Ronald T. Brown, Ph.D. author of The Courageous Life, is an organizational consultant with a special interest in coaching courageous and effective leaders.
Posted on August 02, 2010 by Ronald T. Brown, Ph.D.
The “2010 Global IBM CEO Study” is one of the largest one-on-one interview studies - surveying 1,541 CEOs, general managers and senior public sector leaders from 60 countries and across 33 industries.
One of the primary findings of the survey was
:
* Creativity is the most important leadership quality, according to CEOs. Standouts practice and encourage experimentation and innovation throughout their organizations. Creative leaders expect to make deeper business model changes to realize their strategies. To succeed, they take more calculated risks, find new ideas and keep innovating in how they lead and communicate.
Creativity is essential when uncertainty is high, and where the future is expected to be a significant departure from what we’ve known in the past. When uncertainty is high you cannot just repeat the successful practices of the past and expect similar results. You will need to find new ways of thinking, new ways of operating and new ways of behaving. The IBM survey puts it this way…
“Creativity is often defined as the ability to bring into existence something new or different, but CEOs elaborated. Creativity is the basis for ‘disruptive innovation and continuous re-invention,’ a Professional Services CEO in the United States told us. In addition this requires bold, breakthrough thinking. Leaders, they said, must be ready to upset the status quo even if it is successful. They must be comfortable with and committed to ongoing experimentation… It’s not that CEOs are just now becoming aware of the importance of creativity - they have long been aware of the need to innovate their products, their processes and their customers’ experiences. But today, creativity itself has been elevated to a leadership style. Traditional approaches to managing organizations need fresh ideas, ideas that are intended to disrupt the status quo.”
Recently, I heard a friend talk about the “positive power of no.” Basically, he said that until we have the confidence and ability to say “no” to many of the good things around us - we will not be freed up to say “yes” to the really great opportunities in life.
William Ury explains in “The Power of a Positive No” that perhaps the single biggest mistake we make when we say No is to start from No. We derive our No from what we are against — from what we do not want. A Positive No calls on us to do the exact opposite - to base our No on what we are for - on what we really want to accomplish in life. That the true power of “no” is rooted in a deeper “Yes” — a Yes that align with our core values, interests and dreams.
I read of someone who suffered from a serious addiction to alcohol that nearly cost him and others their lives in a car accident. He tried many times to give up the habit but always failed. Then at the age of sixty, just when all hope seemed lost, he found in himself the will to say No and stop drinking. The secret? “When my first grandchild was born,” he says, “I wanted more than anything to live long enough to see him grow up. It was his birth that motivated me to get treatment and stop drinking. Since then, for over fifteen years now, I have not touched a drop.” His Yes to being present for his grandchildren — to be able to play with them and see them grow — motivated his powerful No to alcohol.
His story serves to illustrate an everyday paradoxical truth: The power of your No comes directly from the power of your Yes.
From reactive to proactive… The biggest obstacle to saying No successfully is our tendency to act, and make decisions, without clear purpose - thus our Nos tend to be reactive. Start today by defining your YES. Intensely clarify your underlying goals, values and dreams - which will serve as a guides, and enable you to confidently say “No.”
What are the organizational leadership concepts that are most likely to move your organization into the future? Check out the following:
1. EXECUTION –“It’s not your strategic choices that drive success, but how well you implement them over time.”
2. THE LEARNING ORGANIZATION –“A learning organization is one that is deliberately designed to encourage their people to keep thinking, innovating, collaborating, talking candidly, improving their capabilities, and making personal commitments - thereby increasing the organization’s long-term competitive advantage.”
3. CORPORATE VALUES –“Companies that care about ethics, trust, citizenship, and even meaning and spirituality in the workplace (and articulate their values carefully) far out perform companies that are focused simply on the bottom-line.”
4. CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT –“The cultivation of long-term relationships with customers, and their needs, leads to highly focused companies that seek to make consumers part of their family.”
5. DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY –“Embracing technological innovation can radically undermine competitors that remain vulnerable because of their own efforts to simply make current technologies more efficient… So in this there is a warning: Preempt your own comfort zone by adopting a new, “disruptive technology” yourself - before others beat you to it.”
6. LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT –“You
can
train all your employees to be better choosers, strategists, managers, and in the end, better leaders. Do just that.”
7. ALIGNED DNA –“Innovative leaders design their organization’s structures, incentives, reporting relationships, and flow of information to create high performance by aligning them with one another
and
to the strategic vision and goals.”
8. COMPLEXITY THEORY –“Markets and businesses are complex systems that can not be controlled mechanistically - but need to be carefully guided as they emerge (through complexity) toward new and more effective systems and processes.”
9. LEAN THINKING –“Help employees use a heightened awareness of wisdom and conscientiousness to cut waste, eliminate cost, boost quality, and customize mass production.”
Researchers studied exceptionally high performing teams – teams that consistently accomplish the “impossible” in challenging circumstances – and found 6 key factors that separated those teams from the rest.
(It is interesting that each factor related to how mutual understanding, trust, and respect were established in the team. They found that effective communication, trust, and understanding created an environment where exceptionally high results could later be attained.)
These 6 elements were
:
1) This is the work I am best at…Research found that highly effective team members had a clear understanding regarding their personal
strengths
– the kind of work they do best. In addition, each member had a mutual understanding of team member’s strengths.
2) These are my
values
… A person will not put their heart into something they do not personally value. Commitment to exceptional work rises significantly, not when an individual is clear about the organization’s values, but when they are clear about their own values – and if those values then align with those of the organization. Highly effective team members are able to communicate (and demonstrate) to others: “These are the values that matter most to me.” And again… there is mutual understanding and respect on the team.
3) This is what
energized
me… This may have nothing to do with work, and this is fine: “Here are some of my most compelling life interests and passions… These are the activities or pursuits I have a blast doing and make me feel the happiest.” Team members know each other at this deeper level.
4) This is what I need in order to
learn
and
work
at my best… Team members need to understand how each member personally learns and works at their highest level. For example: In their work environment, do they like music, or quiet? What temperature do they work in the best? What type of environment is the most productive?
5) These are the
results
I can be expected to deliver… Each team member needs to be clear, and communicate to the rest of the team: “You can count on me to deliver the following specific results, and by when.” Members on highly effective teams know the answer to this question for each person.
6) This is what I need to feel genuinely
respected
and
recognized
… “To give my best at work, here’s what I need to feel genuinely respected and recognized as part of this team.” Again, research has shown that there is mutual understanding (and respect) on highly performing teams.
Challenge
: How accurately can you describe each of these 6 items about yourself? How much do you know regarding the others who serve on your teams? The clearer you are on these issues, the more effective your (and the team’s) performance will be.
There is a tension between what is already great and what can yet still be achieved. History shows that being “great” can significantly hinder achieving what is still possible. Consider the greatness of the Roman Empire.
The first Roman Emperor, Augustus, built over 1000 magnificent structures – including bridges, building, monuments, and aqueducts. Today, we still marvel at the remnants of Augustus’s grand designs. But what came next – after all this greatness in the Empire was achieved? ... Slow ruin.
** The same can happen to “great” individuals, groups, and organizations. For example, each year Forbes Magazine names a “Company of the Year,” based on past performance and projected staying power. Yet since 1995, more than one half of these companies have suffered major decline, many very soon after being named. Of the Fortune 500 Companies listed in 1955, 70 percent are now out of business. Of the companies on the list in 1977, 40 percent no longer exist. Of those in 2000, 30 percent are already gone.
The evidence shows that few of today’s “great” companies will sustain their current level of excellence.The reason is that staying great requires an organization to constantly change and adapt. But instead, many “great” companies loose their posture of ingenuity and instead assume a new posture of protecting their newfound “greatness.”
All this makes “great” a dangerous place to be – for whenever we become great at something, we instinctively stop doing the new and ingenious things that grew that greatness, and unconsciously switch our attention to holding on to our lead, or fame. We keep trying to repeat (and protect) what we believe got us to the top. For example, just before being decisively defeated by Wellington’s innovative war tactics, Napoleon said, “My way is proven superior!”
Star performing individuals, teams, and organizations appreciate getting across the line of greatness, but they are quick to move on and ask, “What’s deeper? What’s better? What’s next?”And to do this requires courage and sustained curiosity – and keeping one’s fears and protective instincts at bay.
**
Challenge
: What new choices can propel you toward the outer edges of what’s possible?
**
Challenge #2
: Go out of your way to talk with spirited and demanding people who are NOT satisfied –people who disrupt the status quo instead of settle for it. Partner with clients who push your limits. Associate with men and women who provide the stimulus to reach what is still possible. Make choices to turn a novel, and seemingly impossible goal, into reality.
Like individuals, organizations have a natural tendency to undergo change, to continually develop. This is counter to the current mantra regarding change, which states: “People resist change. People fear change. People hate change.”
Instead, leaders need to understand that we live in a “self-organizing” world - where change is constantly happening - and thus needs to be understood as a power, a presence, a part of the way the world naturally works. Change is a natural, spontaneous, movement toward new forms of order, new patterns of creativity.
Since we live in a world, and work in organizations, that are constantly self-organizing. -
leaders need to keep the following seven perspectives in mind
:
1) We live in a world in which life
wants
to happen. Despite the influenced of Darwinian’s evolutionary theory, which said life was an accident, we live in a world where life wants to happen - where natural improvements want to occur.
2) Organizations are living systems, because the people within them are living beings. The image that the world, or an organization, is some kind of “machine” is an outdated model. The world is not a machine - nor do people act like machines. People have intelligence, freewill, passion and dreams. People are capable of significant change, whereas “machines” have no capacity for real change - apart from being reprogramed by some external entity.
3) We live in a universe that is alive, creative, and experimenting. We live in a world which is constantly exploring what’s possible, finding new combinations - playing and tinkering to find what is still possible. Likewise, people are intelligent, creative, adaptive - and seek ways to create new and better possibilities.
4) Life uses messes to create new, well-ordered solutions. Life is incredibly messy. But what at first glance what may appear messy and inefficient may actually be life experimenting - discovering what is possible. This is a recurring phenomenon in the re-creation of eco-systems. Life uses messes, and (if allowed to play out) the direction is always toward healthier systems and organization.
5) Life is intent on finding what works, not what’s right. It is not ego-attached to what it believes is the only solution, the only right answer. How many relationships split up because of arguments about who is right? Yet when you look around, you see life tinkering, experimenting, playing, as if to say, “If it works, fine; and if it doesn’t work, let’s see if we can find a way that does work.”
6) Life creates more possibilities as it engages with opportunities. The phrase a “narrow window of opportunity” is not true. Systems don’t work that way. If a particular opportunity is not fulfilled, there are always many others being created to engage with. Thought the timing of new opportunities may be unpredictable, they will naturally occur in healthy systems.
7) Life organizes around identity. Life organizes spontaneously and creatively, but it always organizes around a cause or purpose. When we see self-organization, we are watching systems organize into a more meaningful substance.
If you start to think about this for a while, change is happening all the time. People change all the time. Organizations change all the time. That’s who we are. Thus in a self-organizing world, a leader should not only embrace that there is a natural tendency toward change, but seek to facilitate the natural flow of change in ways that uncover new connections, relationships and methods.
** Leaders need to realize that efforts to foster change - not to “manage change” - is the key to facilitating innovation and healthy growth.
Yale professor Robert Sternberg has studied the reasons why some people succeed and most don’t – and has defined the term “successful intelligence.” He writes that many people care so much about appearing intelligent that they suppress their curiosity, ingenuity, and initiative – thereby critically limiting their ability to succeed at higher levels.
Why is their success limited
? They let their “brain” override the often times greater wisdom that is coming from somewhere else. And that somewhere else is their “gut.” Simply stated: Most of the time, your gut knows way more than your brain does. Aristotle wrote, “The brain is not solely in the head. The Brain is in the heart and more.” Many highly successful businessmen, pastors, and leaders do not have the sharpest intellect, but have learned how to leverage their ingenuity, creativity, and gut.
** Retired CEO’s were surveyed and asked what was their biggest regret as a leader? Near the top of the list what the response, “When I did not trust my gut in a leadership situation.”
As a leader, you must
not
allow your intellect, and ability to analyze, suppress your “
intuition
” in a decision-making process. Your “gut” is the part of you which many times is smarter than your brain, reacts faster than your brain, and reads opportunities with discerning clarity. So when you find yourself saying (or thinking,) “Something inside is telling me…” Then stop right there and pay attention to what it is saying!
**
So how can a leader develop their “gut?
”
Whenever an important question or challenge arises, pause before you say anything, or act out in any way, and ask:
1) What do my instincts say? What is my gut saying to me?
2) Why might it be saying that?
3) What does my deeper experience say?
4) What are some potential, yet hidden, breakthroughs?
5) What’s deeper? What’s more?
Many leaders are hesitant to look past their intellect to tune into what their gut (or heart) is telling them. Yet highly effective leaders have come to peace with how their “gut” will many times lead them – and they use that inner wisdom for their advantage.
Steve Jobs – CEO of Apple – said,“Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become and do. Everything else is secondary.”
Like agile organizations, “Leadership Agility” is the ability to take wise and effective action amid complex, rapidly changing conditions.
In their book, “Leadership Agility,” Bill Joiner and Stephen Josephs writes that research “reveals a significant set of findings about the relationship between personal development and leadership effectiveness: As adults grow toward realizing their potential, they develop a constellation of mental and emotional capacities that are the very capacities needed for agile leadership.”
Personal development leads to more purposeful and visionary thinking - and more resilience in responding to change and uncertainty. It enables diverse perspectives and a greater capacity for resolving differences with other people. Leaders on self development plans are also more self-aware, more attuned to their experience, more interested in feedback from others, and better at working through inner conflicts.
The question is, “How can we begin to move through these stages of development?” Simply put, leaders get there by
practice
—by putting new capacities and understanding to work - and learning to apply them in various leadership contexts. The following diagram details the various dimensions that a maturing, agile, leader needs to be competent to maneuver within.
The outer circle on this graphic represents the
tasks
carried out using four leadership agility competencies. The middle circle represents the four pairs of capacities that support these competencies.
The four mutually reinforcing competencies are
:
1) Context-setting agility improves your ability to scan your environment, frame the initiatives you need to take, and clarify the outcomes you need to achieve. It entails stepping back and determining the best initiatives to take - given the changes taking place in your larger environment.
2) Stakeholder agility increases your ability to engage with key stakeholders in ways that build support for your various initiatives. It requires you to step back from your own views and objectives to consider the needs and perspectives of those who have a stake in your initiatives.
3) Creative agility enables you to transform the problems you encounter into the results you need. It involves stepping back from your habitual assumptions and developing optimal solutions to the complex issues you face.
4) Self-leadership agility is the ability to use your initiatives as opportunities to develop into the kind of leader you want to be. It entails stepping back; becoming more aware of your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors; and experimenting with new and more effective approaches.
The book, Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, gives techniques for seeing issues from a new and innovative perspective. The techniques help break your existing mind-set by causing you to think and process thoughts in a different and unaccustomed manner. One technique given in the book is called “
Thinking Backwards
“...
Thinking Backwards is a creative technique for exploring a new idea. As an innovative exercise, start with an assumption that something you did not expect - has actually occurred. Then, put yourself into the future, looking back to explain how this
could
have happened. Think what must have happened six months or a year earlier to set the stage for the realization of this outcome (good or bad) - What must have happened six months, or a year before, to prepare the way - and then work your processing on toward the present.
Thinking backwards changes the focus from whether something
might
happen to how it
can
happen. Putting yourself into the future creates a different perspective that keeps you from getting too anchored in the present. When thinking this way, one can often construct a plausible scenario for an event they had previously thought unlikely. Thinking backwards is particularly helpful for situations that may have a low probability of occurring - but would have very serious consequences if they did occur. (ie, BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico!)
(The ”
Crystal Ball
“ approach works in much the same way as thinking backwards. Imagine that a “perfect” intelligence source (such as God, or a crystal ball) has told you a certain assumption you hold is
wrong
. You must then develop a scenario to explain how this could be true. If you can develop a plausible scenario, this suggests your assumption needs to be open to further question and review.)
“Classic economic theory, based as it is on an inadequate theory of human motivation, could be revolutionized by accepting the reality of higher human needs, including the impulse to self actualization and the love for the highest values.” - Abraham Maslow quotes
This video by Dan Pink provides an insightful overview as to what truly motivates people. This is a critical consideration, for unless a leader can inspire and motivate individuals to embrace and passionately pursue the vision of the organization – their leadership fails. Take time to watch the following video clip:
