Cup of Joe

In this economy of sea change and uncharted waters, you need to understand the role your legacy knowledge should take.

Recently the Wall Street Journal featured a front-page story on the new CEO of General Motors. The article pointed out that the new CEO is not an auto industry insider, his leadership style is a bit brash, and that this type of person might just be what it takes to turn the company around.

Obviously, this was a PR-led piece fed to the media by GM. After the bashing GM has taken by government leaders intent on justifying the bailout money, GM’s goal was to get the public (read, potential new investors in the upcoming IPO) to believe that GM will run better than ever under new, different leadership.  Implied in the piece is that old time industry insiders lack an ability to see things as they are and drive sustainable change. This is not a new phenomenon, nor is it always the case, but quite often, it is true.

In my role as a business advisor, I often hear people tell me how much experience they have in a particular company or industry. When this happens I actually hear two things:

1)    that they probably have some good and useful legacy knowledge,

2)    that they probably have an attachment to the past that may block creative thinking and/or prevent them from leading change.

There are exceptions to this, but I can tell you that it happens more often than not.

In times that call for new thinking and change, good leaders need to be like good consultants in that they need to bring fresh perspectives and new approaches to both their company and to the markets they sell to.  Whether the new CEO of GM is the man for the job, I have no idea.  But I do know this for sure—this economy demands new and fresh thinking, regardless of the industry.

Cup of Joe Blog is available for reprint with permission.

Scrambling for good leaders? Consider leadership development, not just leadership training.

As the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday (Aug. 2, 2010), companies are finding themselves short on leadership talent as they begin to rebound from the economic downturn, and are scrambling to implement training programs.

While HR Managers dust off the files from the training programs they put on hold 18-24 months ago, the sharp ones will see this revamp as a great opportunity to consider whether their leadership programs are teaching the company’s bright stars not just what to do, but how to do it.

Training should be guaranteed to work, but the reality is that most training doesn’t achieve what it was intended to.  To be effective and lasting, leadership training has to consider the culture as well as the individuals in the group.  It needs to provide an education on how to think and how to approach a problem or situation, not just what to do in scenario A or B.  Anything less is not leadership development.

More of my thoughts on effective training can be found in a previous blog.