Responsive leadership – a guide

A summary of my public speaks March 2016

Erik Korsvik Østergaard, Partner, Bloch&Østergaard

Going to work should be nice, great, and awesome!

The 30 second summary

So, the world is changing ever faster.

A line of megatrends (including disruptive technology) is driving business forward,

and forcing new behavior into organizations, leaders, and employees.

This requires:

Holism

A new holistic approach to strategy, leadership, and people, with an updated

mindset and skillset for you and your leaders.

Responsiveness Trimming and redefining your organization and culture to respond fast enough.

EntrepreneurshipA redesign of the way you organize work,

constant innovation, internal startups, and a portfolio approach.

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Let’s go through the 3 areas!

Disclaimer: These are my slides from my public speaks, with some minor editing to give them context or “speakers notes”.

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The world is changing

… and I bet you already know that. Skip the next six slides, if you want. This is just a fast summary.

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Volatile Uncertain Complex Ambiguous

The world is VUCA

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40% of Fortune 500 companies will be gone in 10 years

Is someone or something changing your business?

Do you know what problem you are solving?

- Babson School of Business, Washington University

Can you respond to the changes?

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Half of the jobs will be automated

- SCENARIO, Centre for Futures Studies

“Your job; now available from the app store”

Our children’s jobs have yet to be invented

Megatrends

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Purpose + Meaningfulness

Relations + Connectedness

Silver Backs + Millennia

Female Shift in Leadership

Radical Sustainability + Circular Economics

Urbanisation + Globalisation

Technology + Going digital

Holism

in the Future of Work

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Speakers notesBeing affected by these megatrends and new demands, you need to think holistically about your organization – you need to look at these five elements at the same time:

• Purpose and direction

• Innovation

• Culture

• Organizing(which is a verb, not a noun)

• Leadership

You need to change the mindset, skillset, and behavior of your leaders to embrace this.

You have to focus on attracting, engaging, and retaining both employees, customers, and the community.

The new leader understands this, and has a holistic view on the business, the organization, the team, and the employees.

Focus on how to create value (VOI), not just profit (ROI)

Purpose, relations and results is what counts – and it creates happiness at work too.

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Future of Work

Purpose and

direction

Organizing

CultureInnovation

Leadership

A holistic approach

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Source: @LeadershipABC, Kenneth Mikkelsen

The many required shifts

Don’t compete on

SKILLSand

PRICE

(Red Ocean)

Focus on

EFFECTand

RELATIONS

(Blue Ocean)

New rules of the game

Behaviour of a leader

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Ensures purpose and meaning (WHY), and that we’re making a

difference

Challenges status quo (both HOW and WHAT)

and encourages the team to do the same

Ensuresdirection and traction

viadialogue and delegation

Values collaboration, innovation, and brainstorming

Avoids titles and hierarchy. Focuses on

roles and network. Relations beat skills

Measuresthe right things

Is a role model on trust, respect, involvement, empowerment, and

emotional intelligence

Thrives with uncertainty and complexity, and

avoids oversimplifications

Responsiveness

in the Future of Work

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Speakers notesYour organization needs to respond, adapt, and be agile.

If not, you will have a limited lifespan in the Future of Work.

The next pages present some approaches for analyzing and designing your organization.

Take a look at the five parameters/sliders for “The Responsive Organization” (see next slide). If you push them all to the left, you’ll be effective. If you push them all to the right, you’ll

be responsive. What mix of parameters do you want?

Similarly for the “Design principles of adaptable organizations” and for the “PUK Leadership Profile”: Use it as a platform for debate: What should you focus on now?

Finally, here’s 10 characteristics of organizations that we work with, that are moving towards a more responsive design.

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Efficiency,more predictable Versus Responsiveness,

less predictable

Profit Purpose

Hierarchies Networks

Controlling Empowering

Planning Experimentation

Privacy Transparency

The Responsive Organization – what mix do you want?Source: responsive.org

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Design principles of adaptable organisationsWhat should you focus on?

Source: Gary Hamel et al.: “Hackathon Report - Management Innovation eXchange”

Evidence: 10 characteristics of responsive organizations

Purpose and meaningfulness

Relationsbeat skills

Largerline teams

Smallerproject teams

Everyone is a leader

Followership supports

leadership

Step down from the

Ivory Tower

Listen, then decide

Intensesprints

Not more,but better

Source: +10 clients that we’ve helped in the last few years

PUK Leadership Profile Red(Wolf pack)

Amber(Army)

Orange(Machine)

Green(Family)

Teal(Living Organism)

Scope:<organisation>

<Area><Number of employees>

Submitted by<name>

dd-MMM-2016

Constant exercise of power to keep foot soldiers in line. Highly reactive. Thrives in chaotic environments• Division of labour• Command authority

Highly formal roles within a hierarchical pyramid. Top-down command and control. Future is a repetition of the past.• Formal roles (stable and scalable hierarchies)• Stable, replicable processes (long-term perspectives)

Goal is to beat competition, achieve profit and growth. Management by objectives. Command and control over what. Freedom over how.• Innovation• Accountability• Meritocracy

Focus on culture and empowerment to boost employee motivation. Stakeholders replace shareholders as primary purpose.• Empowerment• Egalitarian management• Stakeholder mode

Self-management replaces hierarchical pyramid. Organizations are seen as living entities, oriented towards realizing their potential• Self-management• Wholeness• Evolutionary purpose

Purpose + directionVision, Value, Results,

Meaning, Prioritisation, Profit,

Transparency

InnovationChallenging status quo,

Experimentation, Creativity, Technology, Fail fast, No-blame, Entrepreneurship,

Risk management

Culture

Integrity, Intimacy, Relations, Feedback, Dialogue, Listening, Motivation, Dignity, Fairness,

Well-being, Coaching, Passion, Engagement, Drive, Firmness, Caring, Empowerment, Trust,

Involvement, Authenticity, Diversity

Organizing + delivery

Decentralisation, Collaboration, Autonomy,

Mastery, Enabling, Accountability, Commitment,

Choice, Flexibility, Agility, Processes, Getting things done

PUK v1.0Source: Bloch&Østergaard, in collaboration with representatives from the University of Southern Denmark and several large Danish organizations in the finance and engineering industries

The responsive, networked organization

Do you want effective silos or responsive networks?

Or both?

Entrepreneurship

in the Future of Work

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Speakers notesStart thinking of your organization as a portfolio of (small) businesses or start-ups, also called ateam-of-teams.

Give them autonomy, support, and accountability.

Allow them to make mistakes, but ensure validated learning.

This means that being an entrepreneur inside the organization is a career path.

This also means, that your role as leader changes. You’ll see that the team-of-teams approach requires you to act as a coach/mentor, as a portfolio manager, and as internal strategist from time to time.

If you roll out an Agile project approach (which is a great idea), then do also push Agile Leadership into the management meetings.

An innovation-friendly culture and process

Willingness to change the status quo

Engage with customers

Creativity and experimentation

Fail fast.Fail forward.

Demo and feedback

Use it, or throw away? No-blame

Stop. Evaluate.Learn.

Adjust. Repeat.

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Think ‘organising’ not ‘organisation’

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• Teams group, dissolve, and regroup• Teams establish their own structure• Teams establish values and identity• Teams are organising in an organisation

• Management stays in control• Outer boundaries are kept• Internal flexibility and well-being

The role of the leaderCoaching

and mentoring

• using your emotional intelligence and experience

Being strategic

• thinking as an entrepreneur, working ON “your business”

White space management

• i.e. maneuvering the areas in your organization “where rules are vague, authority is fuzzy, budgets are non-existent, and strategy is unclear”

Pathfinder, domain expert, guide

Career platform in Future Of WorkPeople Project Specialist

Top management

Middle management

Frontline

The old career path: The only way is up.This approach is going to die. The new career platform: Not up, but around

Manager“Get things done”Purpose: Run the business

Leader“Follow me”Purpose: Grow the business Entrepreneur

“Try this”Purpose: Transform the business

The employee in Future Of Work understands to shift between roles;and wants to be lead that way, on all levels of the organisation:

In frontline, as middle manager, and as top manager you can bea manager, a leader or an entrepreneur of your role

On every level:

Summary

The 30 second summary

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Bloch&Østergaard

Because going to work should be nice, great, and awesome