The Principles of War underpin military doctrine and conduct, they have been determined as a result of experience in conflict by examining the key components present in all successful military operations. As such, these principles can be applied to the conduct of more general, commercial and business activities to enhance the likelihood of success. Ergo, they can be considered as the Principles of Winning. Application of the principles alone does not guarantee success; however, failure to adhere to any of them will almost certainly guarantee failure in battle.

Selection and maintenance of the aim is making absolutely clear, precisely what is to be achieved (by whom, when and why) to ensure all concerned remain focused and all associated actions are co-ordinated. The aim must be understood and fully accepted by all involved. All activity must be aimed at achieving and contribute towards achieving the aim and it is important to understand in reality the aim may (will) change as the battle progresses.

Maintenance of morale will be crucial in determining the outcome of combat in the event of all things being equal, ie. when no side has a clear advantage. Irrespective of context and situation – well motivated people with high morale perform better than those without. Good morale can be the difference between success and failure; morale and motivation are the responsibility of leaders.

Security within any military context is generally obvious; in the business context the principle of security is concerned with managing all the essential risks necessarily taken to achieve an outcome. This includes (say) confidentiality, copyright, financial constraints, succession planning, etc. as much as the more obvious health and safety in operations. Security is as much about facilitating and safeguarding the bold moves which gain competitive advantage as it is about looking after routine business.

Surprise is about gaining advantage by doing the unexpected; it is the deliberate ‘wrong footing’ of the enemy (competition) to bring about his/her demise. Creativity, courage and speed are the key ingredients to surprise and as such need to be nurtured and developed as an organisational attitude. In a business context the ‘enemy’ may be a competitor, a specific situation or set of circumstances.

Offensive action is about proactive, deliberate action aimed at winning through in order to achieve the stated aim – exploiting advantage, opportunity and strength to accomplish the task. Again, this is as much an organisational attitude as anything else. To understand the nature of this principle as a ‘mind set’ consider polar views of defining business success in the current ‘economic climate’ presented in this question. Is success about avoiding failure or achieving stated objectives irrespective of prevailing circumstances? Offensive action is proactively doing what is required to succeed; it is not about accepting mediocrity or avoiding failure.

Concentration of force is about applying decisive force and effort at the most decisive place and time to secure victory in battle as no army can be the best at everything all the time. In the business world this principle is about achieving the right effect in the right location to ensure the desired outcome; for example (say) timing and targeting of investment to yield the best possible return. Rarely, if ever, will the opportunity of the right force being present at the right time in the right place present itself; concentration of force is a managed deliberate act of choice.

Economy of effort is self evident; it is about efficiency in all you undertake. Essentially, it is concerned with understanding the nature and effect of attrition on the conduct of enduring campaigns. It is about shrewd decision making, careful preparation and squeezing all you can from your resources and assets in order to retain sufficient reserves to deal with contingencies and exploit opportunities as they arise. In business this is about (say) spending as little as possible on those items which do not contribute directly to the main aim in order to direct revenue where it will be more effective in achieving the aim. This is not to be confused with ‘cost cutting’.

Flexibility, attitudinal and organisational flexibility, is required to be able to recognise when change is necessary and to change when needed. This requires strength of character and moral courage to change or modify a plan or course of action when the existing one is doomed to failure. The military maxim ‘no plan survives contact with the enemy unchanged’ is borne from hard earned experience, and understanding where the fine line lies between dogged determination to succeed and sheer ‘bloody minded’ dogma leading to failure.

Co-operation is about ensuring unity of effort to achieve a shared outcome and accessing the combined attributes of diversity. The challenge is to overcome inherent disposition to favour a single perspective or approach and inevitably necessitates compromise between those involved. In an organisation, co-operation is concerned with both interpersonal actions and interdepartmental activities. There is very little to no room for significant individual, personal gain in an organisation if achieving organisational aims has primacy.

Sustainability is about ensuring longevity of both operations and effect and, as such, is primarily to do with long term logistical support to the enduring operation in a military context. For example, having the resources and support mechanism in place to ensure the commander can deliver (say) a defined number of missiles at a given rate throughout the expected duration of the battle and beyond. The business parallels are relatively easy to draw; for example, the supply chain is in place and has sufficient funding allocated to ensure enough pressings of the right type arrive at the factory every day for the expected duration of a production run. Sustainability requires dedicated and often ‘inglorious’ work, detailed analysis and application to task which require attributes and skills difficult to find and attract in business.

There is no order of precedence in applying the above principles after the first, selection and maintenance of the aim. The key is all are applied in order to avoid otherwise inevitable failure. Success also involves and requires the presence of other factors and circumstances – not least of which is an element of good fortune (or luck).

We all joke about singing from the same hymn sheet or indeed even being in the same church.  But there’s a serious lesson here that some organisations have failed to learn to their cost.  And the key word here is ‘values’.

Humans are individuals with their own sets of values and beliefs. Businesses too, have organisational values and goals.  People join organisations because they like what they see.  They stay because their personal values match those of the organisation.   And they move on if they don’t.

Aligning these human and organisational values is the key to success in the modern business world where speed is vital and trust its key catalyst.

The simple truth is “me” becomes “we” and when an individual feels strongly that they are part of an organisation that affords them great benefit.  They become disempowered as individuals and much more empowered as a team. They feel stronger within and are therefore loathe to stand up for themselves against their peers.

We are taught in modern education to conform, to be right, to go with the majority. But right is often merely a matter of current opinion. Think back to when the world was flat, women could not vote, capital punishment was an acceptable result of serious criminality, tobacco was good for you, drink driving acceptable. All are now considered unacceptable behaviours within most modern Western societies.

The images of a South African taxi driver being dragged behind a police vehicle for illegal parking and news of his subsequent death in custody has shocked the world. Here we see an appalling example of a state organisation with a poor organisational culture that has become unacceptable to most South Africans.

Last October saw the killing of 44 people at a Marikana mine, the deadliest police action since the end of apartheid. More recently the police officer responsible for the prosecution evidence against Oscar Pistorious was publicly removed from the case as a result of his own pending murder charges. The question is: what type of culture exists within the South African police force. Why do good individuals who join an organisation to uphold the law, then behave this way?

The answer comes from the top.  Poor leadership allows values to slip and behaviour changes in groups to shift. Good leadership upholds values and deals with unacceptable behaviour by stopping it in its tracks.

Visualize a fire-fighter rushing into a building, or a Royal Naval ship venturing into dangerous seas. These acts of extreme bravery are an agreed-upon condition of an individual’s employment at the time of their joining. These are the same acts of commitment as our valiant soldiers undertake in fighting and risking life and limb in foreign wars. They each serve with pride, commitment and passion; their agreed-upon commitment. The power of this commitment becomes a personal promise to do the very best job possible.  What these brave souls deserve are good leaders.

Napoleon once stated “There are no bad soldiers, only bad officers” and I believe he was absolutely right. Individual incidents and mistakes will always happen but when organisations go seriously wrong it’s because of the leadership culture that exists within the organisation.  Invariably when an organisation is in trouble, things are going wrong in several areas.  It’s rarely a one-off incident.

Sampson Hall say:  know and publish your organisational values and you will recruit individuals that match them.   it is then up to the leadership to ensure that the behaviour within the organisation matches those values, however complex and difficult that may be.

What do Lord Rennard, former Barclays boss Bob Diamond and General Petraeus, former head of the CIA all have in common?

Answer – they all left their positions as a result of inappropriate behaviour.

All three were extremely clever and competent, able leaders, yet they all misbehaved in a way that cost them or at least contributed to their losing their leadership position.

It is interesting that moral courage, self discipline and trust are becoming more and more important in life as societal values change.  The common denominator in the News of the World phone hacking, the BBC and Jimmy Savill, the horse meat scandal, the Banks, the South African Police brutality stories is the same:  leaders are not being morally courageous in their behaviours and certainly not when it comes to exposing misbehaviour around them.

If leaders do not have the moral courage to do what is right organisational values mutate. Leaders need to have principles and stick to them they need to have the courage to do the right thing however unpalatable it may be. For to let one piece of misbehaviour go unchallenged is to lower their personal and organisational standards. And results, just judging by the cases above, have been typically disastrous.

A moral compass is essential at the top of an organisation as its leaders, once truly embedded in the organisation will control and influence what happens within the organisation. Once accepted a leader can take an organisation wherever they want with little challenge from within.  Whether they influence by word or deed they will be the ones who must be held responsible for their own behaviour and for the behaviour of those leaders around them.

When Lord Acton, expressed this opinion in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” he was absolutely right.  But now we have an insatiable media and the technology to match. Never more have society’s leaders needed that moral compass as the likelihood of being exposed for wrongdoing is so much greater.

In other words in today’s world, you’ve got far more chance of being found out.

SampsonHall

Good Leaders, Great Decisions

Sampsonhall.co.uk

Given what I do for a living I found John Adair’s comments published in a recent ILM publication of particular interest. “The immense industry which has grown up around leadership is now estimated to be worth $50bn per year but has not actually produced many better leaders.” The truths of this statement are apparent in the various leadership scandals and failures currently dogging just about every part of our society and almost ever present in our daily news stories. Another day another leadership scandal or failure or, at least, an example of bad leadership and the consequences we have to bear as a result – dying to meet a target? So what kind of leadership or leadership model should we be investing in as we move forward?

Ethical leadership and authentic leadership are interesting to consider in context of the current spate of leadership debacles, though not as leadership styles because they are more than concepts of style. Being ethical is about being guided by moral principles and ethical leaders embody, exhibit and live their beliefs and values. Being authentic is about being real or true and authentic leadership is about being sincere, directing with integrity and taking full responsibility by being true. Doing things right is not the same as doing the right thing and reward for being good is not the same as being good for reward. Ethical and authentic leadership are about being good and doing the right thing to be good and true to self and others whilst accepting responsibility for actions and decisions.

My personal view of leadership, generally and specifically, is the most difficult element of leadership to deal with is behaviour; your own behaviour as a leader and that of those you lead. I believe it is the behavioural aspect of leadership which yields the greatest returns and yet most often breaks leaders and destroys leadership. With this in mind and considering the Ethical and Authentic leadership models are founded on values and behaviours, I suspect the appetite to be led by ethical and authentic leaders will be greater than the appetite of leaders to become such. Considering how to develop future leaders in the ethical and authentic ‘mould’ is a particular challenge given the apparent shortage of appropriate role models available to them and the obvious limitations of traditional training. How do we incentivise and give primacy to adopting good behaviour over achieving rewards? How much does knowing about behaviour inform behaviour and decision making? How does legislation affect leaders and leadership? Thinking of these questions called the following quote by Plato to mind.

“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly while bad people will find a way around the laws”

I cannot help but wonder how more stringent banking legislation or stronger whistle blowing laws will have any sustainable effect in addressing bad leadership?

I always like to start discussions around team building with our clients by drawing their attention to and discussing Patrick Lencioni’s five dysfunctions of a team, namely:

Absence of Trust

Fear of Conflict

Lack of Commitment

Avoidance of Accountability

Inattention to Results

I do this because I think this model provides an excellent basis for building effective teams simply by removing the negative descriptors before the key words. So, for me an effective team achieves the following:

Trust through knowledge and acceptance

Constructive conflict by open communication

Commitment to agreed objectives and goals

Accountability and ownership of outcomes, individually and collectively

Results orientation through focus on desired outcomes

In terms of achieving a truly functional team, as defined above, in which team members are interdependent and supportive of one another; I believe there is little which can be achieved by traditional action learning ‘teambuilding’ events and activities. This is not to say the same have no value, more they tend not to build a team in any sustainable or relatively significant way.

Traditional team building activities ordinarily involve achieving defined tasks, which are not work related, away from the team’s operational environment. This dislocates and disassociates the team from their ordinary working experience and employs them in achieving an outcome which is irrelevant to the team in their operational role. Also, Lencioni’s model is hierarchical insofar as the absence of trust leads to fear of conflict which prevents commitment, and so on. By dislocating, disassociation and irrelevance the foundations of the functional team, that is, trust and constructive conflict are no longer required to achieve commitment to the task in hand. This in turn makes it relatively easy for team members to commit to the (irrelevant) task which can be achieved, more or less, without significant penalty in relation to ownership and accountability. Clearly, skilled delivery and facilitation can enable drawing of parallels and lessons relative to the working environment but the implementation of the same is another matter altogether.

My advice to clients seeking to build an effective team is to do so in their work place and utilising the realities of their environment and day to day work. Doing so smartly can also bring added value in achieving organic development and growth. In advising this I draw attention to the need for leadership and acknowledge the challenges involved in adopting such an approach. There are tools and processes which help in building effective teams in this way but the first requirement is for leadership and in so saying, the following clip by Patrick Lencioni about leadership helps explain why http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sqvWEI1CVg&feature=watch-vrec

How can leaders at any level, especially at executive or board level, expect to get the best from their people and business or organisation without communicating clearly their vision and direction to their staff? It is not unknown for Sampson Hall to be commissioned to deliver a leadership development programme for a group of middle and senior leaders to find the very people we are helping are being inadvertently ‘hamstrung’ by a lack of vision and clear direction from their executive. This is particularly frustrating for us as we see individuals developing their leadership capabilities and becoming more able to fulfill their potential yet inadvertently prevented from doing so by the very people who have invested in providing the training.

How does vision work and why is it so important? If a leader has not got a clear picture of exactly what it is they are trying to achieve then how can they expect to know when it has been achieved? If a leader has a clear picture of their desired end state but the people they are depending upon to produce that end state do not know what it looks like then how will they know what it is they are trying to deliver? Would you set off to your work place in a morning without knowing where your work place is and what it looks like? A leader without vision is like an orienteer without a map; they are likely to run round in circles getting nowhere fast whilst their competitors get to where they want to be before them.

Not only must a workforce know and understand what is they are trying and expected to achieve but also how to do so. This is why clear, concise and well articulated direction is important. Woolly direction leads to uncertainty and ineffective action which leads to dysfunction and, ultimately, in failure to achieve the desired outcomes. Undoubtedly, when you set off to your workplace in the morning you know by which route you are going and how you are going to get there. A leader without direction is like an orienteer without a compass; they can only follow their competitors around the course and finish the race in last place.

Having a clear vision is only the start. If a vision is to be realised then it must be effectively communicated in a way which has meaning and can be understood by those who need to know what it is. Good direction need not necessarily be detailed but it must be clear and understood by those requiring direction. Also, there is little point in a leader giving direction which is not resourced; a plan must be deliverable and seen to be so otherwise it is no more than a work of fiction which will fail to yield the desired results. Good leadership is like good orienteering. Make sure you have the right map for the ground you are on, acquire and use the necessary equipment correctly to orienteer your way most efficiently and effectively through the course, quicker than your competitors to win the race.

When all is said and done, an executive board or management board are, in essence, a team. For any team leader, the easiest team to build and lead is the one in which all team members naturally get on well with one another. Shared likes, dislikes, views and interests ease the process of establishing rapport and building relationships with reduced likelihood or disagreement and argument. However, effective teams not only need individual members to support one another they also need to be able to challenge one another robustly in order to support one another more effectively.

Unlike lower order teams, where the primary collective output may be more a matter of (say) physical support and or co-operation and or co-ordination, a primary function of executive and senior level management boards is collective decision making. At this level, the phenomena of ‘Group Think’ should be at the forefront of any leader’s mind who is constructing a team at this level, or indeed, at any level where collective decision making is a primary function of the team. The strength of group thinking around problem solving and decision making is that many individual perspectives and strengths can be brought to bear on the issues requiring resolution. A problem examined and scrutinised from multiple points of view drawn from a range of subject matter specialists should enable or facilitate a more substantial and robust solution.

Broadly, Group Think as a decision making and judgement phenomena is where consensus has primacy and prevails over individual thoughts and judgements. In essence, this is when the power of the association with belonging to the group weighs greater in the individuals conscious and subconscious than personal perspectives, thoughts and knowledge. The effect is individual team members normalise their views to that of the collective. Great for harmony and all concerned, especially a strong leader; no arguments and total buy in to what the leader proposes. However; what if the leader’s knowledge and judgement is lacking? How robust is a solution likely to be and what is the likely quality of decision making to be when wrought in such circumstances?

The leader forming an executive or senior management board made up of strong willed, confident and articulate individuals with knowledge, skills and views not shared by him or herself requires significant leadership qualities, not least of all courage and resilience. To drive a business or organisation in the right direction with extremely high personal and collective stakes is difficult and stressful; to expect and want robust challenge in order to do so more effectively is even more difficult and stressful. Given the business environment of today – which is likely to fair better? Those ‘the birds of a feather’ who will undoubtedly get along famously as they crash together, or the bloodied and battered ‘band of brothers’ who invariably emerge stronger and better equipped to deal with life’s most difficult challenges?

Does your organisation or business need to change? If it is not producing the required profit, productivity and or other performance outcomes required of it then the answer is most likely yes. If change is required, specifically what needs to change and why? If planning change be mindful the easiest change to implement will not necessarily be the best change, especially when considering the desired effect alongside longevity and sustainability. If you are going to implement some form of organisational change, do so cognitively in a considered and reasoned way. Know and understand your organisation or business culture within the complexities of the situation and environment, mitigate associated risks and prioritise actions and resources required to effect change.

Culture, by definition, is the collective of ideas, customs and behaviours of a group; organisational culture can be defined as the basic assumptions and beliefs that are shared by members of the organisation. The challenge in understanding and dealing with organisational and business culture is the reality and difficulty of changing the shared behaviours and beliefs of a group of people. When considering organisational change, culture is ‘king’ and will prevail irrespective of structural and functional developments if not addressed specifically. A leader, whether established or newly appointed, can implement structural and functional change within an organisation with relative ease (not necessarily easily). An externally appointed leader, initially at least, will not be readily accepted by the culture of an organisation and will need to work hard to achieve the required level of trust which engenders followers. Combine both factors to a change management or organisational change initiative and the associated problems are likely to be exacerbated. (If you doubt this consider how many external CEO and MD appointments are terminated within 12 to 24 months).

Strategic development and the change it necessitates can arise, develop and evolve accidentally and deliberately in different ways. Significant change within or of an organisation or business is most often a result of executive level, strategic decision making aimed at achieving some defined effect(s). Understanding and knowing the development process of a strategy and the different perspectives of strategic development is important in implementing effective change. The leadership view will most usually differ to that of the organisation’s cultural view and if an organisation is subject to political pressure or pressure from significant interest groups then the process of strategic development becomes more complex again. These processes and perspectives are not mutually exclusive and coexist to some extent in all businesses and organisations.

If organisational change is to be effected and implemented successfully the following key issues need to be considered:

Developing strategy and implementing change in a complex, dynamic environment, especially where innovation and flexibility are required, is very difficult and traditional practices, structures and models may not apply or be the most appropriate.

What is the leadership and management knowledge and experience within a complex, political and cultural organisational context? If an organisation or business wants to acquire the capability to change and adapt in order to succeed, it needs to consider how best to develop and grow its leaders from within.

Can leadership prevail in a profit first organisation? Understanding the fundamental differences between leadership and management goes some way to explaining the nature of what I call the Leadership Profit Conundrum.

Though relatively simple the following succinct definitions and broad principles assist in illustrating the conundrum. Firstly, leadership is fundamentally about inspiration, motivation and direction and manifest more in terms of influence and guidance. Secondly, management is fundamentally about control, co-ordination and organisation and manifest more in terms of functional regulation. I believe it is unwise to interchange the meaning and use of the words leadership and management.

In business, leadership is inextricable from organisational performance; by which I mean increasing the bottom line and looking after the shareholders interests first. This is well enough for those at the most senior levels in a business who benefit from performance related bonuses. However, company profit generally does not motivate and influence staff engagement and performance throughout an organisation. In fact, growth linked to actualisation of profit and proportion of profit distributed to workers wages is disproportionate see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17033039 In essence, profit growth has become detached from wages with shareholder dividends and the highest echelons’ bonuses increasing whilst wages have stagnated and regressed in real terms. Those who are producing growth and ergo profit are receiving a decreasing share. This cannot be very motivating for the majority of individuals who are tasked with improving performance.

By definition, management restricts performance by setting limits, controls and regulation; furthermore, you cannot manage the way to achieving exceptional performance above and beyond expectation. On the other hand, good leaders influence and motivate others to perform successfully and achieve exceptional performance. Three questions come to mind here; is business leadership as we have come to know it really just business management? What is the place of customer service in businesses placing priority on profit return to shareholders? Which approach, leadership or management, is most likely to deal best with the challenges of an ever changing and demanding business environment?

The Leadership Profit Conundrum is management will continue prevail whilst profit is ‘king’ even though the enduring economic climate requires good leadership to prevail in order to succeed. Try this exercise to illustrate my point. Draw three columns on a sheet of paper and in the middle column write a list of words and phrases describing the current economic environment. In the left hand column write a list of words and phrases from definitions of management and in the right hand column do the same for leadership. In order to succeed and thrive in the environment of your middle column you can choose only to go left or right – which path would you choose and why?

I most usually start leadership development training by asking delegates “what is leadership?” or “define leadership” and I record their responses on a flipchart. My aims being to obtain some understanding of delegates’ pre training perspective whilst getting them to begin thinking about the subject matter. The recorded responses become integral to the training as they are referred to at different stages. If you have time and are so inclined try the exercise yourself; recording your responses on a blank piece of paper. On completion of recording the responses I invite delegates to note their responses fall into three broad categories; namely, behaviours, personal attributes and job related skills / knowledge. I then record ‘b’, ‘a’ or ‘s’ beside each response, as appropriate, and often these are not mutually exclusive, especially behaviours and attributes. Without exception to date the majority responses are behaviours with some attributes and an occasional skill or knowledge related response. Similar results are obtained by asking delegates to describe ‘a good leader’. So how does such a list correlate to any text book definitions of leadership? Try the exercise and find out for yourself.

We define leadership simply as the ability to influence and motivate others to perform successfully. ‘Measured’ against this definition the significance and importance of behaviour and personal attributes is immediately apparent, especially when considering leadership at all levels, including peer group and self leadership. This is also a definition of leadership which makes no presumption of authority to lead and acknowledges people are not necessarily motivated best by the application of authority. To understand this more fully I ask you to think about the best leader you have personal experience of in getting the most from you in terms of fulfilling your potential. Then reflect on how he or she achieved this. My guess is it was achieved by more ‘carrot’ less ‘stick’ and a good deal of ‘lead by example’ than anything to do with application of authority. Should you choose to do so, it is likely you will find the converse to be true; that is, your worst leadership experience was most likely very authoritarian and fraught with poor behaviour and bad examples.

Leadership without authority – the ability to influence and motivate others to perform successfully is dependent upon balancing behaviour underpinned by personal attributes with some skills and knowledge. Interestingly, skills and knowledge are rarely raised as significant when considering leadership. The leadership conundrum being we as a society tend to promote our leaders on the basis of having proven their skills and knowledge but their relative success will depend upon their behaviour and attributes. The leadership challenge is the difficulty of dealing with and changing behaviour and behaviour related issues; especially ones own.

One final ‘exercise’ to demonstrate my point. Consider all the high profile ‘bad leadership’ stories in the media at present; what are the common denominators, behaviours, personal attributes or professional skills and knowledge?