Who has the greatest impact on Innovation? The VP of HR of course!

Most will agree that the people in the organization are the most important component to sustained business results.  Weighing the accuracy of this statement, it follows that HR is your organizations most critical sector, affecting the people in, and thus the success of, your organization at all points from hiring to policies and programs, performance management, and succession planning.  I realized that HR can also form the basis for innovation.  It is well recognized that business value is generated and regenerated through innovation and your people strategy department (HR) can be the key channel to increasing innovation through people in the workplace.

But to be a key driver of innovation, HR must be innovative!

Imagine an organization with a head of HR that focuses on measuring their department against best practices, plays it safe, and ensures every initiative has a quantifiable ROI. Sound familiar? HR is supposed to drive and support an innovative workforce but all too frequently caution and risk aversion is their main priority.  These organizations that hold fast to traditional approaches to HR and discourage experimentation, risk operating machine-like enterprises, following, but incapable of rising above, industry norms. 

The mindset and culture of your HR team has an exponential impact on the entire organization: everyone is influenced by HR.  Therefore, changing your organization and becoming more successful and innovative begins by teasing apart your beliefs on this role.  

Who is in a better position to campaign for and express the culture and needs of your organization at all touch points (hiring, policies and programs, new employee on-boarding, succession planning, performance management, etc.) than HR?  Who promotes and embodies everything your organization stands for?  

HR leaders translate your organization’s business strategies into cohesive and efficient people strategies.  They are the link between the leaders and the business enablers – your people.  Strategic HR management plays a critical role in the organization but if your organization’s prevailing mindset is conservative, your HR will fall prey to this strategy.

So, how do you push your HR team into a more innovative mindset?  

It starts when you stop following herd. Innovation at Google does not come from their HR team and employees measuring themselves against best practices. Similarly, Zappos did not become a billion dollar industry in less than 10 years selling shoes online by following industry norms in HR – they innovated. Imagine an HR policy that offers all new employees a $2,000 incentive to quit.  This is what Zappos does, and though it goes against the grain, it is perhaps one of the most cost effective means of ensuring everyone in the organization is happy and satisfied with their jobs. 

Ask yourself this question: How many experiments in HR policies have you allowed in the past twelve months?  How about making everyone’s salary public knowledge.  Watch this video below to understand how Ricardo Semler changed his company, SEMCO in Brazil:

Companies, such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple, offer many examples of innovations in HR policies leading to large success.

Innovation is never a sure thing.  In fact, it is almost always a gamble.  Any venture capitalist will tell you that while they are always looking for greater than 10 times return on their investments, they also expect a pile of failures along the way.  This contradicts an HR mainstay: ROI.  Organizations with HR departments that avoid risk-taking for fear of not justifying every new policy through a black and white ROI stifle business growth and potential.

Perhaps it all starts in the beginning: do you even expect HR to be innovative?  If not, ask yourself who cares about the bottom line.  To increase innovation in the organization, leaders must work together with HR towards the edification of innovative business and people strategies. 

This article was co-authored with my friend Diane Boulet, Senior Director of Corporate Development, Brother Canada.

Engineers should run the Human Resources Department

I’m an avid follower of Josh Bersin, who runs Bersin by Deloitte. They do research in Enterprise Learning, Talent Management, Talent Acquisition, and strategic HR Solutions.

Every year Josh publishes predictions for upcoming year; a view forward, perspectives and important trends to consider in the enterprise learning, talent management and HR space.  This report is completely free, and I look forward to it every year.

After reading through predictions for 2014 I've come to the conclusion that in the future, engineers will make the best Chief Human Resources officers.  Not the social inept, introverted engineers that make great computer programmers but those with natural people skills, strong analytic skills and vision. The engineers that can ‘feel’ complex systems and love hacking away at complex problems will make the best chief human resources officers to drive a business forward.

Josh talks about 5 key roles of the chief human resources officer. First and foremost they need to run HR well. All the hiring, onboarding, training, payroll, labor relations, and benefits must just work. Many of the best run organizations in the world are managed by engineers, because engineers pay attention to the details required to make the nitty-gritty of administrative operations work smoothly.

Next, the Chief Human resources officer is responsible for the corporate talent system. They need to build the performance, learning, succession, onboarding, career management, and compensation systems that drive productivity, engagement, and performance. This is a systems engineering job. I’d want somebody with years of math, systems design, and logic education under the belt, along with the vision to see and feel large complex systems in one breath.

The Chief Human resources officer is the keeper of the culture. It is, and always will be, the senior executives and CEO that create and drive the culture. But the CHRO should monitor its health and provide feedback. Engineers implicitly understand feedback, setting up feedback systems, and monitoring the state of complex systems.

The Chief Human resources officer must transform and upskill the HR team. The team must not only serve as strategic consultants, they need to understand analytics, implement complex new software tools, and understand the role of changing technology. Are you thinking engineering yet?

Finally, the Chief human resource officer must have a vision and plan for the future.This year, Josh predicts that innovation comes to HR. He calls this the new bold chief human resources officers. It’s the innovation that engineers brought to almost every industry on the planet that needs to be brought to bear in HR. An engineer’s implicit grasp of innovation, their desire to tinker, to create new ways of getting things done, to change the world, and to work through complex problems by taking measured risks that makes them ready for the future role of HR.

Now I'm not really saying engineers should run the human resources department! Most of the guys that went
through the McGill engineering degree with me would make an absolute mess of things. But a chief human resource officer with a strong engineering flair, along with everything else one needs to be a chief human resource officer, will almost certainly make for better business results in the future given the changes happening in HR today.

There is a trend to bring non-HR business leaders into these roles. Liberty Mutual, Time Warner Cable, Yahoo and many others companies are promoting business leaders in the Chief Human Resource Officer role, attempting to drive bold and innovative thinking into the people part of the business. This trend will accelerate given that it's HR that makes the biggest single difference in most large organizations.

So keep an eye out for those engineers with strong people skills, or those HR types with a flair for partial differential equations... you might just be looking at your future CHRO.

An article on a similar trend was recently published in HBR on how Google sold it’s engineers on management. It's very much worth the read to understand one aspect of the very sophisticated job of human resources in this new day and age.

And please don’t ever put someone from finance to run your HR… that is the kiss of death. That’s like putting an accountant to run your company. Can you image what would happen if someone from finance started making decision in HR, or an accountant was put in charge of Apple of Google? Look at what happened to Nortel when the accountants took over.

Much of this blog is paraphrased from Josh’s predictions for 2014. If you want the full report please click here to get Bersin by Deloittes free prediction for 2014 report. And for those that follow us at CoachingOurselves, you'll notice an ongoing theme that developmental coaching is one of several key growing trends in 2014.

All the best in 2014!

Phil LeNir

President of CoachingOurselves

http://www.CoachingOurselves.com/

How HR kills innovation in HR

"Whatever you do, please don't mention this to anyone in HR, they will kill it".

That quote may sound odd but it is real. The ‘it’ being kept secret from HR is an innovative learning program. I am sure the same thing happens with all sorts of HR innovations, not just learning. When HR hears about a manager who is doing things a little bit differently their first reaction is to want to kill it outright or wrap it in a deadly python of bureaucracy.

One client spent two or three hours on cross-continent video conference calls trying to decide if they would try one experimental 90 minute learning session. Another leader reported he was going to have to write a business case to justify spending $1,500 to continue a small leadership development pilot program.

The literature on innovation recognizes the value of small experiments; but even though HR tends to be aware of this kind fact, they tend to treat experiments with extreme distaste.  There are good reasons for this, as well as bad ones, and these need to be disentangled before we can get to the meat of how to improve innovation in HR.

The obvious bad reason is simply that HR wants to protect its turf; if it’s an HR related effort they want to control it and any associated budget. This is however linked to a good reason which is that organizations don’t want managers running off doing things that are risky or ill-considered.

We often see the same thing in IT. Managers may have experienced the wrath of IT when they try to bring in a Mac into an organization that has standardized on PCs. There are both good and bad reasons for IT’s inflexibility. They need to prevent any actions that would undermine the security of their system and also they need to protect themselves from the user demands that can arise when someone has an incompatible hardware setup. They may also just be difficult for the sake of being difficult. But the right steps are relatively clear.  A good IT department will look at the issue, assess the risks, see if there are reasonable steps to mitigate the risk, and if it makes sense then allow the user to go ahead with the non-standard system.

Yet HR does not seem to have this risk assessment / risk mitigation mindset. There are several reasons for this.  One is that many HR professionals grow up in a quasi-legal world where their job is all about ensuring the organization does not fall foul of labor laws. This, along with their frequent role as the policy police, have led them to get used to saying “No you can’t do that!” instead of working as a partner to determine the best thing to do. Another reason is that historically HR has championed enterprise-wide programs; if there is on-boarding then it will be for everyone, not just for a critical subset of jobs. If there is a dress code, it applies to all, even if it’s only needed in customer facing roles. When HR sees an innovation they immediately think in terms of an enterprise-wide roll out, which is expensive, risky and time consuming—all in all better put to death than permitted.

So we need a radically new mindset in HR. They need to encourage managers to experiment and simply provide a limited overview to ensure that there are no undue risks. When the cost of the experiment is less than the cost of the business case they should cheer on the manager to go ahead and try it out. When experiments don’t work HR can draw useful lessons. Where experiments do work HR can consider applying the approach to other areas of the organization. But you don’t get to learn from failed experiments or build on successful experiments if you kill experiments before they can begin.

HR often suffers from a bad reputation. They are seen to get in the way of the business rather than help it along. HR can go a long way in building rapport with managers if it encourages them to experiment with things they think might work, providing only enough support to ensure there are no uncontained risks. This will lead to rapid learning, happier managers and a better loved HR function.

If you'd like to try a 90 minute experiment with a completely new, group based approach to leadership training, visit us at http://www.CoachingOurselves.com/ 
This article was co-authored with my friend David Creelman, of Creelman research.

Mintzberg and LeNir's approach to developing leaders is 70:20:10 all in one

Years ago, when I was a young engineering director, I made the acquaintance of Professor Henry Mintzberg:

He is one of the classic management thinkers, like Drucker and Handy. He has plenty to say about numerous aspects of management but the area of particular interest to me is on how managers get better at their practice of management and how we can help them do this.

Henry Mintzberg is most known for his studies of working managers:

“…I studied managers and what did I say in my first book (The Nature of Managerial Work, 1973) that got the most attention; that managers are interrupted a lot, that it’s a very action oriented thing. That was patently obvious to anybody who ever managed, or spent a day observing a manager. So what makes me so special? Nothing, I just wrote it down, that’s all. … I said: ‘Gee, it’s not what everybody says. This is not planning, organizing, coordinating and controlling, to take the most popular words to describe management. This is about getting interrupted, and trying to keep your head above water.’ And everyone said, ‘Wow… geez… so fantastic…’. 

Some 25 years after he first begun studying managers, Professor Mintzberg came to a powerful conclusion on how managers get better at their job based on his real world understanding of what managers actually do. He articulated this in his book Managers not MBAs (2003),:

“Thoughtful reflection on natural experience, in the light of conceptual ideas is the most powerful tool we have for management learning.”

A growing number MBA and EMBA programs are adopting Professor Mintzberg’s methodology, displacing the dominant lecture or case study method. Even Nitin Nohria, the new Dean of Harvard Business School (the bastion of the case study method) is moving through with radical change in the way young MBAs are developed. The new focus is on helping young managers learn through reflection on their experience.

I began experimenting with the application of Mintzberg’s ideas while I was that young engineering director looking for a way to develop myself and my team in the midst of the dot.com meltdown of the early 2000s . I began bringing my management team together on a regular basis for learning meetings. I modified the course material and lecture PowerPoints supplied by Professor Mintzberg and his colleagues to guide 90 minutes of reflection and discussion. These “topics” gave us the pedagogy, Professor Mintzberg gave us the experiential reflective approach, and doing this together as a team made the learning happen.

Many years later I stumbled across the 70:20:10 framework (through Jay Cross and Charles Jennings). I quickly realized that Mintzberg’s approach fit squarely within the 70:20:10 framework. It integrated

reflection, the power of social learning, and allowed participants to contextualize their experiences through structured knowledge. Mintzberg’s approach to leadership development encompassed all of 70:20:10 in one. This is in contrast to many current methodologies that seem to put learning activities into 70, 20 or 10 “buckets”.

In 2007, Henry Mintzberg and I co-founded the company, CoachingOurselves (http://www.CoachingOurselves.com/). We brought Mintzberg’s approach to the enterprise learning space by working with leading management thinkers to provide topics, the themed discussion workbooks. 

Management teams use these during 90-minute discussion and reflection “meetings”.  L&OD piece these together to deliver interventions and programs that solve the classic needs (“I need to develop a culture of innovation”, “I need a high potential leadership program”, “I need to deal with our engagement challenges”), but in a balanced 70:20:10 approach. In 2012, we had over 10,000 managers in 130 organizations using our topics.

The results have been beyond my initial expectations, but not without difficulties and surprises. The hardest challenge is changing the dominant L&OD mindset with the organization. Even when the HR team believes in 70:20:10 or the CEO is a big Mintzberg fan, it sometimes takes months, even years, before this very different approach can be embedded into a new initiative, piloted, and launched.

So, if you are having trouble changing your L&OD programs into 70:20:10 based initiatives, there is only ones olution: start now,contact us to start with a CoachingOurselves pilot, and learn from that experience!

The end result will be worth it.

HCI Conference: The Future for L&D

CoachingOurselves attended the HCI Learning and Leadership Development Conference in Boston this month: this was an eye-opening experience.  We had just participated in the CSTD conference the week before and were anticipating our first “American” conference experience. While we met dozens of interesting people at both conferences, we felt more at home with our peers at HCI; there were more full service vendors and vendors similar to us, specializing in innovative learning methods.

The overall tone at HCI was that the risk of not trying innovative approaches to learning and development far outweighed the risk of trying them.  It is no longer acceptable to keep sending people into the classroom and straightforward e-learning is now considered ineffective.  The number of times we heard that Harvard ManageMentor was purchased but then barely ever used by large organizations was incredible.  Were you one of these organizations?  One of the opening keynotes for HCI was by Sandra Edwards, Senior Vice President of the American Management Association.  This organization's bread and butter is selling classroom training to the mid-market.  She began by telling people that things were changing – and changing fast.  People say they like classroom training and want more of it, but we all know it has very little impact.  She likened it to the telephone and telegraph. In the era of the telegraph, no one asked to use a telephone; they all liked the telegraph and thought it worked very well.  They could not fathom a telephone. As vendors begin providing solutions that help people extract learning from work rather than adding learning to work, the current classroom and e-learning solutions will look as effective as the telegraph.  Sandra proclaimed that extracting learning from work would be the key to the leadership learning interventions of the future. “Extract learning from the workplace instead of imposing.  We know learning happens from doing…” -       Sandra Edwards, VP, AMA Enterprise Several presenters repeated this mantra: in the new world, we will be facilitating learning without instructional design.  Learning professionals will need to think differently and learn new skills. Google held a keynote titled “Think Big and Experimenting with Leadership and Learning at Google”.  Their mantra is everyone is responsible for their own development and the development of others.  They reiterated that the biggest risk you can take as an L&D professional is not trying and experimenting with new approaches. Mike Welsh at Facebook, Inc. spoke on the importance of in-team mentoring, teaching each other, and Coaching Circles. As an organization, they’re working to deepen on the job learning and build a culture of coaching. Marla Hetzel, Director of Innovation, at AARPquoted CoachingOurselves co-founder Henry Mintzberg in her presentation: "The way to start rebuilding community is to stop the practices that undermine it... the organization has to shed much of its individualistic behavior and many of its short term measures in favor of practices that promote trust, engagement, and spontaneous collaboration aimed at sustainability."  Peggy Schroeder, Director of HR Leadership and Professional Development, at The Hartford Financial Services group discussed transforming leadership learning from an event to a continuous journey, emphasizing innovative learning methods based on 70:20:10. Unfortunately, few vendors actually offered any products and services inline with this new direction.  CoachingOurselves received an amazing response; it was different from every other vendor’s product and exactly what people needed. We explained that we work with world-renowned business leaders, taking the content they use in their MBA and EMBA workshops and seminars to craft 90-minute discussion guides for small groups of managers. These guides capture the professors pedagogy, along with questions and exercises to guide discussion and reflection on participants’ own experiences, driving action and change. The 90-minute sessions can be pieced together to create personalized interventions and programs based on each organization’s individual needs and goals. This is a better learning and leadership intervention on so many levels.  It is flexible and cost effective – and most importantly, what managers want and what works.  Like our peers said above and throughout the HCI conference: people learn through experience and through facilitating conversation on these experiences. This is how to improve work performance. Give us a call to try CoachingOurselves! 1-866-699-0838 or 1-514-419-1849 or send an e-mail to warren@coachingourselves.com

Introduction to CoachingOurselves by Henry Mintzberg

Equipping AAT leaders with sustainable management capabilities

The following is a wonderful case study describing published by our Australian partner and friend, Monica Redden. It describes her use of the CoachingOurselves tools to equipping the leaders and managers of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in Australia with sustainable management and leadership capabilities

Administrative Appeals Tribunal, Australia

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) has seven offices operating across Australia and provides independent review on the merits of a wide range of administrative decisions made by the Australian Government and some non-government bodies.  In each District Registry, a Deputy President or Senior Member is appointed Executive Deputy President. The Executive Deputy President and the District Registrar are responsible for local registry management.

The role of the District Registrar is typical of a senior manager’s position with responsibility of staff management; retaining good communication and cooperation between administration and judicial systems; responsibility for overall management of the state office; engagement of internal and external stakeholders as well as contributing to the national body of policy and operations.

In more recent years the AAT has focused on a long-term training and development strategy in-line with the Australian Public Sector leadership and management development strategy.  AAT is increasingly interested in organisational development and equipping its leaders and managers with sustainable management and leadership capabilities.   

The District Registrars (group of 7) have been using CoachingOurselves as a management development tool since 2011.  They first met face to face with Monica Redden, Australian Partner, CoachingOurselves International, who provided an overview and assisted with facilitating the first topic.  Since then the District Registrars have met monthly on teleconference and more recently videoconference with two face to face sessions when they have met at national seminars.  The following includes comments from Ms Athena Harris Ingall, Learning and Development Manager and some of the participant District Registrars.

Before CoachingOurselves ....

It is not that we wouldn’t ever get together before, we use to have hook-ups and things, but CoachingOurselves has given us a way to have guided discussion.  It focuses our thinking and the sharing of our experiences on a particular topic so that we can get some easy input from the topics but more importantly some fabulous experienced-based input from each other.  District Registrar.

Those of us who were friendly with each other relied on each other, CoachingOurselves has pulled everyone into the group and because of the way it is structured people participate.  District Registrar.

We were pretty much operating in a silo, there was some interaction between District Registrars depending on your personal relationships that you had developed over a period of time, but other than that it was fairly limited contact.  District Registrar.

I was looking for a tool that was sophisticated, but easy to use and would challenge these managers who are working in a legal environment to expand their knowledge on organisational management practices.  I wanted a more sustainable strategy for organisational development to equip leaders and managers with requisite skills to manage and cope with their increasingly demanding jobs.  Athena Harris Ingall, L&D Manager.

CoachingOurselves Sessions ....

Those in the group that are more reluctant are encouraged to participate and share their strengths and skills.  The structure of the topic means that everyone has to be engaged. 

The group reflects at the start of each session on how they have put things into practice since the last session; some are better at doing this than others.  District Registrar.

I like the fact that a group of managers who are regionally located around the country can come together once a month and talk about a relevant management issue and share each other’s ideas and get input from each other, it is just fantastic. District Registrar.

It is very difficult to keep connected when everyone is so far apart, we meet face to face very rarely, CoachingOurselves gives us an opportunity, with the video conferencing, to talk with each other and see each other.  District Registrar.

People are accessing and learning information for their own immediate use.  Athena Harris Ingall, L&D Manager.

Topics that have been particularly useful...

Introducing Culture in Organisations (by Sharon Turnbull) was really good, particularly as we are about to implement the new jurisdiction and we need to look really carefully at change and the impact culture has on change.  District Registrar.

Reflection (by Jonathan Gosling) was a great topic and really interesting, it made us all pause and think.  The Rewards of Recognition (by John Oliver) was good; I think that does not happen enough in workplaces both for us and for our staff-upwards and downwards and inwards and outwards-it was very good.  District Registrar.

The recent topic on Beyond Bullying (by Marilyn Aitkenhead) was very good; you would think as a manager that would be something you would already have in your kitbag of knowledge-but it was really good to review and reflect and made me act differently to a situation I had, it was very useful. District Registrar.

The subject matter is fairly open.  It has given us a forum more than anything. The subjects that we are choosing are things that we all struggle with or need assistance with from time to time. It gives us the ability to openly air our thoughts and listen to other people’s thoughts; you get some good ideas through those discussions.  District Registrar.

It has made a difference ....

It is a really good management tool.  It makes us more strategic.  It gives us ideas and gives us a forum to discuss things; we just seem to develop strategies that we can move forward with.  District Registrar.

There are opportunities in CoachingOurselves to think about ways you can do things differently.  It is up to you and whether you do them or not. For example, there has been some discussion on how people communicate and relate to each other and we have been able to bring different things and processes to our staff meetings and this has really helped.  District Registrar.

There is a greater feeling of camaraderie developed as a result.  District Registrar.

We are much more collegiate.  We realise we all have different problems but the same problems in terms of managing the registries and although the registries are different there are common themes.  District Registrar.

It has helped me as a manager...

It has given me an opportunity to explore topics that I am interested in and given me greater knowledge about those topics, but particularly as it relates to this environment.  It has also given me the opportunity to tap into the wisdom of my colleagues and their strategies for dealing with things which is really relevant to the workplace.  District Registrar.

I feel supported by my colleagues because I can talk about issues. They have issues too, so I feel less alone.  You can target to make it work for you and your workplace.  District Registrar.

Value for Money

It has been very good value in comparison with external training courses.  Where someone in Perth cannot get access to training and has to travel to Sydney, it costs as much for one course as it does for an annual license of CO.  District Registrar.

It is extremely good value for money for the content and the impact it has.  After the very positive feedback and experience of the District Registrars the program was expanded to other groups.  Athena Ingall-Harris, L&D Manager.

Advice to other managers...

It is a really good tool.  It feels from the outside maybe an hour and half is a lot; but really the benefit that you get is well worth the investment that you make.  It is not particularly costly, but it really builds relationships between colleagues and develops skills and provides examples and input.  District Registrar

It is a really good tool.  You can make it apply to your own situation and your own workplace.  It develops a greater sense of collegiality.  Those in the group that are more reluctant are encouraged to participate and share their strengths and skills.  District Registrar

One of the important things to do (lesson for others) was to properly prepare participants about the content that can be found in the CoachingOurselves topics and the role of the facilitators in the group.  We did this through the expertise of a trained facilitator (Monica Redden).

We found it very important to set timeframes and timing of meetings which are conducted on a monthly basis and never more than 90 minutes.

It is also useful to have a champion for implementation of the program, who is a senior manager, who can encourage or support the groups.  Once people engage with the program and start to obtain real advantage of the group and apply it to their own workplace, they are keen to maintain the schedule of meetings, even with their very busy and challenging workload.  Athena Ingall-Harris, L&D Manager.

Summary

This case study is interesting for a number of reasons.  It demonstrates the flexibility of CoachingOurselves such as adapting to teleconference and video conference sessions and also the money that can be saved by not paying costs for travel, accommodation and time lost.  It also highlights the real value of meeting together and strengthening the sense of collegiality and collaboration.  

Some of the examples where direct change has occurred as a result of a specific topic such as Beyond Bullying and Organisational Culture show how participants are selecting topics to meet their specific needs and interests and generating discussion that fits their organisation.  

Participants became more confident as they did more topics; participants are drilling down into issues through the sessions and recognised they have become more strategic and decisive.  An important lesson for CoachingOurselves is the importance of providing good information about topics and to encourage participants to ask for assistance on topics that might be of interest relative to issues the managers are grappling with. 

For more information on CoachingOurselves in Australia contact Monica Redden Consultancy online or at +61 8 8357 1296

For more information on the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, Australia and the approach to management and leadership development contact Athena Ingall Harris, athena.ingall@aat.gov.au

Leaders teaching leaders at Fujitsu Business Systems

The following story was written by Mr. Kentaro Iijima, the Corporate Senior Vice President of Fujitsu Business Systems Ltd., as a reflection on how they are using CoachingOurselves and how it is working.   

Fujitsu Business Systems has introduced CoachingOurselves in order to: 

• Adopt the essence of management theories from the IMPM,
• Improve management skills of middle-managers, and
• Promote interchange between the organizations within the company. 

A total of 125 participants will have completed the program at the end of 2010, which is equal to 20% of all the managers. In the beginning, we asked J.Feel, the Japanese partner of CoachingOurselves to facilitate the sessions, but now the alumni take the facilitator's role to guide their junior fellows. 

In order to facilitate by themselves, the alumni facilitators prepare the sessions in advance and facilitate their fellows with their actual experience in the company. Through the sessions they can hand down their skills and experiences to the fellows. 

By facilitating by themselves, the alumni can learn the contents of the sessions much more deeply. As a result, among the alumni facilitators and the fellows, atmosphere of community-ship is being created. We are confident that alumni facilitation is very effective and efficient. 

Written by FUJITSU BUSINESS SYSTEMS LTD. Corporate Senior Vice President, Mr. Kentaro Iijima   --  

Change and transformative learning at Nissan Motor Company

The following story was written by Ms. Chieko Kamiyama, a manager in the Global Marketing and Sales Planning Department, to express her experience with CoachingOurselves and those of her colleagues.   

Nissan Motors has introduced CoachingOurselves to its Planning and Design Department in the aim of improving the quality of management, especially the people management ability throughout the manager layers. Approximately 100 managers have participated in CO sessions for three years since 2008.  

Some managers commented, "It has been the best training program I've experienced over the 30 years since I joined the company." 

This is only one of many positive feedback statements that are given by the participants; the future participants also have high hopes for CO.


 “Through CoachingOurselves, I realized that it's very important for managers to have time for reviewing their team members & themselves regularly.  As I discussed various issues with my colleagues, I could find out many things about myself.  The findings are most proper, not novelties. The facts were that I couldn't execute some things well even though I understood their theories.  I believe that we can improve whenever, if we are aware of our failings, accept them and be eager to improve.  But actually it's very difficult to accept oneself as not being able to do things well.  This training made me realize that other people are also distressed but make an effort. It also gave me the opportunity to accept my failings.”   
Chieko KAMIYAMA Manager Global Marketing and Sales Planning Department Global Marketing Division

Reflection: a tool to create transformative leaders

"Thoughtful reflection on natural experience, in the light of conceptual ideas, is the most powerful tool we have for management learning."
Henry Mintzberg in Managers not MBAs

The idea of reflective learning is coming into focus as individuals, teams, and organizations begin to realize its benefits.  In Consider: Harnessing the Power of Reflective Thinking in Your Organization Daniel Patrick Forrester explained that reflection is "where meaning is created, behaviors are regulated, values are refined, assumptions are challenged, intuition is accessed, and where we learn about who we are." It sounds pretty good, doesn't it?

In Taking Another Look: Leading Minds on Reflection Part 1  John Kotter speaks about the need to develop a reflective habit. The reality of it is that most of us don't. But how can we move forward and learn from our experiences if we don't reflect? Simple daily reflection expediates our learning, expertise, and ultimately our growth as an individual that is part of something larger.

In Taking Another Look: Leading Minds on Reflection Part 4, Marshall Goldsmith, author of the CoachingOurselves topic FeedFORWARD instead of FeedBACK, argues that reflection is more important today than in the past. He says it is also more challenging in a world of constant stimulus where information is coming at us from all ends. We must find the time to stop and think, even though our lifestyles force us to focus on our ability to act.

When we stop and think, we learn something about ourselves along the way. But what do we do with this new-found information? Jeremy Hunter, also in Taking Another Look: Leading Minds on Reflection Part 4, reminds us that just because we know something about ourselves doesn't mean this new-found knowledge will suddenly change our behaviour. We may know the resulting action, but not necessarily the trigger, or how to control the way we act once we've been pushed over the threshold. The answer is that it's all about reflection in the moment, in our daily lives.

So we've mastered the art of relfection, or at least our understanding of it, but how do we go about doing it? Our intuition often tells us that reflection is something to be done alone, by oneself. But reflection is something that can be done with others. It is not just about an individual, but it is also about other people we interact with and how our actions affect them, their work, and so on. Therefore, it is not only possible but also essential that we are taking the time to reflect on our weekly happenings with our management team, our family, and our friends.

Daniel Patrick Forrester's research, author of Consider, says that we can't afford not to take the time to think and reflect.

CoachingOurselves: Reflective Learning

With the CoachingOurselves tools, enterprise learning professional design leadership programs that leverage reflective learning and the power of peer group learning. The process of having managers gather in small groups for 90 minutes of reflection and discussion ensures learning from experience, and from one another. It helps create a reflective habit, which is crucial for leaders in today`s complex business environment.

A young, enthusiastic MBA was finally given the opportunity to apply his learning....

“A young, enthusiastic MBA was finally given the opportunity to apply his learning. He was asked to carry out a survey of a group with which he was not normally familiar and submit recommendations as to how its efficiency could be increased. 

He selected as his target a symphony orchestra. Having read up on the tools of the trade, he attended his first concert and submitted the following analysis:

a.         For considerable periods, the four oboe players had nothing to do. The number of oboes should therefore be reduced, and the work spread more evenly over the whole concert program, thus eliminating the peaks and valleys of activity.

b.         All twenty violins were playing identical notes. This would seem to be an unnecessary duplication, so the staff of this section should be cut drastically.

c.         Obsolescence of equipment is another matter warranting further investigation. The program noted that the leading violinist’s instrument was several hundred years old. Now, if normal depreciation schedules had been applied, the value of this instrument would have been reduced to zero and the purchase of more modern equipment recommended long ago.

d.         Much effort was absorbed in the playing of demisemiquavers, which seems to be an unnecessary refinement. It is recommended that all notes be rounded up to the nearest semiquaver. If this were done, it would be possible to use trainees and lower-grade operatives more extensively.

e.          In many cases, the operators were using one hand to hold their instruments. The introduction of a fixture would free that hand for other work. Also, it was noted that excessive effort being used by the players of wind instruments whereas, one compressor could supply enough air for all the instruments – and under more accurately controlled conditions.

f.          Finally, there seemed to be too much repetition of some of the musical passages. Therefore, scores should be pruned to a considerable extent. No useful purpose is served by repeating on the horns something which has already been handled by the strings. It is estimated that, if all redundant passages were eliminated, the whole concert time of two hours could be reduced to twenty minutes and there would be no need for an intermission.”  

(Published more or less as above in the mid 1950s in an American professor’s bulletin, a Canadian military journal, and Harper’s Magazine, based on an anonymous memorandum circulating in London and probably published originally in Her Majesty’s Treasury of the Courts) 

Thanks to Henry Mintzberg for referring me to this article!

Leadership Development: It's the process...

Following every Fad?

Some people seem to always be looking for the things that could make them a better leader; the 7 habits of effective people, the 21 laws of leadership, the 12.5 strengths of leaders, top ten leadership tips, and so on. But reading a book that boils it all down to 7 habits, or 21 laws and then trying to follow them on a daily basis never really worked for me. My world doesn't work like that.

I find the process of personal change is, well, a process. It takes time. It's hard to change who you are and what you do. You have to think hard about yourself. You have to take the time to fight yourself sometimes. You regress, you get back on track. It is a lot of work.

Many years back, I started my own path to change and it took years of constant effort. The Tony Robbins type thing where you visualize yourself being a "good" leader and then you will be a good leader never worked for me.

I came to the conclusion the only way to change is to take the time to make it happen. It could be an hour to go to the gym every second day, or a 30 minute reflective walk with a close colleague during lunch once a week. But it takes time and constant effort.

In my case, it was an hour a week with my management team during which we used a process McGill’s Henry Mintzberg taught me through his book Managers Not MBAs. This was a process of weekly reflection in light of conceptual ideas with the management team.

CoachingOurselves session in 2003

So I began a process of weekly learning meetings. I did not commit myself to a specific outcome. I let the reflections take use where ever they want to go, so long as we focused on becoming better leaders.

Much to my surprise, it turned out that being a better leader simply meant carving out the time to think and work on becoming a better leader. In the end there is no short term to this journey. You simply need to focus on the process not the end result. And the result will be more than you can imagine when you first start.

I, personally, took control of my management and leadership style. I maneuvered my career into a space where I can be the kind of manager that makes me happy and has the impact that makes me proud.

So please enjoy yourself, read your books and inspiring articles. But nothing is going to happen until you take the time, on a regular basis, and work on it. It is the process of good hard work that makes things change, and that takes time!

Click here for CoachingOurselves themed discussion topics for individual management teams. 

A fun, short 90 second animated video on how I learned about leadership with Mintzberg, you can watch it at: http://youtu.be/ZFmJhD2F4mE

Ed Schein -- The best way to learn

Ed Schein has been a great support to us at CoachingOurselves. Following is a short piece he wrote describing his perspective:

CoachingOurselves -- The best way to learn

by Ed Schein

As a psychology major I learned that the most important work in psychology was research on how learning actually happens.  The basic model is simple—you learn from experience.  You have some kind of goal, you try something and then you get feedback on whether or not you are closer to your goal.  If you are, you try that again.  If you are not, you try something different.  What you decide to try is determined either by so called “trial and error” or some kind of imitation of a role model.  Sounds simple enough, but all the elements are in fact complicated.  

First, it is not always obvious what your goal should be, so setting a goal is itself a learning process which requires input and feedback from others.  That is one reason why more learning occurs in groups, there are more sources of feedback to give you clues as to what you need to learn. Second, once you have a goal, you will discover that there are many things you can try to move toward it.  Here it helps to have others as role models or to test ideas on others before you commit to a course of action.  And, finally, the feedback we need when we learn something relatively complicated is best if it comes from multiple sources.  

I found all of this out when I first went to a Human Relations workshop at Bethel, Maine in 1959.  My Ph.D. in Social Psychology had taught me all that research had uncovered about group dynamics.  Then in this workshop I encountered something called a T-group (T for training later called “sensitivity training”) and discovered that in the unstructured meetings I learned all sorts of things I did not know.  In fact the premise of the workshop was to have experiences first, then lectures and readings.   In these workshops I also learned that groups have to learn how to learn.  You can’t just tell someone “you need to be a better communicator” because he or she either might not know what you are talking about or be really offended.  So we learned in the group about creating a climate in which we could gradually become more open with each other and, once we achieved some mutual acceptance, we could give each other feedback which helped set learning goals and learning processes.  

CoachingOurselves Group

The group was important because different members had different perceptions of what was going on which taught us a lot about perception and communication.  Individual coaching can help once we have a clear focus, but when we try to learn more complex social processes and new ways of managing, learning how to become a learning group is critical.  I think of a group as a “mutual help society” in which the learning is enhanced by our recognition that we are there to help each other to learn.


I think the greatest potential of CoachingOurselves is the potential in the group process of Helping Each Other to learn.  Should you have a group process coach?  Yes, but each member can play this role from time to time. You don’t need an outsider, you only need to identify the role and rotate it around the group.  Most of us have the skills if we accept the role of helping the group to become a learning unit.   

In conclusion, CoachingOurselves as a group process always has a double agenda:

1. learning the content of a given module; and 
2. learning how to learn as a group.  

In my view it is this double agenda that makes CoachingOurselves especially relevant to organizations today.    

Visit http://www.CoachingOurselves.com/ to learn more, or to purchase CoachingOurselves modules for use with your team visit CoachingOurselves for your team.  If you wish to read further go to my book Helping: How to offer, give and receive help (2009) and Process Consultation Revisited (1999). Schein, E.H. (1999)  Process Consultation Revisited.  Prentice-Hall. Schein, E.H. (2009)  Helping: How to offer, give and receive help.  Berrett/Kohler.  

Henry Mintzberg and CoachingOurselves featured in Young Entrepreneur

CoachingOurselves co-founder Henry Mintzberg and CoachingOurselves was featured on Young Entrepreneur!

In the article Is the MBA Still Necessary?, Jason Daley examines the role of the MBA in corporate America today.  Once the driving force behind a fruitful business career, today’s corporate climate has many questioning the value of the MBA.  Have business schools managed to stay relevant or does the MBA breed narrow-mindedness?  Daley consults Henry Mintzberg, author of Managers Not MBAs,  to discuss why the MBA is insufficient and in need of reform.  What does Mintzberg recommend as a more effective alternative to traditional business schools?  CoachingOurselves for management teams!

“You say nothing has really changed in the years since your book came out. 

I think some business schools are moving in new directions, but not many and not much. They’re too fat and too successful and make too much money from what’s destructive. I think the problem with the American economy is not economic; it’s managerial. Anyone who accepts a bonus of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars while their company is failing is not a leader. Which means almost no one in the Fortune 500 is a leader.

People say, ‘I can’t believe what is going on in my company,’ and a lot of it is led by MBAs. They learn management by remote control. You learn to read case studies and sit in classrooms and have to pronounce judgments on companies about which you know almost nothing….”

To read the entire article, click here.

And click here to learn more about using CoachingOurselves to develop youself and your team.

Simon Caulking: The wrong direction and Would the Economy be better off without MBA students by Henry Mintzberg

Two friends of mine publish the J&E Alert, a fantastic newsletter highlighting thought provoking thinking on leadership, management and business. Below are two snippets from their newsletter. You can subscribe directly by sending an email to the editors (Mireille Jansma & Jurgen Egges)

Article - Simon Caulking: The wrong direction (Financial Times, 3 December 2012 )
 

Critical article on management with references to Henry Mintzberg, Gary Hamel and Alan Greenspan, by author and journalist Simon Caulkin. 

From the article: "To mark the journal’s 90th anniversary, the Harvard Business Review website has run a series of blogs and articles under the strapline Why Management Matters. Alas, the content does not engage with the proposition itself, taking the importance of management for granted. 

This is a common stance. Management is so omnipresent that it is mostly invisible. But nearly a century after it emerged in modern form, it is a good time to pose that fundamental question: does management matter, and if so why? The answer of course is that it does – but more and in less congratulatory ways than most people suppose." 

Article - Would the economy be better off without MBA students? (Henry Mintzberg vs. Paul Danos, Economist debates, November 2012) 

Debate between Henry Mintzberg and Paul Danos, on the (lack of) merit of MBA's. 

Opening Statements:

• Henry Mintzberg: "Management is a craft, rooted in experience. But one cannot teach the craft to people who lack the experience. Those who believe they have learned management by sitting still in an MBA classroom are a menace to society."
• Paul Danos: "I agree that a business leader must have experience to truly hone his or her management skills. However, two years in a modern and well-functioning MBA programme will accelerate students on the path to leadership." 

From the moderator's opening remarks: "(...) Are MBA students good for the economy? At first glance it might seem an odd question to ask. The professionalization of management has, some argue, been the single biggest factor behind the economic advancements of the past 100 years. Basic ideas such as such as paying employees for their talents and capital budgeting have made companies more competitive and helped to improve the lives of millions of people.

Surely, then, the fact that the most powerful people in business have studied management at the world's best universities is a good thing. This is what Paul Danos, the dean of Dartmouth University's Tuck School of Business, will be arguing. He thinks that the reason business prizes MBAs so highly is because they have been taught the business and leadership skills that companies require. After all, if they didn't, they wouldn't hire and promote them so enthusiastically.

 Henry Mintzberg, a management guru most famous for his book Managers Not MBAs, does not agree. He says that MBA programmes teach the wrong things to the wrong people. Not only does this mean that companies are led by unsuitable people, but it also means that the right candidates—who have learned the craft of management through years of practise—are barred from leadership positions by an old boys' network. This, he believes, holds the economy back."