Leadership unplugged

I am returning to business after nearly five months of supporting Gina Miller's True and Fair party, on the ground and, more recently, as her Campaign Manager. A by-product of this experience was the opportunity to study the work of a political leadership 'force of nature' at close range, adding to my experience of working with business leaders around the globe. Here I explore the challenge of leadership in a disruptive age.

The rate and amount of change requires people and companies to change and adapt continuously. Change mastery results in faster and higher quality execution of strategy, significant cost savings through waste reduction, seizing first mover advantage where appropriate, greater employee engagement and high performance. We help in the following areas:

We are keen advocates of a best-fit approach to change management, having seen how attempts to use a 'plug and play' approach to the subject fail (akin to assuming change is like a memory stick in a computer). We prefer a strong analysis to pinpoint needs and desired outcomes up front, which saves considerable time, money and wasted effort later on. The Organisation Development Matrix is a helpful tool to inform where to target your efforts. Extract taken from our book for Bloomsbury 'Leading Innovation, Creativity and Enterprise':

Working with Gina gave me the following insights which are transferable to any enterprise seeking to maximise its leadership:

Waste is a killer in business. If something is broke, leaders fix it either at the superficial level (single loop learning) or preferably at what Peter Senge calls double loop learning, i.e. fixing the system rather than the symptom.

Great leaders invest a lot of time in selection and induction (getting it right first time) rather than fixing problems through training and other forms of remediation.

Time is a precious asset. Great leaders continually use the 80 : 20 rule to place priority on the things that are important over those that are merely urgent. The busier life gets, the more important this principle becomes. Here is a reminder of the time management grid originally published in an article I wrote for Sir Richard Branson. Eating elephants is more important than responding to the next 'bright shiny object'. Great leaders separate fads and fashions from the future.

For a free consultation on Human Dynamics, please get in touch via Linkedin or directly via The Human Dynamics' website.