A humble invisible pathogen is revealing many truths about leadership.
Speed matters. Covid-19 spreads fast because it multiplies with normal human interaction. Controlling its outcomes calls for fast decisions not planning bureaus. This does not mean action without thinking, it means fast thinking and fast action. Moving ahead imperfectly is better than perfectly stalling, good leaders have already understood this. Versatility matters. Leaders should be both authoritative and empowering. There are moments for barking out orders and moments of sharing opinions, moments where micro-management is crucial and moments where it is best to hand over full control. Adaptability is surely a mark of good leadership. Co-operation matters. Even the most rugged individualists accept that the challenge of the day can only be confronted by working with other people, other organizations, other communities, other countries, sharing know-how and solutions. A spirit of compassion and collaboration goes much farther than one of competition and confrontation. Good leaders profoundly understand this and act giving credence to virtue or αρετή as described by Plato in ancient Athens. In what ways are you co-operating with others in the heyday of the coronavirus? Dimis Michaelides Keynote speaker, author, trainer and consultant in Leadership, Creativity & Innovation. www.dimis.org dimis@dimis.org
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Covid-19, a microscopic piece of genetic material, is testing our leadership.
Competence matters. In the midst of our crisis today we turn to the leadership of experts – epidemiologists, researchers, pharmacologists, doctors, health professionals, food producers, food distributors, refuse collectors, public utilities. We turn to political leaders, company leaders, community leaders, volunteers, family and so many more. Character matters. Whether our leaders are considerate or brutal, honest or duplicitous, co-operative or combative, altruistic or narcissistic is very important. Trust matters, and it matters more than ever, and trust is at its highest when leadership combines high competence with good character. We matter too, you and I. Our own personal leadership skills are tested as we take on new responsibilities and make decisions that affect ourselves and others in situations that are new for everybody. Think about this, dear reader: How are you exercising your leadership skills in the heyday of the coronavirus? Dimis Michaelides Keynote speaker, author, trainer and consultant in Leadership, Creativity & Innovation. www.dimis.org dimis@dimis.org Politicians and bureaucrats are condemned to co-exist with each other and with the other pivots of entrepreneurship: businessmen. Sweet or toxic their symbiosis is necessary, as they are both key players in the innovation game. A private company in a capitalist system will innovate by starting up a new enterprise, or by improving its products and services, or by launching new products and services, or by extending its markets, or by reducing its cost base, or by changing its business model, strategy and structure. In competitive systems, private companies are learning to adapt to faster change because the alternative is to wither and die.
Government has many roles in innovation. First, a direct role in innovation through public institutions such as universities and research centers. Government can undertake fundamental research which has large costs and few immediate commercial benefits like the large Hadron collider, space travel and renewable energy. Or it can subsidize such research or promising areas. Mariana Mazzucato, a public innovation expert, has shown how 6 of the 8 most important features of the first smartphone (Apple’s i-phone) were generated by government or with public funds. Second, government is an essential part of the ecosystem for Innovation. Creativity is imagining something new and making it happen.
The novelty can be big or small, radically new or somewhat different. Imagination is vital. So is action because the value of creative ideas is realized only when they are implemented. New ideas always involve a change of mindset. According to Russel Ackoff creativity is the ability to identify and overcome self-imposed constraints. Making conscious efforts to see things in new ways is very important and not always easy. We have ample evidence-based research that we are all creative. We are not equally creative nor do we use our creative skills in the same ways. Yet we can all further develop our own creative skills. In our times of fast and accelerating change, more and more organizations are recognizing the value of creativity, without which no innovation can happen. A recent IBM survey of 1500+ CEOs concludes that creativity is the most significant leadership skill. The following twelve tips will help you improve your creative skills at work and in life. Tip # 1 Idea generation is only part of the process. First, do the groundwork - explore, understand and clearly define your challenge – beforeyou start seeking creative ... Fuelled by creativity, imagination, reason, science and technology, innovation has served as the basis of human progress since the beginning of history. Innovation increases happiness as it solves problems, satisfies needs and makes people better off. It is essential for our well-being. I do not subscribe to the nostalgic nonsense that technology is evil and dangerous and that “good old days” are gone forever. Of course we need to understand that innovation always happens within a socio-political context which in turn shapes its outcomes. The costs and benefits of innovation can be very unevenly distributed and this, in turn, impacts society and politics. Innovation often serves selfish and even evil purposes. And it is undoubtedly impacting climate too, in ways which only international co-operation can address, and it shall do so with more, not less, innovation. At the level of individuals, the renowned psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has shown how happiness and creativity are intimately related in two seminal books*. Innovation practitioners will also attest to the importance of personal engagement and enjoyment in the act of collaborative creation. Beyond individuals and teams, companies and communities, what might we learn from surveying happiness at the level of nation-states? The World Happiness Report 2019**, commissioned by the UN and edited by economists Helliwell, Layard and Sachs, is the 7th of its kind. It is a pioneering study in the emerging science of happiness which shows how the quality of people’s lives can be coherently, reliably and validly assessed by a variety of measures of subjective well-being. (See table) "We have become entrepreneurs first by deeply realising our artistic identity and then by creating an entity that will support that identity." We have learned to understand different forms of art in categories with common themes suggested by art critics, like impressionism, fauvism, cubism, surrealism, abstract expressionism, op art, pop art and many more. William Gompertz, Arts Editor at the BBC, offered a word to bring together a large number of contemporary artists who are in vogue today: Entrepreneurialism – characterizes a group of artists whose common theme is to have recognized and taken on art in many ways as a business start-up. He cites Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Jeff Koons, Murakami and Ai Weiwei among others, and one might even add Cirque du Soleil.
(re: Will Gompertz: “What are you Looking at? 150 years of Modern Art in the Blink of an Eye”, Viking 2012). Throughout the ages some artists have always been more commercially minded than others, but a set of artists active today is more openly learning from business and blending with it. Dr Sophia Serghi, educator, musician and entrepreneur and Dr Joan Gavaler, educator, choreographer and performer, Professors at William and Mary College, Virginia, responded to some of my questions about business and the arts. Published by Better Business Focus Magazine - November 2019The essence of timing, improvisation and exiting the realm of reasonLeading innovation in organizations calls for changing strategies (objectives, business models), structures (processes, systems, hierarchies and ways of working) and cultures (behaviours, attitudes and organizational norms). Some attempts at deep transformational change succeed (IBM and Whirlpool are well documented) and many fail (Kodak and Borders books come to mind). The failures are often because of bad timing, skillsets that cannot cope with the unknown and an unreasonable imprisonment within the realm of reason. Here are three tips to overcome these challenges.
Tip #1: Set the pace and stick to it Timing is always of the essence when change is effected in organizations. Keeping a lookout on what is going on out there and reasoned judgment on what new things are on the way are vital for strategic planning. Changes in the business context are of course beyond any single company’s control. To forge a new strategy and gain competitive advantage in a new business context, especially one that is greatly affected by digitalization and new technology in its many forms, established companies must also transform themselves internally. This might mean extensive firing and/or hiring, redeployment, new jobs with new work content, new chains of command and changing the content and form of communication with clients and colleagues. Change is always disruptive in that, for a period, the organization will be working both in the old way and the new way. In the process not all people will be equally happy because people have different rates of resisting, accepting or adopting change. Crisis management nearly always requires more directive leadership (and less time to discuss) whilst anticipative strategies can be more participatory. In any case setting a pace for the new way to completely replace the old way is essential and, in general, fast is better than slow. Executive Excellence - Combine Leadership and Management to Create and Deliver Value |
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