Trust

“Trust Me – I’m your Leader”

© Andrew Porter 2010 – All rights reserved

AMP Business Development Ltd

Building resilient organisations with a sense of purpose

The two fundamental challenges a leader faces when developing a resilient and sustainable organisation are that of building trust and addressing tensions. A leader needs to adopt a way of working that concurrently:

demonstrates authentic and effective leadership identifies and shares the common purpose of the team coaches and mentors at both an individual and team level identifies and resolves tensions at an interpersonal, operational and

organisational level

Trust

“… firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or something”. – Oxford Dictionary From the point of view of the incoming leader there are huge issues around who and what to trust. Do you challenge everything and anything from day one? which data is reliable -‐ are there omissions or misrepresentation, deliberate or otherwise? What level of due diligence is required or do you accept information at face value? Who in your team can you rely on? What alliances and relationships are at play? Who is coming to terms with not getting the very job to which you have been appointed? What is the history of honest and open discussion and debate? What are the cultural norms both within and outside of the organisation? We have all heard about the people who say yes and do no – the ambitious political players. But how to recognise them from the genuine and committed team members who may well be more openly challenging, yet have the best interests of the organisation at heart. From the point of view of individuals within the organisation, can you be trusted at all. Why are you here, who is at risk, what is your own agenda? Are you here to build a career and move on, deliver short-‐term results without consideration of the longer-‐term goals? What is your personal style and how best to work with you? Trusting and being trustworthy are behaviours driven by the beliefs that we hold, which in turn are shaped by the previous experiences we have had.




Tension “a relationship between ideas or qualities with conflicting demands or implications” – Oxford Dictionary Explicit or implicit, there will be tensions prevalent throughout the individuals, teams and organisation. There will be tension between organisational and individual values, between individuals and teams competing for power and scarce resources. Tension between priorities for actions on a day-‐to-‐day basis – too much to do, to little time to do it. Building Resilience Transcending these inherent issues around trust and resolving tensions starts with the clear and unambiguous definition of purpose. This provides the defining point of reference and a “clear line of sight” for each of the component teams and individuals within the organisation. Sharing a common purpose allows dialogue to move beyond the individual egos and provide a framework for supportive challenge. Secondly, there is a requirement for a well-‐defined and structured means to surface and resolve the inherent tensions. This, plus the ability to respond and react in real time (dynamic steering), creates the framework to build and sustain organisational resilience. Alignment with Purpose We live in rapidly changing times and may need to recognise that setting long-‐term strategic goals at this time may not be productive– there are too many unknowns. However, setting strategic direction that accurately reflects the organisational purpose is absolutely vital to the survival and sustainability of any organisation. There is an absolute need for this defined, congruent and pervasive Purpose. It plays out at an organisational level, defining the very reason why the organisation exists in the first place -‐ what is it actually for, what purpose does it serve? It plays out at team and individual levels in a way that allows and encourages engagement and individuality within a clearly defined governance framework. Identifying the fundamental purpose for any team or organisation subsequently allows implicit organisational and individual tensions to surface and to be resolved.




Development of Organisational Architecture In this current environment we seem to have fallen into the usual trap of moving deckchairs. There is a focus quite rightly on efficiency -‐ doing more with less and utilising many of the principles of ‘Lean’ (pulling through the system rather than pushing).

One of the issues working with ‘Lean’ in an organisational context is the level of ambiguity, complexity and conflicting priorities that occur. We also need to allow the ‘humanity’ of organisations to flourish and this in itself creates an inherent tension between process and people. Ideally, we need an operating framework that allows the best of all worlds to emerge.

The danger is that we utilise scarce resources to force yet another ‘initiative’ into place. Unless we address the fundamental operating system of the business, this makes as much sense as trying to run a desktop publishing programme on DOS. We need to upgrade to Windows – at a very minimum. We cannot continue to run businesses using outmoded and outdated frameworks that do not meet the changing needs of society and employees. ‘Trust me I’m your leader’ somehow doesn’t ring quite as true as it used to -‐ we seem to have lost our way and need to re-‐energise and renew. We need a framework that transcends the focus on process and/or people with a focus on purpose.

Practices are emerging that allow this focus on purpose, whilst combine it with the ability for individuals to flourish and a rigour of process that ensure adequate governance and mitigation of risk. They ensure that individuals within the team have the following:

permission to express opinions -‐ a safe environment an effective governance framework that allows and encourages dissent whilst

retaining respect and focus feedback -‐ immediate and inspirational feedback that is depersonalised and

constructive motivation – the support and awareness that they too and listened to and can

make a difference

Development of Protective Processes Assuming that we have an overarching sense of purpose that flows throughout the organisation, plus an organisational architecture that allows empowerment and rapid decision-‐making, we need to consider how this drives sustainability. Many of the definitions of resilience refer to the development of ‘protective processes’ – the development of the organisation’s own immune system that allows the maintenance of homeostasis (steady state). These processes allow a response to an immediate situation followed by organisational learning and the embedding of this learning for future reference. So Organisational Resilience can be defined as:




“Organisational Resilience is a function of the protective processes that are in place to respond to external inputs from the environment in a way that is learned (past), reactive (present) and that promotes learning (future) in order to flex and strengthen the protective “muscle” and ensure the sustainability of the organisation.”

These same processes are required throughout at an individual, team or organisational level. They are: the ability to notice (awareness based on feedback) the ability to respond (flexibility of response) the ability to adapt (learning new ways of operating) the ability to evolve (integration and synergy) Conclusion

So it’s really all about addressing and resolving tension. There is a fundamental tension between process/systems/structures, the inherent architecture that enables organisations to run efficiently and the freedom/trust/engagement and ability to innovate and take risk. All of this is within the context of sustainability, minimising impact on the planet and the overall green agenda. In fact we need all of these aspects – but working together for a common purpose.

We can transcend the inherent tension between process and people by moving to a level of purpose. Holding true to this defining sense of purpose allows alignment and congruence between the fundamental architecture of the organisation, the landscape in which it operates, and the engagement of people (within, peripheral to and outside of the organisation itself).

Appointment to a senior position brings explicit positional power. You can be the most senior manager in the team by virtue of that appointment. However, you are in fact only a leader if your followers say that you are! Leadership is therefore a choice of how you behave and the demonstration of the values that you hold and not an inherent right by appointment. We earn the right to be called a leader by our actions and not by our status. The real role of the leader is to:

define the overarching purpose of the organisation design an organisational architecture that allows the ability to flex and

respond to change build trust through the explicit resolution of tension model the core values that are expected in others




“To be motivated by your mission, not your money. To tap into your values, not your ego. To connect with others through your heart, not your persona. To live your life with such discipline that you would be proud to read about your behaviour on the front page of the New York Times.” -‐ from the Bryant University Commencement Address by William W. George, Professor of Management Practice, Harvard Business School, Smithfield, May 2005 What Next?

Commitment to radically change the core operating practice of an organisation is a big step in any environment. In today’s economic climate, risk aversion, or at best risk mitigation is a given. So the consideration starts with a dialogue to answer some of these fundamental questions:

Why are we doing this? Do we really know our organisational purpose? What is already working well that we can build on? Where would we see maximum benefit/fastest return from making

changes? What aspect will be of most immediate benefit e.g. strategic review,

governance & decision making, amending current organisational structure

Who will be up for piloting this? How do we communicate what we are doing and differentiate it from yet

another change programme – just do it? What is the smallest decision we can take right now to get things going?

Demonstrating learning in real time and focusing on solving live business issues provides an ideal opportunity to model the fundamental ethos of this approach. It catalyses the move from control and command to sense and respond, allowing the changes to be “pulled” though the organisation based on response to need, rather than “pushed” into the organisation as yet one more external intervention.