Is this all you need to know about leadership?

What's the secret of great leadership?
Apologies readers, I'm writing this on my iPhone at St Pancras after a very stimulating day. I've met some amazing guys at Motherlode Studioes. They've made a very cool film called The Four Horsemen - an tough documentary about our financial crisis and the systemic problems we have created for ourselves. I urge you to google it, find out about it and look out for a local screening. I've met a very senior police officer here in the city of London police and I've spent a morning at an amazing youth charity called Street League - changing lives through football.
What a day!
I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that the techniques put forward in our modern leadership literature is only a part of the story. Really all you need to be an amazing leader is this;
Notice it
Step up
Carry on

That's what these amazing people I've met today, and others recently, have done. They've seen something that annoys them, they've had the guts to jump and they have grafted until it improves. And that's it.

Passion - performance- purpose.

All the techniques about skills and behaviour pale into insignificance in the face of a bloody minded desire to put something right, deal with an injustice, correct a corrupt system whatever it is, the great leaders have got off their backsides and done something.

So, just my top line thoughts on my day. There probably is more to leadership that the above but it's not a bad start and there are plenty of people doing a brilliant job of their little part of the world simply with some passion to do something about a problem and a bit of hard work.

Piers Carter

What is your context?

And more to the point, what does context mean and what has it got to do with leadership?

Context is the tone, the environment, the meaning behind the activity in a team or organisation and I think the leader’s job is to set the context.

If I ask you, what are the big leadership challenges you are facing at the moment what would you say.......?

·       Company merger?

·       Change initiative?

·       Large sales programme?

·       Implementation of a new IT system?

·       Organisational CSR initiative?

If I now ask you, as a community/town/city/country, what are the big leadership challenges you/we are facing.......?

·       Health care?

·       Economic crisis?

·       Education?

·       Employment?

·       Wealth gap?

Now, as a planet, as a wider community of humans, what are the big leadership challenges we are facing and going to face in the next 10, 20 even 50 years....?

·       Climate change?

·       Peak oil?

·       World water shortage?

·       Population explosion?

·       Food shortages?

·       Fuel shortages?

And what are you leading within all this?

Since this is my blog here is my perspective, we MUST lead any and everything we are doing within the context of the final list above, the big planet based stuff. And for me this is us leading with ‘sustainable development’ in mind all the time. It is the only possible viable solution. We need to lead everything we do with 3 things in mind all on the theme of profit. Profit is an enabler, more than that it is essential. But profit in 3 key areas;

·       Social profit

·       Environmental profit

·       Financial profit

Once you are interrogating all your decisions as a leader in the context of these 3 bottom lines then maybe, just maybe, we might be making more moves towards a better planet and, let’s face it, it is the only one we’ve got.

So, you have permission to make profit and the more profit you make the more good you can do; and within that try to make a social profit and an environmental profit.

That’s my context, my triple bottom line and I’m clear that all I do operates within that context ... what’s your context?

Piers Carter

Facilitation, coaching & leadership

Is there a silver bullet?

I've been having a fascinating time recently talking to leaders. Public, private and third sector leaders in depth about the problems they are facing and the issues they are trying to lead. It has been very revealing. Leadership is a lumpy, confused business which is hard and comprises a whole range of skills, leaders are tough minded individuals who have to make tough decisions and yet win hearts and minds and bring others with them.It challenges the text book version of a leader which is within the pages of all the business & management books on the shelves of the book shops.
I think leadership is someone who just isn't happy with how it is at the moment, someone who wants it to be better and is prepared to step up and do something about it. Often with little training in the finer arts and skills of leadership.
And there is no one answer, no great solution to any single problem. Today's problems are complex and multi-agency/stakeholder and the lonesome leader has to find a way through that.
I heard a saying recently which was; "There is no silver bullet - but there is lots of silver buckshot."
I like this - leadership across society comprises lots of silver buckshot, lots of people doing something about the things they aren't happy with.
What are you doing something about? What's your silver buckshot?


Piers Carter
Facilitation, Coaching & Leadership

When does a group become a team?

Yesterday I was working with a group in an organisation and we were wrestling with the question above. Lots of things were coming up for them

o   Are we a team?

o   Do we need to be a team?

o   Are we more different than similar?

o   Does it matter?

o   Why are we working in this way?

o   People don't understand why we have been grouped like this - what's the benefit?

o   What is our identity?

The leader of the team had created a clear set of statements which showed how and where they had commonality but it hadn't sunk in or been ingrained. The whole company has just gone through a reorganisation and there is pain associated with that process including redundancies, so people throughout the organisation were and are smarting.

The new shape, for some of the group, doesn't feel right and some of them are looking back to the 'old days.'

So when is a group a team? And what difference does it make?

There appeared to be a desire to be more than just a group who get together once in a while and, as senior people with big workloads and plenty of responsibility they need good reasons to diary in time together. If this leadership team doesn’t feel bonded and committed to the function – how then can the staff who report to them?

My sense is that organisations can gain in big ways when cross functional teams spend time together. It is hard to explain how in brief terms but Barry Oshry in his book ‘Seeing Systems’ explains it very well. In short, when cross functional teams understand each other and have insight into other parts of the business new levels of connection, support, sharing of best practice and cross fertilisation of ideas occurs and the business benefits. Not only that but employees are more engaged and are allowed to develop their own creativity.

Former delegates if mine from a long standing leadership programme say one of the most powerful things is the cross functional networking they get to do during the 7 days on the course. It makes them more effective as a leader and better able to do their jobs, influence the business and manage their own careers.

So, a group begin to be a team when they can see the benefit of being together, personally and professionally, individually and organisationally. What they choose to do with those beginnings is another matter.

Now, back to yesterday's group. They had had months of working in this group and reflected that they had done lots of ‘task stuff’ but no ‘team’ stuff. Some said they did with their own teams but hadn't with this group - maybe now was the time, time to get to know each other, to meet the people behind the job functions, to build social cohesion so that the task cohesion has a foundation upon which to rest. I have spoken about relationships in business before and I'll say it again. Business is built on relationships. Without them there is less trust and without trust, things take longer and cost more. With trust things are quicker and cost less. It is all about the relationships. We work with people, not job roles.

If you lead a group, ask yourself what's in it for the members? What extra can or do they get out of it? When you get that right the team feeling will grow - follow this with some purposeful team development work and a clear objective or performance standard and you will be well on the way. Shine your light of attention on the team needs, then task needs then the individual needs and keep it shining in the right place as appropriate and you will achieve the balance.

Are you a member of a group or a team? And where does your light need to shine?

Piers Carter

Coach & Leadership Consultant

How busy is too busy?

I opened a leadership programme this week with 3 questions

o   How are you feeling, right now?

o   What do you want from this event?

o   What are you going to contribute to this event?

It was the first question which prompted this blog post. All 10 delegates said how busy they were. That it’s busier this year than ever before and next year is set to be busier.

They all said it was great to be away from the office, that it was great to have some breathing space. They said it was good to have time to think and to refocus. We had a great programme and it was the 2-day follow up to an initial 5-day course we did in the summer. But they all craved space. Time to think. Time to look at their values and explore possibilities, to reassess priorities on a micro and macro scale.

It was time well spent, however, my opening question is more about the opposite end of the spectrum of busyness – is it possible not to be busy enough? What happens when there is too much time to think. When there is lots of head space and time to explore priorities.

I suggest it can be as difficult. It can lead to over analysis, too much self reflection and exploration of what is wrong or what is going on or what needs to happen. Not enough action.

I am speaking about myself when I say this – you may well be different. I have had the luxuary of time recently, with my time getting to grips with my eye problem (see last entry) and more recently with work being quiet. It has led to me over thinking things. Too many questions crop up in my head, I have many, many conversations with other consultants about the way of the economy at the moment, about why work is scarce, about what we can do to generate work and income and I love these exploratory conversations.

They are thought provoking and interesting, they take me down lines of investigation I wouldn’t have gone down but ..... but they can lead to frustration, to finding myself repeating my thoughts and thinking in circles and principally over thinking or worrying a problem.

This afternoon a great piece of work came in and I set up a series of meetings in the Big Smoke. Suddenly all the conversations and thoughts slipped away and I was left with something to do, some action to follow up on. I have a list of purposeful activity which will result in work, satisfaction, money and intrinsic reward – the reward of manual labour. Well, not quite, more the reward of doing an honest days work but you get the drift.

My point is, the balance between being so busy we can’t think and not busy enough so we think too much is a fine one. It is one we need to pay attention to and to work at balancing. I know I like to be busy and I like to have head space. I need to ensure I get both. It’s all about noise and being sure we get the right kind and amount of noise. The balance to noise is silence but too much silence is scary. Noise can be fun, silence can be restful, and noise can be stressful. Noise can be a distraction for good and bad. Silence can be overwhelming or just what we need to recover.

So, how busy are you and are you busy enough? Do you need to step into the noise or out of it?

Piers Carter

What did you do this week?

Life’s funny isn’t it? The only certainty is things will change, if things are going well then things happen, if things aren’t going well then things happen, the only certainty is things will happen. It’s how we respond, react, and deal with that make the difference because the things will continue to happen.

On the 21^st of this month I developed some eye problems, a huge amount of floaters in my vision. It looked like someone had dropped black ink into my eye. I know I’m high risk for retinal detachment so I went straight to hospital. Smart move, they did laser treatment there and then. Unfortunately it didn’t settle down well and, cutting a long story, a retinal tear, a vitreous bleed and multiple visits to the eye clinic later they decided to operate the following Thursday.

If you’re squeamish don’t click the link below however if you want to see the skills and magic of modern medicine check out this link on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FJYeEGl98g

Post op I have had to stay almost totally still in a seated position including sleeping nights on the sitting room sofa bolt upright. I’m allowed 10 minutes every hour to walk around and get a brew otherwise its back on the couch which has been very interesting. Very thought provoking, quite a lot runs through you head in 7 days doing nothing.

My biggest reflection is how grateful I am. Here are a just few things for which I am so very lucky.

ü  If I lived in a less developed country I’d have lost the eye.

ü  There has been nothing but love and support from my wife, children and friends

ü  The NHS – I can’t say enough good things about the care I’ve had from Sheffield Hallamshire Eye Clinic

ü  Soon, I should be able to see again

ü  I got to recover in a seated position, some folks have to do it lying down ... for 7 days, face down, can you imagine!

ü  Day time telly – actually, that’s been the thing I’ve done least of

ü  The internet – How amazing is it to be able to keep so connected from your sitting room

ü  It could have been so much worse

ü  Most of my other bits seem to work pretty well

ü  Books – anything you ever wanted to know or understand is in a book

There are loads more but I’m in danger of sounding a bit sickly aren’t I? So to answer my own question about what I did this week? Well, I had a brand new experience, I had so much time to think and I’ve got a new perspective on what’s important.

What did you do this week?

Piers Carter

Do you like poetry?

I was struck by this poem by Samuel Ullman. I hope you like it.

Youth is not a time of life - it is a state of mind,
it is a temper of the will,
a quality of the imagination,
a vigor of the emotions,
a predominance of courage over timidity,
of the appetite for adventure over love of ease.

Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years.
People grow old only by deserting their ideals.
Years wrinkle the skin,
but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.
Worry, doubt, self-distrust,
fear and despair - these are the long,
long years that bow the head and
turn the growing spirit back to dust.

Whether they are sixteen or seventy,
there is in every being's heart
the love of wonder,
the sweet amazement at the stars
and starlike things and thoughts,
the undaunted challenge of events,
the unfailing childlike appetite
for what is to come next,
and the joy and the game of life.

You are as young as your faith,
as old as your doubt;
as young as your self-confidence,
as old as your fear,
as young as your hope,
as old as your despair.
When the wires are all down
and all the innermost core of your heart
is covered with the snows of pessimism
and the ice of cynicism,
then you are grown old indeed.

But so long as your heart receives messages
of beauty, cheer, courage, grandeur
and power from the earth,
from man and from the Infinite,
so long you are young.

Piers Carter
Leadership Coach and Consultant