Did you read the March 2010, Australian Financial Review’s Boss Magazine which focused on REINVENTING LEADERSHIP ?  The magazine published an amazing article which was an excerpt of the speech Don Argus delivered at a Leadership Victoria dinner in December 2009.

His key comments around leadership were these:

“In my experience, success goes to those enterprises whose leaders mobilize their people and unleash their competence, creativity and commitment.”

“Those people who are to expand their enterprises were the ones who understood human nature and how to tap the best in people – they understood that the bottom line is ultimately the result of human endeavour.”

“The skill to make things happen comes directly from blending two sides of the leader’s personality: the tough, competitive side that demands winning performance and loves to win; and the softer, compassionate side that is caring and understanding of others.”

In reference to Marius Kloppers, the CEO of BHP BIlliton, he made the following statement:

“Marius quickly realised many organisations smother the potential of their employees under layer upon layer of control and bureaucracy. As a result, their human assets are painfully underused ….

What is really being underused is what might be called “peoples’ discretionary effort”, that is, performance above and beyond the expected minimum. It is their initiative, creativity, motivation and loyalty. This discretionary effort is the part of a person’s performance that is liberated or shutdown by the way their leaders treat them and the quality of their work environment.”

So what is the real message we should take away from this?

Exceptional leadership education, relevant to the needs of the modern business world, must focus on the behavioural elements of an organisation.  It must educate business leaders in new and more effective ways to:

1. Unleash competence, not manage behaviour – soft skills are critical in this pursuit;
2. Enhance individual performance, at home and work, as a foundation to realising bottom line potential – we must acknowledge the inter-dependence between employees personal and professional lives; and
3. Simplify the way leaders execute their business plans and manage their organisations.

Are you ready to step up and make the shift ?

Here’s something that might absolutely astound you … it has been predicted that there will be a leadership shortage in the very near future. A study by Egon Zehnder International predicts a 36 percent shortfall in the number of managers ready for leadership roles by 2015.

Teleo Research also found that the most successful leadership development programs (a) recognised the type of leadership style needed for a company’s culture and (b) aligned leadership development with corporate strategy.

Its amazing that these concepts are now emerging quite strongly in the corporate world, because at Soarent Vision, we have been working on addressing this for almost a decade now. Through Soarent Vision’s Academy of Business Leadership the shift to more influential and persuasive leadership can be addressed as this is the style of leadership the shifting demographics of business is demanding today.

The only question that remains is are we ready to fill the void?

Anybody familiar with my work will realise that i use a mind mapping process to design the content of my books and even our training courses. More recently we have been using mind mapping to bring clarity to our business strategy. So mind mapping has been a part of my life for quite some time now.

I recently purchased a license for Tony Buzan’s iMindMap Software. And to put it bluntly I was blown away with how good that software is. Anybody who has ever used a mind map knows the simplicity and power of the process. And now to have software to generate mind maps that can be used in presentations or exported into different file formats … amazing.

If you want to try it, go ahead and download and trial the software from Tony Buzan’s website by Clicking HERE.

Enjoy

As a shareholder, I sit here and shake my head as one of the companies in my share portfolio informs the investment community of their new cost cutting initiative. Cost cutting is a genuine strategy for making the numbers in a company, there’s no doubts about that. But so many companies destroy themselves in the long run by focusing entirely on costs, and never recognising the real problem that exists within the organisation.

Cost cutting in business can be likened to liposuction in the health industry.

My extremely overweight friend Mark wants to lose about 20 kilograms as fast as he can. So he follows the advice of his doctor and undergoes liposuction treatment. Does he lose weight, you bet he does, and faster than anything else he’s ever tried.

The same thing occurs in business. Cost cutting rapidly removes the fat and the numbers shift closer to the desired outcome. Shareholders are happy, CEO is happy, but the employees hate every moment of it.

Here’s the problem.

Mark loses his weight and gets the goal, but he never changed his thinking, beliefs or the behaviours that created the problem in the first place. Gradually he goes back to his old weight and wonders why he can’t maintain it.

In the business scenario, the thinking that created the financial problems in the first place remain.

If the thinking and paradigm behind the problem does not change, there is no way you can create a different situation and sustain it over the long term.

On top of that the process is usually so painful, employees hate it and they quickly develop a strong negative association with company wide ‘improvement initiatives’. Now change becomes a challenge because of the perceptions that permeate the organisation.

We tried business improvement but it failed!

I’ve had many business leader’s tell me they tried business improvement as a proactive initiative to get the business on track but it didn’t work or it didn’t produce the numbers they expected.

My observation has been that most organisations today are rolling out initiatives such as Lean and Six Sigma with a 1980s mentality, and making the same mistakes that killed TQM. Most try to reinvent the wheel, few understand how to integrate it into an operating system of work, few get it right and they erroneously blame the initiative or the methodology as the cause.

This is exactly what the company I have invested in has done, so I know it’s time to sell my shares and get out for they will never be remarkable in any sustainable way.

Here’s the situation we want for a company to be truly remarkable.

1. All employees are engaged to a level of willing participation in cost minimisation – they recognise the value in hitting the numbers for all stakeholders

2. Employees are totally motivated to constantly improve themselves and their work, not just go to work and get through the day

3. Change is positive, necessary, and something everybody can contribute to – employees do it to themselves, it does not get done to them (there is a big difference)

4. Time is expanded, not compressed, and everybody works at the most appropriate level in the organisation

5. Less bureaucracy, greater trust, higher levels of accountability and lower levels of decision making

To standout in business today as a leader, you must learn more about these topics, particularly in regards to the shifts in paradigms necessary to thrive in business today.

Until the next time we catch up, take care, engage your people fully, and enjoy life to the fullest. I’m off to find a company that is truly remarkable to buy shares in.

George Lee Sye

George Lee Sye

I guess all of you have been closely watching and feeling your way through the economic situation as 2010 unfolds.

There is no doubt in my mind that the ripple effects of the events of 2009 will test our abilities to succeed in business today and maintain the quality of life we expect to have. With the tightening of credit controls and slowing down of markets, the approach most companies will take is to slash costs within the business.  Is this a sound strategy? Of course it is because in the short term there is significant pressure on revenue and credit so the obvious approach is to work on the cost side of the financial equation.

Does that mean you should reduce the level of energy you give to the ‘business improvement’ strategy you have underway?

Let me answer this question in this way.

YES, you should drop your business improvement strategy if existing efforts are not producing results of an economic nature and you have no desire to continue doing business.

NO, you should not if you are going to continue doing business, regardless of whether or not your existing BI efforts are producing results.

Not Getting Results

Most companies I have researched over the past decade in Australia are not getting the results they want with their BI strategies. They can significantly alter that outcome if they are prepared to rapidly change how they think and what they are doing. However, my experience is that the required change won’t take place until some point of desperation is reached. I guess those times are coming for many. I believe many leaders are now realizing that company profitability has allowed inadequate BI strategies to exist in their company.

The question we must ask ourselves today is are we prepared to do something different, are we prepared to challenge our own beliefs and change our paradigms?  If you would like to get better results, take a minute or two to read on.

(A) Value Generation Strategies for Today’s Successful BI Groups:

• COLLABORATE with other companies to deliver lower cost, high quality business improvement education – there is no need to go it alone today and bear all costs.
• Rigourously TRACK THE VALUE each trained individual adds to the business as a result of applying BI methodology after training – every trained person should know their financial value.
• Be very clear and very confident about the ECONOMIC VALUE the BI Strategy has brought to the business. If you are not clear about the numbers, you are probably not adding value of a financial nature in my opinion.

(B) Business Execution Strategies for Value Today:

• Have a simple yet robust IMPROVEMENT PROJECT SELECTION process that is (a) supported by Value Stream Analysis and (b) driven by department or unit leaders
• Maintain the FOCUS of project team leaders on HIGH VALUE PROJECTS – this means giving them time and resources to do the work rapidly
• Lock in less singularly substantial benefits more QUICKLY and more FREQUENTLY
• Simplify your EXECUTION MODEL so the focus is consistently on progressively moving performance for key variables
• Change your leadership MEETING STRUCTURE so there is minimum replication of ‘time span of focus’ and ‘level of detail’ at the different levels of meetings – the effect of this will be profound.

If you would like to know more about any of these items, particularly those relating to business execution and meeting structures, drop me a line and I will get in contact with you.

Good fortune to you in these interesting times my friend

George Lee Sye