Leadership Today Requires New Skills

Introduction

Any organisation requires a range of diverse skill sets to be present at the executive level, and arguably board level, for optimal performance. At a macro level these could be divided into two segments and could perhaps be seen to be analogous to the concept of left and right brain functioning.

With the left side of the brain being more representative of what many people will consider to be the primary functions of a board and executive roles such as legal and financial, namely governance and stewardship around issues such as compliance with company policies and external legal frameworks and oversight of financial matters and other quantitative measures of company performance.

Whereas functions that fall outside this domain, and yet are no less important are more analogous to right brain function. This is typically associated with more creative thinking and the emotional side of the brain. Therefore, these functions tend to deal with the more informal systems within a company such as its culture and require the board to exercise a different type of thinking which is perhaps more abstract and more nuanced and dealing more with people than with rules. In this sense it is more qualitative rather than quantitative thinking that is required.

Arguably we are witnessing a transition in thinking that encompasses a more enlightened and holistic approach which embraces the honouring of both quantitative and qualitative thinking. However, this shift in thinking may not always be as easy as it sounds. Particularly if existing processes such as board meetings and executive team meetings have tended to flow along certain established lines, for a very long period, and where discussions have not tended to include, at least in any great depth, issues such as corporate culture. However, not to include an appropriate level of focus on the culture of an organisation ultimately has the potential to undermine all of the other good work being done by the board in its other areas of oversight and stewardship.

Therefore, directors today may be asked to develop new skills and exercise neural pathways that they are less familiar with or that have not been fully utilised for some time. To some degree this may venture into uncomfortable territory with a company director finding themselves, even after vast years of directorship experience, in uncharted territory where they may have to confront the issue of being ‘consciously incompetent’ in a certain facet of the role. This requires the willingness to apply degree of cognitive energy to develop in these areas that may not have been required of the director previously.

It is certainly easier for a board to remain disengaged from some of the more complex issues that embody a company's culture. The ‘people stuff’, the ‘soft skills’ the day-to-day norms of behaviour within the company’s offices and branches and worksites which may be typically left as being the domain of the HR Department, or more commonly termed the People & Culture Department these days.

How close is the board to understanding things such as why people join the organisation, why they leave, whether those people who work within the company feel a sense of pride in the organisation or do they see their role as ‘just a job’? How do external stakeholders view the organisation?

Of course, there are many other factors that underpin a company's culture. Creating a strong positive culture that promotes well-being and job satisfaction and enriches people’s lives goes beyond simply ensuring that policies have been created around expected norms and acceptable behavioural standards. Can the CEO or board honestly say that they know that it is universally understood throughout the company that bullying and harassment of any kind is totally unacceptable and will simply not be tolerated. If so, how have they drawn that conclusion? How do busy executives focussed on their own specific portfolio for most of the time or company directors who may attend a monthly board meeting take the pulse of the organisation?

When an organisation has a strong inclusive culture of respect which promotes the company’s values do all directors and senior executives embody these principles themselves in their behaviour inside and outside the organisation? What about at the management level and are these values understood throughout the organisation as being qualities that must be always lived. When this is deeply embodied within an organisation there is far less risk of the company’s values and standards of behaviour being transgressed as opposed to situations where they have not been articulated well or when employees don’t see the values being lived at all levels of the organisation.

During my 35 years in the tech sector I can honestly say that I came to regard building a strong culture as absolutely fundamental to the long-term success of any organisation. In my final eight years I held the position of Chair and managing director of Konica Minolta Australia, effectively an Executive Chairman, reporting to our global head office in Tokyo.

 Caring.

On the day I was appointed as the company’s first non-Japanese chair and managing director in the company’s 40 years in Australia I made the following statement. “I want us all to work together to build a company that cares. That cares about the people that work here, that cares about our customers and that cares about our community”. We measured ourselves against this ethos, in every board meeting that followed. It became our ‘north star’ against which we pointed our moral compass and we held ourselves to account against that goal.

I formed the view that tone starts from the top and that the people at the top had direct responsibility for establishing the company’s values and setting acceptable standards and then living these. I found that as we began changing the culture from one that reflected perhaps more the norms of a 150 year old Japanese company, more to those of a progressive, contemporary western organisation, that people overwhelmingly responded. For the first time they were being asked their opinions and being listened to.

One of the first things I did was to survey everyone on their views on the company and what needed to change and how could we work together to build a truly great organisation. 95% of people responded to a voluntary survey, which told me that they wanted to have a voice in shaping the organisation. The two most common requests were for better communication and more purpose, the later resulting in the staff voting for several charity partners one being in a category we called Humanitarian where we began funding the work of an organisation in Cambodia that worked in the particularly tough area of human trafficking and the sexual enslavement of young women.

Validation

After I had been in the role for a while, I invited everyone who had worked in the company for 25 years or more to come to Sydney and I took them out for dinner. Simply to say, "Thank you. Thank you for your loyalty to the company”. And at the end of the meal, one man said, "Could I please say something?" I said, "Of course". He was a very quiet man who had not spoken all night. And he stood up, in this public restaurant and everyone else in the restaurant looked around to see what was happening. And he made what I imagine was the first speech that he had ever made in his life.

And what he said was, "For 25 years, l've never told anybody where I worked. I just didn’t see the point. I came to work, and I did a fair day's work for a fair day's pay, and that's how I fed my family." He then said, "but now, I tell every single person I meet that I work for Konica Minolta. Why? because I feel so proud to work for a company that would care about young women in Cambodia that had been trafficked into a life of sexual slavery."

That man thought our company was good enough to work there for over 25 years, but on the engagement scale, he was disengaged. But that dial, the engagement dial, went from disengaged to engaged. And it kept going. lt went to him being a loyal, public advocate and champion for Konica Minolta. And we had probably treated him pretty well for those 25 years. But it was not enough for him to feel any real purpose. That was the positive unintended internal consequence of seeking to help a vulnerable group externally and many people came up to me over the years expressing similar sentiments. Very interestingly this included new clients who awarded us new technology contracts who stated it was our values that won us the contracted and they ‘felt we were a good fit for them’. This is how culture and values can powerfully align with strategic commercial success.

Connectedness

Another vital factor in building our culture was for senior decision makers to be connected to the organisation at all levels, that they had their ‘finger on the pulse’ of what life was really like for people working there.

One initiative I undertook was to travel to each branch in our capital city offices, and as well as holding an all-of-branch meeting while there, I also invited all female staff members to a separate meeting where I asked them to tell me openly and honestly what it was like to work in our company and whether there were things we needed to change. I learnt a lot, mostly about ‘everyday sexism’ that was widespread, and having the company’s managing director willing to listen and then take action was greatly appreciated.

Conclusion

In conclusion I think the topic of building a rich and nourishing and respectful culture is not complete without considering the question of what qualities does a director or senior executive in today’s world need to embody to truly perform their duties. I would argue that along with all the previously valued indicators of, academic qualifications, industry accreditations, depth of experience etc leaders today also need to be able to access a whole new range of characteristics, previously not considered a requirement when being appointed. These include the ability to think holistically and when making decisions to be calm, humble,  empathetic, brave, kind and caring.