Leadership in a VUCA World

Paul DevoyHead of Investors in People

1. Change is the “New Normal”

2. How can understanding Neuroscience help us be better leaders?

3. What kind of leaders do we need for a VUCA world?

Themes

Change is the “new normal”

Can understanding neuroscience help us be better leaders?

How are we programmed for change?

• Advances in technology giving us greater insights into how the brain works

• Our brains find change hard as it is still largely driven by survival instincts

• When we feel threatened, the fight or flight instinct kicks in

• This takes energy away from prefrontal cortex where we do our rationale thinking

Nancy Kanwisher

How are we doing?

How are we doing?

• Office of National Statistics estimate value of UK workforce is £17.2 trillion – that 2.5 times value of tangible assets

• Poor Management costs the UK £19billion a year (BIS 2012)

• Almost half of employers have staff with skills and qualifications beyond those required to do their job*

• This equates to 16% of staff, or 4.3 million workers with under-utilised skills*

• We are growing skilled people 7 times faster than we are growing high skilled jobs*

*UK Commission for Employment & Skills (UKCES) Research

Leadership Principles

Start with why and harness the power of purpose

People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe”

― Simon Sinek

Aim to become “Anti-fragile”

“Wind extinguishes a candle and energizes fire.

Likewise with randomness, uncertainty, chaos(Change):

You want to use them, not hide from them.

You want to be the fire and wish for the wind.”

- Nasim Taleb

Culture really does eats strategy for breakfast

Encourage healthy failure

• Organisations are more organic than systemic

• Organism need stressors and failure to learn and grow

• By trying to manage out failure we actually make our people and organisation more fragile

• Industries and organisations where failure is seen as a gift for growth and learning are more sustainable

• This enables empowerment & involvement as you can push decision making down the organisation and support people in learning from failure

Have great expectations

• Talent is over rated

• Most people have the capacity to achieve amazing things

• Leaders unconsciously stop people from realising their potential

Theory in action

Think Yes!

The new framework – key principles

The framework is based on the concept of sustainable high performance through people

Reflects the 9 key areas to enable high performance through people

Organisation ambition is at the heart of the framework

2 new concepts added to the framework: Structuring work and Sustainable success

Organisations progress through the framework via levels of maturity

Each indicator has 3 themes

Guiding evidence has replaced evidence requirements

Leaders and People have replaced ‘Top Manager’ ‘Manager’ ‘People’

Contact details:

www.investorsinpeople.co.uk

Paul.Devoy@investorsinpeople.co.uk

@DevoyPaul @IIP