Tag Archives: Books

When it’s time to hire new talent: the successful senior hire

Developing as a leader, ,

Our current economic conditions place different demands on our leaders and this in turn places a new level of pressure on the critical task of recruiting the right people to senior posts in your organisation and supporting them in doing a great job.  No surprise then to read a request for ideas from one of my colleagues on the Training Journal Daily Digest.  This was my response:

You are looking at how you integrate your senior executives into your organisation in the best possible way to increase their effectiveness and help them deal with changes in organisational culture. You are particularly interested to learn how other large organisations manage the process and any thoughts or information on best practice or leading edge.

I am offering a few ideas based on my experience of conducting research into effective leadership over many years and helping client organisations to apply it, via executive assessments, coaching etc. Here’s a quick brainstorm and I’d be delighted to speak with you if you would value chewing over a few ideas at some point:

• I would say that nine tenths of ‘getting it right’ happens before your senior executives join the company. There are two things in particular, here. The first is establishing and conducting a dialogue with prospective executives which allows both parties to assess the extent of the match. This requires you to be scrupulously honest (with yourselves and with prospective candidates) about your agenda. The second is conducting an assessment of your candidates which is effective in establishing whether they have the skills and competencies needed for the job. I have seen any number of senior hirings fail because one of these two issues has not been addressed effectively;
• Perhaps it’s worth mentioning a third aspect of this pre-recruitment dialogue, speaking as someone who conducts executive assessments on behalf of client organisations. I have seen people fail whom I have assessed and when I have told clients that they are not a good match for the job. This has never done my business any harm – it tends to strengthen my credibility and to provide an opportunity for dialogue with my client which strengthens my relationship with clients. I do recommend that you consider what third-party support you use in the hiring process and pay attention to your relationship with your partners in the assessment process;
• Research shows that the most effective leaders, when they start a new job, spend time gathering information and shaping their agenda and your focus needs to be on supporting this. For your senior hires, this involves getting out and meeting key people including peers and those people they are leading. So, if you are serious about integrating senior executives into the organisation you will support this process of dialogue and you may want to play a role in it – giving regular time to newly-hired executives to discuss what they are finding and what plans they are shaping;
• There’s another category of new hires that often fails – this is when organisations bring in people with the aim of shaking the place up a bit and then make it very difficult for the new executive to fulfil this remit. I wonder if this is what you are talking about when you mention ‘changes in organisation culture’. If you want new executives to thrive in a culture that is serving your organisation well why not recruit to match in the first place? If you want them to have an effect on changing the culture you need to be honest with yourselves – what are you really ready for? – and also recruit people with the necessary skills. I have seen people recruited who are steeped in a culture to which organisations aspire but who have no skills in bridging the gap between cultures and taking people with them. They get rejected by people in organisations pretty quickly;
• I want to declare my interest as a coach when I say that there may be times when Executive Coaching can play a role in supporting the new senior executive. Some senior hires will bring their executive coach with them as a matter of course. It’s also been my experience that some organisations have seen the opportunity to bridge the assessment process with life in the organisation by hiring me as a coach: this is particularly effective when the assessment indicates some growth areas for the executive if he or she is to be effective or if the agenda in the new role is stretching for the organisation.

I notice I could go on! A couple of books spring to mind: Watkins’ The First 90 Days and Wageman and others’ Senior Leadership Teams. The first offers advice for the new hire and may offer pointers for the hiring organisation. The second talks about research into effective conditions for senior leadership teams. This points to a key factor for me – unless you have the right people in place in the right teams with the right conditions any amount of support to the new hire may be wasted.

PS Just to let you know, as a member of Amazon Associates UK, I shall receive a referral fee for any books you buy using the links in this posting.

What is empathy, anyway, and why does it matter?

Developing as a leader, Developing leadership across your organisation, Emotional Intelligence, , , , ,
We can say that when a person finds himself sensitively and accurately understood, he develops a set of growth promoting or therapeutic attitudes toward himself.

Carl Rogers
Empathic:  An Unappreciated Way of Being

Well, I didn’t set out to make this week Empathy Week and still, I am immensely grateful to my colleague in the world of non-violent communication (NVC), Jeroen Lichtenauer, for highlighting a wealth of resources available to support my exploration.

Today, I have been diving into a paper written by Carl Rogers, entitled Empathic:  An Unappreciated Way of Being.  Before I write about Rogers’ article it is worth saying a few words about the man himself:  Carl Rogers worked as a psychologist and therapist in twentieth century America and his work has been highly influential across a range of related fields.  As well as shaping an approach to therapy which is radically different to some of the more analytical approaches which preceded it, Rogers’ approach has been highly influential in the modern coaching profession and Marshall Rosenberg also points to Rogers as having influenced his attempts to develop an approach (eventually called Nonviolent or Compassionate Communication) which could be shared easily around the world without the costs associated with individual therapy.

Now, Rogers’ credentials are highly rated with some and yet may ring alarm bells with others.  What does all this mean for the average man or woman seeking to find a way through a corporate career?  It’s worth mentioning the work of David McClelland and his colleagues (popularised by Daniel Goleman in such books as Emotional Intelligence and Working with Emotional Intelligence).  McClelland’s research showed that our effectiveness in the workplace depends significantly on a number of competencies which depend on our emotional rather than intellectual intelligence.  Empathy matters!  And, in fact, empathy is listed as a competency in the Hay Group Emotional Competence Inventory which seeks to translate these research findings into practical ways of measuring competency and emotional intelligence at work.

Rogers’ paper includes a number of definitions of empathy including at least two of his own.  The quote above, from the conclusion of his paper, points both to what we might mean by empathy and to the significance of empathy for the individual.  Both are big subjects in themselves so let me just say for the moment that when we are able to be present to our own thoughts, feelings, experience and needs (self empathy) or to the thoughts, feelings, experience and needs of another (empathy) without judgement we open up a wide range of possibilities in our relationships and communication with self and other.  This is every bit as significant in the workplace as it is in the therapist’s office, where the presence or absence of empathy will have an effect on key aspects of our work life.  These include our ability to make and execute sound decisions as well as our personal well-being, our ability to engage those we lead as well as our ability to marshall our own inner – and often conflicting  – voices.

What is the key question we might ask our selves to determine the extent to which we are able to demonstrate empathy?  Here is my starter for ten:  am I able to put myself in the shoes of another, to connect with their feelings and needs and in this way to see multiple perspectives without needing to be “right”?

Crossing the Unknown Sea

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“Work provides safety.
To define work in other ways than safety is to risk our illusions of immunity in the one organized area of life where we seem to keep nature and the world at bay”.
David Whyte
Crossing the Unknown Sea:  Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity
Recently, amongst the people with whom I spent five days at Vicky Peirce’s Come to Life Barn, I enjoyed meeting David, a recent graduate embarking on his career at a time when the economy is rocky and jobs are scarce.  Returning from the Barn and pondering our current economic situation I found myself picking up a book which has been waiting to be read for some time, David Whyte’s Crossing the Unknown Sea:  Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity.
With his characteristic style David Whyte draws on his own experiences and on the writings of others to reveal and explore the depths that await us if we only dare to bring ourselves fully to the experience of our work.  Every page reveals a deep truth about our relationship with work and about the relationship with ourselves which is revealed through this relationship.  The theme of conversation is woven throughout the book and I am at risk (though only very slightly) of losing sight of the overall arc of the book as I read sentence after sentence that lends itself to being quoted elsewhere.
As I read I also reflect on the experiences of friends, colleagues and clients in our current climate.  It seems to me that we have moved beyond redundancy as something that is happening to a few other people towards redundancy as something that is only a step away from each and every one of us.  With this comes a challenge to those of us for whom work is our primary and underlying security – for when our chief underlying security is no longer secure, we are challenged to look elsewhere.
The possibility or experience of job loss has a significant impact on the conversations we hold – at times without awareness – with ourselves.  For some, this is a devastating experience, rocking our very sense of self as someone worthwhile and with something to contribute.  We can see this in individuals and also in whole communities affected by the loss of an industry with which generations of neighbours and family members have become deeply entwined.  For others, redundancy becomes an opportunity to engage with deeper questions of who we are, what we want and what we bring, opening up new possibilities and pathways towards work as an expression of our true selves.  It is to these people that Whyte’s book is calling and it is with these people that I love to work in coaching partnership.
The possibility or experience of job loss is also something that shapes the conversations we have with one another.  For as we become aware that keeping our heads down and doing a good job may not be enough to secure our position in the workplace we are invited to reach out in mutual understanding and support.  Amongst the outcomes that our current climate can bring this is one that I see as entirely positive.  This is a movement away from a brightly-surfaced, brittle isolation towards a greater depth and intimacy in our conversations.  And once the surface of our isolation is broken and trust is established our world has already expanded and has the potential to continue to expand. 
For this reason, speaking to a client about the situation he faces as possible redundancy ebbs and flows, I notice that I cannot put my hand on heart and say that I truly wish he does not have to face the loss of his current job.  For whatever lies ahead I know that he – along with others like him – has the resources he needs to experience such a loss as an opening, a blossoming, as an experience by which he learns more about himself and his possibilities.  Whilst I do not have any wish for him that he lose his job, I do come back to my faith in the richness of human experience and in our capacity to learn, grow and thrive.
PS Just to let you know, as a member of Amazon Associates UK, I shall receive a referral fee for any books you buy using the links in this posting.

Can you absolutely know that what you’ve chosen to believe about yourself is true?

Developing as a leader, ,

Going through my e-mails I come to a short film shared by coaching colleague Emma Chilvers from Nik Askew’s website at http://www.soulbiographies.com/.  I haven’t come across the site before, which sends out short films (this one three minutes) by subscription on a Monday morning.

They are not films to watch in a hurry even though they’re short:  this three minute film has brief content that bears deep thought and unrolls at a pace which requires ease rather than haste.

The message, delivered by Katies Byron, is thought-provoking and points to the way we can limit ourselves by holding beliefs about ourselves as if they were true.  I wonder about the implications for us as we develop.  I wonder about the implications for us as we develop as leaders.

The message?

Most of us believe the thoughts we hold about ourselves to be true.  Without question.  Even though they diminish our capacity for life.

Few ever wonder if ‘such thoughts’ are true.

Can you abolutely know that what you’ve chosen to believe about yourself is true?

The perennial leadership challenge: how to give feedback to staff

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When it comes to feedback, there are some key issues that are out of sight in terms of our beliefs and values.  It can help to get clear about these before deciding on approaches to feedback.
We live in a society whose coverts beliefs are about right and wrong, reward and punishment.  This is variously labelled, for example, as the “domination society”, or “patriarchal” or “unilateral control”.  In organisations this can be (though it doesn’t need to be) reinforced by hierarchy, where “I am more senior than you” can equate to “I am right and you are wrong”.  I am wondering as I write if the (in)famous “feedback sandwich” comes from this model – whilst it recognises and attempts to shield people’s feelings from negative feedback the feedback still comes from the idea that I have perceptions that are correct.
There is another approach which sees both parties as having needs which need to be met, having a contribution to make, having things to learn.  Again, there are various terms which get used to describe this such as the “mutual learning model” (Roger Schwarz), “nonviolent communication” (Marshall Rosenberg) and no doubt more besides.  In these approaches feedback is, frankly, as much about the person giving feedback as it is about the person receiving it, recognising that both parties have needs to be met and both parties have things to learn.  Hierarchy plays a role in terms of job function and responsibilities but not in terms of who is right and who is wrong.
So, when it comes to seeking out an effective model for giving feedback, it helps to be clear about your aspirations in terms of the underlying principles – beliefs, values etc. – that you want your preferred model to meet.  One way of understanding the implications of different approaches (in this case leadership approaches) is to read Goleman’s The New Leaders.  Essentially, leadership styles which come from the domination model can be valuable in certain specific and limited (especially crisis) situations but tend to undermine performance in the long term.  Douglas McGregor’s X and Y Theory (outlined in The Human Side of Enterprise) also points to this distinction as does Alfie Kohn’s Punished by Rewards.
If you want to understand the different underlying approaches read Goleman, McGregor, Kohn.  If you want to explore how to give feedback in line with the second (Goleman and colleagues call it “resonant”) approach, read Rosenberg and Schwarz.



PS  Just to let you know, as a member of Amazon Associates UK, I shall receive a referral fee for any books you buy using the links in this posting.

Seeing the unseen: truths about the society we live in

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Last week I wrote about the context in which we give feedback and this week I want to point to two more resources which supply insights into the society we live in.  Both provide insights for leaders about the context in which we lead.  This is not just about organisational culture.  It’s also about a wider culture.

The first resource is Walter Wink’s book The Powers That Be:  Theology For A New Millenium.  Winks has written extensively about what he calls the “powers” and this book draws together key points from a number of his books.  Maybe one way to understand Wink’s book is to imagine as a human being without knowledge of the overall size and shape of our planet being taken into space and shown, for the first time, that our planet earth is round and part of a much wider system.  Wink’s provides a compelling case for the idea that we live in a culture which favours violence (he calls it the domination system) and offers an alternative both to using violence to respond to violence and to a passive acceptance of domination by others.  He calls this alternative to classic fight or flight the third way or nonviolence.  I have heard that this book provided inspiration for Marshall Rosenberg’s book Nonviolent Communication:  A Language for Life as well as for Rosenberg’s lifetime commitment to teach nonviolence.  As a fan of Rosenberg’s work I found Wink’s book informed my understanding of this thing called NVC, too.

(Maybe it’s important to recognise in this posting that the subtitle of Wink’s book Theology for a New Millenium points both to Wink’s Christian faith and to the source of his interest.  If you are what often gets called a practising Christian you may find that this book challenges you in your understanding of Christ’s teachings, providing new insights into some key events in Christ’s life based on an understanding of the historical context in which Christ taught people – for example – to “turn the other cheek”.  And if you are not a Christian but simply someone who is seeking to understand the context in which you live and work I hope you will still read Wink’s book and draw insights from it).

Alongside Wink’s book, I recently came across the work of Anne Wilson Schaef and decided to read her book When Society Becomes An Addict.  Schaef is also stepping a long way back to identify a systemic culture she initially called by gender-related names and in this book calls the addictive system.  What fascinates me about this book is the link Schaef makes to the behaviours of the alcoholic.  These include such things as seeking to control, lying, denial and confusion.  And this makes sense to me both as cause and effect of living in what Wink’s calls the domination society.  For if you are seeking to dominate you are unlikely to say “I’m telling you that I’m right and you are wrong because that gives me power over you and encourages you to comply” or “I am dismissing you or your ideas rather than look into them because I know my case is built on foundations that don’t stand up to close examination”.  Equally, if you are subject to domination by others you may well experience confusion when faced with the obfuscation of a dominant other (from parent to boss) and you may well lie in your attempts to protect yourself from the punishments that are built into the system.

What’s this got to do with leadership?  In truth, I hope this is readily apparent:  as leaders, we may choose to perpetuate the domination system or to create something different.  Goleman and his co-authors write about the impact of different leadership styles in their book The New Leaders.  Perhaps another way of looking at it is this:  Wink’s writing together with Wilson Schaef’s provide a context in which to read all sorts of writings about leadership.  If you like, a planet earth view.

PS  Just to let you know, as a member of Amazon Associates UK, I shall receive a referral fee for any books you buy using the links in this posting.

    

Nonviolent communication: finding out more

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As they often are, my post for today has been written in advance.  As I sit and write, I am looking forward to taking a week away on a Nonviolent Communication retreat, with Vicky Peirce at The Barn.  As you read, I am mid-way through our five days together.  My past experience tells me that I can expect to be both stretched and nourished by the experience.

Recently, colleagues in the UK community of NVC practitioners have launched a ning group – a kind of social network cum website.  The membership is growing and I expect it to grow further.  You will find it at http://www.nvc-uk.com/ or equally at http://nvc-uk.ning.com/.  This is in addition to a simple information page at http://www.nvc-uk.info/.  There’s also a wealth of information available via the official site of the Center for Nonviolent Communication at http://www.cnvc.org/.

Marshall’s book is also the book I recommend most often to my coaching clients.  Having imbibed BBC Radio 4 all my life, I sometimes call it my Desert Island Disc book.  This is Nonviolent Communication:  A Language for Life.

If you want to find out more about Nonviolent Communication or connect with others who are seeking to practice this approach to relationships with self and other, these are all good places to start.

PS Just to let you know, as a member of Amazon Associates UK, I shall receive a referral fee for any books you buy using the links in this posting.

“Executive” and “Life” Coaching: A matter of prejudice?

Coaching,

Let’s be clear, the terms “Executive” and “Life” coaching can become laden with prejudice, amongst coaches as well as amongst their clients. In this posting I take a moment to identify some of the prejudices that exist and some of the reasons for their existence.

It’s easy to spot that the term “life coaching” has acquired negative connotations. In recent discussions, some of my coaching colleagues pointed to the fact that “life coaching” features in the media both in areas and in ways which define the way they are seen. Whilst Executive Coaching is the matter of discussion in the business press, Life Coaching features in women’s magazines and daytime TV so that coaching in turn becomes the object of any associations and even prejudices that go with their media host. In addition, the kind of “coaching” that is featured on TV is often several steps wide of any accepted definition of coaching. In the words of one colleague, this can give the impression that life coaches are “superficial and/or flaky”.

In the workplace, the term “executive coaching” can tend to benefit from positive associations. This can be a reflection of the way it is sold to potential coaching clients: as a sign of their importance and seniority. At one level this assertion is spot on: organisations tend to invest in people in senior posts where the return on investment in coaching can be significant across the organisation. At the same time, this assertion may reflect the need (as perceived by sponsors of coaching) to entice some of an organisation’s most wayward executives into the net of coaching in order to address areas in which some kind of adjustment is needed. It can be a paradox of coaching in organisations that whilst the people for whom coaching is made available are usually amongst the most talented in the organisation they may include both the highest performers and some whose performance is in some way problematic: the two are not mutually exclusive.

Amongst my colleagues in the coaching profession, some were honest enough to recognise that it’s easy to take shelter under the term “Executive Coach” and its associations. In situations in which they do not feel sure of themselves it can be used to try to project a certain image with potential clients and – yes – to justify the fees. I would add that I have seen some former Executives retire one day and adopt this label the next. Whilst this is far from universal I would counsel buyers to know what they want to buy and to lift up the label and look underneath before buying.

I wonder if the term “coaching” (and especially “life coaching”) suffers from prejudice because of a fear that is widely held and rarely acknowledged: the fear that one might be fundamentally flawed. Identified by Gay Hendricks in his book The Big Leap, this fear is familiar to many who have gone on to embrace their full potential and to achieve great success. For those who say no to coaching and other forms of learning, seeing coaching as something negative is a way to hold this fear at bay. For some of coaching’s most dedicated and most successful clients, facing this fear was a step they took before signing up to coaching.

Leadership: more than skin deep (1 of 5)

Developing as a leader,

My newsletter went out last week and I decided to share the article I wrote here on my blog in chunks – this is my first chunk.

Given the abundance of research into what differentiates the most outstanding leaders, why does leadership practice fall so far short of the theory? And what are the implications for organisations as they plan for the development of their leaders?

Outstanding leadership: what does the theory tell us?

In 1960, Douglas McGregor proposed a simple theory of leadership, in his book The Human Side of Enterprise, which has become commonly known as the XY Theory. According to his theory, leaders fall broadly into two types. The X-type manager believes that staff dislike work and will avoid it if they can, relying on the threat of punishment to compel staff to work. The Y-type leader believes that effort in work is as natural as work and play and trusts staff to apply self-direction in pursuit of organisational goals. Both types of leader, according to McGregor’s theory are “right”: their beliefs predict the behaviour of staff over time.

More recently, Daniel Goleman has shared a view of effective leadership in his book The New Leaders which outlines a range of leadership styles which the most effective leaders are able to draw on to meet the needs of the situation. Goleman and his co-authors draw on rigorous academic research which has been widely tested in organisations.

These are just two models of effective leadership amongst many and have in common an underlying belief that people are self-motivated and can be relied on, with the right support, to draw on their own resources to work effectively. This is a theme which Daniel Pink has explored, drawing on research findings, in his recently published book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.

The essence of leadership

Developing as a leader,

Recently author, marketeer, blogger and all round “good bloke” Seth Godin wrote about Finding Your Brand Essence on his blog. His comments, which I capture below (with amendments to the formatting and a typo or two removed) resonated with me:

I got an email from someone who had hired a consulting firm to help his company find their true brand selves. They failed. He failed. He asked me if I could recommend a better one. My answer: The problem isn’t the consultant, it’s the fact that if you have to search for a brand essence, you’re unlikely to find one. Standing for something means giving up a lot of other things, and opening yourself to criticism. Most people in the financial services industry (or any industry, actually) aren’t willing to do that, which is why there are so few Charles Schwabs in the world. First, decide it’s okay to fail and to make a ruckus while failing. THEN go searching for the way to capture that energy and share it with the world. Clothes don’t make the man, the man makes the man. Clothes (and the brand) just amplify that.

I shared them with Lynne and Kathy – my coaching team. Kathy recommended Godin’s book Linchpin and I added it straight away to my Amazon wishlist. Lynne wrote (which also resonated with me):

What popped in my mind is Wayne Dyer’s revelation that “you aren’t in charge of your own reputation.” And the subsequent freedom of that. People are going to think what they think, based largely on a whole bunch of stuff that you don’t control, like their own experiences and perspectives and filters. What counts is that you find the solidity of the truth within you, and stand on it and for it, no matter what anybody else thinks. There’s never a crowd on the leading edge.

Reading both Seth’s and Lynne’s words I am struck by the implications of their words. To me, they suggest we are all leaders and we get to choose what leadership messages we share. It’s not that everyone will follow – and still, we lead.