Five steps to re-invent management and leadership

We once home swapped with some people who live in Half Moon Bay, just south of San Francisco. The small town goes by the proud title of "Pumpkin-Growing Capital of The World", which means they must be doing good business in the run up to Hallowe'en right now. So, we ate a lot of pumpkin and wandered around their seven bedroom mansion, while they (the people we homeswapped with) were squashed into our two-bedroom flat in Chiswick, West London. We got the use of their talking Chrysler Le Baron ("Your seatbelt is still undone"). They got the use of our Nissan Micra. I think we won.

So, when Gary Hamel, whom the Wall Street journal rates as "The Number One Most Influential Business Thinker In The World" convened a big think tank in Half Moon Bay a week or two ago, I snapped to attention, as it seemed such a sleepy location for such a powerful think tank. It wasn't just pumpkin soup on the menu (delicious, I recall) - It was the future of management (and leadership!).

I'd love to have been there, as Hamel brought together CK Prahalad, his former tutor and collaborator, Peter Senge (author of the Fifth Discipline, and pioneer of 'the learning organization' and systems thinking), Henry Mintzberg (the strategy guru who spoke to us at a previous Leaders in London), Ed Lawler, Chris Argyris, Jeffrey Pfeffer and other enormous management brains.

The event was called "Inventing The Future of Management". For those of us who couldn't be there to eavesdrop on their findings, Gary Hamel himself is coming to Leaders in London 2008 and I'm sure we can prevail on him to share some of the outcomes with us there.

The two days of debate concluded that we need to re-invent management using the following five principles:

1. Reconstruct the philosophical foundations of management

2. Orient individual and collective effort around a higher and broader purpose

3. Increase trust, reduce fear (My note: Boy, is that important right now in the turbulence facing all of us)

4. Substantially reduce the gravitational pull of the past

5. Reinvent the work of executive leadership

Powerful stuff. The gurus reported after the event, according to the FT, that "natural hierarchies require natural leaders, individuals who are able to mobilise their fellow human beings despite having no 'positional authority'.

"A 21st century management model demands a 21st century leadership model - where leaders are no longer seen as grand visionaries, all-wise decision makers and heroic deal-makers, but are viewed instead as 'social architects', 'constitution writers' and 'entrepreneurs of meaning'."

I love that 'Entrepreneurs of meaning'. Leaders make meaning. More to come from Gary Hamel when he presents his findings to us at Leaders in London 2008

Our Leaders in London 2007 speaker, Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, the marketing, advertising and media group, is profiled in the new book by our 2008 Leaders in London speaker Steve Tappin, author of The Secrets of CEOs, which was reviewed in the FT last week.

Martin Sorrell told Tappin and his co-author Andrew Cave:

"No-one has any magic formula" for leadership.

"Everyone obfuscates and makes it too sophisticated. Having a clear purpose, vison and strategy, having the right team and having them aligned to what's important," is the closest you can get to a formula for a successful leader, particularly a successful CEO, says Sorrell.

Richard Donkin of the FT says that although Sorrell says there is no magic formula, his (Sorrell's) own formula for corporate leadership is still important. Sorrell likens himself "to a referee, a sort of consolidator or co-operator" who can bring all the parts of the company to work together," says Donkin.

Tappin argues that the "idea of the solitary figure who tries to think through everything is no longer appropriate for complex international business." Absolutely.

I also like this, from Steve Tappin's book, where he quotes Archie Norman who, along with Allan Leighton and a close knit leadership team, turned around ASDA's fortunes to move up from the bottom of the big four supermarkets in the UK to replace Sainsbury's in coming (at the time - Sainsbury's have since fought back, with the help of CEO Justin King, who was part of Norman's ASDA leadership team) as second in the UK supermarket league table:

"I like businesses where people feel able

to shout at each other, in a professional way, of course."

- Archie Norman

If your relationships with other leaders and the rest of the organization are strong enough to have 'fierce conversations' (see the book of the same name), based on passion for the business (not on ego and trying to get your own way) then you have a robust, healthy corporate climate that's well-placed to make the right decisions in the current tough trading environment.

See a few posts ago for more on Steve Tappin and his core idea of the need to 'build a fellowship' of leaders. And you can learn from Steve direct at Leaders in London 2008.

Labels: FT, Leaders in London, Leadership book, Leadership conference, Martin Sorrell, rules for success, rules of leadership, WPP