Socially responsible leadership no longer a nice to have according to Ashridge, IBLF and Sir Stuart Rose

By Sonia | Published: April 2, 2012

On Thursday I attended a breakfast briefing at the IOD in London held by Ashridge Business School and the International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF). The event was held to launch a new piece of research undertaken by Ashridge and the IBLF entitled ” Leadership in a rapidly Changing World – How business leaders are reframing success”. Presenting in an interview format were Matthew Gitsham from the Ashridge Centre for Business and Society, Mark Foster from the IBLF and Sir Stuart Rose past CEO and Chairman of Marks and Spencer. The research explores the role that today’s business leaders are taking and looks at the implications for leadership in a world where business leaders are getting increasingly involved in the conversations that previously only political leaders and NGO activists would engage in.

LONDON, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 28: Sir Stuart Rose...

LONDON, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 28: Sir Stuart Rose, Chairman of Marks and Spencer, officially opens the newly completed shopping centre 'One New Change' on October 28, 2010 in London, England. The shopping centre, which is located adjacent to St Paul's Cathedral, contains two floors of shopping, numerous cafés and restaurants as well as office space for 3000 city workers. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Sir Stuart Rose is seen as one of those leaders who successfully married corporate social responsibility and the commercial needs of the organisation during his time at Marks and Spencer. During the debate Sir Stuart insisted that business today has no choice but to engage in CSR if it is to have longterm success. He also insisted that business should not be demonised but seen as a force for good as in his view we have nobetter way to engage in wealth ccreation.

These are the keychallenges in our society today that business need to deal with according to Sir Stuart:

  1.  Speed – the rate of pace of change in the world where something happens on the other side of the world and it takes 60 seconds to reach us here.
  2. Scale – over half of the world’s largest financial entities are businesses now rather than government institutions.
  3. Democratisation – everyone wants a say and with social media,they can have their say too.
  4. Global recession – our governments cannot deal with it all so business has the opportunity to get involved.
  5. Trust – People do not trust governments anymore but are still looking for people to trust. Some are looking to businesses and other organisations to trust in, for example, Marks and Spencer, John Lewis Partnership, etc. How do we rebuild trust?

Leaders are the ludites holding things back

This is what Sir Stuart said can be found at the top of an organisation. He believes the true agents of change to be the young people in an organisation and the consumers and that the leaders’ role is to open a door so that all that information coming from these groups can then reach the management or “frozen middle” as he termed it. Once that happened the “frozen middle got it”.

When asked what are the necessary characteristics for a leader today the following came up

  •  Authenticity
  • Courage
  • Stamina
  • Bloody mindedness – know when to stick to your guns. You can change the way to get to the destination but know where you are going.
  • Look outside the window
  • Cooperation / Collaboration
  • Humility
  • Unafraid to make mistakes – just don’t make the same mistake twice…

Role of business schools in leadership

Now this was an interesting one as according to Sir Stuart there seem to be one main role for business schools and that was to enable the network of people that will stay with a leader throughout. He was very clear that the people you meet at business school are the people who stay with you throughout your career. It is clear also that business schools will need to look at not only how they sustain and nurture those networks but also how they continue to teach the basic skills and behaviours required of leaders and add this new dimension to it too.

So quite a few very interesting points for me:

  • Responsibility of business leaders to look at the long term when it comes to balancing the CSR agenda with their responsibility to create wealth.
  • The lack of trust in today’s society and how we look to businesses and their leaders as the new trusted leaders in society
  • The role of business schools to not only teach a leadership skillset but to also nurture the networks that are created there.
  • Leaders today now have to deal with the ever increasing speed and scale of change
  • A leaders’ role in making sure that the younger employees and the organisations’ consumers have a voice.

What are your thoughts?

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The leader as coach

By Sonia | Published: January 27, 2012
English: Andy Murray against Djokovic at the AO

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Andy Murray has just lost in the semi final to Novak Djokivich and it was a fantastic match and one that Andy should be proud of and learn from – and believe me I do not say that often.
Most of the commentary around Andy and the Australian Open has been about the fact that he now has Ivan Lendl – one of the great players of his time – as a coach. Lendl has only just started working with Andy and is not showing much of anything courtside. However, Andy has already changed his behaviour. He is less petulant, thinks twice before looking up to his box to bemoan his fate and is showing real fight. What has happened?
What I think has happened is that Andy has someone as a coach who he trusts and respects and for Andy that meant someone who has been there and done it and done it well. Now, down’t get me wrong. That isn’t to say that every coach has to have been there and done it to help their client. All I am saying is that for Andy Murray, that is what has made the difference. Tennis is an individual game for the most part. The players have teams helping them train and prepare including a coach. Once the player gets on court though, they have to deliver and take responsibility and that is what Lendl expects and that is what Andy has given him this tournament.
So, as a leader how do you coach your people? Who in your team will only be coached by you if you are seen as someone who has been there and done it and who is looking for something different? Who will trust you even with their fears and weaknesses and who will not? Is everyone coachable by you? And what do you look for in a coach.
Here is a wonderful short video from the guys at Bluepoint Leadership on coaching the uncoachable – let me know what you think.
And take a look at our new open course taking place at the end of March this year here.

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Are you leveraging technology in your learning and development programmes? “E-Learning” just doesn’t quite do it justice!

By Sonia | Published: October 13, 2011
Steve Jobs shows off iPhone 4 at the 2010 Worl...

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Like it or loathe it, you cannot escape “technology”. There are multiple new gadgets launched every day aimed at making our lives easier, there are even pretty good television shows all about it – just have a look at The Gadget Show. Over the last few days, the news and blog posts have been full of articles about Steve Jobs, creator of Apple and Pixar to name two of his empires, both bringing amazing new technology to us, who sadly died too young from pancreatic cancer.

Now, I do not feel compelled to buy every gadget that comes on the market and I am a firm believer in the personal touch, however I do embrace what technology can allow us to do. Which is why I am a little bemused about why it is taking so long for those involved professionally in learning and development, particuarly within large corporate organisations, to make full use of what is now so readily available to them.

In recent years there have been great advances in “e-learning”. The Open University is a great example of how by integrating technology into programmes, learning can be delivered globally and effectively. There are also companies who invest heavily in this capability – a friend of mine works at one of the big 5 consultancies in this area and is now looking at delivery on the ipad and other such devices. Despite all of this, speak to many large corporate organisations and their view on “e-learning” is that it is a poor relation to attending a live workshop or coaching session.

Here are some of the advantages of integrating technology into your learning and development agendas:

Get to more people with minumum disruption – organisations with people dispersed nationally and globally can now reach all of them and deliver a learning intervention without those people having to leave their desks and all at the same time.
Save money – time away from the job can be expensive and many times necessary as you will recoup that expenditure in increased productivity. By delivering content to people’s pcs and or phones, it ensures that you limit the time that person needs to spend out of the business as they no longer need to travel or pay for the travel.
Engage regularly – rather than people being away for two or three days on a course, you can deliver content in short, sharp bursts, with time in between to practice and embed what they have learned.
Follow up – once people have taken part in a programme in this way, they get used to the technology and it becomes easier to use similar technology to follow up on the training, with for example online coaching support and forums.
Encourage more people to take part – there are those people who always head to the front row and will always be contributing and there are those who will always hide at the back and be afraid or self conscious. Delivering some of your learning interventions via webinar can encourage those back row people to take part as they are no longer as visible and those front row people will still contribute as they always do.

Investment

Now you may be thinking that it would cost hundreds of thousands to invest in all the technology required to deliver the programmes. Well no, it doesn’t have to. Yes you can develop your own systems which would be a major investment, but you do not have to do this.

Readily available platforms such as Skype, WebEx, gotowebinar, Adobe Connect, Jigsawbox and others are secure and available at very little cost.

Skype now has a video conferencing facility which lets you hold a conference call with up to 10 people, great for small group interventions such as learning support groups and costs pennies.

WebEx, gotowebinar and Adobe Connect provide webinar and web training solutions at varying costs depending on the functionality you want. Not all of them integrate video but that will come and it isn’t always necessary. These solutions allow you to train in large numbers across the globe and only one account is required, everyone else simply attends the meeting by logging in using a password. The technology now allows for polls and quizzes to take place so that the sessions can be interactive and participants can also type in their questions or raise their hands to be unmuted and speak directly with the trainer.

Jigsawbox is a great secure online platform which you can use as an e-learning solution. Whole training programmes including video and audio content can be easily built and delivered within the system, forums can be added to each programme so that participants can network and communicate with each other on the programme and you can also provide online coaching support to anyone taking part.

These are just a few of my favourite tools which you can integrate into your learning and development plans to leverage technology, save time and money and give your people even more opportunities to engage in learning.

So how do you embrace technology to deliver learning in your organisation? If you would like to contact me to discuss how you can do it in your organisation, drop me a line at sonia@valueu.com or skype me at sgavira!

By the way, if you would like to check out a session, I am running a series of 90 minute essential management skills training sessions starting on Tuesday 18th October at 9 am. If you book by end of play tomorrow (14th October) you can still take advantage of a great launch offer. I will be using gotowebinar on this occasion too. For all details please go to “The Manager’s Essential Toolkit”

 

 

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Coaching is not just for coaches

By Sonia | Published: October 11, 2011

Despite the economic climate, coaching is still being used in many organisations at all levels. These companies recognise the value of coaching as a way to encourage and strengthen:

  • Learning after a training event
  • Self awareness
  • Autonomy and responsibility for decisions

to name but a few benefits of coaching.

Some of this coaching is delivered by external professional coaches, like myself. But it does not all have to come from us. As external, professional coaches we bring:

  • Another perspective
  • No conflict of interests
  • Broad experience from other industries and cultures
  • Specialist skills

However coaching does not have to be done in a “coaching session” by a professional coach. All managers can – and in my view – should add coaching to their skillset and use a coaching approach in the management of their staff.

Why?

Well because as a manager your responsibility is now to get a number of jobs done and business delivered through your team. This is one of the greatest challenges for managers still. Many of us are promoted into managerial positions because of our technical capabilities, our great results in terms of getting the job done. Suddenly we find ourselves having ultimate responsibility for delivery but having to deliver it through others. And all of this whilst keeping the team motivated, engaged and learning!

Coaching is a great way to achieve this. When you enter into a coaching conversation with someone you encourage and help that person come up with their own solutions and ways of delivering the business. They leave feeling listened to, valued and empowered and they have learned what to do in a situation that they may not have done before.

Can it take more time than just telling them what to do? YES, sometimes. But will they come back to you next time the situation arises? NO, because they will have learned what to do and how to do it and have taken responsibility for it.

Does it always have to take a long time? NO!

Coaching can be done by the water cooler or coffee machine and can take five minutes, it does not have to involve a lengthy session.

What is needed is a new ability to listen, to ask powerful questions and work with the responses. Once this new skill becomes part of how you manage and respond to your people, you will start to embed a culture of coaching in the organisation, which means a culture where people are respected, valued, listened to, encouraged to learn and take responsibility for it, encouraged to produce the results in the best way.

If you would like to add coaching to your management skill set, join me Sonia Gavira for a 90 minute session on the key coaching skills for managers – “How to have more productive conversations at work” at 9am BST on 18th October 2011. If you book by 14th October 2011 you will be able to take advantage of my special launch offer too. This is the first of a series of 90 minute training sessions you will be able to attend from your desk, whcih will focus on the key skills for all managers and leaders of people.

I look forward to “meeting” you then!

 

 

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How to get the support you need when you need it

By Sonia | Published: June 30, 2011

One of the things I have noticed when working with people in senior positions is that they can become worse and worse at asking for and getting the support they need the more senior they become. It’s like suddenly a belief kicks in that says:

“You’ve reached the top, well done and now you’re on your own!”

I’m pretty sure that expressions like “It’s lonely at the top” are born from this belief that now we have arrived we have only ourselves to rely. And when I delve deeper I find that it often comes from another belief that when you are the boss you must know more than everyone else and therefore it would be seen as a weakness of some sort to ask for help or support or , god forbid, admit that you don’t know something.

The reality however is somewhat different.

No matter what position we hold, we rarely know everything and as social animals, we need the relationships and interactions to function properly, to continue to grow and learn.

Another “reality” is that very often we find ourselves in leadership positions because either we have promoted ourselves to them – speaking to all you business owners out there – or because we have excelled at being technically competent in our jobs so we get promoted to a role where technical competence is no longer required and we now have to become excellent in other skills such as managing and leading people, motivation, engagement, delegation, feedback, etc., etc.

So how do you get the support you need, when you need it?

Well, this is how it goes:

  1. Realise you need help or support in a particular area – I continue to be amazed by the number of leaders who only realise they need help well after the rest of the team has identified it! Listen to your team, be attuned to how you are feeling, your levels of stress, how easily or not you are achieving your goals.
  2. Figure out what your desired outcome will be – so if you believe and now have evidence that you need help in changing your management style so that your people feel more empowered (for example!), take time to list out what you will see, hear and sense differently in your business when that happens. This way you will know when you have achieved it.
  3. Find the best person to help you achieve it - not just any trainer, coach, mentor, consultant will be right for you. Once you know what you want as an outcome, take some time to find the person who not only has the skill set to get you there but someone who you also have good rapport and chemistry with. This will make those moments when you are challenged to do things differently, so much easier to take.
  4. Commit to the change – once you have done this half the battle is won. Once you tell yourself what the result is that you want and you commit to it, you will already start making the necessary changes or finding the necessary information.

If you have identified that you need some help or support this summer and believe that I might be the person to help, then take a look at this very exciting and limited opportunity available right now.

Summer Success Programme

Speak soon!

Sonia

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