How to become a leader…

Geoff Roberts Uncategorized

Yesterday afternoon I was listening to a programme on Radio 4 about the development of leaders. The programme had the inevitable leadership coach who not only claimed that he could make anyone into a coach but that he could do so in a single day! On hearing this I fluttered between being hopping mad and dismayed. The dilemma was resolved to dismay alone when he suggested to the interviewer that she can become a better leader by modelling herself on someone she admired – Winston Churchill in this case.

Well, I am all for modelling – indeed this forms a core part of some of what we deliver – and would even agree that we can learn lessons from others in leadership positions, whether we admire them or not (it might be sacrilege to say so, but that bloke Hitler knew a thing or two about organising mass support and even though I was fundamentally opposed to much of Margaret Thatcher’s policy I certainly recognised her leadership abilities).

When I examine the many leaders I have admired over the years, and you can create your own list, I find that some are outspoken and some are quiet, some are highly numerate and some are almost numerically illiterate, some did extremely well at school and some left with no qualifications, some could do every job that their subordinates were required to do and others would barely know one end of a factory from another… The one and only common attribute that these leaders had was integrity – that centredness that allowed them to consistently say what they meant and mean what they say, do what they say they would do when they said they would do it and to be willing and able to explain themselves. These people had a deep knowledge of their own values and motivations and lived them out daily; they recognised that they were not always the experts on a topic and valued everyone’s inputs even when that input challenged their own way of thinking, above all they exhibited a humility akin to that propounded in Greenleaf’s exploration of Servant Leadership.

My own reading of the path to great leadership is that yes it is possible to learn some of the behaviours necessary to act effectively as a leader but learning those behaviours alone cannot make a true leader. True leadership comes from inside, it comes from becoming more of oneself. Richard Branson did not succeed by following Margaret Thatcher, she did not lead by following Winston Churchill, he did not lead by following Gladstone and none of them would have been appropriate role models to Nelson Mandela.

If you want to be a leader learn to become more of yourself.

The habit of learning

Geoff Roberts change

I, along with many colleagues in the profession often encourage coaching clients to start a learning diary. There is plenty of evidence out there that if we spend a few minutes every day sitting down reflecting on what has happened to us, trying to make sense of it and deciding how that is going to affect our future actions then we will become more effective in our lives generally. Strangely enough most clients do not actually do this, despite our exhortations, even though they will happily act on advice from other people on saving for a pension or what qualifications to study for next.

Then I started reflecting on what I had learned at school, that 2+2 = 4, that the French for The Sun is Le Soleil, that acids turn litmus paper red and lots of other facts. I do not recall ever once, in that alleged hotbed of learning, being asked to keep a learning diary. Yet there I was surrounded by teachers who, in principle, are familiar with the works of Piaget and Kolb yet don’t seem to want to pass that information on to the students. (There is a separate discussion about whether the teachers really understood these learning theories, or whether they regarded them purely as theory with no practical value!Perhaps that is the paradigm repeating itself?)

I recall someone asking me shortly after I completed my Masters degree what was the most important thing that I learned. Well, that masters degree was in change management and I learned loads and loads of change management theory but I remain convinced that the single most important thing I learned in two years was that when handling change one must start where one is. This very practical piece of advice came from trying to use the various management theories in my work as a change leader and realising that none of them actually recognise that the real world was not as pure as the theoretical world in which they had been formulated.

I recall a colleague on that masters course who was daunted by the reading list; he needed to sit down with one of the tutors and be taught that it was not necessary to read a text book from cover to cover, but that it was okay to work from the contents list and the first few paragraphs of each chapter to identify those parts of the book that might be particularly relevant. He, nor indeed I, had not been taught this at school and certainly for me the lack of instruction in learning how to learn led to a major disconnect when I went from the structured instructional environment of a grammar school to the unstructured find-your-own way environment at the University with the results that I failed my first year and subsequently the degree. My grammar school thought that all I needed to learn was a load of facts, not how to learn.

So to go back to school. My question to you is what do you think is the most important thing for young people to learn at school? You will no doubt have your own answer, mine is that every young person needs to learn how to learn and to acquire the habit of learning

In much of our lives we acquire learning passively and collect habits good and bad without really thinking about how those habits have developed. But how would it be if Boeing designed an aeroplane passively, or an engineer designed a bridge passively? No, they actively learn about how to be more effective at designing aeroplanes and bridges by studying the successes and failures of themselves and others.

So let’s apply this discipline more widely in our lives. Let’s take five or 10 min at the end of every day to reflect upon what happens to us that day, perhaps the most significant incidents or the unusual ones. Write it down and write down what actually happened and how you felt abou;t it think about how it was the same as or different from your previous experiences and feelings and write that down; work out how it fits with your current understanding of the world (or not) and whether it might be necessary to change your opinion or understanding in order to fit this real new experience into your world; then finally work out some way of testing this new world map and using this new knowledge

Your learning diary and the habit of learning may well turn out to be the most valuable 10 minutes you spend every day of your life. Actively acquire the habit of learning. Do let me know how you find your experience of writing a learning diary.

You can only join the dots looking backwards

Geoff Roberts change

I have just been reading an address by Steve Jobs to Stanford University and was especially struck by this quote:

…you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.

Perhaps the more academically inclined amongst us might call this ‘post-hoc rationalisation’

It’s certainly my experience that I can often string a convincing story together about what happened despite those happenings being unplanned. Now what I am about to say may well be blasphemous to those who worship at the altar of Change Management Theory (and I too have a Masters’ degree in the topic!) but in many years of leading change I do not think I have ever seen a successful change process follow any of these theories. Oh yes, in general it pays to create your Compelling Vision before your Guiding Coalition – and sometimes the other way round!

Shortly after finishing my Masters my then boss asked “What was the most significant thing you learned on the course?” My response seemed trite at the time, yet the more experience I gathered, the more significant it became. I was fortunate that I was leading the process facilitation team for a major organisational change effort whilst I was doing my Masters and my response was that “I have learned that practice is more important than theory and that in practice you have to do what you can, where you can, when you can”.

I once wrote a paper that described in wondefully rational terms how our long-term success (over a 10-15 year period) could be attributed to overlapping cycles of change, each starting before the full benefits of the previous cycle had been realised. It was pure post-hoc rationalisation – the paper implied some form of ‘master plan’ which never existed. We did what we could where we could when we could. We joined up the dots looking backwards.

So than you Steve Jobs for reminding me that all the theory is useful in the planning phase of change and also for reminding me of the reality that things rarely (ever?) go to plan so although the dots might well join up in retrospect, they are unlikely to make the picture that you thought you were making!

When you are stuck

Geoff Roberts Uncategorized

I’ve been racking my brains about what earth shattering revelations to include in today’s blog; not exactly writer’s block, more a question of what to choose from the wealth of ‘stuff’ (technical term there!) in my head. Then I remembered a piece of advice we often give our coachees, especially when they are stuck or stalled at a task.

Do you sometimes find yourself in that state – not being sure what to do (next), perhaps having so many options that it is difficult to choose which one to take? For some people, this is a recipe for doing nothing on the basis that there may be a better choice, or whatever I do may be inappropriate. Of course, doing nothing achieves nothing – and I am not talking here about a deliberate decision to defer action, but about ‘stuckness’ when inaction becomes the default.

So, what’s the simple piece of advice?

When you are stuck do something, do anything.

If you continue stuck, then you cannot get whirling around Kolb’s learning cycle – an essential part of his four stage learning cycle is action, followed by consideration of the effects of the action (feedback), figuring out what’s going on and finally devising and trying new approaches. In a nutshell, this is the source of the learning mantra “There is no failure, only feedback”. Taking action, any action generates feedback and so gets the learning cycle spinning.

So, the next time you find yourself stuck, just remember that any action is better than no action – and learn from the feedback.

CIA – not the Central Intelligence Agency!

Geoff Roberts Uncategorized

A friend of mine is due to fly in to the UK from Germany today – snow permitting (that’s snow in Germany, they had a big dump shortly after we left on Wednesday). Will she get here? Will the snow close the airport or the roads to it? Will there be a delay? All these questions we have met before, and will no doubt meet again.

Now I know my friend is not one of those passengers who will spend the day before fretting over whether or not they will make it, or use time at the airport shouting at staff to ‘get things sorted out’ if they are delayed – she knows better than to stress herself over stuff she cannot change.

One of my favourite TLAs is CIA; it’s a favourite because in my context it does not stand for the Central Intelligence Agency. I find it helpful as a way of responding to what happens around me. I ask myself, “Can I…”:

Control the happening? – in which case take that control and make it happen how you want it to.

Influence what might happen? – in which case choose whether or not to use your influence.

Accept what is happening? – if you cannot Control and choose not to Influence, then you really must accept what is happening and get on with it.

Remember that Influence is always a choice; we write to our MP, we go on the ‘million man march’ against the Iraq War, we explain our predicament to the airline checking receptionist, we ‘suggest’ which restuarant to go to, a little man weaves his own loincloth before walking across a whole country making some salt and ultimately getting the British out of India. Everything is influenceable, it’s up to you to decide where to put your limited resources and whether or not the possible change is either likely and/or worth the effort.

So, how stressed do you get by events that you cannot change (snow?) or choose not to influence?

Do a bit, learn a bit…

Geoff Roberts change

I have spent some of today redesigning the look of this blog, using (if you are interested) a very handy design creation tool called Artisteer. It now looks different to how it looked at 10:00 or at 12:00 or even at 14:00 – and may well look different again before the end of the day! “So what?” you might ask, and quite rightly so. Well, I realised that this redesign was a bit, actually quite a lot, like redesigning how we live.

I started with a recognition that something needed to change – maybe different fonts, maybe layout etc… – wondered how to go about making the changes, sought out a tool to help me then started playing with the tool, all along being aware that my fisrt efforts would take time whilst I learned how to make the change then knowing that I could change things bit by bit and review the results before finally committing; even then I know that further changes can be made – and that small changes can be done quickly and easily.

So, what has this got to do with a personal development blog? Well, it stuck me that there are some very similar lessons:

  1. Sometimes we just have a feeling that ‘something needs to change’, without being really sure what
  2. Sometimes we struggle alone before realising that someone else might be able to help
  3. Sometimes we have to change several things at once, yet other times we can simplify it and make one change at a time
  4. Some changes are easy, some take more practice
  5. Sometimes we make a change only to find that it’s still not quite right and needs further adjustment
  6. When we think we have finished, we have not finished – there is always more to do.

So, back to the title of this piece “Do a bit, learn a bit”. It is only when we actually make a change that we find out whether or not it is an appropriate change. Those changes can be quite small yet have a profound effect. Go on, make a change in your life today…