Attracting, motivating, growing, inspiring, coaching, and developing people is the foundation upon ... [+]
When I graduated from business school almost 30 years ago, I thought that the best and brightest people focused on strategy and operations and that those who didn't have what it takes handled the soft stuff: the HR “people” topics.
Then, about a decade into my career, a senior colleague asked me to reflect on all the work I had done and which projects delivered beyond expectations. It was a turning point for me. Suddenly, I realized that many of my efforts didn't have nearly as much impact as they could, or should, have had. When I asked myself why, I realized that people got in the way.
I recalled many disappointments: If only the leader of this company didn't chicken out when his plans hit the first big bump in the road. If only the leaders of this organization worked as a team, rather than as leaders of competing teams. If only the frontline managers would have explained the reasons and purposes of the actions being taken, rather than just telling employees to “do it.” If only.
That’s when I started to focus more on the people side of change—leadership from the CEO to the frontline and from the frontline back to the CEO.
Here are some lessons learned along the way:
1. Changing behavior is really hard. Hence the title of this article. What I used to think of as the soft stuff for the ‘less capable’ to handle is actually the hardest stuff. People are not linear. It is not like a financial model, or an operational plan with milestones and metrics, or even computer code that can be debugged. Everyone is different. How they act and react is based at least in part on the lifetime of experiences that got them where they are today. Getting people—including senior leaders and their management teams—to row in the same direction and at a coordinated pace is no easy task. While simple, direct communications and incentives can help, they’re not sufficient.
2. Related to the above, changing behavior requires significant investment. It takes time and a bit of artistry to identify and articulate what all leaders need to do differently, specifically, to change the trajectory of their organizations. After you reach that point, you then need to put even more investment into activating the new behaviors. It’s like exercise: You don't get in shape by watching an exercise video from your recliner or by going to a spa for a week. You get in shape by building exercise into your daily routines: walking to work; taking the stairs; doing Zoom meetings from a treadmill, committing 45 minutes every-other-day to the gym. Changing your ways when you’ve done things that way for so long requires lots of practice until new behaviors become habit. This requires attention, time, energy and most of all, dedication, to build the necessary new muscle. It’s a major investment, but worth it.
3. It has to start at the top. Unlike operational change that has to happen where the work happens, behavioral change needs to start at the top, with the CEO and executive team serving as role models. For example, if you need people to work less in silos, take more risk, learn from failure, or focus more on customers, clients, world events or other external factors, you need to do more than simply put those new behavioral requirements on posters and internal memos or discuss them at live or virtual Town Hall meetings. Instead, the CEO and every individual member of the executive team needs to personally and publicly change their own behavior. As one client said to me, ‘if you're going to sweep the stairs you don't sweep from the bottom to the top … you start at the top and work your way down.’
4. The most-senior leaders need coaches. What happens when you get more senior in an organization? You get more stuck in your ways. Think about it: Every time you get a promotion it reinforces the idea that you’re doing things right—“if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The other thing that happens as you move up the ladder is that you receive less and less personal feedback. People “below” you are reluctant to say anything that might be construed as criticism—and your peers also may be uncomfortable doing so. This is where quality executive coaching can serve a useful purpose: coaching from people who have ‘been there and done that,’ who know what's required of senior leaders, and who are unafraid of holding up a mirror to show you how others really see you and what needs to change. Executive coaches, of course, aren’t there just to show you what needs fixing, but to nurture positive changes in a private, risk-free environment (a rare blessing for leaders who are constantly visible and under scrutiny). That gives you the freedom to try, fail, reflect, learn, and try again and again to develop new capabilities.
5. You cannot delegate this to HR. Somehow, whenever someone mentions anything having to do with people, it gets shuffled over to the HR team to plan, drive, support, execute and own. It's sort of like saying anytime you need to make a decision about spending you need to throw that decision over to the finance team. No way! Just as business leaders need to own the success or failure of their business’s performance, they need to own the development and performance of their teams. This is not work you farm out to somebody else, no matter how talented they are.
There is nothing “soft” about attracting, motivating, growing, inspiring, coaching, and developing people. It’s the foundation upon which your entire organization is built. More companies need to give it the serious, high-level attention it requires. I welcome your thoughts.
