Author: Andrea Stevenson

The working environment has become ever more complex in recent years and now, more than ever, leaders in organisations need to be stepping up to the plate. In a world that has thrown a lot at us over the last few years, now is the time, more than ever, for leaders to step up to the plate and shine.

People are needing leadership. I’m not talking about top-down control. I’m talking about the kind of leadership that brings out the best in the team, espouses high performance, is visionary, motivating, inspiring and empowering. Yes most leaders are not delivering on these aspects of leaders. Even more concerning is that a reported 60%* of all first-time managers do not receive any sort of leadership development training, according to the Centre for Creative Leadership.

It’s no wonder many leaders are flailing.

So what defines a good leader?

A good leader is defined by the ability to build a high-performing team. Leadership should be evaluated by the team’s performance. A good leader plays the critical role of influencing the team and their actions towards a common goal. Leadership is visionary, but it is also relationship-driven – a balance of establishing direction and vision with investing in the formation and building up of those relationships.

A common error is the assumption that because someone is technically good in their role, they’ll make a good leader. Leaders need to recognise that what got them ‘here’, won’t get them ‘there’. The traits that have worked for them to date and helped them succeed can, in many cases, be the very traits that get in the way of leading effectively (e.g. being detail attentive is now micromanaging).

The first step Leadership is a journey. We are never there (if you think you are, then you are most definitely not). There is always something to learn and improve on. The foundation of good leadership is self-awareness. This requires leaders to be acutely aware of their strengths and their flip side (and every strength has a flip side), of their motivations, values, blind spots, unconscious biases and behaviours under pressure.

When it comes to leadership, how we think we might be performing is somewhat irrelevant – what matters is how others experience us. Diagnostic tools can progress an insight process, be it through profiling or 360 Surveys that reference specific leadership competencies as can 1:1 coaching. These can be affronting but they provide valuable insight into one’s developmental needs. Without this awareness, any type of change behaviour will not be achieved. The nature-nurture debate is relevant to leadership. Some personality traits have a natural predisposition towards leadership, but it is also true that any good leader can learn and apply the skills. Think like an athlete – top athletes know what skills they need, are meticulous in reviewing their performance and they practice what is required. It is an intentional approach to:

1. Learn the skills

2. Develop the qualities

3. Practice the actions

Leading the team

Traditionally, leading strategy and leading culture have been seen as two different things. However, the two are inextricably linked and getting alignment is critical. Leadership coach Gordon J Curphy’s Rocket Model framework for building high performing teams is a useful starting point. Being in the Rocket requires an understanding of the context you are operating in first – considering key stakeholders, the stage of the team (e.g. new, broken, virtual etc.), and economic realities etc. From there, a leader can develop a map for determining mission/vision, talent, operating rhythms, motivation and resourcing through to results. At the core, trust is a primary factor. If this is not the foundation then high performance is unlikely to follow.

From there, clarify the difference between leading from the front versus leading from behind and know how these differ. Understanding that and getting the balance right is important, and not over-doing either.

It’s the balance of establishing vision and setting expectations, through to seeking input, asking questions, listening and having team members take the lead. Jim Collins, in his book Good to Great, identified leadership as a critical success factor. He found that leaders in high-performing organisations had two things in common – humility and persistent drive. These two traits are a nice descriptor of leading from the front and behind. Curphy also refers to a third factor – being comfortable in the sheriff role – being ultimately responsible for holding team members accountable. And yes, this includes managing under-performers and being skilled in healthy conflict.

Situational Leadership (see the work of Blanchard and Hersey) is about adapting your leadership style/response to each unique situation or task to meet the needs of the team or team members.

It requires leaders to change “hats” at times, shifting between being directional through to supporting, delegating and coaching. “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” Jack Welch, Jack Welch Management Institute

AI, while a great tool, is not the solution to developing “soft skills” in leaders. Nor will a one-off training day turn one’s leadership on its head. Development of leadership skills is a journey. It takes time, practice and commitment. It takes building of trust. It takes putting yourself out there. It takes being intentional on everything. Above all it takes practice. And you are never really there. My challenge to leaders for the year – be intentional. May this be your year!

For assistance with human resources initiatives including teams, leadership, investigations or facilitated meetings, please contact hr-consulting-hawkesbay@bakertillysr.nz

Let’s Celebrate! In the face of inflationary pressures, interest rate rises, cyclones and uncertainty, it is challenging to rise out of the mire and celebrate the good in our organisations and people. Too often it’s the loudest voice, the trickiest staff member or the latest crisis that takes all our time, attention, and energy.

If morale ever really needed a boost, it is now! It is therefore timely to reflect on how we celebrate the wins and the good performance in our organisations. Unfortunately, it seems a natural and accepted Kiwi trait to not sing praises. We are stingy or subtle with our “thank-yous” and praise and are risking becoming a “thankless” work culture.

A recent HR Trends 2023 survey suggests that more than a quarter of employees believe that they aren’t rewarded or recognised for good work. This statistic is surprising in the tight talent market where finding skilled people is such a challenge. Employers should be pulling out all stops to keep team members motivated and engaged.

Moreover, in a world where New Zealand now sits at the bottom of the OECD in terms of productivity, keeping high-performing teams and employees motivated and recognised needs to become a priority.

Why Celebrate?

According to Gallup, both meaningful public and private recognition are bigger motivational perks than being given a promotion, bonus or raise.

Evidence also suggests that employees feel encouraged to do better work if they receive personal recognition and people who feel recognised are more than twice as likely to innovate and bring forward ideas. It also has a strong correlation with retention. There is also now strong scientific evidence behind the benefits of giving gratitude – it increases happiness, reduces depression, increases resilience and it has proven health benefits such as lower blood pressure and better sleep. Gratitude rewires our brains and it kickstarts the production of dopamine and serotonin, our feel-good hormones – effectively it’s an antidepressant.

So let’s Celebrate… Great leaders take the time to notice and reward great work, but we need to celebrate more than just a job well done or a project completed. Celebrate what you value – look to a situation well handled, organisational values demonstrated, a significant first, courageousness demonstrated, truly exceptional work, consistently good work done, when someone made a difference to someone else, or even a major mistake or failure where it revealed a key learning (see TedTalk The unexpected benefit of Celebrating Failure).

How to Celebrate…

Say “thank you”! It’s free and it feels great for all concerned.

✓ Start meetings with a quick acknowledgment of wins or achievements.

✓ Build a feedback culture. Don’t wait for an annual review – have regular one-on-ones with team members. The same equation for negative feedback works well for positive feedback and makes it more meaningful (see the accompanying diagram for more detail).

✓ Create platforms for crowd-sourced feedback and celebration. A shared platform allows leaders to hear great stories they may not know about.

✓ Invest in development – it acknowledges a person’s value and is a key retention strategy. Your high performers should have a tailored development plan that is revisited regularly and includes a range of development initiatives from mentoring, coaching, shadowing and secondments through to more traditional training programmes.

✓ Encourage the innovation and input of high performers
by increasing responsibility and autonomy as a means of investing in development.

✓ Have some fun. Our staff spin a wheel to win prizes after various achievements. This can include serious and fun prizes.

✓ Take a break – celebrate during the workday with short breaks as a team – summer ice-creams in our office are a big hit.

✓ Use social media to share success stories.

✓ Move after-work events into the workday. There is a major shift in workplace culture where employees no longer want to use their after-hours time for workplace events as it impedes on time with family, friends or recharging. Use lunch breaks or finish work slightly early for a celebratory social occasion.

✓ Lastly, if it’s all about the bottom line in your organisation, then now is the time to put bonus structures or profit share schemes in place.

All of this points to being more considered in your approach. Its more than just having a programme, but sometimes having one in place will mean you are active and conscious about your initiatives. A final word to the wise – don’t overdo it. Good recognition should be natural and authentic.

For assistance with human resources initiatives including teams, leadership, investigations or facilitated meetings, please contact hr-consulting-hawkesbay@bakertillysr.nz

It was anticipated as a year of positivity, business as usual and moving on, but 2023 so far has not been what Hawke’s Bay expected.

From a people and business perspective, managing through a disaster creates additional issues to navigate. Resilient Organisations, a research and consultancy group, classify the stages of looking after staff in a major disaster into four areas – planning for your people, responding to the situation, rebuilding a better future and leadership.

The Dichotomy

The impacts from the cyclone appear to be a dichotomy – those affected and those not. There is now potentially a third category – those presented with an opportunity in the rebuild. Employers successfully navigated the first weeks after the cyclone and (from what we have seen) supported staff through that first week. It is worth noting, however, that just like the Christchurch earthquake, the six-week mark can be tough – the novelty has worn off, adrenaline is no longer flowing, and the rest of the world seems to be moving on. If some of your staff “hit a wall” at this point, you are not alone. WorkSafe are currently emphasising a focus on mentally healthy workplaces with the expectation that employers proactively manage mental health as part of their health and safety management plan. For staff that are notably impacted, keep this in mind.

The Downside

There are some sad stories emerging where a small number of impacted businesses will need to downscale for a time
or cease operations altogether. While there has been a natural disaster, employers are still required to follow through on contractual obligations. As such, any changes to their people’s working arrangements and restructures need to
be supported by the right conversations, processes and documentation. This will require some short and longer-term planning. Disestablishing positions requires a robust process and considerations to individual employment agreements, legislation and procedural correctness is required. It is advisable to seek advice from an HR consultant or employment lawyer to get this process right.

Leadership

Building confidence in leadership during times like this is important. Likewise, leaders need to instil confidence. The recent report on the Auckland response to the January flooding highlights this. Visibility in leadership in times like this is important. Amid COVID-19, business confidence has dissipated. We have seen leadership and team dynamics fraying and resilience and agility has been tested. Guide your leaders through change and build their capabilities to manage issues. Coaching and leadership development is a great investment right now.

The Upside

There are others for whom the rebuild poses great opportunity. Certain industries will need key skills on the ground floor and also in key technical roles such as engineering. When talent has already been difficult to source, having a clear strategy for finding the right staff will be vital. Having a good Talent Strategy will provide a set of plans and initiatives to attract, develop and retain quality people, and assists in identifying skills and capabilities required to achieve organisational goals and programmes to develop your people. If your business is trying to pivot, you will need new skills and potentially some people who are different to those you’ve have hired before. You will need to plan for this.

Your Talent Strategy

Five components you should feature in your strategy:

Attracting great employees requires identifying specifically your EVP (Employee Value Proposition), Analysing the candidate experience as a litmus test – would a great candidate who came a close second for the job give you a positive rating for your recruitment process and refer a friend to you? Measure your Return On Investment in your process, even just the basics – how long to fill the vacancy, where did we advertise, how much did it cost, which channel did the quality candidates apply through and, after six months in the job, were they a good or bad hire? Good data enables us to continuously improve what we do. The definition of success is also shifting for employees. Beyond just job title and pay, looking to find a balance in hours worked, organisational culture, mental and physical health, development and progression, and job satisfaction will help retain and attract talent.

For assistance with human resources initiatives including teams, leadership, investigations or facilitated meetings, please contact hr-consulting-hawkesbay@bakertillysr.nz

Teams are a powerful asset for any organisation. However, unlike a sports team, we rarely spend time practicing being a team. While most organisations can acknowledge the positive impact of an effective team, particularly in leadership, few create a plan to make this happen. Looking at how your team is assembled and structured, how it functions, its strengths, blind spots and developmental requirements could be the single best thing you do for the success of your business this year.

Where to start 

If you are wanting to build a high performing team, its members need to know that this is their “primary team” and not a secondary one. Leaders often think their own team of direct reports is their primary team. However, their commitment and aligned focus must be to the primary team and its direction, goals, and strategy. This mindset will facilitate the breaking down of silos in an organisation.

It is also important to consider the size of the team. While leadership collaborations like to be inclusive, they can be too big to be effective. A team with more than ten members can suffer from efficiency, effectiveness and alignment problems, whereas smaller groups will ensure strong relationships, healthy debate and actioned decisions.

There is no algorithm for putting different people together in the complex roles required in a top team, so design and development are critical. If the CEO can successfully play the role of developer, the leadership team will function more effectively and members will learn to think differently, both individually and together.

Understanding the right mix of people in terms of skills, experience and personality is key to ensuring a productive team. Getting that wrong, even by just one individual, can have far reaching impacts. Too often, we promote people who are technically strong in their own roles but put little thought into a team’s collective capability.

Get the diagnosis right To improve performance, self-awareness is a must have for a team to develop effectively and master its strengths, potential fracture lines and know its blind spots and gaps, both individually and collectively. Likewise, the CEO/team leader needs to understand what makes members of the team tick individually and what makes them work (or not) as a group and talk openly about this to facilitate introspection and provide insights into behaviour, shared responses under pressure and unconscious bias.

Use of a diagnostic tool is helpful here. Options include assessment tools such as personality or a team 360 survey to provide a map and understanding of strengths and performance improvement areas.

Commonality versus diversity

Truly understanding the skills and characteristics needed for a cohesive team will ensure a balance of traits – too much commonality is not a good thing.

Diversity of thinking with different “hats’’ around the table is important. This will ensure that members complement one another and, when done well, it will create a high functioning team.

Teams typically focus on functional roles (our technical role as defined by the position title) but our “psychological roles” can be more impactful. This is the informal roles individuals gravitate towards based on their personality e.g. focus on results versus relationships, pragmatism or process versus innovation and change. A high preforming team has a balance of people in these roles. Too much of the same thing and the team can miss leading the organisation in the right direction.

Keys for a high performing team

Research by leadership specialists Winsborough found key characteristics that effective leadership teams have in common.

These included:

1: Focus – Having a shared and clear brief of objective and goals. As such, spend time and energy to establish vision and set the focus.

2: Development – Having a conscious reflection on the team’s performance and investing time in development and improvement to improving team dynamics.

3: Norms and decision making – Having a clear process for decisions with no hidden agendas – consensus among members is achieved via constructive debate.

4: Trust and healthy conflict – Teams that trust their colleagues and have some conflict is healthy. Often teams are conflict averse, but the ability to be transparent, give constructive feedback and address team dynamics is crucial for success. A good team will give opinions, debate issues and hold each other to account. Lack of conflict can lead to artificial harmony. In Patrick Lencioni’s work “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team”, a lack of conflict is found to be just as damaging on team morale as harsh and direct conflict. Remember, good conflict requires a foundation of trust and if this is lacking in your team, developing trust needs to be your starting point.

5: Contribution to team – By participating, holding up their end of the role and adding value, members can create a more effective leadership team. Lencioni refers to this as commitment followed by accountability.

Summary

Building and developing a team is a process that never ends. It requires ongoing commitment and investment of time and energy, but the advantages are great and the rewards are plentiful. If you want to know more about how to map and develop your team, please contact Andrea Stevenson. andrea.stevenson@bakertillysr.nz

By Adam Caccioppoli, Associate – Baker Tilly Staples Rodway 

Many businesses seemingly have not changed their approach to recruiting talent, despite the almost constant noise from all industries about how hard it is to find the people their businesses need to grow and succeed.

Are we really going through the same old motions expecting a different result? Here are four things businesses could and should think about when it comes to talent, if they aren’t already:

Posting an advert is not enough in this job market, especially for in-demand skillsets.

According to data from Seek NZ, the average time to hire is now 50 days. That’s a long time! Sometimes the best candidates are passive – interested in their next great opportunity, but too busy achieving good things in their current role to be looking on job boards all the time. Businesses that are quickly managing to secure the best talent have proactive sourcing strategies to access and engage with the people they need, utilising a mix of approaches.

These include investment in dedicated internal recruitment resources, utilising recruitment tools such as LinkedIn Recruiter and recruitment agencies, and hiring people who fit their culture and values, then providing them with technical skill gap training where needed.

Your leaders are your secret weapon to accessing the best talent.

If you have amazing leaders in your business, great! People don’t quit a job, the saying goes – they quit a manager. The same lesson can be applied to attracting talent – more people choose a manager than the company. If you have great leaders in your business, they need to be front and centre in the recruitment process working alongside internal and external recruitment partners to come up with innovative ways to engage with the intended target audience.

Think long term – build sustainable talent pipelines.

It’s easy, especially in a talent-short market, to get caught up in spending your time, energy and resources to fill the vacancy you have right now and neglecting to think about future hiring. Wouldn’t it be great if the next time you recruit for a similar position you are not starting from scratch? Organisations that are winning the war on talent have strategies to build their employee value proposition (EVP) with their target audiences. Whether this is through regular networking (online or in person) with key industry groups and meet-ups or building talent pools using recruitment tools and partnerships with specialist recruitment agencies, the key is to do this on an ongoing basis so that you have warm leads to contact when you next have a vacancy.

Embrace a data-driven approach to drive better return on investment (ROI).

Businesses collect and analyse data, often to extreme levels of detail, to help inform decision making about which customers to target or what price a product should be, yet when it comes to recruitment it seems most organisations have little if any data. You should constantly measure key questions around your recruitment strategy.

Which channels have produced the most suitable applicants and ultimately the most successful employees?

Which channels are bringing the most engagement from good talent? What is your time to hire? Recruitment costs have doubled across New Zealand over the past year. How much have you spent on recruitment agencies in the past 12 months?

Having a system in place, whether it is a simple spreadsheet or a more sophisticated Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to collect accurate data that highlights how your business is going about recruitment, can be an important first step to identifying what your key

talent problems are and improving your ROI at the same time. For any talent acquisition support or strategizing about your approach to getting the best talent for your organisation or business, Adam can be contacted at adam.caccioppoli@bakertillysr.nz