Leadership Development -- A Uniquely Powerful Approach

Brian Yost --

I believe I provide a uniquely powerful approach to leadership development.

I rely most on a methodology that has been called by an Association for Talent Development researcher, "...the most comprehensive, deepest, richest body of technology for supporting organization change work that I have found."  It was invented at P&G, which is arguably the most innovative, admired, awarded and successful company in history.

This methodology has been found by UCLA researchers and many others to produce business results on the order of 10 times greater than anything else available. It has been used by my teachers and colleagues to guide the creation of many, if not most, of the highest performing organizations on the planet.

You can read about these efforts in books by my colleague, Carol Sanford, including The Responsible Business and The Regenerative Business, both of which are required reading at the Harvard and Stanford business schools and many more.

I. Here are the Six Essential Components of this approach:

1. Robust Definition of Leadership

For a starting point, my definition of leadership is uniquely powerful – where virtually all authorities, like Hughes, Ginnet and Curphy in Leadership: Enhancing the Lessons of Experience have defined it as something fairly weak, like “the process of influencing an organized group toward accomplishing its goals”, here is my robust definition: leadership is the social process of creating thrust toward the aims of an organized entity, by engaging people in developing capability (ability, will and spirit), alignment and unity, and coalescing these into the force that propels the organization forward.

2. New Strategic Self-Management Paradigm

What the leader does depends on the paradigm or belief system guiding thinking and actions. Most leaders are, consciously or unconsciously, still guided by the old command and control paradigm which is often linked to a machine model of organizations and behavior management practices. This paradigm holds that people are basically irresponsible and apathetic, are interchangeable parts in the machine-like organization and that behavior is determined by its consequences.

The new strategic self-management paradigm, which is slowly but surely gaining support among thought leaders in the field, holds that people are unique and those at all levels can and must be equipped to see the big picture, understand the business, understand the business situation, understand where things are going and be capable of determining what’s necessary, and can be committed, responsible, trustworthy drivers of needed change. These beliefs are typically coupled with the belief that organizations are living systems, complex, indivisible, interconnected wholes, whose performance depends on the interaction of their parts, and whose viability depends on the mutual satisfaction of stakeholder needs.

Both of these belief systems are self-fulfilling prophesies, with the new one bringing out the best in people. instead of the worst.

3. Systemic Organization Redesign: How Leaders Develop Organization Thrust

The new leaders develop thrust by engaging in the systemic organization redesign required for rapid transformation and breakthrough performance -- by creating a context of governing ideas (e.g., Purpose, Vision, Values, Principles) that inspire, align and empower, an infrastructure of processes, systems and structures that enable energy-effective action, human capabilities that enable strategic self-management and agile change, and a courageous culture that encourages innovation. This creates an evolving equilibrium of mutually reinforcing elements of design that will not revert back to the old self-defeating ways of working.

This is a formula for performance improvement -- how performance can be increased at the organization level. At the individual level, leaders know performance can be increased by enhancing the factors that determine ability, motivation and mental state, either of which can significantly limit performance. As implied in the strategic self-management paradigm, the more individuals can be empowered and enabled to manage these factors themselves, the more performance can be continuously improved.

Strategic Thinking and Planning

More specifically, leaders ensure that strategic planning is a blend of simultaneously addressing what needs to happen to improve on What Is, and what needs to happen to move toward the desired future/What Might Be -- any viable strategy must address both of these domains.

To produce the plans addressing the improvements for What Is, the leader, using structured thinking, guides the creation of meaning and significance by interpreting past, present and potential reality for what we have learned, what the issues and opportunities are, and the consequences of addressing these to create a flawless organizational operation.

The context of governing ideas retains the core ideals of the organization, and is continuously evolved to reflect its continuously changing environment to guide the realization of What Might Be.

Infrastructure Design

The infrastructure is continuously evolved and improved by following organization design principles developed in the highest performing organizations, in order to optimize the mechanisms needed to realize purpose and vision (e.g., for structure: each level of hierarchy will be distinctive and value-adding to what the lower levels can do for themselves).

Building Human Capability and Capacity

Instead of simply taking the common approach of trying to build people’s capability to realize more of their potential (which is perceived as fixed), the leader also introduces new ways of thinking that create new awareness of expanded areas of potential in which capability can be increased – building capacity as well as capability, where capacity = capability + potential.

Creating a Courageous Culture

The courageous culture required for innovation and continuously improving results evolves by the design of the organization rather than by happenstance, as it does in most cases, especially guided by the practice of Management by Principle, in which standards of excellence are established for everything important, increasingly bringing out the best in everyone.

Role of the Traditional Manager Versus the New Management Leader

Given the new paradigm, the role of the leader shifts dramatically:

The traditional manager was focused on:

·       Planning

-        Developing detailed plans and allocating resources

-        Establishing structures and staffing them

·       Leading

-        Delegating responsibility and authority to carry out plans

-        Providing policies and procedures to guide action

-        Directing action

·       Learning

-        Controlling monitoring results and problem solving

·       Linking

-        Reporting to higher management

The new management leader is focused on:

·       Planning

-        Designing an empowering context of governing ideas: purpose, vision, beliefs, values, principles, breakthrough goals and strategies

-        Designing enabling processes, systems and structures

·       Leading

-        Interpreting experience identifying gaps creating meaning and significance

-        Developing understanding, alignment, unity and commitment

-        Developing capability of self and others

-        Developing inspiration and motivation

-        Leading change

·       Learning

-        Assessing performance and underlying organization design

-        improving design and performance

-        extracting and diffusing learning

·       Linking

-        Developing relationships

-        representing the unit

-        Enrolling stakeholders

4. Intellectual/Thinking Capability Development

Thinking capability is central to leadership capability development. P&G concluded that “thinking drives action which drives results” many decades ago, and that “the quality of thinking is the prime determinant of organization and business effectiveness, and the one factor we can rely on in all markets and conditions.” Most leadership development approaches are aimed at behavior changes, which frequently don’t transfer to the job setting, or leaders are unprepared to apply if they do.

5. Fundamentals of Disciplines Relevant to Leadership

There are over two dozen disciplines relevant to the development of leadership capability. They include:

·       Communication

·       Commitment-based communication

·       Conflict management

·       Assertion

·       Organization design, development, transformation, culture, change

·       Leading, planning, learning, linking

·       Coaching

·       Decision-making

·       Business fundamentals and acumen

·       Strategic planning and thinking

·       Power and influence

·       Motivation

·       Teaming or team skills

·       Team building

·       Higher order thinking skills

·       Emotional intelligence and other intelligences

·       Problem solving - technical slash functional, human performance, complex organizational

·       Process Improvement

·       Relationship building

·       Self-management

·       Time management

Very few coaches have coaching level capability in all these disciplines. This approach addresses the fundamentals of all these disciplines.

6. Essential Elements of Significant Learning – for Lasting Learning

Personal transformation requires the Essential Elements of Significant Learning found in the Harvard Interdisciplinary Study on Learning, namely threshold levels of intensity, frequency, duration, whole person development and Socratic coaching. Most leadership development approaches do not have all these elements and therefore do not provide lasting learning.

Developing Thinking Capability

To develop thinking capability, people need to be provided with tools to gain access to, consciousness of and ultimately the ability to manage their thinking in real time. This includes being able to distinguish, then choose to operate at appropriate levels of logic, levels of value and levels of awareness.

Disciplined Methodologies

A powerful method for introducing people to the quality of thinking and providing the gateway to Higher Order Thinking Skills is to introduce them to disciplined methodologies for the recurring processes in organizations, like planning and executing tasks, conducting meetings, clarifying roles and relationships, solving problems, and reconciling differences and conflict. Adopting common processes for these things can provide professionalism, responsible autonomy, and harmony and can be cumulatively transformative when used on a large scale.

II. In addition, there are Three Essential Processes for implementing these components that make this approach different. They are:

1. Action learning – learning by working on real issues, particularly in pursuit of breakthrough results. This resolves the common problem in training of transfer to the job.

2. Team-based learning – learning by working in teams on the application of knowledge to complex problems. Professional schools in business, engineering and health are concluding that knowledge is not enough – that learners need to be able to work effectively in teams in solving problems.

3. Socratic coaching -- The key to empowering and enabling individual and team capability and performance is Socratic coaching -- through questioning processes like engaging thinking and developing thinking, which develop self-sufficiency and intellectual capability. Most leadership development and executive coaching processes use traditional teaching processes, which do the thinking for learners, and create dependency.

Through Socratic coaching, new leaders learn to learn independently and to think for themselves, rather than relying on authority figures. This develops an internal locus of control, or belief that one is in control of the determinants of one’s performance, which is the key to self-management, agility and innovation. This is also the key to developing the lifelong learning skills needed to keep up with a changing world.

Providing for the development of internal Socratic coaches can dramatically accelerate and multiply the impact of leadership development initiatives.

III. Risks of Missing these Methodological Components

My central message is that missing anyone of these methodological components can doom the endeavor to failure, and most leadership development and coaching approaches are missing most of them.

What Results are Possible

Perhaps more importantly, this methodology can uniquely deliver the results of personal  and organization transformation. By personal transformation, I mean the possibility of dramatic, lasting capability development, primarily intellectual development, which multiplies the leader’s ability to make a lasting difference. This is infinitely more powerful than the incremental, behavioral change most processes offer.

By organization transformation, I mean the possibility of dramatic and lasting organization capability development and continuous performance improvement based on systemic organization redesign. There is the possibility of a chain reaction radiating out from the leader to everyone s/he touches, and then to everyone they touch, and so on, ultimately to all stakeholders.

If this sounds like hyperbole, consider the following testimonial from a recent coaching client at Nestle:

"My leadership coaching process with Brian has been a mind-blowing and life-changing journey, in which I have come to discover a new and bigger self. I would say I have gone far beyond the goals of this program to learn many profound things, including foundational skills for learning, thinking, interacting, planning, leading, and self-management. I believe these capabilities can not only turbo-charge my work and career, but can ripple out in significant ways, like enabling all team members, to improve everything they do. I envision developing a more purposeful/thoughtful/empowering culture that can change everything the company does to run the business; and enable us all to feel better about ourselves, not only in work, but also in our personal lives.” Following this coaching, she was promoted to become the youngest Director-level person in this 300,000-employee company and asked to lead their process for developing women leaders.

I have written a paper entitled “Brian Yost’s Tenfold Capability Development Experience”, which describes my own developmental experience with this process. My colleagues and I commonly held up this kind of tenfold capability development result as possible for our clients.

I was a consultant and coach on dozens of successful transformational turnaround initiatives in major corporations like HP, AT&T, Exxon, Digital, Gulf and Crown Zellerbach. These initiatives were aimed at making the systemic organization redesign required for dramatic performance improvement, centered around leadership development, especially intellectual capability development. I have also created  “Brian Yost’s Track Record – Breakthrough Initiatives and Transformational Turnarounds”, a summary of highlights of this work, at all levels, ranging from the corporate-wide level down to the team and individual levels.

These papers are available on my LinkedIn profile.

Addendum:

I’m not the only one who has noticed the flaws in most leadership coaching. Here are the recent conclusions of some other leading practitioners and researchers about coaching industry:

·       “The traditional coaching model is dying. It was built for a stable world that no longer exists -- where incremental improvement and slow, pondering self-discovery are enough.

·       The coaching industry has been hijacked by certification mills, therapeutic approaches, and process obsessions that have nothing to do with creating breakthrough results.

·       Most of today's coaches sound more like psychotherapists focused on competencies over outcomes, process over performance, and comfort over transformation, resulting in mediocrity.

·       The coaching industry remains stuck in a self-congratulatory bubble of outdated certifications, feel good platitudes, and ineffective methodologies that won't pass a basic ROI test. We have more certified coaches and schools than we can count, and a mountain of credentials that mean little.

·       Today's coaching is designed to make coaches feel accomplished, not to deliver real transformation. We're turning out coaches who are process experts but novices at transformation.”