Observation
‘The context is always changing, but the fundamentals of leadership rarely do.’
For Father’s Day I asked for a brief history of the USA. I was given a 900 page biography of John D Rockefeller Sr, the Jeff Bezos of late 19th Century America and to my surprise I am enjoying reading it. He was certainly not all virtuous but he was definitely ahead of his time in some of the leadership principles he used. What I find particularly interesting is that many still apply today. He appears to have been particularly strong on:
Talent – ‘The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee and I pay more for that ability than any under the sun.’
MI – ‘I charted my course by figures, nothing but figures.’
Delegation –‘Nobody does anything if he can get anybody else to do it …. as soon as you can, get someone whom you can rely on, train him in the work, sit down, cock up your heels and think of some way for the Standard Oil to make some money.’
Wellbeing – ‘It is not good to keep all the forces at tension all the time.’
Current Leadership Challenge
‘Time to reboot not just grind on!’
Every September for the past three decades I have returned from my summer break to find my inbox bursting with the good intentions of leaders who have also taken a break and come back with bold ideas around their vision or their team or their execution plan. It has made for an energising and interesting autumn but more importantly it has worked well for businesses: harnessing the post-holiday energy of the leadership team, refreshing the vision and strategy, engaging colleagues as the dark winter months begin to encroach and setting out a platform on which the practical task of planning for the next year can be based.
I worry that this year the combination of; leadership fatigue, the lack of a meaningful summer break, the difficulties of creating quality time together and the continued business uncertainty will result in many businesses just ‘grinding on’.
As a result I suspect my September inbox will be quieter than usual, which is odd given that we are living through what is probably the most challenging period for leaders in my working life.
“This will be a true inflection point. I think this pandemic, in terms of implications, will be as big an event as World War 2. And whatever we learn through this process, it must not go to waste.”
Rajnish Kumar
Chair : State Bank Of India
Practical Action
Reboot!
If you do want to reboot, then this is what I’d encourage you to do:
Be bold – we all have stories about what has been achieved. ‘We have delivered in months our multi-year change agenda’ is a reflection I have heard many times. Use that to give you confidence to continue to be bold. Much of the received wisdom seems to be to accelerate through and out of the crisis to maximise the opportunities – I suspect that is much easier said than done, albeit history will probably validate that approach. The other bold choice may be to restructure the business so that you have a customer proposition and cost model that is relevant to the post-Covid world, however painful it is getting there. Both are bold decisions, I suspect the worst decision is to prevaricate between the two!
Be intentional about your role – focus on what only you can do, delegate ruthlessly, role model how you want others to be and invest in managing your own energy and mood.
Upgrade the team – a long standing client of mine talks about ‘change the people or change the people’ by which she means you either have to help the people grow and develop to what is needed or bring somebody else in who can (thanks Gill). I’d add two observations of my own; I’m continually surprised what a difference an A* player actually makes, it is often not possible to understand what great looks like until you see it in action. Secondly, there are a lot of good people on the market at the moment and while I definitely don’t recommend becoming a ‘hire and fire’ merchant, now is a very good time to be honest about the quality of the leadership team you need.
Own the narrative – shape the story, tell the story and be the story. In the whole of your career, September 2020 may just be the most important time for you to do this.
Dig deep and go again – many great sports people talk about their ability to be present, to forget the past, not worry about the future but just focus on what is needed at that moment in time. Successfully rebooting your business will probably depend on your ability to do something very similar
I recognise that in the reality of your daily pressures, these ideas may seem like a nice wish list. My challenge is that if leadership is the single most important lever you have to influence the future success of your business, if you are not acting on the above – what are you doing?
Practically I’d take some time out over the next month and sit down and plan what your leadership agenda is. Whether you use the above as your starting point or not is less important than practically setting out what you are going to do as a leader and acting on it. Be intentional, shape how you want to be as a leader. If it was me I’d definitely go for a reboot in September and in doing so find a way of reenergising and engaging your leadership team..
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