Hierarchy vs polyarchy – a video

Organisations are always on the lookout for fresh ideas & we have recently come across Illustra.TV who publish short video interviews with influential management & leadership thinkers. They have published a video interview with Nick Obolensky, author of ‘Complex Adaptive Leadership’. In it Nick offers an overview of some of the principles behind his research. You can see the video here, at the bottom of the page.

In praise of the off-site

A rapidly growing client had promoted a number of their more experienced professionals into ‘Managing’ roles. The plan was for this group to assume more responsibilities so freeing the principals to focus on strategic growth & further strengthening relationships with major accounts.
Reorganisations seldom move as quickly as their architects would like & this was no exception.

Agenda-based coaching

Key members of the international finance department in a large London-based services group needed to adopt new ways of thinking & working. The group was seen as dysfunctional & coaching was the lever selected to address this. However, from a distance it looked like a remedial act, like coaching to an imposed set menu; the agenda was entirely the organisation’s, more ‘table d’hôte’ than ‘a la carte’.

Leadership for a complex & changing world

A study of the characteristics of chaos & complexity science suggests ways in which leadership could be made even more effective & potentially less stressful. It is an interesting & potentially far-reaching proposition. There is little doubt that the climate in which so many organisations operate is complex, uncertain & liable to sudden unexpected changes.

Cross-selling communities

The logic for cross-selling in professional services is compelling. Large clients and accounts that buy one service – say intellectual property advice or transactional support – frequently face challenges in a variety of areas in which the incumbent has real expertise, supported by the fact that they are generally seen as ‘trusted’ and will already have a good working knowledge of the issues the client faces, both internal and in their markets.

‘Kicking the tyres’

It is an old saw that it can be ‘lonely at the top’, yet a client – an influential Board member – made just such a remark recently. When asked how a coaching assignment had contributed to his work, among other things he commented how helpful it had been to have someone with whom to ‘kick the tyres’, going on to say that many of the challenges he faced revolved around people issues and how sensitivities made it more difficult to hold those types of discussions with internal colleagues.

Maximising the benefit of business coaching

It is a measure of how far coaching has entered the mainstream that it is now a critical element of the part-funded UK government ‘Solutions for Business’ scheme. It is a powerful tool in the change and performance armoury and interesting to see it being endorsed in this way.

Business Partnering in legal services

A short while ago we carried out a research project to identify the characteristics of truly effective business services professionals in the legal sector. It was initially focused on Human Resources delivering their services to internal clients but as the research continued it became clear that the lessons were equally applicable across the spectrum of business services functions – IT, secretarial, marketing, finance etc.