Learning Agility

In a coaching session recently one of my coachees talked about the difficulties they were facing in adapting to their new leadership role.  As we explored some of the challenges we identified the narrowness of this person's background or the lack of "opportunities" they had to really learn and adapt.  They were terrific in technical roles but their career had moved up with little diversity of experiences. In other words they hadn't had the opportunity to become an agile learner.

Michael Lombardo and Robert Eichinger (co-founders of Lominger International) explored agile learners in their book The Leadership Machine. Agile learners, their research found, thrive in new and difficult situations. They are clear thinkers who know themselves well and like to experiment. They also like to learn and can quickly apply new knowledge. Most importantly—and not surprisingly—agile learners deliver results, even in new situations.

How do we do this? There are a number of key elements. These include:

•   Seek experiences that are challenging and outside your comfort zone - These experiences force you to learn new things.  Your ability to learn enables you to survive and adapt to these challenging situations.

•  Seek out feedback on your performance, your strengths and development areas and use this feedback to continually refine your skills and behaviours. It is is critical to develop your self awareness.

•  Use a variety of learning strategies - Observe people around you, reflect on your experiences, keep a journal, use a coach, read widely, attend courses and adapt a trial and error approach.

 If you want to know more about learning agility and how to develop it then contact me on

andrew@agilityconsulting.com.au

Seeking to Understand - A Key to Building Relationships

A recent coaching session highlighted how critical authentic relationships are when trying to influence colleagues.  My coachee is an outcome and results driven person who has been successful and at some level questions "why change a winning formula".  It is something I see often and it reminds me of Marshall Goldsmith's great book "What got you here, won't get you there" At the senior level building authentic relationships is vital to success.  In fact the Center for Creative Leadership found in their research that one of the main things that gets people fired is poor relationships.  Good relationships are important and successful people are able to get the balance right between relationships and outcomes and let's face it good relationships will deliver successful outcomes.

At the heart of authentic relationships is seeking to understanding others.  Some tips on doing this include

Truly listen to the other person

How often do we truly listen to the other person?  To take the time to understand the where the other person is coming from.   Often what is happening is that each person is so intent on getting the other person to accept his or her own point of view, that they are not really listening to the other person at all. many people listen to speak rather than listen to hear.

Put yourself in the other person's shoes  

Try and understand where they are coming from?  Put aside your own interpretations and assumptions and seek to see the issue from their side. 

Assume positive intentions.

Come from a place that assumes positive intentions from the other person.  We rarely meet people who intentionally want to be negative or irritating.  People manifest their own control issues in a variety of different ways including being difficult or argumentative. 

These tips may sound like common sense but pressures of getting the task done can take us away from seeking where others are coming from.

andrew@agilityconsulting.com.au

Fall of the CEO and Rise of the Team

I am really enjoying re-reading Senior Leadership Teams - What it takes to make them great by Wageman, Nunes, Burruss and Hackman.  What I like about the book is that it challenges the thinking around whether a new paradigm of running a business is through the executive team as opposed to a "Heroic CEO".  What is interesting in our work is that so many senior teams talk about the need to be a high performing team and see it as an alternative leadership model to the omnipotent CEO but struggle to back up their words.  We hear about parental team management, silo driven behaviours and individuals focusing on their our own agendas.   But Executive Teams are indeed challenging to develop for a variety of reasons.  These include 

• The spotlight is on them – Every move is scrutinised and therefore it can impact on trust levels and drive individual agendas.

• The power dynamics are central to the operations of the group.  Every choice and decision impacts on the success and future of each individual.  The CEO is also the leader of the team and runs the business adding to this complexity.

• Accountability for performance can be a lot greater both from the Board and investors.

• Tension can exist between the cooperation needed to work as an enterprise team and the implicit competition of people who seek the CEO’s role.

• Individuals on the team are often stars in their own fields and practices and have been rewarded for outstanding individual competition

• Individuals play multiple roles that often conflict

 
These are significant challenges that we help senior teams overcome through our Senior Team Development Methodology.  If you have an interest in developing senior teams I would highly recommend the above book - It is a beauty.  If you want help in developing your senior team please see www.agilityconsulting.com.au

The Need for Control

In some recent coaching assignments we have seen how individuals use control to manage their "fear of failure" mindset.  It is an incredibly stressful to constantly be operating from a need to control.  The need for control can be manifested in many different ways including the need to be right,blaming others, not delegating, micro managing and perfectionism.  

We know from the neuroscience research that changing the brain structure is not easy unless you give focus attention to the change you desire.  We have encouraged our clients to ask themselves to become mindful (another topic in itself) and aware when their need for control comes up and challenge their thinking - "Is this the right thing to do or is this about my need for control?"  Challenging their emotional need to control with a rational perspective can start the change process. Bringing awareness to how control is manifested is the first step in making the change.

Agility Consulting Group & Thought Leadership

One of our values at Agility Consulting Group is Thought Leadership.  We see blogging as another way of sharing our content, ideas and thought leadership.  We aim to publish content in the areas of coaching, leadership development, neuroleadership, senior team development and talent management.

We are interested in having debate and discussion to advance the capability of leaders and senior teams across Australia and New Zealand.  If you want further information on who we are please see our website:

www.agilityconsulting.com.au