‘Leadership at the Edge’ offers  leadership Lessons from the Extraordinary Saga of Shackleton’s Antarctic Expedition by Dennis N.T. Perkins. Perkins has taken ‘one of the greatest survival stories of all time , one of the most extraordinary Leadership sagas… and translated into a set of powerful strategies for leaders’. It was written in 2000, long before our current economic crisis thus it’s comparison with the hardships faced by Shackleton and his crew seem even more relevant today.

For example, Shackleton and his crew:

• Had their ship crushed by the expanding pack ice
• Were then stranded on the floes of the frozen Weddall Sea
• Had two perilous journeys in open boats in the dangerous and raging Southern Ocean
• Were separated when part of the team were marooned on the forlorn Elephant Island whilst Shackleton and five others went off in search of rescue to South Georgia Island , where a whaling station was located

Buy it here

All this stretched the very limits of human endurance. However under Shackleton, teamwork, self-sacrifice and astonishing good cheer meant that the men did not die, they all survived. And this is the message of the book, that leaders do a make a difference, a critical difference .

‘Exceptional leaders inspire a level of teamwork that can mean the difference between life and death. Today’s business world can be a harsh world like the world of Antarctica:

• Constant and unpredictable change
• Fierce competition
• The complex sale
• Technology trends
• Downsizing
• Mergers etc.

It is in this environment that exceptional leaders can inspire a level of teamwork that can mean the difference between success and failure in the most demanding times. Under conditions of physical danger, this means the difference between life and death. ‘ In a harsh business environment, individuals may not die, but a lack of leadership can spell death for an organisation’.

The book is easy to read and well organised. It provides the Shackleton story and then it is divided into four parts.

Part One

Identifies ten Strategies for Leading at The Edge and also incorporates some modern examples. At the end of each strategy there is an Expedition Log to help you action what they have just read about.

Part Two

Explores Case Studies in Leading at The Edge

Part Three

Dennis N.T. Perkins shares his perspective on what constitutes success or failure and comments on learning the art ‘of leading at The Edge’.

Part Four includes a number of resources, including tools for individual assessment and for further reading about leadership and adventure.

It is a truly inspirational book and Shackleton is now one of my great leadership heroes, because he put his people first, from getting up in the morning and getting them a hot drink, to being the first to do what was being asked and giving away his own gloves in freezing conditions to a team member who needed them more. His men were always his number one priority and he got them back alive.  Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to climb Everest and to cross Antarctica successfully, later wrote, ‘When disaster strikes and all hope if gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton’.

Think about the leaders within your organisation, including yourself, how well do they(and you measure up) measure up.

What shifts need to take place to make you the best leader you can possibly be?

Buy it here

or buy the film

I believe in today’s world we need Shackleton’s extraordinary leadership skills more than ever and this book tells us how. I cannot recommend it enough – brilliant. Also the film ‘Shackleton’ starring Kenneth Branagh is superb.

1. What motivates you?

Check what motivates you in each goal. If you approach a goal with the wrong mindset you are fighting an uphill battle. Take a look at your goal detox from last week – are these goals that:

• Help you grow?
• That you are driven to achieve or just a should do?
• Bring you joy when you think aboutachieving them?

Use this checklist to review and to really consider how you will enjoy the accomplishment. If it helps write it down, draw pictures or cut them out from a magazine and focus on these, each day, to help you achieve.

2. How realistic is the goal?

Unrealistic goals are the ones that can stop you before you have even started. If you are in danger of doing this take some advice:

Raymond Aaron, a world-renowned expert on goal setting and member of Jack Canfield’s Transformational Leadership Council, teaches us to set three levels of goals:

• Minimum. What is the minimum level you need to establish a strong foundation? This might be creating a positive stakeholder group who supports you in one particular business area/level.
• Target. Once you’ve establish a foundation, what is a milestone goal that will stretch you? This might be, active consultation and involvement in the strategic decision making process
• Outrageous. This is the level that looks unrealistic from where you are starting, but that is possible as a long-term goal. To be given ultimate decision making powers for an empowering L&D budget.

3. Do you have too many goals?

Last week we encouraged you to detox your gaols and establish a top 3. Now is a good time to check in with these and ensure they are the right goals for you. To help you with this:

• Create a matrix of six columns.
• List your goals down the left side of the page in column one.
• In the remaining columns, answer these questions about each goal:

By completing the matrix, we’re able to easily see which goals will generate the most money, impact and happiness as a return on our investment of time and energy.

Think about how you can share this with other managers in your business to help them increase their motivation and contribution in work. Please pass it on widely. Thank you.

Now I don’t think this is necessarily a coincidence, but it does seem uncanny that when I speak to any manager about coaching their staff they agree that “in the ideal world” this would be part of their lives…if they had the time. Can it really be the case that in almost every organisation I’ve worked with over the last 10 years operational pressures are such that they prevent managers from coaching their staff?

I guess the key is in the word “almost” because there have been some organisations (only a few) that I have worked with where coaching was built into the managers’ routine, just like providing management stats and dealing with escalations etc. So what is different about these companies?

Maybe, it is precisely the fact that it is such a part of their routine, that they don’t view it as an addition to their process. And by making it part of their routine from the beginning then it becomes the norm. I think it is so easy to become absorbed with doing something right as opposed to doing the right thing. Maybe management teams would find big benefits in reviewing their tasks and asking themselves, “are we placing too much emphasis on doing something right? Or are we really focusing on doing the right thing?” And hopefully staff coaching will be featured amongst doing the right thing, as well as of course, doing something right!

The difference I believe was during that season they were an engaged ’Team.  As individuals and as a group they had certain critical qualities:

• They were passionate,
• They were friends,
• They respected the manager,
• They were eager to please the crowd (Alan Pardew had said that people pay a lot of money to watch them play so they deserve to see a good entertaining match every time),
• They supported the team,
• They were keen to learn,
• They were respectful of their position – many were local lads, they respected the experience that former international Teddy Sheringham brought to the team,
• There was friendly banter
• They knew what they were aiming for

So what can we take from this?

In my experience I have seen parallels in other sports and in business.  I have worked with teams who had wall to wall qualifications, skills and experience but who were not as engaged as a team and their results were not as successful.  In comparison, teams that consisted of individuals who interacted well with each other, were enthusiastic, had a positive outlook etc had better productivity and achieved more successful results.  I’m not saying that teams don’t need knowledge and skill, but engaged staff have the energy to drive their potential forward and ultimately score more wins.  Perhaps the coaching team at West Ham United could help the players achieve more wins if they focused on improving engagement?  It’s worth a try:-)

But what about your team?

Many we know in L&D deliver back to back, routine training. They have ideas and spirit but little opportunity to explore that spirit within the demands of their job. If you take the analogy outlined above score your team 1 – 10, 10 being the best we can be and decide on 3 actions you can take this quarter that would improve your scores. Remember a little focus and care goes a very long way in the engagement stakes.

Momentum enables progress. It provides the driving force to success so how do we harness it, right now, to help our organisation succeed?

This time of year people  start to get distracted and preoccupied with Christmas (unless you work in retail of course!) but in today’s troubled times, it is the very time where you can make a discernible difference and offer your customers greater value than your competitors. This short article and our support activities are designed to help you build commitment and take action towards this progress by building momentum.

What is momentum?

It is the power to develop at an every growing rate.

Momentum is about the small steps of many people building to steer significant change. Momentum builds confidence and becomes an ever increasing energy as people build motivation and pleasure in success.

Why is momentum important?

Today’s crazy world demands progress. If you remain still you fall behind… rapidly. But experimentation in business needs to be measured. Building momentum allows new ideas to be tested and risks taken by making progress in stages. Experimentation is the life blood of progress and momentum builds energy and commitment towards these plans.

“All progress is experimental.” -John Jay Chapman

What gets in the way of momentum?

It is easy for experimentation to be criticised or ridiculed by those less confident. Organisations often find responding to change tough going because we are all more confident with certainty. But those organisations who fail to change will die in today’s fast moving economy.

Momentum can come from anyone at anytime and the more people who participate, the more momentum grows. This article is sent to you, as a single individual to either start the process or link with others who have already started to help you and your organisation flourish.

Tips for building momentum

We have developed the 3 m’s for building momentum.

1. Create a movement - by being clear about your purpose, what drives you and your team, your goals and how you will know when you get there. This keenness of focus will provide a clear direction for all in your team and help you create a movement.

Try our short activity to help you with this

2.  Model – be the best role model you can be for progress in the organisation. Role models are looked up to, your team will be proud that they work for you (and not someone else!) and you are more likely to extend your own sphere of influence as people want to hear what you are doing and what you have to say.

Have a go at our short exercise to challenge whether you are the best you can be and if you need to improve it will help you make the necessary changes swiftly

3. Modernise

As you progress, the uncertainty can lead to challenge and confusion. Be aware of this and use every opportunity to help your team refocus on what is important. Keep momentum, it will be self propelling.

I have provided a short activity to complete with your team to help you do just that, right here.

Like these activities?

If you like these activities we have a toolkit for managers to develop themselves and a toolkit for managers to use with their teams - click here for more. You can buy on line or email me for more details  including volume discounts caroline@leaps-bounds.co.uk

Go… build momentum… now!

Isn’t it interesting how we can view exactly the same situation and have extremely contrasting interpretations depending on your perspective?

When we are within a system, that system shapes our perspective. As a leader in an organisation you are part of the ‘leadership system’ and as a front-line  Agent, for example, you are part of the ‘staff system’. As such, you are likely to have differences of opinions based on your inclusion in one system or the other. And whilst we might like to think that we know what people in another system are thinking, we simply can’t.

The impact of this is profound. Over time, for staff,  it breeds cynicism and distrust; a desire to tow the line rather than excel and for leaders it propagates the belief that staff do as little as possible to get by (but they wouldn’t dare openly admit it, instead they just act as if it were true), a focus on task rather than spending the time with their teams, reporting through email and numbers rather than face to face and with feeling.  Connection is lost.

Our ability to connect in today’s fast moving world is essential. We connect to things, technology, people. We share information at an unprecedented rate and without this connection we will be ‘at sea’. Organisations change products and processes almost daily without a manager being truly connected to their staff how can staff possibly interpret and apply these changes at speed?

But all is not lost, time is a great healer. No-one really knows whether the coalition will last and if it can achieve what it suggests. But time will tell. No-one really knows if you will be the great leader you want to be, only time will tell and the decisions you make. So a question, “What information do you need to uncover in order to help you on this path?”

Last week people voted. Everyone was talking about who they could trust, which party really did have the best interests of the country at heart. The newspapers were full of it. The rhetoric from all parties was about trusting in them to deliver for us, the party manifestos and newsletters were all designed to encourage us to believe in them and their abilities, to trust in them to lead our country. I was lucky enough to be at an electric election night count. The reporters were buzzing and all of them had voted for the same man who was duly elected against the odds. These reporters were non partisan. We got chatting and I asked why they had voted for him. The said ‘we trust him.’  I asked, ‘how do you know?’ To which they all replied (individually) ‘because he listens more than he talks and he genuinely shows that he cares.’ Interesting that in short snippets of conversations, over a relatively short period of time, that was the criteria for some people. Clearly it is not as simple as just that. These behaviours attracted people to vote, but what do you think the impact will be if these behaviours aren’t demonstrated beyond the election? Isn’t this one of the reasons that so many people are disaffected? The same is true, not only in politics, but also in organisations the length and breadth of the country. Many of which have strong leaders, with vision and drive who share a powerful story of a better a future but when this is distilled into departmental actions, something is missing.

When we examine the losses many of us have experienced during this global economic recession one of the significant losses is surely the loss of trust. Many leaders in organisations fell short of the required leadership at this difficult time but all is not lost. Those leaders that are prepared to rebuild and acknowledge will make significant improvements in the performance of their teams.

So this week review how deep the trust is that your team have in you. Be that leader who reaches out, ask questions and listen more to what is being said around you. When you do, do it without judgement, excuses or criticism, allow people to talk.  Think about how you can use these elements to deepen your relationships, not just at work but also at home too.  As Stephen Covey says “nothing is as fast as the speed of trust”. If you want to grow and do it fast, trust is a great foundation.

What would enable your organisation to flourish? What differences in the way you could operate would help with this aim?

For those of you interested in wikis the origins of the phrase are interestingly penned out here

So what’s the connection between generating tribes and your organisation flourishing?

We can spend so much time thinking about how to connect with our customers and our Brand image that we overlook the need to connect with our staff. Your people are your biggest tribe, and the largest group who can help you make that connection in every transaction they perform on behalf of your company.

What single action could you initiate that would start to develop a tribe within your organisation?

Quick check to help you decide whether this is important to you or not.

As the ‘human face “ of your business, are your people talking passionately about where they work and recommending their company to friends and family to join them as an employee or to buy their products?

If we can develop our internal tribe not just so they like their work, but rather that they love their work and shout about it, if we translate that sense of engagement to outside of work with our friends our community wow we really could be ‘ Cool Britannia’ again!

In this Youtube video Seth Godin, challenges you to create a movement in 24 hours, to step up and be the change you believe in… will you do it?

It was a great night in our house for a lifelong Fulham fan (well at least 5 out of his 9 years) and his more recently converted Dad and older brother but as I’m no football pundit I decided to listen to Roy Hodgson’s interview for his views on the secret of their success.

Two things came up very strongly:

1. The team played to their strengths. Even after going 1-0 down following a brilliant Hamburg goal they stuck to their plan and continued to play in a way that suited them rather than making a desperate change. They plugged away and were rewarded with two goals.

2. Once again Hodgson praised the character and determination of the team something he has done consistently all season.

Both of the above are consistent with so much that has been written about great leadership – try any of Marcus Buckingham’s books for a start – and reflect our beliefs at Leaps & Bounds too.

So, are you encouraging your people (at work and at home) to play to their strengths and continually giving them the support and praise that will develop a real determination to succeed?

I do hope Roy can do that for Fulham for one more game. Come on you Whites!

Gill

I’d decided that making cookies would be a great way to pass the time on an afternoon off school and only 5 minutes into the process I was having second thoughts. With a whole bag of sugar on the floor and butter stuck to the window their level of shrieking seemed to be rising in exact proportions to my frustration. I was just about to utter the words ‘If you can’t do this sensibly then we won’t do it at all!’  but I stopped myself just in time. All that would have meant was that the mayhem would transfer to another room.

Instead, and I’m not quite sure where this came from, I took a deep breath and asked ‘Who’d like to chop up chocolate with really sharp knives?’  Three shouts of ‘Me, me, me!’ followed so I found three chopping boards, three knives and let them get on with it. Now I did still watch from a distance and gave very clear instructions about knives and fingers before they started, but the mood in the room changed instantly. High jinx was replaced with calm concentration which held up long enough to finish the cookies and put them in the very hot oven.

And the point about behaviour? If we want to influence others to behave how we would like them to then it’s own own actions we have to consider first. When we put our trust in others and give them meaningful and challenging work we may just get the performance we are after. So, whether at work or at home see what  relinquishing control and handing over the reins can do for the performance of your people.

Oh, and the cookies tasted pretty good too

Gill