text:
Coherence in practice
Adrian Brown, Chief Executive, UK and Western Europe, RSA
I believe some people are born with high energy and passion. People who knew me at school or work would use these two words to describe me as a person. I was always aware that energy and passion was what defines me as an individual but it took me longer to recognise the importance of that in defining my leadership style.
Energy and passion are skills and resources a leader should use as tools to make them a better leader. However to maximise your effectiveness you need to understand the impact you are having.
Click to read more...
The upside is easy to see: your energy, enthusiasm and passion rubs off on those around you. You can sense them being carried along on your wave of excitement, you will create followers who follow you because they believe in you. My energy and enthusiasm is coupled with curiosity so when somebody brings me some technical work or problem they want help with, I find it easy to be interested and excited in their work. In turn they feel valued and will give you even more!
However, as with most strengths there are dangers for energetic passionate people. When your energy drops, maybe only to that of an "average" person that can cause ripples of speculation! "There must be something wrong", "something bad is about to happen". People around you are aware of your energy and when it drops it can have unintended consequences. So with your natural resource comes a responsibility. You have to be aware of its impact on others and most importantly take time to re-energise. Different people use different techniques to recharge. For me it may be a round of golf or a run – energy breeds energy! Alan helped me to fully realise the critical importance of my energy on those around me. I'm also aware that I can maintain high energy every day for 10 – 12 weeks but without a break after that time my energy and hence my leadership effectiveness start to suffer.
But you can also use a turned down energy to make a point. If I'm less energetic or passionate in a meeting it can convey a message that I'm not happy. Being aware of that is a powerful tool. In the past I may have been guilty of giving difficult messages whilst maintaining energy and passion so the words and body language didn't match!
I believe most people come to work to do a good job and they want to be inspired by the people around them. When people go off track, it's more often than not a failure of leadership. I also believe that positive people provide a great service to customers and that's what makes a company successful. I see a big part of my job as creating an environment in which people feel enthused.
If I sit in a room and look bored then I deserve what I get. Why should they care if I look as if I don't care? Tomorrow, they'll get by with the minimum of effort. Leaders often blame that reaction on the employee, but as a leader you have a big responsibility for that yourself. You create the environment.
Your high energy and passion rubs off on others and people will go with you. People want to follow inspirational and energetic leaders who believe in what the company is doing. With that natural energy comes responsibility. You have to use that energy in positive ways and, crucially, be aligned with the company strategy. An energetic, enthusiastic, passionate leader living the company strategy and values really can achieve more!
A leader should never under-estimate the impact their energy, passion and enthusiasm can have on others. It is a natural resource and to waste it is criminal. Embrace it, be aware of its impact and as a leader use it to make you an even better leader.
Ian Cheshire, Chief Executive, Kingfisher Group
In a recent situation, the internal dynamics of our top team of five had a complex set of plays. I brought together one internal team member and recruited three external members. After we had all spent some time getting to know each other, it became clear that there was a real spectrum of opinion. That in itself is not a bad thing, but there was some quite strong conflict developing between two key players. The conflict was coming out of different takes on the world, but also the human dynamic of one person trying to act as a guru and being paternalistic and the other person feeling patronised.
Click to read more...
The relationships needed to work, but we were not together every day. We had to stay on the right side of dysfunctional relationships. I believe in divergent points of view, but you cannot allow disagreement to fall into a catfight.
The three things I did to manage that situation were:
- To personally shape and influence how our meetings were run. This was about nudging the discussion and bringing people into the conversation. Actively chairing our meetings got people on the straight and narrow
- To have active listening. This is something that execs are often rubbish at. I'm talking about listening for the meaning behind the statement. Asking yourself why someone said something. This means getting over the surface shock of what has been said to find that there could actually be quite a lot of value and richness behind the provocative statement. Without this listening, it's just a slanging match
- To work out when a slap was required. At some points, I had to provide a clear boundary. This was a message that if they carried on, then one or both of them would be leaving. It wasn't what I wanted, but I had to draw the line.
This approach worked well for many years. I don't believe the team would have survived longer than a few months without this approach. There are relationships that are less than ideal, but you can do a lot to shape that and put things in a more positive place.
My approach came to this situation from three very different inputs. Firstly, I had had quite a lot of experience in how teams can function best if they are not controlled top down. High performing teams can do far more than any genius CEO thinks he or she can do alone. Secondly, I had some valuable theoretical input from Alan and others. They helped me with techniques around listening, framing and shaping. Thirdly, I seem to naturally enjoy empathetic understanding. I like trying to understand what people are really saying and so naturally that is where my attention goes. Alan tells me I could have been a diplomat – I pay attention and unlock things within what others are saying. I go deeper than the words.
In terms of external stakeholders and managing relationships with the city, the first thing to say is that you have to have the right numbers. No amount of clever arrangements will disguise the numbers. Moving beyond the numbers, there is an odd intersect in the world of public companies, between shareholders, analysts and the press. There are mutually reinforcing pressures at work there and I observed two things. Firstly, you have to get out and put yourself about. You need to spend time understanding the motivations of the shareholders, analysts and the press. You need to understand their way of looking at the world, but you must show up as yourself. You can't do this with spin. You have to be authentic. If you don't know what their view of the world is then you can't frame a message for them.
As an organisation we were in damage repair between 2008 and 2012. With the problems he was facing, the previous CEO had retreated. We had to rebuild relationships from scratch. To do that, we didn't claim to have all the answers, nor did we ram a message down their throat, but we built a more open dialogue and relationship. With this kind of approach, we may not agree with each other, but at least we can respect and understand our differing perspectives. This has been a prolonged process and we've spent lots of time making sure we understood where they were coming from. It's not rocket science, but it strikes me that those who are forming opinions about you should know who you are and that's exactly what we've done.
I've always worked on the principle that the more open you are, the more likely you are to get openness back. My work with Alan and others gives a base of confidence about what you believe in.
Alan has helped in two main ways. The first was around personal growth and development; he gives you the personal mastery to be able to go into a situation understanding how you are reacting. It's about emotional control, and the physical reality of keeping yourself well. Alan definitely gave me some tools that allowed me to 'step out of the shadows' – as Alan would put it – rather than be a silent advisor. I became willing to be lead visibly rather than leading through influence. That changed gears for me.
The second area of input from Alan was around team dynamics and in particular understanding how very different people work together. I believe that diversity in teams is a real strength. Working with Alan helped us understand the importance of spending enough time listening, understanding the divergent team and how best to harness them.
It is fascinating to me that people who reach a certain level of seniority feel they have to know all the answers. It may be bit of a risk to take on teams that don't work smoothly, but you can be so much more successful when you have that confidence and freedom. It's about having the faith and courage to go a bit outside your comfort zone. A lot of what Alan says is about giving confidence for you to be counter intuitive when it comes to running a good team.
Carolyn McCall, CEO, easyJet
When I joined easyJet in July 2010, one of the things that stood me in good stead was that I'd come from running a media group (Guardian Media Group with newspapers and digital, radio, regional papers and magazines) where there was lots of complexity in terms of relationships. Just as in the Guardian, with its range of stakeholders (trustees, journalists, marketing and sales people and printers), at easyJet there are similar complexities. We have a large family shareholder plus institutional shareholders, and then various communities: pilots, cabin crew, management, engineering all with very different views and needs.
I created an executive leadership team forum almost as soon as I arrived, where the top 50 leaders in easyJet meet every month so we can debate, discuss and shape the strategy before it goes to the plc board and also it is where we discuss the key issues we face. After establishing that forum, we then created a very effective management conference twice a year with around 150 people in easyJet. They are our leaders that have the most to do with managing our people. We've done that for two years now. They really buy in because they feel they've been involved in all the key areas. They are very motivated by the strategy and our cause, which Alan helped us develop. Our cause is to make travel easy and affordable.
Click to read more...
I spend lots of time in the bases. We have 23 bases across Europe where we base aircraft and people. In the beginning, I went out and spoke to people around the airline, particularly the crew and found out what was wrong. There were loads of issues and problems, but we are now turning things around. For the first six months I was here, I didn't get a single positive customer email – it was all complaints. Now I get 10 positive emails to one negative. Our head of ground ops has a board where she puts up all the positive customer feedback. It's her greatest aim to catch up with the cabin crew in terms of the number of compliments.
I continue to get out into the business. I talk to lots of customers and I fly the network all the time. I work on the plane and listen to the crew. I really enjoy working with the teams – I will floor walk, go on the ramp. It means I can really understand how they work.
Our staff like to be able share their views and I want to listen. A big shift that I wanted to make is that I want our people to be open and to tell me the good and bad. I want them to challenge us. If there is a complaint about something, I will always reply. By being out around the business as much as I am, they see my face, we chat informally and I answer questions. They can see that I'm a human being, that I really care. I think the majority of our people would say that I really mean what I say and work hard to deliver what I promise.
I also started up a weekly call in the second month I was here. When I go to a base, I only ever see about 10 per cent of the people who work there; many are either up in the air or on rest days. I wondered how I could connect with those people I wasn't seeing. So I record a call every week, wherever I am – even if I'm on holiday. We also put a transcript of the call on our intranet and people can access the call on any device. I talk about the things that are important in my week, about where we're at with punctuality, whether we've won an award. I also talk about some of the problems we're facing and I ask if they have a view to let me know. The whole point of the call for me was letting everyone know what was going on at the airline at the big picture level, but also to enable people to hear my voice and be comfortable about interacting with me.
In terms of the wider culture, a lot of people are shifting, but openness comes with time. Cultural change is very difficult to achieve. We've made really good progress, but it takes a long time to rebuild trust with people, you just have to keep going.
Alan is very intuitive about people. I like to be able to discuss the team and the team dynamics with him. He's a great facilitator. He's a bold facilitator. He can facilitate some very knotty discussions. He helps a lot in that way. Alan brings strength and objectivity. He helps us get to an end and is quite challenging, but we always come up with an outcome at the end. That's very useful.
John Browett, Chief Executive, Monsoon Accessorize
Perhaps because I trained as a scientist, I have a natural disposition to strategic thinking in business. I see the world as a series of inter-related systems. This mechanistic approach is helpful, but has to be tempered by experience and the understanding of human behaviour to work well.
There isn't a scientific way of getting to the answer for every company. You can't mechanically work through the numbers to make the right decision. You never have enough data or the right data to be able to do that. Rather you have to make educated guesses and judgements about what could be right. I use a lot of pattern recognition, but also a lot of intuition. Good intuition is really just the ability to make the right decision even without all the right data.
Click to read more...
Pattern recognition works because it can be built up from looking at many businesses and taking lots of decisions over time. It is also helpful to boil down the issues to a small number of areas where you can focus judgement. Sometimes, even if you are not certain about a decision, action will give you more information to then work out what to do. It's not about absolute rights and wrongs, but about what you learn from the decisions you make. It's about feeling your way.
Even in business, you're dealing with people and people aren't rational machines. You may not make what is technically the perfect decision because you know it will cause more problems than it would solve. Instead perhaps there will be another solution that everyone is happy with and that gets you 80 per cent of the way there. There's a good example in retail: When you look at efficiency in work schedules, you quite often reach an answer that would mean all staff would be part time and work fully flexible hours. The trouble is that solution will make you an unattractive place to work, so instead you compromise around schedules to create a body of full time shifts. If you're really cold and calculating, people won't like you and being liked in business is helpful. That's not to say you shy away from difficult decisions, but you reserve them for a time when it really matters. Taking people with you is critical.
I don't go round telling people the answer, nor do I, when I think about problems, give others the solution. In the end you want everyone to feel ownership of what we are doing together. It is very uncomfortable for everyone if the leader is always telling you what to do. Instead it is better to understand where everyone is coming from and then guide the debate. We all want to be part of working out what to do.
Someone once said to me if you're leading a business you don't have to get everyone to agree to what you want to do the first time. Alan helped to calm me down and made me realise that you don't have to manipulate every conversation and every discussion to have the perfect outcome every time. In the end, it's like water flowing in a river, if you do the right thing, there's only one direction it's going to go.
Alan shares my interest in listening. Other people's ideas are often better than your own. Really showing that you have listened to people is also important. The very simple thing of repeating back what you have been told and integrating what others say into your conversation is effective. You really need to focus on what others are telling you, rather than thinking about what you are going to say next.
I haven't always been a great listener in fact it's something that has come much later in my career. I used to be too focused on coming up with the answer. But listening is a huge thing, it makes you much more effective. We all make mistakes and one of the things I failed to do at Apple was to listen enough.
Alan has also helped me remain in the present. Your little thinker, the little ego inside you can be nervous, worried and unhappy. It is for me most of the time. So learning to operate from a position of inner peace and calmness is transformational. In a transcendent state you are going to be more capable of helping people. I can think of so many examples where I've been able to put myself into that state and it has been incredibly helpful and powerful.
I have always been seeking and looking for answers as to what it all means. When things go well, most people think they are brilliant and when things don't go so well, they rage against the circumstances. All that does is prevent you from learning. When things are going wrong, I think about what I can learn and what I will do differently in the future. When things are going well, that's the point of danger. You're just validating yourself, telling yourself – aren't I doing well? Rather than actually critically evaluating what you need to learn.
Alan Brown, CEO, Rentokil
Over the last three years I have made a lot of changes in my life. I was frustrated by significant dips in my energy levels through the day that made it difficult to perform consistently in my work and I was unsettled at home. So there was undoubtedly a 'burning platform' for change, even though outwardly it might have appeared that I was relatively successful with a demanding and fulfilling career.
Around that time Alan Watkins came to talk to me about coaching. He was different – very different – and I was intrigued by what Alan said about energy management. He claimed that this was something I could control, rather than my energy levels controlling me. So we embarked on a coaching odyssey. Alan talked, I listened, made notes, experimented and learnt – so far as my energy levels allowed.
Click to read more...
Eighteen months on, quite a lot has stuck, in particular:
- Triggering positive emotional states. When asked how I am, I almost always say 'Great!' And that's how I feel. I learnt to appreciate small things much more – like bouncing out of bed in the morning, seeing my kids, whatever…
- Living in the now. I spent the first 40 years of my life planning for somewhere between tomorrow and ten years ahead. I am still pretty good at getting myself organised, but I'm much better at concentrating at what I am doing right now, which is much more rewarding!
- Physical stuff. If I'm losing concentration in a meeting, I get up and walk around. Or I generate some adrenaline by creating a stir. These things are easier to do when you are the boss, but they could benefit everyone.
The biggest change for me has been that I can now operate much more consistently throughout the day and the week. My attention span is much greater. I have always been able to work long hours, but the quality of that work was not consistently high. Today, the quality of my concentration has improved significantly.
Although I've made great improvements, I am always learning. I'm thinking about Spiral Dynamics and the Graves model of values and Holocratic governance. They are not easy to put into practice but at the very least they offer insights that can help us as individuals, partners and bosses.
For me, a lot of things came together over a short period of time to make my life fundamentally more rewarding, physically and in particular emotionally but there is still much more to learn.
Henry Maxey, Chief Executive, Ruffer
When it comes to trading, people get caught up in the irrational. Even a rational thinker like Newton made this mistake that tells you how difficult it is not to get caught up in the emotional side of what we do.
Click to read more...
Fund management and markets are something society finds difficult to comprehend. In the non-human sciences we seem to be able to advance, but when it comes to markets and finance we keep making the same mistakes time and again. They might be different flavours, but essentially they are the same mistakes. Humans are part of markets and because of our emotional responses we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of history.
My job is to try to determine what reality is and the perception of that reality. I look at company and economic fundamentals and compare them with the market perception of those fundamentals. The art is in trying to find situations where perception is misaligned with fundamentals, whenever that happens it is the human dimension. As a profession, it is quite peculiar; we are not rewarded for establishing the correct basis of reality, but for the market perception of that reality.
The whole profession is about perceptions. John Maynard Keynes claimed it was a beauty contest. Not a contest to find the most beautiful women, but to understand who the judges perceive to be the most beautiful woman. Because it is about perceptions, human behaviour plays a huge part, hence the importance of understanding the real drivers of behaviour, namely emotions. Since emotions are so important in this job, it is very helpful to have some understanding of them, both one's emotional state and how that influences one's approach to markets.
I ran two quite large multi-asset, absolute return funds from 2001 to 2006. I was reasonably successful and performance was fine but I found my emotional state completely tied in with the performance of the funds, when the funds were up then I was up and vice versa. In 2006, the Funds' performances were going through a dry patch, it was not a disaster, but it felt bad relative to others. The markets have a tremendous ability to depress people and that is what they were doing to me. I began to look for ways to improve my emotional health. I studied Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, I read lots of books, exercised, did yoga and tried acupuncture. Finally, a professional coach I had worked with introduced me to Alan and I started working with him.
A lot of people I know and respect in this industry have been through similar bad patches. Often they have opted for immediate fixes, be it pharmaceutical or taking time off. There are very few who have taken the time to build emotional resilience. It takes real effort. It's a real discipline.
I consider this job a privilege. Building my emotional awareness and resilience has given me a degree of distance and perspective on the things that really matter, which I believe that it has given me several years in additional longevity. I just do not become as swayed by the noise of markets as I used to.
I have a general awareness of how I am in the moment and then I can pull myself out when I become aware that I have strayed from that balanced emotional state. If I am preparing for something that I know will be stressful, then I think more consciously about my emotional state and apply the breathing exercises more methodically.
I do not think that you can truly invest well without a human overlay. With any human overlay you need to have awareness and regulation of your emotional state to be able to function properly.
Emotional awareness forces you to seek out heretical views to the ones you hold and to reject as much confirmation bias as you can, but it is a constant fight. You still catch yourself, you find yourself getting overexcited when things are going right, and vice versa when things go wrong. This is all much easier to say than to do. It is not easy to sit outside 'the crowd' and to be able to do that with the flexibility of mind that still allows you to know when you are being pig headed.
Back in 2007 I correctly predicted the impending crisis in the credit market. At the time we were taking an incredibly brave stance. We were bringing bad news to a market that didn't want to hear it. We were questioning the rating agencies' process and the reliance of the market on their ratings. We were not popular. We faced pressure from investors who were not happy that our caution meant we were holding a contrary portfolio position to the crowd. Controlling our emotional response to all that was critical, but we persisted in it. We had confidence in our insights and beliefs. As we saw, our prediction came true. Now and because of what we did at that time, we have a great reputation for protecting people's capital and wealth through what was the biggest credit crisis in history. Whilst I cannot put all that confidence to go against the flow entirely down to regulating one's emotions, I do know that if I had not had that emotional control, I would not have had the same resilience and clarity of thought. For me the best possible validation was when the founder of my firm asked me to succeed him as Chief Executive.
Today, the masters of my universe are the computer geeks, who are attempting to bypass the frailties of human emotion with the supposed robustness of computer-based models of trading. They are trying to take the emotion out of the situation. To my mind, that will just lead to markets failing in other ways, because the models don't evolve quickly enough. It is much better to become aware of, and manage, the human emotions involved in investing than try to ignore the fact that they are there.
Michael Drake, TNT (Singapore)
I have often been asked 'Why have I been successful in Asia?'
I am not sure there has been a special formula but one thing I am careful about is not to assume that the way things have worked somewhere else will also work in Asia. I approach things in a way where local staff – the people closest to the business – get to have the major say. I believe 'respect' is really important in Asia, maybe everywhere else too. It is certainly something I try to bring in my business dealings.
If you accept the fact that people are educated differently around the world, then you should be less concerned about things not happening in ways that you're used to. Things should be achieved on time, with good quality and of course, with integrity – but the methodology that is employed to get there is less important.
Click to read more...
I don't believe there is one approach that will work. I'm very comfortable with grey areas which I see as a blessing because very often there is no right or wrong … it's just a matter of opinion or choice. I want the result but I am comfortable that people can work differently to get there. Some people want to impress an approach that they are comfortable with or has worked elsewhere. They seem more bothered about how things get done rather than what gets done.
Fortunately I am a relatively patient person. I believe having a patient and nurturing style pays dividends in Asia. If you can be patient people become more comfortable and increase their confidence. I see the result is they give more than you expect when their confidence is high. If you are overly demanding and critical then people get scared to make mistakes and consequently play it safe. If you want great results and high performance I think people need to be confident to try new things and not be afraid of making mistakes.
Alan has helped me a great deal with linking my emotional state to my performance outcomes. As a consequence I am much more aware of how I am feeling – both mentally and physically – when I turn up 'to perform'. Rather than just undertaking a multitude of activities in a day I now think about each activity as an event where I need to perform … maybe like a sportsman would before a game. As a result I am more prepared and engaged in what I'm doing throughout the day. Even if it's just a minute or two that you take to get yourself in the right place before a meeting or a presentation I think it is important. I am also now very aware that your emotional state is largely dependent on your physiology. Learning various techniques to help with this has been very valuable.
Our whole management team was assessed by Alan and I now understand a lot more about myself and my team. Success is not just about one individual it's down to the team. Gaining insight and knowledge about my team has definitely helped manage the group towards higher performance.
I use the techniques I've learnt with Alan on a daily basis, even outside of work. I play golf and I will do the rhythmic breathing a lot. It gets my heart rate to a level that will provide clarity of thought and help execution. It's the same before a big speech. I think about my breathing and what I'm going to do. I get my heart under control. Just the notion of taking two minutes to think about how I am feeling is beneficial. I'm very conscious of it most days – it has become habitual in that sense. Perhaps it's not an awe-inspiring or totally conscious difference for me, but it builds confidence and, for whatever reason, I see the results in my performance. I feel calmer, more confident and focused, and all of those things can only be beneficial in terms of performance.
Handling complexity
The more senior I have become, the more I realise that life and business decisions are essentially about making choices. It is rarely that the path forward is totally obvious. As I have risen through the ranks the decisions have also become far more complex. Different environments exacerbate this somewhat. When I was working in China it was a culture which was very 'black and white' – even the law leaves a lot of interpretation. You need to be comfortable in grey areas to be successful in this sort of environment. The ability to handle ambiguity helps you to project yourself in a positive way, keeps stress under control and I believe makes for better decision making.
The performance and leadership dimension that Alan propounds about physiology driving clarity and being the foundation of performance is rare. I've personally not seen this being discussed anywhere else. I believe it to be very interesting and an under-represented body of management thinking. It makes sense that if you want to perform at your best you should know the key drivers of how that is possible. If you don't you will be at a distinct disadvantage. Fortunately for me I met Alan Watkins!
Mike Iddon, Finance Director, Tesco UK
One of the discussions I had with Alan was around my own unique attributes and skill set and what I bring to the team. Working with him has helped me 'play in position'. He really challenged me about what it is that I do. Initially I talked about five year plans, identifying good returns and market share ambitions, but Alan kept pushing me for something more. In the end we got to my core purpose – I figure it out.
Click to read more...
Understanding that core purpose gave the whole finance team and me a new perspective. Before then I was defined by my outputs and my team's outputs. It was all about the fundamental bedrock of good financial control, reporting and planning, but that didn't really explain why we all turn up at work each day. This new perspective helped us define ourselves by the contribution we were making rather than simply the number of reports we were creating.
The whole process has been very motivating for team. When Tesco itself announced its new purpose in October 2012 (we make what matters better together) we saw our contribution very clearly. We know we can 'figure out' exactly what it is that 'matters'; is it sales, margins, market share, or a combination of those things? We're able to align our team much more closely to the business.
Beyond the clarity around our purpose, Alan has also introduced me to the various levels of consciousness and an understanding of how individuals interact. Being able to look at things from very different perspectives was very eye opening. It opens your mind to different alternatives. In a big corporation like Tesco you can get very internalised in your thinking – you get 'group think'. This meant that we'd become quite conventional in our way of thinking about things. Working with Alan on techniques to consider multiple perspectives helped my team think differently. Now, just before I'm about to present my own view, I pause and think about what is shaping that view. It could be something I've read or been told, but whatever it is being aware of that influence gives a new perspective.
I've started to make much more effort to communicate and help others understand the wider context in our weekly trading meetings. At those meetings, I give a 30-minute overview of trade in the previous week to the 14 people there – both members of the UK board and senior commercial and operations directors. Our targets are very tough so, inevitably, we're not hitting them all the time. In such situations, it's easy to focus on the negatives, but that doesn't help others 'figure out' what the results mean. I began to 'reframe' my briefing to put the numbers in context and to talk about growth areas as well as targets missed. You're not glossing over the bad news; it's just a far more balanced way of looking at it.
Without the reframing, delivering bad news creates a drop in energy levels. I felt it too. I was almost taking the blame for any missed figures myself. With the new framing, we delivered a more positive contribution and could start to figure out why the numbers were as they were. This has an effect on both the energy levels in the team, but it also changed the belief structure. People had previously lived with a 'not enough' mind set; their emotional state was very much aligned with the day-to-day performance of the business. A change in this perspective us helped us towards a goal of more self-belief.
Combining the new framing with clarity around our purpose helped us spot what I call the 'golden nuggets'. Out of data comes information, from information comes insight, and out of insight come golden nuggets. When you have a UK business that turns over almost £1bn each week and you've got 30 minutes to share key financial data, you need to bring forward the 'golden nuggets' that no one else can see. They might be obvious to you, but they won't be to everyone else.
Others may not have the access to all the data you have, they won't have the same lens through which to view the data and they're unlikely to have the same experience to frame things. That understanding gave our team a lot of confidence and self-belief – our role is more clearly defined, as is our voice at the table.
One final word about energy; Alan talks quite a lot about the energy bank. There are things in your life that make deposits and other things that make withdrawals. Over a period of time, you need to ensure there are more deposits than withdrawals. It's a really helpful technique for thinking about your whole life, including work and home. Alan encouraged me to keep an energy bank of my deposits and withdrawals. It drives you to do more things that lead to deposits. You beat yourself over things that go wrong, but you rarely give yourself or your team credit when things go right. The e-bank helps to redress that and it certainly helped me think differently.
I never have conversations with Alan when I don't start to think differently about things. He leaves me with a much deeper understanding of myself, as well as an insight into the more theoretical side of models, techniques and new ways of looking at things.
Lodewijk Hijmans vd Bergh, Chief Corporate Governance Counsel, Royal Ahold
Corporate responsibility must be at the heart of the business. Without that, it becomes a tick box exercise, the senior management does not feel responsible and you never make real progress.
In 2010, we set company-wide targets on climate change, responsible products, healthy living and employee engagement. Setting targets led to a change in the dynamic of the business. We had fundamentally linked responsible retailing to the heart of the business. We changed the way we talked about corporate responsibility and very clearly linked it to mitigating risk, reducing costs, increasing sales or simply creating new opportunities for the company. This was a major step, because it helped others realise that this was not just the 'flavour of the month', but it would really help them in the business.
Click to read more...
Really, this was just the first step. I talk about the journey we're on and we certainly haven't reached our destination yet. In some ways the first step is the easiest. We have to continue to communicate every day about what we do and why. As a food company, we employ over 200,000 people so there are lots of people to reach out to. One of my colleagues told me once that it's one thing to have a good idea, but you also need support for your views. You just have to go out and convince people. This was a learning for me. I had originally thought that others would communicate my message for me, but that just didn't happen. Instead, I made more trips to the US to spread the word. Once I had seen the message land, then I could move on to take the next step.
It isn't just about internal communication; you also have to put your money where you mouth is. If you want people to make different decisions at work, salary packages need to be based on something more than just sales or margin. Those kinds of decisions aren't always easy. For example, we work a lot in the area of social compliance. If we have a situation where a supplier does not meet our full requirements, a decision not to use that supplier could cost you more money, so what do you do? If it's blatant issue then it's not difficult, but there may be more nuanced decisions. It's at that stage that you really need the buyers to take the right decisions. We are running a business and we have to be profitable, but every step of the way you try to slowly change the company and demonstrate that responsible retailing is both good for the company and good for stakeholders.
This work has not been without its challenges and we have met with some resistance. In the early days, others felt that the process should not be top down, but bottom up; local businesses should tell head office the targets as they felt they knew what was best for their local businesses. That is true up to a point and we have a working group that gathers views to help make the right decisions, but there also comes a point when senior management has to take responsibility.
When I joined the company and its board, I had spent 21 years in private practice. It was a big change, you can only make that transition once and there is no guarantee of success. I knew that I would need some help to make that transition and my new boss was supportive. That's when he introduced me to Alan.
I talk to Alan about lots of different things. He helps me understand what makes you tick and he also has a great insight into how companies tick. Knowing how companies work and how you can interact effectively in that company increases your confidence. Alan has also helped me appreciate the value of diversity in teams – it's a topic we return to frequently in our conversations. It is good to have different types of minds in a team and it's important for teams and leaders to appreciate differences of views. You don't have to disagree all the time, but having different perspectives moves a company further – it helps in avoiding tunnel vision. Ultimately you reach better decisions.
Appreciating the value of diversity also helped me in my own role. Coming from 21 years in private practice, I was a lawyer with no retail experience at all. I sometimes struggled because I doubted people would take me seriously. In conversations with Alan, I came to appreciate that I had not been hired because I was a retailer. You just have to show that you can contribute in a different way. There is no point in asking me about marketing peanut butter but I can contribute in other ways.
Having this perspective not only helps you find your place, it also helps you understand why other people behave why they do. Coming from a professional organisation I struggled to understand why my new colleagues couldn't think in an analytical way, why they jumped from one topic to another. Working with Alan enabled me to see the positive in those interactions.
The future for corporate responsibility at Ahold
We're now starting work on our goals for our 2020 project. In the beginning, we created the structure and we worked on what we really had to do. The question now is how far we can take it – can you make it part of the company's real DNA? What does that mean for customers, but also in terms of our relationship to suppliers and shareholders?
One thing recently that came out of our responsible retailing journey was a look at the foundations of our company. We looked at how we define and communicate about those. We formulated three promises, which come from our vision. Our vision is better choice, better value, better life, every day. The promises are that we will be a better place to shop, a better pace to work and a better neighbour. These promises should not be looked at in isolation; they are connected. We can only be a better place to shop if we're a better place to work and we need to be better neighbours to be a better place to shop. We're building a more holistic way of looking at the company.
We are now setting the next steps on our journey. We're running a programme around responsibly sourced products. We try to map our suppliers and go right back to all stages of production. This is important not just from a safety perspective but also from a social compliance perspective. We are at beginning of that journey. Consumers are more interested in where their products come from as well. The world is more transparent. Food safety becomes more important as supply chains become longer. We source from all over the world and it's important for us to do the right thing, in a sustainable way, in those countries. It's easy to give money to a project and then walk away, but that's not helpful in the long term.
Food retailing, unlike corporate law, touches people on an almost daily basis. Food is emotional and I notice wherever you go, people have views and comments. In that context as well, being responsible is really important.
Having said that, corporate responsibility should not be entirely consumer drive. You need to have your own set of values as a company and one of those is about doing things right.
Our vision reflects a sense of balance that we have. It's not just about being responsible, it's also about value and choice. Corporate responsibility for us is a means of growing the company. One target we have is, within local rules, for 25 per cent of our products to be healthy. It means doing things like reducing sodium out of products. That does not only help customers because of the health benefits, it can also positively impact margins.
Warwick Brady, COO, easyJet
easyJet's recent history has not been a smooth one. Between 2006 and 2010, the then CEO Andrew Harrison led a management team with a big growth plan. Unfortunately, the shareholders did not agree entirely with this plan. At the same time, the financial crisis had just begun; Lehman Brothers crashed, oil prices were high and easyJet faced huge cost pressures.
Under such intense internal and external pressure, the business suffered. Day to day delivery was poor, customer service was low and the business was struggling to control costs. This all culminated in a collapse of performance in Summer 2010. The number of easyJet planes arriving on time dropped to around 40 per cent. Gatwick Airport published the league table of airline on time performance (OTP) and easyJet came out below Air Zimbabwe. A fact shared with the wider world, when Ryanair, a main competitor used it as a headline in a national newspaper advertisement.
Click to read more...
When new CEO, Carolyn McCall, took control in 2010, the company was not in good shape. I stepped into the COO role in October 2010. What I found was a team of people who had worked really hard for three to four years with little to show for it. For many it had become embarrassing to work for easyJet – performance was poor and everyone knew it. We not only had complaints from passengers, we had complaints from regulators as well. My team of ten people were battered. They were burnt out and working hard, but performance was poor.
I had a wide remit – safety, performance, cost, customer and 6,500 employees to consider. I had a lot to sort out. Despite the apparent scale of the turnaround required, I decided we needed to really focus and fix just one thing: OTP. We needed to keep safety were it was, but essentially we had to fix OTP, that's it, nothing else
The only way to achieve that goal was to work together as a team on that single focus and that's where Alan came in. We started with a group of individuals who were working in silos, they were blaming each other. There was a low level of trust, everyone was really tired and no one could see the wood for the trees. I had to start with the top team, which was not working well.
Alan helped us to open up to each other, work better together and to make decisions as a team. It wasn't an easy process. We had some knotty issues to sort out, conflicts were brought to a head, but if we hadn't gone through that pain, those issues would still be festering today, and affecting our ability to stay focused on that single goal of OTP.
It worked. Within six months, we had stabilised the operation. Then we started to shift OTP up to an acceptable level. Within 12 months we had not only fixed the problem, we had became number one in the industry for OTP. We had fixed the core. Our customers could trust that we would get them to their destination on time. Our crews could trust that they would be able to get home on time after their shifts.
Today my top team is predominantly made up of the same people as it was back in the dark days. We went from being the worst performing airline to being the best. Now the team is well respected and operating like a well-oiled machine. All of this was down to the singular focus on OTP and our teamwork. We spend lots of time together as a team. We come together as a team for planning, thinking and working together. It's been a remarkable journey for everyone. There are no functional silos, we have genuine multi-functional working and our big handlers and partners have even become part of that culture.
Everyone rallied around the single focus on OTP. We created a structure that fixed the problem. We continue that focus today and it starts from first thing in the morning. We come together every day of the year to review how the day has started and to review any other issues from the day before. We also have weekly, monthly and quarterly cycles of meetings. In those quarterly meetings, Alan coaches us to ensure that the team is working as efficiently and effectively as it possibly can.
In my experience, it normally takes around five years for teams to operate at the level of trust and co-operation we have reached, with Alan we did it in six months. We had a burning platform and we fast tracked the team problem. Within two days, we had gained a year. We stopped avoiding conflicts and brought them to a head. I now have a team that we are all proud of that is delivering stellar performance.
Chris Hope, Head of Operations Strategy & Change, easyJet
During our work with Alan we started by working in detail on the relationships within our team. Having made good progress to build and strengthen the relationships, the next stage was to look at the ways of working within the team to identify how we could work together more effectively.
With Alan's help we mapped out all the meetings that involved two or more senior managers from the team. This also established how much time we spent in meetings and showed that even a small improvement in our efficiency and effectiveness in those meetings would deliver a significant benefit to the business.
Click to read more...
We then looked at the behaviours that we adopted in team meetings. Our weekly team meeting involves 17 or 18 people with a wide range of interests, agendas and traits. In a team session Alan was able to observe and articulate a number of behaviours that tend to slow down progress on the items under discussion. The most effective part of this process was that he characterized the behaviours in way that made it light-hearted even by drawing cartoons to depict the characterisation.
Approaching it this way avoided stigma or negativity. Subsequently spotting those behaviours in ourselves or other team members became humorous and policing the right behaviour in meetings became more easily accepted. The result was that everyone took part, and we all recognised the negative behaviours that could slow down our progress.
By talking about behaviours openly, we gave approval for anyone in a meeting who saw those behaviours to raise his or her hand and highlight the fact that it was distracting us. No one felt they were being criticised, because it had been done in a light-hearted and fun way.
Having identified some of the common behaviours and traits, we then translated this into ground rules for our meetings to help manage the behaviours proactively.
We then turned our attention to considering the structure of each meeting. Alan helped provide clarity by asking us to first consider the purpose of each meeting – was it about operations, team governance or strategy?
We looked at all our meetings to decide which were working well, which needed to be improved and which didn't really need to happen at all. Once again, we worked on this together as a team and again we used humour and labels to help us.
We asked the team collectively to label each meeting as 'The Good', 'The Bad' or 'The Ugly'. The good being the meetings that work well, the bad were meetings that were superfluous and should stop and the ugly meetings were important but were not working well. These were the dysfunctional meetings that we focused on improving as our priority.
Our weekly team meeting on a Monday afternoon was labelled 'ugly'. To change that into a good meeting we first looked at the purpose of the meeting – was it operational, strategic or governance? We recognised that at different times it does different things, so we structured the agenda to group together items of a similar purpose. We used the POST approach – purpose (strategic, ops, governance), outcome, structure and timing. That gave us the outline for design of the meeting.
We then looked at who needed to be involved in each section of the meeting. If you focus on having only the people who need to be there for the time they need to be there you can save many man-hours.
Having set out the structure for the meeting and being clear about what we were trying to achieve, we then focused on behaviours by adapting ground rules for each section. In one section of the meeting, which involves going through action items, it could take us an hour just to check if the items were open or not. We found ourselves having the same discussions again and again. By setting ground rules for that section of the meeting, we could avoid those behaviours. The time for discussion would come in another part of the meeting.
To ensure everyone follows those ground rules, you need to have a person or people in the meeting who can police them. This changed the dynamic of the meeting as we decided that the chair of the meeting should be the person who could best keep the meeting on track rather than the most senior manager, in this case the COO. As a result, I now chair the meetings. The COO still leads on discussion and decision making but I police and monitor the behaviours.
The output has been that we have cut down the time we typically spend on that section of the agenda from one hour to just 30 minutes. Saving 18 people half an hour gives nine man-hours back to the business as a result of some simple changes. We actually had time to do something in that meeting that we didn't have time for before.
Everyone in the ops team was realizing the value of this approach and started to use the ideas in other meetings. Our team worked with other meeting owners to help them clarify who should attend meetings and what could be done in advance, for example in pre-reading. The best practice has started to spread.
Of the 40 to 50 meetings on our list, about 10 per cent were bad and we stopped them, 30 per cent were good and 60 per cent were ugly. We've worked through almost all of the ugly meetings now.
In addition to the work on meetings, the second thing we've been looking at with Alan is how we approach business planning. We're using the same fundamental truths about focus and clarity, but applying them to projects and streams of work. One of the common behaviours in our organisation is that we tend to generate lots of great ideas and constantly spawn new pieces of work. This is a great asset in an organisation that is proud to be pioneering, but we also need to be focused on what we are already doing and managing our workload to ensure we remain effective. To address this behaviour, we've introduced Project Stop, which questions whether we should take on a new project and how it fits into our priorities. It also questions whether doing something else will mean we become less effective at what we're already working on and normalises the concept of stopping work to make sure we deliver effectively overall.
The engaging way of involving our ops team in looking at our behaviours and characterising our meetings has been really successful. However, there has been some learning for us along the way. Our ops team has been keen to share the benefits of our new way of working, but others outside the team who may not have been through the process can find our policing a little harsh. We've recognised that if you want to expand the practice out to other meetings, you need to make sure you involve all those in the meetings and explain the changes. That way the discipline is seen as positive rather than a negative thing. Without the background understanding, a meeting owner would get upset about their meeting being called 'ugly'. Characterisations are powerful to engage people, but they can also get lost in translation.
Orlagh Hunt, Group HR Director, AIB
In my first three years as an international HR director, I focused on performance management, linking performance and reward, performance levels and executive development. When I moved into the Group role, I realised that although our employee opinion survey was showing lots of progress in areas such as clarity of business direction and links to performance, the one thing that hadn't moved was emotional attachment or emotional engagement with the business. To address that we put in place development interventions aimed at the front line and middle managers in 30 countries.
We also recognised that we needed to develop the executive team in the same way and that's where Alan helped. We were coming out of a turnaround situation where a directive approach had been necessary and beneficial, but we needed to begin the shift to a less directive and more inclusive style of leadership.
Click to read more...
That intervention started with work on our vision – what we were trying to do, what we wanted to be and what that all meant. The business had operated effectively, but we needed to understand the next phase of the journey. We needed to continue with our organic growth strategy, but we also had bigger ambitions and we needed to look at what was required to achieve them. That involved looking at how we worked as a team and how we led the rest of the business.
Some great work was done and Alan helped crystallise that what we needed was a more overt growth and customer oriented strategy. Working with Alan opened up the opportunity to have a different strategy and what that meant for the next phase of the business.
One of big things that Alan pushes is the need to be a team, which is a struggle for many top teams. In theory we worked together, but our old way of operating had been all about driving individual performance. That was how our performance management and people management processes were set up. But to think bigger you need to have more collaboration and innovation and that requires different ways or working. Alan talks about fellowship and while I don't think we ever quite reached that level, we certainly became much better working as a team which enabled us to drive the growth through innovation and collaboration.
Individually, for members of the executive team, it was very much about being open. We needed to stop the sense that you have to have all the answers just because you're in a senior position. That means being open to including more people in decision-making. In a turnaround situation that kind of approach would cause instability, but the time was now right for that approach. Moving our leadership style on in that way was very important.
The new strategy set the new direction and then a regeneration of the executive team took place. We moved to a more human and engaging leadership style that supported the organic growth phase and teed up opportunities for us to think differently about how ambitious our strategy could be. All of this happened over a nine-year period and the outcome has been that the organisation moved from failing to being well respected on the FTSE. Not only that, but the organisation has seen benefits in terms of significant levels of organic growth despite a difficult economic environment, world class levels of employee engagement (as measured by Gallup) and it achieved sixth place in The Sunday Times Best 100 Big Companies to work for scheme in 2012.
Thras Moraitis, Former Executive General Manager, Group Strategy and Corporate Affairs, Xstrata
An organisation is a group of people getting together to achieve something – whatever it is they define to achieve. Within that group, it's essential that you are integrated and all the components need to make sense together. It may sound reasonable for the CEO to be telling the head of HR to build the strongest HR strategy in the industry, telling the head of marketing to create the best marketing and sales capability and telling production to ensure you have the most efficient and modern production, but if they all scurry off and do that, there's no guarantee it's going to work because it may not be coherent. Perhaps the production person perceived what he had to do was create a low cost product, whereas the marketing person thought he was promoting a high quality and exclusive product. All the components of the organisation model need to be coherent and mutually reinforcing.To my mind there are three critical components to building a successful organisation:
Click to read more...
- Conviction – you need conviction about something, or perhaps a few things, germane to competing in your industry. The powerful thing about a conviction is that it allows you to make decisions more easily; you can frame opportunities that come your way within that conviction. If you have a strong conviction you can say: "That's a good opportunity, but it's not for us". It makes for focus, a more efficient decision making process and more clarity about how you create value.
- Momentum - Conviction is crucial, because it creates momentum. Organisations of all types need momentum. Someone said to me once about my career: "Tread water long enough and eventually you sink". The same applies to organisations. You may feel you are doing well and making money, but if you're not creating momentum in the direction of your conviction then eventually the organisation ossifies. You need to keep the momentum, not just for the organisation itself, but also for the people working there, so that they feel they're going somewhere.
- Accountability – If you give people the tools and responsibility to make decisions and then execute on those decisions, people will feel motivated and will go the extra mile. Accountability is at the core of our organisational model. We devolved authority very deep into the organisation. Our business units are entrepreneurial enclaves and our corporate centre is very small with good reason. Corporate centres create bureaucracy. The more people there are at the centre, the more inclined they are to make jobs for themselves and the more interference they create. Very quickly you create bureaucracy that is costly, meddles with the business units and dilutes their accountability. Crucially, it also filters information between the business and the exec. This slows down decision-making but also skews information flow between the business units and the exec.
Our resistance to a small corporate centre is based on two fallacies:
- Economy of scale: Consultants come in and tell us we could save money by creating a central IT department or having centralised procurement. They're right we could save money by not having duplicated activities. However, what they can't measure or even understand is that the dilution of accountability of central function is much more damaging than the cash savings centralisation could bring. We don't want to build capability at the centre that would dilute accountability at the shop floor.
- Economy of risk: People say there are few people really able to understand risk and therefore that needs to be run from centre. But that means the centralised group prescribes how things should be done in the field, but the risks don't exist in the head office thousands of kilometres away – they exist in the field. The best information is in the field and the best people to make decisions based on this information are those closest to it.
Our model has risks in it. One risk is that because it's people-focused and not process-focused, you depend more on capable individuals and the interactions between them. With a process model you can just plug people in and out, but our model depends upon the trust and integrity of well selected individuals – that's absolutely critical. If you bring someone into that model who doesn't subscribe to our values it can be very disruptive. Transparency and integrity – doing what you say you will – are key to our model.
The integrated nature of the Xstrata model has been strengthened by my personal conversations with Alan, who understands the level of complexity we are dealing with. He has also worked with some of my colleagues and I've seen dramatic differences in a number of them in terms of the clarity with which they perceive themselves. His approach is profound, coherent and refreshing in its connectedness. As a result, we have a much greater clarity as individuals and how we connect to the organisation and that's important.
Shaun Usmar, Chief Financial Officer, Xstrata Nickel, Toronto
In the mining business most senior people have had quite narrow functional or technical career paths. As a result, when we discuss business planning, strategy, direction or budgeting, people get very passionate about their different perspectives. They are really guarded about anything that doesn't meet their view of the world. I really struggle with this.
In one recent acquisition, the first thing we had to do was to make sure we were all working off the same basic information. People had varied information sources and would use similar terminology, but would mean different things. This resulted in management often double or triple counting returns to the business, claiming the benefits for the investments for their part of the value chain, while ignoring unintended risks and costs to other parts of the value chain – leading to poor decision making. We had to spend time as a senior team getting rid of the noise that can be created by people questioning data and focus on the relevant data that informs good decision making – particularly when faced with uncertainty in those decisions. That process took a couple of years in the mid 2000s, but it ended up being a crucial step to our future success.
Click to read more...
We put aside lots of time at this foundational phase to help mostly inexperienced managers and vice presidents who had grown up in technical or functional roles to think more broadly. We would dedicate half a day or a full day to work through scenarios on a regular basis initially. We also broadened out the attendees and included people who were not necessarily the most senior, but who had good promise or something to contribute to a particular part of the discussion.
Having worked through those scenarios, our people had the ability to think through what might happen or what course of action or decision we might need to take when things got tough. There was a huge amount of change and uncertainty in our market. In 2007 nickel prices reached $25 per pound. At the depth of the financial crisis, the price tested $4 per pound. It's very hard for people to contemplate that things can change so quickly – and even harder to make multi-billion dollar decisions spanning multiple years in the face of this volatility.
We went into budgeting just after Lehman Brothers collapsed. We took a very deliberate, patient, Socratic approach and embarked on seven painful rounds of business planning. Things in the broader macro environment were changing every week and we would ask key questions about why our people made the choices they had and how they had come up with their own answers. In each round, we posed the tough questions, and supported the teams with the underlying analytics and information they needed to consider their choices. We ended up closing a couple of big mines, sadly laying people off, but also transferring people to our newest operations that were capable of being sustainable in tougher economic times. We also mothballed an operation. But what we achieved from all this was a secure future for our business.
We used very different thinking and tried to challenge each other, not to be destructive but to get people to stretch their thinking. We worked on helping them to think from a broader, macro perspective and to understand how decisions interrelated and how their decision could impact the entire business. The most senior people at the centre don't have the monopoly on brains, and they aren't the ones who have to implement the business plans on the ground. We discovered that if you combine challenging discussions with decent models and data then you can make profound changes.
We entered the financial crisis in the upper third quartile on costs in our industry, but we exited in the lower second quartile – the financial crisis posed an opportunity for us to leapfrog the competition.
Alan has worked with our team in a number of areas. He's always trying to challenge the team to think more broadly and to listen as much as they speak – something we weren't naturally predisposed to. We are a geographically dispersed team with some members who are more self-interested than others, so we've done lots of work with Alan on becoming a high performing team.
Alan has been constructively impatient. He's not molly coddling or worried about being too PC about things. He's very good at working with the team; helping them understand that this is business, not a dress rehearsal. A core focus of our work with Alan has been helping us to work though our collective dysfunction.
On a personal level, I've had the privilege of spending one-on-one time with Alan. He's helped me understand my physiology and the impact that your energy levels have on your performance and quality of your thinking. It's about making the time and space to be more deliberate about the choices you make. This is what has resonated more than just about anything. If you look at leaders across many organisations, we have an urgency addiction. People get into senior roles by being successful at delivering, but it requires a very different mind-set to step back and ask tough questions. It's important to take time out from worrying about being busy enough, and instead ensure that you have the right people working on the right things and thinking about how they can be better. Alan has helped to bring those questions and that kind of thinking to our team. He has also helped me to realise that this journey starts from within.
There is a level of contagion that comes from working with Alan. It's hard to change an organisation unless you focus first on yourself. That personal journey for me has been quite infectious for the team. Alan prompted me to think about what kind of leader you think your people want. Do they want someone frazzled or someone composed and considered with energy and gravitas? So few people do it but it's really a no brainer. I now book slots in my diary to give myself time to workout, which gives me space for myself and helps me manage my energy. I often have my best ideas during these times and return to work with far more energy at the end of the day than I was previously capable of. Others in my team see me doing that and they can see the benefits in how I interact with people. That's what creates the contagion. I can see the change in others. It's an on-going journey but we have collectively seen big changes.
Iman Stratenus, Former Managing Director, TNT China
Looking back at my time with TNT in China, I am especially proud that the team that I led for three years, and left two years ago, is still in place and is still performing. The trust we had built was so strong that ultimately the team did not need me as the leader anymore. They have a new leader and have adapted to a different style, but they continue on the journey we had begun.
The most important moment of my development as a leader was when I realised that leadership was not about me. Of course it matters greatly what I do and how I lead – my energy, my intentions and my actions – but the goal is not me, nor is it me who is judged. All that matters is the strength of the connections in the team and the impact we have through our collective efforts. For me, that shift was liberating. All my interactions – interviewing candidates, coaching conversations, leading team discussions, interacting with customers and suppliers – became a lot more worthwhile and satisfying when I could shift my interest from me to the other person.
Click to read more...
I became convinced that my role was about genuinely trying to help others get better. I created the space they needed to show their abilities. I call it sometimes jokingly 'leadership by showing up and shutting up'. One important way of doing that is by helping to create better bonds or trust between people – my own people but also people outside my company, like customers and suppliers.
That shift in perspective to others was a step towards a more holistic frame of mind. It allowed me to understand the value systems of those around me and appreciate that they weren't always the same as mine. I could adapt my language to the person I was interacting with and therefore increase my sense of being understood.
The shift for me also meant I changed in very practical ways. I engaged in more group and one-to-one discussions. I reduced my micro-management and number-studying and instead focused on connections with people and understanding others' motivations. The benefits for my team were clear, but the change was less understood by my boss. Looking back, I should have given my boss far greater insight into my thinking and development. That was a learning for me.
One of the benefits of my perspective now is that I no longer see the world in black and white but as an entire spectrum of colours and feelings. I truly embrace complexity now. I thrive on it and do not feel the urge to control situations entirely anymore. I could never go back to the linear worldview I had before going to China. The challenge is that the linear worldview is so common. As soon as you become a manager, there is an expectation that you will tell others what to do and that every issue can be reduced to a three-bullet point solution. The world isn't like that and my changed perspective gave me the ability to see much more of the detail.
It is great to know that the 'turquoise' way of leadership can work (see Complete Coherence Leadership Values Profile and Spiral Dynamics). When I discovered it and experimented with it in China, we achieved a lot of things. At a practical level, it meant building those connections within our team.
We got together for a full day every two weeks, so everyone became very informed about everything that was going on and we created far stronger bonds between us. We became very aligned on our mission and plan and our inspiration and the stronger networks trickled down into the rest of the organisation.
The second thing we did was to actively measure and then manage the culture going forward. We developed programmes to create the family bond we wanted. Over two years we changed the culture around. We created far better employee retention and engagement; in fact we had the highest employee engagement in the entire company. Starting from our mission, we made sure our employees loved what they were doing, we made sure that made sense for our customers and then the results came last.
Dr Ann Redgrave, The Redgrave Clinic
Rowing is an interesting sport. When rowers go out to race, they leave the coaches and the support team at the landing stage around 30 to 40 minutes before the race. They go through a prepared warm up routine and then they are required to sit on the start line for up to five minutes. Once they're on the start line what happens – self-doubt can creep in. I know because it happened to me when I was competing. You sit there, you find yourself wondering what you're doing there! It's the last place you want to be. It's exciting but also a bit frightening. Crazy thoughts go through your head.
Over the last few years, I've noticed this having a detrimental effect on the performance of our rowers as they leave the start line. The athletes were coming out too hard, harder than they had planned for. Very quickly they had an oxygen debt and from then on the race plan was compromised.
Click to read more...
What was needed was something to focus the attention and emotions of the rowers at the very time when they needed to do the job they had trained years for. By linking to cardiac coherence, we were able to teach the rowers something constructive, something practical, to calm their emotions down so they were able to do what they had practiced to do, at the point they needed to.
All of this was achieved in just a few months. Combining cardiac coherence with the psychology knowledge base already given to the team by our in house psychologist was very powerful. We're now looking to extend what they athletes have learnt into training regimes on a daily basis to help recovery and the emotional response to the physical loading required to be successful.
This technique has enabled a new dialogue between some of our coaches and their athletes. In a wash up after a training session or race, they no longer concentrate purely on the technical aspects of the performance, but now include the emotional aspects and how emotions influence the ability to perform. Coaches and athletes are having conversations they never would have had before!
Complete Coherence has become one of the ingredients in our sport's recipe for success.


text:
They say marriages are made in Heaven. Yes! It's true only till a certain percentage in the population. Currently, in the world, 40% of the marriages end up in a divorce. It is indeed difficult to understand this but the fact remains the same. Ironically, marriage is considered sacred until a time comes to end it. Couples discover various incompetency and several related issues amongst them and decide to part ways. Few cases will encounter this phase early and others later.Often couples undergoing a divorce are already parents. The custodial matter is looked into deeply and not as a separate matter because the law doesn't want the child to suffer between the parents. In most of the cases, children are the unfortunate victims of divorce. In heart of heart they do not want to the parent's marriages to end and want them to reconcile but no one has asked them about it. They are badly worried about their immediate future and what is going to happen to them. Will I get to stay with mum or will I go with dad? These are some thoughts that constantly worry about them. Quite a lot of times parents try to use the child or influence them against the other parent. However, amidst this bitter situation of a divorced parent should avoid hampering the child's mind and heart forever. Here are a few points that divorcing parents should consider and avoid hurting their children knowingly or unknowingly.
- Shh! Don't tell: Parents should avoid asking their children to keep their secrets. Personal secrets can be kept out of the child's mind. A small mind should not be subjected to useless stress and pressure. The child will be going through a lot already.
- Picking Faults: Avoid picking faults and flaws of each other in front of your child. While undergoing a divorce one should avoid using flaws as an influential factor. Let the child decide to choose whom! Propaganda will only make it worse.
- Do not snub: Children are innocent and will remain so in front of parents for life. Respect the innocence and do not snub them while they speak something good about the other parent.
- Do not seek emotional support: Yes! Divorcing parents will be undergoing an emotional trauma but leaning on children for support is not done! Keep your children away from the stress and show your interest in them over yours.
- Do not ignore your child: Divorcing parents will have a lot to handle! But, the child in between might have much more. Do not hesitate to look into your child's behavior. Depression and anxiety are common problems that may arise.
- Do not disclose everything: The child should have no business in what the real reason for the divorce is. Personal problems between the parents should not be discussed.
- Social Neglect/Avoiding: Divorcing parents should not be avoiding or neglecting parties where the other partner will be present. If the child is with one parent, doesn't mean that he should not meet the other parent. Distancing children from a parent is a sin!
- Connecting Dots: The law decides to hand over the child to anyone parent. While the child is growing up, do not connect his/her mistakes or behavior to the other parent. This may become a demotivating factor in the child.
- Never Refuse: On grounds of alumni, divorcing parents should never refuse their child a thing. This will directly impact the child's thinking and personality.
- Outwardly Fighting: Divorcing parents would be undergoing a lot and might not stand each other's site. This should not come out publicly where both the parents would fight in front of the child amidst a crowd.
Forget the above 10, if you can avoid the divorce. Reconcile and give a second chance. Your child doesn't deserve to be torn between you two. In cases wherein, the divorce cannot be avoided keep the situation in control for your kids. Deal with issues and concerns in a way that it doesn't spoil the family equation forever. Kids need to be reassured that although Mom and Dad have decided to part ways, they still love their children the same and want best for them. It is not always necessary for the kids going through a divorce to only hear the sad and bad part of the situation. They need to know that things will get better with time and life would take yet another beautiful shape.
We wish all the families and marriages to stay strong and happy.
Picture courtesy- World wide web. Pictures are taken from the web.
For more on parenting stay tuned with us on Lifethrumyeyes here!
Follow us on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter
Copyright Notice- Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site's author (owner) is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Rakhi Parsai (Lifethrumyeyes) with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Love Deeply. Give Freely. Laugh Often

subset: commoncrawl


text:
NUS Salsa aims to spread our love for Salsa to everyone, especially our very own NUS population, by sharing the fun and joy of Salsa dancing, on2!
Established in 2011, NUS Salsa PTeam performs annually at CAC+Us concert organized by NUS CAC, Bailamos organized by SMU and The Ultimate Year End Party organised by The Dance Collective.
NUS Salsa PTeam has also been receiving unlimited opportunites to perform at various events, such as the Singapore HR Awards 2012 Awards Presentation Gala.
In 2015, other than performances mentioned above, NUS Salsa participated in Mosaic Dance 4th Anniversary Recital. It is the first time our members are dancing on the same stage with our instructors and other professional dancers! Our Alumni Team is newly established this year for graduated and working members.
NUS Salsa also offers Recreational Team for students who can not meet the level of commitment for PTeam.
Contact us:
Participated in Bailamos
- 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018
- Participated as part of the salsa community
- Held at The Singapore Airlines Theatre with 800 audience (2018)
The Ultimate Year End Party 2018
- Participated as a guest performance to kick start the event
- Held at Le Danz with international attendees and an audience of 400 over
Inter Tertiary Salsa Competition
- 2013, 2016, 2017
Participated in Mosiac Dance Recital
- 2015
NUS x SIM Jack & Jill Competition
- 2014
Inter Tertiary Salsa Competition
- 2013 – 1st Runners Up
- Open Category 2016 – 1st Place
- Open Category 2017 – 1st place


text:
Smelly Jelly Crab Attractant
"Specifically formulated to attract crab, this scent is long-lasting and easy to apply. Custom blended and gel-based, it is nontoxic and bio-safe. Size: 4-oz. jar. Cancer and Reproductive Harm- www.P65Warnings.ca.gov. Type: Scents."
Pro-Cure Bait Injector
"Safer than a syringe, the Pro-Cure Bait Injector makes injecting powerful liquid fish attractant into your bait a quick, easy, and painless procedure. Simply squeeze to expel air, release to take up product, squeeze to inject, and replace the protective
Atlas Mike's Glow Yarn - Chartreuse
"This fat, fluffy yarn is a top choice for tying flies and yarn eggs. When used as a drift bait, the UV-enhanced colors attract trout, salmon and steelhead. Also great as a color attractor or scent holder. 12 feet per bag. Colors: Orange, Hot Pink, Flame
Atlas Mike's Salmon Eggs - Chartreuse
"Salmon eggs are a natural, simply irresistible food for trout. Atlas Mikes brand of salmon eggs have earned a reputation of premium quality from anglers around the world. Special care is taken to select only the best quality eggs Mother Nature can supply
Atlas Mike's Spawn Net 4 x 4 - Chartreuse
"Super soft. Great for making sacs of all types of bait; single eggs, clusters, cheese, liver or other forms of soft or cut bait. Bait stays on hook better. Ideal for fast current fishing. Includes 50 4 x 4 squares per pack. Colors: Pink, Chartreuse, Oran
Atlas Mike's Sac Ty'r Spawn Sac Kit - Orange
Keep your bait on the hook longer for more time in the water and less time re-baiting the hook. Kit includes all the essentials to tie spawn sacs as well as other types of bait bundles. Includes: Sac-tying machine Two rolls of soft nylon netting Magic thr
Atlas Mike's Bait Sac Floaters - Chartreuse
"Bait Sac Floaters keep your bait floating just off the bottom and in the strike zone of waiting fish. Floaters replace approximately 25% of bait extending your supply. Hot colors provide added attraction while the buoyancy gives a cleaner drift. Per 300
Atlas Mike's Atlas Shake 'N' Cure Egg Cure - Orange
"Cure your own eggs for maximum freshness and effectiveness throughout the year. This shake-on bait cure increases the scents and flavors of eggs and retains the milking ability of clusters. Eggs cured last for months under refrigeration and up to a full
Atlas Mike's Regular Spawn Sacs - Orange
"Regular Spawn Sacs are made with soft-textured natural spawn eggs with good milking action to attract salmon, steelhead and rainbows like nothing else. Drift these enticing clusters along the bottom and it wont be long before they are picked up by your q
Atlas Mike's Spawn Net 4 x 16-ft. Roll - Chartreuse
"Incredibly soft nylon netting for making your own bait sacs. Ideal for current fishing with cheese, liver, eggs, clusters and any other bait that has a hard time staying on the hook. Size: 4 x 16 roll. Colors: Red, Chartreuse, Pink, Orange. Cancer and Re


text:
Versions of the show have played in every decade since; Peter Funt, Allen's son took over after his dad's death.
Candid Camera was one of my all time favorite shows. Many times in my life weird things have happened that made me suspect I was on Candid Camera, but actually every time I have been on television, it was always with my knowledge.


text:
Medical Uses Of Marijuana
It is usually legal for medical individuals to enjoy and grow marijuana for their personal medical make use of. We asked Tvert, Aldworth and Vicente questions based on their particular places of expertise - Tvert, author of "Marijuana Will be Safer: So just why Are We all Driving People To Drink? inch fielded questions on general marijuana use.
High dosages of marijuana can create a temporary psychotic reaction (involving hallucinations and paranoia) in some users, and using marijuana can worsen the particular course of illness in patients with schizophrenia.
Due to the truth that marijuana is metabolized at different rates by different people, it is very difficult to think of an "impairment" standard just like they have for alcohol.
The hard data on efficiency through the 1960s are scanty, but it is clear that potency of seized marijuana provides increased over the time period for which there will be abundant data (from regarding 1980 forward).
The particular academic literature would support a conclusion that decriminalizing" marijuana use does not really seem to have large results on use; the dependable position vis-a-vis legalize in addition to regulate" is agnosticism, considering that there are effectively no historical precedents for what Amendment 64 would do.
No sooner had the particular Times published its opening editorials advocating legalization of marijuana than the White House fired back with an unconvincing response on the website.
Clinically supervised addiction treatment in the form of detoxification accompanied by rehab and recovery is among the most effective way in order to overcome marijuana addiction. Typically the marijuana addiction treatment program will include a blend of therapeutic approaches such as individual counseling and group therapy and help. Often treatment for a cannabis addiction is offered upon an outpatient basis, yet inpatient care can end up being extremely effective in ensuring long-term recovery.
Former CMMNJ Board fellow member Chris Goldstein was cited for marijuana smoking along with Don DeZarn plus others in acts of civil disobedience. Goldstein and DeZarn faced six months inside prison for possession regarding a small amount associated Marijuana Should Remain Illegal with marijuana when they went to trial in federal court. Diane is usually a tireless advocate regarding marijuana law reform and he or she has dedicated decades regarding her life to this issue.
They also compiled data through state agencies, nonprofit companies and private companies within the marijuana industry for a new more complete look at the marketplace. Herer's boisterous cannabis evangelism broadened the scope of the drug plan reform movement and set the stage for typically the reefer resurgence from the 1990s.
This specific is an interesting article in that it provides just one more side to typically the ongoing discovery process regarding new ways to ingest marijuanas well as chronicling the largely subterranean laboratory of the testers where analysis is endless.


text:
For Immediate Release:
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-904-7614, email@example.com
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, email@example.com
Greens warn that an adverse ruling by the Supreme Court would cancel health coverage for millions and drive up premiums for policyholders
Single-Payer's universal coverage would resolve problems caused by Obamacare and for-profit insurance bureaucracy, say Greens
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Green Party leaders expressed hope that King v. Burwell, now under review by the U.S. Supreme Court, would be decided against the plaintiffs, since the law suit threatens more than 8 million Americans with the loss of their health insurance, but also stressed the continuing need for a Single-Payer national health care program (Medicare For All).
"Greens still advocate for Single-Payer to replace an expensive and wasteful system that favors private insurance company profits. King v. Burwell has exposed and spotlighted the bureaucratic complexities and flaws in the Affordable Care Act. Nonetheless the system is better than what we have had and should not be dismantled causing further increases in the disenfranchisement of people in our country who need to be assured that their medical issues will be attended to," said Darryl! L.C. Moch, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States.
"If the federal government can provide for its employees, Congress, and the President, including former Presidents and first families, then that same system should be good enough and available to the American public," said Mr. Moch.
"The Green Party supports Medicare For All and opposed Obamacare, because we believe a health care system should guarantee all Americans high-quality, low-cost medical care rather than sustain the health insurance industry. But we don't want people to lose the coverage they currently receive through federal exchanges under Obamacare. The Competitive Enterprise Institute and Republican politicians who support the suit aren't concerned about the tens of millions of Americans who lack coverage or the millions more who might lose coverage. It's clear that they're bent on dismantling Obamacare for political purposes," said John Battista, MD, former Green candidate for state representative in Connecticut and co-author of his state's single-payer legislation in 1999 (Connecticut Health Care Security Act).
The challengers in King v. Burwell filed their suit after lawyers hired by the Competitive Enterprise Institute scoured the text of the ACA and discovered an inconsistency that seems to limit federal subsidies to those who purchase coverage on state exchanges, contrary to provisions in the rest of the legislation.
The effect of the suit, if the court decides in favor of the plaintiffs, would be revocation of subsidies for millions of middle- and low-income people who live in the 34 states that have chosen not to establish exchanges. Cancellation of the subsidies would also lead to skyrocketing rates for policyholders who don't depend on federal help (the "ACA death spiral").
"The current Supreme Court case should motivate Americans who want a better, less expensive health care system to demand Medicare For All. Obamacare balanced its modest reforms and regulations on insurance companies with the individual mandate, which ensured a financial windfall for the health insurance industry. It was clear all along that the debate over health-care reform was rigged. Democrats and Republicans disagreed on specifics but agreed on the premise that accommodating insurance companies and other health-care corporations was more important than providing universal health care," said Carl Romanelli, Pennsylvania Green Party member and former U.S. Senate candidate.
According to a press release from Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) published on March 3, "Regardless of how the court rules, the unfortunate reality is that the ACA won't be able to achieve universal coverage. It won't make care affordable or protect people from medical bankruptcy. Nor will it be able to control costs. The ACA is fundamentally flawed in these respects because, by design, it perpetuates the central role of the private insurance industry and other corporate and for-profit interests (e.g. Big Pharma) in U.S. health care. In contrast, a single-payer system -- an improved Medicare for All -- would achieve truly universal care, affordability, and effective cost control. It would be simple to administer, saving approximately $400 billion annually by slashing the administrative bloat in our private-insurance-based system. That money would be redirected to clinical care. Copays and deductibles would be eliminated." (http://pnhp.org/blog/2015/03/03/pnhp-release-on-king-v-burwell/)
Greens noted that the insurance industry contributed millions of dollars to presidential and congressional candidates of both major parties in 2008 (https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.php?ind=F09&cycle=2008&recipdetail=A&sortorder=U), buying influence that resulted in Single-Payer being declared "off the table" when Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chair of the Senate Committee on Finance at the time, convened health-care reform panels in 2009.
"We need a health care system that's based on the legally sound precedent provided by Social Security, expanding Medicare to cover everyone regardless of age, employment, ability to pay, and prior medical condition," said Sanda Everette, former co-chair of the Green Party of the United States and co-chair of the Green Party of California. "Single-Payer would allow full choice of physician and hospital and drastically reduce paperwork. It would end the control over our medical care by private insurance bureaucracies that decree which physicians and hospitals we can visit and boost their profits by restricting and denying needed medical treatment. It would stimulate the economy by relieving businesses of the health-care benefit burden. Single-payer is part of the Green New Deal (http://www.gp.org/GreenNewDeal) that Green candidates have been advocating in their campaigns for public office."
See also:
The ACA and America's Health-Care Mess
By Dr. Gerald Freidman, Dollars & Sense: Real World Economics, January/February 2014
How Obamacare is Unsustainable: Why We Need a SIngle-Payer Solution For All Americans
Book by John Geyman, M.D., Copernicus Healthcare, January 2015, 328 pages
Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org
Green candidate database and campaign information: http://www.gp.org/elections.shtml
News Center http://www.gp.org/newscenter.shtml
Speakers Bureau http://www.gp.org/speakers
Ballot Access Page http://www.gp.org/2012/ballot-access.html
Video Page http://www.gp.org/video/index.php
Green Papers http://www.greenpapers.net/
Discussion Forum https://secure.gpus.org/secure/GreenPartyForum
Google+ http://www.gp.org/google
Twitter http://twitter.com/GreenPartyUS
Livestream Channel http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyus
Facebook page http://www.gp.org/facebook
Green Pages: The official publication of record of the Green Party of the United States
Green Shadow Cabinet http://greenshadowcabinet.us
The Green Party of the United States :: PO Box 75075, Washington, DC 20013 :: firstname.lastname@example.com :: 202.319.7191