Tag Archive for: leadership development

Succeeding At Succession: The Ultimate Test Of Organizational Success

/in /by

Successful succession is the ultimate test of organizational success. At its core, succession is about culture and values. What you are ultimately building and sustaining into the next generation, is your culture. Don’t leave succession planning to chance. If you are committed to sustaining your culture into the next generation and beyond, you have to be intentional about it.

Succession planning is not an event; it is a generational process, integrated deeply into your leadership culture. It is not transactional; it is transformational. To do it well, succession can take upwards of twenty years to come to fruition. It takes painstaking learning and patience.

Ten Steps To Successful Succession Planning

  1. Appoint a Succession Planning Champion – A person who is ultimately accountable for the succession success of the organization:
    • A leader with a vision and passion for culture (a “monomaniac with a mission”)
    • Someone who has earned respect and credibility throughout the organization
    • A person with the positional power to make the required decisions
  2. Define your cultural vision and values. Clarify the vision and the kind of culture and leadership you are committed to build and sustain into the next generation. How do you currently hold people accountable for living the values?
  3. Build a vision for future leaders. Based on your vision and core values, assess the kind of leaders you will need to take your organization to the next level in the coming generation – well before beginning a search.
    • What kind of leader do you want?
    • Where are the core areas that need immediate attention?
    • What are the key essential positions?
      Note: As you assess your leadership needs, be sure to remain open to the kind of culture you are committed to create, rather than simply “settling” for what you currently have.
  4. Honestly identify the strengths and gaps of your organization. Take the time to rethink what kind of organizational structure you will need in the future.
  5. Have open and honest conversations at every level with every employee:
    • Every employee needs to have a say in their own aspirations and have organizational support to align their passions, unique talents, and goals with the needs of the organization (Authentic Alignment). Remember: horizontal growth can be just as valuable to an organization as vertical growth. The vital questions are: 1) Is it authentic to the employee and to the organization? and 2) Do your systems support this?
    • Every employee should have an understanding of how they are perceived by the organization – so there are no surprises in the succession process.
    • Every employee needs to know what the organization expects from them, as well as what they can expect in return.
    • Every employee needs to take accountability for their own Authentic Alignment (ensuring that the expectations and needs of the organization are met and are aligned with their authentic self).
  6. Provide a fair and realistic assessment. Using your cultural values and the corresponding behavioral definitions, measure and assess people’s fit for potential successful leadership.
  7. Build your talent pool. Make your intentions clear with your positional leaders. To avoid destructive personality conflicts and “replacement planning” mentality, use an Acceleration Pool System that develops candidates for leadership positions, rather than targeting one or two hand-picked individual for each leadership role. “Pool” members are offered opportunities for learning, visibility, and accelerated individual development. Candidates are supported to find a mentor, and are offered coaching and training. After a careful assessment of the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, you develop a tailor-made plan for their capability development together.
    • You may find it valuable to categorize the potential leaders as: i) Ready immediately; ii) 1-3 years away; and iii) 3-5 years away.
    • Those doing the assessing will need a clear, justifiable rationale for why these individuals were chosen for the talent pool (based on organizational values), and be prepared to openly share their reasons for choosing them.
    • Obviously, the potential leaders must have a choice about whether they accept being included in the talent pool.
    • You need to be very explicit right from the beginning, that being chosen for the talent pool does not guarantee promotion to a new leadership position in the succession, but only a commitment to an accelerated leadership development track.
  8. Make selections for various senior positions from the talent pool as needed.
  9. Current leaders must develop a plan for letting go. This is about making room for new growth to emerge. Just as potential leaders must plan their development to be ready to meet the challenges of a new leadership position, the current leaders must plan:
    • What they are willing to give up/let go of.
    • How they will let go.
    • How to make room for new leadership to emerge. Often coaching and mentoring can be useful to support leaders with the letting go, a “making room” process.
  10. Monitor your progress.

Activate Your Energy With A Renewed Purpose For Living

/in /by

I recently came across a fascinating story that illustrates how having a higher purpose – beyond self-interest – can activate your passion, your zest for life. Not only does this story have application for your personal life; it also has a strong and relevant business imperative as we attempt to build cultures that awaken the human spirit, engage people, and ignite their passion. Every employee needs a purpose where he or she feels their energies and focus are taking them somewhere. An authentic leader’s work is to find a way to active this – with yourself and others.
A news report a few years ago from Biloxi, Mississippi, powerfully illustrates how important a reason for living – beyond your own self-interest – is to activate your energy (see Og Mandino’s University of Success, p. 8).

A  twenty-four year old dancer jumped from a wharf in an attempt to commit suicide. As she later put it, she was “tired of living.” A young man saw her jump and, forgetting that he didn’t know how to swim, stripped off his coat and leaped in after her in a blind attempt to save a fellow human being. He began to thrash about in the water and was in serious danger of drowning when the young dancer, her own despair momentarily forgotten, paddled over to him, grabbed hold of him and pulled him safely ashore. Instead of ending her own life she saved the life of another.

In that crucial moment when she saw the young man struggling for life, her own life suddenly gained something it had lacked before: a purpose. What ended up drowning beneath the wharf that day was not this woman’s spirit, but her despair. She had known in a dramatic flash the difference between having nothing to live for and something to live for, and having pulled the young man to safety, she was herself taken to the hospital, treated for exposure, and released with a new lease on life.

Why do you get out of bed in the morning? What gets you up early? What keeps you up late? Where are you going? What are you doing to foster a sense of purpose – both in yourself and in those you serve as a leader? When’s the last time you had conversations that focused on these questions?

photo credit: Charged (license)

Everyday Heroes: The Leaders In Organizations Who Are Not In Charge

/in /by

In every office, in every community, in every organization, there are true leaders. Most of the time they aren’t the ones with the titles. But they meet our criteria for leadership in that they have followers. People listen to them and are influenced by them. These true leaders are the ones that get the real story because people trust them. They are the beacons that attract the signals in an organization. People go to these people for their cues. They are focused on the right thing and on what matters. They are liked and they are respected. They have no interest in climbing the corporate ladder or playing the corporate games. They don’t seek the limelight. They don’t seek “leadership” or even have a desire to influence. In fact, this is the very thing that makes them so influential. Their lives are about service, not self-interest. They inspire those around them. They are the difference makers. And they get their power not from their position, but from their presence. They are what we call everyday heroes – people who quietly and humbly go about their work, bringing their talents and their passion and their vision to whatever they do. And they make the world around them a better place.

I’m curious:

If you know of these everyday heroes, send their contact information to me. I’d like to connect with them and learn from them.

  • What motivates these “everyday heroes?”
  • What matters to them?
  • How did they get to be this way? What shaped them?
  • How do you hire for these people?
  • How do you acknowledge these “everyday heroes?” How do you support them to lead others in a productive way? How do you ensure that you keep them engaged?

Engagement Flows From Personal Values

/in /by

Over the years, my colleagues and I have spent considerable energy and time helping leaders create an aligned culture by clarifying their organizational values. We lead off-site retreats, creating corporate value statements and developing processes for getting those values into the hearts of their employees. But this is not what inspires commitment and engagement.

It’s personal values that matter most when it comes to employee engagement. People don’t put their hearts into anything until they believe in it. Clarity of personal values is the force that makes the difference in an individual’s level of commitment to an organization. Think about your own experience. When, in your career, were you most engaged? Was it when you were clear about the values of the organization you worked for, or when you were clear about your own personal values?

If you are committed to engage people with their hearts, clarifying organizational values is a waste of time unless you get to what matters to them as a person.

In retreats and workshops, I now focus more on helping leaders clarify their employee’s personal values than on clarifying organizational values. While both are important, you have to get to people’s personal values if you want to get to what engages them. Commitment is a matter of alignment between personal and organizational values. You have to get to both sides of the equation.

Authentic Leadership, Character, and Structural Integrity

/in /by

Some of the best conversations I have had have come after a presentation when sitting in a lounge debriefing and philosophizing with participants. Such was the case this past week, in a conversation with a project engineer, Steve Kay, who works for the City of Grande Prairie. I’ve always had great respect for engineers and the profession of engineering. They are probably the most trusted profession in the world, and no day goes by without us – knowingly or unknowingly – experiencing the trust we have put in an engineer. Every building you enter, every bridge you cross, every road you drive on has been designed and approved of by an engineer.

In my workshop we talked about the importance of strong character in your work as a leader. Just as engineers must ensure their designs satisfy given design criteria predicated on safety, so, too, must we all have a degree of structural integrity of self-respect and credibility to hold up to the demands that are placed upon us. In the context of structural integrity in our personal lives, I asked Steve what he had to say about strong character and personal integrity. Here’s what he had to say:

“I consider your ‘character’ as how you truly are. Character will impact how much you accomplish in your life. Character determines whether or not you are worth knowing. Character will make, or break, every one of our relationships. Character is the will to do what is right, regardless of personal cost. It’s about doing what you say you’re going to do, when you say you’re going to do it….I feel obligated to the premise of public safety as the underlying decision making tool… That implies that I can’t take a break from it….I keep on track by looking at a sign I made up and hang in my office to remind me: NO COMPLAINING!”

Authentic Leadership: The World Needs A Skeptic, Not A Cynic

/in /by

What’s the difference between a skeptic and a cynic? Here’s my take: A skeptic (according to Encarta® World English Dictionary) is “somebody who questions the validity or truth of things that most people accept.” Skeptics challenge the status quo. Skeptics are necessary for the growth and development of an organization, a culture, and a community. Perhaps the growth of life itself depends on the spirit of a good skeptic. While skeptics appear negative, they have a motive to build. They have goodwill, and are solution-based. Their intent is to serve, to contribute, to make better and stronger by telling the truth. Some are called agitators. We need agitators – as long as its done with the greater good in mind.

Cynics are quite different. While cynics also challenge the status quo, their motive is self-interest. They are not in the game for the greater good. Unlike skeptics, cynics have no cause, and without a cause you are a poacher.

In my discussion with groups of leaders about the difference between skeptics and cynics, the role of complaint inevitably surfaces. Is complaining skepticism or cynicism? It depends on your motive. To complain is  to express dissatisfaction, pain, uneasiness, censure, resentment, or grief. While complaining inevitably, at least initially, comes across as negative, if your motive is to serve and build, complaining can be useful. Be careful that you don’t judge and silence complainers in haste. Sometimes they are your best teachers and your greatest allies. Listening to and learning from those raising complaints about what is not working can bring about positive change.  Judging complainers outright labels the leaders – the change makers – within your organization who have spoken up, to become silent lest they be labeled as such. Complaints can promote change. Complaints can be productive  when they are heard and acknowledged and when the complaint is coming from a self-responsible mindset.

What’s your take on the difference between a skeptic and a cynic?