Author Archives: Larry Janis

9 behaviors that make effective leaders, according to Google research

By Sarah Goff-Dupont–Atlassian

Every so often, Google employees answer a 13-point questionnaire regarding their manager’s performance. The questionnaire’s contents reveal what, according to Google’s research, makes for effective leadership.

Many people who take on leadership positions flounder in the role. The qualities that make you an outstanding accountant, developer, marketer, or customer service rep may earn you a manager title, but they aren’t the same skills you’ll need to do the job well. And most likely, that promotion doesn’t come with extensive leadership training.

Someday I hope to be a totally mediocre manager

– Nobody ever

It seems Google was determined to do better for their managers and the teams they lead. They parlayed their research on high-performing teams into a feedback mechanism that helps leaders understand how they’re doing and which traits they might need to develop further. Every so often, employees answer a 13-point questionnaire regarding their manager’s performance. The questionnaire’s contents reveal what, according to Google’s research, makes for effective leadership.

Give actionable feedback that improves performance

The best way to make feedback actionable is to make it immediate. Don’t wait until annual review time. Don’t even wait until your next one-on-one meeting. Whenever possible, deliver feedback within a day of whatever event you’re commenting on so it’s fresh in everyone’s minds. And don’t stress about formalities.

A quick word in the hallway or ping via chat is perfectly fine. (Unless we’re talking about critical feedback on a loaded issue. In that case, grab a private room and sit down together.) Kim Scott, author of Radical Candor (and, notably, a former Google executive) argues you need only two elements to provide effective feedback: show that you care personally and challenge the other person directly. (more…)

What it means to be a Human leader

by James Ashton

 

Talk to some CEOs, and it becomes clear that lockdowns imposed by COVID-19 tore down barriers between them and their workforce. One leader I know was taken aback by the response he got for a casual reference to “all 8,000 of us” in an all-hands Zoom call. Isolated staff clung to what they saw as a significant moment of togetherness, and emailed him their heartfelt thanks.

Other CEOs acknowledge the fresh divides that were erected and still need to be navigated. In an interview, Amanda Blanc, CEO of London-based insurance and savings group Aviva, highlighted the challenge of remote leadership, including presenting over “video walls.” “If you were an introvert, it would be a very difficult thing to do,” she told the Sunday Times of London.

The ambition to preserve the status quo, though, drove some CEOs to behave as normal, including Yves Perrier of French asset manager Amundi, who went to his Paris office every day of lockdown. I suspect it was just as comforting for him as it was intended to be for his staff. But others took this idea to extreme lengths, such as a CEO who filmed his Christmas message last year standing at a lectern in an empty lecture hall.

Going into the pandemic, I was focused on the leaders that I described in my recent book, The Nine Types of Leader. This taxonomy was distilled from encounters with CEOs during my 20 years in financial journalism. In that time, I had examined up close the all-powerful Alpha, growling into his mobile phone or summoning lieutenants to join him at the opera; the passionate Lover, throwing herself into an advertising pitch or leading a high-energy workout; the fearless Fixer, dispatching staff and pleading for clemency from creditors; and the others. But the one that stands out as lockdowns subside and economies start opening up in many markets is the Human. (more…)

VP of Account Management, P&C

Responsible for steering growth across strategic relationships.

Reporting to Practice Growth Leaders, the VP of Account Management is charged with maintaining and generating new business opportunities within an existing account portfolio of strategic P&C clients – carriers and brokers. This individual is responsible for strengthening the existing relationships, understanding the common industry problems and business challenges are clients aim to address and position the full range of P&C’s capabilities in across domain, data, analytics, solutions and digital, mapped to the clients’ strategic objectives, to expand revenue within the assigned portfolio carrier and broker accounts. A consultative approach is necessary in which the VP is able to understand the key drivers of each client stakeholder develop an efficient strategy for presenting the value proposition that ultimately expands upon the overall value delivered and further strengthens the partnership. Position is an individual contributor role and requires deep understanding of the insurance market, industry challenges and emerging data and tech solutions. (more…)

Facilitate collaborative breakthrough with these moves

by Adam Kahane

By alternating between top-down and bottom-up approaches to problem-solving, teams can make progress.

Early in my career as a facilitator of multi-stakeholder collaborations, my colleagues and I led a two-year strategy project for a Fortune 50 logistics company. The company’s established way of doing things was vertical: the CEO managed by giving forceful, detailed directives, which had produced coordination and cohesion that enabled outstanding business success. But the COO thought the company’s situation was dangerous. Globalization and digitization were changing the competitive landscape, and he wanted employees from across the organization to collaborate more horizontally to create innovative responses.

My team worked with the COO and his colleagues to agree on a project scope, timeline, and process, and to charter a cross-level, cross-departmental team. The process we designed for the team was more egalitarian and creative than what they were used to. They immersed themselves in the changes in their market by spending time on the front lines of the organization, going on learning journeys to successful organizations in other sectors, and constructing scenarios of possible futures. They participated in workshops that emphasized full engagement on the part of all team members and that included structured exercises designed to generate, develop, and test innovative options.

This transformative process enabled breakthrough by creating a space in which the company’s command-and-control culture—which assumed that the bosses knew best—was suspended. This in turn enabled greater contribution by participants from different departments and from different levels in the hierarchy. The project team cut across the siloed organization, where lines of communication ran up and down rather than from side to side, so the process enabled greater connection. And the company had a steep hierarchy of privilege, with senior people having much greater compensation and agency, so the process also enabled more equitable contribution and connection. By enabling contribution, connection, and equity, our transformative facilitation helped this team come up with and implement a set of initiatives to launch new service offerings and to streamline company operations. (more…)

The Essence of Agility and Resilience After Covid

 

by Peter B. Zemsky, Deputy Dean of INSEAD and Dean of Innovation, and Sameer Hasija, INSEAD Dean of Executive Education

 

Navigating unprecedented levels of uncertainty takes a careful combination of technology and talent.

One burning question dominates our recent conversations with executives: What’s next? Their challenges differ. Some are working frantically to recover ground lost during the initial waves of the Covid pandemic. Others are trying to sustain growth while keeping an eye out for future disruptive events. But all seem to realise that the last 18 months were an organisational and individual turning point. The already-eroding stability that existed before Covid has been decisively overthrown.

In these conversations, two words stand out: agility and resilience. Leaders at every level know these two attributes will be key to survival, not to mention success, in the short- to medium-term (and possibly indefinitely). They are looking to us – and INSEAD – for help in becoming more agile and resilient. In other words, they are asking the right questions. But we also fear that these two words are at risk of becoming meaningless through repetition. (To clarify: How we use the word agile is not to be confused with Agile, a specific working style coming out of software development that is not for everyone.)

Stepping back for a moment, let’s examine what agility and resilience mean for companies in the here and now. This isn’t a semantic exercise. It is critical to understand the “what” and the “why” of these concepts, so that the “how” of building and promoting them can be executed effectively.

(more…)