#10 … Top Posts from 2015 — Strategic Foresight

January 21, 2016March 3, 2016 / Justin Irving / 1 Comment

In-the-middle-of-nowhere_Brian-Koprowski

Photo Credit: In the middle of nowhere, by Brian Koprowski, Flickr

In a previous post I shared some observations on my top blogs posts from 2015. In the coming weeks I will be taking time both to share new content and to share some of the top viewed posts from the past year.

The #10 post from 2015 was …

Strategic Foresight:
The Past, Present, and Future Focus of Leadership

This was one of two posts on strategy that made the top ten in 2015. In the article, I argue that in light of the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world we live in, it is a mandate for leaders to learn from the past and present and look to the future with strategic foresight.

Strategic Foresight

Clarity and foresight are essential leadership characteristics. Organizations and teams need leaders who can see clearly in the midst of confusing organizational and environmental realities.

THE VUCA WORLD

We are increasingly experiencing what some refer to as a “VUCA” world of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. More than ever, we need leaders with vision, clarity, and foresight.

What do leaders need to do in light of such a world?

Read more about the need for leaders to engage with strategic foresight in Purpose in Leadership’s #10 post from 2015. Here’s the link to continue reading…

Strategic Foresight:
The Past, Present, and Future Focus of Leadership

BUSY = The Enemy of Strategic Leadership

September 21, 2015November 30, 2016 / Justin Irving / 7 Comments

Strategy, Stefan Erschwendner, Flickr

Leaders vs. Managers

The work of managers and leaders is different (See my previous post on key distinctions of leadership and management here). In larger organizations, some roles have the luxury of focusing on one or the other. Increasingly, organizations are looking to individuals to fulfill both roles within the same position.

Individuals are being ask to consider both giving direction (a leadership function) to their team and organizational unit and also guiding processes with efficiency of execution (a managerial function). Drawing on John Kotter and others, here are some key difference between leadership and management.

Leadership is about Doing the Right Thing by:

Direction Setting
Aligning
Motivating

Management is about Doing Things Right by:

Planning and Budgeting
Organizing and Staffing
Controlling and Problem-Solving

Vision, Strategy, & Goals

Both “Doing the Right Thing” (leadership effectiveness) and “Doing Things Right” (managerial efficiency) are vital in organizations. While both of these activities require time and attention, and busyness can be the enemy of both healthy leadership and management, perpetual busyness is especially the enemy of the leadership function of direction setting.

Time is required for setting direction as a strategic leader. It requires time to think. It requires time to reflect.

Healthy organizational vision, organizational strategy, and organizational goals come best to those who pull back from busyness for intentional time to think and reflect.

Identifying the Right Strategy

The issue is not whether or not your organization has a strategy. The issue is whether or not you have the right strategy. Leaders must continually be asking whether or not they are focused on the right things for their organization.

While strategic questions may be asked in seasons of busyness, thoughtful answers to these questions often only come when enough mental bandwidth is freed up in the life of leaders. Strategic insights come most often when there is intentional space to think and reflect.

Hard Work vs. Busy Work

Certainly hard work is core to successful organizations. Organizations thrive when talented members pull together with conscientious, attentive, and coordinated work.

But hard work and busy work are not the same thing. Busy work is not necessarily the hard work that your organization needs. As I share in another post, make sure that you Don’t Confuse Motion with Progress (see related post here). It is possible to be busy and not be effective.

The Work of Leaders = Time for Thought and Reflection

So what is the Hard Work to which leaders must devote their time?

One answer to this is to engage in the work of thought and reflection. This seems simple, but actually there are many factors that often work against this strategic priority for leader time management. Demanding schedules, organizational fires that need to be addressed, requests for time and attention, and just general busyness can work against this “simple” leadership agenda. In response to such demands, it is all too easy for leaders choose busy work over hard work.

Over time, in the face of such realities organizations often create a work climate that validates busy. This validation is rooted in the belief that busy = hard work, and that hard work = organizational performance. While it sometimes works this way, often we are making assumptions that are not accurate.

Sometimes working smarter rather than just working harder requires a different pace—a pace that provides space for the leadership work of thought and reflection. So how are you making time for this vital work of strategic leadership?

Making Time for the Work of Strategic Leadership

Leaders must make time for the work of strategic leadership. This is especially important because the cultures of our organizations are often working against finding this time. It doesn’t just happen—leaders must make time for this vital work.

Some of the most effective public leaders have made time for this work. Warren Buffett is known for insisting on time to just sit and think almost every day. Bill Gates was known for taking a full week off twice a year in order to think and reflect about the strategic needs of Microsoft.

7 Questions for Leaders Engaging the Work of Strategic Leadership

Are we staying focused on what matters most?
What is changing around us that requires a strategic course correction?
What are we doing that needs to be ended or scaled back?
What are we doing that needs to be continued or scaled up?
What are we doing that needs to be improved or strengthened?
What is missing? What are we not doing that needs to be introduced?
What’s next? What is our next top priority for strategic focus?

Taking Time for the Work of Strategic Leadership

The work of strategic leadership is vital for organizational health and effectiveness. Are you too busy for strategic leadership, or are you making time and setting busyness aside for this essential leadership work?

Find some time in the next month to step back from the busy pace of leadership so that you may engage these 7 questions in the work of strategic leadership.

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For additional reading on strategy and leadership see Strategic Foresight: The Past, Present, and Future Focus of Leadership

Macro Change through Micro Improvements

August 14, 2014January 3, 2016 / Justin Irving / Leave a comment

Photo Credit: Sunny Pebbles, by Laura Thorne, Flickr

I read an interesting article in The Economist recently. It is entitled Little Things that Mean A Lot, and the author argues that businesses should aim for lots of small wins that add up to something big.

New Routes to Organizational Success

The article focused primarily on the role of analyzing large pools of data in order to identify opportunities for incremental improvement. One illustration came from UPS. In America, there are some 60,000 UPS vans that drive 100 plus miles each day. If through data analysis UPS can find ways to reduce driving by 1 mile per day for each van, it is estimated that the company would save close to $50 million in fuel and related costs each year.

Although most of us are not looking for $50 million in small wins for our organizations, the new market realities in our world are calling for most organizations (for profit and nonprofit alike) to look for both big and small opportunities. Most of the “big wins” have already been identified since the beginning of the Great Recession. It is now time for organizations to up their game in finding the “small wins.”

Building a Mountain with Pebbles

One of the quotes in the article expresses the need in this manner: “It is about building a mountain with pebbles.” While most of us would simply prefer to find the mountain, the new realities of our world often translate to using a both-and approach to organizational improvements. We need to have an explorer mindset, looking for new mountains of opportunity. We also need to have the mindset of the statistician, looking for macro opportunities within the micro dimensions of business and organizational life.

Explorers and Statisticians

How are you pursuing big-wins through small opportunities? How are you maintaining the entrepreneurial mindset of the explorer, while also seeing the details as the researcher or statistician would? This requires us to partner well with others on this journey. This requires us to build our teams with a diversity of expertise so that we can pursue growth and opportunity on both fronts.

Enjoy the journey, and keep your eyes open for macro change through micro improvements.

6 Characteristics of Organizations with Vision

August 13, 2014January 3, 2016 / Justin Irving / 4 Comments

Photo Credit: mind_scratch, Ultima visión, Flickr

In a previous post, I highlighted the importance of Leading from the Front with Vision. Focusing on why vision matters, Burt Nanus provides a list of characteristics of organizations with and without vision. Here is a summary of these characteristics:

*Organizations with Vision*	*Organizations without Vision*
Opportunity-Driven Focused on Change Progressing toward Goals Oriented Strategically Focused on Long-Term Results Proactive	Problem-Driven Focused on Stability Focused on Past Performance Oriented Tactically Focused on Short-Term Results Reactive

An orientation toward change, pursuing opportunities, working toward goals, focusing strategically, paying attention to long-term interests, and being proactive tend to go along with visionary focus.

Based on these characteristics, are you embedded in an organization with or without vision? If you are leader, are you guiding your organization with vision?

8 Core Leadership Abilities

August 5, 2014January 3, 2016 / Justin Irving / Leave a comment

Photo Credit: Follow the Leader, by Vinoth Chandar, Flickr

In a recent issue of Harvard Business Review, Claudio Fernández-Aráoz identifies 8 abilities that the best leaders possess. Here is the list, along with a brief description and summary of each item on the list.

Strategic Orientation: “The capacity to engage in broad, complex analytical and conceptual thinking.” The new realities surrounding organizations demand that leaders have a capacity to engage in strategic thinking in the face of complexity. Are you thinking about your organizational realities through a strategic lens?
Market Insight: “A strong understanding of the market and how it affects the business.” Along with increased complexity, the world is more connected to our organizations than ever before. Are you paying attention to the environment surrounding your organization and how this environment will shape the way your organization goes about its work?
Results Orientation: “A commitment to demonstrably improving key business metrics.” Increases in complexity and connectivity in our world translate into increased competition. This increased competition necessitates that leaders pay attention to performance for the things that matter to your community. Are you measuring what matters most to your organization?
Customer Impact: “A passion for serving the customer.” In-grown organizations will struggle to thrive in the changing economy. Who do you serve as an organization? Do you have a passion for providing the best possible service for these individuals and communities?
Collaboration and Influence: “An ability to work effectively with peers or partners, including those not in the line of command.” Leadership in today’s organizations is not simply about individuals getting individual work accomplished. Complex problems require complex solutions that are often worked out in collaboration. Do you possess a collaborative orientation?
Organizational Development: “A drive to improve the company by attracting and developing top talent.” Finding, recruiting, and retaining top talent is a substantial need in the coming years. Factors such as globalization and demographic shifts are making this need more pronounced. How are you leading your organization in a path of intentional leadership development?
Team Leadership: “Success in focusing, aligning, and building effective groups.” As noted above related to collaboration, it is no longer about individuals accomplishing individual outcomes. Organizations today require effective groups or teams working together to accomplish increasingly complex outcomes. Are you developing your capacity as a team player?
Change Leadership: “The capacity to transform and align an organization around a new goal.” Our changing world translates into dynamic and changing organizations. How are you developing your change leadership capacity? As a community this will be essential as you lean into these organizational and environment transitions?

As the world around us changes, a capacity to adapt to new environments is critical. As you consider these 8 Core Leadership Abilities, what are your strengths? What are your growth edges? Are you committed both to developing yourself and those around you to meet the demands of leadership today?

Leadership & Management

July 29, 2014January 3, 2016 / Justin Irving / 2 Comments

Photo Credit: 3D Team Leadership Arrow Concept, Scott Maxwell, Flickr

The conversation surrounding leadership and management is an important one. While management was a major emphasis in the 20^th century, focusing on stability and control, leadership has come to the forefront later in the 20^th century and into our current time. In contrast to stability and control, leadership emphasizes valuing change, valuing people, empowerment of people, and the central place of relationships in organizational life.

Leadership and Management Described

John Kotter provides a helpful overview of the distinction between leadership and management. Management’s orientation around stability and control is characterized by dimensions such as (a) planning and budgeting, (b) organizing and staffing, and (c) controlling and problem-solving. leadership’s orientation around people, empowerment, and relationships is characterized by (a) direction-setting, (b) aligning, and (c) motivating.

Processes vs. People

While management focuses on stability and efficiency of processes, leadership focuses on navigating people and systems toward change and insuring that the team or organization is focused on the right things. The language of processes and people is also helpful. Management tends to be more process and object focused; leadership tends to be more people and human resource focused.

Efficiency vs. Effectiveness

The temptation is to raise one of these as more important than the other. Organizations and followers need both stability (management) and change (leadership). Organizations and followers need both efficiency (management) and effectiveness (leadership). In contrasting the two, I think my natural tendency is to focus on the big picture and whether or not we are making progress toward the right goals for our community. Because of this, I need to regularly and intentionally ensure that the managerial side of my departments is not being lost in the leadership emphasis.

Pursuing Both in Your Practice

Whether we tend toward leadership or management, we need to remember that our organizations need both. Make sure that you know your tendency so that you may give attention to balancing this out in your own practice and through the diverse people brought onto your team.