Photo: Tuppys/Flickr (Creative Commons)

This series is about people alignment as a crucial competence for today’s leaders. Especially in a globalized world, where cross-cultural and multinational challenges are becoming more and more a normal part of the leader’s job. Successful leaders create people alignment and they do it by mastering three elements of alignment. In Part 1 I describe the first element: ‘personal alignment’. Part 2 describes the second element of people alignment: ‘team alignment’. In this Part 3 I highlight the third element: ‘organizational alignment’.

Why organizational alignment is important

Without having a sufficient level of personal alignment, leaders will experience difficulties with creating team alignment. Without having a sufficient level of leadership team alignment, leaders will experience difficulties with creating organizational alignment. A pitfall for executives is to believe that creating organizational alignment is primarily the domain of line-management. ‘The top should focus on strategy and financial targets, the execution and aligning the organization around the strategy is the job of line-managers.’ False! The 21^st century’s business reality does not allow this.

The idea that senior leadership teams can stay out of sight in order to be able to focus their energy on the strategy (and believe that their team’s behavior will not trickle down into the organization) is a big mistake. In today’s fast evolving businesses, senior leaders play a crucial role in creating organizational alignment around vision and direction, focus, strategy, values, change execution, desired behavior, teamwork and cross-departmental collaboration. They interact actively with the organization on all levels. And this is even more important in multinational and cross-cultural environments where perceived cultural differences can enhance misalignment. Leadership teams who do not actively invest time in creating organizational alignment run the risk of getting disjointed from their organization, of not knowing anymore what is really going on, of not being aware of what the organization is expecting from them and not knowing how they are perceived by the organization.  The leadership team’s ability to create organizational alignment has a strong impact on the business’ success.

How leaders can spot a lack of organizational alignment

How can you spot lack of organizational alignment in general, and more particularly in cross-cultural environments? How to create your ‘leadership compass’ that guides you to potential weak spots in the organization’s alignment? The following questions might help you in building your compass:

• What is the employees’ perception of me as leader? And of us as leadership team? Is it a consistent picture? How do cross-cultural aspects affect this picture? To what extend do we as leaders enhance this picture?
• To what extend is our vision, strategy and focus really shared by our employees and managers? Do they show ownership? If not, what are they missing?
• What is our corporate culture? Do we have one or multiple corporate cultures? Do we as leadership understand the culture(s) and the impact on our performance well enough? What do we do to support managers and employees to create cross-cultural effectiveness?
• Do I know the concerns of managers and employees in the organization well enough? How do I listen to their concerns and ideas? What can I do to improve this? How can I create a closer communication loop without being perceived a micro-manager who is interfering with their responsibilities?
• Do we know and understand well enough the obstacles that are hindering our managers and employees in the execution of our strategy? If not, why is this? What can I and we as leadership team do to remove these obstacles? How do we support them to be able to remove the obstacles themselves?
• How good is our organization with collaboration cross-department, cross-division, cross-region? What are we missing? What can we as leaders do to stimulate this? How should we support/coach our managers with this?
• Do we know the potential and talent of our people well enough? Do we know what qualities we specifically need to build our success? Are there cross-cultural differences in these qualities? Do our managers and employees know these qualities too? If not, how is this affecting our future as a company? How can we as leaders support people to develop and use their talent to build our future?
• How do we share and transfer knowledge within the organization? How well do we take cross-cultural differences into consideration when we share? How well do I and we as leadership team share successes and openly show appreciation to teams and individuals in the organization? How good are we as organization in coaching/mentoring each other? What can we as leaders do to influence this positively?

How do you create alignment in cross-cultural environments? What is the level of alignment in your organization? What questions would you add to the list above? Please share your ideas and thoughts.

This post is a brief abstract based on my keynote called ‘Is Your Leadership Compass Pointing in the Right Direction?’, a condensed and energizing program designed for leaders who face the challenges of leading cross-cultural organizations and teams. If you would like to know more about this program don’t hesitate to contact us.

___________________

Aad is an international business advisor, business transformation expert, leadership team facilitator and executive coach. He works with executives and leadership teams of multinational companies and focuses specifically on four topics: ‘leading complex change’, ‘cross-cultural leadership’, ‘post-merger integration’, and ‘amplifying business performance’. Find out more about Aad and his services. Feel free to contact Aad for more information.

If you want to receive upcoming articles and news in your mailbox, don’t hesitate and register at the top of this page. Your personal information will be kept strictly confidential.

Related articles

• Cross-Cultural Leadership: How to Create People Alignment (Part 2) (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)
• Cross-Cultural Leadership: How to Create People Alignment (Part 1) (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)
• Leading Multinational Companies: Three Significant Changes in the Role of Senior Leaders (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)

Photo: Tuppys/Flickr (Creative Commons)

In Part 1 of this series I wrote about the importance of people alignment as a crucial competence for today’s leaders. Especially in a globalized world, where cross-cultural and multinational challenges are becoming more and more a normal part of the leader’s job, leaders need to understand how to create people alignment. In Part 1 I also described how ‘personal alignment’ plays an important role when creating people alignment. This Part 2 is about another crucial element of people alignment: ‘team alignment’.

What does team alignment actually mean? For one thing, a truly aligned team shows behavior that goes further than just ‘liking each other’, ‘understanding our goals’, ‘having agreement on things’, and ‘behaving as a group’. When we are part of a really aligned team we have a different relationship to the decisions we take in the team: we own these decisions as if they were our own. And even more: we commit to having these decisions work. We go beyond taking decisions together; we commit ourselves to the execution of these decisions. Team alignment is a choice by each team member: when a decision is taken, I will align with it and go for it all the way. Team members behave as co-owners and as partners in achieving what they decided as a team. This is radically different from the ordinary team behavior we see in many teams. 

The leader’s ability to build real team alignment has a direct effect on the business’ success. This leadership competence has always distinguished great leaders from average leaders. And it has become even more crucial for today’s leaders of cross-cultural teams in multinational business environments.

What are specific team alignment challenges for leaders of cross-cultural teams? The most important is that cross-cultural teams often deal with perceived differences in cultural behavior and cultural values. These perceived cultural differences can create confusion and irritation that could seriously hinder the team’s openness and trust. Underestimating the impact of these perceptions will likely damage the team’s alignment and therefore the team’s performance and effectiveness. Also languages can play a role in creating unintended misunderstandings. Don’t underestimate what unequal proficiency can do to a team. And last but not least, openness is vital to creating team alignment, but the way we deal with openness can differ between cultures. In creating team alignment this plays an important role.

Successful leaders know when a team is not really aligned or when team alignment starts to decline. They pay special attention to (re) building it. They understand that team alignment is not a static situation, but a process that needs to be sustained and maintained.  

How can you spot potential lack of team alignment in cross-cultural environments? How to create your ‘leadership compass’ that guides you to you potential weak spots in your team’s alignment? The following questions might help you in building your compass:

• How is the team doing? Do we know each other well enough? Do we understand each other’s ambitions, aspirations and concerns?
• What is our mutual level of respect, openness, and trust? How do I encourage this as a leader?
• Do we understand the cultural differences in our team? Do we share and discuss the perceived differences?
• Do we discuss sensitive topics with each other or do we keep a safe distance? Do we openly share with each other when we feel certain team behavior or decisions are not in line with our individual values and ethics?
• How do I share our company’s vision, values, and strategy with the team? How well is the team aligned with the vision, values, and strategy? Are there different interpretations around the table? Do I know these?
• Do we tend to show agreement rather than alignment focus in our meetings? How do I stimulate alignment focus?
• Are our meetings spending more time on information sharing and operational details than on driving accomplishments? How do I stimulate the latter?
• Are we committed to each other’s success? How do I stimulate co-ownership?
• What are the things I can do to increase the level of team alignment?

How do you create alignment in cross-cultural environments? What is the level of alignment in your team? What questions would you add to the list above? Please share your ideas and thoughts with me.

In Part 3 of this series I will talk about another important element of cross-cultural alignment: organizational alignment.

This post is a brief abstract based on my keynote called ‘Is Your Leadership Compass Pointing in the Right Direction?’, a condensed and energizing program designed for leaders who face the challenges of leading cross-cultural organizations and teams. If you would like to know more about this program don’t hesitate to contact me.

___________________

Aad is an international business advisor, business transformation expert, leadership team facilitator and executive coach. He works with executives and leadership teams of multinational companies and focuses specifically on four topics: ‘leading complex change’, ‘cross-cultural leadership’, ‘post-merger integration’, and ‘amplifying business performance’. Find out more about Aad and his services. Feel free to contact Aad for more information.

If you like this article and want to receive upcoming articles and news in your mailbox, just register at the top of this page.

Related articles

• Cross-Cultural Leadership: How to Create People Alignment (Part 1) (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)
• Leading Multinational Companies: Three Significant Changes in the Role of Senior Leaders (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)
• Leading Innovation: Why Executives Should Stimulate People to Make (Better) Mistakes (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)

Photo: Tuppus/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Today’s and tomorrow’s leaders are more and more facing cross-cultural challenges caused by globalization, emerging economies and new markets. How to notice differences in cultures? How to understand their impact on people behavior and performance? How to avoid cross-cultural friction and conflict? How to lead people and teams with different cultural backgrounds? How to create successful collaboration and teamwork cross-border? Effectively dealing with cross-cultural challenges like these is rapidly becoming one of the key differentiators for effective leaders and successful companies.

The cross-cultural business environment is creating a fundamental mind shift: the ‘soft’ side of business (culture, people, teamwork, etc.) is turning out to be a very ‘hard’ element in creating business success. Mastering the essence of people alignment is a crucial competence for today’s leaders.

What differentiates leaders that master the essence of people alignment? Over the years I have worked with many leaders in many different cultures and I’ve identified two important elements in the behavior of successful leaders. First of all, they do not perceive creating people alignment as an activity next to all the other leadership activities, but it is on their mind in everything they do. Secondly, they understand that their ability to align people depends on the extent to which they create personal alignment with respect to the environment where they operate.

Personal alignment is about understanding yourself. It is about being in balance with the inter-cultural environment where you find yourself. It is about being able to explain and show others where you stand within this environment of cultural differences and why. It creates trust, transparency, and confidence. The impact of a lack of personal alignment on your leadership behavior and on the organization is direct and significant. Creating people alignment starts with having a sufficient level of personal alignment. Especially in cross-cultural environments personal alignment can be challenged easily. Successful leaders are aware when personal misalignment occurs, and they pay special attention to fixing it.

How can you spot potential areas of personal misalignment in cross-cultural environments? How to create your personal ‘leadership compass’ that guides you to potential weak spots in your personal alignment? The following questions might help you in building your compass:

• What are my core qualities? How do I use these in my work as a leader? How do they fit the inter-cultural challenges that I face? How do they support my cross-cultural effectiveness?
• What are my most important values that define who I am and how I act as a leader? How do I express these values as a leader? (Focus on the 3-5 most important values)
• How do my values fit the company’s vision, mission, and strategy? Where do I feel misalignment?
• How do my values fit the corporate culture and subcultures? What cross-cultural differences do I perceive? How do they make me feel? What is the effect on my behavior?
• Do I understand the cross-cultural differences that I experience? How can I increase my understanding? How can I increase other’s understanding of my perception and observations?
• What qualities do I want to improve or develop to increase my cross-cultural effectiveness? How could people in my environment support me with this (peers, colleagues, team members, mentors, coaches)?

How do you create alignment in cross-cultural environments? How is your level of personal alignment? What questions would you add to the list above? Share your ideas and thoughts and join us in the discussion.

In Part 2 of this series I will talk about a next important level of cross-cultural alignment: team alignment.

This post is a based on my keynote called ‘Is Your Leadership Compass Pointing in the Right Direction?’, a condensed and energizing program designed for leaders who face the challenges of leading cross-cultural organizations and teams. If you would like to know more about this program don’t hesitate to contact me.

___________________

Aad is an international business advisor, business transformation expert, leadership team facilitator and executive coach. He works with executives and leadership teams of multinational companies on topics like ‘leading complex change’, ‘cross-cultural leadership’, ‘post-merger integration’, and ‘amplifying business performance’. Find out more about Aad and his services. Feel free to contact Aad.

If you like this article and want to receive upcoming articles and news in your mailbox, just register at the top of this page.

Related articles

• Leading Multinational Companies: Three Significant Changes in the Role of Senior Leaders (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)
• Leading Change in the 21st Century: 4 Myths About Cultural Change (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)
• Leading Innovation: Why Executives Should Stimulate People to Make (Better) Mistakes (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)
• Cross-Cultural Leadership: How to Create People Alignment (Part 2) (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)

Photo: Horia Varlan/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Today’s business environment is changing. A lot has been written in recent years about this change and its various aspects: globalization, emerging markets, different competitors, exponential rate of change, new technologies that change business models and market places, impact of social media, etc. It affects people and businesses worldwide, and surely also multinational companies. In working with multinational companies I see three specific changes that affect the role of its senior leaders. Three changes that require special attention and sometimes even a fundamental mind shift. Let me list these three changes in a condensed manner.

a)     A shift from management & control focus to alignment focus

In today’s business world it is clear that agility, resilience, flexibility to respond, ability to adapt, speed of defining and executing strategic priorities, are more important for the company’s success than ever before. It has become one of the main roles of senior leaders to enable the organization to adopt these qualities. Hierarchical, top-down oriented mechanisms of control and management need therefore to be adapted and complemented with new ways of collaboration and teamwork. New ways that enable managers, employees, and teams to exchange relevant information faster with each other; to let knowledge and competencies flow more easily cross-boarder between units, departments and functions; to detect issues and solutions quicker; to be more flexible in adjusting to new circumstances; to speed up execution of new methods, processes and procedures.

New ways of working that focus on creating alignment between people and teams rather than on managing and controlling activities. An alignment focus that shows its power especially when changes are taking place, pressure is up, frictions occur, and opinions and ideas about what should be done are diverge. Senior leaders play an important role in creating this ‘alignment culture’. They focus their energy for instance more on building mutual understanding than on ‘who is right and who is wrong’. They want to understand the reasoning of others before they draw conclusions. They pay attention to the people behind the tasks and to the way people and teams collaborate. They show alignment focus inside the C-suite and are therefore perceived as a strong leadership team. But they show it also outside the C-suite and they expect the same behavior from their managers and employees. They make it a strategic success factor for their company. Alignment focused companies have the ability to quickly incorporate new insights, circumstances and opinions, and to convert these into choices, decisions and effective execution (read more here about the characteristics of Alignment focus).

b)     Different and closer interaction between senior leaders and the rest of the organization

Not just more written communication or road shows, but more frequent and in-depth interaction with managers and teams within the organization. The key process from creating vision and defining strategy to implementing and monitoring execution has changed substantially. The organizational and market dynamics are changed in such a way that senior leaders can easily get disconnected from the company’s fundamental challenges and issues when they keep too much distance from the organization. In order to stay on top of their game they need to adjust their way of interacting with the organization.

Different interaction: by combining a traditional territorial focus (functional, business unit, geographical, etc.) with a focus on the informal cross-departmental networks and mechanisms that play an important role in the way the company operates. These networks and mechanisms are often less visible and can be important sources for success as well as for problems. Knowing and understanding these networks is becoming important for senior leaders in effectively handling today’s business complexity. This requires a change within the C-suite, where senior leaders sometimes tend to stay focused on their individual territories. Next to that a more integrated, cross-departmental orientation is needed to be able to better understand the organization and its informal networks and mechanisms. It allows senior leaders to interact with these networks or to stimulate networks deliberately, and to mobilize, share and transfer the benefits of the network to other parts of the organization (read more about dealing with informal networks).

Closer interaction: successful senior leaders create a flatter organization by having closer communication lines with managers and teams within the organization. They are more visible and accessible than they used to be. They actively carry out the vision and the company’s strategic focus and ask people for their ideas and concerns. They are aware of the power of leading by example and they coach their managers when needed (read more here about the coaching role of senior leaders).

c)      Shift from one-culture thinking to cross-cultural thinking

Emerging markets and economies have created a shift in the way companies deal with cross-cultural differences. Expansion to new countries and cultures is no longer a ‘West moving East’ operation; bringing our culture to you. It is more and more also the other way around. Many multinational companies are confronted on the one hand with market places that develop and become mature rapidly, and on the other hand with ambitious and self-confident competitors. This creates new challenges for its leadership. One challenge is to address the question ‘how well do we understand and align with the local culture / how do we create the acceptance of the local market?’ Another challenge is the influx of new members from other cultures in senior leadership teams. This all means that cross-cultural sensitivity, skills and effectiveness are vital assets for senior leaders in multinational companies.

Cross-cultural effectiveness is based on ‘reconciling and combining the best of both worlds’ rather than on thinking in terms of ‘one culture fits all’. It requires senior leaders to make it a top priority on their agenda: How well do we understand the local cultures in the markets in which we operate (read this interesting article about how to deal with local cultures)? How well do we understand the cross-cultural differences within our company? Or within the C-suite? What is the level of cross-cultural effectiveness of our managers? How well do we stimulate and support our managers to grow the necessary cross-cultural skills (read more here about how to deal with cross-cultural differences)?

What is your experience with leadership in multinational companies? How do you perceive these three trends? Do you see more changes? Feel free to comment below.

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Aad is an international business advisor, change & business transformation expert, leadership team facilitator and executive coach. He works with senior executives and leadership teams of multinational companies on topics like ‘leading complex change’, ‘cross-cultural leadership’, ‘post-merger integration’, and ‘amplifying business performance’. Find out more about Aad and his services. Feel free to contact Aad.

If you like this article and want to receive upcoming articles and news in your mailbox for free, don’t hesitate to register at the top of this page.

Related articles

• Leading Change in the 21st Century: 4 Myths About Cultural Change (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)
• Leading Innovation: Why Executives Should Stimulate People to Make (Better) Mistakes (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)
• Cross-Cultural Leadership: How Misinterpretations of Dishonesty Can Destroy Team Alignment (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)
• Leading Change: Three Major Misconceptions That Hinder Innovation (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)

Photo: Seth1492/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Some while ago I was working with a senior executive team. The team was leading a global division and was facing a complex change that involved four continents. They organized a session together to align as a team on the change strategy, the short-term priorities, and the global execution plan. They asked me to be their facilitator and sounding board. At a certain moment the discussion turned to the question how to stimulate innovation in and across the regions. And at that point something strange happened … the discussion changed, the atmosphere changed, people started to feel uncomfortable.

Apparently there was a split within the team. On the one hand there were team members who got irritated by the inertia they perceived among their colleagues. For them it was clear what kind of innovation was needed and how to get this moving. They felt a lack of courage and boldness in the team. It frustrated them. On the other hand there were team members who got irritated by the thoughtlessness and recklessness of their colleagues. They saw several vital questions still unanswered and believed that without having clear answers and solutions the company would run a huge risk. It made them reluctant, and unwilling to take any hasty decision.

It was not the first time I saw this happening in leadership teams. They were not the only team struggling with this feeling of discomfort as soon as they started to talk about how to create innovation.

In such cases I regularly see power struggles arise within teams. With two possible outcomes: either one side wins the battle, or no one wins and the team ends up in a deadlock. The point is: both outcomes can have a very negative impact on the team and on the business, because very often both sides are wrong!

Two convictions tend to occur more often than we maybe are aware of, and they can seriously hinder leadership teams in creating the needed actions and culture that will drive innovation in their organizations. Both so relevant (especially in today’s business reality) that they deserve special attention:

• Believing that we have all the answers and solutions

The conviction that we have all the answers and that we know the solution. Unfortunately in today’s business reality the complexity and speed of change do very often not allow leaders to have all the knowledge, experience and information to find the right solutions upfront. We simply do not have all the answers to our questions. Underestimating this, or overestimating our knowledge and answers, can create ‘jumping to actions’ that can seriously damage the company (I know enough, let’s do it).

Successful leaders and leadership teams are aware of what they know and of what they don’t know. They pay special attention to getting to know the real qualities and competences of themselves and of the organization, as well as what knowledge and competence we probably miss to create successful innovation. They focus on creating awareness throughout the organization, and they motivate and engage employees to actively take part in filling the competence gab. They stimulate critical thinking. And they don’t like ‘sticking to how we do things around here because that has always been successful, so we do not need to change it’. They constantly challenge their own and other’s ideas and opinions and always look for ways to learn and grow.

• Fear of mistakes

The conviction that it is dangerous to undertake any action before we know exactly what we’re talking about. Risk averse leaders create risk averse cultures. Avoiding risks is not a bad thing, it is even a crucial reflex that can challenge the ‘we know it all’ thinkers (see point above). But when it becomes a dominant driver for leaders (often triggered by a search for short-term success or by a fear for the unknown), it can paralyze innovation.

Successful leaders and leadership teams stimulate people to step outside their comfort zone and to explore the unknown step by step. They understand that innovation requires trial and error, but they are aware that trial and error doesn’t mean ‘let’s shoot in the dark’. They stimulate people to look forward, on what is changing around us, on finding the right questions, and on answering these questions based on consistent argumentation. They convince employees that making mistakes is not a bad thing, as long as it brings us closer to the answers to our questions. They distinguish smart mistakes (mistakes that lead to learning and growing) versus stupid mistakes (mistakes that don’t bring any value and are a waste of time). And they don’t like ‘let’s just do it, we must do something, we don’t know and let’s see how it turns out’. They stimulate people to improve the trial and error processes in the organization and to make better mistakes.

When I worked with the executive team on discussing and clarifying these two pitfalls I constantly thought of the presentation by Tim Harford, that I saw a few weeks earlier. His speech inspired me to pay closer attention to the way companies deal with mistakes, turning these into drivers for innovation. His thought-provoking way of explaining why we should make more mistakes instead of less, mixed with powerful storytelling, makes this a valuable video that I warmly recommend to you.

Click picture to play video

What is your experience with creating innovation? How do you stimulate people to make mistakes? Feel free to comment below.

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Aad is an international leadership advisor, change & business transformation expert, leadership team facilitator and executive coach. He works with senior executives and leadership teams of multinational companies on topics like ‘leading complex change’, ‘cross-cultural leadership’, ‘post-merger integration’, and ‘amplifying business performance’. Find out more about Aad and his services. Feel free to contact Aad.

If you liked this article and would like to receive upcoming articles in your mailbox for free, don’t hesitate to register at the top of this page.

Related articles

• Leading Change: Three Major Misconceptions That Hinder Innovation (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)
• Cross-Cultural Leadership: How Misinterpretations of Dishonesty Can Destroy Team Alignment (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)
• Amplifying Business Performance: Successful Leaders Approach Financial Growth Differently (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)
• Leading Change in the 21st Century: 4 Myths About Cultural Change (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)
• Leading Change: What About the Coaching Skills of Senior Leaders? (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)

Photo: Sean MacEntee/Flickr (Creative Commons)

These days cultural change is a topic that is high on the agenda of many corporate executives. It looks like almost each change initiative within companies is linked to changing its culture. Many leaders proclaim that the ability to change/adjust the culture is crucial for the future success of their company. Cultural change is hot! But it is also difficult to accomplish. It always was, and is maybe even more difficult in the fast changing environments in which companies find themselves today.

I witness many leaders struggle with this. Cultural change initiatives that get stuck, that run dry, and that do not result in the desired behavior and corporate climate. And many times it has directly or indirectly to do with misunderstanding what it actually takes to create cultural change. There are some persistent myths about how to change a culture that hinder companies from being successful at it. Let’s list four myths that stick out:

• It all starts with changing people’s thinking

Correct, if people don’t change their thinking they will not show a sustained change in behavior. But it is wrong to believe we can talk people into a different way of thinking. Our thinking changes as soon as we experience or understand things differently. And this only happens by stepping outside our comfort zones. It requires action to expand our comfort zones and by doing so we create a different way of thinking.

Cultural change: explain why and what we want to change in our behavior, but real change only happens by starting to change our actions in line with that desired behavior. (For a nice case study on this I recommend the MIT Sloan article: How to Change a Culture – Lessons from NUMMI)

• The more we create one culture, the better

This maybe was the case in the 80’s or 90’s, but in the 21^st century companies are facing  globalized markets and economies. This means that nurturing diversity and creating cross-cultural alignment have become crucial ingredients of successful cultures.

Cultural change: leaders and managers need to build cross-cultural leadership competencies and will have to be able to understand and lead diverse teams in companies with multiple sub-cultures. Focus will be on creating a corporate identity (sense of belonging) within a cross-cultural environment. (Also read my earlier article on Cultural Alignment)

• If middle management is not driving the change, it will fail

‘Our middle managers are holding a key position in the company. Without their commitment and dedication it will fail. So they have to be the dominant driving force for this change process.’ A common misconception that more than once creates cultural change programs that are ‘owned’ by the HR department, ‘forced’ upon managers, ‘educated’ to employees, and where there is a ‘great absence’ of senior leadership. Often you hear people complain: “why should we change if they don’t change?”

Cultural change: senior leaders lead by example and communicate about why a change in culture is needed. They clarify the key values that are related to it. They define in close collaboration with the middle management how they want to see this reflected in the desired behavior of everyone in the company. And they also change their own behavior accordingly! Senior leaders are the key drivers and people watch them more than ever. Therefore senior leaders (up to the C-suite and the Board) are omnipresent in the change process.

• We make desired behavior visible by focusing on success stories

Are we? What are the situations on which these stories are based? Many times I find out that these stories are based on situations where people ‘went with the flow’. The behavior was indeed the desired behavior, but it was rather easy to choose to act this way because the situation was easy. But what if people and teams have to perform under pressure? What if they are facing problems? What if emotions and stress are taking over? These are the situations that reveal best what the desired behavior actually is and what it takes to show it.

Cultural change: pay special attention to how we behave and collaborate in difficult situations. These are moments where people are often pushed outside their comfort zones, and these moments are great opportunities to change people’s actions (see the first myth).  

What is your experience with leading cultural change? Do you experience some of these 4 myths in action, or maybe others? How do you deal with it? What is the impact on your leadership? Do you have questions you want to share? Feel free to leave a comment below or to contact me.

___________________

As international business consultant, change leader, leadership team facilitator and executive coach Aad supports senior executives and leadership teams of multinational companies. Over more than 22 years he has acquired a vast experience and expertise in leading complex change, cross-cultural leadership, post-merger integration, and amplifying business performance. Find out more about Aad and his services. Feel free to contact Aad.

If you liked this article and would like to receive upcoming articles in your mailbox for free, don’t hesitate to register at the top of this page.

Related articles

• Leading Change: Three Major Misconceptions That Hinder Innovation (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)
• Leading Change: What About the Coaching Skills of Senior Leaders? (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)
• Cross-Cultural Leadership: How Misinterpretations of Dishonesty Can Destroy Team Alignment (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)
• Leading Multinational Companies: Three Significant Changes in the Role of Senior Leaders (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)
• Leading Innovation: Why Executives Should Stimulate People to Make (Better) Mistakes (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)

Photo: kkimpel/Flickr (Creative Commons)

When leading change, for instance in post merger integrations, leadership teams are very often confronted with cross-cultural differences. These can be corporate or national culture differences. Not dealing with these cultural differences effectively can have a serious impact on leadership teams. As executive and leadership team consultant and facilitator I have seen many situations over the years where mutual distrust seriously hindered a team’s alignment and performance. And almost every time this lack of trust was related to perceptions of dishonest behavior of fellow team members.

Honesty and dishonesty are clearly very important to us. The feeling of being confronted with dishonesty blocks our openness and decreases our level of trust. But what if our perception of another person’s dishonesty is based on misinterpretation? What if the other person is not trying to harm us at all, but simply has a different perspective on the situation? Unfortunately misinterpretations occur rather often! They can hamper leadership teams in such a way that the negative effects spread out over the whole organization.

How to avoid these false interpretations? How do they start and how can you stop them in time? Apparently they grow in a subtle way, sometimes unconsciousness. Two real life examples I witnessed:

A leadership team launched a number of transformation initiatives to improve the cross-regional collaboration between Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Each member of the team was responsible to sponsor and steer one of the task forces and to present progress and results in the monthly leadership team meeting. After three months an open clash took place in the meeting. European executives accused their South American colleague of not sharing the real facts with them. They received inside information from his task force members, information that was not in line with what he presented in the meeting. They felt he was not honest and tried to cover up facts so he could push through his plan for a new design process that he knew would not completely fit the European needs. There was a lot of emotion in the room and the atmosphere was deteriorating rapidly. Finally and luckily one of the people around the table raised a question: “Please explain ones more to us why you are not sharing all the information here, why do you keep it to yourself?” After some hesitation the reply came: “I don’t want to feed information to you of which I am not sure it will stay valid. I still remember last year when I showed my reorganization plans for the plant in Argentina and you blocked it because you believed my work was not thorough enough. I for sure will prevent that from happening again. I will tell you my plans when the task force has all details figured out. Not before.” This confession turned the meeting around. Instead of distrusting each other, the team should maybe focus more on exchanging expectations and maybe support their colleague a bit more.

Another example: an executive team that was newly formed after an acquisition (Japanese acquirer taking over a European/American company). After a few weeks the first signs of tension and distrust were showing. Western team members clinging together and forming a block against the Japanese invaders who didn’t share any of their plans and only attended meetings to be nice and friendly, but did not explain anything of the changes they wanted to roll out. When I had meetings with each team member to figure out what was going on I found out that cultural differences in how to establish relationship and openness were hindering the team. Clearly the Japanese culture was much more following the path of ‘establishing relationship first and then gradually show more openness and sharing’, where the more Anglo-Saxon oriented culture of the Western leaders was more following the path of ‘openness and sharing as prerequisite for creating a trust based relationship’ (read my earlier post on how relationships and openness can be experienced differently from culture to culture). Discussing this with the team did of course not solve the problem at once, but created a better understanding of the cultural difference and allowed the team to let go of a big part of the negative energy. They realized the situation was not caused by bad intentions, and that allowed them to discuss the way forward as a team.

These are just two examples of how easily wrong perceptions of dishonesty can lead to team conflict that will hinder the leadership team’s performance with all its negative impact on the organization. How to avoid this from happening? First of all by creating a stronger individual and team awareness for these potential misinterpretations. By developing as a leader specific cross-cultural antennas that help you to detect situations where miscommunication, misinterpretation, misunderstanding, derailment of the team, is taking place. To be able to spot these moments early enough. The following questions can maybe help as a kind of checklist for you and your team.

When dealing with perceived dishonesty and distrust, how is our team reacting?:

• Do we by default want to believe the following two principles (until proven wrong based on hard facts)?: I believe that nobody in this team is deliberately trying to harm the others. I believe that this team consists of reasonable and intelligent people. Or do we unconsciously believe the opposite? How is this affecting our contribution to the team?
• Do we raise open questions to better understand why and what others are saying or doing? Or do we make statements and use leading questions trying to prove our point?
• Do we try to learn from other’s interpretation of honesty or dishonesty? Or do we believe that our perspective is the only right one?
• Do we base our judgments on real facts? Or do we judge dishonesty mostly based on feelings and interpretations?
• Do we believe we can be wrong in our judgment, that we missed something and misunderstood the situation? Or do we blindly trust our own judgment regardless the consequences?
• Do we focus on the impact it has on us as leadership team and how it affects the organization? Or do we tend to focus on our personal feelings and interest?

How do you interpret honesty or dishonesty? I look forward to reading your comments.

___________________

As international business consultant, change leader, leadership team facilitator and executive coach Aad supports executives and leadership teams of multinational companies. Over more than 22 years he has acquired a vast experience and expertise in leading complex change, cross-cultural leadership, post-merger integration, and amplifying business performance. Find out more about Aad and his services. If you would like to hire Aad, contact him here.

If you liked this article and would like to receive upcoming articles in your mailbox for free, don’t hesitate to register at the top of this page.

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Photo: Hampton Roads Partnership/Flickr (Creative Commons)

These days almost every organization is discussing the need for innovation. There is no CEO that talks with me about the company’s strategic drivers without mentioning ‘building more innovation power’. Every government is claiming innovation to be one of its key economic drivers. Innovation is hot. And of course it makes sense! In my previous post I described the difference between focus on sustainable value creation versus focus on short term financial growth, and how the latter can jeopardize a company’s future success. It is clear that innovation has become vital for value creation. More than ever will it distinguish successful businesses from the less successful.

The point is, there is so much talk, discussion, and buzz going on around innovation that it makes me wonder: do we all really talk about the same thing? What do we actually mean with innovation? Are we maybe mixing up things? And which businesses are really innovative? What differentiates the successful innovators from the others? It triggered me to write this piece. I believe there are a number of misconceptions about what innovation really is and what it requires from leaders to actually lead a company to innovation. Three fundamental misconceptions stick out.

1.     Innovation is synonym for change:

There are many definitions of innovation. To mention just a view:

“The act of introducing something new” (the American heritage dictionary) / “A new idea, method or device” (Webster online) / “Change that creates a new dimension of performance” (Peter Drucker)

To create innovation is to put something new into the marketplace. Innovation can occur in products, processes, approaches, or services. This means that every innovation is by definition a change. But the reverse is not necessarily the case. Not every change in product, process or service is innovative. Innovation is almost always found outside what is known to us, outside our comfort zones! And that makes it different. Too often innovation and change initiatives are mixed up. Many change initiatives are actually improvement oriented and based on knowledge and examples that are already available in the marketplace (best practices, benchmarks, pilots), and are therefore not innovative. Real innovation requires a company to go first, to go where no one has been before; to be a leader rather than a follower.

2.     Innovation is a business goal as any other:

Innovation does not belong on the annual short list of business goals for the coming 12 months. Research shows that successful innovation depends on the level of strategic alignment in the organization: alignment between the corporate strategy, the innovation strategy and the corporate culture (see a recent study in S+B on this). Innovation is therefore more than just one of the business goals. It is more fundamental. It requires a specific innovation strategy and culture, based on a profound understanding of the external developments, how we adjust our strategy to it, what part of the business (products, services, processes, systems) we need to innovation, how we use our qualities and competencies to create innovation, what competencies we miss and need to develop, how we deal with trial & error and failure, how we will change the way we work in teams, how we will refocus resources. And it hugely depends on the power of the company’s leaders to let go of the past (see also my earlier post ‘the power of letting go’).

3.     An innovation culture is something you can copy from successful innovative companies:

Let’s have a close look at how successful companies have created innovation and do the same. Wrong, doing what others do is not innovating! You can learn lessons from others, but you will have to translate those to your own reality. Companies are unique, because their people are unique. Creating innovation successfully requires a corporate culture that is aligned with your specific innovation strategy and is based on transparent values, rules and guidelines that encourage innovation oriented behavior in line with this strategy. Based on people who have adopted an innovation mindset that is specific to your company’s reality and challenges. Needless to say that the leaders (starting on C-level), their leadership style and their behavior, are important if not crucial in creating and stimulating such a culture.

Feel free to join the discussion by sharing your ideas and experiences below. I look forward to reading your comments.

___________________

As international business consultant, change leader, leadership facilitator and executive coach Aad supports executives and leadership teams of multinational companies. Over more than 20 years he has acquired a vast experience and expertise in leading complex change, cross-cultural leadership, post-merger integration, and amplifying business performance. If you are interested, find out more about Aad and his services. If you would like to hire Aad, don’t hesitate to contact him here.

If you liked this article and would like to receive upcoming articles for free, don’t hesitate to register at the top of this page.

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Photo: alancleaver_2000/Flickr (Creative Commons)

We all see significant economic changes taking place around us. The financial crisis, emerging markets, new technologies are putting their stamp on our economies, on market places, and on businesses. Organizations face changing circumstances that require different approaches. Yesterday’s success formulas are no longer a guarantee for future success. Leaders will need to adjust, review, transform, innovate their business performance models. And maybe that requires a new way of thinking about financial growth.

I work internationally with executives and their leadership teams on how to address these challenges. What should be our direction, strategy and focus for the coming years? Why is this so important for our future success? What do we need to change in our business performance to create that success? How should we lead this transformation within our organization? How do we stimulate motivation and commitment of our management and employees for these changes?

I know it may sound a bit harsh but I see a growing divide between leaders who are successful at this and those who struggle with it. And a great part of this divide is related to what I call ‘one-dimensional financial growth thinking’.

The other day I had a conversation with an executive. He explained to me how difficult it was for him to lead his division effectively. “I see significant changes coming towards us. One, the economic forecast for the coming two to three years is showing a decline in customer spending in our sector. Two, we face a clear trend in the marketplace where customers expect us to deliver our services in a different way. Much more customized, more flexible, faster, using new and customized channels. They want us to deliver our products under specific conditions. Almost as if our products are uniquely made for them. Our operating model, our supply chain and our customer service organization are not responsive enough to those needs. On top of this we’re in the middle of our annual budget cycle and the board has requested me to further increase turnover with 20% as we did the last three years. And they want us to keep up our margin target. In the last executives meeting with the board a number of executives stressed that it would probably be very difficult to meet these figures and that the company needed to think about innovating and changing our going to market model for the future. The answer was ‘yes, you are right and we will make time for this, but we don’t want this to take energy and resources away from our core purpose, and that is to focus on maintaining our financial growth’”. He continued: “I know how to run a business and I have always been very successful, but I honestly do not see anymore how we can meet these financial expectations for next year. It is very hard to keep people motivated under these circumstances. My management team is a great group of experienced people but they start losing faith in the direction and future of this company. They feel the company is losing ground on the competition every day because we do not invest time in defining the required changes in our organization that allow us to stay successful in the medium and long-term.”

Does this example sounds familiar to you? It is just an example but I could give you many more examples of leaders who suffer from this ‘one-dimensional financial growth focus’. Now don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with wanting to create financial growth! Especially in times of change it is vital not to lose sight of finance. I’m for instance always very cautious when people show ‘hockey stick’ charts to support their claim that making less money in the short-term is the only way to create financial growth in the future. But that is not the point.

The point is: triggering and pushing people to focus on short-term financial growth will never allow you to create the breakthrough transformation that might be necessary to guarantee your future business success. It will prevent people from seeing opportunities for new ways of value creation and they will get stuck in the past!

Companies that follow ‘one-dimensional financial growth thinking’ are becoming more and more easy to recognize these days. They suffer from:

• A growing risk aversion
• Sticking to old success formulas
• Lack of clarity among managers and employees about the vision and strategy of the company
• High level of resistance to change
• Decreasing self-confidence of people because it is costing more and more energy to get the same results
• Incremental improvements creating mediocre results
• Becoming known in the market place for being old-fashioned and not innovative compared to the competition
• Decreasing customer satisfaction and loyalty

This is a vicious circle that can create serious problems if leaders are not capable of breaking it.

Successful leaders don’t follow the ‘one-dimensional financial growth focus’. They approach financial growth differently. Their companies use the following principles:

• Growth is much more than financial growth alone
• Creating added value towards customers, colleagues, shareholders is the focus, and this has as much to do with quality as with quantity
• If we deliver added value, financial growth is one of the logical outcomes
• Having a good understanding throughout the organization on each level (divisions, departments, teams, individuals) of what our added value is, how and where we deliver it, is therefore a critical success factor 
• Striving for excellence has everything to do with increasing our ability to increase our added value
• Challenging our way of working is a continuous process and is crucial to be able to adjust our added value to changing expectations and needs around us
• Performance management should stimulate innovation, not only incremental improvements 

Take a look around you. It is inspiring to spot these successful leaders and the companies they create.

Feel free to join the discussion by sharing your ideas and experiences below. I look forward to reading your comments. Thanks for stopping by!

___________________

As international business consultant, change leader, leadership facilitator and executive coach Aad supports executives and leadership teams of multinational companies. Over more than 20 years he has acquired a vast experience and expertise in leading complex change, cross-cultural leadership, post-merger integration, and amplifying business performance. If you are interested, find out more about Aad and his services. If you would like to hire Aad, don’t hesitate to contact him here.

If you liked this article and would like to receive upcoming articles for free, you can register at the top of this page.

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• Post Merger Integration: Cultural Alignment is a Prerequisite for Value Creation. (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)
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Photo: ell brown/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Senior leaders are confronted with an increasing rate of change and complexity and need to find ways to deal with it. Leading your company through change has become different from how it was ten to twenty years ago. Mobilizing employees, engaging them successfully, motivating them, informing them, using the talent and potential of people and teams, it all is crucial. But these days more and more leaders are confronted with change fatigue in their organization. Leaders need to find ways to support their line management and employees to cope with this change fatigue effectively.

Senior leaders play a crucial role here. How do they think their company should deal with this increased rate of change and complexity? What do they see the priorities for the company? How do they want everybody in the organization to understand these priorities and focus their energy on it? What types of behavior do they expect from their managers and employees? How do they see their own role as senior leadership in this? What support do their line managers need from them?

Leading change has become much more a continuous process with less clarity on the exact outcomes. It is no longer an ‘on top’ activity that can be ‘managed’ by separate teams in parallel with the ‘normal’ business. Change completed: people go back to their normal business. No, today’s change ìs the normal business. Initiating and leading projects/task forces/new initiatives, and the related mindset and skills, have become a much more integrated part of the daily operating mode of successful organizations. And this requires for senior leaders to also change their operating mode.

Funnily enough, senior leaders are often not aware of their changing role. They tend to see their role in defining the strategy and priorities, in clarifying the decisions taken, but for the execution they expect their line management to take over. And maybe that is exactly why companies today are struggling with change fatigue? Maybe senior leaders expect too much from line managers as the key responsible for the execution of change? Maybe they underestimate the fact that leading change today requires a different relationship between senior and middle management?

What are the key characteristics of this changed relationship?:

• The need for shorter lines between senior and middle management

Changes and complexity trigger a need for clarity. People want to control the change, want to create piece of mind by being able to understand and have overview on what is happening. This applies to both senior leaders, line managers, and employees. It requires senior leaders to be close to their management. Close in terms of explaining the change, discussing potential ways to manage it successfully, initiating the right focus and right actions, guiding the desired behavior and results.

Successful leaders create more visibility on the things they are doing, more clarity on the topics they are discussing, more information on what is happening at the top. They do spend a lot of time together as senior leadership in defining strategy and focus, but they create a direct link with their management teams and keep up a high level of openness and frequent communication. Rather than keeping distance and radio silence until they are able to show white smoke.

• The importance of ‘leading by coaching’

Of course senior leaders need to ‘lead by example’, especially in times of turbulence. But leading by example requires more than showing what you do to others and expect them to take over. Today’s leaders need to be able to coach their managers. Coaching in terms of understanding the challenges, strengths and weaknesses of the manager, investing time together to explore areas for improvement, support the manager to find answers and take decisions that improve effectiveness and motivation.

Successful leaders invest more time than ever before in coaching their managers, on individual level, as well as in team. They pay explicit attention to their own role as coach and the support their managers need to be able to lead the company through today’s challenges. They reflect on their own effectiveness as coach, they seek feedback or coaching from others without hesitation. And they never confuse coaching with micro-managing.

Do you recognize these changes? Do you experience the changed role of senior leaders? How do you coach your managers? What challenges do you face in this? Please share your comments.  

___________________

As international business consultant, change leader, alignment facilitator and executive coach Aad supports executives and leadership teams of multinational companies. Over more than 20 years he has acquired a vast experience and expertise in fields like leading complex change, cross-cultural leadership, post-merger integration, and amplifying business performance. If you are interested, find more about Aad and his services here.

If you liked this article and would like to receive upcoming Leadershipwatch articles, register for free at the top of this page.

Related articles

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• Cross-Cultural Leadership: How Will China Influence The World? (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)
• Amplifying Business Performance: Successful Leaders Approach Financial Growth Differently (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)
• Leading Change: Three Major Misconceptions That Hinder Innovation (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)
• Leading Change in the 21st Century: 4 Myths About Cultural Change (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)
• Leading Innovation: Why Executives Should Stimulate People to Make (Better) Mistakes (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)
• Cross-Cultural Leadership: How Misinterpretations of Dishonesty Can Destroy Team Alignment (leadershipwatch-aadboot.com)