The Leader With 7 Faces

steuer finanz

2009-12-01T06:06:00.002Z

Zum Beispiel, einige ausserungen uber den Steuer:
fahrzeug steuer
kapitallebensversicherung steuer
steuern beim auto
steuer finanz
steuern furs auto
neu wohnmobil steuer
kilometerpauschale steuer 2006
immobilien verkauf steuer
ergebnis vor steuern
lohnsteuerkarte steuern
steuern deutschland
steuer niedersachsen de
kfz steuer d3
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bild steuer 2007
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abfindung und steuer
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lkw steuer
information steuer wirtschaft 1994
steuern von einkommen und ertrag
kfz steuer muenchen
auto steuer de
information steuern
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beitrag pensionskasse steuer absetzen
hoch steuer audi a2
steuer und regel
fahrtenbuch steuern
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kfz steuer kombinationsfahrzeuge
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kfz steuer suv
auto steuer recht
versteuern von gewinnen
kfz steuer italien
kfz steuer preise
kfz pauschale steuer
freibetrag steuern
bestrafung droge steuer
singapore handel steuer zoll import
steuer und wirtschaftsakademie
spenden steuern
steuer und regeltechnik
firmengruendung schweiz steuer
kapital und steuern
steuer sparen
kfz steuer diesel versicherung
kfz steuer bmw 525 tds
deutsche steuern
hoch versteuerndes einkommen rentner
altersvorsorge steuer sonderausgabe
studium steuer
jahresabschluss steuern
einkommen nachhilfe steuer finanzamt
kindergeld versteuern
bobcat skid steuer training online
steuer fur autos
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ohne steuern
steuer rentner
steuer spar erklaerung 2005hat Momun gesagt, um uber den Freund und jenem zu reden
steuer bmw 316i
kfz steuer 2006
steuer ausland immobilie
Der Welt: wer war auf das Meer niemals, wird von der Einbildungskraft dazu windig verlegt werden
Der Morgen, als ob das alles war in sein Leben.
steuer einkommen
steuer und versicherung
pc handys steuern
steuer 2004 programm
darmstadt steuer verein
formulare steuer
kfz steuer info
handwerkerrechnungen steuer absetzen
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finanzamt hamburg steuer
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versteuern dienstwagen
steuern sparen 2007 software
webcam uber internet steuern
kfz steuer wohnmobile
steuern einkommen
autoversicherung und steuer
finanzen und steuern
buhl data wiso steuer office 2007
liste steuer
fahrtenbuch steuer
bilanz und steuer ag
steuer einfuhr usa
steuer london
bilanzierung steuern
haas steuer
steuer fur mein auto
wiso steuer 2007 download free
steuern sparen abfindung
pc via handy steuern
steuern frankreich deutschland
steuer und sozialabgaben
zdf steuer
kfz steuer wohnmobil t4
steuern in der schweiz
spanien steuern
fahrtkosten versteuern
km pauschale steuer
steuer nach co2
steuern immobilie
verkehrsclub deutschland kfz steuer
anderung kfz steuer wohnmobil
steuer und abgabenrechner
ddl steuer spar erklaerung
berechnung steuer grundtarif
umschuldung lebensversicherung steuer
finanzamt berlin kfz steuer
steuer gesetz
steuer lottogewinn
kilometergeld steuer 2006
absetzen steuer
steuer krankengeld einkommen
steuer wohnung familienmitglieder
diesel steuer
aufwendungen steuern
sonder kfz wohnmobil steuer
rentner steuer zahl
yamaha xt 60 steuer
hauskauf steuern
steuer 2006 kilometerpauschale
kfz steuer wohnmobile 2006
steuer sparen eigenheim
zinsen steuern
kfz steuern fuer jeeps
auto steuer absetzen
steuer fahrtenbuch
gesellschaft steuern
kapitalgesellschaft schweiz steuer
steuern per telefon
kfz steuer online berechnen
kfz steuer golf 3
bewirtungskosten steuer
steuer vermoegenswirksam leistung
steuer spar erklaerung 2007 german
vergabe steuernummer
kfz steuer bmw 320i
rgb led ansteuern
autos steuern versicherung
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formular steuer 2005 kind
muss ich 2 minijobs steuer zahl
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verkauf fahrzeug ukraine steuer
quick steuer deluxe
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euro 2 kfz steuer
steuern sparen 2004
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bild steuer 2007 test
kinderbetreuung steuer 4000
kfz steuer t4
steuer auslaendische rente
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steuer sparen durch wohnsitzwechsel
kfz steuer vergleich diesel
steuer und wirtschaft zeitschrift
steuer garage
verkauf steuern
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windows mit gamepad steuern
kfz steuer berechnung 2007
duo led ansteuern
kfz steuer berechnen berlin
gewinn vor steuern
messen steuern regel
kfz steuer zafira
womo kfz steuer
steuer lexikon indien
kfz steuer
kanton steuern
buchfuhrung und steuern
rechnung ohne mehrwertsteuern
kfz steuer fur dieselfahrzeuge
diesel steuer nachruesten vw golf
einspruch steuer
kfz steuer berechnen reise
steuer pkw
steuer arbeitsmittel pauschale
steuer immobilienverkauf spanien
unterhalt und steuern
kfz steuer erhohung
kfz steuer fuer golf 4
steuern formular
kfz steuer berlin rechner
pauschale steuer
kfz steuer erhoehung
kfz steuer trabant
kfz steuer bezahlen
lcd uber usb ansteuern
praxisgebuehr von der steuer absetzen
kfz steuer erhohung diesel
steuern bei autos
lexware quick steuer deluxe 2007
finanzamt steuer formulare
kfz steuer sachsen
zeitschrift steuern
steuer und finanzamt
als steuern
kfz steuer euro 2
steuern ausland
steuer bmw 320d
adac auto steuer
bild steuer software
unsichtbar pc fernsteuern
frau am steuer ch
Niemals sah der Junge des Grossvaters seinen von solchem perepugannym.
Es schien, er uberlegte nichts. Die Augen des Alten
www.conifersociety.org

Innovactions changes behaviours into continuing innovation

2009-07-21T19:51:00.000+01:00

London – July 21, 2009 - Innovation is back on the radar in many organizations, driven in part by recent movements such as ‘crowdsourcing’, open innovation and the wikinomic world. Interesting is that a lot of airtime is given to ‘processes for innovation’, which are focused on generating and capturing so-called ‘innovative ideas’.

In Innovactions, Leandro Herrero explains that capturing those ideas will only take your organization so far. “Processes and skills are indeed valuable,” he admits, “but creating an environment that is wide open to inquiry, curiosity and perpetual re-invention will ensure that innovation is no longer a word in your organization, but a behaviour. And not just any behaviour, but one that will lead your company to flourish.”

In this new book, the author focuses on analyzing the components that are needed to create a culture of innovation, with a heavy emphasis on what people do (or don’t do) to achieve (or miss) a goal. These innovative behaviours the author describes as ‘disruptive’, following the thread in his previous book Disruptive Ideas.

Debunking the myth that the capacity to innovate is allegedly connected to the size of the organization or the type of industry, Innovactions will appeal to any manager and leader interested in creating the socio-environmental conditions for innovation within their company. The simple management tools provided by the book will help them create a culture in which different forms and degrees of innovation can co-exist and flourish.

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

Innovactions - Escape from the me-too company
meetingminds, October 2009
£20.00/US $29.00 - Paperback, 200 pages
ISBN: 978-1-905776-06-1
Available to pre-order at: www.waterstones.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.com, www.meetingminds.com and many other (online) bookshops and outlets.

Pause....!

2008-07-30T17:35:00.002+01:00

I am taking a blogger leave from The Leader with Seven Faces for a little while. Follow me in sister blog www.viralchange.net; the home of conversations on Viral Change, the alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organisations. Viral Change and The Leader with Seven Faces are two of the four pillars of my work. The other two are Human Collaboration and Organisational Innovation. Take a look at our consulting website www.thechalfontproject.com for more information. Talk to you soon here again around October time!

Disruptive Ideas - making Viral Change happen

2008-06-26T23:49:00.001+01:00

Lee Smith at Talking Internal Communication continues his views on Leandro Herrero's work, described in two of his books: Viral Change and the follow-up Disruptive Ideas. I wanted to share his views with you here:

"I've just ordered my copy of Dr Leandro Herrero's new book, Disruptive Ideas - the follow up to his excellent work on Viral Change. While I eagerly await my Amazon delivery I've been looking at the Disruptive Ideas 'open book' - basically a blog which allows you to read and comment on much of the content. I love what social media has done for publishing and how its beginning to create a real dialogue between authors and readers. If you want a taste of Leandro's views and insights, be sure to check it out. The introduction provides an excellent overview of Viral Change thinking and its associated methodology. What's more, if you are willing to leave your thoughts and comments behind, you could help shape the second edition of what may well become a classic text on change."

Viral Change Book Review

2008-06-26T23:48:00.000+01:00

I came across a great blog by Lee Smith (Talking Internal Communication) and he had the following to say about Dr Herrero's book Viral Change:

"I recently finished reading Leandro Herrero's superb book, Viral Change. I was planning to review it here on the blog, but I've just discovered that Kieron Shaw has beaten me to it!

The good news is that Kieron's response to the book was very similar to my own - in Kieron's words, it 'rocked his world'. I wouldn't go quite that far, but it's a seriously impressive book and a must-read for anyone in the business of change.

So, rather than reinventing the wheel, I suggest you check out his review in full on the Viral Change website. It will also be published in the next issue of Melcrum's SCM magazine, for those of you who subscribe.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. Buy it now. Read it and re-read it.

As an internal communicator you'll need to take some of his comments on the chin (Leandro doesn't have many good things to say about traditional approaches to communicating change) but at the heart of it is a sensible and workable methodology for delivering real, tangible behaviour change.

For me Viral Change is up there with John Smythe's Chief Engagement Officer as one of the most important books on employee communication, engagement and change to emerge in the last few years."

Viral Change revisited

2008-06-25T18:44:00.003+01:00

Since the first edition of Viral Change, Dr Leandro Herrero and The Chalfont Project continued to expand their experience in the field of viral change management, which they pioneered. This has now resulted in a second and revised edition of Dr Herrero’s book: Viral Change: the alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organisations.

I wanted to share with you the prologue that Dr Herrero wrote for this second edition:

“The terms ‘viral change’ or ‘behavioural change management’ have increasingly been linked to our work as any Google search for these terms will show you. And I am delighted that there is a growing interest - from many sectors of the business and organisational life - in understanding the viral model of change management that we pioneered and its applications.

Since the first edition, we have continued building on our Viral Change experience, both in large scale interventions and in its applications in medium-sized organisations. Additional work on viral leadership has also taken place and some extra notes on this topic have been added in this second edition. Viral leadership goes beyond communication (‘viral communication’) to engage others to champion the new idea, the new process or the new behaviours. We are so used to equating change to good communication that sometimes people think these two things are not just connected, but interchangeable. However, they are not the same.

I have also added some notes on influence mechanisms. In recent months, it became fashionable to question the true role of ‘influencers’, for example, in marketing. In this second edition, I have stressed how any virally induced cultural change recognises a combination of mechanisms: influencers (‘the opinion leader model’), the first followers (‘the early adopters model’) and the fact that a critical mass of ‘new culture practitioners’ (‘the critical mass model’) is powerful enough in itself to induce another critical mass, no matter what the initial trigger was. Social copying leads the way. This is incredibly important for me as a practitioner of Viral Change™ (as opposed to a simply theoretical advocate), because I am more interested in the infection of new ideas and behaviours being spread and leading to new routines within the organisation (‘new cultures’) than in the socio-arithmetical ability to measure whether 20% of those were due to mass social imitation or direct Change Champion, peer-to-peer work. The best (cultural, organisational) Viral Change^™in action is the one that has used multiple mechanisms of influence.

Every day I encounter more and more people in organisational life who are tired of yet another corporate initiative with a change management angle. The mechanistic top-down model (push from the top of the organisation, get results at the bottom) is still what people think of: a burden you have to endure at some point, one way or another. This model is past its sell-by date. Making no apologies for stealing the slogan of a European mobile communications company, I’d like to proclaim that ‘the future is bright, the future is viral’. I really believe that the viral model of change is the only hope for a tired, overwhelmed, over-managed, predictable, commanded-and-controlled, straight-jacketed and initiative-inundated corporate life.

Leandro Herrero May 2008”

The second revised edition of Viral Change: the alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organisations will be available from 15^th July 2008. It can already be pre-ordered from Amazon UK, Barnes and Noble and meetingminds.

Disruptive Ideas more powerful to achieve bigger results

2008-06-16T19:17:00.000+01:00

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

London, UK – 15^th June 2008 - 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.

Disruptive Ideas supports the idea that ‘destination reached’ isn’t necessarily beneficial. The book is therefore a continuous and ongoing project and has its own disruptive site to support it. Readers can comment on or add to the book at www.disruptiveideas.org.

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, June 2008)
£18.50/US $26.00, Paperback, 336 pages - ISBN: 978-1-905776-04-7
Now available at: amazon.co.uk, amazon.com, www.waterstones.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, www.meetingminds.com and many other (online) bookshops and outlets.

The Disruptive Ideas Project

2008-05-27T11:44:00.001+01:00

For those following this blog, this is an invitation to re-write/up-write/second-write my (just about to be published) book Disruptive Ideas: 10+10+10=1000; the maths of Viral Change that transform organisations. This is the disruptive ideas concept in a nutshell: all you need is a combination of very few of them and you are in business. in the business of change and transformation. What exactly are these disruptive (management) ideas? Go to the site! Any contributions left as comments in each lof the pages of the book will be acknowledge. Its second edition will include any suitable contribution and your name will be acknowledged!

Net-work, not more teamwork ( and 3)

2008-05-08T14:36:00.004+01:00

Following upon my previoous 2 posts in on my 'disruptive ideas' ( from the book of the same title), here is an idea summary........

Measure people’s net-work wealth by the number of their connections (weak or strong) with others, inside and outside the boundaries of the company

Measure your own net-work wealth by the number of people you could call for help in the middle of the night …

Make social connectivity (outside teams) a key feature of the culture.

Everybody should routinely cross the border of their divisions, groups or teams in pursuit of answers or to deliver input.

Ask the following performance management questions routinely: how many people outside this (team, division, company) have you talked to in the last month? How many pieces of input have you given to people outside your department?

Net-work, not more teamwork (2)

2008-05-08T14:10:00.002+01:00

Following form the previous post, what can one do? For starters, don’t oppose people spending some time networking inside the firm. If you have a formal IT system for that, you are well advanced. Many organisations are just beginning to come to terms with the idea that people are connecting and will continue to connect routinely outside the boundaries of the division, team or department. But is this not something that even traditional management wanted to do? Promote the idea that people should go ‘outside’ for questions and answers. ‘Outside’ may just mean inside the company, but in another division or affiliate. People should pick up the phone and be able to ask a colleague miles away, perhaps somebody they have never even met, how they solved problem A. Going beyond the natural boundaries should be the norm, not the exception. These are not behaviours reserved for one-off situations or annual internal company conventions, where so-called Best Practices are shared. This is not enough. We need real time sharing of those best practices or best ideas. We simply need the ability for somebody in sales in the South of the country to be able to shout, “Houston, we have a problem” and then get help/an answer almost on the spot, because he is reaching an entire network of potential experts for solving the problem. Not just his peers, not just his immediate team, not just his boss. And frankly, if you think this can be done via email, forget it. You need to accept that it is much messier than organisation chart management and a command-and-control style of leadership, but you can no longer afford people on the payroll who are only good at the internal dynamics of the team. Chances are you have lots of those already. You need net-working as a routine process and this is different from the standard networking: something that usually has the emphasis on the net, not the work.Teams are predictable structures. They are very good for operational delivery, but not so good for strategy or innovation. A certain degree of ‘groupthink’ is always present. Putting the net-work before the teamwork ensures the continuous flow of new ideas. If the old saying “If you have two people who think the same, fire one of them!” were to be applied to teams, the world population of teams would shrink by 50%.

Net-work, not more teamwork (1)

2008-05-08T12:59:00.003+01:00

This is the title of one of the chapters of my new book DISRUPTIVE IDEAS which builds upon Viral Change. Disruptive ideas will be available by the end of this month, May 2008.

Organisations have become proficient in team management and teams have become the natural structure for collaboration, the default position. But in these days of inter-dependence between roles and jobs, many collaboration solutions can be found in informal networks, not in designed, cohesive teams.
Let me inject another contrarian idea: you don’t need any more teams. I know, I know, teamocracies rule the waves. We all talk about teams and how to make them stronger, more effective, etc. Teams are at the centre of organisational development and somehow we have equated them to ‘collaboration’ or people working together.
Teams are here to stay and I’m not going to waste any more space justifying their existence. But what we really need to do is not to refine the team machinery, but to exploit the net-work one. The organisation is composed of a number of collaborative spaces. Some of them are relatively rigid and designed - teams, task forces - while others are composed of looser connections between individuals, with different degrees and nuances of the word ‘looser’. Some communities (of practice or interest) are semi-loose, with a more or less defined membership. There are other networks of connections of a much looser nature, represented by people who sometimes know very little about each other and/or only communicate from time to time. There is a wide spectrum of connections available, but traditional management has only focused on one end; the one where structures are designed and borders given: the teams.
In recent years, people of different disciplines interested in organisational life have begun to suspect that the structure of teams may not be as universally desirable as we first thought, particularly when the organisation needs to tap into intellectual capital wherever it is. We need more and more people who are able to navigate, to ride the looser informal connections where many answers to innovation lie. Teams are too predictable in their capability to answer questions such as, “is there a different way?” Even if the answer is yes, chances are ‘that way’ is to be found within the confines of the team.
We need to favour looser network structures, even if we won’t have the same command and control capacity as we do with teams and taskforces. This is the price to pay. It is from those sometimes un-structured conversations that true innovation originates; it is there that many answers to questions can be found. What can you do? Next post!

Redesigning Sales Forces

2008-04-10T18:04:00.001+01:00

Redesigning pharmaceutical sales operations is probably one of the most strategically important things on the table of senior commercial executives in an operating company today. And this redesigning doesn’t only involve the field forces, but also their connections with other HQ functions such as Marketing, Medical or Sales Force Effectiveness groups.

Leandro Herrero has published a new white paper describing the methodology his company, The Chalfont Project, has used for years in their client work. This methodology combines strategy with group decision analysis, creating a shared common understanding amongst stakeholders, a common sense of purpose and shared commitment to action. This proven method will enable companies to find their most preferred option that will work.

Although the white paper is focussed on the pharmaceutical industry, the methodology equally applies to all industries when looking to redesign their sales forces.

You can read the full white paper here.

Legacy traps

2008-04-01T20:14:00.002+01:00

The best legacy is always a beyond-me leadership. A great period led by a leader followed by the absence of new leaders tells you a lot about the leader’s view of himself. Succession is as important as tenure. Great tenures followed by bad successions always make me very suspicious of the greatness of the tenure.

For many years, Max De Pree was the CEO of Herman Miller, a pioneering furniture company that, at times, went through difficult periods. During those, De Pree led firmly with a mixture of deeply rooted Christian values, extraordinary personal commitment and closeness to every employee, and a professed ‘servant ethos’. It paid off. Loyalty was very high, both in bad times and better times.

I am told that he was deeply involved in the finding of his successor. You would have thought that whoever went to sit on De Pree’s chair (and the company creators of the Aeron chair know a thing or two about sitting!) would have exhibited similar values and behaviours. The reality was that the first post-De Pree CEO was fired by the Herman Miller family and the second in command resigned. Although I don’t claim to know the whole story, there was something there about an incredible legacy-fiasco that makes you think about the mechanisms that some leaders use to establish their own succession. I always draw people’s attention to a De Pree syndrome!

There is also a form of prostituted legacy that is very toxic. It happens when the leader projects himself above the judgement of the current organisation (followers), dismissing that judgement as less relevant than the one that ‘history’ will provide. The ‘history-will-judge-me’ type of leader exhibits a great deal of arrogance by assuming that his greatness can only be understood by people in the distance. This assumption of man-or-woman-of-history, a history-maker, de facto closes the doors to a rational scrutiny today. Many political leaders see themselves in that way; some clearly articulate it, like British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. At least this has the benefit of honesty with the consequent transparency of the dimensions of the ego.

Leadership legacy

2008-03-13T16:37:00.002Z

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?

2008-03-11T22:06:00.000Z

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

2008-03-07T04:35:00.001Z

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

2008-03-07T04:20:00.003Z

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.

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.

Disruptive Ideas achieve bigger results

2008-03-07T04:19:00.001Z

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.

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

2008-03-06T17:49:00.003Z

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

2008-03-04T17:45:00.002Z

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

2008-03-01T04:46:00.002Z

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’.

The investors metaphor

2008-02-25T17:20:00.001Z

Hosting talent is developing the organisation’s human capital. One of the roles of the leaders-architects is to build good hosts and hubs of something that they do not own: the individual’s talent. Nobody has put it better than Thomas O. Davenport with his ‘investor metaphor’ of workers (in his book Human Capital). Employees were once treated as ‘cost’, then as ‘most valuable assets’ and now they should be seen – he says- as investors, that is, investors of their own human capital. It is a very interesting concept from the leadership perspective.

What do you do when you invest? You go and find a place where your capital is going to grow! At the end of the year, or whatever other period, you are going to compare what you put in and what you got out! It follows that people should go and work at places where their human capital is going to grow, and where, in the process, it’s being used by the organisation. In this model, leaders are more like investment fund managers, creating the conditions for the growth. As such, they should be measured by their ability to show the growth. And this is a tricky one because whilst we are good at managing tangible assets, we’re not necessarily that good at managing intangible ones. If your people are not sure about what ‘intangible’ means, use this:

A rich American lady visits the most famous hat maker in Paris. She sees a beautiful, exquisite, long ribbon and immediately falls in love. The hat maker takes the ribbon in his hands, does a few twists with it and creates a stunning hat. Brilliant! The lady grabs it immediately. “How much is it?” she asks. “Five thousand Euros”, the hat maker says. “Five thousand Euros!” the lady exclaims, “But, it’s just a ribbon!” “Madam”, the hat maker says, “the ribbon is free.”

Leadership and ‘home effects’

2008-02-14T19:02:00.003Z

In a previous post, I mentioned to you that leaders are architects and that there are 3 dimensions to their architecture. I’ve already focused on how they need to protect time and create space in my previous posts. Now, let’s look at how leaders build homes: the second dimension.

Leaders build ‘homes’. Leaders build organisational I.Q. which is a combination of three things:

Human Capital: the combination of individual talents, assets that the company does not possess but hosts. The organisation is like an investment bank using other people’s talent
Social capital: the quantity and quality of relationships between people internally and externally and between the organisation and other organisations.
Architectural capital: the assets developed and grown from (a) a particular ‘way of doing things’ and (b) a particular way of being organised.

The no-war on talent
In 1997, McKinsey-consultants coined the term ‘war on talent’ to describe the fight between corporations over the attraction of good human capital. Talent is a key asset, not a commodity, so there must be a war to win it for the company. There were articles and more articles and a book… It took a few years for somebody to shine a different light on the problem and it was Prof Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford University who did it. I learnt of this through an intriguing article in the Financial Times in 2001 with the title The futile war on talent. After all the noise made about the war, to have the FT saying there wasn’t one, or that it was futile, deserved a bit of attention.

The thesis was very simple. All this business about a war on talent distracts people from focusing on the talent inside their organisations. By making so much noise about a talent that seems to be ‘out there’ and for which organisations are murdering each other, we lose sight of our own internal talent pool. The issue, the article put forward, was how to host talent (whether home-grown or attracted) not how to grab it from some sort of extra-terrestrial place.

Intrapreneurs at the gates

2008-02-07T22:57:00.000Z

I bring this topic here as an example of leader’s architecture designed to create space and place for people. And this is far from altruistic. It is an example most applicable to medium or large organisations but the principles would be more universally valid. I am talking here about self-contained, entrepreneurial ‘business units’ within a large organisation that can be designed to take advantage of the large company context, but without its bureaucratic liability, and with the attraction of the small ‘independent’ organisation. They live a symbiotic life with the company, and somewhere else I have called them ‘SymBUnits’, that is symbiotic business units. They are inside the firm. Individuals don’t have to open the gates and go… but they are different from the rest. And here are the differences:

Protected boundaries. The borders of the unit, the group of individuals or the ‘special team’, must be protected (by management) but those borders may be permeable. Actually, they may even look more like Monaco borders than Heathrow borders. When in Monte Carlo, you have to look hard to see any visible difference from France other than the police hats. But they have their own police, banking system, laws and government. Some of these groups of entrepreneurs-inside-the-gates may be similar, separated more by an osmotic membrane than a rigid organisation chart. But don’t be fooled, accountability and clarity of goals will be there. Yes, some degree of ambiguity may be necessary, and this is not everybody’s cup of tea. These units need to be particularly good at stakeholder management and at nurturing their interfaces with the rest of the organisation. They may need resources in and out, part-time people lent from other parts of the company, and a mixture of secondments and fixed headcount, all in one. Today’s structure may look different tomorrow. They may represent a bit of a moving target for HR departments! But the leadership needs to protect that permeability and those semi-invisible borders to facilitate a sense of identity.

Clear, well-defined output intent. These groups must have a clear idea of what they are going to deliver in return for their protected uniqueness. Of course, their delivery must add value. Expectations must be clearly defined and those expectations must be aligned with their special charter, which, incidentally, must be well documented and shared.

Operating model freedom. These units must be free to operate in a different way from the rest of the organisation. Within the agreed charter and their permeable boundaries, they must have protected freedom to establish their own processes and sit outside the homogeneity of the rest of the firm. They make their own rules. They should not be forced to follow the same systems and procedures as anybody else. If there is a massive, corporate, overall project management system with defined reporting and control, for example, they must be allowed to opt out if it’s not suitable. There is no point to give them the borders, charters and protection and pretend that they will behave like anybody else. If project teams report monthly to management, these units may want to do it weekly or quarterly. That can be agreed upfront, of course, but the whole point of having them is that they can enjoy a more agile, fast-track, tailored way of doing things. This is particularly worrying to command and control bosses.

Resource control. Within the agreed framework, these intrapreneurial groups must fully control their allocated resources, with direct visible accountability of their use. They must be free to outsource if needed. They should be allowed to spend the money in the way they need, not the way the rest of the organisation does. Scary again, but, yet, what’s the point of having them following the same rules? At this point of my presentation, I usually get things such as: “Oh my God, this is crazy, a recipe for chaos.” But it is not, if you trust them enough to allow their set-up.

Magnet for talent. These ‘units’ must by design be magnets for talent inside the firm (and outside). They must exhibit an ability to seduce and attract the best hearts and minds. These units must pride themselves to become ‘the place to be’, a prestige, elite space where growing intellectual capital is as easy as growing mushrooms (in places where mushrooms grow!) Inevitably, you are creating some sort of internal competition, but this is healthy. The role of other parts of the organisation is to become ‘the place to be’ themselves as well, not to complain about unfair treatment or differentiation. There is no law that says that you have to run parts of the organisation that must be defined as ‘the places not to be’. If there are lousy processes and boring work, these have been created by man. Man can change that.

High Brokerage. Although brokerage is part of normal leadership, these ‘units’ must be exquisite at that capability, They will have to constantly negotiate with other parts of the organisation to protect their boundaries, use ad hoc resources, and make trade-offs. Their leader is their Master Broker. The leader of these units must be unapologetically contagious in his or her energy, determination and passion. Passion is not necessarily jumping in the corridor singing and clapping – business passion is a deep belief in what one is doing (when in doubt, look at your entrepreneur friends who left, passing through those open gates).

Identity and destiny. And now it gets even more philosophical (and scarier for standard managers). These units must have a sense of ‘any-size-d’ destiny, as I mentioned in chapter 1. I don’t mind whether you use a big D or small d, but sense of destiny means that they share a good awareness of their potential unique impact on the organisation. They want to be remembered as ‘the ones who did such and such, who developed that product, who created that new idea, who commercialised that opportunity, etc’. People in these intrapreneurial cells have a high sense of belonging. The unit is their reference place. They are aware of their elite status and all the benefits and the liabilities associated with it.

Knowledge incubation. These units thrive on knowledge creation, sharing and transfer. They invest heavily on training and development of their people on anything that is necessary even if it’s not part of the training portfolio available in the company. If somebody needs to be trained on something specific that is desperately needed, here you go, here is the ticket and the credit card, go and get it. They take intellectual leadership seriously and pay a lot of attention to their own recycling of skills and capabilities. Incidentally, they control their training budget, the one that usually gets cut around September time when the company needs to make some ‘savings to compensate for the lower than expected sales in Singapore’ and/or the ‘unfavourable currency conversion’.

Urgency ethos.They have a culture sense of urgency. Sense of urgency is not synonymous of all-fast-at-any-cost. They have a motto: “Life is short”. They protect their ‘time to think’ but then, it’s all go. They politely answer the concerns about quality by professing quality as a given, as a ‘pass’, as a baseline, not as an aim in itself. Whilst other people produce quality ideas, quality products, quality services and quality goods for the sake of quality, they produce them for the sake of the output itself, their added value, which just happens to have high quality. Quality is a given, slowness is not negotiable. As I mentioned in the previous chapter - referring to ‘the tyranny of the or’- many people around them say that it’s one or the other, quality or speed, one compromises the other, they can’t have it both ways. To which they respond, “Watch me!”

Emergent architecture. Over time, the shape of the SymBUnits, intrapreneurial units, in-venture groups or whatever you may choose to call them, may change. The composition of members, nature of their network, size of the operation, etc. may evolve. However, the foundations remain.

You have noticed that I have been calling these groups differently all the time. This is by design because it is not a question of creating a new ‘theory of the organisation’ or ‘a new model’ but applying the principles no matter what form, shape or label. Structural evolution in these groups follows more of a self-organising path than a designed plan. Identity remains high all the time, but the borders of those Monacos may look like a moving target.

The old Arab choice between having enemies inside the tent but pissing out (annoying) or having them outside the tent but pissing in (more annoying), also applies here. Choosing between all those about-to-leave people (going outside the tent and eventually pissing in) and creating an inside-the-tent strategy (definitely far more hygienic) that keeps talent in the organisation… Well, it’s your choice. You will also introduce healthy internal competition. These ‘structures’ are ideal for internal ventures, fast-track development projects, expansions into new fields, special projects, one-stop problem solving ‘teams’, internal product incubators, hosts for different product-development life cycles inside the same organisation, or just intrapreneurial pockets retaining talent.

I am told that on the door of a GE facility in India there is a sign: ‘Trespassers will be recruited’. You as leader should have an equivalent sign for your organisation, perhaps something along the lines of ‘Leavers will be seduced and recruited again.’

100K investment lost

2008-02-01T05:12:00.000Z

It has always surprised me. Corporations are resigned to let their best entrepreneurs go on the grounds that it is normal for those people to want to exit corporate life. They are not good at dealing with many practices and procedures, hate too much reporting, need an agile ‘entrepreneurial environment’, want to be more free, to make decisions that matter and to feel that they can see the differences they make. So they have to go! Great! So we acknowledge that rigidity, over-reporting, lousy decisions and lack of freedom are an inevitable part of corporate life.

If a £2,000 laptop is missing from the office, we will launch an investigation. If an entrepreneur leaves to create his own show because he can’t stand the constraints of the company, we call it a ‘natural fact of life’. I heard this comment many years ago and it’s still valid today. How interesting! Instead of fixing the internal rigidity problems we prefer to let human capital go in search of a more motivating environment. We will even have a party to say goodbye and celebrate the loss. Accountants will be happier because they have just made a saving on the balance sheet. It’s the surreal world of management: let somebody go and you’ll save money.

It is probably impossible to pretend that the entire culture, systems and processes of a medium-sized or big company changes overnight to accommodate for entrepreneurial groups on the inside, but can we do anything about it? Yes, we can! Provided that the leadership is not too scared to ‘allow’ different operating structures to cohabit within the firm, that there is no obsession with uniformity of systems and that the focus is to make the most of those entrepreneurs at the gates (that is, in this case, entrepreneurs about to get out), there are definitely ways.

And I’ll look into that more in detail in my next post.