Much has been said and written about the Big Society – some of it sceptical, some seeing the positive benefits, but most adopting a “when we see it we will take it seriously” approach. It is alive and well and living amongst us! The big society can be seen in many neighbourhoods up and down the country where citizens provide support to each other.

Demos have just launched a national report “Civic Streets – the Big Society in Action”. It looks at what the ‘Big Society’ means for struggling communities in need of regeneration and learns lessons from places and communities that have come together and have trail-blazed this approach. It chooses two neighbourhoods in Birmingham – Castle Vale and Balsall Heath – places we in Caret know very well and work closely with.

As a leadership consultancy we are interested in types of leaders that help create not just any old transformation, but transformation that is long term, generous, and inclusive.

It is clear there are four key leadership building blocks:

• A leader with a clear sense of purpose – community change is generally long term  -successful leaders need to have the drive and determination that enables them to stick at their vision despite the barriers they face.
• A facilitative leader – someone who engages others, encourages broad participation in their street, block or wider neighbourhood. Generally these leaders are able to put the good of the community to the forefront and leave their egos and status behind.
• A collaborative leader who forges effective partnerships, with Police, the local authority, housing providers, health, community groups etc.
• An innovative leader who can help find new and more effective ways of understanding and addressing the community’s needs

The jury is out on whether the Big Society will work, or whether its success remains limited to a few exceptional neighbourhoods. But the potential of a Big Society approach - to reduce the number of people with mental health problems, address health inequalities, raise access for isolated people to key services and support, generate new community focused employment and to enable public services to raise their impact - is very high. What is more Balsall Heath and Castle Vale are thriving, supportive and energetic places to live.

If the Big Society is to succeed it will require big hearted, determined and generous leaders – can volunteers for the role raise their hands?

‘Gung ho’ managers in times of crisis say “failure is not an option”. 

Sadly, failure is more likely than success. It is an option and some organisations have it built into their DNA. Esteemed author Ron Heifitz argues we need to adapt. Our context, morale, resources, opportunities, risks are all changing – so must we.

“..mobilising people to tackle tough challenges is what defines the new job of a leader”

Adaptive leaders know the need to listen more, communicate more and invest heavily in earning trust and credibility.  They know that they need to facilitate some real brain-stretching thinking and generous listening if they are to shape the future. 

Equally, they need to be more visible, accessible and focused during change. They need sensitive performance management that paces change and recognises that some resistance is inevitable but prolonged resistance is destructive. As change moves forward they need their ‘failure radar’ at full alert: It can happen, it is likely to happen. Let me reduce the chances of it hitting us.

Good leaders face failure full on, they do not hide from it, but adapt their style to deal with it.

The biggest threat to local government in the coming months is not around finding cuts, efficiencies and new ways of working. It is around implementing those changes.

A few years ago Harvard Business Review featured an article by Michael Watkins, based on a book he co-authored with Max H. Bazerman on Predictable Surprises: The Disasters You Should Have Seen Coming. It is imperative that we look at the ‘predictable surprises’ facing local government. Watkins points to many examples where disasters, mistakes and problems could have been avoided.

He cites three key areas for leaders to monitor:

Did you recognise the threat?

• Can your middle managers implement the changes you want?
• How will staff react to redundancies or change?
• Will all the politicians support the hard decisions?
• Have we got the skills and new ways of thinking to deliver Total Place?

We did some scenario planning around community cohesion with the leaders in one council. We asked: What happens if there is an India-Pakistan war (possibly nuclear)? Worried looks on everyone’s face, “Goodness, that would have a devastating impact and we have not thought about it at all.” It’s a good example of a predictable surprise!

Did the leader prioritise appropriately?

Every local government leader is under tremendous time pressure. Leaders will be judged by their ability to balance the strategic and the operational – and their capacity to initiate new ways of working.

• Is sufficient thought and time given to reducing the likelihood and impact of disaster?
• How did the leader react?
• Disasters do happen – are you ready?
• Are you confident you can engage people to respond quickly and effectively?
• Has your organisation got the capacity to stop a disaster from becoming a catastrophe?

Watkins rightly delivers this sombre message:

“If a damaging event happens that was foreseeable and preventable, no excuses should be brooked. The leader’s feet need to be held to the fire.”

How do you avoid the smell of burning toes? A few items from our leadership ‘checklist’ might help:

• Is there a danger of your being over-reliant on intuition? How do you ensure predictable surprises are rigorously reviewed?
• Is there a danger that you ignore the power of short term pain when you focus on long term gain? Psychological research shows immediate, certain negative consequences are a key driver of behaviour. In other words, short term pain mobilises people into action – whatever the longer term benefits may be.
• Does your organisation listen well? Will concerns, key pieces of information and fresh ideas reach the leadership team? If you are seen as a leader who goes his/her own way, or discourages bad news, you may be the last to know when a disaster looms.
• How effective is your risk management? Is it a mechanistic tick box exercise or will you be able to spot that Manager A is likely to handle change badly, or Department B is going to resist even the smallest change? Where might unexpected cost issues come from?
• How aligned are your leaders?  Silo working, too narrow a focus on targets and territorial behaviours can all stop ‘upstream thinking’, innovation and more effective working. Whose behav-iour can limit your capacity to succeed? Who is your predictable surprise?

In times of turbulent change, leaders will be judged more harshly and more quickly than in ‘normal times’.
Keeping a delicate eye on the predictable surprises is an important tactic to both survive and thrive in demanding times.

To download a pdf version of this article click here

Implementation is so difficult for many organisations that we have dubbed this the Bermuda Triangle.  Indeed, recent research shows that only 10% of carefully formulated strategies achieve their full promise. Sounds like plenty of room for success through low-hanging fruit then.  That does not necessarily mean it is easy but performance in this area could certainly be improved given how tight finances and other resources are going to be for the foreseeable future.

“What’s going on?” “Can we make this work?” “What do you think?” Three normal questions. Do we get honest answers? Jim Collins in Good to Great talks about facing the brutal facts; history tells us of lots of situations where groups working together failed to face the brutal facts - whether it be Hitler in the Führer bunker or airlines where the crew did not challenge each other with fatal consequences. The ability to gather all the information needed; to encourage the introverts to share, the nervous to be bolder and the reluctant to take some risks is a key leadership skill. Given the long term impact of many of the decisions we are making at the moment, leaders need the ability to ensure people are engaging in conversation, thinking things through robustly and challenging “group think”.

It is worth reflecting - next time you ask “can we make this work?” how do you get your colleagues fully engaged? How might you challenge them to raise their game in the next round of decision making?

Making the right decision can be a tricky balance. Speed may be of the essence in these challenging times, but judgement can be severely impaired by haste – in the words of author and mountaineer Jim Collins, “Those who panic die on the mountain.”

So, strike whilst the iron is too hot and you may end up burning your fingers! On the other hand, a protracted delay can be equally damaging. Aside from the risk of missing the boat altogether, a key negative factor in the decision making paradox is too much information.

In a recent presentation, Malcolm Gladwell – celebrated author and story teller extraordinaire – described the work of psychologist Stuart Oskamp, an expert in the field of attitudes research.

Oskamp studied the attitudes of a panel of clinical psychologists and psychology students in their assessment of a 29-year-old subject, Joseph Kidd. Participants were given a brief extract of Kidd’s case study and then asked to complete a questionnaire and estimate the accuracy of their responses. They were then given a second extract and asked to repeat the questionnaire and again estimate their success. This was followed by a third and fourth extract, building a series of actual scores and accuracy estimates. The results were quite illuminating. Despite the accuracy of their answers increasing by only 2% after 3 additional extracts, the panel’s assessment of their judgement had grown by a further 20% - a disturbing level of over-confidence!

With the weight of a fragile economy pressing down on organisations, it is tempting for some decision makers to be seen to act quickly - often at the expense of careful reflection and logical thought. Conversely, as our work with senior leaders often reveals, there is often a level of over-caution that stifles opportunities. Fortunately, poor judgement is a leadership sickness that can be remedied with effective coaching support and intentional strategic reflection.

As Oskamp’s research demonstrates, sometimes it is unwise to agonise. Make your decision and organise!

One of the truths at the heart of popular business guru Jim Collins’ research is that it is disciplined people, disciplined thought and disciplined action that helps an organisation move from Good to Great. This is strongly reinforced by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers - which claims to uncover the secrets behind people’s success.

One of the key facts he comments on is the 10,000 hours rule  - based on German research on high quality musicians. They demonstrated with violinists that those who practised for eight thousand hours by the time they were 20 were good - those that practised for 10,000  hours were world class. This research was followed up with pianists yielding the same results. Later research reinforced the 10,000 hours rule with chess players, ice skaters, fiction writers, composers etc. Gladwell shows The Beatles got to be world class through 10,000 hours of live playing and practice together. Bill Gates did an incredible 10,000 hours of computer programming  by the time he dropped put of Harvard and set up his own software company. Clearly, talent and personality link in here - to give the drive to do all that practising. But the essential point from Gladwell’s research is that great performance is not an accident - people have worked at it.

Gladwell also looks at a list of the 75 richest people in world history - 14 are American men born between 1832 and 1839. This was an incredible time of opportunity and growth and these men used their vision and talent to great advantage.  Another group emerged in the 1950’s - well positioned to lead the IT revolution. So we have people with well honed skills and abilities who are able to take best advantage of the opportunities that come their way. Gladwell goes on to talk about matching these “advantages” with the ability to work with others

“No one - not rock stars, not professional athletes, nor software billionaires and not even geniuses - ever makes it  alone”

So how does this link to leadership and the challenges of facing change in the 21st century? To a degree Gladwell’s first book The Tipping Point gives some interesting pointers here. When does a change or trend become contagious? We have the recent case of British Airways trying to get staff to accept no wages for a month - will that remain an isolated incident or will every firm be doing it?  What habits will change over the coming years - will crime increase? Will everyone stop taking foreign holidays? Leaders need to watch for the signs - to observe when a trend suddenly becomes the accepted norm. 

That then leads to the question, does Gladwell give any clues on leading change in challenging times? He points us to look at those who have had their 10,000 hours of practice in leading change - those who have been successful either in leading extensive transformations in recent years, but also those who have mastered the process of handling change in past times of crisis and turmoil. Those who lead now - people born in the 1960’s and 1970’s - may be about to start a long period of honing their skills during times of change, innovation, more effective working. Their ability to emerge from this period as world class deliverers of change will depend on how much practice they get in shaping the future, how they find and utilise the talent and change experience around them and bringing people with them.

Away days are often seen as an unwelcome interruption to normal day to day running of the organisation, like an unwanted present or visitor. So the preparation, if any, is typically rushed or sparse. Many managers do not clear the everyday operational clutter in their minds to make space for focussed thoughts on the agenda or issues for the day.

Yet the preparation for away days is critical. The thinking time and shifting of mind sets away from the normal day to day operational realities enables participants to contribute and be engaged with the topic of the event. The world back at the office can operate without you - it does when you are on holiday - but on those occasions we tend to plan more and put things in place.

Away days are also opportunities to build on existing or new relationships as well as tap into each others’ expertise, experience and knowledge. Interestingly more and more people who join an organisation attend away days even before or soon after they start work. First impressions can be lasting impressions in these instances; someone new to an organisation needs to prepare well with disciplined thoughts and disciplined action in creating a positive credible impression. This may augur well for long term collaborative working and quicker access to resources.

In fact the G20 meeting is an away day for the Presidents and Prime Ministers of the world. We can see all participants have issues back at home, but despite this they have a common purpose and their preparation has been thorough in looking to:

• Stabilise the Global Economy
• Introduce a more rigorous controls on the financial sector
• Put the economy back on track for sustainable growth

All of these have a huge impact on what is going to happen in the future. The French and Germans seem to favour more rigorous regulation and have even before the away day made their feelings clear by trying to influence the event. They could not have done this without some disciplined thought beforehand. Obama is new to the team so he will be using some of his time to make a credible impression for building and maintaining new relationships with other nations.

Are these the right things for the G20 to focus on or will they disappear into the Bermuda Triangle like some other G20 issues like the eradication of poverty!?

Team away-days (it seems to me) can be real fun and as an objective this can be valuable in its own right.  In many cases however, managers and their teams go into these experiences needing and expecting far more than a brief detour from the harsh realities of day-to-day business.  The aim is sometimes stated as, “…creating a more resourceful and collaborative team environment that is not restricted to ‘away-days’ only”.  Somehow, something is lost in translation.  

In respect of this problem, I find Jim Collins’ idea about discipline really helpful.  He talks about organisations needing: Disciplined Thought; Disciplined People; and Disciplined Action.  Otherwise, great promises and plans degenerate into something of a Bermuda Triangle where ideas disappear without trace.  Of course, measurement is crucial in terms of making and keeping things happen.  That is, if we measure the right things and not too many things!!  

What are your observations and experience?

I just want to point you in the direction of a strong article written by the Dan Oestreich, an American writer, on how to handle redundancies in a way that is consistent with how your business would also handle growth:

There is no beautiful way to do reductions and layoffs. But pain can be reduced significantly if the process is guided by values greater than the dollars that must be saved. I am not suggesting that the need to cut costs should be avoided; I’m saying the “what” and the “how” should be guided by how the enterprise has already defined itself. Either the values it says it lives by are important or they are not. One thing that I am certain about, given my line of work, is that most of us contain a highly sensitive wire about others’ hypocrisy. As a consequence, we keep looking for advice about how reductions can be conducted without setting off the wire.

It’s a long and thoughtful piece and you can find the rest here.  Image from Pulpolux !!! on flickr.