Leadership Development -- What Is Lacking?

Back in January, Geoff Ribbens, Mark Abraham, and Alistair Cumming published a new book entitled Team Leadership: How to Define, Apply, and Measure It, which presents a unique, people-centric, and scientifically researched theory of leadership linked to an accurate data-based assessment and diagnostic product. For individual leaders looking to maximize personal development and results or for organizations wanting to analyze leadership and its effects across an entire structure or business, this book redefines understanding and development.

When I spoke with the authors this month, I asked them a series of questions starting with "What is currently lacking in leadership development?" Here are their responses:

In our book, we start by identifying four major errors that have held back leadership development and understanding for many years. No doubt all of us have made some, or all, of these errors in the past.

The first error is looking at the leader to understand leadership. Eminent social psychologists have stated that this "leader-centric" approach is “deeply flawed” and not at all useful. We expand on why it is so flawed in the book. We conclude that it is much more useful to concentrate on the perception of those being led.

The second error is to assume that the term "leadership" means the same in a multitude of different contexts such as political leadership, moral leadership, organizational leadership, and team leadership. Different contexts obviously require different definitions and approaches. This is why the book concentrates on the "leadership" of teams.

The third error is to assume that "business success" equates with leadership. This approach only states what the writer hopes leadership will deliver, not what it is. It also assumes that the only people who have leadership are senior managers and CEOs.

The fourth error is simple. Nowhere in our research do we find a definition of the term ‘leadership’ that was objective and measurable.

MS: “So what is the solution to all these myths, assumptions, and lack of definition?”

All the assumptions and errors above have been solved by our innovative approach called Emergent Team Leadership (ETL). We focus on the leadership of teams, whether it is the executive team or the team on the factory floor. We show that all team leaders at every level, have the potential to have "leadership" and it is now measurable.

ETL measures the degree to which team members "willingly and enthusiastically accept their team leader." By examining how team members perceive their leader we created a 12-point profile. The profile is created by the team members, it might not be how the leader perceives themselves or is perceived by the organization. The profile is a simple radar graph and is easy to understand.

MS: “So why focus on teams and team leaders?”

The relationship between the team and the team leader is fundamental to team and organizational performance. If team members "willingly and enthusiastically accept their leader’" then the team leader is more able to deliver positive results because the team supports them. Also, team and team leader well-being is achieved, and there is less disagreement and conflict.

MS: "I can see the improved well-being of the team and team leader but are there any other benefits?

The simple 12-point profile indicates to the team leader what they need to do to move from merely managing their team to the true leadership of that team. The profile is not based on the leader’s personality but on the team’s perception. What is important is that the leader can change that perception. The leader is not a ‘servant’ of the team but can increase their influence by understanding how their team perceives them.

There are many benefits for the team, the team leader, and the whole organization. One obvious benefit is that for the first time leadership training, coaching, or appraising can be tested and retested, and progress can be measured. Our research also found that team leaders themselves found the 12-point profile powerful and relevant, more relevant than other leadership assessment processes they had experienced. If an organization uses ETL this can have a profound positive effect on the organization’s whole team leadership culture.

What do you think of the authors' (Geoff Ribbens, Mark Abraham, and Alistair Cumming) view on the current state of leadership development? Do you agree with what the authors perceive as errors and their proposed solutions?

Do Misconceptions About Lean Cause Many Initiatives to Fail?

At conferences, in magazine articles, and in books, we often hear of the benefits that Lean initiatives provide to organizations' efficiency and general workplace culture, but the failure rates are never comprehensively analyzed. In August, Cordell Hensley published an interesting new book, Lean Misconceptions: Why Many Lean Initiatives Fail and How You Can Avoid the Mistakes, that sheds light on why more than half of performance-improvement initiatives fail to achieve desired results.When I spoke with Cordell last week, I asked him: "What are the common mistakes that cause Lean initiatives to fail?” Here's the answer he provided:

The focus on removing waste is fundamental within Lean, but it should not be the only objective when beginning on your journey. Many organizations think simple: Lean = less waste. While this is true, it is like saying the TARDIS is just a police telephone box.

For example, I am always surprised by how few have heard of MURA (unevenness) or MURI (overburden). These are as, or potentially more, important than MUDA (waste). These other two create waste; and if you don’t focus on removing unevenness and overburden, then your efforts to reduce waste will be in vain. 

In addition, while removing or reducing waste is fundamental within Lean, I argue that it is too easy to ignore or skip the objective of creating capability. I’m not talking about getting a few experts in or training your leadership team but actively engaging everyone in the thinking behind what you’re trying to do.

Lean provides the impetus for challenging the status quo, for seeing every process as something that can be improved, including the improvement process itself. Arguably, improving processes is the easy bit, and identifying waste is relatively simple as well, but it is the change of focus of every employee to solving problems that only comes from a shift in organizational thinking. It is a shift from an organization where employees do as they’re told by management to one where they are engaged in making things better, for everyone, including the shareholders.

Today’s leaders seem to want an answer to their problem that they can buy “off the shelf.” This doesn’t exist! There is no silver bullet or panacea  that can fix  problems or improve performance for every business. The results they seek are readily available, but it takes effort, it takes learning, it takes a shift in paradigms.

Lean has been around for several decades. It evolved from research on Toyota followed by the application by hundreds if not thousands of organizations and their consultants. Many users and “experts” within organizations, however,  have modified and adjusted the thinking to suit their immediate needs. This has created misconceptions within the industry and has denigrated the term to little more than a process improvement technique. 

This evolution has, in most cases, reduced the potential that organizations can achieve and has sadly been used to put many thousands of people out of work. Throughout my book, I try to demonstrate a different view of Lean and the culture desired to enable organizations not only to improve their processes and systems but also to create the capability to learn and adapt to the ever-changing world in which they operate.

What do you think of Cordell's perspective? Have you been involved in a Lean initiative that has not lived up to expectations? What do you think are its shortcomings?

What are Current Leader-Development Systems Lacking?

This month, David Veech published a very interesting new book called Leadersights: Creating Great Leaders Who Create Great Workplaces. This book addresses an important need: How organizations can create a leader-development system that defines, builds, and reinforces critical leader behaviors. When I had the chance to speak with David about his book, I asked him: What is the biggest problem with current leader-development systems and how can they be improved? He provided an insightful answer:

I'm not sure there are problems with leader-development systems that would threaten the livelihood of organizations, but as with everything else in our continuous-improvement community, there are always parts we can improve. I’ve centered and focused on a couple of areas, and I’ve tried to simplify things a bit as I try to communicate with people about becoming better leaders.

After years of studying the Toyota Production System and other companies that demonstrate consistent success, specifically those profiled in Jim Collins’ books Good to Great and Great by Choice, I have come to believe that the key features of any leader-development program must be built on a platform of servant leadership. I get a lot of agreement with this from people, but there are lots of pieces to becoming an effective servant leader.

The most significant of these pieces is the structure of the workplace. If we have an organization structure that is based on traditional, functional silos, and one that bases compensation of the accomplishment of self-set goals, that structure forces leaders into a particularly results-oriented focus, regardless of their personal leadership style preferences. The system affects their leadership behavior. When a leader assumes a new role, the subtle (or not-so-subtle) competitive pressures implied by the results-oriented system force that leader, out of self-preservation, to either undo what previous leaders have done, or make a change that has their fingerprints on it so they can stand out a bit from the crowd. In most organizations, leaders rotate through key positions moderately frequently (sometimes as little as 18 months between roles), and they get conditioned to this kind of activity even though personally they may be humble and very people-oriented. Lean helps because we try to change the work structures for better performance, and because we focus on the development of people as the primary outcome.

Changing the fundamental structure of the conventional organization is a large undertaking, so I have tried to outline something of a more subversive approach than blowing things up and rebuilding from the rubble. We’ll need to first identify what behaviors are truly important to us as a workplace. Empathy. Listening. Encouraging. Correcting. Coaching. These we describe and operationalize in our statement of corporate values, which with our vision and mission set out our operating philosophy. Then we tie these to performance appraisals and bonus compensation. These are hard to measure, so this is a leap of faith for most workplaces. More importantly though, we must have systems and leaders who model and teach these behaviors, and as with other skills we want to develop, these need to be set out in the leaders’ standardized work. I think this might be the biggest departure from what most of us talk about when we describe leaders’ standardized work. Where most of us use this tool as a checklist and reminder of the key things we must complete daily, weekly, and monthly, we don’t articulate how to be empathetic; how to listen; how to encourage. I think we can fix this be setting out standardized work for these types of skills and reinforcing these skills through frequent coaching as a task within Short-Interval Leadership. 

Ultimately, leaders only need to do three things: Decide to love, continue to learn, and let go of the control they think they have over the workplace. Those skills I mentioned are all components of these three decisions/actions/ habits. These allow us to integrate various leadership styles in our daily work, including the “go out and get noticed” piece that I call “connecting”. But I have to take this back to the structure conversation. Without key changes in the way we describe, hire, evaluate, and compensate leaders; and without key changes in how the work is structured in the workplace away from batch-and-queue, lots of handoffs, and transaction-driven and toward flow, it will be very difficult to build these types of leaders for the future.  

What type of leadership-development system exists in your organization?  What are the major factors affecting your leaders' behaviors?

Why Process-Improvement Initiatives Can Fail

An insightful new book titled The Basics of Process Improvement by Tristan Boutros and Jennifer Cardella just recently hit the streets. Process improvement, as most know, can be quite a complex topic, but this book shows organizations how to achieve success by fixing basic operational issues and problems using a broad and wide-sweeping process-based toolkit. 

I recently had an enlightening talk with Tristan, and I asked him: What causes many process-improvement initiative to fail? Here is his response:  

In the current economy, many process and quality organizations are looking for opportunities to elevate their departments to become true business enablers. Unfortunately, even the most sought-after business process improvement projects can fail. Here are four common reasons that these efforts fail: 

1. Lack of Management Support - Regardless of organizational size, attempting to initiate a process improvement effort without clear and publicized support from management can make improvement efforts challenging. As process improvement projects are often difficult, reinforcement from management that improvements are necessary and appreciated is critical to any team's success. 

2. Organizational Resistance – In many organizations, corporate culture can also make process improvement efforts difficult. Given the fact that process improvement efforts have the potential to uncover individual or system weakness, or even departmental challenges, it’s common to find resistance when improvement efforts are undertaken. 

3. Lack of Involvement or Representation – Improving a process without ensuring that all of those with a vested interest are represented during the effort is sure to bring hurdles. All stakeholders from each part of the process should be invited to participate, as end-to-end understanding is needed to properly make recommendations for improvement. 

4. Overemphasis on Technology - Although technology is playing a larger and larger role in process improvement efforts, the outcomes need not be about technology at all. In many cases, simple training, activity, or culture improvements are all that is required. Properly leveraging technology in ways that optimize a process is key towards true improvement. 

In any environment, taking slow and deliberate steps towards improvement can help ensure your project is a success. Ensuring leadership endorsement in place, being inclusive, ensuring your projects consider all areas of improvement, not just technology, while also ensuring the importance of your project is communicated throughout the organization can make all of the difference.  

I'd surely like to hear from those who have lead or participated in a process-improvement initiative and have stalled because of particular problems. Were they like those that Tristan described?

Righting the Wrongs of Organizational Measures

Mark Nash and Sheila Poling recently published a book titled The Right Measures: The Story of a Company’s Journey to Find the True Indicators of Its Success and Values. I spoke to Sheila on the phone and asked her: "What is the relationship between all the measures that an organization compiles?" Here is her response:

Organizations, regardless of type -- private sector, public sector, or non-profit -- should identify what they value as the overall goals of the organization.  The goals at the top (or strategic goals) are where most of the effort is focused.  Yet, to truly measure success, you must have Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).  KPIs are a type of performance measurement and are used by an organization to evaluate its accomplishments.  Typically KPIs are used to evaluate an organization’s success in terms of making progress toward, and ultimately achieving, its strategic goals.  KPIs should be the basis for all other measurements within the organization.  For long-term success, you need to have your key measurements linked, with direct relationship to the KPIs, from the bottom to the top of the organization.  

In the fictional story in our book, Max Housholder explains to the management team at M.E. Burdette Company how the measurements that are used to report success are related.  Relying on his life experiences, Max talks about how a construction crew and a homeowner each use the same tape measure to determine the individual success of their own goals in building a house and how in the end it is all related.  The differences in the measures lie in their detail.  All the measures are connected, linked or aligned to the ultimate goal of building the house. "Each of you in this room needs to find your tape measure. Find your sixteenth of an inch. Then connect the dots. You’ll see how it fits with the eighth of an inch, and then the quarter, half, and then the inch. As you move up your corporate structure, you’ll then start seeing how all the inches fit together to form a foot and more. If you don’t figure out how to tie the entire organization together through measurement, you will never be able to sustain success."

Her response lead me to the follow-up question: How do a company's measures affect its performance? Sheila summed up her response with:

One of the characters in our book says it best -- Chris Anselmo speaking to the management team says: "The things you measure are a reflection of your organizational values. And these values are the fundamental building blocks that shape your company’s vision and action. You measure what you value. Measures directly influence how people work. In turn, how people work affects organizational results.  This is a big interlinked circle of events wrapped around the culture of the organization.  When we talk about the culture of an organization, this is at the heart of that culture.  The organizational values drive what we do as an organization.  When we measure what we value, it affects our behavior...."

What do you think of Sheila's response? Does your company measure too much or too little? How do your measures affect your company culture?

Traditional Change Models and Lean and Six Sigma Implementation

I recently posed the question -- Do traditional change models help or hinder Lean and Six Sigma implementation? -- to Larry Solow and Brenda Fake (authors of What Works for GE May Not Work for You: Using Human Systems Dynamics to Build a Culture of Process Improvement) and I've decided to post their reply here:

"We believe the answer is 'yes!' While we are glad many Lean/Six Sigma leaders and project managers attempt to address organizational change at some level... it is not nearly enough. Change today can no longer depend on a linear six or seven step model that is easy to follow in 'the change plan' or project charter. Those models fail because linear plans fail to address the complexity of the problem itself and the larger systems in which they are embedded.

We as Lean and Six Sigma leaders owe it to ourselves, the projects, the employees, and the customers to look at business improvement change through the lens of complexity. This requires today’s successful Lean/Six Sigma professionals to understand the initial conditions for why a change is needed, and the many moving parts that are impacted by the improvement. It is not enough to analyze the problem in a vacuum. It is critical to be able to see and influence the patterns of the relationships to the business improvement, set the initial conditions, and implement improvements that can adapt to rapid and unpredictable changes in order to sustain themselves beyond the initial implementation."

Feel free to post your thoughts or comments.