Closing the gap between promise and reality

Attracting good talent to your organisation is harder now than it’s been for some time, and it won’t be getting easier anytime soon. The industries with which I’m involved, whether as an employee, director or consultant, are all trying to find ways to attract talent. The competition is tough.

Recognising this problem, Deloitte Insights has published an article based on a comprehensive survey it conducted. While the survey is based in the United Kingdom, the findings and lessons are easily applicable and transferrable to the Australian and New Zealand context.

A perceived solution to the talent problem is for organisations to “show genuine commitment towards more than just maximising profits and to demonstrate purpose in the iterations with customers, employees, supply chain partners and the broader communities in which they operate.” How do you know you’ve embedded this into your organisational culture? It’s not easy to measure. But try organisations must.

To help, Deloitte Insights identified five key areas reported to it by employees that highlight the gap between what management thinks it’s doing and what the workforce perceives is being done. This is interesting because too often management operates in an echo chamber that means it’s ignorant of the reality of how messaging and strategy is received. The five purpose gaps are:

1. The perception–reality gap—purpose matters to employees but only half see it mirrored in their workplace reality
2. The integrity gap—demonstrating purpose starts with genuine concern for workers’ wellbeing
3. The attraction–retention gap—purpose determines why workers stay or leave
4. The transparency gap—purpose is not seen as being in conflict with profit but transparency about both is needed
5. The role model gap—only half the workforce sees leadership behaviour as being inline with purpose

The survey dug deep into these gaps and found there are some lessons organisations can learn and consequently position themselves to better attract talent:

• Lip service is not enough
• Recognise purpose is not static and starts with your employees
• Emphasise purpose in recruitment and maintain it with your long-standing staff, too
• Adopt a “profit with purpose” strategy
• Close the purpose gap in leadership behaviour

The article expands on all of these gaps and lessons and is well worth the time to read. But it does end succinctly, concluding that the best hope organisations can have is to stand out through purpose.

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Photograph: jcomp on Freepik.

Help your employees channel passion

Australian comedy duo Roy and HG famously quip that “Too much sport is barely enough!” But sometimes too much can be more than enough.

An article by HRM notes while every organisation strives for engaged, passionate employees, too much passion can lead to “passion fatigue” and burnout.

Τhe industries most at risk of having employees with passion fatigue?

• Non-profit
• Healthcare
• Teaching
• Legal professionals who represent marginalised groups
• Professions with strong individual focus (sales and accounting, for example)

Often employees in these industries care too much about their stakeholders or they find the emphasis on individual performance too much.

The article notes a number of red flags for which to look in employees. These are:

• Perfectionism—typically expressed as an “all-or-nothing” attitude
• Neuroticism
• Introversion
• Inability to say no
• Inability to separate work from concept of self—“my work is my life”

You should also note whether employees are “tuning out at work, drinking more coffee than usual, making more mistakes or losing a bit of their passion. . . . They might also be more volatile, withdrawn, combative or irritable, or show up to work looking tired.”

And usually these employees won’t share their struggles until they’re already at breaking point.

So, what can you as an employer do to mitigate the potential of passion fatigue in your employees?

• Shift focus from individual performance by incorporating more group incentives
• Build more of a team culture
• Trust employees with decisions
• Help employees prioritise tasks and review workloads

The authors make an interesting sidenote about the effects of COVID-19: don’t assume everything is back to normal. Over the past few years, we’ve been operating with a “fight of flight” mentality where everything is urgent. So, help your employees better understand what the organisation’s priorities are so they can understand what’s really important.

The article reported an alarming statistic. Some 67 per cent of people couldn’t talk about their mental health at work, and all of them were often or always burned out. other reason why it’s important you develop support systems, including peer support, within the organisation to minimise the potential impact of passion fatigue.

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Photograph: Freepik.

What’s the one thing you must understand?

Organisations are striving to innovate as a way to develop and maintain competitive advantage. An article by David Schonthal in the online magazine Insight draws on his experience as an entrepreneur and now business school professor to give a new perspective on increasing the chances of a successful innovation.

The essence of the article: it’s not the what that’s important, it’s the why. By this, Schonthal means people will adopt a new innovation when it “speaks directly to the progress consumers what to make, even when people can’t tell you that themselves.” That is, you need to understand how your innovation will help people make progress they don’t even know they want.

Schonthal notes there are three dimensions people think about when considering something that purports to improve their lives. These are:

1. Functional dimension—getting something done faster or better.
2. Social dimension—how the product makes them appear to others.
3. Emotional dimension—how a given purchase makes us feel about ourselves.

The article also appreciates that most “people can’t articulate what type of product they want or convey the specific kind of progress they want to make in their lives.” Therefore, it’s vital organisations connect with their customers and clients and ask them. However, as noted, this requires an indirect process because people don’t always know.

Following are the suggestions made in the article on how to do this:

1. Focus on the past, not the future—ask about most recent experiences looking for the “clues to the kinds of solutions needed, and how to communicate their value to buyers.”
2. Exchange breadth for depth—conduct interviews for at least an hour digging deep into the “whys” behind the experiences they share.
3. Reduce friction and stop adding fuel—focus on how to reduce obstacles to consumers adopting your innovation. Forecast and then remove the barriers to the functions, social and emotional dimensions.

By adopting this approach, “customers may not be able to tell you what they want, but they can most certainly tell you what they are hoping to accomplish.” Addressing that is the key to successful innovations

Since 2019, being a director takes more time, is more difficult, and is not going to get any easier in the future. This is the summary of the introduction to the recently released McKinsey & Company report on increasing a board’s long term impact (read it here). I strongly suggest reading this report in full for your self – it is only a few pages long – but I will try and synthesize the key points into just a few paragraphs.

Essentially, McKinsey surveyed boards of directors and found that there are five key changes to processes that high-impact boards use. As noted in the report, “We identified five key changes to these operating models that very-high impact boards are significantly more likely than others to have made.” Who doesn’t want to be part of a ‘high-impact’ board? So, in summary, the fey changes are:

1. Seek company information more proactively:
   That is, asking for and obtaining from management additional information to that supplied in the board papers. This better prepares directors to “participate actively in discussion, to ask good questions, and to review the management team’s proposals more constructively and critically.”
   
   
2. Invest time in onboarding:
   Having an effective onboarding program that is partially individualised for each director and includes elements of organisational strategy and culture.
   
   
3. Increase the cadence of board evaluations:
   Most boards do not engage in regular board evaluations, so to do so, and to include individual director evaluations, sets your board apart. The report also notes that regular feedback sessions after every meeting is a useful tool.
   
   
4. Create space for nonexecutive voices:
   Allowing regular time and space in each meting for the independent directors to have candid discussions without the executives in the room “increases accountability for both the board and the organisation as a whole.”
   
   
5. Appoint a char who can facilitate effectively:
   “The chair must create a clear agenda that balances fiduciary and strategic topics, encourages all board directors to voice their opinions, and effectively synthesize and summarise different perspectives for form a good basis for decision making.”

The report unapologetically asserts that these processes are effective and give directors and board the best chance to be high-impact. How does your board compare?

Boards today are more “concerned with the appearance of good governance but not necessarily its achievement.” This bold statement is contained in Fred Hilmer’s most recent book ‘What’s Wrong With Boards: Rethinking Corporate Governance” (2022, Brio Books). Hilmer is one of Australia’s leading business strategists and academics, having extensive experience leading and consulting to major Australian companies. And this just released book tackles what he has identified as the looming failure of corporate governance.

The book contends that flawed governance is at the heart of poor company performance, and it is travelling in decline. The governance problems faced by corporate Australia are different now to those in the past and are identified as:

• The widespread poor behaviour and misconduct of senior management and boards.
• Governance failures resulting in short term increased profits at the expense of customers and employees.
• Governance issues are being identified and managed in terms of ethics and practical.

In writing this book, Hilmer noes that his “goal is to clarify the nature of the problem, identifying and applying principles that demonstrates where current practices are unhelpful, and propose solutions that we believe are worth of further proper debate and exploration.” As such, the book is divided into three parts:

1. The nature of the governance challenge
2. More-or-the-same won’t work
3. Equipping boards to meet governance challenges.

There are a number of places where conventional thinking is challenged, including stating that there is too much emphasis on conformance and not enough on performance, whereby boards “retreat into form over substance via box-ticking processes, all based on so called best practices.” It goes on to assert that “by and large unproven best practices set out what should at best be helpful guidelines but rapidly evolve to become uniform de facto rules.”

The advice to directors is that there is no one “best move” that covers all situations and Hilmer urges boards not to adopt a “best practice” model, but rather what is the best fit.

This is a very timely and engaging book, peppered with Australian and other examples. Anyone involved with a board of any type is strongly encouraged to read this book and explore its recommendations.

Change is a necessary part of organisational life for without it, we cannot move forward. Unfortunately, many of these change initiatives fail, usually because of a lack of commitment to the change rather than the initiative itself. Gaining such commitment is a key challenge for any leader, but is a vital part of creating change that lasts.

What does organisational commitment look like? Researchers suggest that organisational commitment in the context of change has the following elements:

• Commitment to the goals and values of the organisation.
• Effort exerted on behalf of the organisation.
• Psychological alignment with, or attachment to, the change.

However, not all commitment is created equal. There are actually three identified types of organisational commitment:

Affective commitment – emotional attachment. Think of this as ‘buy-in’, where it is driven buy a strong belief in the organisation and a desire to remain.

Continuance commitment – economic attachment. This is driven by the ‘sunk costs’ concept, where a person stays with the organisation because it would be too disruptive to their life to leave.

Normative commitment – moral attachment. This is driven out of a sense of obligation and guilt at the thought of leaving.

Feeding into commitment is the acceptance of the change. Herbert Kelman suggests there are three levels of acceptance, which produce differing levels of attitudinal and behavioural changes:

1. Compliance: People accept the influence to gain favourable outcomes and avoid unfavourable ones. Summarised as a change in behaviour.
2. Identification: People accept the influence to preserve a relationship, not because of the content. Summarised as a change in feelings.
3. Internalisation: People adopt the desired behaviours because the ideas and arguments within the message are in line with their own belief systems. Summarised as a change in the underlying attitudes of individuals.

Why are these levels important? Because is helps distinguish whether your people are acting out of simple obedience, or because they have bought into the vision and are internally committed to making it happen with you. External obedience only lasts as long as there is external surveillance to oversee it. Internalisation remains even in the absence of external surveillance, because the individual possesses the internal motivation to work towards the vision. It will mean you spend more time feeding into the change process in the early stages, but less time policing behaviour in the long-term.

While commitment driven out of obligation will produce short term results in the form of compliance, this is not sustainable. To maximise the long-term success of changes, focus on gaining the emotional commitment that will lead to a deep and continuing internal motivation.

You’re a key but not the leader

The leader–second relationship is one of the most important in an organisation. The synergy between the two can result in something greater than the sum of the parts. A lack of synergy? Disaster.

Writing and research about the second-in-charge (2IC) or second-chair role is limited, despite its importance to organisational success. But what has been published provides some key findings for the leader, the 2IC and those who appoint them.

In his 2015 MBA research project on second-chair leadership¹, Nicholous Deal notes the 2IC is “called to service an altruistic purpose through leveraging influence with the first chair and followers.” This is the key for 2IC leaders. While not necessarily having positional authority, they can have a lot of influence. Leaders play an important role here by conferring on the 2IC status within the organisation. Not doing so typically yields a negative impact on the leadership structures and relationships of the organisation.

It’s a complex task to succeed as a 2IC in part because of paradoxes noted by Bonem and Patterson² that the 2 IC must manage. These paradoxes are:

1. Subordinate–Leader: The 2IC has a significant leadership role yet is still a subordinate who must find ways to be successful as both.
2. Deep–Wide: The 2IC needs skills that have both the broad organisation-wide perspective but also can go deep in a narrow area of operations.
3. Contentment–Dreaming: The 2IC needs to be, and be seen to be, content with where they are while still maintaining a sense of a God-given calling for the future.

While balancing these paradoxes rests with the 2IC, other factors can also contribute to a successful leader–second relationship. In his PhD dissertation³, Benjamin Dow looked into the leader–second relationship and noted the following as being key to a successful relationship:

• The bigger the difference between the two leaders of their extroversion and openness, the better their combined performance.
• The bigger the difference between the two leaders of their agreeableness, the more negative their combined performance.
• Differences in the two leaders levels of expertise is not important, provided the wider senior leadership team has a range of skills to complement.

This essentially is saying introverts and extroverts complement each other, but where one leader is tolerant and trusting and the other isn’t, there is a negative impact. These are important considerations when appointing people to either the leader or 2IC roles.

Influence and relationships are key factors in the leader–second partnership, and those involved in the appointment process need to give more attention to getting the mix right.

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Photograph: LinkedIn Sales Solutions on Unsplash.

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1. Deal, N (2015). Is leading from the second chair a new leadership theory: Examining the theoretical underpinnings. MBA research project, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax

2. Bonem, M & Patterson, R (2005). Leading from the second chair. Josey-Bass

3. Dow, B (2019). The leader-second dyad: How complementarity and status impact collective performance. PhD dissertation, The University of Texas, Austin.

How have you coped with the new digital life? A just released report, the 2022 Deloitte Connectivity and Mobile Trends Study (3^rd ed.) (click here to read it), looks at this issue based on US households, but its findings are easily transferable into the Australian and NZ contexts given our similar technology experiences. It looks at the post-Covid experiences of households following the seismic shift to technology dependence during the worst of the pandemic. So where are we now?

The study focuses on three themes, which the led to some ongoing challenges and thoughts for going forward. The three major themes explored are:

1. Optimizing devices and connectivity:
   Following the violent move to technology, with all the trauma and associated steep learning curve, the report found that most have now come to a “truce” with technology and are working out what “devices they want to incorporate into their new balance of physical and digital.” Stating the obvious, most households are now using smart technology much more than pre-covid – the issue revolves around getting the balance right.
   
2. Evolving approaches to work and school
   The shift to remote working and learning caused by the pandemic has become somewhat permanent, but to what degree? Not surprisingly, workers are divided on the idea of a total return to the workplace. Consequently, a hybrid approach to work that permits a degree of flexibility where possibly is becoming the new normal. The abrupt move to remote learning caught many unawares resulting in a broad spectrum of experiences ranging from horrific to adequate. As time has permitted a more considered approach, and experience has now informed, the remote learning journey has improved, and elements of it are also here to stay.
   
3. Managing wellness:
   Many would say that the pandemic fast-tracked virtual healthcare and the extensive use of mobile apps to manage health and fitness. While identifying a number of challenges with virtual healthcare, many elements of it are here to stay. And interestingly 41% of the survey respondents own and use a smartwatch or fitness tracker.

The report also identified three major ongoing challenges with the irreversible integration of digital into our daily lives. These are:

• Security and privacy
• Screen overload
• Tech fatigue

The report concludes by raising a number of considerations that all parties involved in the development, use and regulation of our digital world need to take into account to both enhance and simplify the experiences of people’s digital lives.

Repetition: it’s key to effective leadership

I get annoyed when politicians repeat their rehearsed “sound bites.” I struggle hearing the same story for the umpteenth time. But it does help me to remember.

A recent Adam Grant blog looked at just released research about the price leaders pay for not communicating enough. It’s a great summary that captures the main points well. He notes that effective communication involved repetition to reinforce messaging.

The main finding of the study is that leaders are penalised more for saying too little than for saying too much. In fact, “leaders were over nine times more likely to be criticised for under communication then for over communicating.” That’s a big differential. And even more importantly, “people who under communicated were judged as unqualified to lead because they lacked empathy.”

The lesson from this research: “When you hesitate to repeat your ideas, you don’t just fail to get your point across—you come across as if you don’t care.”

My youngest daughter can hear a song once and remember the words forever, but for the rest of us mere mortals, we need to hear them repeatedly before we know them by heart.

When you feel as though you’ve repeated your message too much, you’re probably just starting to be heard. Should I say that again?

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Photograph: karlyukav on Freepik.

The Avondale Business School exists in large part to provide graduates who have the SDA values, and a spirit of purpose, and can form a pool of potential employees for SDA employers. While that is not our sole purpose, it is certainly our origin story, and is still relevant today.

However, young people now have no limit on the range of potential careers from which to choose, and like all universities we have also experienced a decline in the number of students choosing to study a business degree. And yet the demand for marketing, human resource management and accounting professionals has increased, creating a shortage that employers are struggling to fill.

Recognising this, Avondale University, the South Pacific Division of the SDA Church and Avondale University Partnerships Ltd have combined to offer a range of exciting initiatives for students to encourage students to study at Avondale University in 2023. Fuller details of the developments can be found by clicking on the following link CLICK HERE.

In summary, these include (T&Cs do apply):

• A scholarship for first year business students of $600 fee discount per first year business subject (that’s a total of $4800 for the year!)
• Free accommodation for 18 months to all students who enroll in a full-time degree
• All new students will be part of the Avondale Character Experience (ACE Lab) program, which helps young people become the best versions of themselves by involving them in experiences that are challenging focused on building belonging and aimed at connecting them with service, nature, and God.

Remember also that Avondale University in 2021 was ranked the number one university in Australia for the best student experience. These great new initiatives offer our young people the chance to live and study at Avondale while gaining not only a top quality values-based business degree, but also life changing experiences and the best university student experience in Australia. You can help by encouraging people you know to choose Avondale University. To register interest, just CLICK HERE to register.