A conversation on leadership with Bruce Anderson and Dr Travis kemp
Today we are “in conversation with” Bruce Anderson, Managing Director of Lee Hecht Harrison here in Australia and Dr Travis Kemp the newly anointed head of Leadership Development and Coaching. Until recently Travis was the CEO of The Teleran Group. In May this year LHH acquired the Teleran Group thereby creating a new force in leadership development expertise across Australia and New Zealand.
We managed to grab some of their precious time to pick their brains on the topic of trends in leadership in Australia and New Zealand.
Welcome Gentlemen!
Despite the general economic gloom, Australia appears to be seeing a resurgence in the war for quality talent. Good people are a rare and valuable commodity. How should leaders respond to this conundrum?
TK: Yes, the war for talent is an interesting and often overused phrase. In my experience many people really struggle to define what talent really means. In many cases it’s a highly subjective test based on some general notion of “what works around here.” But the research is quite clear, just because someone has done well up to now has no bearing on how they will perform moving forward.
Funnily enough, when we do develop a deeper understanding of the skills, experience, culture and environment that leads to high performance there is actually a much deeper pool of talent than was previously understood, but it has remained “unsurfaced” to this point. So the challenge for leaders is to think more creatively about what and where they need and to go and look for that talent from within their ranks.
In the industry there is a lot of time being put into creating a more objective methodology. The challenge is measuring the right elements. Are the high performers being promoted at the right time and at the right pace so they don’t derail themselves and fail?
Culturally, this is often hard in many organizations as many senior people are wedded to the idea of “what works around here” and its can be quite an extended process to bring about real change.
BA: It’s a challenging environment and only likely to get more so. First and foremost I would encourage all leaders to be proactive about this challenge. Start by being clear about the business critical roles within their organisation plus the core skills and attributes required to be successful in these. Then identify those individuals who could be viable replacements in these key roles and assess them against the key criteria.
Sometimes the toughest part of the process is having those career planning conversations with those identified individuals and we find there is a real need for development and assistance for the leader at this point of the process.
You and your teams work with leaders every day, how does executive coaching, specifically, help solve some of the big problems leader's face?
BA: The development of critical talent and senior staff to achieve business results is critical to leaders who care about creating a truly sustainable organization. Of course they themselves may not have the time available, capability or skills to undertake this work. Coaches working with the leader and the coachee are able to overcome this constraint, though it is important the leader set clear expectations as to what the coach is expected to achieve with the coachee. The coach is able to focus on the objectives of their assignment with the coachee whilst the business leader has a broader range of expectations of the coachee which they can focus upon. The coach works to assist the individual to improve their performance as an adjunct to the direction and feedback from their manager.
TK: Exactly, and one of the reasons Executive Coaching has seen such rapid growth over the last ten years, is because it has been shown to be more effective, over time, in creating real change rather than, say, traditional classroom style learning. Getting behavior change to really stick is the key challenge.
An Executive Coach has to change their coachee’s thinking, change what they do and how they relate to people they are leading and how effective they are at getting jobs done through other people.
We are seeing up to four generations in the same organisation with a huge range of experience levels, motivators and ambitions. Juggling the demands of these differing generations and getting the most from their teams, must be a challenge for the modern leader. What are some best practices you would recommend?
BA: The demands upon business leaders continue to climb with the ever-expanding range of ages of employees and their needs being but one of these. In a decade it is highly probable the range of ages within business will be 18 to 75 with mid 70's no longer being an anomaly.
Yet the key requirements of a leader don’t really change. What leaders must provide is a clear direction for the people within an organization. “What does success look like?” “How and when it will be measured?” This might sound somewhat simplistic but the regular clear and concise communication of this information and current progress is too often forgotten. With an intergenerational workforce this essential task is made more complex. There is a need for a broader set of success criteria. Older, more experienced staff, (and I include myself in this group!), maybe well satisfied with financial measures and how they will be achieved whereas those more recent additions to the workforce are very interested in the contribution made to the community and how that is delivered and measured. "Sure we need to make a profit, but what are we doing to assist others in our community besides making money?"
The critical links for all staff are generally found in these questions ,"What role am I to play in bringing success, how will I be measured, will my efforts be acknowledged and rewarded, and do you value me? " It is the role of all organizational leaders to be able to answer, action and demonstrate these. An additional question from the high performers and critical talent "How are you going to assist me develop and grow my career? Leaders need to know their people, what motivates and interests them and speak to them regularly in a way that provides the answers they want in a manner they understand. Importantly be consistent in your words and actions.
TK: I couldn’t agree more. This question in my view is more broadly about diversity, about different experiences, ages and ethnicities. Humans are fundamentally unique and organizations are starting to get their head around the idea that if they have 5,000 people in the organization then they have 5,000 unique personalities. It’s tempting to think in stereotypes and of course it’s easier and minimizes complexity, speeds up decision making, but its not necessarily that useful.
The better organizations are creating systems and hiring processes and procedures that are much more flexible, A fifty year old manager today is much different from a 50 year old manager ten, fifteen or twenty years ago. The idea that you “Can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” is manifestly wrong. The evidence simply doesn’t support it. With notions such as lifelong learning, your staff can keep on growing and learning and adding value. We will see people changing careers in their sixties and seventy and eighty year olds contributing their wisdom to organizations just not via a nine to five, thirty seven and a half hour week employment contract. The need to fill your pipeline with twenty years olds from university will exist to a much lesser extent.
What are some of the trends you are seeing in the field of Leadership Development and Executive coaching?
TK: Leadership Development and Executive Coaching in particular is a sexy term and everyone has to be seen to be doing it. Though the big shift is that we have moved away from behavior driven models of leadership, towards a much richer understanding of how people lead. Leaders are being seen as human, fallible and imperfect as the next person and often on a steep learning curve of their own.
There is an understanding that leadership is an expression of behavior rather than an assigned hierarchical role. Leaders are developing a much stronger sense of self. Self awareness is a core element of effective leadership. Leaders are starting to realize, “how I behave, affects how effective I am.” Showing their vulnerability and fallibility is no longer seen as a weakness. People are influenced by others to whom they relate and accessible, successful leadership is about wielding influence not hierarchical control and it’s about the quality of the relationship, not just about compliance.
So executive coaching is about how do I use who I am to best effect to get the best results from my team. It’s really about creating that self awareness.
Interestingly coaching, whilst its still a key element to many successful executive’s personal development, is moving out of the corner office and is being more widely available. Why? Because smart leaders know they need to invest in the sustainable leadership of their organization and so its smart to invest in the next generation of leaders to prevent dysfunctional leadership and creating a sustainable leadership development structure.
BA: Well put Travis, at LHH, we are seeing our client’s leaders putting up their hands and acknowledging they are having problems with the so called “soft skills.” I see an increasing recognition that being an effective leader is less about demonstrating capability in the hard skills of financial or operational management and suchlike.
Tell us about some of the reasons LHH and the Teleran group decided to merge. How do you think your customers will benefit from this merger?
BA: The merger was brought about to meet the changing requirements of our customers and more specifically to have experienced leadership development and coaching expertise within LHH which could utilize our international IP more quickly.
LHH have been a provider of coaching expertise and leadership development in the US since the mid 70's and has continued to develop IP in this area throughout the last 30 years. In Australia we have not utilized this development to assist our customers or businesses in need of these services. The Teleran Group is a highly acclaimed Leadership development and executive coaching practice with strong local expertise and IP built upon their evidenced based approach.
Now we can meld together our international IP and expertise with The Teleran Group's local capability and approach to provide Australian customers the very best of both worlds.
TK: Teleran has a history of operating at the high end, doing “deep dive” work with senior executive. We took a very evidence based, very scientific approach. But you can only go so far with that.
So joining together with LHH, which has an enormous amount of IP, but less localized delivery capacity, seemed an obvious next step. Of course it’s a very attractive proposition as an offering to clients, who can see we really provide a service that can deal with the differing needs throughout someone’s career. It’s a very integrated offering.
Well thanks to both Bruce and Travis, for some fascinating insights into the world of leadership development and executive coaching. We look forward to hearing some more of your views about this rapidly growing and evolving practice at LHH.
