Leadership Strategies to Focus on the Future

Networks

Are employees collaborating and bonding across boundaries? Clanning naturally takes place when people work together. Its how people cluster together to support each other in the pursuit of their goals. Clanning launches the growth of customs and traditions that make up a culture and either strengthen it or weaken it. Some cultures form silos, which is where groups of people are excluded from others. This can be divisional, departmental, functional or sub-cultural. Healthy organizations create effective networks that allow information, idea and best practice sharing to take place through the enterprise and with outside vendors and customers. 

Sub-cultures are natural, yet they need to be monitored to ensure they don’t create blockages in the evolution of the enterprise. The mental health of the organization depends on the “wellness” of the factions and sub-cultures co-existing and co-creating well together even in the face of their differences. When teams are in conflict, there may be excessive gossip from one team about the others, which can build up as if there were organizational factions at war. Remedy: Creating interventions to bring the groups together to harmonize or expand their common perspectives. Like an a-capella singing group – they can have different voices but when they come together they need to sing a common song.

Give and Take

In what ways are colleagues engaging with each other for mutual success? An enterprise is like a community that depends on the sharing of resources, ideas and practices to survive and more so, to thrive in the face of outside challenges. A cultural fingerprint spans the dimensions from harboring to sharing. As colleagues learn to share, and trust, leaders mature and evolve the capability of sustaining trust in the face of challenges. Less evolved cultures are those that encourage lots of ideation, without the processes in place for ideas to develop and mature. Cultures that encourage brainstorming with no support process for turning the ideas into reality create, over time, incredible frustration and disappointment. Unmet expectations abound and employees loose faith in their leaders and in themselves.

A mature culture puts into place support systems such as Ideation Centers, and Innovation Centers. The management team resources projects designed to test and experiment to find new ways. Making mistakes is okay in the spirit of discovery. People are not punished, but rather rewarded for their efforts to come up with the next generation products and services; in maturing cultures, look for physical evidence of the systems and processes as well as physical environments in place to support experimentation. Examine the reward and performance management systems to see support of experimentation. Listen to employees and hear how they are feeling and reacting to innovation and growth. What messages is the organization sending? Is there a way for people to contribute their ideas and turn them into reality? Is the culture protecting the old, or embracing the new?

Enterprise Mind

Is there a feeling that “we’re all in this together?” Are employees and management linked as though they were “one mind?” Or is there tremendous fractionation and fragmentation about who we are and what we stand for? Are people thinking and acting from the “I” or from the “We”? Is learning taking place? Are people learning from past mistakes and using them to find new and better strategies. Are people doing this in collaborative teams or are individuals seeking credit for themselves? Is there an enterprise brand, and how developed is it? Do employees live the brand? Do they understand the brand? How do they engage with customers about the brand to build its power and magnetism?  Is the brand only a logo, or products, or does it live a spiritual life engaging the hearts, minds and sprits of employees and customers? What efforts are taking place in the company to engage people in living the brand?

Spirit

Is there a spirit of discovery and inquiry in the enterprise? Is learning taking place? Are people learning from past mistakes and using them to work better and smarter? Can people let go of the past, and embrace the new. Is there a feeling that everyone is connected and working to realize a purpose larger than any one person can encompass alone?   Is there recognition of the importance of self-expression and developing leadership points of view? Are leaders pushing their ideas on others (creating an environment of compliance) or are they helping set the stage for employees to grow their points of view (take ownership and have strong commitment). Do people feel suppressed? What forums exist for employees to push against the current rules, and culture and create the next generation of thinking and being?

Raising Our Cultural IQ

What kind of leader are you? Unaware leaders blame others for what is going wrong. Self-aware leaders are willing to look inside and learn what they are made of. They commit to exploring the dynamics of their own human nature, and are willing to address the impact they have on their organization’s culture. In doing so they learn what it takes to create an environment that enables colleagues to be fully engaged and motivated to achieve organizational and market place success. 

Are you willing to look in the mirror and explore the dimensions of your leadership and how you influence others? Are you influencing in positive ways? If you are, the result will be nothing less than a profound impact on bottom and top line growth, and more importantly, your impact will create a cultural atmosphere that propels and sustains ongoing commitment and enthusiasm to achieve your organization’s audacious goals.

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