In our exploration of Leading in Uncharted Territory, Rule #3 is Identify your top people as they are the ones who will help you navigate the transition. The research tells us that Level 5 Leaders are the most effective at leading transformation. If you have people in your organization who fit this criteria, you may want to include them in your transformation decisions. Their involvement in decision processes will depend on their level in the organization and business expertise. With funds for development becoming more scarce, understanding the critical investments becomes more important. Additionally, knowing where you have skills and behavior gaps will be critical to taking advantage of key opportunities that emerge. What criteria do I use to determine "best"?
* Identify the key behaviors I want my leaders to have that will allow them to excel in uncertain times (how I act while getting results)? This would include characteristics like: flexibility, ability to identify opportunities and respond with proactive approaches, results focus, ability to inspire confidence and calm. These sound like the same qualities I would always want and they are and some standard qualities become more important during uncertainty - specifically the ability to inspire confidence and calm.
* Identify skills and results my organization needs (what results I generate). The new skills should be connected to the plan referenced in Rule #2. I think about skills and results as different than key behaviors. This is do I have the technical or management skills to accomplish the work to meet our customer needs. Do we see opportunities for the organization that we can take advantage of IF we build specific skills?
* Identify the glue that allows us to move forward and maintain a balance between honoring the legacy and building for the future. We may need to reevaluate a promote from within policy if we want to make a strategic hire to promote a new service line. This can be an unpopular decision if key individuals are expecting promotion and may also important to building our brand and position in the market.
Once I know the key criteria, how will I measure people?
* I use assessment tools to provide objective feedback on behaviors such as 360 degree feedback or competency based behavioral assessment. Do you use similar tools?
* I tend to build performance evaluation processes the link individual performance to business results where possible. Do you have an evaluation process in place now that measures business results by person? If not, how do you measure results and give feedback?
* I build performance management systems that balance both behavior and results. How do you weight results against behavioral performance? How do you weight them? Do people who get results get to behave how ever they choose? What is the impact on others in the organization? Do you want to use this time of change to change how people are evaluated and how they behave?
What action do I take with the information I have gathered?
* One you verify your top people going forward, what do you do to keep your "top dogs" inspired? How do you include your key people (even if they are junior in the organization) in activities that will support your success? Do you budget and monitor investment in developing your key people? How do you identify the highest impact opportunities for their development? Do you track the impact of your investment in development - things like retention and promotion rates?
* Do I have anyone who is not meeting performance standards? If so, what action do I take? During good times it is easier to shine - during tough times mediocrity becomes more obvious. Cleaning house also becomes more important - many top dogs do not want to cover for others and see the whole organization impacted. Confronting poor performers takes courage and is critical to success during downturn.
Sample Story of CIO and his IT Organization
I worked with a client to identify their key people during a significant organization transformation project. I met with the leadership team to identify the people they needed to retain to succeed in their transformation. After we know who these people were - at multiple levels within the organization, part of my job was to stay connected with these people and check their satisfaction periodically. I understood who felt they needed to be promoted, who was looking for alternate work, and who was excited about their jobs. This allowed the business to balance individual satisfaction and growth with transformation success. While we had one key surprise, we had planned and developed back ups for each role and structured the project as much as possible to help key people meet their development goals.
One thing that I did not mention is by identifying our key players, we also knew which individuals were not key players and could take corrective action. If we had to make tough decisions about who got a key role, we wanted to make the best decision for the long term health of the organization.
One of the most interesting elements of this project was the group of business unit leaders developing a common set of expectations about their staff and also deciding who they wanted to invest in. It was important to move beyond the "territorial" behavior that each leader wanted their people to be ranked highest and toward a shared set of resources that would be developed. This happened when the top executive decided to rotate people across the group after each leader "fought for their people". It was an interesting learning experience for several leaders to help move from taking care of "my guys" to taking care of "our people" after their guys got moved to another group.
- Maureen Metcalf of Metcalf Associates, Inc
Photo credit: Top Dog by Krossbow
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