It is fun to lead a group of talented and versatile professionals again.  And it is interesting to see my leadership style work.  Here is a story about sharing information and the surprises this caused for both my staff and my managers.

My aim is to lead with transparency.  This means I lead with openness about my role, aims, decisions and outcomes.  Hence, when it came to develop my key performance indicators (KPIs) asked staff to contribute their wish list of what I should achieve.  Out of 25 rather surprised staff 4 took up the offer.  These responses are full of information, namely what is missing in the workplace!  Valuable information I now can do something about; and not just through my KPIs.

The second surprise came after my KPIs were approved.  I told my staff I would send them out and I did!  The reactions have been diverse:

• My manager thought I was crazy to let staff know what I set out to achieve as staff are now able to put barriers in my way. So many leaders have problem or deficit thinking. 
  
• Some of my staff were flabbergasted about my audacity to share. 
  
• Others thought it was fabulous to have so much transparency. 
  
• Others commented that it made them think about why they keep KPIs personal. 
  

The reaction of my manager and staff is not uncommon.  From my many experiences sharing is not something most leaders are good at or staff are used to. There is too much fear involved. What will people think? What will they do? What will they not do?  There is fear that sharing means losing power. Sharing means that everyone will know if you don’t achieve everything!  Sharing means being vulnerable and facing your own imperfections.  But it also means giving trust to others and more importantly, sharing builds trust. 

After a few weeks I am able to gage the consequences: Very few staff have actually really read my KPIs!  Those who have, have already forgotten. Yet, just the fact that I shared them has made a positive impact. It has shown I have nothing to hide and has built trust quickly.  When did you last share perceived personal or confidential business information with your staff? 

Have you ever tried herding cats?  Each walking its own path into a different direction? Each wanting to do something different? Each getting frustrated, impatient or feisty if they cannot get what they want?  Sounds familiar?  Often boards or leadership teams display these behaviours without noticing it. The results are reflected in the achievement of strategy, in the way decisions are made or not made, and the way people communicate with and trust each other.  So here is a how to align Leadership Teams or Board Members to ensure these challenges are overcome and strategy and performance outcomes are achievable.

Successful leadership teams and boards are more like the officers on a ship cruising down the river. The leaders look to the front to see where it is going and dealing with any challenges or barriers coming up. They look to the back to see where they have been and appreciate the different outlook this view provides without wanting to go back there. They steer the ship, set the course for the crew, and ensure they don’t get caught in a whirlpool. The team needs to work together to do these actions concurrently, give clear and non-contradictory instructions, and trust that each does their job with the same aims at heart.   This example explains the essence of leadership alignment.

Your answers to the following questions will guide you through the essential components of alignment:

1.       If everyone is going down river, do you want to go upriver instead?  Are you passionate about the purpose of the organisation and does it align with your personal interest and mission in life?  If not, you may have the notion of not fitting in. But you will also have diverging motivations. You may find it hard to gain fulfilment in this role and consider separating now before relationships sour and the organisation gets torn apart.  

2.       Do you want to end up at the destination of this ship or do you have another destination? Are you fully behind the organisation’s aspirations or vision?  Is this vision, and the goals to achieve it, good for your career?  Does it align with your personal ambitions?  If it’s the former stay on the ship because your destination is ahead of you.

3.       Do you value the excitement of a whirlpool or do you value safety?  Do you know your personal values?  Do they match or are at least similar to the organisations values?  If there is a mismatch then there is a lack of culture fit. This makes it more difficult for you to comprehend the thinking and decision making of those who are working within this culture.  It is possible that you make decisions which are inappropriate for this culture and edge on. Or, they may be appropriate for the new culture the organisation is changing to.  Assess if the organisation has clearly defined and espoused values and behaviours required to work in this culture. These create a decision making framework which you are expected to align to.

4.       Does everyone on the team expect you to look upriver when your skill is remembering every river bend and danger ahead?  Is your talent needed in this team/on this board?  Can you play to your strengths? If not, you may experience frustration and misunderstandings because people don’t take you seriously.  Teams which don’t value diverse talents and knowledge are weaker for the lack of using their collective strengths and wisdom.

5.       Does your crew trust you explicitly to take you through a storm?  What level of trust do you experience in this organisation?  Do you receive trust from the leader and your team members? Do you give them trust?  Do you trust yourself to be in the right place?  

Aligned leaders personal purpose, vision, goals, and values align with the organisation and the team.  This increases trust and improves decision making. This does not mean group think, but balanced decisions that align with the organisation’s values rather than individual’s cat instinct i.e. personal beliefs. Gone are the days of herding. In are the days of aligning with the organisation and moving in the same direction with personal and professional motivation and setting this as the base expectation to working together.

Over the past 12 months I have noted the increase of discussion about succession planning with clients or in business networks. With many current leaders in their early to mid-50s this topic will remain hot.

The first time I came into contact with succession planning was several years ago.  A friend, owning a software company, passed the leadership to a new CEO and remained as a Director. The new CEO had excelled in running multimillion dollar projects and shown his business skills managing these projects. Yet, my friend watched innovation and engagement drop under the new leader. After three years he took over the leadership again to save it. What had gone wrong? 

Looking at his business case we found that he considered all factors except the successor’s fit to the organisations culture.  The leadership philosophy of the founder and the successor were in stark contrast from people centred to control. Employees adapted to this through increased self-protection ensuring their personal ‘safety’ resulting in less ideas sharing and collegiality that had driven innovation. 

A great example of succession planning is Westpac. The Board understood these issues.  They started long before Gail Kelly resigned from her position. Lindsay Maxsted, the Westpac Chairman leading the succession process, explained: “Critical to the succession-planning process was absolute alignment with the outgoing CEO. For succession to be seamless, the board and the incumbent CEO must have similar views on CEO tenure. If an outsider joins as CEO, the risk is you automatically stop and start again, and progress stalls”. 

These are the reasons why I am so excited about the Conscious Business AlignmentTM Framework which I introduced in previous articles. It really helps leaders understand alignment with the organisation to maximise its success and adaptability.

In the situation of my friend we now know that three areas of alignment were out of balance: the personal, the values and the mission of the successor were not aligned with the business creating dysfunction in how people worked. With this knowledge we developed additional criteria for selecting the next leader into his company.

Most medium sized or not-for-profit organisations cannot afford the consultants or the executive leadership development program implemented by Westpac. With this in mind I created the Leaders Alignment Tool. This is a cost effective way to help recruit the next leader or leadership team member. You can work with the Tool with or without external facilitation giving you full control over an immensely important process of handing your business or organisation to your successor.

Don’t follow in my friend’s footsteps and experience the heart break of watching your business go downhill. Get your succession planning right with the affordable price tag of AUD$497.00 supporting a seamless succession through the right leadership and culture fit. 

For more information contact us or buy now from our shop.  

Testimonial
Claudia introduced me to organisational alignment of people and culture in 2014 when I was succession planning the CEO for my company for the second time after it had gone badly the first time. With her help we developed additional selection criteria for this process to assess candidates for their fit with the organisations culture and leadership norms. The new CEO is now meeting my expectations which is fantastic.
Hanspeter Bouquet, Director, Sohard AG, Switzerland

Leaders aligned to vision, mission, values and strategic goals creates energy, focus and high performance

In my previous blogs I introduced the Conscious Business Alignment Framework to show the interconnect of the six business areas and the four business cores necessary to achieve alignment. Today we are looking at personal alignment, particularly in leaders. In my previous posts I talked about leaders values and beliefs drive behaviour and work place culture. Personal alignment in leaders is the first and most important step in aligning the business.

Personal alignment in its essence is the alignment of what is truly important to a person that influences their behaviours and actions. In its simplest form an aligned person walks the talk; they say what they do. They think, feel, act, and behave consistently and authentically.

It sounds simple. However, the Productivity Commission report on bullying shows that it is not. The report talks about Australia’s leadership crisis impacting negatively on workplace culture and the health of employees.  Edgar Papke states that most often misalignment is the result of a single member or a small group with widespread influence. Most misalignments occur due to personal motivations and human interactions.  The Harvard Business Review published research about what CEOs are afraid of.  The findings show that deep-seated personal fears like underachieving; appearing too vulnerable; looking ridiculous; losing reputation; or even dying influenced their confidence, competence and relationships.  95% of executives said their team had a limited view of their own fears.  The dysfunctions created are dishonesty, a lack of candid conversations, political and power game playing, silo thinking, a lack of ownership and follow through, and acting in or tolerating bad behaviours.  As a consequence they make poor decisions and focus on survival rather than growth stifling the organisation’s development. Leaders’ behaviours influence the workplace culture and through this the behaviours of their employees. 

These dysfunctions make strategy achievement such as fulfilling the vision and mission impossible. Employees use self-protective behaviour to ensure they are not caught in any strive.  They are less engaged and committed, more cautious and protective of their work.  This has a direct and detrimental impact on customer service and satisfaction. When customer expectations are not met the reputation of the brand suffers.  Hence, employees’ personal alignment is also necessary for customer fulfilment and sending the right message for brand intentions. 

Leaders of today require the consciousness and self-knowledge of what is truly important in their life. This helps understand how their fears and challenges influence actions and interactions.  Both self-awareness and self-knowledge can be learned if one is willing. Willing to admit what is working and what is not working; willing to admit that the wheels need aligning; willing to be vulnerable and admit that nothing in life is perfect, but one can always learn more. Ultimately this learning will benefit the individual person and the business they lead or the people they manage.

Other blogs on this topic:

The concepts of business alignment discussed in my blog are applicable to society too.  A society has leaders, a kind of strategy in form of policies, customers i.e. the societies population, values defining the culture, and a brand i.e. reputation as a nation.

As with business, leaders have a great influence on how this society functions.  Jennie Brockie’s Insight from 3 March discussed ‘What makes a good leaders?’ and explored leadership, culture shifts, and failure in the public space such as in sports, politics and the military.  

Using our model of alignment we show the current political (mis)alignment in Australian society driven by its leaders and supported by the system. It has detrimental effects on reputation and population engagement with politics and broader civil society issues.  For Australia to remove its 42% of dysfunction into the future these areas need serious consideration.  Our leaders know the system is misaligned. It is demonstrated through increases in leadership coups and the lack of tackling real policy reforms such as the tax system. these areas need serious consideration.  Our leaders know the system is misaligned. 

In my previous post I introduced the Conscious Business Alignment Framework to show interconnect of the five business areas and the four business cores necessary to achieve alignment. Today we are looking at personal alignment. Having read my posts you will know that Leaders values and beliefs drive behaviour and work place culture. Hence, leaders personal alignment between their values and beliefs and their behaviours are the main core to start business alignment from occurring.  However, employees personal alignment is just as necessary for customer fulfillment and sending the right message for brand intentions. 

Personal alignment in its essence is the alignment of what is truly important to a person that influences their behaviours and actions. In its simplest form an aligned person walks the talk; they say what they do. 

95% of executives said their team had a limited view of their own fears.  The dysfunctions created are dishonesty, a lack of candid conversations, political and power game playing, silo thinking, a lack of ownership and follow through, and acting in or tolerating bad behaviours.  As a consequence they make poor decisions and focus on survival rather than growth stifling the organisation’s development. Leaders’ behaviours influence the workplace culture and through this the behaviours of their employees. 

Clearly, these dysfunctions make leadership alignment within the organisation impossible. The dysfunctions also make strategy alignment such as fulfilling the vision and mission impossible. Employees use self-protective behaviour making them less engaged and committed. This has a direct and detrimental impact on customer service and satisfaction. When customer expectations are not met the reputation of the brand suffers. 

What leaders can do to ensure personal alignment: 

• Use feedback mechanisms to increase your personal and employees consciousness and self-knowledge their behaviour. This can be achieved with anonymous 360 feedback surveys for leaders and managers, immediate feedback practices from managers and team leaders to staff. 
  
• Leaders can set the right conditions in their business that accepts and welcomes feedback down and up the hierarchy without blame, excuses, repercussions or shame. 
• Identify what is truly important in your life that influences your behaviours, fears, the way you tackle challenges and make decisions. 
  
• Make (and help others make) the conscious decision to admit to self what is working and what is not. This includes being vulnerable and admitting that nothing in life is perfect, but one can always learn more. This is achievable through coaching, meditation, mindfulness, counselling or feeling the heat i.e. the pressure to change.

Personal alignment in leaders is the first and most important step in aligning the business.  Are you aligned in personality and behaviour?  Do you know what is important in your (working) life?  


Contact us for more information on how to achieve personal alignment.  

When you build a house, you need good foundations to make the structure stand up. These foundations made of steel, gravel, cement and water are never seen. But we know their correct construction is vitally important.  A business has foundations too. Yet, most business owners I talk to are unsure what their business foundations look like. Values and Beliefs are part of the business foundations. Values and Beliefs are like the Water and the Gravel, the former infiltrates everything, the latter is more tangible and has edges. The Cement is the glue of Trust sticking it all together.

The importance of values alignment was discussed at last year’s Australian Human Resource Institute Forum in a case study by SBS (Australia’s National Multicultural Television Broadcaster).  SBS was undergoing significant structural change. But the CEO realised that this also required significant cultural change. And they found that the latter was not possible without a transition at the top. Out of 12 leaders 9 were replaced because they no longer had values alignment with the new organisation SBS needed to become.  

Values should be one of four core components of a business strategy; the others are Vision, Mission and Goals. The Values are how the organisation is going to do the work or activities to achieve the strategy.  Peter Drucker said that Culture eats Strategy for Breakfast. Without alignment of the two, strategy is impossible to achieve. Misalignment occurs in many ways:

• Lack of understanding by leaders how they influence their own business foundations as culture is usually driven by the values and beliefs of leaders and managers; 
• A leadership change e.g. through succession planning or through appointment; 
• General recruitment processes; 
• Lack of Culture Planning in addition to Strategic Planning; 
• Lack of understanding how culture and brand are the two sides of the same coin.
  

How to create values in the organisation: 

• As a leader understand that everyone has values. 
• Each person should know their values and how they influence actions at work – The Personal Values Assessment and the Exercises within the Report that is sent to you help with this. 
• Identify how your behaviours support or inhibit the Values of the Organisation (if you have organisational values). 
• If none exist, measure the culture and values in the organisation using Cultural Transformation Tools or other survey method that supports selecting organisational values.
• If the meaning of organisational values is unclear, undertake staff consultation to identify or create their meaning. 
• Discuss the wanted behaviours for each of the organisational values. Ensure that these wanted behaviours align with the Strategy. If behavioural change is required initiate a change program to make it clear. 
• Develop the recruitment process to ensure culture fit including job roles definition, advertisement, selection and appointment process, induction and performance management processes.  Employees have good culture fit if they have more than three values matching organisational values. 
• Ensure your employees and marketing messages support brand intention. Survey your customers and suppliers to see if they have the intended brand perception.
  

A word of caution when using recruitment or marketing agencies: You MUST ensure they adhere to your culture fit requirements in their message.


Some other blogs:
Values Help Fix Toxic Cultures
Individualism creates a Crisis
Individualism for the Common Good

Just recently we purchased new tyres for the car.  The mechanic told me they also did a wheel alignment, as the old tyres had worn thin on one side of the rim but were ok on the other.  He asked if I had not noticed the car veering off to the right instead of going nicely straight ahead. Well I had sort of noticed, but with my limited car tech knowledge not really realised that something was wrong.

His explanation however made immediate sense.  I see organisations that have not had a wheel alignment for a long time. Despite the best strategy, they cannot drive straight. The leaders spend a lot of energy holding the steering wheel to go in one direction.  Employees feel frustrated and less productive. Just like me they all notice that things are not going smoothly, but most likely do not realise that some corrective actions are needed.

There are five distinct business areas where an organisation needs alignment. Just like the car, the organisation runs smoother, with less waste and dysfunction when these areas are in alignment. When they seamlessly interconnect and align, an organisation can maximise its potential, and achieve growth and engagement with employees and fulfilment of customer's needs. 

These business areas are: strategy, leadership, employees, brand, and customers and other external stakeholders. They need alignment with organisational mission and values, organisations structural system and personal alignment between values, beliefs and wanted behaviour within the construct of societal changes.

During change this alignment is usually heavily impacted. However, this model helps assess where the change occurs and where the organisation remains stable. Hence, change planning is made easier and implementation can focus on the areas needing most resources and priority. 
 
The Conscious Business Alignment Framework shows the interconnect of these business areas with the alignment variables. Over the coming months we will look at each of these interconnections in more detail. 

I am currently reading about Peace Psychology looking at the types of violence in society. Two things struck me: Firstly that structural violence influences business and economic activity negatively; secondly, that the tree analogy in my previous blog is also applicable to society.  Structural violence creates inequitable systems and processes in a society. It is usually a hidden form of violence that impacts on society at large.  Reading this book made me wonder about Australia’s structural violence and where they occur in business and politics and how they impact society.

Structural Violence in Business

• Nick Hanaur, a US Zillionaire, predicts the move from a capitalist society back to a feudal society. The move is driven by policies which benefit the elite and undermine the middle class. If structural violence remains unaddressed, Hanaur tells us in his article ‘The Pitchforks are coming…for us Plutocrats’, businesses will have fewer consumers because of the wealth distribution and increased inequality.  Fewer cashed up consumers bring less business opportunities. 
  
• The G20 raised the issue of multinational tax loopholes which damage those nations where the multinational presides. They undermine the wealth of a country through tax abuse, intergroup loans and subsidiary profit shifting.  Funds are not reinvested for local benefit.
  
• There are the Australian business owners with lucrative Swiss Bank accounts. Tax treaties between these two countries are bringing the extent of the tax evasion to light. Estimations are that 10% of Australia’s richest people have been evading tax over the years. Voluntary disclosures through the ATO’s Project DO IT indicate an expected $600 million in income and $4 billion in assets had been undisclosed and untaxed. Expected tax revenue is $300 million. 
  
• Around 275,000 small businesses are dealing in a cash economy and hence avoid tax. Charles Barnard from 4 Day Week was talking to us at the Shellharbour City Business Network on 18 March about this issue. He explained the downside of cash transactions become evident when valuating your business for a sale. The lower revenue has a direct impact on the business sales price and the type of retirement business owners can experience. 
  

While most examples have a tax focus, there are of course others such as manufacturing overseas using (un)principled methods, investment into pollution generating industries instead of green energy, lobbying by big business etc. Yet, all examples show the self-interest and lack of focus on the common good by the business leaders involved. A leadership focus change, ethical consumerism and political intervention is the key in changing this structural violence.  

Structural Violence in Politics

• Politicians decide over war and peace including military spending in readiness or preparedness for an anticipated war!? Australia was listed the 13th highest military spending nation with on the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in 2013. Military expense costs increased by $5 billion under the Abbott Government to $29 billion in 2014 and expect 5.3% of real growth per annum until 2024. 
• Since the Hilton Hotel bombing in Sydney in 1978 the number of terrorism victims in Australia was 113. Crickey compared this to other violent death tolls over the last 10 years. There were 2617 homicides, around 700 to 1000 women killed in domestic violence, 190 died from accidental gun discharge, 66 indigenous people died in custody, there were 22,800 suicides and 8500 deadly car accidents.  Yet, politicians milk the terrorism bull for all they can. 
• The Drum eloquently talks about the fear mongering by politicians. “Fear sells, and certainly anxiety wins support for…laws no matter how much they infringe on civil liberties. Fear is the currency of both sides of politics....” Hugh Mackay said in a 2007 speech that “Above all, be afraid of the corrosive and paralysing effects of fear itself. If we allow it to dull the clarity of our focus on the local issues facing us…terrorism has indeed won’.  Creating a society full of perceived fear is a form of violence on the population. 

Fear paralyses regardless of the context that generated it. Hence, political fear also influences business negatively. Fear throws a wedge between humanity and reduces people’s ability to function properly. When people are preoccupied they have lower productivity, are less creative, have less resilience, more health issues and are less willing to contribute in a collaborative way.  To avoid the Pitchfork raising its spiky head you can do your bit by voting wisely, speaking up on issues, ensuring present actions benefit the common good not just personal interests and overcoming personal and business fears with more conscious leadership. 


We can help you with conscious leadership development. See details on our in-house program.

When I talk to managers about their challenges they hardly ever talk about systems and processes. They talk about their people; that they cannot trust them, that their office feels like a highway with employees bringing problems rather than solutions, that employees sap their energy, or don’t follow instructions and much much more.  

If this resonates let me tell you that you are not on your own. About 60 to 80% of organisational challenges are people related impacting on relationships. A manager spends between 25 to 40% on conflict resolution.  Our research with Culture Transformation Tools shows an average organisational dysfunction and productivity loss of 25 to 30% in each industry.  And 70% of change projects still fail because of people. As a past CEO I know that managing people is hard work. People make and shape culture.  While culture is as tough as nails, we need so called soft skills to identify the interconnectedness of cause and effect to overcome these issues.

When we understand the interconnections in organisations then everything gets easier.  So here is a framework you can follow.  I call it Culture Gardening.  Imagine your organisation as a tree (some of my long term subscribers have heard this analogy before); there is a visible and hidden part to the tree.  In organisations the visible parts are structure (trunk), systems and processes (branches), the reach of the organisation (crown), and the people’s behaviour, skill and expertise (leaves). The invisible part is the collective culture (root system) shaped by leader’s values and beliefs and carried out by all employees (individual roots).  When looking at cause and effect we can say that people’s behaviours are the visible effects reacting to the environment, and individual leaders’ values and beliefs are the root or cause of organisational culture driving the use of systems and processes.

Let me give you some examples. When I started working as a manager I found a mountain of frustrations in my team; mostly about little things. Each had grown to the size of an elephant.  There was a self-closing security door that needed to be pulled shut. Often not pulled it did not close.  There were employees not completing the appointment book, so no-one knew where they were and which clients they visited increasing organisational risk. There were the smokers on the veranda stinking out the lunch room with the previous manager having been the main culprit.  Staff complained about discrepancies in their salary. And so it went on and on.  However, all these frustrations were evident in one staff behaviour. Each was bringing their frustration to their leader to solve it. In addition to a busy role, this increased the workload multiple times, becoming unmanageable and allowing mice to grow to elephants. 

Causes relating to systems and processes are often the easiest to resolve. Removing behavioural causes take more time, effort and consistent application. As a new manager I could change behaviours quickly by setting new expectations that were in line with my values and beliefs. While a present leader has to be open to their own involvement to the cause.  When the leader is the cause, the effect may never get resolved unless the leader has the consciousness to see their ways.  However, by looking at the interconnections leaders or managers can investigate and follow the trail and prioritise the quick gains and those that take longer.  

We can help your managers with gaining more consciousness about how they influence these interconnections. Join us for the Conscious Leadership Adventure a 6 month in-house program to help leaders find out about their motivations, values and beliefs and how these impact their behaviour and decision making capacity.