HOW TO LEAD IN 2011
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12 October 2011 11:35
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HOW TO LEAD IN 2011
Pimentel, David. Profit29.6 (Dec 2010/Jan 2011): 36-40.
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Abstract
Several executives shared their views on strategies for success. Arlene Dickinson, president of Venture Communications Ltd, said it's more important than ever for leaders to articulate the direction of the organization clearly. Controlling your own narrative in general is much more important now, simply because of social media and the power of the Internet. Roger Martin, dean of Rotman School of Management Toronto, said leadership is a lot about getting self-sustaining things going -- upward reinforcing spirals and downward reinforcing spirals -- and you often need leadership to arrest a downward spiral and start an upward spiral. Miles Nadal, chairman and CEO, MDC Partners Inc, said in difficult times, people have a propensity to be risk-averse, but the key thing in leadership is you need to be bold. You have to be able to identify opportunity and capitalize on it, to be proactive and reinvent what the future of your business will be.
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Full Text
Headnote PROFIT's survey of business thinkers reveals strategies for success in what promises to be a challenging year INTERVIEWS BY DAVID PIMENTEL ARLENE DICKINSON PRESIDENT, VENTURE COMMUNICATIONS LTD., CALGARY //FOUR-TIME HONOUREE OF CANADA'S TOP 100 MOST POWERFUL WOMEN I THINK BUSINESS LEADERS ARE FEELING optimistic right now. They've gone through a near-death experience, but they've resurrected themselves. And now they feel like they're getting back on the treadmill and feeling healthy again. But employees aren't there yet, and that's because we as leaders have all hunkered down. We've tended not to engage the entire organization because we've all had to make tough decisions. And so, now the employees are feeling a touch of paranoia. The leaders may be ready to charge, but employees aren't so sure they want to go down that road. So, it's more important than ever for leaders to articulate the direction of the organization clearly. Controlling your own narrative in general is much more important now, simply because of social media and the power of the Internet. As a leader, you should be using your own voice and your own words, as opposed to letting somebody else in the organization write your blog or Twitter for you, or do your Facebook updates. If you're not the link and you're not controlling the narrative in that story, then that story will get crafted around you.
Today, reputations can be ruined in a day - actually, in just a minute. Look at what happened with Tony Hayward at BP. When your voice is heard only in reaction to some crisis, you undermine your credibility. People say, "Whatever. You're only saying that because you have to." Another challenge leaders are faced with is the new "triple bottom line" culture. Businesses of the future have to be economically viable, but they also have to be socially responsible and environmentally responsible. But you can't do that by introducing socially responsible bolt-ons. You have to be authentic, because people can see through the greenwashing. And that's a challenge, because if you've been a leader who has been very driven by financial results, it's difficult to appreciate the value of diverting funds and energy to things that don't seem to be driving corporate value. But, in fact, they will. They will attract better people. They will attract different types of people, who will open up the organization to new possibilities. ROGER MARTIN DEAN, ROTMAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT, TORONTO //EXPERT IN BEHER LEADERSHIP THROUGH INTEGRATIVETHINKING LEADERSHIP IS A LOT ABOUT GETTING self-sustaining things going - upward reinforcing spirals and downward reinforcing spirals - and you often need leadership to arrest a downward spiral and start an upward spiral. But once you get an upward spiral started, it often takes care of itself. Right now, you have lots of organizations and lots of people saying, "We're never going to be out of debt. America's in secular decline, and in the end we're tied to America, right?" It's at those times, probably more so than any other time, that you need somebody to say, "Here's a way to conceptualize things that doesn't concede to inevitable disaster. And if we maybe did this thing, this thing and this thing all together, we'd actually get it to turn around and things would be better." So, people start saying, "I'll give that a chance. I'm going suspend disbelief for a minute." Then, perhaps, you can begin to arrest the downward spiral and reverse it. Part of doing that is reality, and part of it is perception. So, what a leader has to do is figure out some solution to the substantive problem, while doing something to instil a greater level of confidence in employees or customers or suppliers. It's about doing something that will create an inflection point - both in the realities of the business and the mindsets of people. And so, it's important that leaders listen really, really carefully. Just look at Toyota. One of the reasons it has its problem right now is that the company spent most of its time telling consumers early on, during this unintended acceleration problem, that the consumers were wrong and that everything was fine. Well, that just convinces consumers that nothing good is going to happen, because the company is telling customers that, despite their experiences, nothing is wrong. So, I think listening carefully is important - empathizing with your customers, empathizing with your employees - and then trying to figure out where there is an opportunity to change things for the better. But it has to encompass both reality and perception. If it were only the
reality, you could ignore people's feelings and just try and fix the business. But recognizing the perception will also give you insights that will help you fix the business. MILES NADAL CHAIRMAN &CEO, MDC PARTNERS INC, TORONTO //MARKETING ENTREPRENEUR AND PHILANTHROPIST IN DIFFICULT ECONOMIC TIMES, PEOPLE have a propensity to be risk-averse, but the key thing in leadership is you need to be bold. You have to be able to identify opportunity and capitalize on it, to be proactive and reinvent what the future of your business will be. Harvard did a study that concluded that companies that maintain or increase marketing spending in difficult economic times maintain or increase market share. Procter &Gamble, Gillette, General Electric, Coca Cola - you'll find that most of the big multinationals have been quite aggressive in taking advantage of the challenging environment, and that most have spent on marketing more than what they would in a good economic environment. That's one key to creating wealth: being bold and early. But being bold and early does not make up for being wrong, so you need to try a bunch of things and stay responsive. You back your winners and cut your losses. And you really understand what's working, and why; and what's not working, and why not. But it's not just about strategy. People are looking for tangible proof points of leadership. And the ability to communicate and inspire people in the face of adversity is a critical part of leadership. Most people are feeling better about the economy. Employment has bottomed out and started to pick up. Consumer spending is cautiously moving forward. It's all happening very slowly, but people already believe that the economy is recovering. What they want in a leader is a strong sense of where we're going, what is the opportunity, what role each of us plays and what is the reward at the end of it. And those rewards can be great. I think that times of adversity create some of the greatest periods in history to create wealth, and these times right now are some of the greatest ever to be an entrepreneur. BEN BARRY DIRECTOR, BEN BARRYAGENCY INC., TORONTO// MODELLING INNOVATOR AND GOVERNOR GENERAL'S AWARD WINNER I THINK THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE FOR leadership moving into 201 1 and beyond will be about communication, because the Internet - and, particularly, social networking - has changed the marketplace. Today, leadership is transparent, it's accessible and both your consumers and your employees need to feel part of your business. Sure, there are a lot of fears. You're subjecting your brand to critics and to consumer participation in a way that you've never done before. Now, if consumers don't like something about your company, they can tell everyone. If you've done something wrong, consumers can say so online, which amplifies what they say. But, as much as that's a fear, I see it as a huge opportunity, because it allows for the most exciting kind of innovation. Founders and small-business owners who may have been
removed from day-to-day operations now have a chance to be on the ground, to hear from consumers; to hear their wants, their desires, their needs, what makes them happy, what doesn't. And consumers do want to participate. They want to be actively engaged in the creative process - in marketing, in suggesting product ideas, in taking a product they love and amplifying that to their friends and their families online. Same goes for employees. Instead of trying to stop employees from talking about the company online, we as small-business owners or CEOs need to look at each of our employees as an access point to the communities they've established. Now, obviously, that has to be authentic. No one wants to feel that their boss is telling them to sell the company to all their friends. But there's a real opportunity there. Business owners need to stop being intimidated. The whole idea of intimidation is oldfashioned. It ignores the way we're moving forward, and that the division between public and private has been removed. The Internet and social media is changing communication, and every CEO has to figure out how they will embrace it - and they have to embrace it. The idea that you can stay off Twitter or stay off Facebook will leave you in the dust. CMICHAELADAMS CO-FOUNDER, ENVIRONICS RESEARCH GROUP, TORONTO// BEST-SELLING AUTHOR AND SOCIAL-VALUES RESEARCHER CONSUMERS RIGHT NOW ARE ACTUALLY feeling pretty good. The fiscal conservativeness of Canadians - both the people and the government - has served us well. If you surveyed people - asking, "Is Canada on the right track?" - you would find that about two-thirds think that's the case; whereas in the U.S. it's about one-third. There is an anxiety out there, but it's probably more with the older people. Younger people are fairly optimistic, and I think as a leader what you need to do is recognize the optimism and autonomy of today's youth. Because they are heterarchical, not hierarchical. Before, everyone was looking for "the man with the plan," and you deferred to institutional authority. Now, nobody defers to institutional authority. Now, everybody is self-employed, whether you're working for the biggest bank in the country or your own small business. Members of the younger generation are good at self-organizing and very flexible about who they work with. So, what a good leader needs to do is insinuate into their younger teams the baby boomers who have networks and who want to be mentors. And that will allow you to have some pretty powerful intergenerational teams. It's the same thing with customers. You can try to act like companies did in "the good old days," when it was a matter of abusing them as much as you could without losing them. But now you're dealing with a generation that knows that the truth lay in what their parents did, not what they said. You didn't have to watch too many episodes of The Simpsons to realize that a lot of this deference to traditional authority was deference to hypocrisy. I think having empathy and acting genuinely is a huge thing. If you want to have customers who are loyal, then you have to figure out how you can maintain their loyalty. If you want information from them, you have to get permission. And the more you know about them, the more likely you will be able to anticipate what makes them happy.
MIKE DESJARDINS DRIVER. VIRTUS INC., VANCOUVER // BUSINESS ADVISOR AND LEADERSHIP BLOGGER MAYBE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE THAT leaders are facing is that they're working with a new generation of employees who are looking for a different style of leadership. They're used to Facebook. They're used to Twitter. They're used to their lives being broadcast everywhere, and they don't see why you wouldn't be totally transparent and just say everything out loud all the time. Jack Welch wrote a book called Winning, and in it he wrote about when he first went to GE and realized that people weren't being honest because they were afraid. And that was one of the major lessons coming out of the recession, that if we want the people in the organization to tell us what's really going on, then we have to tell them what's really going on. If I want to bubble up the real issues, then I have to be willing to share those issues. Then, there's the cultural challenge - this culture of, "If you're there from nine to five, you must be doing something useful." Gen Y, the millennials, don't see the clock the same way we do. That's why some organizations have put in a "results only" environment, in which they're less interested in the time spent and more interested in the outcome. That's really hard for leaders to face, but it's only the beginning. Many organizations are now thinking about going entirely virtual. The reality of doing this is that you then have no idea what people are doing, where they are or how they're working. As a leader, you have to start to figure out how you can lead without the ability to see who you're working with. You might not even have your team together - ever. You might have a team spread out across Canada or even globally in different time zones. How do you develop your team and act as a leader, coaching and mentoring them, when they're not just down the hall? I don't think that anyone has figured this out yet. But one of the key things is, if you're not sure whether you're a good leader, turn around. If there are no people there, then you probably have some work to do. And if that's the case, find whoever's closest and ask that person three questions: What do you want more of? What do you want less of? And what am I doing that's just right? That's probably the easiest way to improve. STEVE ECCLES EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CENTRE FOR CEO LEADERSHIP, SAUDER SCHOOL OF BUSINESS1VANCOUVER THERE ARE BUSINESS LEADERS WITH A "hunker down" mentality who are taking the perspective that "It's OK, we'll be back to normal soon." Well, we don't think there'll ever be a "back to normal." We think there's a new normal of turbulence and change - and out of that will come opportunity. The great leaders are the ones who are saying, "OK, you know what? This turbulence is the new normal, and we're going to respond to it." And that state of mind cascades down to your teams. But hankering after the way things used to be and the predictability of business is pointless. That's gone.
And this is not intended, by the way, to put the fear of God into business leadership. It's about being resilient to change and being innovative. There's so much creativity that can be tapped, and these are the days to tap it. We've identified three areas that are essential to leadership, going forward. We call them the "AVCs of leadership": authenticity, vision and creativity. With authenticity, we're saying that authentic leadership means having integrity and being transparent. There's an old prevailing attitude in business that if the leader admitted that they didn't know something it was an admission of failure. Well, that's no good anymore. Great leaders must be able to demonstrate an acceptable level of vulnerability, where they're not afraid to say, "I don't know that. And that's why I have the team that I have, because I know I can go to them and ask, 'What do you think?'" Then, there's vision, which is about giving your workforce a purpose. It's about knowing where you're going. It's something that you're going to put your shoulder behind, something that hits you at an emotional level. And great leaders are able to do that. Finally, there's creativity. During an economic downturn, organizations have to become more innovative. And to do so, they have to create a climate in which it's safe to fail. You don't want people sitting on their hands in meetings, frightened to say something because they're afraid they'll look silly. You want to be able to create a climate in which you can achieve a common vision. TOM JENKINS EXECUTIVE CHAIR &CHIEF STRATEGY OFFICER, OPEN TEXT CORP., WATERLOO, ONT.// CHAIR, CANADIAN DIGITAL MEDIA NETWORK PEOPLE ARE RIGHT TO FEEL ANXIOUS. And, as a leader, I don't think it's appropriate to deny people their emotions. Everyone should recognize that, yes, some businesses are being forced to change. Whether it's because of technology, because of globalization whatever it is, I think it's really important that we recognize this and say, "You know what? It's OK." The challenge is not to be frozen by the angst. And the worst kind of paralysis, beyond the emotional angst, is what a lot of people call "analysis paralysis," in which you keep analyzing a problem but you don't act. You have to have a plan and you have to act. But, at the same time, you have to be methodical about it. That starts with a common view of what's causing everyone to be stressed. Then, you have to come to a common view of how to go about solving this problem. And a lot of times, you don't know whether your solution is going to be the right one. But the point is the team has a direction based on the best information that you have at the time. When that information changes, as it inevitably will, you have to be able to adjust. So, it's like sailing a ship. You set course, then the winds change and you readjust. I know that sounds simplistic, but, honestly, it is simple. Part of the problem is that we sometimes create these elaborate plans that overcomplicate things. As leaders, we have to keep our plans simple, and always be prepared to change them.
I've seen people sit at a meeting and say, "But we've already written a business plan for this year." And I say to these people, "Well, no, it doesn't quite work like that. Our competitors don't follow the rhythm of our business plan. We don't have that kind of time." EVA KLEIN PROFESSOR OF HUMAN RESOURCESAND ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS, HASKAYNE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, CALGARY ONE OF THE THINGS THAT STRIKES ME about this whole leadership question is the area of compensation. Many leaders think that any discussion of their pay is off-limits, but it shouldn't be. Compensation is a very important part of how leaders are perceived. CEOs have to walk the talk, because if the leader isn't performing in line with his or her pay, employees will take their cues from that. That's especially true now. People who are facing cutbacks and salary freezes when times are tough want to see the leaders tightening their belts in exactly the same way. And I think that's true even for small or mid-sized businesses. It has to be more than just a gesture, though. It has to go much deeper than that. I think small businesses, especially when they're family businesses, sometimes feel like they're fiefdoms. There's an attitude among company leaders of "they're working for us," of being benevolent patriarchs. But the mentality of the labour force isn't like that anymore - certainly not in Alberta and, specifically, in Calgary, where unemployment rates aren't very high and we're expecting a labour shortage soon. So, when employees see their bosses being flashy and spending money, or going away for long holidays, while the employees slave away at the office, they go crazy. It just rankles them that some people seem to go on blithely, unaffected. Comparison is a huge driver. I like to say that leaders have to think of their employees as volunteers. That doesn't always go over very well; but if you think about it, there are a whole bunch of other places where these employees could find work. If you were running a charity, and you knew that your people were there only because they wanted to be there, you'd treat them a little differently. A paycheque doesn't take the place of encouragement and thanks. And some smallbusiness leaders don't get that. They absolutely don't. They don't understand that people have choices, and that certainly Generation Yers feel like that. They look at things differently. Employees are not serfs anymore. And I think leaders have to understand that how they're perceived is a very important part of how effective they're going to be. Sidebar ARLENE DICKINSON: "WHEN YOUR VOICE IS HEARD ONLY IN REACTION TO SOME CRISIS, YOU UNDERMINE YOUR CREDIBILITY" Sidebar ROGER MARTIN: PUT POSITIVE, SELF-SUSTAINING FORCES IN MOTION- AND PAY ATTENTION TO PERCEPTION AS MUCH AS REALITY Sidebar BEN BARRY: "SOCIAL MEDIA IS CHANGING COMMUNICATION, AND EVERY CEO HAS TO FIGURE OUT HOWTHEYWILL EMBRACE IT"
Sidebar MICHAEL ADAMS: "RECOGNIZE THE OPTIMISM AND AUTONOMY OF TODAY'S YOUTH, BECAUSETHEYARE HETERARCHICAL, NOT HIERARCHICAL" Sidebar TOM JENKlNS: "PEOPLEARERIGHT TOFEELANXIOUS, ANDASALEADER, I DON'T THINK IT'S RIGHTTODENY PEOPLE THEIR EMOTIONS"
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Subjects Locations Classification Title Authors Publication title Volume Issue Pages Number of pages Publication year Publication Date Year Section Publisher Place of Publication Country of publication Journal Subjects ISSN Source type Language of Publication Document type Economic crisis, Leadership, Strategic management Canada 9172: Canada, 2200: Managerial skills, 2310: Planning HOW TO LEAD IN 2011 Pimentel, David Profit 29 6 36-40 5 2010 Dec 2010/Jan 2011 2010 LEADERSHIP Rogers Publishing Limited Toronto Canada Business And Economics--Small Business 11831324 Magazines English Feature
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Photographs Economic crisis, Leadership, Strategic management 840675928 http://search.proquest.com/docview/840675928?accountid=15390 Copyright Rogers Publishing Limited Dec 2010/Jan 2011 2011-01-18 3 databases -ABI/INFORM Complete -ABI/INFORM Global -ProQuest Entrepreneurship
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Report Information from ProQuest
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Document 1 of 1
HOW TO LEAD IN 2011
Pimentel, David. Profit29.6 (Dec 2010/Jan 2011): 36-40.
_______________________________________________________________
Find a copy
_______________________________________________________________
Abstract
Several executives shared their views on strategies for success. Arlene Dickinson, president of Venture Communications Ltd, said it's more important than ever for leaders to articulate the direction of the organization clearly. Controlling your own narrative in general is much more important now, simply because of social media and the power of the Internet. Roger Martin, dean of Rotman School of Management Toronto, said leadership is a lot about getting self-sustaining things going -- upward reinforcing spirals and downward reinforcing spirals -- and you often need leadership to arrest a downward spiral and start an upward spiral. Miles Nadal, chairman and CEO, MDC Partners Inc, said in difficult times, people have a propensity to be risk-averse, but the key thing in leadership is you need to be bold. You have to be able to identify opportunity and capitalize on it, to be proactive and reinvent what the future of your business will be.
_______________________________________________________________
Full Text
Headnote PROFIT's survey of business thinkers reveals strategies for success in what promises to be a challenging year INTERVIEWS BY DAVID PIMENTEL ARLENE DICKINSON PRESIDENT, VENTURE COMMUNICATIONS LTD., CALGARY //FOUR-TIME HONOUREE OF CANADA'S TOP 100 MOST POWERFUL WOMEN I THINK BUSINESS LEADERS ARE FEELING optimistic right now. They've gone through a near-death experience, but they've resurrected themselves. And now they feel like they're getting back on the treadmill and feeling healthy again. But employees aren't there yet, and that's because we as leaders have all hunkered down. We've tended not to engage the entire organization because we've all had to make tough decisions. And so, now the employees are feeling a touch of paranoia. The leaders may be ready to charge, but employees aren't so sure they want to go down that road. So, it's more important than ever for leaders to articulate the direction of the organization clearly. Controlling your own narrative in general is much more important now, simply because of social media and the power of the Internet. As a leader, you should be using your own voice and your own words, as opposed to letting somebody else in the organization write your blog or Twitter for you, or do your Facebook updates. If you're not the link and you're not controlling the narrative in that story, then that story will get crafted around you.
Today, reputations can be ruined in a day - actually, in just a minute. Look at what happened with Tony Hayward at BP. When your voice is heard only in reaction to some crisis, you undermine your credibility. People say, "Whatever. You're only saying that because you have to." Another challenge leaders are faced with is the new "triple bottom line" culture. Businesses of the future have to be economically viable, but they also have to be socially responsible and environmentally responsible. But you can't do that by introducing socially responsible bolt-ons. You have to be authentic, because people can see through the greenwashing. And that's a challenge, because if you've been a leader who has been very driven by financial results, it's difficult to appreciate the value of diverting funds and energy to things that don't seem to be driving corporate value. But, in fact, they will. They will attract better people. They will attract different types of people, who will open up the organization to new possibilities. ROGER MARTIN DEAN, ROTMAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT, TORONTO //EXPERT IN BEHER LEADERSHIP THROUGH INTEGRATIVETHINKING LEADERSHIP IS A LOT ABOUT GETTING self-sustaining things going - upward reinforcing spirals and downward reinforcing spirals - and you often need leadership to arrest a downward spiral and start an upward spiral. But once you get an upward spiral started, it often takes care of itself. Right now, you have lots of organizations and lots of people saying, "We're never going to be out of debt. America's in secular decline, and in the end we're tied to America, right?" It's at those times, probably more so than any other time, that you need somebody to say, "Here's a way to conceptualize things that doesn't concede to inevitable disaster. And if we maybe did this thing, this thing and this thing all together, we'd actually get it to turn around and things would be better." So, people start saying, "I'll give that a chance. I'm going suspend disbelief for a minute." Then, perhaps, you can begin to arrest the downward spiral and reverse it. Part of doing that is reality, and part of it is perception. So, what a leader has to do is figure out some solution to the substantive problem, while doing something to instil a greater level of confidence in employees or customers or suppliers. It's about doing something that will create an inflection point - both in the realities of the business and the mindsets of people. And so, it's important that leaders listen really, really carefully. Just look at Toyota. One of the reasons it has its problem right now is that the company spent most of its time telling consumers early on, during this unintended acceleration problem, that the consumers were wrong and that everything was fine. Well, that just convinces consumers that nothing good is going to happen, because the company is telling customers that, despite their experiences, nothing is wrong. So, I think listening carefully is important - empathizing with your customers, empathizing with your employees - and then trying to figure out where there is an opportunity to change things for the better. But it has to encompass both reality and perception. If it were only the
reality, you could ignore people's feelings and just try and fix the business. But recognizing the perception will also give you insights that will help you fix the business. MILES NADAL CHAIRMAN &CEO, MDC PARTNERS INC, TORONTO //MARKETING ENTREPRENEUR AND PHILANTHROPIST IN DIFFICULT ECONOMIC TIMES, PEOPLE have a propensity to be risk-averse, but the key thing in leadership is you need to be bold. You have to be able to identify opportunity and capitalize on it, to be proactive and reinvent what the future of your business will be. Harvard did a study that concluded that companies that maintain or increase marketing spending in difficult economic times maintain or increase market share. Procter &Gamble, Gillette, General Electric, Coca Cola - you'll find that most of the big multinationals have been quite aggressive in taking advantage of the challenging environment, and that most have spent on marketing more than what they would in a good economic environment. That's one key to creating wealth: being bold and early. But being bold and early does not make up for being wrong, so you need to try a bunch of things and stay responsive. You back your winners and cut your losses. And you really understand what's working, and why; and what's not working, and why not. But it's not just about strategy. People are looking for tangible proof points of leadership. And the ability to communicate and inspire people in the face of adversity is a critical part of leadership. Most people are feeling better about the economy. Employment has bottomed out and started to pick up. Consumer spending is cautiously moving forward. It's all happening very slowly, but people already believe that the economy is recovering. What they want in a leader is a strong sense of where we're going, what is the opportunity, what role each of us plays and what is the reward at the end of it. And those rewards can be great. I think that times of adversity create some of the greatest periods in history to create wealth, and these times right now are some of the greatest ever to be an entrepreneur. BEN BARRY DIRECTOR, BEN BARRYAGENCY INC., TORONTO// MODELLING INNOVATOR AND GOVERNOR GENERAL'S AWARD WINNER I THINK THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE FOR leadership moving into 201 1 and beyond will be about communication, because the Internet - and, particularly, social networking - has changed the marketplace. Today, leadership is transparent, it's accessible and both your consumers and your employees need to feel part of your business. Sure, there are a lot of fears. You're subjecting your brand to critics and to consumer participation in a way that you've never done before. Now, if consumers don't like something about your company, they can tell everyone. If you've done something wrong, consumers can say so online, which amplifies what they say. But, as much as that's a fear, I see it as a huge opportunity, because it allows for the most exciting kind of innovation. Founders and small-business owners who may have been
removed from day-to-day operations now have a chance to be on the ground, to hear from consumers; to hear their wants, their desires, their needs, what makes them happy, what doesn't. And consumers do want to participate. They want to be actively engaged in the creative process - in marketing, in suggesting product ideas, in taking a product they love and amplifying that to their friends and their families online. Same goes for employees. Instead of trying to stop employees from talking about the company online, we as small-business owners or CEOs need to look at each of our employees as an access point to the communities they've established. Now, obviously, that has to be authentic. No one wants to feel that their boss is telling them to sell the company to all their friends. But there's a real opportunity there. Business owners need to stop being intimidated. The whole idea of intimidation is oldfashioned. It ignores the way we're moving forward, and that the division between public and private has been removed. The Internet and social media is changing communication, and every CEO has to figure out how they will embrace it - and they have to embrace it. The idea that you can stay off Twitter or stay off Facebook will leave you in the dust. CMICHAELADAMS CO-FOUNDER, ENVIRONICS RESEARCH GROUP, TORONTO// BEST-SELLING AUTHOR AND SOCIAL-VALUES RESEARCHER CONSUMERS RIGHT NOW ARE ACTUALLY feeling pretty good. The fiscal conservativeness of Canadians - both the people and the government - has served us well. If you surveyed people - asking, "Is Canada on the right track?" - you would find that about two-thirds think that's the case; whereas in the U.S. it's about one-third. There is an anxiety out there, but it's probably more with the older people. Younger people are fairly optimistic, and I think as a leader what you need to do is recognize the optimism and autonomy of today's youth. Because they are heterarchical, not hierarchical. Before, everyone was looking for "the man with the plan," and you deferred to institutional authority. Now, nobody defers to institutional authority. Now, everybody is self-employed, whether you're working for the biggest bank in the country or your own small business. Members of the younger generation are good at self-organizing and very flexible about who they work with. So, what a good leader needs to do is insinuate into their younger teams the baby boomers who have networks and who want to be mentors. And that will allow you to have some pretty powerful intergenerational teams. It's the same thing with customers. You can try to act like companies did in "the good old days," when it was a matter of abusing them as much as you could without losing them. But now you're dealing with a generation that knows that the truth lay in what their parents did, not what they said. You didn't have to watch too many episodes of The Simpsons to realize that a lot of this deference to traditional authority was deference to hypocrisy. I think having empathy and acting genuinely is a huge thing. If you want to have customers who are loyal, then you have to figure out how you can maintain their loyalty. If you want information from them, you have to get permission. And the more you know about them, the more likely you will be able to anticipate what makes them happy.
MIKE DESJARDINS DRIVER. VIRTUS INC., VANCOUVER // BUSINESS ADVISOR AND LEADERSHIP BLOGGER MAYBE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE THAT leaders are facing is that they're working with a new generation of employees who are looking for a different style of leadership. They're used to Facebook. They're used to Twitter. They're used to their lives being broadcast everywhere, and they don't see why you wouldn't be totally transparent and just say everything out loud all the time. Jack Welch wrote a book called Winning, and in it he wrote about when he first went to GE and realized that people weren't being honest because they were afraid. And that was one of the major lessons coming out of the recession, that if we want the people in the organization to tell us what's really going on, then we have to tell them what's really going on. If I want to bubble up the real issues, then I have to be willing to share those issues. Then, there's the cultural challenge - this culture of, "If you're there from nine to five, you must be doing something useful." Gen Y, the millennials, don't see the clock the same way we do. That's why some organizations have put in a "results only" environment, in which they're less interested in the time spent and more interested in the outcome. That's really hard for leaders to face, but it's only the beginning. Many organizations are now thinking about going entirely virtual. The reality of doing this is that you then have no idea what people are doing, where they are or how they're working. As a leader, you have to start to figure out how you can lead without the ability to see who you're working with. You might not even have your team together - ever. You might have a team spread out across Canada or even globally in different time zones. How do you develop your team and act as a leader, coaching and mentoring them, when they're not just down the hall? I don't think that anyone has figured this out yet. But one of the key things is, if you're not sure whether you're a good leader, turn around. If there are no people there, then you probably have some work to do. And if that's the case, find whoever's closest and ask that person three questions: What do you want more of? What do you want less of? And what am I doing that's just right? That's probably the easiest way to improve. STEVE ECCLES EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CENTRE FOR CEO LEADERSHIP, SAUDER SCHOOL OF BUSINESS1VANCOUVER THERE ARE BUSINESS LEADERS WITH A "hunker down" mentality who are taking the perspective that "It's OK, we'll be back to normal soon." Well, we don't think there'll ever be a "back to normal." We think there's a new normal of turbulence and change - and out of that will come opportunity. The great leaders are the ones who are saying, "OK, you know what? This turbulence is the new normal, and we're going to respond to it." And that state of mind cascades down to your teams. But hankering after the way things used to be and the predictability of business is pointless. That's gone.
And this is not intended, by the way, to put the fear of God into business leadership. It's about being resilient to change and being innovative. There's so much creativity that can be tapped, and these are the days to tap it. We've identified three areas that are essential to leadership, going forward. We call them the "AVCs of leadership": authenticity, vision and creativity. With authenticity, we're saying that authentic leadership means having integrity and being transparent. There's an old prevailing attitude in business that if the leader admitted that they didn't know something it was an admission of failure. Well, that's no good anymore. Great leaders must be able to demonstrate an acceptable level of vulnerability, where they're not afraid to say, "I don't know that. And that's why I have the team that I have, because I know I can go to them and ask, 'What do you think?'" Then, there's vision, which is about giving your workforce a purpose. It's about knowing where you're going. It's something that you're going to put your shoulder behind, something that hits you at an emotional level. And great leaders are able to do that. Finally, there's creativity. During an economic downturn, organizations have to become more innovative. And to do so, they have to create a climate in which it's safe to fail. You don't want people sitting on their hands in meetings, frightened to say something because they're afraid they'll look silly. You want to be able to create a climate in which you can achieve a common vision. TOM JENKINS EXECUTIVE CHAIR &CHIEF STRATEGY OFFICER, OPEN TEXT CORP., WATERLOO, ONT.// CHAIR, CANADIAN DIGITAL MEDIA NETWORK PEOPLE ARE RIGHT TO FEEL ANXIOUS. And, as a leader, I don't think it's appropriate to deny people their emotions. Everyone should recognize that, yes, some businesses are being forced to change. Whether it's because of technology, because of globalization whatever it is, I think it's really important that we recognize this and say, "You know what? It's OK." The challenge is not to be frozen by the angst. And the worst kind of paralysis, beyond the emotional angst, is what a lot of people call "analysis paralysis," in which you keep analyzing a problem but you don't act. You have to have a plan and you have to act. But, at the same time, you have to be methodical about it. That starts with a common view of what's causing everyone to be stressed. Then, you have to come to a common view of how to go about solving this problem. And a lot of times, you don't know whether your solution is going to be the right one. But the point is the team has a direction based on the best information that you have at the time. When that information changes, as it inevitably will, you have to be able to adjust. So, it's like sailing a ship. You set course, then the winds change and you readjust. I know that sounds simplistic, but, honestly, it is simple. Part of the problem is that we sometimes create these elaborate plans that overcomplicate things. As leaders, we have to keep our plans simple, and always be prepared to change them.
I've seen people sit at a meeting and say, "But we've already written a business plan for this year." And I say to these people, "Well, no, it doesn't quite work like that. Our competitors don't follow the rhythm of our business plan. We don't have that kind of time." EVA KLEIN PROFESSOR OF HUMAN RESOURCESAND ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS, HASKAYNE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, CALGARY ONE OF THE THINGS THAT STRIKES ME about this whole leadership question is the area of compensation. Many leaders think that any discussion of their pay is off-limits, but it shouldn't be. Compensation is a very important part of how leaders are perceived. CEOs have to walk the talk, because if the leader isn't performing in line with his or her pay, employees will take their cues from that. That's especially true now. People who are facing cutbacks and salary freezes when times are tough want to see the leaders tightening their belts in exactly the same way. And I think that's true even for small or mid-sized businesses. It has to be more than just a gesture, though. It has to go much deeper than that. I think small businesses, especially when they're family businesses, sometimes feel like they're fiefdoms. There's an attitude among company leaders of "they're working for us," of being benevolent patriarchs. But the mentality of the labour force isn't like that anymore - certainly not in Alberta and, specifically, in Calgary, where unemployment rates aren't very high and we're expecting a labour shortage soon. So, when employees see their bosses being flashy and spending money, or going away for long holidays, while the employees slave away at the office, they go crazy. It just rankles them that some people seem to go on blithely, unaffected. Comparison is a huge driver. I like to say that leaders have to think of their employees as volunteers. That doesn't always go over very well; but if you think about it, there are a whole bunch of other places where these employees could find work. If you were running a charity, and you knew that your people were there only because they wanted to be there, you'd treat them a little differently. A paycheque doesn't take the place of encouragement and thanks. And some smallbusiness leaders don't get that. They absolutely don't. They don't understand that people have choices, and that certainly Generation Yers feel like that. They look at things differently. Employees are not serfs anymore. And I think leaders have to understand that how they're perceived is a very important part of how effective they're going to be. Sidebar ARLENE DICKINSON: "WHEN YOUR VOICE IS HEARD ONLY IN REACTION TO SOME CRISIS, YOU UNDERMINE YOUR CREDIBILITY" Sidebar ROGER MARTIN: PUT POSITIVE, SELF-SUSTAINING FORCES IN MOTION- AND PAY ATTENTION TO PERCEPTION AS MUCH AS REALITY Sidebar BEN BARRY: "SOCIAL MEDIA IS CHANGING COMMUNICATION, AND EVERY CEO HAS TO FIGURE OUT HOWTHEYWILL EMBRACE IT"
Sidebar MICHAEL ADAMS: "RECOGNIZE THE OPTIMISM AND AUTONOMY OF TODAY'S YOUTH, BECAUSETHEYARE HETERARCHICAL, NOT HIERARCHICAL" Sidebar TOM JENKlNS: "PEOPLEARERIGHT TOFEELANXIOUS, ANDASALEADER, I DON'T THINK IT'S RIGHTTODENY PEOPLE THEIR EMOTIONS"
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Subjects Locations Classification Title Authors Publication title Volume Issue Pages Number of pages Publication year Publication Date Year Section Publisher Place of Publication Country of publication Journal Subjects ISSN Source type Language of Publication Document type Economic crisis, Leadership, Strategic management Canada 9172: Canada, 2200: Managerial skills, 2310: Planning HOW TO LEAD IN 2011 Pimentel, David Profit 29 6 36-40 5 2010 Dec 2010/Jan 2011 2010 LEADERSHIP Rogers Publishing Limited Toronto Canada Business And Economics--Small Business 11831324 Magazines English Feature
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Photographs Economic crisis, Leadership, Strategic management 840675928 http://search.proquest.com/docview/840675928?accountid=15390 Copyright Rogers Publishing Limited Dec 2010/Jan 2011 2011-01-18 3 databases -ABI/INFORM Complete -ABI/INFORM Global -ProQuest Entrepreneurship
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