What can one learn about leadership from an angry mother cow?
0 Comments - Posted By Rob Millard In "Off the Wall" Insights , Leadership , - Permalink -
What can one learn about leadership from an angry mother-cow? Before you dismiss the notion as too "off the wall" even for Millard, ye who be serious-minded folk, consider the author: Dee Hock is founder and former CEO of Visa USA and Visa International, now a $1.25 trillion enterprise owned by 21,000 financial institutions. So if he told me that there were lessons to be learned from angry mother inchworms, I'd still listen.
His article is titled The Art of Chaordic Leadership and it was published in Leader to Leader seven years ago. It's a darn good read. "Chaordic" is a term that Hock invented to describe forms of organization that are neither rigidly controlled nor anarchic; a hybrid form of consensus decision-making. If you don't have the time to read the whole article, at least click below and scan through his bullet points on chaordic leadership.
Closed Door Policies .....
0 Comments - Posted By Rob Millard In Strategic People Issues , , , - Permalink -
Imagine giving a group of bright, talented twenty-something professionals in your firm the following test:
Question 1: Which statement most accurately represents you:
A. I am determined to grow my capabilities and skills as a professional and value mentoring and nurturing from senior members of my firm very highly.
B. I aim to grow as a professional and can tolerate an environment where I have to do so on my own, but if an opportunity for a more professionally nurturing environment presents itself, I’ll take it.
C. I am quite happy not to receive mentoring or nurturing input from experienced, senior professionals in my firm
Leaders are Defined by their Followers
0 Comments - Posted By Rob Millard In Leadership , - Permalink -
To judge the calibre of a leader, look at the behaviour of his or her followers. History is replete with even democratically elected leaders who had the "title", but were nothing of the sort. This is as true in professional service firms, where the dice are heavily loaded against leaders in the first place, as anywhere else. David Maister blogged about this recently, seizing several nettles that people often tiptoe around. The "fatal flaw," he says, is whether professionals even "want" to be led at all. He avers that few do, and many actively resist it:
"We want to be helped, we'll agree to be coached and (with careful definition of the term) we might consent to be managed. But we'll rarely agree to be led."
Ironically, I think this "fatal flaw" gets very close to defining what a leader might be (in a professional service firm or, I'd suggest, anywhere else in the known universe.) It also gives good guidance for measuring leadership effectiveness, in professional service firms and elsewhere.
Continue ReadingBlindspot Analysis - Uncovering Strategic Bias
0 Comments - Posted By Rob Millard In Competitive Intelligence , Tools for Strategists , , - Permalink -
Blindspot analysis uncovers flaws in the process of strategic decision making that are caused by bias and misinterpretation. Most strategy models rely on rational and objective behaviour and ignore the mental filters through which individuals process information. This often results in the decisions made being flawed, perhaps fatally, without the firm even knowing it.
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