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Economic Realities are Redefining Leadership in Asia
The challenges to top leadership are indeed extreme.
A rapidly changing external market place is forcing leadership teams to redefine their
value-adding role. Despite the prospect of an improving economy beyond the year 2000, the
face of business in Asia has changed forever. There will be a continuing market pressure
to refocus, recommit, and redefine how an organization creates value and at what level of
commensurate risk.
Employees too are changing. While the current
situation may hold them captive to less than satisfying employment conditions, this too is
certain to change upon a resumption in the demand for skilled labor. Employee motivation
is strained during times of duress and uncertainty. Over time a lack of demonstrable
concern from leadership will likely lead to a widespread and severe denigration of
performance. Now is not the time to risk losing productive capacity to low morale.
Effective leadership could be the single-most determining factor of the length and depth
of this current recession and the speed of recovery.
Leadership must adapt to these changes or be doomed
to failure. This requires new skills, new leaderships styles and a new sense of teamwork.
Effective teamwork at the top requires great measures of clarity, trust, commitment,
collaboration and communication. Unfortunately, the tendency in times of crisis is to
overlook these critical team maintenance components, ultimately leading to such a state of
disrepair that teams become dysfunctional, shut down or individual members withdraw into
their own silos.
At the same time, there must also be a shift away
from team problem-solving (reactive review of past issues) towards team decision-making
(proactive planning and taking action on strategic and even tactical intent). Rather than
reviewing the litany of things gone wrong, top team meetings are more invigorating and
productive when they focus on achieving positive goals.
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Development and Learning at the Top
Teams at the top can drift towards under-performance
even without severe external pressures overwhelming them. Top teams tend to have top
people - - professionals who have established their own place in the organizational schema
by virtue of their experience, performance and in some cases their mere seniority. As
successful and talented as these individuals may be, working in a team is a different
matter entirely. How will these new skills and styles be developed and applied to
today’s challenges?
Unfortunately, it becomes harder to learn as you
become more senior in the organization. Aside from the tendency to get set in your ways,
there are fewer and fewer true coaches and mentors, senior to you, as you become more
senior yourself. Accompanied by a rise in competitive pressures from peers who also seek
development and recognition from a diminishing pool of seniors, most senior executives are
left to themselves to develop their own careers.
With the daily pressures to run the business,
personal development and career growth often go overlooked, leading to under-development,
frustration and even dysfunctional team performance. This is especially true at the top
where the pressure to look after oneself and the tendency to protect ones’ own turf
leads to low levels of cooperation and trust. Despite the enthusiasm and trust a new
employee brings to an organization, it is eventually eroded if the leaders at the top of
the team are not constantly nurturing and earning trust.
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Coaching as a Team Development Tool
Coaching is ultimately a more effective team
development approach than subjecting the leadership to short-burst exposures of new
management models. Coaching differs from training in that coaching ensures that team
members regularly test and apply their learning in their work situations. Business-driven
team coaching aims to go further by developing the team’s effectiveness while
achieving greater business performance.
Coaching provides a more disciplined yet flexible
approach; it tailors itself to individual needs and skill levels yet focuses on achieving
higher collective capability. Coaching helps to reinforce and follow-up on decisions taken
in a group. A coach, upon assessing the needs of the team, can develop a plan that is
comprehensive, (meets everyone’s needs) and modular. Modular learning ensures that
skills and abilities increase incrementally and over a sustained period rather than in
inconsistent bursts that frequently come from attending a one-off leadership seminar.
Most importantly the team coach is accountable for
preparing the team for achieving higher performance. The coach’s interest is to help
the individuals succeed within the context of helping the team succeed. A business
leadership coach links success to the achievement of business and organizational goals
while meeting or exceeding individual members needs and expectations. Effective coaches
build effective teams.
Business leadership coaching is more than team
building per se - it is learning and development applied to business needs. A leadership
coach can be the organizations’ best source for an objective focus on achieving
business goals, amongst the backdrop of strong emotions, equally strong personalities and
accumulated "baggage". A leadership coach can help leaders develop themselves
through developing others.
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Building Trust –The Ultimate Human Resource Asset
Restoring trust, developing new skills and changing
focus all at the same time can be unsettling particularly for those who may have low
levels of trust themselves. A leadership coach can help team members develop and exercise
trust through a continuous learning process of self-assessment, development and feedback.
In relationships of trust, people will do things for you not because have to, not because
they hope that it will do them good in the end, but because they genuinely want to!
Trust-based leadership is more effective than traditional hierarchical relationships and
costs less to maintain in the long term.
Is yours a high trust team? Are your leaders creating
a high trust environment where employees are achieving peak performance and realizing
maximum satisfaction? Building trust and commitment are soft skills that can be coached
along side business planning and performance management. They must all be practiced
consistently and constantly if they are to be effective.
A Phased Approach to Building Trust
Phase 1 – Assess your own levels of trust and
trustworthiness
Phase 2 – Understand and accept need for
improvement
Phase 3 – Acquire and develop new skills and
abilities
Phase 4 – Applying newly acquired skills to
the workplace
Phase 5 – Assessing and reviewing impact and
performance
Phase 6 – Acquire and develop new skills
– continuous learning
A leadership coach can assist with each phase,
providing valuable feedback and support to overcome natural barriers to change. A coach
can become a trusted partner in developing and achieving personal, professional, and
organizational goals. As such, it is important that the coach stay in contact with program
participants over a sustained period. One-off interventions, while perhaps intellectually
stimulating (and having less perceived threat), do not change beliefs and behavior. This
takes sustained effort and commitment. Leadership must want to improve in order for a
coach to be effective.
It is also important that external environmental
factors are reviewed and aligned so as to reinforce the trust building efforts rather than
work against them. This would include an alignment of organizational systems and
structure, styles and values of other people and other teams in the organization, and a
review of the physical environment – the look and feel of the workplace. These
reviews can be done subsequently or in parallel to a team development program.
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How to Engage a Team and Leadership Development Coach
Firstly, confirm the need that your leadership team
requires greater focus and development. Try to imagine how the team and individual members
would be performing differently in an idealized state. Would such an idealized performance
improve your own chances for personal and organizational success? If so, then you’re
ready to commit to action. As you are likely to have other commitments and goals, you must
re-prioritize your objectives to see where a stronger performing team fits in. Also,
establish the time frame for results (short –term, midterm, and long term).
Once you have decided that developing a stronger team
is a priority, introduce the team to the business leadership coach. A group scan of the
business issues will provide the coach with some idea of the broader needs. Team members
must be comfortable with the business leadership coach. Getting to know each other
provides a strong foundation for building trust.
One-on-one interviews afford the coach an opportunity
to listen and learn from each individual their concerns and to identify opportunities and
options for a developmental focus. This will help the coach to identify underlying needs,
issues and themes. The coach debriefs the team leader and presents a summary of the issues
and opportunities and options for a developmental focus. In consultation with the business
leadership coach, the leader of the team chooses the developmental focus and the linking
business objectives, and the coach will prepare a Team Building Plan -- including
objectives, modular design and the mix of delivery methods are workshops one-on-one
sessions, developmental excursuses, etc. The Team Building Plan is presented to the team
and expectations are contracted between the team coach, the team members, and the team
leader.
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What might a Team Leadership Plan look like?
A Modular Approach to Team Strengthening (Example
only -- actual programs are customized)
Module 1: Orientation Introductory interviews, issues
and priorities, type of work preference, Workshop – Who are we? Where are we now?
Where are we going? How will we get there? Who should assess our effectiveness?
Module 2: Effectiveness Assessment Team performance
profiles; Workshop -- what is expected of us? What support will we need? How effective are
we, what recognition for performance? Individual follow-up. How effective is my team?
Module 3: Performance Planning Teams Skills 360
Feedback, Workshop – linking skills, job fit job expectations and gaps – personal development planning
Module 4: Personal Coaching and Development Workshop – review of organizational performance planning goals, team review, cycle wrap up
Module 5: Renewal Workshop – How are we doing?
Where are we heading? Anything to change? What goals to collectively achieve as a team for
the upcoming year. Roles and goals of the team. Personal skill development (e.g.,
Coaching, delegation, improvement, etc.)
Module 6: Leadership Skills Profile Workshop – motivation, long-range planning, vision building Leadership development, succession
planning, empowerment of others, developing other mentoring and coaching, strategic
planning customer service strategies, work- life quality
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Linking Team Development to Business Initiatives and
Objectives
Team development is best done within a context of
organizational performance. The client situation will dictate what the current issues, or
focus areas, would be of the highest value. These can then form the thematic backdrop to
the development program. Over time, both the team is strengthened and important business
issues are addressed.
The coach works with the client team leader to chose
a business focus and associated sub-themes to design into the team development program.
For example, a "Leadership Development" Focus would include a module on Coaching
Skills and subsequent modules on Vision & Values, Trust, and Successor Development.
These can be fully customized to meet the specific needs, situation, and emphasis of the
client.
Examples to select from have included:
Business Focus -- Business Drivers, Strategy,
Environmental Scan/ SWOT, Contingency Planning
Organizational Focus -- Alignment, Empowerment,
Restructure / M&A, Integration / Leverage, Change
Leadership Development Focus -- Coaching Skills,
Vision & Values, Trust, Successor Development
Team Focus -- Development, Dynamics, High
performance, Revitalization
Employee Focus -- Development, Deployment,
Satisfaction, Commitment
Customer Focus -- Relationships, Marketing,
Reengineering, Competitive Positioning
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Investing in Team and Leadership Coaching
There are several variables in determining the
overall investment level required to coach your business teams. Factors to consider are;
how many teams, which teams, and which team leaders? You should always start with the team
at the top. You can later decide to extend the approach to other teams, but first, you
must decide how extensive is the requirement for development (how much time per
individual) and how intensive (how fast and over what period of time do you expect to
achieve the development goals). Most teams that we work with prefer to contract for a year
or two of coaching for teams of 8-12 people. Every quarter, participants come together for
a one or two day team strengthbuilding workshop. In between workshops, two or three hours
of one-on-one coaching is offered to each top executive team member. The coach spends
additional time with the team leader, about two to three hours per month. These programs
range in cost from $15,000 to $25,000 per quarter depending on team size and the amount of
one-on-one coaching per team member.
An annual investment of only $6,000 USD per
participant includes participation in four Team Building and Personal Discovery Workshops
and personalized feedback on researched team effectiveness instruments and seven hours of
one-on-one personalized coaching to help the participant understand their own personal
work preferences and performance; learn from the feedback received from others; develop
personal developmental goals and plans; and to draw upon on-going consultative advice as
needed. Other features include: books, training & development material selected by
coach and personalized to meet individual needs; on-site or off-site delivery (add
expenses for offsite, hotel, travel, and meals); in-house programs available; easily
cascaded into additional levels of the organization; can be linked to business objectives,
career planning, or rejuvenation; can be tailored for either new teams or experienced. |
