Organization’s ability to change depends on leader’s self-change
Leadership and change: In November, the Strategic Capability Network (SCNetwork) hosted Kevin Cashman, a senior partner at consulting firm Korn Ferry, at its monthly breakfast event in Toronto to talk about leadership from within. For more information about SCNetwork visit www.scnetwork.ca.
SCNetwork’s panel of thought leaders brings decades of experience from the senior ranks of Canada’s business community. Their commentary puts HR management issues into context and looks at the practical implications of proposals and policies.
When Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz merged to form Switzerland-based pharmaceutical giant Novartis, the company’s growth outpaced its talent management strategy. It was filling 70 per cent of all open senior positions with external hires, says Kevin Cashman, a senior partner at consulting firm Korn Ferry in Minneapolis and author of Leadership From the Inside Out.
Continually going outside to fill senior roles is very costly, says Cashman, who spoke at a recent Strategic Capabilities Network event in Toronto. The company had to switch its focus from filling immediate openings to acquiring talent and developing and retaining that key talent over time in order to meet their business goals, says Cashman.
“They had the business strategy but their talent strategy wasn’t up to their business strategy,” he says. “Without a great people and talent strategy, the business strategy will never work.”
Through the development of leadership development initiatives, onboarding initiatives for new talent, senior-level coaching and succession planning, Novartis was able to reduce external hiring for senior positions from 70 per cent to 20 per cent and realize significant cost savings, says Cashman.
“From those investments over time, their acquisition, development and retention of talent started to come into alignment with their business strategy,” he says.
This shift from a short-term focus to a long-term focus is one of the seven change mastery shifts Cashman outlines in his book that involve shifting from:
• a problem focus to an opportunity focus
• a short-term focus to a long-term focus
• a circumstance focus to a purpose focus
• a control focus to an agility focus
• a self-focus to a service focus
• an expertise focus to a listening focus
• a doubt focus to a trust focus.
Unfortunately, 50 per cent to 75 per cent of all change initiatives fail, according to Cashman. More than one-half (58 per cent) of all mergers fail and 70 per cent of all strategic alliances fail.
“Because people try to manage themselves and their teams through change, actually trying to mitigate and reduce change, instead of leading by stepping into it, optimizing and accelerating it and finding the opportunity in change,” says Cashman.
But an organization’s ability to change depends on the ability of individual leaders to change, says Cashman.
“All change starts with self-change,” he says.
“If we really want to change our team, change our culture, change our environment, the first step is that we have to embody the new behaviours we want to see in others,” says Cashman. “As people start to see that, it becomes safe for them to step forward and align with that.”
Cashman also talked about a new work personality test, where work and leadership styles are illustrated by four different rooms.
Room one: The first room has 100 or more participants vying to make new connections. People who are comfortable in this room are extroverted and outgoing.
Room two: The second room is a gathering of close friends in a relaxed setting. People comfortable in this room like to forge deep connections with others and are social and friendly.
Room three: In the third room, a person has to give a speech, for which she is unprepared, to several hundred strangers. People who are comfortable in this situation are strategic thinkers and like the challenge of uncertainty.
Room four: In the fourth room, a person has to give a speech to the same group but she is completely prepared. People comfortable here are conservative, analytical and like to have everything in its place.
Most people are most comfortable in room two, says Cashman, but the current marketplace is like room three — full of uncertainty and ambiguity.
“Wouldn’t it be great to have a company where we’re treating each other like room two, with that deep connection and teaming, as we fight the battles in room three?” says Cashman.
When building a team, leaders should be aware of all these different personalities and focus on the strengths of each type to build a successful team.
SCNetwork’s panel of thought leaders brings decades of experience from the senior ranks of Canada’s business community. Their commentary puts HR management issues into context and looks at the practical implications of proposals and policies.
Be the change…
By Dave Crisp
“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Gandhi’s famous admonition summarizes the message Kevin Cashman has been bringing to the business world since before his first book eight years ago. If only every leader would take this to heart as the prime directive. Instead, it sometimes seems to have become a platitude repeated for others’ benefit.
So what do you do when you’ve written about this so clearly in the past? Update the message with new, powerful examples and case studies that have emerged proving the benefits. Cashman’s first book called out famous quotations on every second page. Re-reading them reminds me of how many individuals have historically arrived at this insight and how many ways they found to restate this essential advice.
Translated for chief executive officers and leaders at every level, this becomes Cashman’s title message: Leadership from the Inside Out. Change yourself first, then your top team. Then, and only then, will others join in the changes you want to see in your company. If you want your team and your company to change, you must change first, not just your instructions, your ideas, but your actions. In the words of a reviewer of Cashman’s first edition: Leadership is a behaviour, not a job title. All of us who speak about leadership highlight the same message in different ways. Cashman had the courage to say, before it was totally clear, that it applies to CEOs, and he sticks to it.
I often say, “Leadership is about pushing into unknown territory. With things you already know should be done, your challenge is to manage not lead — you know the steps, ensure they get done.” True leadership is doing something new, to solve challenges you or others haven’t yet faced.
To lead into the unknown, leaders must become the key learner in a learning organization. Instead, many leaders simply tell others to attempt change.
Gaining a formal leadership job feels like a huge victory for many individuals. Now they can order change to their hearts’ content — for others to struggle with, but not themselves. This is why there are so many bad leaders. We don’t tell them clearly when they’re promoted that their purpose is to begin changing themselves first so others will change too. Perhaps if we did, a lot fewer would leap at the opportunity, almost as few as there are good leaders. There’s our leadership gap: Not everyone wants to do this. How do we fix it?
Cashman does his best to make the point there is enormous personal benefit in changing yourself and a purely auxiliary gain is your team and organization change too, with your help. We can’t tell you exactly what that change is. Leadership is pushing into the unknown. And the greatest unknown lies within. Most so-called leaders have no idea how much they could accomplish. They rarely look within.
Dave Crisp is SCNetwork’s lead commentator on leadership in action. He shows clients how to improve results with better HR management and leadership. He has a wealth of experience, including 14 years leading HR at Hudson Bay Co., where he took the 70,000-employee retailer to “best company to work for” status. For more information, visit www.CrispStrategies.com.
Being not doing – nice principle or actual results?
By Trish Maguire
“Transformation occurs when real leadership simultaneously meets change.” So why isn’t it happening?
Leaders, emphasizes Kevin Cashman, initiate and step into change while managers cope with change. Using three business and one personal scenarios, Cashman challenged the audience to think about how different organizations could be if leaders valued, appreciated and understood their employees’ needs and at the same time mastered the resilience to ride the waves and battles of constant change.
Research from Cashman’s colleagues at Korn Ferry confirm the most important competencies for organizations fall into two categories:
• Dealing with ambiguity, vision, purpose, creativity, innovation and strategic agility.
• Motivating people and building effective teams.
So if everyone knows what’s important, where are organizational strategies going wrong? More significantly, why are current HR strategies failing to develop and deliver this cocktail of competencies?
“Stubborn traditionalism in the HR profession” is highlighted in recent research from John Boudreau, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business. This suggests HR strategies and practices are overdue to be revamped in many organizations.
Cashman’s book, Leadership from the Inside Out, expounds that change and leadership are intimately related, which is a compelling argument for any HR leader choosing to adopt a fresh approach. This fundamental philosophy advocates awareness and integration of personal, organizational and marketplace change, in concert with leadership, to create the necessary personal, cultural and innovative transformation for building a better world. Cashman’s “seven change mastery shifts to optimize change” could help HR leaders be pioneers, architects and catalysts in the building and development of new HR strategies, policies and practices.
Trish Maguire is a commentator for SCNetwork on strategic capability and founding principal of Synergyx Solutions, focused on developing customized talent management strategies for small entrepreneurial businesses. She specializes in HR strategies that align people’s strengths and potential for high performance.
Passion for change, passion for leadership
By Nickey Alexiou
Kevin Cashman is passionate about leadership. And since change is a fact of life for every leader, Cashman is equally passionate about change. This passion fuels the new edition of his book Leadership from the Inside Out. To research and write about either leadership or change is a tall order. To marry them — despite their fundamentally contrary natures for breakthrough thinking and results — challenges us to create fluidity in our perspectives regarding the individual and the system.
For some — especially those with a predilection for a systems approach — it’s a chilling thought that change initiatives are dependent on individuals rather than systems and processes.
But there’s no question the bias is individual in Cashman’s approach to change when he informs us that “all change begins with self-change.” And, frankly, there’s nothing wrong with that.
I have long considered the question of sustainability of organizational cultures that have evolved or erupted based on the characteristics of one leader. Without a willingness and ability to share knowledge, power and access with other leaders to create a corps of enlightened leaders, a great leader becomes nothing more than an episode.
In his book, Cashman speaks of “contagious” leadership. Of all of the competencies, quotients and change mastery skills he cites, his emphasis on the importance of learning agility as a key differentiator in both leadership and change effectiveness rings the most true.
Personal experiences with good and bad leaders take on a new dimension when filtered through this insight. The best leaders I’ve known have shown a willingness to constantly be learning and, more importantly, to acknowledge quickly that information or viewpoints may be outdated. They are smart, flexible and open.
“Learning intelligence,” as Cashman describes it, is just one of the essential variables to execute successful change and the ability to assess it may become another marker to identify leaders. And for leaders, this is exemplified in a quote attributed to former United States president Harry S. Truman: “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”
Nickey Alexiou is a commentator for SCNetwork on organization effectiveness. She has created change and leadership initiatives in global financial services organizations and the not-for-profit sector.
