Leadership legacy

A leader can certainly be judged by his legacy. I usually ask people in my seminars to describe how they would prefer to be remembered as leaders. I do that as part of something broader that I call ‘The Pub Test’ (living in England, I simply must refer to this pillar of social intercourse.) Ten years from now there is a reunion of this leadership team. Most of them left the organisation a while ago. What would be the language, the theme of conver-sation and the description of what was left behind? Here is a typical output example of this exercise:

The 2016 Reunion – Pub Test

The company itself There were ‘opportunities’… Learning experience Innovation, chance to influence Progressive environment	Our divisions, our own teams Winning attitudes High expectations, high rewards Opportunities for people’s development Influencing corporate Risk taking Source of knowledge to our customers Cross-functionality as way of life
We as management Action and decisions Influencing beyond our own R&D function Flexible, driving on change Diversity paid off Acknowledged stretch Great opportunities for personal and professional development	Me/You Trying Achiever Flexible ‘changed something’ Created a work environment

It doesn’t have to be a very sophisticated output, but when you start asking people about legacy and questions about ‘ten years from now’, what starts as a light exercise usually ends up giving a solid view of the current values and beliefs. It definitely says a lot about (the visions of leadership in) a particular group. Indeed, the ‘proof’ of the values is the legacy. The legacy becomes the inexcusable window to what leadership was about.

You can lead an organisation and leave behind an increase in market share of 4.5% and a P/E ratio the joy of stock analysts. You can lead an organisation and leave behind a great behavioural fabric that attracts talent. You can lead an organisation and leave behind significant collective eldership capabilities. You can also lead an organisation and leave behind the shadow of your ego as big as a cathedral. You can leave nothing. You can lead misery. You can lead joy. Or combinations thereof!

Bowling regardless?

Putman’s work made me think that perhaps many corporations these days have a single objective: bowling. That is: keep moving, reaching targets and objectives, increasing the return on investment and pleasing shareholders, whatever it takes, whether their people do so bowling alone or in a league. Don’t get me wrong, for many this is what companies are for. But it is precisely this ‘bowling, regardless’ - whether alone, in groups, in teams or otherwise - that should worry leaders who are interested in the building of social capital.

If Putman is right and his findings could be extrapolated to the nine-to-five world, then, companies that truly profess a ‘bowling regardless’ philosophy should be in trouble in the long run. They risk losing the precious wealth of ‘associability’, the voluntary association of individuals in order to obtain a collective gain above the individual gain. A corporation of loners would be the equivalent of Putman’s ‘nation of loners’ and it would be equally dangerous because of its false appearance of ‘league-bowling’. As leader-builder you need to decide what kind of bowling you want!

The third component of the organisation’s I.Q. assets is architectural capital. This has to do with ‘ways of doing’ and ‘ways of being organised’. I explore some of these aspects in my book The Leader with Seven Faces in the face ’How you do it’.

The leader-builder-architect creates environments where collective I.Q. grows. He is a leader of tangible and intangible assets and the houses he built can be seen as his legacy. Which I will talk about in my next post.

Leandro Herrero keynote speaker at the eyeforpharma Sales Force Effectiveness Europe conference 2008

Leandro Herrero - a leading organisational consultant and CEO of The Chalfont Project Ltd (www.thechalfontproject.com) – will be a keynote speaker at eyeforpharma’s 6^th Annual Pharma Conference - Sales Force Effectiveness Europe 2008 in Barcelona.

Dr Leandro Herrero, founder and CEO of The Chalfont Project Ltd (www.thechalfontproject.com) – an international firm of organisational consultants - will be a keynote speaker at the upcoming eyeforpharma Sales Force Effectiveness Europe Conference 2008.

Dr Herrero will address conference attendees on April 2^nd 2008 during his keynote speech, entitled: Pharma SFE 2.0 – How to go beyond ‘more-of-the-same’ processes, IT, and standard solutions and engage in true business transformation’.

In his speech, he will discuss the following:

• Five key transformations still on the to-do list:how to jump from ‘me-too’ evolution to true organisational leadership
• Overcoming the pharma change management motto: ‘Change is great, you go first’
• ‘The emperor has no clothes’ and your CRM has no customers: is customer-centrism in pharma a myth?
• Seven deadly fallacies in pharma SFE: how business transformation is impaired by disconnected structures, processes and behaviours

He will also touch on further transformations of Sales Force Effectiveness models, with focus on new Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 technologies that have the potential to redesign organisational cultures.

A book signing has been scheduled for Dr Leandro Herrero at lunchtime on 2^nd April, immediately following his address. Attendees will have the opportunity for an informal conversation with Dr. Herrero and signed copies of all his books will be available for purchase.

Dr Leandro Herrero practised as a psychiatrist for more than fifteen years before taking up senior management positions in several leading companies, both in the UK and the US. He is founder and CEO of The Chalfont Project Ltd, an international firm of organisational consultants. Taking advantage of his behavioural sciences background, coupled with his hands-on business experience, he works with organisations of many kinds on structural and behavioural change, leadership and human collaboration. He has published several books, among which The Leader with Seven Faces, Viral Change and New Leaders Wanted (www.meetingminds.com).

The Chalfont Project Ltd (www.thechalfontproject.com) is an international consulting firm of organisation architects with a long-standing presence in the bio-pharmaceutical industry.

The eyeforpharma 6^th Annual Pharma Conference - Sales Force Effectiveness Europe 2008 is an in-depth exploration of the latest strategies, tools and best practices to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your sales force. The eyeforpharma Sales Force Effectiveness Europe conference will take place at the CCIB, Rambla Prim 1-17, 08019 Barcelona, Spain from Wednesday 2^nd April 2008 through to Friday 4^th April 2008. Mention ‘SPK08’ as a discount code and receive a discount of €550.00 of the standard registration price when you register here.

Leandro Herrero to host workshop at the eyeforpharma Sales Force Effectiveness Europe conference 2008

Leandro Herrero - a leading organisational consultant and CEO of The Chalfont Project Ltd (www.thechalfontproject.com) – will be hosting a workshop at eyeforpharma’s 6^th Annual Pharma Conference - Sales Force Effectiveness Europe 2008 in Barcelona.

Leandro Herrero, founder and CEO of The Chalfont Project Ltd (www.thechalfontproject.com) – an international firm of organisational consultants - will be hosting a workshop at the upcoming eyeforpharma Sales Force Effectiveness Europe Conference 2008. Dr Herrero will be addressing pharmaceutical industry experts and innovators from all over the world, focussing on how to improve Sales Force Effectiveness through Behavioural Change the Viral Change way.

Dr Herrero has personally led multiple organisational and cultural changes by applying the Viral Change^TM-way, which is described in his book Viral Change: the alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organisations (meetingminds, December 2006)

“Viral Change as a form of management of change is completely different from the conventional way,” Dr Herrero says. “It represents a truly new way of producing and sustaining changes. In Viral Change mode, a small set of behaviours, spread by a small number of internal activists, propagated like an internal infection of new ideas or routines creates long-lasting, faster and sustainable real change. Viral Change is closer to the dynamics of fashions, fads and infections than to standard management practices. Through Viral Change, the leader’s goal is to create an internal epidemic of success!”

A book signing has been scheduled for Dr Leandro Herrero at lunchtime on 2^nd April, immediately following his keynote address. Attendees will have the opportunity for an informal conversation with Dr. Herrero and signed copies of all his books will be available for purchase following both his keynote address and the workshop.

Dr Leandro Herrero practised as a psychiatrist for more than fifteen years before taking up senior management positions in several leading companies, both in the UK and the US. He is founder and CEO of The Chalfont Project Ltd, an international firm of organisational consultants. Taking advantage of his behavioural sciences background, coupled with his hands-on business experience, he works with organisations of many kinds on structural and behavioural change, leadership and human collaboration. He has published several books, among which The Leader with Seven Faces, Viral Change and New Leaders Wanted (www.meetingminds.com).

The Chalfont Project Ltd (www.thechalfontproject.com) is an international consulting firm of organisation architects with a long-standing presence in the bio-pharmaceutical industry.

The eyeforpharma 6^th Annual Pharma Conference - Sales Force Effectiveness Europe 2008 is an in-depth exploration of the latest strategies, tools and best practices to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your sales force. The eyeforpharma Sales Force Effectiveness Europe conference will take place at the CCIB, Rambla Prim 1-17, 08019 Barcelona, Spain from Wednesday 2^nd April 2008 through to Friday 4^th April 2008. Mention ‘SPK08’ as a discount code and receive a discount of €550.00 of the standard registration price when you register here.

Disruptive Ideas achieve bigger results

Disruptive Ideas – the forthcoming new book by Leandro Herrero – shows organisations that all you need is a small set of disruptive ideas or powerful rules to create big impact.

In a time when organisations simultaneously run multiple corporate initiatives and large change programmes, Disruptive Ideas tells us that - contrary to the collective mindset that says that big problems need big solutions – all you need is a small set of powerful rules to create big cultural change.

In his previous book, Viral Change™, Leandro Herrero described how a small set of behaviours, spread by a small number of people could create sustainable change. In Disruptive Ideas, the follow-up book to Viral Change™, the author suggests a menu of 10 ‘structures’, 10 ‘processes’ and 10 ‘behaviours’ that have the power to transform any organisation of any size.

These 30 disruptive ideas can be implemented at any time and at almost no cost and what’s more...you don’t even need them all. But their compound effect – the 10+10+10 maths - will be more powerful than vast corporate programmes with dozens of objectives and efficiency targets.

This book will appeal to people at different levels of management or leadership, who want to reshape their culture by enhancing working practices and in general aim at greater organisational effectiveness. Its practical nature will appeal to all who want to implement key ideas – some of them contrarian or counterintuitive - that have the power to transform the organisation without having to embark upon a massive change management programme.

Leandro Herrero was a practicing psychiatrist for many years before holding senior leadership positions in top league business organisations. He is currently CEO of The Chalfont Project Ltd, an international group of organisational consultants, which he co-founded. His previous books include The Leader with Seven Faces, Viral Change and New Leaders Wanted – Now Hiring!, also published by meetingminds.

Disruptive Ideas, 10+10+10=1000: the maths of Viral Change that transform organisations
by Leandro Herrero
meetingminds, April 2008
£18.50/US $26.00, Paperback, 300 pages - ISBN: 978-1-905776-04-7
Available to pre-order at: www.waterstones.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, www.meetingminds.com and many other (online) bookshops and outlets.

Creating associability

If these ‘organisations within the organisation’ do exist (in the way the literature points to them), do they matter anyway? I suggest they do. The condition of ‘associability’ is perhaps one of the main sources of the so called ‘social capital’ of the firm. It is worth distinguishing between ‘associability’ and ‘sociability’. Whilst ‘sociability’ has to do with the universal propensity to socialise, ‘associability’ is defined by the ‘willingness and ability of individuals to subordinate personal goals and associated actions to collective goals and actions’. In other words, a sociable environment where people meet, discuss, interact and interchange communication is a prerequisite for ‘associability’, but does not necessarily lead to it; to the enormous added value of the ‘association’.

The social capital of the firm is based upon internal and external relationships. It produces mutual benefits, for the individual and for the organisation itself. It is an asset different from other forms of capital such as bricks-and-mortar (physical capital) or knowledge and technical ability of the individuals (human capital). As an asset, it must be managed like other types of capital. Volatile, short-term or superficial relationships will invariably also generate volatile and ephemeral social capital, or a so-called ‘low social capital environment’. In these organisations, any form of leadership appeal for collective goals is a contradiction in terms. Individuals may get on with their jobs (as in their ‘job descriptions’), and even do them well, but they may not be interested in anything else, certainly not in any form of collective collaboration that, in most cases, entails ‘going the extra mile’, beyond formal responsibilities. And it is in those circumstances where the real added value is generated and a real difference is made.

Robert Putman - a political scientist who has researched American social habits - discovered that, progressively, people are less inclined to join in collective activities, engage in communitarian projects, give money to charity etc. In other words, less donations, less voluntary work, less voting is converting American society – he says - into ‘a nation of loners’, where - and here’s the metaphor - ‘bowling alone’ has replaced league bowling (See his book Bowling Alone).

Putman also refers to the concept of ‘social capital’ which he defines as ‘connections between individuals, social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arises from them‘. When social capital is diminishing, something precious in the fabric of the civil society is disappearing.

Is there a contradiction between Putman’s findings in a society that, to him, is composed of members ‘bowling alone’ and organisational life in that same society, where a constant sermon about ‘league bowling’ (we are a team, we work as a team etc.) seems to dominate?

Is it possible that there are two societies: the nine-to-five of ‘bowling together’ and the five-to-nine and weekends of ‘bowling alone’? Is Putman - by the very nature of his target research - ignoring that (professional) people spend most of their time ‘at work’, and therefore, bowling with others in the nine-to-five teamocracy? Are we in a schizophrenic society? At the cynical end of the questions, could Putman be right and his ‘bowling alone theory’ be extended to the nine-to-five world? In other words, is the bowling together in the teamocracy just a superficial appearance whilst in the individual’s heart he is still bowling alone?

Leading the organisation you can’t see

Stuart Kauffman, of the Santa Fe Institute (a world centre for the study of complexity), explains some of the mechanisms in the generation of networks in a metaphor about ‘buttons and threads’ (In his book At home in the Universe). Scatter 20 buttons on a table, randomly choose two, connect them with threads and put them back. Repeat and repeat. At the beginning you are likely to choose buttons that are unconnected and that you have not picked up before, but, after a while, you will start picking up at random buttons that were already connected. Clusters of connected buttons will emerge.

A form of ‘stable system’ has been created from an apparently chaotic and random interaction. At the mid-point of this journey, when the ratio of threads to buttons is 0.5, the system experiences a ‘phase transition’ or a sudden change in the size of the largest connected cluster. Suddenly, you realise that you have a ‘visible mass’ in front of you. This is the ‘transition point’ when, for example, water freezes into ice.

Kauffman explains via simulation how, in a similar way, the ‘interactions’ of the total number of human genes gravitate to a smaller number of ‘systems’. This is a number that - regardless of whether you are dealing with buttons and threads, genes, or any set of ‘units’ - tends to be pretty constant, roughly the square root of the number of original units. In the case of genes-to-cells, all the potential ‘gene interactions’ (for lack of a better way to describe them) do not generate a chaotic number of ‘clusters’: there is a definite number of known different types of cells in the human body.

The progression of genes-to-cells follows Kaufmann’s ‘order for free’ mathematics, as in the buttons and threads case. It’s a journey from chaos to stability, from something that seems like random or chaotic interactions to some sort of stable system: the ice from the water, the cells from the genes. Chaos and random connections do not seem to produce more chaos (which can be a consolation in one’s life).

What does this have to do with organisations? Quite a lot... Individuals in organisations establish networks of interactions and communications. Some of them are ‘official’ and ‘designed’: teams, task forces, committees etc. It is the teamocracy part. But more interesting are the ones that may be formed like Kaufmanns’s buttons: emergent clusters of individuals, not designed by the boss, but ‘self-generated’ by the interactions between them.

The literature describing ‘non-designed’ groups or associations inside the firm has become more and more solid in recent years. Self-managed teams are often interpreted in terms of semi-spontaneous associations that don’t need a formal boss to achieve their objectives. The largely fallen-from-grace ‘knowledge management’ movement has created the term ‘communities of practices’ to describe networks of individuals linked by a common objective or interest (including the finding of solutions to an organisational problem). People following the systems approach and the concept of ‘the learning organisation’, tend to refer to ‘networks of commitment’ with more emphasis on the mobilisation of motivation and energy in the organisation. ‘Emergent teams’ is another generic term frequently used. More on the spontaneity side, ‘hot groups’ have been described as mobilisation of individuals with common interests and drivers of real organisational creativity. Finally, ‘TeamNets’ have been introduced in the UK as a ‘way of encouraging voluntary relationships in team formation, information exchange and problem solving’.

All the above are examples of the richness of internal relationships within the organisation, a form of capital waiting to be unleashed and constituting part of the social capital of the firm. The leader-architect role is one of facilitating, enhancing, promoting and fostering relationships. He has two choices: collaboration by design (teams, task forces) and emergent collaboration. The second is much scarier to lead!

What do all those ‘emergent groups’ have in common? Despite the different labels, probably a lot. For a start, they live outside the organisation chart with different degrees of both independence and spontaneous formation. It may be that, like in Kaufman’s buttons, they are somehow invisible at the beginning of their life and it is not until some level of interaction has been reached that they manifest themselves as a proper system. Leaders can no longer ignore ‘the invisible world’!

Leadership and Social Capital

The second form of capital in the organisational I.Q. is social capital. This is the asset created by relationships, both internal and external, both in quantity and quality. The modern business organisation of today has a web of external connections. Alliances, partnerships, joint-ventures,etc. are common. The web may be so vast that it is bound to contain ‘nodes’ where competitors sit. Companies may find themselves competing and collaborating at the same time. It has been called co-opetition. Internally, organisations are rich in connections and relationships but most of the time they are ignorant, focusing only on a relatively small part of human collaboration models: the teams. I have called the current business organisation a teamocracy because this model of collaboration has become coterminous with ‘organisation’.

In today’s business organisation, the organisation chart is dead. The job description is dead. But, as of Mark Twain’s, the death of the structure may have been grossly exaggerated. For clues, see Biology.

Like biological organisms, business organisations are in continuous adaptation to stimuli (external and internal environments), and must change and evolve accordingly. Biological organisms do not understand one year budget cycles, quarterly reporting on activity, one-off post-retreat reorganisations, static organisation charts, two-page-forever job descriptions, or annual objectives set up in January and assessed in December. They grow, generate antibodies, move, reproduce, get smaller or bigger, and die at different paces and rhythms.

Their ‘ultimate structure’ is created by their functionality “The function creates the organ”, I learnt from my anatomy teacher. Also, they can not be fully explained without reference to another system to which they belong or are connected to. In fact, they are complex systems that are better understood through the glasses of complexity theory.

Organisations may be just the same. What happens inside them can’t be tracked by the static organisation chart and the job description manual. The different components (people, groups, teams, networks of influence, etc.) are linked by an information flow which is far from static. The organisation is an information network. Leaders today need to understand this. Organisation-chart-management - fiddling around with reporting, solid lines, dotted lines, any combination - is like grammar. It has to be right. But leaders should play their role in literature. Mistaking one for the other is not a good sign of leadership. Let’s take a further look at this property of the organisation to create its own connections, because if this is true, then leaders have to be aware and also lead this ‘more invisible part’.