Tag Archives: Talent

What is Agile Leadership? Five Perspectives

Situation: The environment continually becomes more complex for leaders. Not only must leaders perform classic roles, but they must also deal with increased uncertainty and change. How do you build a new leadership paradigm to address ongoing change? What is agile leadership?

Advice from the CEOs:

There are three challenges facing leaders today.

  • First, given that change is constant, what does the next likely settling point look like in your environment? How is this different from past settling points? Everything starts with your people. Once you determine the likely next settling point, conduct a capability inventory with your leadership team to determine whether you have the right people to handle the new reality. Can current members be trained to take on the new challenges? Do you need to add new talent and capacity?
  • Second, are your processes limiting or enhancing your flexibility? Do current processes encourage adaptability, cross-functional connection and communication. If not how will you change them? Deconstruct and reconstruct all critical processes to make them more agile, responsive and adaptable to current and future needs.
  • Third, how are you linking desired outcomes with rewards and incentives within the company? Growth in the past may have focused on building up infrastructure – adding more people and capacity. Now, knowledge management focused on tools and processes is required to make people more effective. Individualized assessment and reward structures have become an obstacle and have to be shifted to emphasize the importance of collaborative versus individualized performance.
  • Agile leadership and management focuses on reaching outside the boundaries of your own company. To deliver differentiated value suppliers and customers must be included in the exercise. It is necessary to reinvent engagement with suppliers and customers so that they are part of the collaboration.
  • The agile paradigm focuses on the unspoken needs of suppliers and customers. This takes the conversation beyond the transaction and includes quality, on-time delivery, and other differentiators that are mutually important. This can include competing for your competitors’ suppliers by being a better customer!

Thanks to Jorge Titinger, CEO of Verigy, Inc. for his contribution to this article.

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How Do You Respond to a New Competitor? Five Suggestions

Situation: A mid-sized company has learned that a much larger company is entering their geography and market niche. This company is known to enter new markets with a low pricing strategy to “buy” market share. How do you respond to this challenge? How do you respond to a new competitor?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Accept the fact that you will lose some business; particularly from customers who driven more by price than quality and service. The flip side is that these customers are likely not your best customers.
  • Research the reputation and business practices of the new entrant in their traditional territory. What is their reputation? What are their weaknesses? Do your homework by networking with their current competitors and customers.
  • Take a lesson from those who have survived a move by Walmart into their territory. Boutiques survive Walmart – especially those that focus on personal service. Upgrade your customer base based on personal service. Use your knowledge of the marketplace and your long term relationships to your advantage – including your reputation with existing customers when going after new customers. You may remain more profitable than the larger company, on a per transaction basis, based on your knowledge of the territory or business niche.
  • Don’t assume that all large companies are Walmarts. Walmart has a unique set of talents and a tightly controlled process. This may not translate to other markets – especially those involving personalized service.  
  • If you are a family business, consider promoting your “old world skill” and established reputation and expertise.

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What are Best Methods to Develop Your Staff? Three Thoughts

Situation:  A CEO wants to build her team, identify leaders within the company, and develop managers. How have others done this? What are best methods to develop your staff?

Advice of the CEOs:

  • A valuable resource is “First Break All the Rules” by Marcus Buckingham. Among Buckingham’s findings are that great leaders are different from great managers. Good leaders are outgoing and goal-oriented whereas good managers are people-oriented. Expecting good leaders to be good managers and vice versa is not effective. Only the exceptional individual exhibits both sets of talents. The traditional business structure assumes that talented people will want to “move up” the organizational chart. The reality is that some people are very good at a particular level of responsibility, and are happiest with this responsibility.
  • How do to enhance your team’s leadership and management capabilities? Evaluate your team for candidates who possess the qualities of leadership or management. Tailor your training to enhance the natural strengths of your candidates. Draft agreed upon written responsibilities and performance objectives with each of your candidates. Regularly follow up and provide feedback. Establish trial projects for new candidates that will allow them to experience additional responsibility, and allow you to see how well they perform. Make small steps at first. If the individual demonstrates talent, make successive steps more challenging.
  • Look at your organizational chart. Does it provide room for both leaders and managers? Does it provide room for the skilled role player who thrives in a particular role? If not, how will you fix it?

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How Do You Focus Company Competency to Support Growth? Eight Thoughts

Situation: Both in the case of a start-up, and when an existing company adds a new business unit, one of the biggest challenges is supporting rapid expansion during market launch. Talent necessary during the product completion phase may not be sufficient to support this growth. How do you focus company competency to support growth?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Bring in “been there, done that” expertise to support the current team. You want to add individuals who have experienced both success and failure in similar markets, and in both larger and similar sized companies. Hire people who can be transformational, not someone who can simply occupy a box.  Give them a chance to do more, add to their toolbox and they will in turn help the company achieve its goals.
  • A wide range of past experience with multiple employers is now seen as a benefit, whereas in the past it may have been a liability. It brings more knowledge and experience to the company.
  • Among people with highly diverse resumes, how do you tell performers from non-performers? Focus on what they did to transform their past company. Did they build alliances, make change happen or improve the organization during their incumbency? Look at how they did it.  Chances are this is a very leverageable skill. Look for doers – people who aren’t afraid to roll up their sleeves will make the biggest impact in the organization.
  • Look for people who possess “strategic humility.” Individuals who aren’t afraid of mistakes and foster an environment where the boundaries are continuously pushed. The enemy of ‘good’ is ‘perfect’. The best companies consistently make ‘good’ decisions.  If someone makes a mistake, allow them to own up to it, learn from it and move on.
  • Look for the ability to assess, develop, plan and mobilize resources to execute the plan.
  • Use LinkedIn to identify people with whom an applicant worked in previous jobs to conduct independent reference checks. People don’t provide individuals who will give them a poor reference as their references.
  • Also use LinkedIn to identify candidates for open positions.
  • By adding resources with these traits to your team, you will markedly improve the likelihood of your company’s success.

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How Do You Develop Leaders? – Five Strategies

Situation: As it has grown, a company has used talent from their home area to seed new locations around the country. As a result, leadership is now short at headquarters. What have others done to fill leadership gaps? How do you develop leaders?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Develop a formal Leadership Development Program. Identify the top leadership candidates with the company – the top 10%. Identify individual goals of these individuals and determine whether these are consistent with current and emerging company values. Clearly communicate the roles and expectations that you have for future company leaders – both the upsides and the sacrifices that you anticipate that they will have to make. Team the leadership candidates 1/1 with mentors to guide their development.
  • Consider an “internal” Board of Directors for developing leaders. Members are considered advisors to the true Board of Directors, understand company strategy, are coached on company values, and are involved in an advisory capacity in key company decisions.
  • Consider a leadership “boot camp” program to groom potential leaders and weed out those who like the idea of leadership more than the reality.
  • In the case of a very hierarchical company, the following items are involved: time, talent, defining the desired traits for key positions, identifying candidates who appear to possess these traits, assigning leadership roles to these individuals in executing the annual strategic plan – with senior managers mentoring leaders-in-training, and including training and development in individuals’ professional development plans.
  • Investigate employee assessment tools, for example the Myers-Briggs tools.

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How Do You Redefine the Top Executive’s Role in the Business? Four Points

Situation: The President of a family-owned business that has been in operation for over 30 years wishes to change her role by increasing delegation of responsibility and accountability within the business in preparation for her eventual retirement. Other family members in the business are happy with their current responsibilities and are resistant to taking on more responsibility. What advice does the group have for this member?
Advice from the CEOs:
• Given that you are preparing for retirement, it is important to let others know about your plans and your desire to increasingly hand off your responsibilities to others. Ideally, one or more of the others will express a desire to take on more leadership, particularly if it includes a boost in pay.
• It is important to clarify responsibilities and prioritize which ones you wish to hand off. Once this is done build and execute a hand-off plan.
• Transition current managers who are misplaced in their position to other roles. Work with them to identify alternate roles where their talents can better benefit the company. They may be aware of their current discomfort and welcome the opportunity to take on a different role more suited to their abilities.
• Focus on removing barriers to delegation that may be in place. For example, bring others into the discussion and review the projects that they are overseeing. Identify the challenges underlying those projects and ask for their suggestions on how to address these. Don’t provide the answers. Ask questions and push them to develop appropriate solutions.

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How Do You Downsize Intelligently? Three Perspectives

Situation: A company has run into a rough patch and needs to cut costs. The CEO is considering a number of alternatives, but wants to hear input from other CEOs on how they have faced this challenge. How do you downsize intelligently?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The key to intelligent downsizing is to take a different perspective. Look at the needs of the business in terms of a 3-5 year plan, not just at what is needed to do to survive today.
    • What key talent will be needed 3 years out? What key roles will need to be filled? Who is on-board today who will be needed in 3 years? How does this affect the decision on where to trim? Are there other options to simply laying off staff?
    • Answering these questions helps to consider options with a rational long-term view.
  • Establish a new paradigm. What do you want the business to become?
    • Is it the same as, complimentary to, or completely different from the current business model? Once the paradigm is developed plan personnel needs in line with this paradigm.
  • Look at all resources proactively.
    • For example, if you are considering moving your offices to a smaller space, look at your vision for the company 3 years out.
    • It may be more sensible to stay where you are and negotiate a new lease with your landlord that is more favorable short-term than paying for multiple moves.

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How Do You Institutionalize Double-Digit Growth? Six Suggestions

Situation: A company is enjoying 10% organic growth per year and wants to sustain this growth rate. They enjoy a favorable position as a technology leader. Their principal strategy is to continually advance the technology. The chief obstacle to ongoing technological superiority is getting the right people to populate their brain trust. How do you institutionalize double-digit growth?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Look for domestic office locations that have the right talent but a lower cost of living. Florida presents attractive cost of living with low employee turnover.
  • Can the company compartmentalize?
    • Set up a remote location, run by a trusted individual, and do portions of the work there.
  • Be aware that teamwork within the company becomes a challenge with remote locations.
    • A communications strategy – for example videoconferencing – can help to engender teamwork across distance.
    • The pandemic made videoconferencing a far more viable alternative than it was prior to the pandemic.
  • If the company’s infrastructure is highly bureaucratic or the cost of quality high, can adjustments be made that will relieve some of the cost pressures?
    • Creating “Hot Teams” is a method to developing new, innovative solutions.
    • Can the company’s technology be leveraged to improve productivity – for example, using modeling and simulation to reduce prototyping costs?
  • Can the company employ knowledge management?
    • Gather lessons learned from past and recently completed projects.
    • Share good or best practices.
    • Make sure that new efforts do not start from scratch.
  • Consider outsourcing to universities, with proper contracts.

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How Do You Shift from an Operational to a Strategic Focus? Three Points

Situation: A CEO is concerned that her company is too focused on day-to-day operations with much less focus on strategic objectives and initiatives. She estimates that the company is 75% day to day vs. 25% strategic. What is the best way to shift the focus, and over what timeframe? How do you shift from an operational to a strategic focus?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Look at the current mix between day-to-day and strategic activity, set a timeframe for the shift and set interim objectives.
    • For example, if the current mix is perceived as 75% DTD / 25% Strategic, set monthly objectives to move first to 50% / 50% and eventually 25 DTD / 75% Strategic.
  • While the objective is to move the CEO’s and company’s activity more in the strategic direction, it is necessary to assure that the day-to-day bases are being covered.
    • Select a key member of the team to take on this responsibility and train that individual to assure that the day-to-day operations are covered as the company makes this transition. This will be a bonus for the individual selected and will help to deepen the organizations talent pool.
  • During weekly meetings push the discussion more toward the strategic direction.
    • How can the metrics and operational reports be automated and readily available to team members so that less time is spent on this during weekly meetings? Consider an executive dashboard – developed by the CEO and key staff but maintained and updated by staff.
    • This will help to build confidence that the team is able to monitor the business and should reduce the time spent understanding operations. This will allow the team to focus more on strategic vision and plans.
    • This is also important to the company’s ability to monitor operations in its remote locations as these are set up.

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How Do You Build the Right Organization? Four Observations

Situation: To accommodate future growth, a company has to build its management infrastructure and has developed an organizational chart to guide this process. Should preference  be given to existing personnel who are qualified and have expressed an interest in the new positions or should leadership wait until they identify exceptional outside talent for the new positions? How do you build the right organization?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Move forward with internal talent that have been identified. The company and management know these people and the “ideal” outsider may also come with “less than ideal” baggage.
  • Create a 90-day plan with specific broad objectives for those who will be offered the open positions. Let them know that the assignments are conditional upon their ability to achieve their objectives during the 90-day period. Provide coaching, and cross-departmental training to give them the best chance to succeed.
  • For one position, there are two individuals who have expressed an interest in the decision. How should the CEO choose between these individuals?
    • Move forward with the individual who is considered the best choice, but offer training and support for the second individual so that there is a ready candidate for new positions that may open, or a natural successor should the position in question open up for any reason.
  • The company has a very flat organization chart. Individual employees work on several projects, with a different manager for each, simultaneously. What is the best way to evaluate individuals in this situation?
    • Use a 360 peer-to-peer and peer-to-boss approach to gather feedback for performance appraisals. There are a number of web-based systems available. This will provide an objective source of feedback to support performance appraisals and reviews.

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