3 E's of Effective Leadership

Been in a few leadership seminars, and the oft-repeated terms reminded me of the article from a few years back, so decided to share it again. (originally published in March 2016).

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The greatest responsibility of a leader is to make their employees successful. This is, more often than not, the one trait that does not garner enough attention from those measuring leadership success. It is about how well the employees are flourishing under one's leadership!

Use the 3 E's to answer this question; perhaps a better measure than (or in addition to) the usual promotions, team size, numbers, etc.

• Empower your employees (go do it!) – set clear goals and expectations, but don’t stymie free thinking. Establish the culture where managers can think freely and are “empowered” to make decisions that move the project forward.

• Enable your employees (provide the required resources!) – get down from the “I know all” pedestal and learn about the daily struggles of a manager in balancing deliverables and getting  projects prioritized for delivery. Then make sure to provide the required resources and/or remove the organizational hurdles to “enable” employee success.

• Engage your employees (give a pat on the back more often!). Employees are more engaged when they are recognized. But, do it on a regular basis, not just once a year. Even the small achievements should be called out at weekly reviews or other team gatherings. It will go a long way in keeping them motivated and “engaged” towards the company’s success.

Just like the other assets within the company, employees also need nurturing, albeit with a human touch!

Corporate Innovation is at Risk ...

A new product or service does not come around every day. Organizations are built around the core innovative idea and thrive on systems, processes and capabilities to manage subsequent growth. In more mature organizations, repeatable processes are created to deliver the value, service and support to customers. However, this "order and routine" also leads to a corporate culture that becomes “inhospitable” to innovation. Let me share a great quote from one of marketing's leading innovative thinkers - this would become my inspiration for this post. 

“Organizations by their very nature are designed to promote order and routine. They are inhospitable environment for innovation.” - Ted Levitt.

How can we look at innovation in a mature organization?

As someone has said, “innovation is anything, but business as usual.” Most daily tasks in an office tend to fall into the routine job duties, but the teams need to be encouraged to challenge the status quo and find ways to improve product, service, processes. In other words, INNOVATE! 

Let’s take an example of a project meeting that I participated in. While trying to resolve the poor quality complaint on a new product, it was brought to our attention that often the call-issue is not captured and/or is categorized inaccurately in CRM system. Adding a new complaint code based on new service would have seemed like an obvious next step, but, the support team was reluctant to do so, as it would overload the already complex list. A deeper dialogue revealed that patching the legacy systems (linear fix) was no longer a viable option and our analysts suggested an overhaul of CRM-coding that better represented the new business and customer experience priorities (innovative fix) . I saw the innovation happen right there!

Innovation does not start at the CEO level, or even at one or 2 levels below. It can just as easily start at the lowest level, amongst the troops in the trenches. It is our analysts and managers, who are interacting with the customers, vendors and internal stakeholders that are most aware of the issues and probably can help lead or collaborate on more pragmatic go-forward strategies. 

If you happen to be in such advanced organizations, don't be surprised if the next great idea for customer service, cost efficiency, reporting, etc., comes from one of the many of the "routine" meetings. It is these voices that need to be heard! It is this “out of the box” thinking that needs to be encouraged! It is this "corporate culture" that needs to be nurtured! It is the senior leaders who should lead such "corporate innovation” by encouraging participation and curbing the “quick resolution” mindset.

Corporate innovation can only be kept alive if we let the “bottoms-up” approach to flourish.

Here are a few ideas to encourage corporate innovation:

• Tying manager performance with matrix feedback from colleagues, which will ensure that managers are encouraging participation
• Training project managers to record and follow-up on any “out of the box” initiatives that emanate from the routine meetings, instead of staying focused on task lists
• Senior leadership finding time to discuss those ideas, not always relying on a formal business case to justify the time/resources spend
• Institutionalizing a reward system for innovative ideas and solutions, and making sure idea, and NOT the value, is recognized - value invariably follows!

Corporate innovation, if done right, holds real promise for more mature organizations. It ought to be at the core of corporate culture and true leadership here would improve employee engagement, get them vested deeper with the organization’s success, and may significantly contribute to the bottom-line.

* image from: awma.org

What did I (really) learn from matrix leadership!

True project management should not be just about task management, it should also include managing people and their expectations. In my experience, the latter seems to be somewhat nebulous, as project managers are not able or empowered to take people management in a matrix to the next level – probably because in a matrix team, individual reporting relationship preclude such dynamic. This gap is what I wanted to explore more and share some thoughts on; as I think the following do not get enough coverage -- 

First, senior management, across business entities, needs to constantly reinforce ONE project goal!

Second, team members need to be engaged towards the common goal!

Sort of obvious, but worth reminding – senior leaders and project managers will hardly admit that there is a lack of consensus and/or individual needs are adequately addressed!

I have seen discussions in project meetings turn to arguments, confusions, delays, and (even) threats to completely abandon the project. Surely, there is more to it (I thought)! Why are people in the room speaking to themselves? Why is Operations trying to influence marketing and promotions strategy? Why is customer service perennially in a complaint mode, that they “didn’t know” about the product launch? Why is IT feeling unappreciated? Is sales and reporting even on the radar – no wonder these guys are in scrambling mode during the final launch phase? 

Such conflicts cause unnecessary delays in a project delivery and project managers need to acknowledge that, 

“these are the possible underlying currents that take up a lot of meeting time, as and when they surface!”

Based on several exploratory informal chats, I discovered that leadership and people management, more than the stated metrics were to blame. Here's what I found helpful in addressing the aforementioned underlying currents and have a smoother project meetings.

(A)  Senior leadership must align to the common goal and keep it that way! As the priorities change and the business urgencies dictate the short-term focus, leaders need to keep the team focused on the long-term vision. This will ensure that product, consumer experience, partnership integration, systems development, etc., are not short-changed, which will lead to a bigger problem with “fixes” and “customer complaints” in the future – not the scenario that should be overlooked. 

A former colleague once lamented that the leaders were not looking at strategic product road-map in trying to move up the launch date. The long-term costs are too immense for such short-sighted moves. Project managers need to sense that and address it before the matrix teams are forced to change course. 

(B)  Team members need to attach to the goal and be on-board! By this I mean, when customer service complains about adequate lead time to train their agents, they have not been brought-in on the launch early enough – can be easy to solve, I would say. Or, when IT is concerned about the timing of launch, there may be genuine hurdles to delivery, due to ongoing updates, releases, etc. – not that easy to solve, but a realistic launch estimate could help solve for the bottleneck. Marketing, before setting aggressive targets, should obtain a dose of reality in consultation with operations, sales, field, etc., teams. 

At the end of the day, it has to be understood that each participant has a deliverable that has to fit into their own goals/targets for the month/year. Timely participation and addressing individual concerns alleviates some of these surprise elements and in turn helps team members.

These did find some agreement among the leaders, peers and team members. In essence, the key to successful matrix management lies in proactive leadership and people management – 

“matrix leadership success is more about people management and less about numbers” 

Hoping these issues behind (a seemingly) dysfunctional team get highlighted and managers and leaders emphasize people aspects as they steer the program through to completion – in time and within budgets!

Be a leader, sans the title!

Leadership is not defined by the title; instead it is personified by each and every selfless act of ours, as we go about our daily routine.

In my first job in corporate world, we were a group of analysts who had started around the same time in a rapidly expanding division. There was a person in the group, who appeared to be more engaged with everyone. He was the one to inquire about your previous job, your fist day at the new work place, your office space and how you were adjusting to it, etc. He was also the one who organized our first offsite lunch and introduced us to each other, even before we could do it ourselves. In essence, he appeared to be most interested in us, the people on the team and appeared to be trusted by all. Needless to say, that he was the unheralded leader of the group and we would all unwittingly look to him to plan our next outing or carry on the conversation, when there was an extended silence at the table. I remember being in awe of his people skills.

More recently, while leading a new product launch, I had pulled together a team of operations, marketing and IT analysts to help build the business case. When I had to shift focus to the marketing plan, I had operations analyst run scenarios on the business case model. In a few days, during the management presentation, I called out the help from the operations analyst and credited him with the good job he did at building the business model. Although impromptu, my gesture was greatly appreciated by this person and he acknowledged how empowered he felt in his role. I remember the episode, not because it was an impromptu call-out, but how good it made me feel somewhere deep inside. It clearly made my associate's day. We get plenty of similar opportunities daily to recognize someone new or junior on the team and help them grow. Sometimes, we just need to shift our focus away from ourselves!

We know good leaders are people oriented and selfless, but there is no rule that "non leaders" can't do it - that is, make a difference! Here's what I have stored away from these musings:

1. Show genuine interest in your associates and listen to "who they are"
2. Help your colleagues make new friends and encourage them to participate
3. Hand out recognition and praise to highlight smallest of contributions

Good leaders start early, and nurture themselves and their surroundings equally. Titles are meant for business cards anyway!

3 E's of Effective Leadership

The greatest responsibility of a leader is to make their employees successful. This is, more often than not, the one trait that does not garner enough attention from those measuring leadership success. It is about how well the employees are flourishing under one's leadership!

Use the 3 E's to answer this question; perhaps a better measure than (or in addition to) the usual promotions, team size, numbers, etc.

• Empower your employees (go do it!) – set clear goals and expectations, but don’t stymie free thinking. Establish the culture where managers can think freely and are “empowered” to make decisions that move the project forward.

• Enable your employees (provide the required resources!) – get down from the “I know all” pedestal and learn about the daily struggles of a manager in balancing deliverables and getting projects prioritized for delivery. Then make sure to provide the required resources and/or remove the organizational hurdles to “enable” employee success.

• Engage your employees (give a pat on the back more often!). Employees are more engaged when they are recognized. But, do it on a regular basis, not just once a year. Even the small achievements should be called out at weekly reviews or other team gatherings. It will go a long way in keeping them motivated and “engaged” towards the company’s success.

Just like the other assets within the company, employees also need nurturing, albeit with a human touch!