- Leandro Herrero - https://leandroherrero.com -

‘The limits of my language are the limits of my world’

Said Wittgenstein [1]. Language in business and organizations creates frames, but also limitations. And we have lots of these frames. ‘Employee Engagement’, ‘Talent Management’, ‘Change Management’ for example, are common frames for anybody in business, but, for an alien they are far from clear conceptual entities. By using a particular language we infer that everybody will have a common understanding of what is meant, but some of these ‘concepts’ have many varying interpretations.

‘Change management’ is perhaps at the top of the abuse charts. It’s use in IT puts a simple accent on ‘making the new IT system live’. It’s use in project management, in mergers & acquisitions and in cultural change has however very different meanings. By calling something ‘change management’, far from creating shared understanding, we are creating a limitation of understanding. This limitation of the language creates in itself, limitations in the world of management.

Other bits of management dialect that have set up permanent camp in the organizational landscape, have become standard jargon which, because of their progressive lack of meaning, as before, create limitations in the world of management. Try to have a conversation these days on ‘empowerment’ and you’ll see the smiles of people around begging for a definition of some sort. And better that, than continuing the conversation assuming that everybody ‘knows what we are talking about’

Tribal language – and business language is tribal – can’t be suppressed, only substituted. An injection of clarity and plain language would do us all a favour.

‘Forget what they say, observe what they do’. The ‘uniqueness paradox’ revisited. A bit.

Posted By Dr Leandro Herrero On In Behavioural Economics,Change, Leadership and Society,Communications,culture and behaviours,Employee Engagement,HR management,Identity and brand,Ideology,Organization architecture,Workplaces Of The Future | No Comments

Some people in organizations believe that they are working in a very bureaucratic, hierarchical, political and rigid environment. Many of them, not all, have not worked in an even more bureaucratic, hierarchical, political and rigid company, so what they see is their standard of dysfunctionality. Nobody is possibly as complicated, and rigid, and hierarchical, than us, they may say.

If they have the misfortune of moving to a really more bureaucratic, hierarchical, political and rigid company, then they see the past with nostalgia. But, how could they possibly have joined a more bureaucratic, hierarchical, political and rigid company?

Scenario 1: they did not think it was, did not look like, did not sound like, and the move was a promotion, by the way.
Scenario 2: It is actually not much different than the previous one, but suddenly ‘the grass looked greener’ over there.
Scenario 3: It is true, it’s worse. Punto.
Scenario 4: Actually both are objectively not that bad, at all, but the employee does not know better, it has no extra references.
Scenario? Please carry on, combine or imagine

Point is, we all have our own perception and bias towards what we see in front, a form of ‘availability bias’, which is also very much influenced by the sets of values and beliefs and narratives: this company is such and such. Collective belief that ;we are very hierarchical’, for example, does not make a hierarchical organization. Not necessarily.

Actually, it can also go the other way. And I have seen it many times: here we are not political, not bureaucratic, not opaque, not rigid. But, by God they are.

That is why relying on what the employee say, including their leadership, is not near as efficient as observing what they actually do. ‘Forget what they say, observe what they do’, is a pretty good heuristic rule.

At the core, a bit deep, but not much, is also a belief that your own organization is unique, one way or another. And that has been tested experimentally, although the study is a bit old. It ended up being called ‘the uniqueness paradox’: the strong belief that we are, err, unique. This is a variation of the more prosaic, ‘this can only happen to me’, which is of course almost impossible. Employees tend to overestimate the uniqueness of their company, the same as people tend to overestimate their skills. If you are interested in these findings, ask Mr Google, he’ll find them for you in seconds.

One of the advantages of my job as organization architect is that it comes with a vaccination against that ‘uniqueness paradox’. Working with organizations of any size, any sector and anywhere, I can see more than fifty shades of green grass. I also see rigidity when I see it, and freedom when I see it.

Uniqueness is not a good idea as a point of departure, but it is excellent as aspirational destination. The difference is far from subtle. As a departure, you start by assuming the uniqueness and rest in its laurels. As a destination the question is not what is that makes us unique ( and we have to preserve it), but what will make us unique, more unique, dare I say, always unique?

Joining a cause’, vs. ‘being employed’. Can you articulate the reason for your enterprise?

Posted By Dr Leandro Herrero On In Accountability,Agency,Behavioural Economics,Branding,Change, Leadership and Society,Collective action,culture and behaviours,Grassroots,HR management,Identity and brand,Ideology | No Comments

From time to time you see the occasional and mostly not very solid comparisons between ‘the company’ and a religion. It is usually done in the context of explaining the need for extraordinary commitment, a sort of Mother of All Employee Engagement models. These comparisons are not taken very seriously and it’s easy to understand why.

Another model of engagement has compared the commitment of employees to the military ‘tour of duty’. A kind of time-limited mutual contract in which for the commitment to the ‘tour’, the employee gets compensation, protection and skilling.

I think that new generations of employees are pointing us to a different direction. Even if it is a gross generalization to talk about ‘new generations’, Millennial for example, it is true that there is a shift towards ‘purpose’ and being part of it. Equally tempting and risky is the generalization towards ‘purpose’, particularly social purpose and societal impact. However, all these shifts, overestimated or not, should makes us think of the reasons why employees may join an enterprise in future. The modern enterprise, and the one described in textbooks, or even the one in existence until recently, is not anymore a solid model for the future. There is little ‘built to last’ around, but little excitement as well for ‘maximising shareholder value’ as the Mother of All Motivations.

I believe ‘the cause’ may give us better clues. Joining a cause, small or being, is joining a common sense of purpose and a shared commitment to action. Asking ourselves about ‘the cause’ that may be behind what we do in organizations, goes well beyond the rather cold description of missions and visions. The problem is that many leaders may have difficulties in articulating their cause, their company cause. They don’t think in these terms. Take this as an example.

Is the cause of pharmaceutical company X to (a) develop a medicine for Y; (b) cure Y; (c) eradicate Y; (d) transform the way Medicine is practiced when dealing with Y; (e) bring total health to Y sufferers; (f) prevent Y; (g) have and give immense joy and fun for employees working there; (g) enhance the shareholder value of people putting money in?

At this point, our minds get uncomfortable with the multiple choice and start looking for the comfort behind ‘surely some of them; they are not incompatible’. But I think this is a trick. Other than possible incompatibilities (e.g. the company is simply not set up to fully prevent Y), this is not a true ‘pick your own’. One or some are the cause, the rest is music. Pick one. Which one? Which two? What is the real, real, real cause? Well, you’d better have a clear idea and a clear answer for people joining you.

I deeply believe that these are not simply semantic games and that we need more clarity on ‘causes’, or the lack of them. I would welcome the fact that this makes some people uncomfortable and dismissive, if this is a trigger to take it seriously. If not, not serious, complete dismissal or sheer inability to articulate the real cause, I am very sorry for you, have a pain-controlled decline.

PS. Spare me the ‘to make money’. Drug dealers make money; human traffic makes money; corrupted governments make money.

Stop press: Candidate interviewed by authentic people

Posted By Dr Leandro Herrero On In Behavioural Change,Character,culture and behaviours,Employee Engagement,HR management,Identity and brand,Self-management,Talent, Skills, Human Capital | No Comments

A recent senior hire in a client company commented to me that the thing that most impressed her in the round of interviews was that everybody seemed to be themselves. She had the perception that nobody was trying to project a particular ‘party line’, or being different from how they really were. Some were very nice, others less. It was, paraphrasing that person, an invitation to be oneself in that particular company. There was something fresh and appealing. She did join.

I had a similar experience many years ago when working for a big multinational. The HQ environment was stiff, corporatized. It was a cloning machine, with its own dialect, a language not spoken outside those walls by any other human being. Headhunted to another company, I went for the round of interviews. Regardless of the content related to the job in question, I thought: ‘Oh God, these people actually speak and act normally’. It was refreshing. I joined.

Authenticity is precious but it is often difficult to describe. However, when you see it, you know it. The great sociologist Erving Goffman, using theater comparisons, wrote about how we try to control human interaction in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life [2]. Our personas are our own versions of the Self, and they may vary. However, authenticity beats any artificial persona, and certainly always wins over the ‘corporate persona’.

Authentic comes after all from autos (self) and hentes (doer and being). Fake it and you’ll be found out.

And they took the British flag with them

Posted By Leandro Herrero On In Character,Identity and brand,Rituals,Values | No Comments

Yesterday, my wife and I said goodbye to a good friend from France who works as a high level executive in the European Medicines Agency, until now based in London, and who is moving to Amsterdam like anybody else in the Agency. Having been  thrown out by Brexit, The Netherlands opened their arms.

This European agency of high prestige, founded in 1995, that looks after the efficacy and safety of the medicines we use every day, and that has a high concentration of scientists and regulators, is leaving the UK for good after the Brexit decision. Another great loss for the country. An issue which does not deserve any attention by UK politicians, let alone hard Brexiteers. In fact, according to our friend, only the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan,  has bothered to visit them to see if he could do anything.

The waste, and the absurdity, and self-harm, are not the topic of this Daily Thought. Nor is my anger towards those who have systematically lied to the public about the ‘submission of the UK’ and the ‘imminent flow of immigrants’. Nor the fact that a sector of the UK politics had invented ‘The Wall’ well before Mr Trump did. They had The Wall in their neurons.

My friend explained what I had seen in The Guardian [3]: the ceremony of removing the flags of the EU countries from their flagpoles, and their folding, to take them to their new home in Amsterdam. Apparently, the ceremony was moving and solemn. One civil servant from each country took care of their own flags. I did not know that each country had its own rules to fold a flag! One side, other side, that colours cannot be seen, etc.

I was moved when I saw the picture in The Guardian. It made me angry.

I was taken aback by one of my friends comments, in passing: ‘and of course we will take the British Flag with us to Amsterdam’. I thought it was so beautiful. Those highly skilled professionals taking with them a little bit of their history, and their colleagues, their flag, their symbol, as is that emotional and rational and professional connection was of a higher moral ground than all the political, social, historical, and generational vandalism produced by ‘Brexit-means-Brexit’.

How wonderful to see our plain and simple humanity in action. ‘We will take your flag with us.’ Then you will be coming with us in spirit. Part of the same family. Just as if moving house.

(But it isn’t. It’s the sad realities of tribal politics with no eyes on the common good.)

May the Union Jack have a quiet place in a building in Amsterdam, surrounded by friends who respect Britain, their people, their professionals. A tiny part in our collective heart.

Even if some of us feel betrayed, deceived, and deeply unsettled by the brutal self-cantered Brexit, we know that, above all, our human relationship will always sit above that toxicity.

May we protect ourselves against that toxicity. May we all carry other people’s  flags to a place of safety, respect, reverence and shelter.

Organizations have their own ‘People who like this, also like that’. Their ideology (idea-Logic) may be too crafted. (2/2)

Posted By Leandro Herrero On In Culture,Identity and brand,Ideology,Language,Storytelling,Tribal | No Comments

Part 2 of 2, first published November 2015

Yesterday I offered 10 types of people that challenge the status quo in organizations [4]. I also mentioned that our mind tends to protect us against ‘difficulties’ by saying don’t, conform, it’s OK. And its cousins: what is the point? Don’t fight those battles.

Dissent and challenge is more difficult when the overall narrative is strong; when there is a presiding, overall logic of ideas and their implications, nicely linked. Some narratives (political, for sure, but also macro-social and ‘micro’, such as ‘the company’) become semi untouchable. After all, in the political arena, that is the point of ideology. A dominant ideology (idea-logic) is self-reinforcing. More and more people ‘within’ will write or say something that is consistent with ‘the package’.

Have you noticed that those narratives come in (political) bundles? They follow the same principle you see in the online shops: people who bought this also bought that. So if you like this, you also like that, because otherwise it is a pick and mix, not acceptable. Which is  kind of another imperialistic narrative: with us in all or against us in all. So you may end up feeling guilty of agreeing with A but having reservations about B. It’s easier to agree with B as well.

Literally these narratives shut down the alternatives or the opposite. And often they blame each other for the same behaviour. A rather old, if still in place, Western, ex French Revolution ‘Left’ and ‘Right’, follows that rule: pick one, you get a bundle of idea-logic connections. People who like this, also like that.

Small state, don’t interfere with the market, the individual is the agent on the Right; the market needs to be domesticated, bigger role for government to the Left. But, you see, people who like this, also like that: so in the Left you also need to be pro-abortion rights, pro-redistribution of wealth and pro-suppression or reduction of social inequalities. Suddenly, you did not know, and have other things in the Left or Right package: gender issues, mums at home or not, believing in God and fox hunting. How did that happen? Well, it’s simple; people who like this also like that, so you are not going to be an exception are you? Etc. These are caricatures to make the point.

There are not a lot of differences in the organization even if we don’t talk about this in the same way. There is a narrative (whether you use the term or not) and it may be ‘all embracing’. And because of that you have halo effects that may even make you ‘the most admired corporation’, or not. Admired? On what? All 40 parameter? Wow! Can we unbundle please? No you can’t.

An artificial, if wonderfully pragmatic distinction between story and narrative looks as follows. Stories are self contained, beginning and end, that’s it. Narratives are open ended. They may contain stories but the narrative is constantly in creation. Narratives are journeys, stories are locations.

The Social Idea-Logic of the organization needs a narrative that allows for dissent, that is still open, that makes people feel they are crafting it, not imposed from the top.

Yes, people who like this also like that, but what if they didn’t? This is a leadership question.

 

 

An enlightened top leadership is sometimes a fantastic alibi for a non-enlightened management to do whatever they want

Posted By Leandro Herrero On In Branding,Corporate pathologies,culture and behaviours,Identity and brand,It’s Personal!,Language,Leadership,Purpose,Values | No Comments

Nothing is more rewarding than having a CEO who says world-changing things in the news, and who produces bold, enlightened and progressive quotes for all admirers to be. That organization is lucky to have one of these. The logic says that all those enlightened statements about trust, empowerment, humanity and purpose, will be percolated down the system,  and will inform and shape behaviours in the milfeulle of management layers below.

I take a view, observed many times, that this is wishful thinking. In fact, quite the opposite, I have seen more than once how management below devolves all greatness to the top, happily, whilst ignoring it and playing games in very opposite directions. Having the very good and clever and enlightened people at the top is a relief for them.  They don’t have to pretend that they are as well, so they can exercise their ‘practical power’ with more freedom. That enlightened  department is covered in the system, and the corporate showcase guaranteed.

The distance between the top and the next layer down may not be great in organizational chart terms, yet the top may not have a clue that there is a behavioural fabric mismatch just a few centimeters down in the organization chat.

I used to think years ago, when I was older, that a front page top notch leader stressing human values provided a safe shelter against inhuman values for his/her organization below. I am not so sure today. In fact, my alarm bell system goes mad when I see too much charismatic, purpose driven, top leadership talk. I simply smell lots of alibis below. And I often find them. After all, there is usually no much room for many Good Cops

Yet, I very much welcome the headline grabbing by powerful business people who stress human values, and purpose, and a quest for a decent world. The alternative would be sad. I don’t want them to stop that. But let’s not fool ourselves about how much of that truly represents their organizations. In many cases it represents them.

I guess it all goes back, again, to the grossly overrated Role Model Power attributed to the leadership of organizations, a relic of traditional thinking, well linked to the Big Man Theory of history. Years of Edelman’s Trust Barometer, never attributing the CEO more than 30% of the trust stock in the organization, have not convinced people that the ‘looking up’ is just a small part of the story. What happens in organizations has a far more powerful ‘looking sideways’ traction: manager to manager, employee to employee. Lots of ritualistic dis-empowering management practices can site very nicely under the umbrella of a high empowerment narrative at the top, and nobody would care much. The top floor music and the music coming from the floor below, and below, are parallel universes.

Traditional management  and MBA thinking has told us that if this is the case, the dysfunctionality of the system will force it to break down. My view is the opposite. The system survives nicely under those contradictions. In fact it needs them.

There is always room for uniqueness, even in the most standardised management process. What would it take?

Posted By Leandro Herrero On In Branding,Building Remarkable Organizations,Identity and brand,Ideology,Reputation,Talent, Skills, Human Capital,Values | No Comments

Uniqueness is a tough concept. I’ve got countless examples of clients pushing back  over the years. ‘Come on, this is a manufacturing line, we don’t reinvent the wheel, this is how plastic bottles, or drug capsules, are made, everywhere. I don’t need creativity’. That one has been very common!

But the argument is almost always flawed. We are mixing uniqueness (maximum differentiation) with creativity (alternative ways, but not necessarily unique) with innovation (different, not tried application of ideas).

The robots… will take care of many repetitive, mechanical, unique or not, processes.  That we know. They will also take care, via Artificial Intelligence, of a lot of thinking. And if the idiot machines can learn, and master the master of all algorithms, then, well, Mars is probably a good option.

Seriously, I am obsessed with uniqueness of product or services as an aspiration, not always reachable. If in my company we did not aspire to uniqueness, I would perhaps not be here, writing my Daily Thoughts.

For me, there is no limit as to how unique you want to be, whether it’s possible or not. It is the Michelangelo aspiration quoted a million times: ‘The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark’.

Besides, should we really dismiss uniqueness as aspiration when we are each of us a live representation of the concept of ‘unique’? There is no other like you, not even your twin brother.

Here are five areas of uniqueness to explore:

To me, the magic question is ‘what would it take to achieve it?’ It may not be obvious. It may be hard. It may be easy to dismiss. But the question is one of the strongest one can ask in the professional world.

How can I/we be unique on X,Y.Z?

What would it take?

Where is home? A serious management question to employees

Posted By Leandro Herrero On In Branding,Employee Engagement,Identity and brand,Motivation,Tribal | No Comments

I am (in) IT, I work for X (company)
I work for X (company), I am in IT

These are not the same. It tells me where the sense of belonging is, where home is, where loyalty may be, or divided. Both are neither good nor bad. They express what they express. They are different.

Change IT for R&D, Commercial, Regulatory etc. if you wish.

But some tribes are particularly good at preserving their belonging. Medical doctors is one. ‘Being a medical doctor’ becomes part of some sort of special form of being that sticks. Lots of pages in social psychology manuals explain why, including one that made me think for many years, when I was briefly teaching Medical Psychosociology in the University: the so called ‘access to your body’. The plumber, the engineer, the roof fixer, the driver or your manager do not have (usually) access to your body. They may have access to your time, your money or your emotions but usually not your body. That is an anthropological privilege when looked through those lenses.

In my many years doing time in the pharmaceutical industry, I was always struck by the medics, some reporting to me, who would always put ‘the medic’ bit before the company paying the salary. ‘I am a doctor, I work for X (company) as Medical Director’ was always, always, far more prominent than “I work for X (company) as a Medical Director, comma, I am a medical doctor’

Here, the order of factors does change the product.

Similarly, for a company composed of parts or business units or acquired businesses.

I am in Y (part of a company Z, or we are just being acquired by Z)
I work for Y, now part of Z
I work for Z, they just bought us, Y

Here, as well, the order of factors does change the product.

Months, even years after an acquisition, some groups or individuals have not made the transition yet. They still belong to the previous entity.

Also, the more de-centralised, devolved, an organization is, the more it is acting as a host, as an umbrella. As such, the overall brand may or may not be stronger than the individual de-centralised branded units. We see this all the time. People are often more loyal to a product-brand, or a service-brand, or, indeed a geography-brand, than ‘the firm’.

The issue is not whether the decentralised business units retain high levels of loyalty and belonging for employees (what is wrong with that?) but whether the parent brand makes the whole thing even more attractive. The more decentralised, the greater the need for an overall glue, a neat common home to be. The onus to be a good magnet is on the host/umbrella/mother/father. Not on the children.

 

 

My soft stuff/test results: 3 Plus, 3 Minus, 3 Grr!

Posted By Leandro Herrero On In Character,Identity and brand,It’s Personal!,Language,Purpose,Values | No Comments

I have found myself in full philosophical mode, taking stock. End of year I suppose. This is like a blood test without the blood to find compatibilities and antibodies, all in one. It does not describe me, but what that ‘me’ can take, look for or reject bitterly.

It’s personal by the way! Here we are:

PLUS
My top 3 in the character side are:

Loyalty: this one keeps coming up top all the time, no matter what

Generosity: when you are the receiver of a gift that did not have to come, from somebody who has the habit of sending them to you.

Compassion: genuine concern for others (that includes me). When you see it, you’ll never forget anymore.

 

MINUS
My top 3 in the high antibody generation category are:

Mediocrity: usually associated (I don’t know why) with people who think they are genius.

Arrogance: from people who think they are of a higher league, everybody else being second class citizen.

Carelessness: quick and dirty and un-thought and half baked, and, they don’t care. Of course!

 

MY 3 GRR! REALLY GRR!

Taken for granted: emotionally, professionally, personally, in relationships, you name it. It includes the feeling of entitlement that some people exhibit.

Nombrilisme: which is the French name for navel-gazing, but it sounds much better. Since we are in a Me-Era, it is not difficult to find people (and organizations!) who are just looking at themselves with pride.

The oblivious: it’s kind of included above but my grr! comes from the deep frustration of seeing people who have no clue about what is going on around them. And that includes many managers and leaders I know.

What I found interesting (and I suggest you can test it with yourself) is how long it took me to come up with this 3+3+3. I don’t think it reached the 10 seconds mark. I think that if one pauses and looks at the self-tests, it should not be difficult to answer the questions: what is my 3+3+3?

So, let me ask you, what are yours?

A tsunami of navel-gazing, force 11, is impacting business, society and politics. And individual identity.

Posted By Leandro Herrero On In Corporate pathologies,Identity and brand,Ideology,Innovation,It’s Personal!,Language,Leadership | No Comments

I don’t like to sound gloomy. But, is the current self-centrism an epidemic of colossal proportions? Or, another way to put it, is navel-gazing the tsunami coming to all our shores?

Individually, we are in a massive selfie/toxic epidemic. Millions of homo sapiens take pictures of themselves as if running out of time before any Second Coming of the Lord, or at least The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse drop by.

Companies look 90% at themselves and 10% at the market. And when they use the 10%, 90% of that 10%, it is looking at competitors, not the real buyers, not society.

Big Countries. Well, that one wants to be Great Again, meaning close the borders, look inside, close the windows, look at us.

Big Global Brands have such a high regard for themselves that they keep telling us about their attributes, and their greatness, and their passions – which they have dissected into millions of PowerPoints and multi million pound contract consultants – so that the rest of us mortals recognise a greatness that we don’t care much about, and pay for that greatness that is not that great.

The Me Inc. is very strong and, dangerously, we believe that we are communal and resource-sharing loving people. Wow!

Across the world, self-centred-born organizations have become so sophisticated at navel-gazing that you wonder if they have inherited some sort of optical macular degeneration, aka blindness, in the process. Conservatives are hyper-conservatives because they want to conserve what they see in their navel-gazing exercises.  Left-leaning organizations have lost the equilibrium, due to so much navel-gazing, they are falling instead of just leaning, and becoming irredeemably self-centred. Nationalist movements thrive because telling people to look after oneself and forget the rest, sells very well. Add in the salt and pepper of ‘the others are screwing you up’, and, bingo, we all want independence in a Massive Interdependent World.

We need a counter-epidemic. It reads like this. People, can you open the windows? Actually you’ll be amazed what you can see. You are not that important, we all are. Calm down. Your horse is getting a bit tired. Bosses, employees, politicians, journalists (that excludes the UK Daily Mail), Decent Men, we are here In Transit. Stop looking in. We are in this together. The answers are outside us, most of the time.

I know that my Unsexy Manifesto won’t go too far but, come on, let’s be serious. There is a thing called society, despite Mrs Thatcher denial. Most of the things that look like ‘I’ or ‘me’ don’t have  a life within the ‘us’.

ps. I propose a Narcissus Tax. For every selfie, a 10% of your phone battery is gone. (Mr Crook? Mr Croooook? Tim? Are you there?)

Your mental frame, as defined by words, will dictate your actions. Even your values. Words are dictators.

Posted By Leandro Herrero On In Branding,Building Remarkable Organizations,Identity and brand,Language,Leadership,Models and frames,Purpose | No Comments

The purpose of the organization is… The objectives of the strategy are… The reason why we have restructured is…

From then on, any word used will dictate more than a few actions. What comes after is the frame, which is the same as saying the box, the borders, the spirit behind. So, for example, here are some frames: fixing, building, creating, protecting, solving, defending, and winning. Each word decides a set of values, a course of action.

Solving a poor customer relationship system is not the same as building a culture of customer-centrism.

Defending the brand is not the same as creating a community of brand fans.

Winning a position in the market is not the same as creating a market.

The frame dictates.

I can hear people saying that it is the other way around, that first is the intention, then strategy and then the words. But I see day after day the use of words that nobody knows exactly why they are used and that seem to be (vaguely?) related to the purpose. In many cases I know, the words have taken over. Perhaps irreversibly. In that case, words dictate, they are not dictated.

Words are cheap, their consequences are not.

Restructuring to align process and systems better, to concentrate leadership and/or serve a customer sector in a better, more logical and more effective way, may be done for all those purposes, but simply heard as cost cutting and people leaving. The latter may be so, but in reality, a new structure (I am not making a judgement as to whether good or bad, sensible or not) is born. Taking this under the building mode, for example, may just create a completely different future. Building, as a forgotten frame, is a lost opportunity to align people on a new and exciting journey.

It is far from semantic games. Words dictate us, not the other way around. Words produce emotions, from excitement to boredom, from emotional engagement to cynicism, from possibilities gained to paradise lost.

Framing is a key skill for leaders. Poor leaders will take this as a word game that an advertising or consulting agency will craft for them. Good leaders will start with asking others around to choose a frame, to explore the consequences, decide and stick to it.

 

 

 

Speak from a position of strength, not of arrogance. But do you really know what that position is?

Posted By Dr Leandro Herrero On In Branding,Communication,Identity and brand,It’s Personal!,Language | No Comments

Know your strength and speak from that position.

What is it? Knowledge? Expertise? Experience? Wisdom? Here are others: simplicity, communication, intelligence, emotional intelligence, confidence, inspirational, trust builder. Some of the above? Don’t worry, if you have more than one, a sort of halo effect will kick in and your position of strength will look like ‘a package’. Good or bad, that’s how it works.

Speaking from your position of strength is not arrogance. Or at least it does not have to be.

It means projecting your image, the person you are. How to manage this without taking unfair advantage, it’s another question. The fine line is really fine.

In fact, what you think your position of strength is, and what others may think it is, may be very different. You may think your expertise gives you strength, but others may see an aspect of your personality as something much stronger. You may think that your position of strength comes from your current contributions, but others may see your previous experience as the source.

To know about it does matter. To check your reality versus other people’s reality, does matter.

Many CVs, including online ones, show funny concepts of self-marketing: ‘I am an inspirational leader, a critical thinker and a great strategic mind’ may be self-branding by some kind of ‘brand yourself’ book, but may sound ridiculous.

The position of strength is not one of apologies, but neither is it your Marketing Department Within, on full show.

Finding the balance is key, but, before that, I find it fascinating to see how many people cannot simply answer the question about their ‘position of strength’. Validated by others, that is.

 

‘Diversity and Inclusion’ needs more diverse thinking. If people could take out their PC hat, deeper conversations would emerge.

Posted By Dr Leandro Herrero On In Identity and brand,Ideology | No Comments

I often think that the standard ‘diversity and inclusion’ discourse that floats around companies is a bit superficial. It stops at saying that ‘diversity and inclusion’ is good in itself without exploring a bit further the inclusion of what, or the diversity of what. Are we talking about diversity of ideas and opinions? Or is it race and gender? Or any diversity as long as it is diverse? Similarly, inclusion of what? Everybody? Some not represented bodies, types of people, tribes? Race and gender again?

I could go further in this, surely for many, irritating push back and ask, in the case of exclusion, do we really know why we are excluding? Do we know about the magnets (to include) and the antibodies (to exclude, to reject)?

In the absence of a deeper understanding, the solutions to inclusion are, as it frequently occurs, simply numerical: let’s have more women or black people in leadership positions. Diversity and exclusion ‘solutions’ (professionals, consultants, departments, functions) become then the replacement of empty shelves in the management supermarket.

I have found some fascinating anthropological insights to borrow from Simon Kuper’s article in the Financial Times ‘Barack Obama: anthropologist in chief’. Kuper’s proposition is that Obama’s mother, anthropologist Ann Dunham, may have had significant influence on him, more than it has been written, which as far as his mother is concerned, it is not a lot. Obama may have grown to learn to detach himself from the observed world, as a good anthropologist does. That is why, the Obama anthropologist within does not see the US as ‘exceptional’. In its own words, American exceptionalism is not different from British or Greek exceptionalism, an assertion that irritated many at the time.

The birth certificate saga is interesting. The potential charge is foreignness, not blackness. Race, undeniable factor, may be at least coupled with foreignness. This is how an anthropologist would see it. For ‘detachment’, read no appetite for invading other cultures, and no sense of ‘my culture is superior’ (anti exceptionalism). Kuper also quotes Obama’s reaction to the Charleston mass shooting: ‘You don’t see murder of this kind of scale, this kind of frequency, in any other advanced nation’. ‘He was talking about the US – Kuper says – as just another country, something almost taboo in American political discourse’.

Kuper’s article made me think about how superficial our assessment of inclusion/exclusion, adoption/rejection, in/out often is. The blackness/foreignness is a good analogy and example of how one has to go deeper, beyond the obvious, applying some critical thinking.

If Obama’s magnetism/rejection is more complicated than blackness, I want to go deeper in the understanding of what makes people adopt and reject, include or exclude, count or discard. I am not convinced that the standard narratives of diversity and inclusion consultancies, internal or external to the company, go far enough. It is also a sensitive area in which I have seen many challenges ending in accusations of political incorrectness. Don’t talk about it, say yes, it’s all good, or you will be seen as a dinosaur.

Again, another area where corporate anthropologists could come to the rescue, unless they themselves live in Management Platitude Planet: diversity and exclusion is good for you. Full stop.

Two types of Exiled Executives: Nostalgic and Nomadic

Posted By Leandro Herrero On In Corporate anthropology,Employee Engagement,Identity and brand,Language,Rituals | No Comments

The nostalgic executive, refers constantly to the past. What they did in their previous company, how they managed to build X and how the company eventually called McKinsey (one of the Four Horsemen) and, yes, how they still keep a template that would be just what you need now. Like nostalgic exiled people who keep souvenirs and paraphernalia, the exiled executive keeps templates and workbooks.

The nostalgic executive may also have a tendency to reconstruct (reinvent) the reality of the past in a way that provides safer memories. In that new reality, their mind may filter here and there so that the new version, Previous-Company v.02 takes over. This reconstructing history is as old as mankind so it should not be a surprise.

The nostalgic executive suffers from maladie du pays, which is French for homesickness and sounds much better

The nomadic executive is also in exile but more content with their new status. Some have decided to be truly nomadic and will set temporary corporate tents here and there with no intention of staying too long. Actually, some subtype of nomadic executives seem to be in state of Permanent Gap Year.

The nomadic type may or may not travel light, and, who knows, they may have one or two McKinsey templates as well. But their focus is the travel ahead. Some nomadics are just temporary job holders (actually they don’t hold a job, the job holds them) and others are more of a builder type who want to leave a visible legacy beyond the fraternal pictures of the Gap Year.

Other nomadic ones may see the new post-exile status as a form of rehabilitation for all sins and suffering of the past.

These two little vignettes of corporate anthropology may be very helpful to get to know your corporate fellow travellers and understand what they may be up to. Who knows, you may be exiled yourself, a corporate immigrant.

Let’s face it, since we were born, we are all in exile.

 

 

Shifting the narrative: one of the finest roles of leadership

Posted By Leandro Herrero On In Communication,culture and behaviours,Identity and brand,Language,Leadership,Models and frames,Performance,Storytelling | No Comments

One of the fundamental roles of leadership is to frame the narrative of the organization. This is easy to say but not many leaders are conscious of the importance of having an overall mental frame and overall compelling narrative that serves as an umbrella for everything. Worse, many leaders in organizations could not perhaps answer the question of ‘the narrative’. They may recite mission and visions but this is far from describing that overall big story.

There are decisions to be made about those narratives and, even more important, about shifting the ones in place.

Here are three examples:

  1. From a performance/execution narrative that is pretty much one of the efficacy and effectiveness of the organization, to a narrative of ambition, which goes well beyond high performance to high(er) and high(er) goals and possibilities.
  2. From a fixing/problem solving narrative in which problems and deficiencies are the focus, to one of building something new, creating some new culture, a new organization (in which those problems are addressed or solved)
  3. From a ‘management of change’ narrative, to one of change-ability, permanent state of change and shaping a culture’s DNA where change is not a project anymore.

We could go for hours on the listing of possible shifts. It does not mean they are obligatory (!) but the conversation about which narrative is in place and whether it is fit for purpose and for the future, may force us to look at alternatives. It is a vital exercise that impacts on language and action.

I suggest we unpack this carefully. The glasses we have to see the world, creates our world. The historical language of the organization may have intrinsic liabilities now. New, younger generations, for example,  may want to hear something different. Do we always know what?

 

 

 

 

 

Find your own performance recipe. Today, the life cycle of a Best Practice is a week

Posted By Leandro Herrero On In Building Remarkable Organizations,Identity and brand,Models and frames,Performance,Purpose | No Comments

Organizational performance is unique. Cut and paste does not work. You need to find your own formula. Good to hear about how Google does, and how Apple does, but you are not a mini Google or mini Apple.

Steal ideas, copy mechanisms, reflect on tricks, talk to your teams a lot about ‘what if we did like they do?” But this is as far as it goes. You need to find your magic, your combinations, your fit for purpose recipes, what will work and won’t in your culture.

The life cycle of a Best Practice is a week. Don’t bank on them. Business models are usually not transferable. Ideas are. Organizations are not IKEA tables coming in flat pack. It’s more cooking those ready meals in the microwave.

There are heuristics that are worth considering though. For example, there are lots of reasons why decision making at the lowest possible level is more efficient. Or that command and control leadership is in itself self-limiting nor efficient. These are the kind of ideas that you need to steal and reconfigure for yourself, translate, decide the formula. But the formula is yours, it is unique.

In many geographically dispersed NGOs, formal management won’t see the staff for months. And they are successful. Find out their formula, expose yourself to the what if, learn, translate. But that does not make you a field based NGO, nor some of their leadership practices appropriate.

Open the windows, open your eyes, steal, recap, abandon, make your own.

 

Culture is in the A list, the one where ‘work’ sits. Not in the B list (‘when I have time, after A’)

Posted By Leandro Herrero On In Behavioural Change,Building Remarkable Organizations,Culture,culture and behaviours,HR management,Identity and brand,Peer to peer infuence,Scale up,Workplaces Of The Future | No Comments

Culture is not a project, something to do on top of normal work, an extra, something to get your hands around once the big stuff has been done.

Certainly culture is not an ‘HR function topic’ but a business one, with all the help of HR and non HR that you can get.

Culture is a big word, with similar liabilities as ‘change’: overused, prompt to cynicism, multiple use, thousand meanings.

Culture is the how you do the what, the platform for your success or failure.

Behaviours create cultures. Master behaviours, agree upon them, declare the non negotiable ones, spread them, and you’ll get culture.

Culture cannot be taught. It’s something lived, and, in behavioural terms, something that grows from behaviours. Behaviours scale up via social influence, so suddenly you have a causal link between behaviours, influence and culture. Get the first two right, you get a great third.

Most problems with cultures come from decoupling the idea of culture from ‘the real stuff’: operations, compliance, targets, performance. Culture is business. Business is culture. Stuck to each other with super-glue. Behaviours are the super-glue.

Culture, still a big thing, needs to be unpacked further. Chances are you don’t have one corporate culture, no matter how much you preach that. You have sub-cultures overlapping in a Venn diagram. My rule of thumb is to start from the sub-cultures upwards, not the other way around. Form your views bottom up. Instead of ‘this is the culture, let’s look deeper’, start with what the engineers do, the finance people do, the sales ones do. Then join up.

You may also have a sub-sub-culture in a perhaps almost self-contained territory called the Leadership Team. Conventional wisdom says that they represent the corporate culture. My unconventional-less-wisdom says that most of the time they represent themselves, their own ecosystem, their own island.

Dysfunctional leadership teams seem to coexist with rather healthy and successful subcultures, and some dysfunctional organizations seem to have a good functional top. And combinations.

Ah! I wish something could correlate with anything in the organizational world.

As leader, I have a strong recommendation: don’t be shy to talk about culture. If people begin yawning, wake them up. If they smile, smile back and ask why. If they say ‘here we go again’, stop and have a conversation.

As leader you will probably not be shy to talk about performance. Apply the same to culture. Leaders are curators of cultures. And all this is happening in the A list of things. Not the B.

A 3 point leadership strategy for your transformation, small t, big T.

Posted By Leandro Herrero On In Communications,Identity and brand,Ideology,Language,Leadership,Models and frames,Purpose,Social Movements,Strategy | No Comments

In caricature, this is a 3 point strategy to develop further. It’s a simple mental and practical frame.

  1. Build an overwhelming, compelling, strategic narrative. Excuse my language. The line contains:
    1. Overwhelming: not good, excellent, nice and clever, solid, well thought out, interesting, new. No. Overwhelming. If it does not feel like this, think twice.
    2. Compelling: the above needs to trigger ‘ I want to be there’ or ‘part of it’. The case for it (whether it is) is now overwhelming and compelling.
    3. Strategic: rule out change of the oil of the car for the next six months, as your transport strategy.
    4. Narrative: tell me the story, not the bullet points.
  2. Respond tactically. Don’t waste time giving an explanation to every single push-back and ‘yes but’, because you’ll spend your life. If your ‘respond’ and ‘tell me the barriers’ air time is bigger than the building of the future, there is something wrong in that culture.
  3. Above all, set the agenda. Don’t let other agenda come in. Be ahead of the game. Resistant people, ‘yes but’ people, enemies and other people determined to torpedo, need to catch up with you, not the other way around.

None of the above contains ‘having all of the answers’. It is perfectly possible to create an overwhelming strategy, a great narrative, respond tactically and, above all, set the agenda and still say, come with me, we don’t have an absolutely fixed destination, but I can assure you that you will not regret the journey.

By the way, I have not totally invented the three points above. But they come from the political campaigning arena, not from the MBA.

As I have repeated like a parrot, the answers to modern business leadership come from non-business-places. Political campaigning (the good ones) is a good example. It used to be the other way around. ‘Business experienced’ people were supposed to bring lots of expertise to the socio-political arena. And that was flattering for ‘business’. I think that this is today very naïve.

My unlikely reflection on my unplanned stop at a Michelin star restaurant

Posted By Leandro Herrero On In Building Remarkable Organizations,Culture,Identity and brand,Innovation,It’s Personal!,Motivation,Reputation,Values | 1 Comment

When travelling today, I found myself, unexpectedly, a few minutes from a little known restaurant, part of a low key, two start hotel, in a peripheral Spanish village, sleepy cold and silent this time of the year. What attracted me to this place, and prompted me to give them a call to book a table, was curiosity. I learnt a while ago that, just three months before, this little restaurant inside a two star provincial hotel had been awarded one Michelin star, the world recognition of being somebody different in the gastronomic universe.

The place was indeed unpretentious, small, ten tables, entrance by the main door of the hotel. Inside, by the door, a table with a family picture with a few chefs, more pictures of people, and a proud copy of the red Michelin book.

The food was not only delicious but unexpected. Flavours and taste did not seem to correlate with the look of things. Service was good, but not theatrical. Most food was sourced locally, including a prologue of four different olive oils brought to the table with care and slow pace as if in reverence to the soil of origin, of course accompanied by abundant ‘real bread’.

Let me stop  the gastronomic report here. I engaged in conversation with the waiters, they looked like brothers, and congratulate them. I was curious to know how they felt last November when they got a call from the Michelin secret visitors. I asked about their elaborate kitchen and cooks and, surprise surprise, about the business and how it was run.

I specifically asked about what was the proudest thing of all, the highlight above the rest, the real reward. Somewhere in my mind I was expecting some narrative about quality, or uniqueness, or how a two star hotel that wins a one start Michelin in a zero star place beats the competition, I don’t know, how naïve, perhaps something about sustainable competitive advantage , shareholder value and winning the war on food. That kind of business stuff that is usually in my consulting background.

Straight to my eye, and just very slightly emotional, with just slightly changed voice, one of the brothers said: ‘nothing compares with giving the news to our very old grandparents, whose parents built this place fifty years ago; that they could see it’. And he continued: ‘it has been hard work for them, lots of ups and downs, fifty years always wanting to produce something new’.

And my Daily Thought took this shape of simple, almost banal reflection. How wonderful to see in action a piece of reverence to the elders, a proud family who is probably not making an enormous amount of money, a little veneration to the legacy created day by day by others before you, by your parents or grandparents.

And I thought that I had not been in such anti-bullshit situation for a long time. I smelled the authenticity of the earned recognition that the young members did not attribute to themselves but their elders. I felt the envy of the plain language that cut through any possible ‘business achievement’ to talk about pride of the ones who were the real builders. I was glad I had that chat.

How many people go about their business, perhaps small, perhaps away from any possible newspaper headline, with care and pride of what they build, the legacy that is constructed daily, the sense of achievement that does not translate into any heroic story. How different from other people who are not so lucky, that can’t see the fruits of their imagination or their efforts in general, who are trapped into a mechanical business life dictated miles away from their minds.

Just a thought, a Daily Thought.