Ian Sampson
If March is not too late to offer some advice and counsel about your agenda for 2018, please consider the following.
If your agenda is already set and you are in action, you might consider incorporating it into this year’s strategy and financial cycle.
1. If you don’t yet have a clear business strategy for 2018, get the talent you need to carry it out. If you don’t have the best quality people in well-scoped roles with a leaderful attitude and skills, get them. Don’t be deflected in this task.
2. Build your personal and organisational digital capability. Understand what’s possible, the business case and how to build internal and external competence. The report says: “You don’t have to be a technical expert, but you do need to be able to predict both opportunities and potential negative effects of technology.”
3. Require that your organisation becomes diverse in gender and any other key areas that will allow the full richness of human society to be recognised and achieved. If you don’t know how (i.e. you see you don’t have the competency to do this work) get someone to partner with you to help you to deliver on your responsibility in this area.
4. Identify, get to know and personally champion your leaders. This means finding the key leaders throughout your organisation. If you can find the best leaders, work out how many you can be personally responsible for. Work to develop their leadership. Don’t make them into what haired darlings; let them know you recognise their potential and will champion them if they keep growing to their next level of potential.
5. Use each of the generations’ key contributions. The report focuses too narrowly on Gen Xers. You need the wisdom of baby boomers, the insights and emerging experiences of the Gen Xers and Gen Yers, the tech savvy skills of millennials. Link this to the diversity agenda item.
6. Develop your leaders; not the ones with leader titles: the true leaders who people pay attention to and want to follow. Mentor them, coach them, sponsor them, train them in what they need (i.e. not “sheep dip” programs), give them great assignments that foster their leadership skills and experiences. Talk with them regularly: become a patron to the handful who will determine your business for the next generation.
7. Build alignment with your leaders. Just as you expect your leaders to build alignment with their teams of followers, so you too need to build alignment, shared passion, shared direction, shared identity, shared wisdom, shared courage with your leaders, both those in formal roles who report to you and those real leaders who are the unsung and often unrecognised forces for action in your organisation.
8. Develop your organisational and personal data analytics ability. The report says HR is lagging badly. Many senior execs are also behind.
9. Build your abilities to respond to disruption:
Inform decisions through data and analytics
Integrate multiple and diverse perspectives to drive change
Embrace failure in pursuit of innovation
10 Don’t rely on DIY leadership by individuals. See 4, 6 and 7 above. But also remember: leaders who rely solely on organisational initiatives to develop and recognise their leadership may not be the kinds of leader you want. Leaders accept the help of other and they also DIT (Do It Themselves). They take personal responsibility for their development and they act to fulfil their potential.
Put these 10 items on your agendas for all your personal, team and organisational work. Manage to them throughout the year. Celebrate at the end of 2018.
(The Global Leadership Forecast 2018, jointly published by DDI, The Conference Board, and EY is one of the most expansive leadership research projects ever conducted.
Integrating data from more than 28,000 leaders and HR professionals at 2,488 organizations around the world, the report offers insight into the state of global leadership and provides evidence-based recommendations for organizations to change their people strategies to meet upcoming challenges.)
This is my take on DDI’s suggestions to fulfil on the Forecast’s 10 top 10 findings. (Forbes February 28th, 2018)
