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new leadership team journey

The first 100 days of any CEO are usually a watershed moment for the new incumbent, the leadership team, and the company. In this article, first in a series of three, we lay out what we believe makes a clear roadmap to success. We have accompanied numerous executive committees through this new leadership team journey. Their powerful testimonials about its contribution to achieving extraordinary business results, improving team cohesiveness, and growing as individual leaders, inspired us to share the approach more broadly for others who may benefit from the lessons learned.
This unique journey is like a climbing voyage, with all eyes on the summit. However, the climb starts at base camp, that meeting place where we begin the expedition and prepare for a daring feat. Here is where we encourage them to discuss crucial questions in a metaphorical fireside chat:
▶️ To whom are we roped? new leadership team journey
▶️ What are we climbing for?
▶️ What unnecessary weight can we leave at the foot of the mountain?
▶️ What will we hang on to when things go awry?
The answers to these questions set up the expedition for success. But before they start, the team needs to carefully choose what they will take in their backpacks and what to leave behind. So load doesn’t turn to burden, each member of the team needs to ask themselves the following:
▶️ What skill sets can I contribute to this expedition?
▶️ Which abilities should I acquire or enhance?
▶️ What baggage am I carrying that can become a liability?
▶️ Which frameworks, experiences, and techniques can be helpful?
Once the leader’s backpack is ready, it is vital to help the team get their own ready as well. This may be the moment to consider finding trustworthy guides to lighten the load and get well equipped for the climb. At Axialent, you will find seasoned ‘Sherpas’ for journeys like this, who ascend alongside each individual participant and equip them with the necessary tools that will help them identify their own assets and liabilities as climbers.
 

Then they are ready to climb!

At Axialent, we’ve increasingly set out to reach the leadership team summit in five stages, inspired by the work of Patrick Lencioni on cohesive teams:

  1. We always begin with trust. Without it, the way forward will be overly cumbersome. Building trust will help us every step of the way.
  2. When there is trust, we can deal with conflict constructively. We see conflict on a spectrum, where both extremes (denying conflict out of avoidance, to downright explosion) are unhealthy.
  3. A team that manages conflict constructively can truly commit. Authentic commitments require a clear request, an equally explicit acceptance of the request, and all team members’ buy-in.
  4. Practicing accountability is the next stage. The team embraces it to ensure their commitments are honored, even (or especially) when they cannot fulfill them.
  5. The expedition reaches the peak when it can focus on its collective results rather than the individual goals of its members.

 

Two tracks across the five stages of the leadership team journey

We like to say that we climb these stages with the CEO and their team following two distinct, yet interwoven paths: the individual and the collective tracks. Each leader works individually with a personal coach (who we called Sherpa above) on their development goals. In the collective track, the leadership group participates in team coaching to work on their dynamics and interactions as a group. These collective sessions are often co-facilitated by the different Sherpas assigned to the various members of the team to allow for diverse vantage points for richer observation and broader context.
We approach each of the five stages based on the following premise: as experts, we reserve the professional judgment to draw on the frameworks, distinctions, and techniques that will build the skills and capability that each team requires at a given point in time. How do we know? By running individual and group diagnostics upfront and at the end of each journey. This provides rich context to draw on, thus shaping the content to fit this particular team like no other.
At Axialent, one of our deeply held principles is believing in context before content. We go one step further. We also believe in connection before context. Therefore, when we accompany a leadership team in their first 100 days to the summit, we make it a point to start with a virtual coffee where each expedition member meets and greets the Sherpa who will be ‘climbing’ with them.
In the next couple of weeks, we will share the next article of this series, where we explain what happens at the peak and how the new CEO can tackle the leadership team’s safe descent back to base camp. Stay tuned for the Next 100 Days of a new CEO!

The Agile Mindset

Making the decision to become Agile is not an easy one. It requires getting your people out of their comfort zones. You have to ask yourself if you REALLY want to work on it. To do things that differently? To get your people and organization out of their comfort and stable zones while already dealing with so many other challenges? If the answer is yes, one of the key things you will need moving forward is to adopt the Agile mindset.
There are two notions of Agile: The Organization/Team and the personal/individual. In each, there are two dimensions: DOING Agile (use of tools/framework) and BEING Agile (mindsets & behaviors). They are all closely embedded, but first, it’s important to embrace an Agile mindset and way of thinking.
 

What is an Agile mindset?

  • The Agile MindsetIt is about PROACTIVELY CREATING change in uncertain and disruptive environments. Different from resilience, it is about REACTIVELY RESPONDING to change in a constructive way.
  • It is about analyzing how to understand what’s going on, identifying what uncertainty you are or will be facing, and figuring out how to create new opportunities as you go along.
  • Rather than merely responding to change, Agile employees anticipate the future and proactively create change.
  • Organizational agility is the capacity to spot and exploit opportunities in fast-changing environments.
  • Research shows that employees who create change are 43% more effective than employees who merely respond to change. They also have greater career satisfaction and an enhanced sense of personal power and influence.

So, how do you adopt an Agile mindset? Here are some concrete examples of how to become an Agile thinker every day:

  • Become aware of your thinking patterns.
  • Choose to shift your thinking patterns…yes, this is possible!
  • Regularly take the time to just stop doing and think.
  • Adopt the Victim vs Player and the Knower vs Learner
  • Essentialism: Cut through unnecessary thinking/work and focus on essential things (don’t waste what you learned from the current crisis about focus).
  • Remain calm under stress and pressure…Easier said than done? The more you practice this, the easier it will be.
  • Move away from any tendency to use a Command & Control leadership style and adopt the Coaching Leadership strategy. Delegate decisions and control to the closest point of action. Foster collective intelligence and empowerment with accountability and purpose. Make impeccable requests, which demand impeccable commitments.
  • Practice authentic communication skills and techniques. Speak your truth and allow your people to do so as well by creating a psychologically safe environment.
  • Accepting change is not comfortable but it is safe.
  • Think customer and outcome.

 

Being Agile

There are many reasons why a company might want to invest in Agile. They may want to be a more efficient learning organization that quickly and effectively adapts to change, as well as generates new opportunities in a VUCA World. It may stem from a need to support “Customer Centricity” as a part of the core business strategy or culture. Or perhaps they want to make their people stronger and more comfortable with change and uncertainty with minimum stress and maximum efficiency for their mental and physical energy/health.
Whatever the reason, adopting an Agile mindset is a key part of setting out on the Agile journey. BE the agility you want to see in your organization. Agile is not a destination, it is a mindset and a way of working together.

If you ask any leader, “What has been one of the most defining moments in your career?” most likely, the answer will be related to leading a significant organizational change.  This is not surprising: our brains are wired to remember peak moments more vividly. These are experiences that capture us at moments of achievement or courage; or moments that change our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.1
Organizations place a lot of value on leaders who can effectively lead others through change.  In fact, effective change leadership is a common competency used to identify and develop high potential employees.2 However, despite the importance that both leaders and organizations place on change leadership, many organizations lack an intentional strategy to help their leaders become effective change-makers.  Many of us are guilty of having used the ‘sink or swim’ approach disguised as ‘on the job learning’.  Intentionally or not, we throw our up-and-coming talent into leading changes in an environment that is increasingly complex and unpredictable without the benefit of a foundation to help them along the way.
For on-the-job learning to be effective, it needs to reinforce the behaviors we are looking to shift or embed. This means that we need to define the guiding principles of how we should lead through change and the experience that we want to provide our change-makers, employees, partners, and clients.  The benefit of talking about ‘how we lead change’ goes beyond leadership development. It sets clear norms of behavior and common expectations of how we will measure success while empowering our change-makers to ask for what they need.
 

How can we best prepare our current and future change-makers? 

It’s useful to think about the actions that we can take preemptively, through more structured leadership development, coaching, and resources. We should also consider the ‘just-in-time’ support we can provide to help leaders navigate a change event.
The good news is that there is significant overlap between what makes an effective change-maker and what makes an effective leader.  Development activities (such as training and coaching) that encourage leaders to increase their self-awareness and growth mindset and help them become more resilient, inclusive, accountable, and collaborative, will also help them be better change-makers.  In addition, change-makers need to be good at storytelling, influencing, and systems thinking. To maximize impact, we need to be intentional in helping them understand how they can apply these leadership skills in a change situation.
 

As they get ready to embark into a large-scale, high-impact change, we can support change-makers in two dimensions:

  • Change acceptance – In order to lead, change-makers need to be willing to move. In many situations, we ask leaders to take on new initiatives on top of their current responsibilities.  You can increase their willingness to lead by creating a space to intentionally discuss how this initiative fits into the broader organizational picture and what’s in it for them personally.  When they intentionally set their personal goals – whether it is to accelerate their development, build their network, gain a broader enterprise view, learn new skills, or do something with impact – they will feel valued and more energized to take on a new challenge.
  • Change-related skills – Leaders need to feel able to lead the change. Beyond the resources and information needed to execute the ‘what’ of the change, they also need access to practical, ‘just-in-time’ change management guidance and tools. Instead of providing theoretical change toolkits and training that few people will use, employ a design thinking approach to uncover what would be most useful for change-makers as they navigate large-scale change.  This may include practical tools, like a change playbook tailored to your organization, and targeted coaching/advice to discuss ideas and overcome challenges.

Our change-makers can survive a change event, or they can consciously experience and lead the change.  This will not make the change less complex or challenging, but it will help them approach the experience with a different mindset, less fear, and a higher level of confidence.  It will also help advance the business goals that the change is looking to achieve and help build organizational agility and resilience.
 

References
  1. Doll, Karen. (2019). What is Peak-End Theory? A Psychologist Explains How Our Memory Fools Us.com
  2. Fernandez-Araoz, C., Roscoe, A., Aramaki, K. Turning Potential into Success: The Missing Link in Leadership Development. Harvard Business Review, November–December 2017 Issue

Have you ever struggled to establish a trusting relationship with a perfectionist boss? Some people believe perfectionism is a positive trait. They believe it fuels us to raise the bar in the pursuit of excellence. However, if you have ever tried to manage the expectations of a perfectionist in your life, then you can attest that it does not drive effectiveness. On the contrary, perfectionism kills excellence, harms relationships, compromises results in the long term, and generates frustration and disappointment.
 

The Perfectionist

For someone who has strong perfectionist traits, nothing is good if it is not perfect. The drive for perfection sets unreal standards for the individual and those around them.  A perfectionist will focus on the task and results over the team and the individual. This person will tend to lose sight of the forest for the trees.

They will be personally tuned in to all the details, taking on more than they can handle. This leader and their team will work hard for strenuous, long hours to accomplish the task… but it will still not be good enough.
For a perfectionist, establishing close relationships is tough. Perfectionists tend to alienate those around them. They do not trust others can complete the task flawlessly, so they try to control it by micromanaging each step of the process. People then disengage and disconnect, feeling oppressed and disempowered.
At an individual level, perfectionists are mainly trying to prove themselves and others right. Their self-worth is built on being seen as competent and flawless, by winning over others and delivering what they believe is expected of them: perfection. Perfectionists will often feel irritated, frustrated, and disappointed with themselves and their team for under-delivering according to unachievable standards.
 

Why do people think perfectionism drives sustainable results?

There is some common ground between a culture that embodies achievement and the one that promotes perfectionism: the drive, determination, and energy towards accomplishing the task and the commitment towards the quality of the outcome.
However, an organization that fosters a culture of achievement is continuously setting excellence standards (vs unrealistic standards of perfectionism). They look for new ways to become better, developing a growth mindset as the principle that underlies the culture. Fostering psychological safety and collaboration is key for teams and individuals to excel.  Failure in these types of organizations becomes part of the game. It is seen and lived by its members as an opportunity to learn, adapt, and continue improving. For a perfectionist, failure is difficult to embrace. It is directly related to one of their fears: not being good enough.
 

What are the differences between a perfectionist leader and an effective leader?

 

 

Perfectionism kills excellence. How can we move from being a perfectionist to an effective leader?

 

  1. Commit to fewer goals (no more than 3 at once): Do not lose sight of the WHY (purpose). Reflect on how each goal contributes to your purpose and prioritize your goals in terms of impact. When setting goals, frame them in terms of growth (e.g: improving from X to Y) and make sure they are realistic and possible, considering the timeframe.
  2. Focus & practice letting go: When delegating tasks to your team, start small. Choose tasks/projects that represent a lower risk for you. Then agree on a process with your team where you can jointly review the progress in a way that everyone feels comfortable.
  3. Get to know your team better: Aristotle said, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” Explore how each person can contribute to creating impact. Test and learn. Challenge yourself to think outside of the box and invite others to try new things. People experience a flow state when working on something they feel passionate about.
  4. Ask for feedback from your peers & direct reports: Make time for After Action Reviews after each major task/project completion. Appreciate what has worked well and reflect on what could you have done differently to contribute effectively to the project. Ask for specific feedback on your improvement goal from others. Let others know your developmental path and encourage them to offer feedback when they experience you moving away from your goal.
  5. Be kind to yourself: Practice self-compassion. Perfectionists work towards unrealistic standards which generate frustration and feeds the “inner critic” that shouts, “you are not good enough”. Practice expressing gratitude and connecting with what works. Journaling is a powerful way to reflect and it reduces stress. Try this simple journaling exercise:

    In the morning, ask yourself:     What would make today a wonderful day? What do I feel grateful for?
    At night: What good things happened today?

 

Conclusion

Our VUCA context requires leaders to develop a learning agility and be able to anticipate and adapt to constant changes. In order to do this, we need to be able to cope with failure and setbacks, learn, and strengthen our resilience. Perfectionist traits hinder change and effectiveness but can be overcome by developing the right mindsets (growth & learner) and being compassionate with our own self and others.
 

Revamping your Leadership Summit and Employee Town Hall : rows of seats in a lecture hall

As we fast approach Q4 2020, the world is still experiencing much uncertainty and fast-paced change. Although we may be struggling with how to adjust to these changes, we must find a way to reconnect together with where we are now, our future, vision, and opportunities.
Many corporations normally gather for Leadership Summits at the end of their fiscal year to review what has been achieved and learnt, reflect on the coming year, and share key outcomes with their employees via global and/or local Town Halls. This routine is now in question as large in-person gatherings are not currently possible.
Revamping your Leadership Summit and Employee Town Hall : rows of seats in a lecture hall
 

Should the Covid-19 crisis freeze Corporate annual gatherings?

I would argue definitely not, for two reasons summarized by the saying “Never let a good crisis go to waste”:

  • In the coming months, you might still have to face and overcome the kind of organizational trauma Fran and I described in our first article in the series, Survivor Syndrome: Overcoming Organizational Trauma in Times of Crisis. This potential trauma needs to be ‘put on the table’ and addressed, as my colleague Richi stated “the only way out is through”
  • This crisis is not only about trauma and disruption. It is also a fantastic opportunity for people and businesses to grow. Over the past 6 months we have seen many companies demonstrate extraordinary levels of resilience, agility, creativity, speed in decision making and action, collaboration, empathy and solidarity. We heard from CEOs that “we’ve shown that we can be quick, agile, innovative. Now we can’t ignore it and go back to our old way of thinking, working and interacting”.

End-of-year Leadership Summits and Town Halls are exactly the right moments to address these two issues.
 

Revamping your Leadership Summit and Employee Town Hall

As of today, for obvious reasons, there is no practical way to have global and regional gatherings in person. Having them digitally however not only makes them quicker and cheaper but potentially also more agile and impactful.
After a 6 month digital intensive “gym” practice, organizations now know that interactive and highly productive online events are possible. Alternating structured discussions in plenary sessions with breakout workshops, facilitating brainstorming sessions, leveraging voting tools, using online pulse surveys and practicing learning exercises.
Designing and facilitating digital large gatherings requires the use of professional instructional designers. Specialists who master both the technology, the content, and the online collaborative work dynamics.
 

How to do it digitally:

  1. A 2 or 3 day offsite and in-person Leadership Summit can become 3 half-day webinars. Purely focused on reflection and action rather than on the necessary, but long and often boring, information sharing.
  2. With pre-work designed to share this necessary information/insights/learning material. Including asking each individual to reflect and work on some critical questions, actions and decisions that will be addressed during the webinars.
  3. Well-structured post-gathering follow-up is also key for the real success of these digital gatherings.
  4. Will you miss the drink and dinner with your peers and managers? Nothing could replace this as such, but there are other creative ways to share a virtual moment and space of friendly informal connections.

There are similar opportunities with all-employee Town Halls, both global or regional.

  1. An in person event can be a 2 or 3 hour webinar (recorded for those not available at that time).
  2. With a pre-work platform for information sharing and individual reflection.
  3. The webinar could include active listening, along with a pulse survey for example, so you can focus the webinar on interactive connections, collective work and reflections.
  4. End with post-gathering follow-up.

You can position the Town Hall as a broadly shared conclusion of your Leadership Summit. Alternatively, the Town Hall can be in the middle of it, designed so employees’ input and questions form part of the last day of the Leadership Summit working program.
 

What should the content be this year?

In the current context of uncertainty, vulnerability and complexity we recommend that your agenda includes the following key topics:

  • Managing our organizational trauma based on data (pre-work including employee pulse survey and focus groups).
  • Leveraging our extraordinary learnings from the crisis to replicate them in a sustainable way (also prepared in pre-work).
  • Planning with agility for our future in this crisis. How can we create a future together when there is still so much uncertainty? How can we help our team members feel less anxious and find a way forward that adds value for everyone?
  • Boosting our culture transformation first where it has the fastest and biggest impact.

 

Conclusion

The more VUCA in our current world, the more we need to reconnect and take a reflective break with our people. 2020 is not the year to freeze or cancel, but rather to focus on revamping the Leadership Summit and Employee Town Hall. Do not avoid the crisis risks and opportunities issues.

The 3 Keys to Having Difficult Conversations Online: man with hands open

Conversations that are emotionally difficult or complex in nature are often stressful.  Whether it is difficult feedback, a performance review, communication of a change that has far reaching impact, or even a conversation to terminate a working relationship, many people struggle with the best way to have these kinds of conversations. They are challenging in person, but to have them online brings it to a whole other level. Why? In part, because we don’t have all the non-verbal clues we normally pick up on during a conversation. It is less social. The potential for misunderstandings is increased and many feel less comfortable looking at a screen and not into the eyes of the other person. With more and more companies making WFH the new norm beyond COVID19, having difficult conversations online in an effective and compassionate way is a critical leadership skill.
The 3 Keys to Having Difficult Conversations Online: man with hands openIn over 15 years of leading global remote teams, I have experienced firsthand how critical this is for the success and wellbeing of a team, its leader, and the organization. Your ability to have respectful, compassionate, honest, and straightforward conversations online will shape your culture and be a key lever for a high performance.
Let’s imagine you have to communicate a decision that will impact one of your team members and you assume that they won’t be happy about it. The easy way out would be to just send an email, communicate the decision, and hope for the best. My first and most important recommendation is to resist that impulse and muster the courage and respect to have a conversation. There are certain things that I believe should not be discussed by email, chat, or voice message. They deserve to be synchronous and in real time.

The 3 Keys to Having Difficult Conversations Online

Here are my top 3 tips for having difficult conversations online in an effective and respectful way. While some of them may seem trivial, I have personally experienced the difference they can make.

  1. Prepare for connection

Thorough preparation communicates respect to the other person in the conversation. It helps to reduce your own level of stress and increases the chances of achieving an outcome that serves everyone involved and the task.

  • Set a clear intention for the conversation and communicate the purpose to the other person with enough time for them to be well prepared. You may even ask them to reflect upon specific questions.
  • Create a respectful, safe environment. Be on time. Be mindful of not having a distracting (zoom) background. Try to ensure you will not have any interruptions. Even though this can be difficult under the current circumstances, you can try by locking the door or clearly communicating to others in your home that you need privacy. Silence your phone and computer so you will not have pings from text messages or email. Be in a calm, focused state. Ensure a stable internet connection and reliable equipment (microphone and camera).

  1. Create a shared space for exploration  

The level to which you can be focused on the person in front of you and the conversation at hand will influence how deep you can go, how much psychological safety will exist, and how creative the outcome may be.

  • If you feel it is needed, acknowledge the impact the circumstances may have. “I wish we could have this conversation in person. Because we are not able to, I want to simply acknowledge that the circumstances are not ideal, but I am committed to do my best to minimize the impact. I hope you’ll do the same”
  • Give your undivided attention.
  • Switch off self-view so you can fully focus on the other person. Whenever possible, have potentially difficult calls with the camera on and remember to make eye contact on a regular basis.
  • If you take notes, don’t type on the same device that you are using for the call. Either use pen and paper or a digital device that you can write on. Let the other person know beforehand that you may take notes from time to time.

  1. Optimize for impact 

Whenever there is physical distance, try to minimize emotional distance and be aware of the intention – impact gap. Just because you have the best intention for this conversation doesn’t mean you’ll have the impact you had hoped for.

  • Take your time – don’t rush. This conversation may take more time online than it would have in person. Plan for additional time before and after the call in your calendar, in case you need to extend.
  • Be curious, ask questions, and then listen, listen, listen. Listen with the intention to understand and not to judge or justify your perspective.
  • Check for understanding and be specific – have examples, illustrate your perspective, explain the assumptions you’ve made.

This list is far from complete but has served me well. I hope it will encourage you to strive to have difficult conversations online with respect, humility, and courage. Then a “difficult” conversation has the potential to turn into an enriching experience for everyone involved, regardless of the reasons why we were having it in the first place.

Conscious Culture Amidst Workplace Disruption - image representing company DNA

Based on our experience at Axialent, culture is the greatest lever to achieve sustainable business results. Undoubtedly, the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has had most companies in “survival” mode. As we navigate into the new normal, knowing how to “maintain” or manage culture amidst workplace disruption is one of the top issues on business agendas (and in leaders’ minds). However, this is not a new concern; many of our clients have approached us at different turning points, seeking a partnership to preserve the leadership qualities that made them unique or to reconnect with cultural traits that were key to their business success.
Understanding how culture can be leveraged to boost organizational performance is the single and most important reason to manage culture. For many of those companies who have been successful in doing so until now, the current virtual context is a game changer.
To help companies and leaders address these concerns, we first need to clarify what culture is and how it can (and we strongly suggest must!) be consciously managed… before it manages you!
 
Conscious Culture Amidst Workplace Disruption - image representing company DNA

Culture Is Like DNA

 
A company’s culture is like its DNA. Culture can be better positioned (or not) to successfully execute the business strategy, achieve its goals and fulfill its mission.
At Axialent, we describe culture as the set of expectations people hold about “the way we do things around here”. A collective mindset. The unwritten code of what it takes for “one” to become “one of us”. This develops from the verbal and non-verbal messages that members receive about what is valued and how they are expected to behave. Leadership behaviors and decisions most vividly role model these messages.
 

Conscious Culture 101

The first step in consciously managing culture is to understand your culture. In our experience, an in-depth culture diagnostic combining qualitative and quantitative tools is most precise. The second step is then to gain clarity on what you want it to be. It would be easy to say that consciously managing culture equals consciously managing the messages that create these expectations. This is only partly true. Changing (or maintaining) culture is like changing your DNA and it must occur from the inside out. No external factor will drive sustainable change. To change culture, you need to address the values, mindsets and beliefs that people hold, as well as the messaging.
This is why the focus of our work on culture is on short impactful interventions with a strong long-term backbone. We highlight the direct link to mindsets and how these impact behavior and collective assumptions. We work team by team to establish widespread high-performance habits across the organization. The image below illustrates our approach:
Conscious Culture amidst Workplace Disruption - illustration of Axialent's approach to organizational culture transformation
 

Remote Culture Leadership & Beyond

Remote environments require a different approach to culture design. Many culture defining messages have some sort of material correlation in the physical world such as in-person strategic planning and goal setting meetings; visual symbols such as office layout or parking space or informal, water-cooler type conversations with leaders. A far more conscious approach is needed to nurture culture when there is a lack of in-person connection, and this is even more critical amidst workplace disruption.
Leaders and organizations must find new ways of making culture evident to their employees. Intentional efforts to connect with people and to really understand their needs and concerns must be made. Practicing compassion with people and taking it to the next level is of utmost importance. Embracing vulnerability in each person and being humble enough to let yours emerge too. This is where true connection resides.
 

What is the Role of Purpose? Conscious Culture amidst workplace disruption

A company’s purpose is the reason for its existence; the dream and the “why” that offers meaning to its endeavors. Maintaining your company culture as we navigate into the new normal requires companies to help people remember the reasons for which they exist.
Let’s explore a few examples. If you live in Latin America you probably know Mercado Libre; it is the most valuable company in the region (Forbes Magazine, August 2020). Its purpose is to “democratize commerce and money in LATAM”. Some of the actions they have initiated during the pandemic to support the communities in which they operate are: changing their logo (from a hand-shake to an elbow-bump) to raise awareness of the importance of social distancing; they stopped charging commissions on sales of essential goods such as diapers, cleaning supplies and non-perishable food; they postponed the dates for interest and repayments of over two million loans and finally, they took over those employees facing redundancy from food industry organisations such as McDonald’s, Starbucks and Burger King.
In another example, the global logistics firm UPS is working to strengthen supply chains, so life-saving vaccines reach isolated communities around the world. The company has ramped up work with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance by committing $3 million in new funding over two years. UPS’s mission statement is “Grow our global business by serving the logistics needs of customers, offering excellence and value in all that we do. (…) Lead by example as a responsible, caring, and sustainable company making a difference in the communities we serve”. Similarly, the major global port operator in the UAE, Gulftainer, has launched a fast-track service to speed up the delivery of medical equipment. Its vision is to “consistently achieve best-in-class performance in all our port operations and third-party logistics activities worldwide”.
 

Conscious Culture Amidst Workplace Disruption

Re-engaging people with the purpose and the values your company holds is one of the most important responsibilities in leadership and it’s not an easy one, or one every leader can meet.
I love Fred Kofman’s definition of leadership. In his book The Meaning Revolution, Fred says “leadership is about getting what can’t be taken and deserving what is freely given. The followers’ internal commitment cannot be extracted by rewards or punishments. It can be inspired only through a belief that giving their best to the enterprise will enhance their lives”.  If you hope to be an inspiring leader who is able to sustain and reinforce your company culture, the first thing you must understand is that “hearts and minds cannot be bought or forced; they can only be deserved and earned. They are given only to worthy missions and trustworthy leaders. This applies not only to organizations but also to many other domains of human activity”.
Here are a some top tips to managing culture effectively:

  1. Communicate actively and visibly your company purpose (your “why”).
  2. Seize opportunities to model your company values.
  3. Prioritize health (physical and mental) and wellness and help employees do the same.
  4. Connect daily with employees and promote virtual interactions, making sure communication is a two-way process.
  5. Continue to develop leaders through coaching and make sure they are modeling empathy to employees.
  6. Publicly recognize those who model your desired culture and continue to hold people to account for performance.
  7. Harness organizational and leadership adaptability (the ability to innovate, experiment, and quickly take advantage of new opportunities) and remain open to the unknown.

 
Click here to schedule a 30 minute call with one of our experts to learn more about this topic.

Strengthening Our Mental Toughness to Achieve Real Change: Person celebrating their success

For most of us, change is hard. It’s not lack of commitment or desire that gets in the way, nor lack of goals and ideas for improvement. How many times do we give up before we even try because we are afraid to fail? Or we might consider the odds of succeeding too low to give it our best, to test our own limits and explore our abilities. This self-sabotage thinking (driven by our inner critic) often limits us from unleashing our full potential and making change happen. Why does this happen? There are many reasons. However, our level of “grit” (or mental toughness) is a key component to our success in sticking to a plan and pursuing a long-term goal we feel passionate about. Strengthening our mental toughness is an essential piece of achieving real change.
Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts to success. It takes a lot of effort and courage to excel at something we want to change. Most of the time, we are not ready to pay the price. We focus on the result and we underestimate the process: the time, energy, passion, and self-determination it takes to get us there.
Psychologist, Angela Duckworth, defines grit as our “passion and perseverance for long-term goals,” and claims it is a predictor of outstanding achievement. It’s “having a goal you care about so much that it organizes and gives meaning to almost everything you do.”
 

“Outer changes always begin with an inner change of attitude” – Albert Einstein

Grit in the workplace

In the workplace, grit plays a critical role in successful leadership and extraordinary performance. Organizations desperately need leaders who can create a shared vision with passion and conviction and enlist others to relentlessly pursue the future.  However, the challenge to develop grit is even higher. As leaders, we often tend to jump from existing multiple projects to new promising ideas. We can lose focus and give up easily in the face of setbacks, prioritizing immediate results. Managing the discomfort of uncertainty in our culture of immediacy and impatience can be hard for leaders.
The good news is grit is not a fixed trait. We can train ourselves to grow our essential abilities and skills, and that includes our level of mental toughness. How? By putting grit into practice.

1. Focus on one improvement goal that you feel passionately about

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road’ll take you there.”
– from Alice in wonderland, dialogue between Alice and the Cheshire Cat

We need to have a clear goal and direction that is compelling enough to drive our behavior and efforts. It must be a goal that is worth pursuing, even when we fail at it.

2. Choose an ability/skill you would like to grow that generates positive change in your life and self-development

Be realistic when setting a timeframe for improvement. Do not set yourself up for failure before even starting the journey. Here are some questions you can ask to create a vision and provide direction for yourself.
Strengthening Our Mental Toughness to Achieve Real Change: Person celebrating their success

  • What do you feel passionate about and would like to become better at?
  • What would make you feel more connected to yourself and significantly improve your well-being?
  • What have you been trying to learn for years and have failed at repeatedly?

3. Shift your perspective

Commit 100%, to your improvement goal. Make it your own personal project. Do research to learn from “gritty” people who have walked the same path. Reflect on what could work for you.

4. Break your improvement goal into key-stone habits

An improvement goal can be overwhelming. However, if we introduce small changes to our daily routine, test what works best and adjust accordingly, we will discover a set of daily practices that work for us and that we can commit to.

5. Value your progress in time

Take time to reflect on your own evolution. Don’t take it for granted. Progress takes grit! Indulge yourself with a self-celebration. Ask for feedback from your circle of trust on your improvement. A journaling practice can help you reflect on your learnings and growth.

6. Be compassionate with yourself in the face of setbacks

Setbacks are part of the game. They test our level of resilience and emotional intelligence. Be kind to yourself and expect them. Focus on your gains, results will come your way.

 7. Don’t wish for it, work for it

Keep practicing! Take action. Re-commit to your improvement goal every day. Visualize yourself fulfilling your goal and choose a set of powerful motivational mantras that can help increase your energy level and focus.

Conclusion

Our mental toughness is the inner force we need that drives us towards our goal. It gives us the energy needed to try harder, despite our failed attempts. Grit and resilience (our ability to withstand adversity and bounce back) walk hand in hand and are key to our development.
People who develop a strong level of grit are always seeking to improve and remain connected and enthusiastic about what they do. It does not guarantee success, but it can set you on the right path.
 
CANCEL procrastination: Start today!!! You can test your current level of Grit here.

In the extraordinary circumstances of today’s world, we are being bombarded by a myriad of contradictory information, while watching the devastating effects on businesses and people we value. While all this is going on, we also need to deal with the effect this has on us as individuals and leaders, build a coherent narrative, and take action. Different people will be affected by different emotions. They might arrive at diverse conclusions and recommendations on how to move forward. How do we deal with the polarities at play amid COVID-19? What is the best way forward when fear and anxiety are the dominant emotions?

 

Polarities at play

Organizational learning researchers, Chris Argyris and Donald Shon, found that when managers were asked how they behaved with their teams, they responded according to the “Mutual Learning Model.” They spoke about values such as collaboration, humility, curiosity, and learning. However, when Argyris and Shon observed these same managers in action, they saw them behave very differently. Their management style was more aligned with the “Unilateral Control Model.” They consistently tried to beat their counterparts, get their own way, and control others. They didn’t admit their own mistakes and instead, would blame others. For too long, traditional education has valued knowing over learning, certainty over uncertainty, having the right answer over asking questions, and assertiveness over curiosity and tentative exploration. No wonder the managers behaved as they did.
At the same time, the managers couldn’t openly act in this way, it would be completely unacceptable. Therefore, they would act like they were not trying to control others and were more consistent with the Mutual Learning Model. When this duplicitousness takes over, organizations (and their people) go crazy.
 

Some examples of the current polarities at play amid COVID-19 are:

  • Pay attention to the health of our people, but go back into full production right away.
  • Assure people not to worry and do their jobs, but worry about the future and the new normal.
  • Tell the truth, but don’t bring bad news.
  • Take risks in an uncertain context, but don’t fail.
  • Beat everybody else, but make it look as if nobody lost.
  • Be creative, but always follow the rules.
  • Promise only what you can commit to deliver, but never say “no” to your boss’s requests.
  • Ask questions, but never admit ignorance.
  • Think long-term, but deliver on your immediate KPIs.
  • Most important of all, follow all these rules, but act as if none of them exist.

 
The inability to discuss apparent contradictions, and furthermore, the inability to discuss that they are “undiscussable” such as the last rule states, create what Argyris and Shon describe as “organizational schizophrenia.”
There is no silver bullet to deal with these contradictions. What I am about to say may sound naïve. However, we have tried it over and over with hundreds of executives across different geographies with excellent results.
 

The way to deal with undiscussables is… to make them discussable

The first step is, with empathy and compassion, to help people become aware that there is a contradiction at play. Even before attempting to solve it, we need to acknowledge the apparent polarity. Once “we have a contradiction,” rather than “the contradiction has us,” we can engage in conscious conversations.
Contradictions happen in organizations all the time. Different people look at a set of data and make their own interpretations based on their personal history, past experiences, what is important to him or her, their intentions and more. They create a narrative that might blatantly contradict the narrative of others. Sometimes those others are influential people, colleagues with more authority than them.
 

Let me illustrate this with a practical example:

One observable fact: John, the leader of the team, doesn’t speak at all during his team’s meeting with other areas.
Different stories for different people: In Sam’s mind, Sr. VP of Marketing, a leader should voice his opinions, be assertive, and offer guidance to his team. Sam concludes that John has poor leadership skills and will not recommend John for the available senior position in Marketing.
On the other hand, Peter, Sr. VP of Sales, believes that a leader should be measured by how well his team performs. A great leader, Peter believes, is one who makes his people say, “we did it ourselves.” John’s team performed outstandingly during the meeting. They had great ideas and made practical recommendations. In Peter’s mind, this speaks very highly of John, their leader. Peter concludes that John should be offered the available senior position in Marketing right away.
One set of facts, completely different stories, opposite conclusions and recommendations.
The way to have a constructive conversation on the matter is for Sam and Peter to understand how the other has built the story, how the observable facts turn into interpretations, and how these combine with values to give birth to their opinions. They can acknowledge that they both create different stories and value different things.
I can’t promise that they will solve their problem. What I can assert is that they will have a very different conversation about John’s performance.
 

Applying this process in VUCA reloaded

If you were able to ask openly, from a place of humility and curiosity, questions like, “how do you expect me to be creative AND always follow the rules?” you might discover what your boss really wants. For instance, perhaps what she really wants is that you don’t put your division in an unrecoverable risk position, should your project fail. By having this open conversation, you will learn how this is not a contradiction to her and that both can be accomplished.
To survive and thrive, you have to be able to put the polarities and tensions created by this hyper volatile context on the table. Talk about them with the mindset of the learner; understand how everything can be true at the same time. You can do so by looking through the lenses of creativity, interdependence, and “yes, and” ways of thinking. Doing so may help you to discover options that, from a place of “either-or,” had looked utterly impossible to integrate. You are making once “undiscussable” topics “discussable.” While it’s easy to say, it’s not so easy to do. But it must be done if you wish to create a more conscious organization that can effectively deal with Covid-19 and the emerging challenges of the new normal.

When we are facing new, difficult circumstances that we’ve never faced before, it is often much harder to respond in a constructive way. Our reptile brain unconsciously chooses between two bad options: fight or flight. Although we know this intellectually, this doesn’t mean we can get ourselves out of the trap so easily, or support others to do so.
In the article I wrote with my colleague, Thierry De Beyssac, Survivor Syndrome: Overcoming Organizational Trauma in Times of Crisis, we talked about how leaders can to respond to the current challenges in a constructive way. One of these ways is asking people what they need to be at their best, inviting them to be players and to regain control of their situation.
Survivor Syndrome: Tapping into the Player Within. Image of two business women talking
When we are in a leadership position we must challenge ourselves, not only to maintain our center, but also to be at our best to help others around us. However, many times what we see, as Constanza Busto shared in her article Survivor Syndrome: Building Bridges, is that we believe we know what needs to be done and what’s best for the other person. We can’t believe they don’t see it when, for us, it is so clear. Often, while we are thinking that about others, others are thinking the same thing about us. So, how can we escape from this unhealthy loop? For starters, as Constanza suggested, we meet people where they are, with no judgement, just making their stories and situations true and reasonable. Before we make them wrong, try making them right.
Only once that step is done, once we empathize, are we ready for the next part of the conversation. It is time to “coach them out of victimhood,” to help them connect with the player mindset. This means empowering them to think for themselves, encouraging them in a gentle and kind way, and helping them discover their next best step (just one little step) toward a new trajectory.

How do we do this?

  1. Validate their story: Make them feel safe and understood. If we could put ourselves in their shoes, we would be feeling and thinking the same thing.
  2. Ask questions that empower:
    • Help them build a small, short-term vision: “If you had a magic wand, what would be happening now?”
    • Ask “What can you do about it?”: a) Based on what you have envisioned, what is in your control? What can you influence? Is there anything you can now do to start moving in that direction? b) Is there anything you can ask someone for? Do you need to make any requests?
  3. Listen without judgement: Becoming a sounding board, coming from a place of understanding and compassion, for what they feel they can and cannot do, will make a big difference.
  4. Moving from ideas to actions: Help them commit to one “baby step” and be of service.
    • What could be your next move that you commit to try? When will you try it?
    • Can I support you in any way for you to try this?

Tapping into the Player Within

Try to follow these simple steps and remember that it’s not just the questions you ask, but from which emotional state and with what intentions you do it. Make sure you prepare to be of service from a place of humility, care, and helping others. The goal is to accompany your employees to find their own way to be effective with the tasks ahead, to gain trust in you, and feel good about themselves in such difficult times.
Remember, when a person is not at their best, the question we need to ask ourselves as leaders is: how do I choose to respond to effectively support this person to move on and be at their best? Above all, keep in mind that this is not only my choice, but my opportunity to grow and develop as a leader.
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In our next article, we will discuss how we can all create a brighter future together in the months ahead.