Should leaders lead leadership development programmes?

I recently had and email exchange with a colleague of mine about the role of leaders as both students and teachers in in-company leadership development initiatives.  Our debate was wether is was better to develop a pool of leadership talent using external expertise or have the intervention led by organisational leaders.  It was such an interesting thought that it led me to ‘pencil’ my own views.

I think the starting point is not whether the development intervention should be led by leaders or externals, but rather what is the intervenion supposed to be achieving.  Te first is a debate about the methodology or vehicle and there may be all sorts of ways of delivering high performance leadership.  The second is about measurement, evaluation, end results and questioning the strategic intent of the eventual programme.  Assuming we can pin down and hook the eventual impact of any initiative into the strategic requirements of the business, then the methodology debate is slightly easier to answer.

I say slightly easier because there will be a variety of ways of deploying and implementing leadership development in organisations, each with their own valid benefits and short comings.  I really like the idea of having leadership development being led by the company’s leaders, though I recognise that this approach raises some challenges of its own (I’ll come to them in a minute), but one of the arguments for having the leadership development intervention led by leaders internally rather than by external consultants and providers (don’t mean to do myself out of work here!) is that being put into the ’spotlight’ of having to develop others in the values, practices and behaviours leaders require to demonstrate in order to fully execute the strategy is actually VERY developmental of itself.

Of course there are some caviats: Do these leaders, charged with the development of the future leaders in an organisation themselves role model what is being described? Do they have the skills and acumen to be able to effectively develop those that follow?  Do they have credibility in their own positions as well as in a development scenario? etc etc.

But I don’t think these challenges are insurmountable. We have all read plenty of research that provides evidence of the need for leaders irrespective of their professional standing and quality, to learn and renew themselves.  If they are not continually learning they are standing still.  So leaders have to be students, if they have to be anything. In the last couple of weeks I have been working with very senior executives in a global company getting them to tangibly think about what they do and could do to develop further the talent in their organisation. They found it extremely difficult but, I was told, extremely rewarding. They were students because they were learning about new ways to think about developing others and their role in making it happen. They enjoyed it because they realised they could be more creative than they had first thought and were able to envision their roles in directly engaging, coaching and creating interesting workplace assignments for their people.

Now here is my point. Initially I would not expect busy senior business leaders to be fully conversant with the ‘magic and mystery’ of leadership development, or indeed to have technical knowledge of design, development or delivery, but if I can learn how to do it, they certainly can. The role of leader as coach, developer and ‘teacher’ I think is an ever more important one, as employees look to their leaders for more than direction and guidance, but to reasons for staying.

There are enormous benefits in utilising internal resources, and in this case, internal leaders as the developers of a pipeline of future leaders in a company.  The role of the external consultant/coach is one to provide some framework, advice and guidance on assessment, design and delivery; knowing the technical benefits and pitfalls of a variety of potential solutions. I think where an external consultant works in this way, as a true partner to the organisation on an intervention like this, the end result is stronger and longer lasting.  If any further argumentative proof were required, Britannia Building Society is a great case in point.  They developed qualified internal coaches from their senior leadership group to develop coaching internally to develop leaders.

I believe this approach is the way to go in the future.  The very process is very developmental of leaders and having to develop others is a great way to build organisational glue for the ethos, values, practices and behaviours that future leaders need in order to execute their business strategies.

Getting Results From Team Development

In an increasingly complex world, where organisational structures are constantly changing – becoming flatter, more project and matrix orientated – most would agree that teamwork is now more important than ever before.  Certainly it is much more difficult for an individual to be expert at everything. Yet, very often teambuilding and team development interventions emphasize the individual’s awareness of roles and how they are likely to interact with one another by focussing on the skills needed to become a high performance team – rather than examining the elements that are key to successful team development, and overall team effectiveness.

 

Typically overlooked is a focus on a combination of three elements: The effectiveness of individual team members; the seven key processes that enable teams to function more effectively; and the actual relationships that exist within teams that either help or hinder team effectiveness.  Without a process that enables teams to address these issues through the phases of team development (Membership, Control and Cohesion), most team building or development interventions are arguably little better than an away day jolly or some form of outbound process which individual team members find difficult to translate – and apply – when back in the workplace.

 

How does ‘team working’ actually operate?

While awareness of team roles and interaction is important and useful, it only scratches the surface of effective teamworking.  Teams operate at three levels: At the level of the individual members of the team and how they interact; at the ‘unit’ level (that is, the team as an entity in which the way the team manages certain processes determines how effective it is as a whole); and as part of a larger system, i.e. the organisation in which team interaction and organisational structures have a significant bearing on effectiveness.  Focusing on just one of those levels – say the team skills that members demonstrate – provides a distorted way of looking out how teams work – and how to help them to be more effective.

 

Effectiveness

One of the fundamental elements contributing to team effectiveness is clarity and unanimity about the team’s purpose: the uniting goal that establishes what they are there for.  It provides the reference point against which other team processes and activities can be judged for relevance and effectiveness. 

 

At the individual level much research has been carried out into the roles and skills that indicate how a person might operate in a group environment.  All of these behaviours have their own strengths and weaknesses.  In this context, individual adaptability as a skill would, for example, appear to be an important asset.  It means being able to make efforts to present oneself in different ways to suit the needs of different people and situations.  On the other hand, it may also signal indecisiveness and a ‘sheep-like’ mentality that could undermine the team’s dynamism and energy.

 

At the team level it is important that the team is able to work its way effectively through the three phases of team development: membership, control and cohesion.  Sometimes teams can get stuck in any one of the phases, particularly if there is a difficult or emotional topic to overcome.  This requires negotiation and agreement about the team processes that will be applied.

 

Team Process

Research shows there are seven processes vital to day-to-day team operations and to overall effectiveness:

 

·        Communications – Most teams can find simple ways of improving communications within the team as well as between organisational teams.

·        Decision making – When examined in detail, the majority of teams agree that they make decisions that are not appropriate to the context in which they are operating, and that should ideally be made elsewhere (this is particularly true of management teams).  Typically there is consensus that the very process of their decision making can be improved.

·        Vision and planning – Having a vision and agreeing objectives is only part of the story.  Planning by the whole team is needed to make it happen.

·        Resources management – Most teams agree that they don’t manage their resources, systems, etc., as effectively as they could.

·        Leadership – Done properly, and in the absence of a titular team leader, this activity can be shared by different members of the team bringing in their expertise situationally.  As Harvard Professor John Kotter has said: successful organisations have little acts of leadership throughout the company.

·        Team climate – This is a measure of how it feels to work in the team. How good a ‘fit’ is there between individuals and the team style?  How good a fit is there between the team and the rest of the organisation?

·        Individual effectiveness – What does the team do to ensure that it plays to the strengths of its individual members in terms of knowledge, skills and behaviours? How can it continually nourish, develop and utilise them effectively?

 

Inter-team effectiveness

At the inter-team level it is important that the relationship and collaboration between the organisation’s teams are working effectively.  The way teams operate with one another across an organisation may be strongly determined by the culture of the organisation.  If there are problems – caused, for example, by too much competitiveness – the teams or the culture may need to be modified.  Across organisations, teams need sensible ways of managing cross-functional dynamics in order to overcome potential vested interests and to build commitment to overarching strategic goals.

 

Bringing about change through team building and team development

As individuals / teams move from one level to the next, dynamics change.  Diagnosing the current state of team effectiveness a long way before initiating the team building or development event is important to defining what the team actually needs in order to be more effective.  Doing so creates clarity not only about what’s needed; importantly, it generates awareness and the impetus to negotiate commitment to improve performance, too. 

 

Paying attention to a team at only one of the three levels would be a mistake. It reduces the team building or team development event to the level of an expensive ‘nice to have’, when in today’s environment, if appropriately and effectively handled, such activities should be seen and valued as ‘must do’s’.

About the author

Joe España is Managing Director of Performance Equations, a specialist organisational development and change consultancy. Performance Equations helps companies and individuals become more competitive by directly linking strategy to people and business performance. Their areas of focus are: Organisational culture & change, Leadership development, Team development and Service excellence. Joe and his team provide measurable solutions that are bespoke to particular needs, and that deliver performance where it matters most; the bottom line.

 

For a free information pack call +44 (0)1252 545171. Joe can be contacted by email at info@performance-equations.co.uk. To find out more about Performance Equations and how they help organisations achieve better results, visit www.performance-equations.co.uk.

 

 

Satisfying Customers No Longer An Advantage

Satisfying customer expectations no longer provides a competitive advantage. Nowadays, companies have to connect at a different level. Joe España, MD of Performance Equations ponders on making the emotional connection.

 

Trying to complete purely on customer satisfaction levels is an work of self delusion.  Nowadays customers are far more discerning and demanding. Chasing high levels of customer satisfaction doesn’t guarantee that your customer won’t defect to the competion.  What is required is engagement at a totally different level; at the emotional level. Managing the customer experience at the emotional level pays far greater dividends, and here’s why.

 

Everything is an emotional buy; everything. Whether buying a cup of coffee, a holiday, a car, or a house.  Our emotional reaction to a service transaction is the fundamental driver of the purchasing decision.  But more importantly, it’s a determining factor in customer retention and loyalty. More that satisfaction, customer emotion is the underpinning factor in the customer experience; what it’s like to do business with the product or service provider.

 

Yes of course rational thought, reflection, consideration of pros and cons may be part of the buying decision, but an emotion definitely will be. One’s feeling, sense, intuition, gut reaction and experience of the interaction will play a significant part in the buying decision.

 

This example illustrates the point.  I was walking through a shopping centre with a colleague recently. We walked passed a well known coffee shop and I suggested we stopped and had a coffee.  My colleague immediately responded with a suggestion that we should go further into the shopping precinct and around the corner to his favourite coffee shop. “I like it there,” he said. Not, they do better coffee, it’s less expensive, or I have a loyalty card, but “I like it there”.  In fact he liked it so much that he was willing to take us out of our way in order to get that cup of coffee.  This was an emotional reaction. No rational and logical weighing up taking place; a simple instinctive response.

 

Why is this important?

 

During the ‘80’s and ‘90’s customer satisfaction was king.  It was based on research suggesting that continued improvement in product and service quality would mean corresponding increases in satisfaction, and customer satisfaction was going to ensure a returning purchase. What further academic research and empirical evidence now shows is that companies who followed this guideline were surprised to find that even high scores in customer satisfaction did not guarantee loyalty. Companies have discovered that loyalty, not satisfaction, drives profits. The economics are very compelling. As little as a 5% decrease in customer defections can mean a doubling of profits.  Why? Because loyal customers are not only repeat purchasers, and are more likely to buy other products and services, they become advocates of the company.  It is nine times cheaper to keep an existing customer than acquire a new one.  The unit operating costs of servicing repeat purchasers is also reduced. Advocates become the ‘virtual’ marketing function of the product or service provider, recommending it potential new buyers amongst family, friends and colleagues.

 

But there are other reasons based on service recovery.  No product or service operation is flawless.  Though a company may want to diminish the incidence, it is almost inevitable that something will go wrong sometime, however small the error.  When customers are positively disposed and emotionally engaged to service providers, they will be more willing to tolerate a whole range of service or quality shortfalls. The coffee not quite as tasty or as frothy as last time, the delayed flight or the clothes shop that has sold out of the garment you particularly wanted. Customer satisfaction surveying doesn’t quite get to grips with the emotional effect of the service interaction or the value that customers perceive from it.  Satisfaction in many respects is an outcome.  Something happened that created that sense of satisfaction.  And that ‘something’ is the experience itself.  Satisfaction, or dissatisfaction for that matter, is the result of what it felt like for the customer in being dealt with by the service provider. Satisfaction somehow seems such an inappropriate and often inadequate description of what the customer is experiencing.

 

Doing business at the emotional level

 

Recently I went along to my nearest toy retailer to browse for a suitable gift for my eight year old son and witnessed the sheer joy and marvel experienced by a small toddler being given a replacement cuddly toy.  The parent had gone to the toyshop to ask if a toy that had not even been purchased at that particular outlet could be replaced because it had been given as a gift to her two year old, was one in a series, and the child already had it.  The customer service agent said it wasn’t their policy, but left her counter, went to the appropriate shelving to retrieve the entire set of toys for the child to choose the one she wanted. The shop lost £3.99 and gained an overjoyed child, an appreciative parent and a story that will be repeated several times as an example of superior service.  Neither the child nor the mother were merely satisfied with how they had been treated. The broad smiles on both their faces gave a real sense of the appreciation and happiness felt (as well as giving a clue of the potential sense of relief in the mother in not having to deal with a disappointed child).  Even I walked out of the shop with a bit more of a skip in my step than I had walked in with.

 

By contrast, a colleague told me of his less that satisfying flight to a client meeting in which he stupidly (his words) packed all the materials he needed for his presentation in his checked-in luggage.  On arrival the surly lost baggage clerk explained that his luggage was still at his departure point and that it would not be with him till later in the afternoon and that if he had needed all the material then it was his own fault for having checked it in. My colleague explained to me later that neither dissatisfied or extremely dissatisfied, were words that accurately described his feelings about the treatment he had received. Incandescent with fury were probably closer adjectives to the truth of his emotional reaction.

 

So it all seems to rest on the emotional experience.  How the engagement with the service provider leaves us feeling – about them, the transaction and the company as a whole. And even when the system – the procedures and protocols the service provider is sometimes required to follow – get in the way, (as they often do in financial services), appreciation and handling of the customer at the emotional level can make all the difference.

 

Only a couple of weeks ago I called by business bank early on a Monday morning to check that they had reissued and sent a replacement to my business card that was about to expire. Confirming that they had, I explained that I was about to leave on a business trip and that I had not yet received it. Straight into automatic mode, the call centre operator informed me that they would have to cancel the card that was lost in the post and reissue a new card.  This would take between 3 and 5 working days.  Too late, I advised, as I was leaving on my business trip over the weekend, needed the card, and my existing card would expire mid week. Can’t help you they said.  I suggested that rather than relying on the postal service, they should courier a replacement card and I would sign for it.  This seemed a viable possibility, except they added that in cancelling the lost card on the Monday would also automatically cancel my existing card which was still valid till the Thursday.  Increasingly angry and frustrated, I suggested that they should not cancel a card that was still valid and usable, and enquired how they could creatively suggest some options to deal with the presenting problem.  None were available.  After much haggling and finding I was getting no where with the ‘system’, I begged that they please ensure that the card was delivered in the minimum amount of time. This they assured me they would do.  Frustrated, manacled by their procedures and feeling completely undervalued, I agreed.  Unfortunately, insult was further heaped on a far from satisfying experience.  A very pleasant voice called about an hour later to say that I could collect my card from my local bank branch at the end of the week.  The communication within the system had obviously not understood my earlier point about being busy and the inconvenience of the situation. The rising tied of indignation, frustration, helplessness and seething venom was far too great to contain, and the unfortunate caller received a tirade describing their incompetence, insensitivity and inability to organise an escape from a wet paper bag.

 

What is the point of this? 

 

What the customer feels or doesn’t feel at every single encounter with a service provider is directly related to the service providers ability to manage the totality of the experience and customers expectations.  Customer experience is not simply about smiling sweetly, or keeping an even tone when handling an irate customer.  It is about creating, operationally, transactionally and behaviourally an emotional connection with the customer that leaves them feeling – no matter what – that they are the most important person in that moment in time.  Addressing the emotional needs, desires expectations of fickle – I want it now and I’m not going to wait – customers is difficult and can’t be left entirely to the great customer service skills of the individual. Defining the goal of the intended customer experience, so that it is differentiated, intentional supports the brand promise and adds real value to the customer requires a whole company approach which goes beyond procedural quality standards and protocols.

 

Before a product or service provider can determine the best way to manage their customer experiences it has to define and articulate exactly the emotional reaction they want to create in the customer at every point of contact.  Arguably customer satisfaction surveying and market research will provide the data required in order to do so.  This seems very logical except for the fact that customer satisfaction measures very often don’t give enough, if any, data about drives satisfaction or indeed loyalty at the emotional level.

 

Customer experience management requires much greater insight into the drivers of satisfaction and loyalty.  That insight is very likely to demonstrate that a whole package of different factors lead to a sense of satisfaction and loyalty, based on a mixture of expectations, needs and reactions to the organisation and the perceived value received by the customer.

 

Managing the customer experience, then moves critical elements such as product and service quality, and perceptions of value-for-money, beyond merely hygiene factors – the minimum requirements needed to be seen as a ‘player’ in the market – to fundamental delivery mechanisms in creating the sort of personal, deep seated emotional and psychological connections with the customer that enable them to feel themselves satisfied and loyal.  A consistent, differentiated, valued and completely intentional approach to managing the customers emotional response to doing business with the company is the only way of dealing with the irrational, illogical, intuitive and feelings based drivers that underpin every buying decision.

 

Now then, about that coffee I was going to have.

 

 

about the author

 

Joe España is Managing Director of Performance Equations, a specialist organisational development and change consultancy. Performance Equations helps companies and individuals become more competitive by directly linking strategy to people and business performance. Their areas of focus are: Organisational culture & change, Leadership development, Team development and Service excellence. Joe and his team provide measurable solutions that are bespoke to particular needs, and that deliver performance where it matters most; the bottom line.

 

 

For a free information pack call +44 (0)1252 545171. Joe can be contacted by email at info@performance-equations.co.uk. To find out more about Performance Equations and how they help organisations achieve better results, visit www.performance-equations.co.uk.