don’t know, then we’re guessing. And acting on guesses will always cause many times more waste than acting on knowledge.

Of course, not much will change if people are only results-oriented. Being clear about the results we’re striving to achieve is motivating and focusing.

We get everyone’s energy aligned toward the same end goal. Collaboration is easier, and so is decision making when problems or difficult choices arise. But without action, results never become reality. We sit around theorising and visioning and never get anything done. This breeds cynicism and apathy.

We need to marry results-oriented and project-oriented thinking, not choose one over the other, and not mistake one for the other. We’re not focusing on results instead of projects. We’re putting results and projects in the right order. That way, the projects can be celebrated when they successfully get the results that they were intended to create.

 

UNWEASELY WORDS

The easiest way to change a weasel word to something more meaningful and specific is to try to explain it to a 10-year-old. This does not mean dumbing down our goal; it means making it easy to understand, for everyone. For example, in the goal ‘Enhance our protection of our landscape’, almost every word is weasely. It’s too vague to be sure that everyone will share the same understanding of it. A local council in NSW avoided weasel words and wrote this goal in 10-year-old language: “The fragile soils of ridges and escarpments and valuable farming land are protected from unnatural erosion and loss of topsoil.”

Straight away we can visualise what this goal means. We see in our mind’s eye rolling hills and rocky outcrops, the earthy patchwork of crops, vast green pastures with cows or sheep grazing. We see black or red topsoil in some places, and grey and cracked earth in other places. We see what we can measure: the amount of erosion and the amount of topsoil.

In addition to being nearly impossible to measure meaningfully, and hardly ever comprehensible to everyone in the organisation, weasel words also hide another problem: a strategy that is too broad and unfocused.

 

BE RUTHLESS

Peter Drucker is quoted over again for his message that the key to strategy is omission. Good strategy is more about what not to do than what to do. And that’s the product of ruthless prioritisation.

In The 4 Disciplines of Execution, authors Sean Covey, Chris McChesney and Jim Huling suggest the first discipline is to focus on the wildly important.

Achieving goals for change amid the whirlwind of day-to-day work follows the law of diminishing returns.

If we have two or three goals over and above the whirlwind, we can achieve those two or three goals. But if we have four to 10 goals, in addition to our whirlwind, we’ll achieve only one or two of them.

You know how many goals can be achieved when we have 11 or more goals to achieve, as well as our whirlwind? None.

Should, can, will.

To be ruthless, we must only keep goals that can pass the ‘should, can, will’ test.

Before we even consider measuring a goal, we ask three questions of it:

Should the goal be pursued? (Is it important enough, right now?)

Can we pursue it? (Is it inside our circle of influence?)

Will we pursue it? (Do we have the time and resources to improve it?)

 

If we answer yes to all three questions, the goal is measure-worthy. If it’s not, then why is it in the strategy? Why are we aiming to achieve something but not interested in knowing whether it’s achieved or not?

Leaders who take on too much and set many lofty goals should not be held up as the heroes. They won’t achieve those goals and, if they do, the price will be too high.

It’s the leaders who have laser focus and achieve big improvements that can sustain themselves beyond the effort that are the real heroes.

 

Edited extract from Prove It! How to Create a High Performance Culture and Measurable Sucess by Stacey Barr

Take Two – A Firm Guiding Hand

Solicitor Brooke Reardon MIML can’t thank mentor Chris Blair FIML enough for helping her pluck up the courage to start her own business

 

Brooke Reardon MIML, principal practitioner at Your Law Firm Horsham, joined AIM’s mentor program to help steer her through a life-changing career move. She was teamed up with Chris Blair FIML, Enterprise Manager at legal documentation company Topdocs, and credits his guidance with helping her take a leap forward.

 

Why did you join AIM’s mentor program?

BROOKE REARDON: I was at a crossroads in my career. I was working as a solicitor at a law firm and decided to join the mentoring program because I felt like I needed guidance to help make some big decisions. Chris was instrumental in building my confidence to not only start my own business early this year but also to join the Your Law Firm franchise.

CHRIS BLAIR: I’ve been involved in mentoring one way or another for a long time. The first experience was at least 20 years ago when I was working for big global company and they introduced a mentoring program. I loved it. I always had mentors earlier in my career, not that they were probably called mentors in those days!

 

What did you get out of the experience?

BR:  Have you read the book Who Moved My Cheese? It’s an oldie but a goodie. I think Chris was a partner on the journey of looking for the new cheese for me! He helped me explore different options and put me in contact with people who could also help. He never made the choices for me but he helped me uncover different options that may or may not have been suitable for me.

CB: Brooke is a really smart lawyer and a really nice person. I’m a helper by nature and I like coaching and encouraging. Mentoring provides a total support system and it’s the kind of trusted relationship that I thrive on.

 

What did you learn from each other?

BR: Chris was very approachable, very considerate, very knowledgeable and very quickly understood my position and where I was seeking to go. I don’t think I would be where I am now without having Chris’ guidance along the way. He was woven into my career story from the minute he became my mentor, so when I tell people about my journey of how I became a practitioner, the AIM mentoring program and Chris himself are a key part of that story.

CB:  Brooke was really stuck in a difficult position. It was inspiring to see her make a decision for her career that will have life-long positive impacts. It’s not just, “Hey, I got this little promotion”. What Brooke did will change her life forever, and that’s really powerful.

 

Would you recommend the mentor program to others?

BR: Absolutely. Without a mentor, you can live a bit in a vacuum because you’ve got no one to bounce things off. It also increases your confidence when you’ve got someone else giving you feedback on your ideas. The whole experience was exceptionally valuable to me. It was life-changing.

CB:  Definitely. If somebody needs to have an external second opinion, coach, mentor, or whatever you want to call it, so long as they’re matched up well, it can provide a real helping hand. You may also gain a lifelong friend at the end of the day.

 

Millennials in the workplace

A quick Google search of ‘millennials in the workplace’ brings up results such as:

  • How to understand Millennials in the workplace;
  • What Do Millennials Really Want at Work?;
  • 11 tips For Managing Millennials

These results speak to a wider trend throughout the workforce – that many workplaces struggle to lead and retain millennial workers.

There is some debate over exactly what demographic millennials are, but generally the term is understood to mean anyone born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s. They are the first generation to come of age in the new millennium. This same demographic is also referred to as Generation Y.

Unsurprisingly, this generation is more technologically savvy than any of the preceding generations. Broadly speaking, they are more politically liberal than other generations, with a strong focus on social awareness and individual responsibility. And they have brought to the workforce skills that many organisations struggle to utilise and expectations that they fail to meet.

Millennials place a high value on work-life balance and often expect an employer to provide them with ongoing learning and development, career progression and mentoring and strong leadership. Only 2% of millennials view a career as a job for life, compared with 12% of other generations in the workforce. On average, Generation Y anticipate staying with an employer for roughly two to four years, while the average for the remainder of the workforce is over six years.

In turn they are accused by older generations of being entitled, narcissistic and unfocused, sometimes referred to as “Generation Me”.

Leadership expert, author and speaker, Simon Sinek, received a lot of attention for an interview he did in 2016 addressing millennials in the workplace. Sinek spoke about how he is regularly asked why millennials are un-leadable and why so many organisations struggle to meet their needs and hold on to them. Sinek outlined four main reasons why he thinks this is happening.

The first is the style of parenting many millennials were raised in. Sinek argues many of that generation were raised with the attitude “you are special and you can have whatever you want just because you want it”. Their self-esteem was massaged through “participation awards”, which ultimately devalued the effort more worthy award-winners and only made the kids who do poorly feel embarrassed.

Sinek suggests that this inflated sense of self-worth is shattered upon entering the workforce which then fosters low self-confidence and self-doubt.

Sinek’s second explanation is millennial’s unique relationship with technology. For many millennials their use of social media and mobile phones is a source of dopamine, a naturally-occurring neurotransmitter that helps control the brain’s reward and pleasure centers. Dopamine elevation is typically associated with alcohol and drug addiction. The pleasure sensation that the brain gets when dopamine levels are elevated creates the motivation for us to proactively perform actions that can recreate the sensation. Over time, by artificially raising the amount of dopamine the brain perceives is “normal,” the drugs – or social media – create a need that only they can meet. Sinek proposes that because many millennials have no restrictions set on social media use they are learning to seek validation and support from devices, not people. This can lead them to feel very isolated in the workplace, unable to form the type of relationships with their peers that would otherwise help support them.

Sinek’s third explanation is impatience. Millennials have grown up in a world of instant gratification. They’ve never had to learn to wait. They then apply this desire for instant gratification to jobs and relationships.

And then millennials’ relationships with self-esteem, social media and instant gratification are all put into play with Sinek’s fourth reason – the corporate environment. Millennials, without the skills to cope with stress and form connections, and in constant search for immediate results, are placed in corporate environments where their well-being is valued less than profit-making.

He argues it is the responsibility of the current leaders to help millennials by changing the corporate environment. “They blame themselves… but it’s not them. It’s the total lack of good leadership in our world today that is making them feel the way they do.”

Below are some methods for shifting your workplace environment to best welcome millennials, and make the most of their unique skills.

Enable training and career development

Highly-educated millennials have the opportunity to make their jobs a source of personal pride and fulfilment – they are more inclined to view their job as a method of “making an impact” on the world and providing meaning, rather than merely a means to make money. They want to grow, and react poorly to any sense of staticity or stagnancy. Rather than managers and leaders seeing this as a burden, it can be approached as an indication of millennials’ commitment to – and genuine investment – in the role.

Develop a welcoming workplace culture

Snide and petty comments about millennials’ perceived laziness and lack of focus does not create an environment millennials will particularly enjoy. Remember that every generation has had gripes about the generation that comes after it. Instead, take advantage of the millennials’ comfort and ease with working in teams. Make the most of their tech-savviness and ability multi-task. Millennials potential short-comings are usually paired with a skill other generations don’t have – don’t miss out what these skills can offer you workplace.

Adapt your management style

Much is made of millennials’ delicate egos and over-dependence on praise. But it is worth recognising the value of regular recognition of good work – for all your staff members, not just millennials. Rather than dismiss millennials’ needs as childish and unsupportable in the corporate world, look to what aspects of their upbringing and experience could have value. Don’t resist change simply on the grounds that it is unknown – instead make use of what’s now available to you.

Finally, it is important to note that any broad generalisations about an entire generation of people are inevitably going to paint only the broadest brush strokes, and for many these characterisations of millennials will be far from the truth. Indeed this portrait has been regularly criticised for only really encapsulating the traits of largely white, affluent millennials in the Western world. It’s therefore crucial that this commentary be taken with a grain of salt.