Episode #477: Leadership's Necessary Cocktail of Strategy, Culture and Brand
THE Leadership Japan Series
Leadership encompasses many required skills and mind sets and it is always interesting to dissect the topic from fresh angles to shed some light on areas where we could be making a bigger effort. Japan has hordes of managers, but no so many leaders. The managers here are great at getting the operational side of things humming like a finely tuned engine. They are brilliant on eliminating errors and avoiding defects. Deadlines get met, things work well and the wheels of commerce turn as they were designed to do. Leaders do all of these things, plus some important additions. They build the people and they set the direction for the enterprise.
There are many levels of leadership and so many levels of strategy too. The CEO nestled high on the Executive Floor works with the Division Heads and collaboratively they set the overall strategy for the organisation. At each level below, the leaders should set their strategies to fit under the overall umbrella determined by the big bosses. Except in Japan mostly they don’t. The managers here don’t see their role as taking that bigger picture strategy and then creating a grass roots version of it, one which points back to the main goals and direction of the company. The WHY of the strategy has usually gone missing too and the focus is on what and occasionally on the how.
How much more powerful it would be if the section heads involved their teams in breaking apart the overall strategy and then collectively coming up with their ideas on how they can construct a local strategy to deliver the outcomes within the frame of reference. The real genius in most organisations lies with those at the coal face. They are closest to the customers and they pick up the nuances, hints, and shifts which make up the flow of business on a daily basis. The high floor C-Suite denizens are often decades away from that level of understanding of the market and their muscle memory is often out of date. If the strategy at the execution point can take on the complexion of the nexus with the market realities, then this is a real advantage over rivals for the same customer base.
The culture reflects the reality. If it is focused on doing that you are told, then a big chunk of creativity is sacrificed for orthodoxy and supposedly consistent, no defect efficiency. Busy lower level bosses do not coach anyone. They are simply too busy. They are reduced to barking out of orders and micromanaging the results, to make sure there are no stains on their record. In big companies, patrons gather supporters and extract loyalty as a tax for promotion and support. The enemy often becomes that other division, whose head is your boss’s rival for the next level of promotion. The energy of the culture us now turned inward on itself and like rampant white ants loose in the enterprise, starts to hollow out the organisation.
A better culture would be one where the creativity of the group is harnessed, ideas are sourced and people are thanked for their contribution. Those closest to the action are consulted and their responses are seriously considered. There is a very good flow of information from the top to the bottom and the WHY is very clear to everyone. The enemy is outside the enterprise, in the form of commercial rivals duking it out in the market place, for the customer’s business.
The brand concept isn’t just reduced to the logo and tagline. When the leadership creates the better culture, the individuals in the organisation are aware of their professional personal brand. The values and principles around work add up to a way of approaching tasks with a laser focus on professionalism, reliability, creativity and integrity. Being able to put up ideas is a part of the brand. Being heard is part of the brand. This dynamic creates a different type of teamwork from the “all hands to the oars of the slave ship” culture of organisations run by managers, who have no idea of what leadership entails. Beating the drum and lashing the oar bearers is a dead duck culture and will not create the right brand internally, one sufficiently strong enough to win in the marketplace.
The alignment of individual values with those of the organisation, doesn’t come about because a CEO email was broadcast far and wide within the enterprise. The middle level leader’s job is to understand the value set of the team and work with them individually to arrive at some core values everyone can sign on for. The slave ship is transformed into a volunteer corps of committed people, trying to win against external rivals. They are proud of the brand of the company and what it stands for, because the rhetoric and actions match up. They are polishing their professional brands, because they are committed to self-improvement and feel encouraged to do so.
By the way, is this how you can describe the culture in your organisation right now? Do your people understand the strategy? Have they created a local extension of it, based on their knowledge of the customers? Are they aware of their personal, professional brands? So, how is the cocktail mixing process going down at your shop?