The Fishy Challenges of Leadership in Business
Posted by Bernie Ritchie & Deanne Earle on Nov 20, 2009

It may look like there is an excess of fish on this Management Sushi blog post - not just the brand header but the blog post image as well - but there is actually a very good reason for this piscatorial excess!

Here's why ...! Unlike Before's Deanne Earle in her latest blogpost below, looks at leadership impact on organisational challenges while discussing the views of William Tate's book on the subject. The blurb to the book has this to say :

When managers are called on to display leadership they do so in a particular environment. That environment is often toxic and difficult to penetrate. Leaders need to be able to navigate dirty waters. They also need to see that their job is to clean away the toxic garbage which the organisation - the system - surrounds their people with, rather than managing the people.

Moral: ‘Manage the fishtank, not the fish'.

While Deanne herself, gives us a very visual image of the problematics that leaders face in challenged organisations. Talented leaders, she says, soon start to resemble hopeful salmon battling upstream when leading organisations on a tortuous journey ahead. This is an immensely visual and powerful analogy!

Author William Tate himself, in a recent blog post on Robert Hellers' The Thinking CEO blog, has the following to say on the subject of fish tanks, good leadership and challenged organisations.

To use a familiar analogy, if you have an aquarium where the fish are lacklustre, the typical development paradigm says brighten them up with some training, but don't bother to clean out the fish tank. In fact it's worse than that: don't bother to examine the tank for toxicity. We expect the fish to shine regardless. We probably don't even notice the tank; we've been trained only to see the fish.

To return to the opening point, such issues are about leadership. To improve how well the organisation is led requires the ability and willingness to look at the dirty fish tank. Issuing edicts and blaming, firing or retraining individuals doesn't work. You need to examine the way the system works to deliver leadership, not just the way individuals work. The latter is a job for management; but reforming a seriously flawed system takes leadership.

Read on below to find out more from Deanne about this critical management topic.

[**** Don't forget to check back in early December for Deanne's next guest blog post! She will be discussing some of the key leadership lessons from Unlike Before's e-Book Ignite the Possibility.****]

LEADERSHIP IMPACT ON ORGANISATIONAL CHALLENGES :

In his book The Search for Leadership - An Organisational Perspective, William Tate contrasts and explains the Business and the Organisation. He succinctly describes the business as having an external ‘what' focus while the organisation has an internal ‘how' focus. It's a simple yet thought-provoking distinction but in our experience with clients we regularly see a disconnection between the two and the inevitable resulting pain.

In essence the organisation exists to support the business on its journey of growth and development, and the organisation establishes systems and processes in order to do that. When things are static those processes serve a company well but business is not static. When business shifts and morphs in response to external factors, it exposes the systemic inefficiencies and limitations in the organisations.

When business changes so too must the organisation. For those who are asked or expected to provide leadership any mismatch between the ‘what' and the ‘how' can result in unnecessary challenges particularly when the organisation has entrenched behaviours and is hesitant or unwilling to change in response to the business needs. In these situations leaders, regardless of their level in the hierarchy, individual competence or combined effectiveness, quickly begin to resemble salmon; full of hope yet swimming against the tide. In order to reduce the pain decisions must be made and actions taken; where is effort best expended and time invested so the organisation and business are aligned?

Changing leader may be an easy option but in itself is not the answer. As Francesco Guicciardini once said "Waste no time with revolutions that do not remove the causes of your complaints but simply change the faces of those in charge."

First it is critical to recognise and accept that change must occur to the way the organisation functions. It might seem common sense but sense isn't always that common. Second is the willingness to change and finally there must be commitment to take action. If no one can be bothered then no one is committed and the organisation will continue with its ingrained behaviours and repetitive complaints.

In a typical example, company ‘A' responded to customer retention and market share challenges through a strategic decision to enhance their product offering with new technology and services encompassing the entire supply chain. While this was part of a wider global strategy the external business focus had to move from a traditional product sales approach to a full solution offering that included technology. In order to support this, the organisation not only needed to radically change the technology it used, but to re-think its sales approach, re-engineer its supporting systems and processes and re-train its own people and those throughout its supply chain and customer base. All of this took place in parallel with the technology project. To put this in perspective the technology change, while significant in its own right, was a small part of an overall organisational and systemic shift.

Company ‘A' experienced the true impact of leadership when the amount of change necessary was finally recognised and owned. This was no longer just another IT Project; it was now recognised as full-blown organisational change. Challenges and decisions previously bogged down in discussion and disagreement were now being understood in relation to the business needs and acted upon more quickly. The organisation became revitalised through this alignment and momentum accelerated. Everyone had finally got it and the challenges morphed from destructive and painful into empowering and stimulating.

Leadership made the difference. Leadership by everyone at all levels of the organisation because leadership is not one person's responsibility. Systems and processes can exacerbate the challenges a company faces and constrain those whose job it is to create and lead the way forward. But we know there is hope, that leadership will flourish and the rewards will be great if you invest time and effort exploring and strengthening the space between the business and organisation.

Always keep in mind that "The achievements of an organization are the results of the combined effort of each individual" (Vincent T Lombardi).

You can purchase William Tate's excellent and highly recommended book from Triarchy Press [http://www.triarchypress.com/].

Deanne Earle is Director of Unlike Before. Unlike Before are Business Consultants and Program/Project managers specialising in organisational change and IT-led projects that are complex in nature or in a state of crisis. Deanne and her team are renowned for action; able to show businesses and their people how to make change happen fast visibly, reducing the effects and costs of lost productivity. Check out all the latest from Unlike Before at http://www.unlikebefore.com/.

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