Today's Business Lessons
Not just communications
By Francis J. Kong
(The Philippine Star) Updated March 24, 2012
Henry Luce, founder of Time and Fortune
magazines, shares this insight: “Business, more than any other
occupation, is a continual dealing with the future. It is a continual
calculation, an instinctive exercise in foresight.”
He’s so right isn’t he? I think the same is true for leaders – their careers involve continuous exercise in foresight.
So I went to Boston for my yearly brain upgrade. I traveled thousands of miles just to attend a leadership course. But the travel was well worth it.
The learning experience was great. I met many participants from all
over the world. We studied business cases and did activities that
enriched my leadership understanding. And I’m so excited to share my
learnings in my sessions!
The great thing about brain
upgrade is that, the more ideas I learn, the more ideas I can teach and
even implement. Plus – I got a chance to walk the Harvard campus of the
new NBA sensation Jeremy Lin.
The Wharton School
of Business and Gartner research firm once polled a group of senior
leaders on why they thought their big ideas didn’t get implemented.
Interestingly, many of the top obstacles cited were related to neglect
of leadership basics by managers and their employees:
(1) Poor or inadequate information sharing between people and business units responsible for execution (communication).
(2) Unclear communication of responsibility and/or accountability
for execution decisions or actions (communication, accountability).
(3) Lack of feeling of “ownership” of a strategy or execution plans among employees (goal setting, accountability).
(4) An inability to generate “buy in” agreement on critical execution steps or actions (communication, trust).[1]
In order to effect change, the leader should first manage the self and then articulate the change initiatives.
But things don’t usually happen this way. What usually happens is,
people see a memo, they attend the meeting, they look at the PowerPoint
presentation, and then they walk out of the room more interested in
updating their Facebook page than in applying the important change
initiatives the organization needs to embark on in order to stay
competitive.
Would you be surprised to know that the solution to this is a basic approach?
When the leader set clear goals with his or her managers and
teammates, when the leader communicates to them openly and honestly,
when the leader personifies what he or she says, or as most would say
“Walk the Talk” and which I’d like to call “Live the Lip,” when the
leader holds himself or herself accountable for hitting the goals, the
natural byproduct is this: trust within the team is built, and the
leader is valued and appreciated. Meanwhile, lack in any of these areas
will derail team members and destroy the entire team over time.
Leaders need to park their ego on the parking lot, roll up their sleeves and demonstrate the way to work.
Trust is built in the small things we do everyday, not in passionate
speeches that fizzle out when the rallies and events are over.
It takes time to build trust, but it takes just one wrong move to
destroy it. At the end of the day, it’s the leader’s character that
matter, not just the communications skills.
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