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The art of chairing great meetings

In my last article, I wrote about minute-taking, and it led me to think about that other vital skill that is even more significant in making meetings work well or otherwise: how they are chaired.

And just like some minute-takers write too much and some write too little, so some who chair meetings talk too much or too little. Of course, it’s not just the quantity of talking, but the quality.

You and I have been in meetings where the chair has added great value – indeed saved them from confusion and indecision, time-wasting and excessive protocol… and hence from frustration and boredom.

We have been in others where the one meant to be leading everyone else and bringing them together has lacked the skills to fulfil their role. Others are somewhere in between.

How does a chair perform at meetings we look forward to attending? First, there is the preparation prior to the meeting, not only ensuring that the purpose and agenda are clear and agreed upon but consulting one-on-one to understand participants’ positions and lay the ground for good progress within the meeting.

Plus coaching weaker participants on how to contribute more effectively and with greater impact. Reviewing how meetings unfolded is also important.Within the meeting, the chair must nurture a culture of keeping time, so that they begin and end when they should, with the agenda covered and the most significant topics allocated appropriate space, and the overall purpose achieved.

The chair is responsible for this time and agenda management, and ideally with a light touch rather than a big stick.

The skill of managing meetings is, however, not merely the mechanical one of clock-watching and directing the verbal traffic, agenda item by agenda item.

Chairs must go beyond the purely “efficient” to knit a smooth flow that everyone follows easily, and generate a lively pace that keeps the energy and the engagement high.

They must generate conversations that build momentum within and between topics, acknowledging and linking contributions.

The chair must also be sensitive to the balance of contributions, so that no more senior or more naturally vocal members dominate, and no more junior or otherwise humble ones are left silent.

They themselves should not rush to express their views but introduce the topic and seek inputs from others before making their contribution and summarising the situation, with the proposed way ahead.

The term I like for chairpersons is that they are “facilitators”. Or, as we express it in my consulting firm, for everyone “to have a good time doing good things”.

The way the chair behaves should generate a feeling of psychological safety, where the participants are comfortable expressing their opinions openly and without fear.

The chair must at the right times seek ways of building consensus through encouraging a spirit of give-and-take, guiding those who disagree on negotiating to win-win outcomes.

Some years ago I explained in a column that how we interact relates to suggestions and described the different ways of contributing.

The first category is seeking suggestions from others – the role played by a leader. Then comes making a suggestion, and also building on a suggestion that someone else had made.

Next – the negative category – we might either criticise a suggestion, ignore it or replace it. Finally, there’s just remaining silent.

Are you one of the many who listen not to build on someone else’s suggestion, but to criticise or replace others’ ideas, to only find flaws, to start each sentence with a “but”?

And if you are chairing a meeting, do you encourage others to build on the positive – the result of open listening – rather than listening just to show faults?

As in all aspects of leadership, chairing meetings requires both technical and non-technical skills.

At the technical level, the chair must understand the essence of the subject matter, and manage purpose, agenda and time.

And at the non-technical level, they must ooze emotional intelligence, knowing how to get the best out of everyone so they reach good decisions that they own and leave the meeting happy they had been part of it – with much thanks to how the chair played their role of co-ordinator, conductor, integrator, aligner.

Making minutes count after a meeting

Writing minutes of meetings offer interesting challenges. They must be neither too long nor unduly brief, just capturing the objective essence of what happened.

We usually don’t need to know who said what, for they are not transcripts, but we must record who is to follow up on what and by when. Sounds quite straightforward, yes?

Not necessarily. For instance, when I am the chairman of a board or of a board committee I often find I need to offer guidance to the minute-taker.

They will be very formally trained legal people, with equally formal company secretarial qualifications… all absolutely necessary.

However, what I often see is that they have been taught to be so focused on being technically compliant with good governance, applying standard structures and styles, that they can miss out on the spirit of a meeting.

Sure, they record who was present and who gave their apologies, tell us we confirmed the minutes of the previous meeting, identify the decisions we took, show the date of the next meeting… all those obvious elements.

But what about when someone praises an individual or a group, for instance?

In my experience, too many stiff-upper-lip minute-takers feel that’s too frivolous, too human, to include.

Chances are they even switch off listening, convinced it’s not part of their job to record other than hard facts and figures, decisions and actions.

Forget the soft stuff, keep to the point. This is not story-telling, they would protest. We are not there to entertain or to educate, just to inform.

No smiling, no frowning, we are mere dispassionate observers seeking compliance with our professional best practice.

And yet, and yet…surely it’s OK where appropriate to switch from being a robotic technical recorder to becoming a more relaxed and informal reporter – or “rapporteur”, as recorders of other events such as conferences and workshops are called.

So particularly when I am chairman of a meeting I observe when the minute-taker is and is not writing or keying in what is being discussed.

If I feel they have not been doing so and in my view, they should, I will prompt them to ensure they do.

I also encourage them that when they are uncertain as to how to record something, they should feel free to seek guidance from the rest of us during the meeting.

And if I sense that what has just been handled is not so obvious as to how to write it up, I will ask them to share how they propose to, so they and we can feel relaxed that all is well.

It’s vital that minutes be written and circulated as soon after a meeting as possible, and not only so that those actioned with follow-ups can be reminded to get going with their obligations in good time, but so we still remember clearly enough what happened at the meeting and can confirm the accuracy of the minutes.

It’s good too to circulate a draft in advance, at least to the chairperson, who then can act as a quality controller.

I like it when minute-takers key straight into their laptops during meetings rather than write on paper and transcribe their notes later, as it’s then more likely their product can be shared promptly.

And here’s another thought: as some do, have two columns on the right-hand side of the page, one for the “By whom” and one for the “By when”.

Plus, if by the following meeting the action has not been fulfilled and should have been, add a revised “By when” date – identified as having been updated.

On one board where I presently sit there’s a good practice I’d like to share with you: just before the next board meeting the minutes of the previous meeting are again circulated, but now with one-liner updates under each of the actions agreed at that earlier meeting, shown in a different colour and telling us whether the intended action has or had not been fulfilled, or if is in progress. Very helpful.

In other than board, board committee meetings, AGMs and additional official events, ones that are less formal and do not require the legal/secretarial skills of a minute-taker I often suggest it should be a revolving function, giving more people the opportunity to develop this important skill and to become more sensitive to other minute-takers in future. (I also suggest the chairing could revolve, for similar reasons.)

So, there being no further business, I declare this article closed. Date of next column: a fortnight from now, on chairing meetings. Please confirm attendance.

Iceberg of ignorance hurts firms

I was recently asked to be a panelist at an event hosted by Hofstede Insights Africa and its Kenya partner, Priority Activator Consulting.

Its theme was Aligning culture and strategy – leveraging culture to drive organisational performance, a topic where I feel very much at home.

With us were around 30 CEOs who had been invited to engage with our panel, and the keynote speaker was Hofstede’s Group CEO Egbert Schram, who described culture as “the oil that lubricates strategy”.

His early background was in wildlife management, examining their behaviour patterns, which he subsequently applied to humans – always focusing on gathering and analysing data.

This led him to quote from a study which revealed that only 15 percent of CEOs feel their corporate culture is where it should be – as a result of which their organisations underperform.

One of the big causes is the “iceberg of ignorance”, where CEOs lack awareness of problems lower down in their organisations because they only engage with senior colleagues.

So the cascading downwards of what they perceive to be needed behaviour change fails to connect with the actual needs on the ground.

Culture is about how we relate to our colleagues, our work, and the external environment, he explained.

And he asked what excites us: enjoying life? Striving for the best? Something else? And where do our incentive schemes lead us: to achieving financial results? To deal with people issues? Then, who gets promoted, and why?

An expatriate CEO shared that in his home country, he was used to a much smaller power distance between levels. He has an open door, but too few of his people are relaxed enough to enter his office and express their views.

In hierarchical organisations, Mr Schram said there’s too much upward delegation – more so if the bosses are approachable.

And an emotional dependency on them may develop, including on non-work-related issues. So unless one empowers lower layers this becomes a bottleneck, preventing the company from growing.

Fellow panellist Catherine Musakali quoted Peter Drucker’s “culture eats strategy for breakfast” line, saying it surprises her how few boards include culture as a topic on their agendas.

This led me to describe my tweak of Drucker’s quote, where through the Balanced Scorecard approach I use in my strategy development work with clients I have them devise a culture strategy that feeds into the overall one.

Having said that, we find that companies which enjoy a healthy culture but lack a robust strategy do better than those with a great strategy but without a healthy culture.

Erick Ngala, the managing partner of Priority Activator Consulting, reinforced this point, emphasising that organisational performance is a consequence of its culture plus its strategy.

A lady CEO worried that women in leadership still have a hard time, with some of her people considering her to be “bossy”, to which she did not relate.

And another CEO felt he shouldn’t get too close to his people, otherwise, he would find it too hard to take disciplinary action when needed, or to deal with poor results and bad news.

My comment: when I arrived in Kenya in 1977 I was expected to be bossy and serious, to be feared. I defied that, with my default position being a cheerful one.

But people had to know that if the need arose I did have a big stick available. It took a while for my staff to come to terms with this “situational leadership” style… and some probably never did.

What is the role of the CEO in all this? What works and what does not? Does it vary depending on the size of the organisation? Is it different when going through a period of disruption?

These were the questions for this event. For me, CEOs are at the centre of a 360-degree ecosystem.

Above them are the shareholders with their values, represented by board directors; then other independent directors, among whom hopefully the chair.

It is the chair who should bring together a collective board perspective on culture, which is shared with the CEO and the senior management team – noting that the CEO is a board member too.

Critical to all this is the alignment between the chair and the CEO. Not forgetting the head of HR.

Winning with Jack Welch

In my last column, I wrote about the rise and fall of Rudy Giuliani, as a result of reading his 2002 book, Leadership.

And today my subject is Jack Welch, having just read his 2001 book, Winning, about which Warren Buffett said at the time of its publication “No other management book will ever be needed.”

Welch was with GE for 40 years, climbing up the ranks until he became chairman and CEO in 1981. Under his leadership, it grew its profits massively and became globally dominant in its sectors, to the delight of its shareholders.

His style was bold and competitive, as he pushed the company to become lean and agile – less “comfortable” – laying off more than 100,000 employees within his first seven years at the top.

To achieve this, in the 1980s he launched a 360-degree review process in which every employee’s manager, peers and subordinates would grade them on aspects that included team spirit, collaboration, focus, vision and adaptability.

Employees were then ranked, separated into the top 20 percent, the stars; the bottom 10 percent, the under-performers and disrupters; and the middle 70 percent in between.

The bottom 10 percent were dealt with appropriately, and many were fired. The process, which resulted in significant unhealthy competition, became known as “rank and yank”, but other big corporates, including Amazon, Microsoft and Google, soon emulated GE.

Another aspect of the unhealthy competition that Welch generated emerged when he retired in 2001 and Jeffrey Immelt was promoted to CEO.

After decades of grooming several internal leaders for the position, the decision triggered an exodus of bitter executives.

However, despite all this – which earned him the nickname Neutron Jack – Welch greatly valued the role of HR, believing the head of that function should be the second-most important person in any organisation, and at least equal to the head of finance.

The HR people should be, as he put it, “a combination of pastors and parents”.

He was a promoter of robust evaluation systems, ones that went way beyond the all-too-common mere paper-pushing.

And he believed in motivating and retaining the people with money, recognition and training; in confronting the difficult people issues – those arising from trouble-makers and big-headed stars, with candour and action; in spending half your time evaluating and coaching the middle 70 percent; and in having as flat an organisation chart as possible, as the more layers there is the more mischief some will indulge in.

The section I found most helpful was the one on firing and laying off people, where his advice was first that nobody should be surprised when they are let go.

Employees should be informed enough about the nature of their business that they understood who might be laid off in an economic downturn or a change in the industry.

If they weren’t performing well, they should be made aware of this through regular formal and informal reviews. If they couldn’t improve, they should know they would have to move on.

You should move neither too fast nor too slow in removing them, and again you must be candid. Then, you should minimise the humiliation, and encourage those on their way out that there’s a better job out there for them, more matched to their skills and attitudes.

The task of the ones informing staff members that they have been laid off or fired is incredibly difficult, admits Welch.

They feel guilt and anxiety before, during and after. Surprisingly, he comments, he isn’t aware of any programmes that help people develop the skills needed to conduct such meetings.

He had to fire many people over the years, he writes and never got used to it.

So his legacy is a mix of ongoing admiration and second thoughts about him and his management style. In the two decades since he left GE, many of his approaches have fallen out of favour, including within GE itself.

Today, he is often criticised as a symbol of corporate greed and economic inequality, with undue emphasis on quarterly results.

The competition he generated among leaders came at a considerable human cost, and he was considered the father of the “shareholder value” emphasis, which has since been migrating to delivering broader stakeholder value.

Much food for thought about how to define responsible leadership then and now, and within this about how to build sustainability.

How will today’s corporate leaders be viewed two decades from now? How will you be?

CSR: Do good in a sustainable way

In my last article, I wrote about the evolution of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), promising that in this one I would delve into the latest trends in CSR and how it relates to ESG (the Environmental, Social and Governance dimensions) and the SDGs (the Sustainable Development Goals).

For my guidance, I turned again to Michael Hopkins, whose core area this has been for 20 years and who has written several books on the subject, including his 2016 one, aptly named CSR & Sustainability: From the Margins to the Mainstream.  His most recent one, CSR and Sustainability – The Big Issues of the Day, was published this year, and it is from here that I lay out his model for applying what he describes as a “systems approach” to CSR.

Through such discipline, Prof Hopkins sees organisations not just viewing the CSR activity as inhabiting some corner in a department, but evolving as a high-level integrated component of the overall strategy, with active board engagement.

It must be well-managed so as to ensure profitable sustainability, he insists, and it should be pursued without compromising those profits. It is a question of how profits are generated, he clarifies, not allowing them to suffer as a result of “doing good”.

For anything to be well managed it must be well measured, as we all know.

But defining Key Performance Indicators for CSR initiatives is not a straightforward task – particularly given the requirement to have them be associated with the relevant SDGs, given their broadly defined aspirations.

It’s a challenge to assess the impact of any goal that cannot be easily measured in terms of quantifiable scale such as shillings or miles.

And this, more so, as of course must happen, if one follows the path to the ultimate desired impact. Bearing in mind, too, that having visualised that impact a new issue arises: to what extent can one attribute it to the initiative in question?

Little wonder that only a few organisations are anywhere near rigorous in laying out KPIs in the CSR domain.

The consequence, however, is that when for instance they seek capital, potential investors will not be impressed.

The “business case” must be spelt out, just as it must for any other aspect of the organisation, and of course, we’re talking about the long-term case. After all, that’s what sustainability is all about.

These days too all this must integrate with the whole ESG ecosystem.

And a good place to start is by drawing up a stakeholder map bearing in mind that the essence is to “treat all key stakeholders responsibly”. So, who are they? Which ones are key, in their influence on our organisation, and in ours on them?

Having identified them, the next stage is to invite them into dialogue, so a clear, trusting and mutually beneficial relationship is developed between them and you.

Such dialogue must involve a wide range of contributors from within – way beyond just someone with a fancy title like Chief Sustainability Officer.

The next step is formulating the CSR strategy, integrated into the overall organisational one.

This lays out the purpose, the programmes and the indicators; the budgets and the benefits; the systems and the performance management; and the reporting discipline.

A good example of the positive stakeholder impact of CSR is in the area of staff engagement, where the consequence of doing well by doing good is that people of high competence and character are attracted to join you and stay with you.

Here as elsewhere, one must define indicators that assess the impact of CSR on such talent attraction and retention.

Time must be invested in all of this, and more than on a one-off basis. But not everyone is a Safaricom or a KCB or a Diageo, so we must not be over-ambitious either.

The idea is to be uplifted by one’s efforts to make a sustainable assessable difference in this world, knowing that today organisations are being judged not merely by the extent to which they protect shareholder interests but the broader stakeholder ones, too.

A final point: Prof Hopkins is a strong advocate for CSR to be practised not just by for-profits but also NGOs and the government.

Why should they feel morally superior to commercial entities if they too do not treat all stakeholders fairly?

Five reasons teams are dysfunctional

I was recently asked to run a team-building workshop based on the 2002 book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Let me summarise what author Patrick Lencioni laid out in his gripping fable about how Kathryn Petersen, DecisionTech’s newly installed CEO, faced the ultimate leadership crisis: uniting a team in such disarray that it threatened to bring down the entire company.

For most of the book it is uncertain as to whether she would succeed, but her experience from elsewhere allowed her to work with the awkward set of characters who made up the senior management team, and against all odds the company survived.

Lencioni is of the view that teams are inherently dysfunctional, made up of imperfect individuals who suffer from inflated egos and pursue selfish goals. Here’s how the book opens: “Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.”

I’ll comment later on that view, but let me continue with his valid conclusion that strong and deliberate steps must be taken to facilitate teamwork. The fictional book shows how a skilled team leader can do a great deal to make their team effective, and it takes us through Kathryn’s manoeuvres to rescue the dysfunctional group of characters the board had hired her to sort out.

Through his story, Lencioni reveals the five dysfunctions which go to the heart of why teams struggle so badly. At the base of his pyramid of dysfunctions lies the absence of trust, which prevents team members from showing vulnerability within their group.

In the context of building a team, trust enables team members to be confident that their peers’ intentions are good, and that there is no reason to be protective or careful around the group. Teammates must become comfortable being vulnerable with one another.

Above mistrust comes fear of conflict, where those involved seek artificial harmony over constructive, passionate debate. Next, and again as a result of the lower dysfunction, is lack of commitment, merely pretending to buy in to group decisions, thereby creating ambiguity and lack of clarity.

All this sees team members avoid holding each other accountable, with low standards the consequence. And finally there’s lack of focus on results, as status and ego interfere with harmonised action.

To conclude, therefore, Lencioni urges us to find people who can demonstrate trust, engage in conflict, commit to group decisions, hold their peers accountable, and focus on the results of the team and not on own egos.

While the book is certainly exciting to read, full of breakthroughs and setbacks, I emerged less than convinced by Lencioni’s pessimistic view of human nature, and I also had reservations about his exclusive focus on overcoming the negative dysfunctions while insufficiently nurturing their positive counterparts.

Lencioni has his CEO relish conflict as a means of resolving issues, and while where there are conflicts they should indeed not be avoided, I am not convinced that she need have taken her team on such a painful journey.

Indeed in my workshop I had the team focus on how to build on the positive aspects within their team of the five functions of trust, dealing with conflict, commitment, accountability and focus on results.

It’s a great quintet of team factors, but my approach of working with “Appreciative Inquiry” would have me guide Kathryne differently. Also, my experience is different from Lencioni’s in that I have not found teamwork to be “so rare”.

However, I strongly recommend that you read the book, since it will stimulate you – as it did me – to reflect deeply on how people behave and what drives them, and then to assess whether the approach Lencioni advocates is the one you as a leader would feel is the one to adopt. It’s a book you won’t want to put down.

Before the workshop, the team members were also invited to watch a TED talk by Harvard Professor Amy Edmonson that nicely complemented the Lencioni book.

Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhoLuui9gX8 The essence of her talk was that where there is complexity, uncertainty and interdependence, one should promote curiosity and experimentation, accept fallibility, and so deliver psychological safety. Sounds like good advice.

How people adapt to national cultures

In my last article I wrote about the four elements that, according to the Adizes Institute, make a fully functional manager or, more likely, a functional management team: Producer, Administrator, Entrepreneur and Integrator (PAEI).

Today I follow up with an article I was sent by Rufat Jahangirov, a senior member of the Adizes Institute team, in which he reflected on the influence of national cultures in designing and delivering their programmes on organisational transformation in ways that are compatible with countries’ national values.

It led me to think about how and to what extent I adapt the way I engage with organisations depending on where I am doing so.

I am privileged to have been exposed to a wide variety of cultures, from my Jewish Romanian background to my upbringing in London, with time in France and the US, to my life here in Kenya since 1977. Plus my travels to many other countries around the world, usually as a tourist but sometimes also as a consultant.

Jahangirov refers to the work of Geert Hofstede on the interactions between national and organisational cultures. Hofstede first examines Vertical Power Distance, the extent to which the less powerful members of organisations expect and accept that power is distributed unequally.

He then looks at Horizontal Distance, the degree to which people in a society have an independent versus interdependent concept of self.

In societies with high Horizontal Distance – individualistic societies – people’s goals are generally independent from their ingroups; their social behaviours are driven by attitudes, values and beliefs; and they emphasise rationality in evaluating and choosing their social relationships.

On the other hand, in low Horizontal Distance – collectivistic – societies, people are born into extended families or kinship systems that protect them in exchange for giving them loyalty.

Hofstede also studies Uncertainty Avoidance, which defines the degree to which people in society feel threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations.

Not to be confused with risk avoidance, members of an Uncertainty Avoiding culture take risks as long as they believe they know them. People in Uncertainty Avoidance societies usually prefer clear rules as to how one should behave.

Next Hofstede examines Masculinity versus Femininity. Masculine cultures are ones where men should be assertive, competitive, tough and focused on material success, while women should be focused on the quality of life, maintaining warm personal relationships, offering service, and caring for the weak. Feminine cultures are ones in which emotional gender roles overlap.

Finally, he contrasts Long-term versus Short-term orientation.

Jahangirov notes that it is easier to generate “energy for change” in countries with low vertical distance, high horizontal distance, low uncertainty avoidance and high long-term orientation. He also correlates Hofstede’s culture differentiators with the values and characteristics of the PAEI Adizes management roles and styles.

P and A are short-term oriented roles, whereas E and I are long-term oriented, they have found. Additionally, P and A are the attributes of autocratic management, displaying high Vertical Distance, while E and I preferences lead to more egalitarian decision-making, which suggests low Vertical Distance.

P and E are both independent and individualistic styles, typified by high Horizontal Distance, whereas A is mechanically collectivistic and I is organically collectivistic, reflected in low Horizontal Distance. The A style is characterised as Uncertainty Avoiding, while E is its opposite: Uncertainty Accepting… actually, seeking.

There appears to be no correlation of Uncertainty Avoidance with either P or I management styles. And finally, P is a predominant characteristic of a Masculine culture, while I is the one of a Feminine culture. Both E and A can be either Masculine or Feminine.

It’s hard enough to change cultures even in one’s own back yard, Jahangirov has found, and reflecting on his wonderfully thought-provoking article has filled me with further ways of describing cultures and helping them develop to better places.

What is my experience with how different cultures have led me to adapt my interactions with others? Like Jahangirov, I am at least as aware of sub-cultures, within both countries and organisations, requiring yet more sensitivity on the part of consultants. But you’ll have to wait for another fortnight before reading more about that.

Before closing, let me mention that this is my 400th Business Daily column, and that next month will mark the 15th anniversary of my first one. More later on that too.

Management roles that shape top performers

Each of us as a manager enjoys aspects of our roles where we feel more comfortable, with others we’d rather have someone else handle. But the more senior and cross-functional we become the more we need to reach adequacy all round.

And yet very few of us ever expand our comfort zones to take us from the necessary to the sufficient. So which are these different aspects?

I was recently exposed to a categorisation of the needed components that I found made a lot of sense. It is based on the work by Ichak Adizes, the founder of the Adizes Institute, and the four roles he identified that management must fulfill are the Provider, whose voice tells us “Just get the job done, nothing else matters”; the Administrator, who wants us to “Follow the rules, pay attention to the details, and heed the process”; the Entrepreneur, who wants to “Make it exciting, creative, provocative”; and the Integrator, who helps us “Create harmony and respect the social norms, while making people happy”.

In every organisation all four must be performed well. And yet, Prof Adizes has observed, none of us can or does reach the highest levels of competence in the complete quartet. Indeed being really strong in one makes it more unlikely that we’ll do so well elsewhere – or even get on well with those who do.

If a person is unable to perform one or more roles the deficit must be filled by others. If they perform all roles to at least a satisfactory level, they’re an OK manager.

If a manager copes brilliantly with integration and at least one more role, and all other roles are performed at a satisfactory level, we can say that the person is not just a manager, but a leader.

And if all the roles are well covered among the management members, then we have a high performing team.

The book I read by Prof Adizes was Leading the Leaders – How to Enrich Your Style of Management and Handle People Whose Style Is Different from Yours”, one of 20 authored by him. I also completed the Adizes Institute’s Management Style Indicator” questionnaire, where the profile of me that emerged came as no surprise.

My top style is that of Integrator, then Entrepreneur, followed by Producer, with Administrator lagging quite far behind. So I am described as a “PaEI”, with capital letters for the styles where I am at ease.

I’m sure that as you have been reading this you will have been reflecting on how you rate on each of Prof Adizes’ four components of management, even without taking the assessment questionnaire. And you will also have been smiling (and groaning) as you have been contemplating your peers, your superiors and your subordinates.

You will have concluded who complements whom; and who clashes with whom, thanks to the incompatibility of their over-focused styles.

You will also have noted which teams cover all four components well, and which find the going tough thanks to too many individualistic entrepreneurs and no integrators, say.

So where are the gaps, at the personal and team levels, and how to fill them? For such gaps are everywhere, and the higher we rise in an organisation the more of a handicap they become. What’s your next career step, and the ones thereafter? What muscles will you need to develop that till now were not so important to enable you to perform well?

Too often it’s the most brilliant techie (a Producer) who’s promoted to becoming the supervisor of other techies (as an Integrator) but lacks the personality, skills, or even interest, to play such a role.

They never developed the non-technical skills needed for management – or for interacting with team-mates, customers etc. – to complement their technical ones. Do they have the potential to transform an “i” into an “I”?

Who does your organisation seek and attract among the P, A, E, I types? Do you look for those with more than one capital letter, so they can develop a career with you, beyond the immediate job for which they are being recruited?

We are always going to feel more at ease with some of the four styles than with others. But be very aware of what each job requires, and either reach adequacy wherever that is needed, or make sure there’s someone else in the team to play that role.

Making 360-degree appraisals beneficial

360-degree appraisals provide feedback to employees not just their supervisors. They can be horizontal, among colleagues who work together at the same level, and/or vertical, from those at lower levels commenting on their bosses.

Sounds like a good idea, yes? After all, each one of us can benefit from holistic feedback to become more self-aware, more in touch with reality, so as to understand where we can improve our performance. Right?

Sure. Except that many organisations that have introduced side-to-side or bottom-up assessments have suffered negative unintended consequences.

Indeed my first experience of formal 360-degree appraisals was with a global multilateral institution whose Kenya director would cry on my shoulder about his supervisor being completely disinterested in what he felt many of his staff unreasonably needed him to do and not do in order to assess him positively.

It provided an easy opportunity for disgruntled staff to get their own back on him if he had made tough – but in his view necessary – decisions about an issue. And instead of appreciating his resistance to taking the easy way out by being unduly nice to his staff merely to gain popularity and higher ratings, his boss would just condemn him for the negative reviews.

It is such risks that make me wary about recommending 360-degree feedback to all and sundry. I am more likely to if an organisation enjoys a particularly healthy culture of high trust all round, and where all levels have been prepared for handling such a sensitive subject in a constructive way.

As a first stage, I often suggest that such feedback be provided between teams rather than individually – like between levels, departments and functions.

Another question that arises is where extremely low ratings, accompanied by highly negative comments, are made about some receiving their 360-degree appraisals. Should they be shown the precise content of such feedback?

Might it lead them to have their self-confidence and self-esteem battered, and even to overfocus on the likely sources, however anonymously the responses will have been submitted?

Would it be less disruptive for whoever is discussing the feedback with them – whether their supervisor, the HR function or an external coach – to merely offer a sufficient flavour of what has been provided, before turning to how they can deal with the issues expressed by changing some of their attitudes and behaviours?

Either way, adequate reference should also be made to positive feedback that will have been provided.

If the ones who’ve received particularly harsh feedback should perhaps not be shown the whole ugly picture, is it OK to share the full story with those where more positive views were expressed about them? I don’t think so. Let there be a consistent approach.

Whether an organisation’s appraisal system includes 360-degree components or not, it is vital that all involved – everyone who appraises and all who are appraised – are engaged in sessions to help them understand the purpose of such exercises, i.e performance improvement, personal development and career planning, all within a coaching culture.

Not an occasional parental lecture to one’s children; not tick-in-the-box annual compliance with having “done” appraisals and pleasing the folks in HR; not just a way to negotiate a salary review or a promotion.

I long ago ceased being surprised by how in very few organisations do appraisal systems add value. On the contrary, too many are but a disruptive, time-consuming nuisance, harming rather than enriching relationships of mutual trust and respect.

Adding the 360-degree component requires yet more focus on purpose, yet more time to plan and implement, yet more continuous follow-up. If appraisal systems work well they are extremely valuable, making everyone feel good about contributing to each other’s learning and growth.

So I am a passionate advocate for them, including the collection and sharing of broader feedback. Plus, I should add, at the highest level, among boards of directors and with CEOs – often the ones who least dare apply such treatment to themselves.

So, does your organisation’s appraisal system help you as an individual move forward, and is this in alignment with the progress of the whole entity? And is your culture robust and honest enough to handle a 360-degree component? These are mission-critical questions that must not be avoided.

Avoiding family wars that ruin businesses

These days I am being invited more frequently to help align family members within their businesses so they can lead the organisations they own more effectively.

I am encouraged by those who reach out to me for such assistance, as it speaks of being realistic about the importance of cohesiveness among them and of feeling optimistic that they can indeed do better.

In my capacity as an adviser — or, as I often label myself, coach — I first listen to each family member involved, getting a sense of their personalities and styles, and of the roles they play in their enterprise.

In a spirit of “appreciative inquiry” I like to start by having them tell me about the achievements they are proudest of and the strengths that explain them, and then asking them to share the challenges they face — including and not least with other family members.

For this to happen I don’t rush into these topics, but begin by building a relaxed, cheerful and trusting relationship with them, getting them to talk more generally about their lives, while revealing something about mine.

Business school

As I was preparing to write this article I caught sight of a book I’d bought some years ago at the London Business School bookshop but had never got round to reading.

Published in 2008, Family Wars is about some of the biggest family-run companies in the world, showing how in-fighting among family members threatened to bring about their downfall.

It covers families such as Ford, Gucci and the Watsons of IBM, using these as examples of different categories of wars, not least between fathers and sons, among siblings, and as a result of marriages between families.

It also provides advice for anyone involved in a family business, offering suggestions on how to avoid such problems.

The book’s authors are London Business School Prof Nigel Nicholson, whose research interests include the psychology of family business, and Grant Gordon, the director-general of the Institute for Family Business and a fifth-generation member and former senior executive of William Grant & Sons, the distillers of Glenfiddich whisky (my favourite).

Despite relating stories of specific family “wars” they are careful to point out that many with family ownership outperform other kinds of organisations, and that some of the world’s oldest companies are those that have remained owned by their founding families.

I related very closely to what I read about both the kinds of challenges that family businesses commonly face, and how to prevent them and handle them if and when they arise.

Not least about the wisdom of “appointing skilled non-family professionals to fill business leadership roles”; “appointing a neutral ‘ombudsman’ as co-mentor of a sibling team”; and “instituting appraisals and regular feedback on work output and mentoring for family members”.

Not surprisingly, Grant and Nicholson refer to the lack of trust as “the real killer”, where one person sees another as unreliable, inconsistent, devious or duplicitous. And – as I do – they advocate for a spirit of forgiving and seeking forgiveness.

To avoid undue conflict, a culture of equity and fairness must prevail, with no cheating and taking of shortcuts. Worst of all is the hiring of lawyers to sue one another, never mind if the dirty linen starts getting washed in public.

Just as insufficient cohesiveness leads family members to either waste energy in fruitless attempts to win battles at the expense of a relative, or to disengage and scatter, so excessive cohesion, where families retreat into their own exclusive world, are also unhealthy.

Consensus builder

The challenge is to nurture an atmosphere where differences can be aired and consensus built, in a spirit of give and take.

Yes, we want the leadership team in family businesses to be diverse — including these days by including the women. We want representation of a spectrum from elders to millennials, and it’s good for members to have varied exposure to education and to other cultures and countries.

Some will have a greater appetite for risk than others. Some will be more focused on longer-term sustainability and on being fair to all key stakeholders and some will be keener than others on professionalising.

The question is how such diversity can be brought together without generating wars, and by whom.

Who in the family is the consensus builder, the mediator? Or does the business, as so many do, require external help to keep the peace and allow each family member to contribute and thrive in their own way?