Why is it that most companies neglect to train leaders before promoting them? Why is it that after promoting leaders to fail, we are the first to point fingers and say that they are no good? Why is it that training leaders are not a priority?

As I watched one of Simon Sinek’s talk on ‘the long game’, a realization dawned on me. I saw only two companies that understand the importance of training leaders. That is not a lot compared to over 30 years of corporate experience. All employees in line for promotion (or new leaders hired from outside the company) have to undergo this three-month program.

I can still recall this quote I saw hanging on the wall of the HR Division of a huge Commercial Bank in Saudi. It’s a quote from management guru Peter Drucker. It says “If you think training is expensive, try ignorance.”

Try ignorance. You will see leaders waiting for instructions instead of leading. You will see leaders mimicking bad leadership practices because they don’t know better. You will see leaders taking credit for the work that their teams accomplished. You will see leaders shunning accountability for the failure of their team. They are quick to point fingers at their people. Some of them even do so in public. As expected, this leaves a bad feeling for the rest of the employees.

Not developing your people and your leadership rank is very short-sighted. Companies are so focused on making a quick profit. They set aside the long-term financial gains of developing great leaders. It’s a long game, my friends. You may win now, but poor leadership will harm the organization a few years down the line.

Why are Japanese companies so successful with decades of market dominance? For one thing, they understand the importance of investing in people development. The other is that they play the long game. They look at how their decisions today will benefit the company years from now and not just for the next quarter.

It’s such a logical decision to develop your people and leaders. Yet, not a lot of companies have such development plans. The former CEO of the National Commercial Bank doubles the training budget in difficult times. Other companies are slashing away.

Why double? Because developing our leaders and our people is more important in difficult times. We need them to perform better. It’s easy to be a good leader when times are great. It’s easy to take credit for a strong market. It’s easy to claim the success of a strong and respected brand. It’s easy to bask in your ego.

But, how does this same under-developed leader perform in challenging times? He will not know what he does not know. They have to know and learn strong leadership practices. They have to learn it now.

A similar mistake happens when promoting employees to leadership roles. They assume that a strong subject matter expert is a great leader. Newsflash! The skills needed to be a great subject matter expert and a strong leader are different.

Promoting a great sales executive into a sales management role is bound to fail without a development plan. By doing this, we destroyed the role he left behind. We took out a strong sales executive from the sales force. We also destroyed the role of the sales manager. We placed someone who was not provided the right tools into the leadership role. After a few months in the job, the sales manager quits because he was not happy with his new role. He will be struggling to motivate, empower and develop his team. There is also the possibility that he will boss them around. Worse, the higher-ups get rid of him and label him as an incompetent leader.

I have been around in the corporate world long enough to see the damage of these decisions. Such decisions impact the promoted leader, the people around him, and the company.

The quality of leadership in a company is very important. The quality of leadership determines the success or failure of the organization. Let’s equip our leaders, let’s invest in them, let’s mentor them, let’s grow them to be great leaders. There are a few things more important than this.Jordan Imutan

Our house burned down when my siblings and I were still very little. It was late at night when my mom woke up from a loud commotion coming from our second-floor window. Barely awake, she stumbled towards the window. As soon as she opened her eyes, most of our neighbors were running up and down the street carrying their items. Parents had their children in tow. The little ones could hardly keep their eyes open, embracing their pillows trying to keep up with their parent’s rapid strides.

My mom shouts to the frantic crowd asking ‘what’s the matter?’ An elderly man in his boxing shorts and plain white shirt points up towards the direction of our roof shouting ‘fire’. My mom shakes my dad so hard that he falls off the bed. With a loud ‘thud’, he angrily wakes up. In less than five minutes, we were all out of the house.

As we watched from the street, we witnessed the fire from the neighbor’s rooftop slowly crawl to our rooftop. Out of the blue, our Iranian neighbor appears in front of us. Masood, a dental student, living with his wife two blocks away from us. As soon as he heard about the fire, he rushes over to see if we were okay.

Watching the fear and concern on our faces, Masood talks to three bystanders. The second time I turned to look at them, Masood and the group was running towards our home. The group braved the fire. By now, our roof was on fire. One by one they hauled our appliances and furniture out of our home. One of the by-standers stood to watch over our things. In less than thirty minutes, they brought out as many things as they can. By now, the fire traveled down to the first floor. There was no way anyone can enter our house.

Looking back years later, I share this testimony as proof that anyone can lead. Masood was not your typical textbook ‘leader’ with a great job title. He was a foreign student who influenced three Filipinos to join him save as much of our belongings as possible.

If you influence others, then you are a leader. I am not talking about dictatorship or leading using fear. These people are not influencing. People follow them simply because they have no other choice. People are following them until they find a new job. People are following them because they need their pay. People are following them thinking they have no choice.

Real leaders can influence others to follow them onward toward their vision. This ability can be inborn or developed. Leadership is primarily about effectively influencing others. You don’t need a fancy job title to be a true leader. All you need is the skill to influence others.

#anyonecanlead

It has been almost four years since I last spoke to my friend B.B. I reached out to him a few weeks ago and we finally touched base last week. He has an interesting job as the University Director of a large Telecommunications company. I walked him through what I am currently doing as well. He unselfishly asked me to send him an email about the different services/products we provide. He is happy to forward the email to the right person within his company.

B.B. also walked me through his companies approach to leadership learning and development. Their primary focus is Leadership development and leadership wellness. Leaders cannot give what they don’t have. The current focus is their ‘Inventiveness’ competency.

Inventiveness, as he defines it, is a leaders ability to get their teams to come-up with solutions to todays challenges using whatever resource they have in hand. However, as they ran these program across the company the result was not very promising. Leaders where not able to raise the level of inventiveness of their respective functions. The company then had a foreign consulting firm design and run a survey to get to the root of the problem.

The results finally came out after a short time and they found it strange that their creative abilities or inventiveness was quite high. Apparently, the issue was with their teams. Even more specifically, the issue was with the teams low phycological safety. Even though some of the teams have been worked together for a while now, they had not yet normalized. Most of the teams were stuck between the forming and storming stages of team maturity. After getting to the root of the issue. the company then ran a program to help teams normalize and thrive in the new normal. The program proved to be successful after a couple of runs.

After we concluded our reunion, I got to think more about inventiveness. It seemed like the younger brother of the powerful framework used by organizations to reposition their products and services in todays new normal. There are slightly different approaches to the model but they carry the same principle. There is Design Thinking, Design Sprint and so on.

Let’s go back to the definition from my friend. Solving todays challenges with whatever resource you have at hand. We laughed when he used the former hit show ‘MacGyver’ as an analogy. MacGyver would always get out of his predicament using his Swiss Army Knife and whatever he had at hand. This important ‘inventiveness’ competency again resonated with me when I reached out the next day to an old friend who owns a ‘medrep’ outsource company.

Cathy had a dilemma when the pandemic hit. Her employees could not go to supermarkets, doctors and hospitals due to the lockdown. She started thinking of her situation and instead of complaining, she did a quick inventory of what resources she had. She has people on float that she can call back, she had medrep training rooms that was not being used, she had access to pre-paid SIM cards and pre-paid load.

She then assigned outbound and inbound call agents. She is not in the BPO industry. She is also not an expert on the topic. However, the businesswoman in her would not let her sit still. She had to reposition some of her services to adopt to the new normal.

With ten (seven outbound and three inbound) call agents they started calling the people listed in their huge database. They grew their database through the years. They started putting together templates or scripts for both types of calls. They also created scripts for handling complaints. Lately, they purchased a proper telephone system that can record calls for quality control, route inbound calls and so on.

For me. this is a perfect example of ‘inventiveness’ competency in action.

How about you? How about your company? Are you repositioning your products and services to be relevant in todays new normal? Are you repositioning your skills for the same reason? Are you stubbornly doing business the same way you did? Are you thinking that your current business model got you to where you are. However, it may be best to remember that what got you there will not be the same business model that will get you to the next level. What got Blockbuster to their sheer size and success as a business was the same business model that caused them to close shop when Netflix got into the market.

What are you doing differently to make you or your company relevant in todays world?

My take from todays message thanks to Pastor Doc Jun

Todays world has thrown our normal lives into an unpredictable ocean filled with waves and strong currents. What used to be normal is no longer so. Such a massive turn-of-events affected people from all walks of life. Companies and governments big and small are scrambling to get solid footing once again.

We had been too busy living our lives that we had not spent enough time with God and our love ones. In the last 80 days, we can no longer claim that we are too busy for our Maker. God has cleared our agendas.

A lot of us were greatly affected by the recent series of community quarantines. A lot of us has lost so much. A lot of us started settling lower that what we expect from life.

Do not settle for less. We have a Big God that can take us to a bigger and brighter future. A Big God that can bring us bigger blessings beyond our expectation. Raise up our eyes to our Big God in this season of challenges. As we build or rebuild our relationship with God, expect that a Big God can rebuild our lives, our careers, our businesses.

We just need to lift up our eyes to a Big God and understand that all these had to happen so that we can build a stronger relationship with Him. We need to understand, as well, that our God is a Big God capable of Big opportunities, blessings and changes in our lives.

Don’t look down, lift up our eyes to our Big God.

Acts 3:1-10 ESV The Lame Beggar Healed
1 Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour.[a] 2 And a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple that is called the Beautiful Gate to ask alms of those entering the temple. 3 Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive alms. 4 And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” 5 And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. 6 But Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” 7 And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. 8 And leaping up, he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. 9 And all the people saw him walking and praising God, 10 and recognized him as the one who sat at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, asking for alms. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

There is a quote in the Arab world that loosely translates to “In the desert, a person walking for miles will try to drink the sand for lack of water.” In times of crisis, people will start to make up and believe in rumors due to a lack of information. We cannot underestimate the power of communication. This is even more valid in a crisis situation. Lack of communication can fuel chaos in any organization. Lack of communication stirs up rumors and fear.

There has to be a communication plan in place in a crisis situation. There has to be a person accountable for orchestrating the dissemination of information. Information needs to be transparent, relevant, and timely. Communication has to be continuous. Stale communication is useless. The damage has been done with the spreading of rumors. Transparency in our communication is essential. We cannot sugarcoat or ignore key issues. We also have to frame our communication in a positive manner.

In times such as these, what people need is hope. People need to hope that this crisis has a cycle and will eventually pass. We need to encourage perseverance in our communication. We need to empathize with the recipient of our communication. We need to put ourselves in their shoes. How are they feeling? What are their fears? We need to tailor our communication to positively address these fears. In times like these, more people come to their knees and seek hope in God. In times like these, we need to encourage them to seek solace in God.

We always say that there is a reason for everything. In crisis situations, we need to highlight the positive changes that is happening as well. In these times, more people reach out to God. More groups are praying every single day. More people are taking the time to bond with their loved ones. More people have become conscious of their buying habits. People are now focusing on what they need instead of what they want. People started spending more time developing their hobbies like; cooking, learning a musical instrument, reading more books and so on. We also learned to appreciate some of the professions we took for granted in the past – the front liners.

We also have to be courageous enough to acknowledge that what has been successful in the past may not be as successful in the next or new normal. We need to take a careful look at our business models, products, and services. We need to see how we can adapt them to the new normal. It will be foolish to think that the public will go back to its old normal buying patterns after the lockdown. It is not logical to think that what made our products and services successful prior to the epidemic will still be exactly the same formula for success post lockdown. It may be the same with careers and professions. Which careers will thrive in the new normal? What working environment will be adopted in the new normal? What digital tools do we need to master to keep relevant in the new normal economy?

Along with repositioning our; business, products, and services, how do we redesign our end-to-end value chain processes to support the changes? We need to be more agile in testing out new/updated products, product delivery, and services. We need to have a digital transformation strategy and execute it quickly. We need to have a digital strategy for developing our people and execute it quickly. We cannot leave these things to chance. We cannot thrive depending on the status quo.

Much will change and it’s our and our organization’s ability to adopt that will spell the difference between success and more difficulty.

Have you carefully given these things enough thought during the lockdown?

How will you adapt to the new normal?

 

 

How businesses will look like post lockdown has always been something I have been thinking about this past month. There are two things that are certain; most of the old business models that help companies earn their revenue may not be as effective as before, second – we need to think of new ways of doing business and providing our products and services.

I came across a great article from the biggest consulting firm in the world – McKinsey & Co. The article below is a follow-through from a previous one discussing the qualities that will be critical for business leaders in the next normal economy; resolve, resilience, return, reimagination, and reform.

Interestingly, their research went deeper with this particular article ‘From surviving to thriving: Reimagining the post-COVID-19 return.’ The study provides a framework on how to reposition businesses with four areas of focus:

1. Recover revenue
2. Rebuilding operations
3. Rethinking the organization
4. Accelerating the adaptation of digital solutions.

You may benefit from reading the article using this link:

https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/from-surviving-to-thriving-reimagining-the-post-covid-19-return

You can also check out the pdf version here.

From-surviving-to-thriving-Reimagining-the-post-COVID-19-return

Join us every Mondays to Saturdays 3pm for our daily prayer vigil

Facebook – #CBTLinMe