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Why Successful Leadership Depends On Connections

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One of the criticisms frequently leveled at senior executives is that they prefer doing deals to actually running businesses. Given the amount of management time and effort (not to mention expense) involved in a typical transaction, one would think that leaders would only decide on an acquisition or merger if the reasons for it were compelling – and there was a decent chance of pulling it off. Of course, we all know that – powerful as they might appear to be – chief executives are not entirely masters of their organizations’ destiny in these circumstances. Bankers in the City of London and on Wall Street have some pretty compelling reasons of their own to encourage deals, and they can be highly persuasive. Moreover, they don’t much mind if things don’t work out because there is always the chance of picking up more business if – or, too often, when – the parties find each other less appealing than they originally thought.

It is all the more surprising that there are so many deals – and there are plenty at the moment – when one considers that one of the most cited reasons for failure is “cultural differences.” This is not to suggest that such problems are not a valid explanation for failure. Rather, it is just that senior executives spend so much time talking about culture and values that it is hard to believe that they do not pay more attention to ensuring compatibility when going about their deal-making. It would certainly be worth their while changing their approach. As Michael Lee Stallard, author (with Jason Pankau and Katharine P. Stallard) of the recently-published Connection Culture (atd Press), points out, differences in culture have in many cases “sabotaged the combined organizations’ ability to execute the plan.”

But it is not just during mergers and acquisitions that culture needs to be taken seriously. While there is much talk of its importance, especially by those in organizations that claim to have “great” ones, Stallard is not convinced. “It’s about leaders,” he says, pointing out that many of the businesses featured in management books for being “excellent” become a lot less impressive when their leaders change.

The key – as the book’s title suggests – is connection. Employees’ “feelings of connection, community and unity provide a competitive advantage,” Stallard writes at the beginning of the book. “Employees in an organization with a high degree of connection are more engaged, more productive in their jobs, and less likely to leave for a competitor.” Stallard, co-founder of E Pluribus Partners and a consultant to a wide variety of organizations, says that experience tells him that individuals are a lot more important than systems in creating this sense of connection. If you look at leaders who do a good job, he says, they care about two things: people and results. He goes on to add that every organization he has seen has a mix of subcultures.

The challenge for leaders at the top is to get as many of the subcultures as possible to become connection cultures that contribute positively to the organization’s performance rather than subcultures of control or indifference that undermine sustainable success.

There is a belief that such cultures take a while to create. But Stallard insists that a leader who understands what is required and has the courage of his or her convictions can change things quickly. A keen sports fan, he sees lots of examples in that arena. Indeed, the just-completed English Premier League season has several illustrations of the change in fortunes that a new manager can help produce. One of the key case studies in the book, however, comes from that other favored arena of the leadership expert, the military. Stallard describes how Admiral Vernon Clark when Chief of Naval Operations changed the culture in the U.S. Navy to such an extent within just 18 months that there was a surge in first-term recruits wanting to re-enlist – so that the service went from being concerned about having enough sailors to having more than it needed. Stallard’s argument is that the sailors felt so connected that they did not want to leave.

Of course, it is one thing to describe what you see as examples of "connected cultures" quite another to explain how to create such an entity. Stallard himself says there is a broad range of practices that will help and even adds that the list of 15 "building blocks" that he includes is not exhaustive. But he does believe that there are three core elements that have to be borne in mind when going about the process.

1. Vision: It is not enough for the leader simply to have a vision or mission. They must be able to use it to motivate people to do what is important. For this reason, Stallard recommends having a clear phrase that describes the vision, mission or values in a way that employees clearly understand. An example of a vision "identity phrase" is Texas Christian University's "learning to change the world", while one illustrating a mission would be NASA's famous "to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade" and one demonstrating values would be Lexus's "the relentless pursuit of perfection".

2. Value: This involves the much-discussed notion of empathy. A key aspect of this, says Stallard, is helping people move into roles that fit their interests and strengths and provide the right amount of challenge. Instigating personal development plans and supporting these through training and mentoring play important parts in creating connection cultures.

3. Voice: This is about creating a flow of knowledge that produces shared understanding. The most obvious way of doing this is through regular meetings designed to discuss how the team is making progress towards the goal. A highly important element is that the information flow should not just be from the leader to the led. It is vital that a leader be seen to be listening to others' views before taking decisions.

Some organizations go so far as setting up committees and even whole departments designed to ensure that the connection culture is maintained. Not everybody will feel the need to go that far, but they must ensure that they take steps to avoid their performance being sabotaged by "cultures of control and cultures of indifference". Anybody with any doubts about this might look at what happens in failed mergers or indeed, to return to soccer, when a manager "loses the dressing room."

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